We are getting familiar with mobile devices; they begin to pervade our daily life in a way that we won't notice them anymore as something remarkable. The amazing fact that there are more registered mobile phones than inhabitants in Germany and Austria makes it easy to claim that mobile phones have already reached the state of a ubiquitous device. One often unsatisfying user experience in dealing with the mobile device addresses the entry of data. Instead of typing data key-by-key one of the most promising technologies towards mobile technologies are Barcodes. 2D Barcodes or "mobile tags" can be used to exchange information very easily and quickly. By scanning a data matrix access to additional materials can be simply provided. Such codes are able to combine and connect two different media: Print and Internet. Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) has been started about half a year ago a master thesis and research work with the aim to gather experiences about the practicability of two-dimensional barcodes in general as well as for teaching purposes. By using QR-Codes (Quick Response-Codes) it should be pointed out how and why mobile tagging becomes valuable for the society. This paper gives an overview about the use QR Codes and discusses methods and possibilities. It can be summarized that by using two-dimensional barcodes the print and online media will get closer and enhance our mobile lives.


The prevalence of heart failure (HF) continues to grow rapidly and is projected to rise by 46% by 2030 (1). High morbidity and mortality in patients with this condition creates a need for reliable and affordable non-invasive monitoring tools that can guide the therapy and predict outcomes. In a recent paper by Arrigo and colleagues (2), authors investigate a novel biomarker, Soluble CD146, and compare it with a well-established natriuretic peptide: NT-proBNP. In order to better understand the value of this study, we'll briefly summarize the history, biology, and significance of natriuretic peptides and briefly review other biomarkers of congestion in HF.


Objectives: This study analyzed midwifery services implementation in one region (Montérégie) of Quebec. The objectives were to determine whether services were implemented as planned and to identify factors that facilitated or impeded implementation. The aspects studied included organizational components; types of midwifery services provided; levels of interprofessional collaboration among midwives, physicians, nurses, and community organizations; and training activities offered to perinatal care providers and students. Methods: This is a qualitative case study of one implementation experience and is based on three data sources: individual interviews and focus groups; policy and administrative documents related to the implementation; and a database compiled by the midwives on services provided. Data were collected and analyzed between July 2012 and March 2013. Results: The implementation of midwifery services in Montérégie was successful and largely accomplished as planned. Its success was due to the alignment of two categories of favourable conditions. The first category consisted of appropriate policies and regulations, demand from service users, and support from front-line professionals. The second category concerned the implementation process and governance and included effective governance structures and mechanisms, dedicated resources, and leadership from champions. Conclusion: The lessons from this study can be usefully applied to the introduction of midwifery services in jurisdictions where they are not currently present. They may also inform the implementation of other publicly funded health services or professionals in other jurisdictions.


Abstract: We compared the same outcome data obtained from two different sources (self-report surveys and organizational documents) in order to examine their relative performance in evaluating the effect of knowledge translation strategies on evidence-informed decision-making. Our data came from a randomized controlled trial that evaluated the impact of knowledge translation strategies on promoting evidence-informed decision-making in public health units across Canada. We found that self-report surveys identified more outcome data than organizational documents; the types of documents that identified the most outcome data were evaluation plans, operational plans, work plans, and evaluation data; the types of documents that identified the least outcome data were meeting minutes, statistics/annual reports, and strategic plans; and evaluation plans, operational plans, and work plans together provide more outcome data than other combinations. Overall, our study suggests that evidence-informed decision-making may be appropriately measured by using multiple data sources in order to compare data across sources and to gain a more accurate representation of the results. Our findings also suggest that if organizational documents are used as a source of data in knowledge translation research, then specific types should be used in order to maximize the likelihood of identifying measures of effectiveness.


Abstract. Particle number concentration and size distribution are important variables needed to constrain the role of atmospheric particles in the Earth radiation budget, both directly and indirectly through CCN activation. They are also linked to regulated variables such as particle mass (PM) and therefore of interest to air quality studies. However, data on their long-term variability are scarce, in particular at high altitudes. In this paper, we investigate the diurnal and seasonal variability of the aerosol total number concentration and size distribution at the puy de Dome research station (France, 1465 m a.s.l.). We report a variability of aerosol particle total number concentration measured over a five-year (2003–2007) period for particles larger than 10 nm and aerosol size distributions between 10 and 500 nm over a two-year period (January 2006 to December 2007). Concentrations show a strong seasonality with maxima during summer and minima during winter. A diurnal variation is also observed with maxima between 12:00 and 18:00 UTC. At night (00:00–06:00 UTC), the median hourly total concentration varies from 600 to 800 cm−3 during winter and from 1700 to 2200 cm−3 during summer. During the day (08:00–18:00 UTC), the concentration is in the range of 700 to 1400 cm−3 during winter and of 2500 to 3500 cm−3 during summer. An averaged size distribution of particles (10–500 nm) was calculated for each season. The total aerosol number concentrations are dominated by the Aitken mode integral concentrations, which drive most of the winter to summer total concentrations increase. The night to day increase in dominated by the nucleation mode integral number concentration. Because the site is located in the free troposphere only a fraction of the time, in particular at night and during the winter season, we have subsequently analyzed the variability for nighttime and free tropospheric (FT)/residual layer (RL) conditions only. We show that a seasonal variability is still observed for these FT/RL conditions. The FT/RL seasonal variation is due to both seasonal changes in the air mass origin from winter to summer and enhanced concentrations of particles in the residual layer/free troposphere in summer. The later observation can be explained by higher emissions intensity in the boundary layer, stronger exchanges between the boundary layer and the free troposphere as well as enhanced photochemical processes. Finally, aerosols mean size distributions are calculated for a given air mass type (marine/continental/regional) according to the season for the specific conditions of the residual layer/free troposphere. The seasonal variability in aerosol sources seems to be predominant over the continent compared to the seasonal variation of marine aerosol sources. These results are of regional relevance and can be used to constrain chemical-transport models over Western Europe.


We study how the COVID-19 crisis could affect earnings inequality across heterogeneous individuals in Japan. We use the Employment Status Survey (ESS) to identify groups of individuals who are more vulnerable to the COVID-19 shocks, which likely affect workers in different industries, occupations, and employment types in different magnitude. We assess the impact using various data and early evidence including expenditures data from the JCB Consumption NOW during the first weeks of the pandemic. Our study identifies significant heterogeneity in vulnerability to the COVID-19 shocks across workers of different types. We find that the crisis will hit low-income groups by more and is likely to significantly exacerbate inequality through multiple channels, calling for urgent and large-scale assistance targeted towards affected individuals.


The global financial crisis has put an end to the cosy environment in which the financial industry had operated up to now. In keeping with their G-20 commitment, the European Commission has published draft rules for hedge funds, which bring all non-harmonised funds under the EU's regulatory umbrella, largely reproducing the rules of existing directives, and adding some new elements in response to the crisis. This European Capital Markets Institute (ECMI) Commentary by Karel Lannoo considers the European Commission's draft rules on hedge funds and asks: if the rules are in line with the recent policy consensus on regulation in this area, should we wonder if the finance industry has something to hide in its resistance to them?


Abstract Monte Carlo is quite useful for calculating specific quantities in complex transport problems. Many variance reduction strategies have been developed that accelerate Monte Carlo calculations for specific tallies. However, when trying to calculate multiple tallies or a mesh tally, users have had to accept different levels of relative uncertainty among the tallies or run separate calculations optimized for each individual tally. To address this limitation, an extension of the Consistent Adjoint Driven Importance Sampling (CADIS) method, which is used for difficult source/detector problems, has been developed to optimize several tallies or the cells of a mesh tally simultaneously. The basis for this method is the development of an importance function that represents the importance of particles to the objective of uniform Monte Carlo particle density in the desired tally regions. This method utilizes the results of a forward discrete ordinates solution, which may be based on a quick coarse-mesh calculation, to develop a forward-weighted source for the adjoint calculation. The importance map and the biased source computed from the adjoint flux are then used in the forward Monte Carlo calculation to obtain approximately uniform relative uncertainties for the desired tallies. This extension is called forward-weighted CADIS, or FW-CADIS.


The "East German National Park Programme" of 1989/1990 was considered a coup de main, resulting in the immediate protection of 4.5% of the GDR's territory. The authors of this programme later described the approach and its success as "using a window of opportunity during the transition phase of state and nation." This leads to the question whether a state's transformation period constitutes a preferred time frame and momentum for spatial conservation success.
Conservation efforts in Azerbaijan showed a similar success as the East German National Park Programme. In a country with the highest biodiversity in Europe, increasing the share of protected land from 5.0 % in 2001 to 10.3% in 2015 constitutes a remarkable achievement. Thus, the country became an interesting case study regarding the question whether "hot moments for conservation" exist in times of political and governmental changes, and if spatial success in nature conservation can be linked to political transformation. This thesis attempts to identify how the protected area (PA) network in Azerbaijan could be expanded by 100%, what achievements were made, and what conditions still need to be met for the quantitative and qualitative improvement of the PA network. To this end, I consider this increase under landscape-ecological, historical and institutional aspects. The local culture and political pre-sets in the country present additional issues for analysing the past 25 years of nature conservation in Azerbaijan.


In recent years the highest levels of gun crime in England and Wales have been recorded. Gun crime is known to occur in environments that fall under the view of the networks of CCTV cameras which are endemic in urban Britain. Consequently, CCTV has the potential to detect gun crime. However, CCTV operators face a near impossible task: often, each individual operator is required to monitor multiple cameras for extended time periods. It is not surprising then to find that CCTV has had little effect at reducing gun crime. A new collaborative research programme (MEDUSA) is underway across the UK which will develop a software application to aid CCTV operators detect the precursors of gun crime. MEDUSA aims automatically to detect both guns as objects (concealed or otherwise) and people who intend to commit gun crime, via CCTV. The system is partly based on eliciting the features that skilled CCTV operators identify as indicative of a concealed weapon or suspicious behaviour related to gun crime. Initial studies into the examination of these skills across several CCTV centres indicate that there was little formal instruction in the detection of mal-intent. Much skill is built up from prolonged experience in examining CCTV imagery. Thus, potentially, there is widespread individualisation of detection skills. Further, visual cues specific to gun crime were limited. However, the present methodology relied upon direct report. It is argued that a range of both consciously and subconsciously detected cues could facilitate gun detection via CCTV. Future studies will examine this possibility.


This article argues that the armed conflict in Kosovo illustrates that forced displacement resulting in both internally displaced persons and refugees is an intentional, deliberate strategy of the parties to the internal conflict, and not just a consequence or unintended effort of the hostilities between ethnic Albanians and Serbs. The escalation of hostilities was also framed by the international community's lack of coherent conflict management strategy for Kosovo. The two principal assumptions guiding the international community's policymaking — that separation and independence for Kosovo was not a legitimate objective and that Kosovar Albanian armed resistance was considered terrorism ‐ generated incentives for both parties to use force to achieve contrary objectives. This created considerable difficulties for the international community to effectively protect non‐combatant civilians and forcibly displaced persons.


A Norwegian-born architect, Peter Pran is Senior Vice President and Design Principal of Ellerbe Becket, a leading international architecture-engineering firm that combines a conscious commitment of creating "cutting-edge architecture" with the financial security of one of the largest practices in the States. Pran calls himself a New Modernist, rejecting historicism as "not recognizing our own time"; he worked with Mies van der Rohe on the Chicago Federal Center and the Berlin National Gallery. Pran's designs, with their curved surfaces and thin planes are characterized by a site-specific content and a poetic feeling of movement with its inherent sense of freedom. Using invited competitions as a way of exploring and exposing new ideas, Ellerbe Becket has won NYC/AIA Design Awards for six years in a row and five Progressive Architecture Awards in six years, producing schemes such as the groundbreading high-rise design for the Saudi Corporate Headquarters, Jeddah, Canadian National/Royal Trust Development, Toronto, Canada; and the Headquarters of Schibsted Gruppen Newspapers Aftenposten and Verdens Gang, Oslo, Norway. Their design for the Deloitte & Touche Headquarterss, Wilton, Connecticut received a National AIA Interior Architecture Design Award of Excellence in 1992. Based in Ellerbe Becket's New York office, Pran also collaborates with design teams throughout the firm's international office network. In addition, Pran has taught continuously for over 20 years as Professor of Architecture at universities in the United States, Italy and Japan. With an essay by Kenneth Frampton and statements by Fumihiko Maki anbd Daniel Libweskind, this Monograph includes the characteristic models made from cardboard and metal as well as plans and photographs of built projects detailing the works produced to date by Pran at Ellerbe Becket.


Lake Mohave, a man-made reservoir in the lower Colorado River, USA, was once home to the largest wild population of the endemic and endangered razorback sucker Xyrauchen texanus , estimated at 60,000 individuals in the late 1980s. Individuals of this population were 25 years or older because recruitment was precluded by the removal of larval production by introduced centrarchid species. A repatriation program was initiated in the 1990s to replace the aging population with young fish by capturing larvae from the reservoir and raising them in hatcheries and protected lakeside backwaters until they were released back into the reservoir. Although more than 200,000 fish have been repatriated to Lake Mohave, the repatriate population has remained at a few thousand fish. The wild population is now functionally extinct. The program has adapted to new threats to the population, political realities, and technological advances. Management shifted in 2006 to the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, which has politicized the process. The aim of this chapter is to describe the initial, informal adaptive management strategy for razorback sucker in Lake Mohave, the transition to a formal program, and the inherent pitfalls that formalization entails.


Abstract Objective: Staff experiences of healthy work environment (HWE) indicators at primary care units can assist in understanding why some primary care units function better than others. The aim of the study was to create increased understanding of how workers experienced HWE indicators at well-functioning primary care units. Design: Fifty in-depth interviews with staff at six primary care units in Sweden were analysed with deductive content analysis, revisiting a systematic review of HWE indicators. Results: The study presents additional perspectives on staff experiences of HWE indicators at well-functioning primary care units. The included primary care units (PCU) shared a similar pattern of work environment indicators, with unique solutions and strategies to meet shared challenges. Staff at the included PCUs were encouraged to work to create and sustain a HWE, but each domain (indicator) also provided challenges that the staff and organisation needed to meet. The results suggest that useful approaches for a healthy work environment could be to address issues of organisational virtuousness, employee commitment and joy at work. Conclusions: Both managers and staff are encouraged to actively work not only to create and sustain an HWE but also to promote organisational virtuousness, employee commitment, joy at work and to increase the performance at work, which is of benefit to staff, patients and society. Key Points Staff at well-functioning primary care units (PCUs) experienced healthy work environments The included PCUs shared a similar pattern of work environment indicators, with unique solutions and strategies to meet shared challenges. Staff at the included PCUs were encouraged to work to create and sustain a healthy work environment, but each domain (indicator) also provided challenges that the staff and organisation needed to meet. The results suggest that useful approaches for a healthy work environment could be to address issues of organisational virtuousness, employee commitment and joy at work.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Medical specialty and subspecialty fellowship programs administer subject-specific in-training examinations to provide feedback about level of medical knowledge to fellows preparing for subsequent board certification. This study evaluated the association between the American Society of Nephrology In-Training Examination and the American Board of Internal Medicine Nephrology Certification Examination in terms of scores and passing status.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
The study included 1684 nephrology fellows who completed the American Society of Nephrology In-Training Examination in their second year of fellowship training between 2009 and 2014. Regression analysis examined the association between In-Training Examination and first-time Nephrology Certification Examination scores as well as passing status relative to other standardized assessments.

RESULTS
This cohort included primarily men (62%) and international medical school graduates (62%), and fellows had an average age of 32 years old at the time of first completing the Nephrology Certification Examination. An overwhelming majority (89%) passed the Nephrology Certification on their first attempt. In-Training Examination scores showed the strongest association with first-time Nephrology Certification Examination scores, accounting for approximately 50% of the total explained variance in the model. Each SD increase in In-Training Examination scores was associated with a difference of 30 U (95% confidence interval, 27 to 33) in certification performance. In-Training Examination scores also were significantly associated with passing status on the Nephrology Certification Examination on the first attempt (odds ratio, 3.46 per SD difference in the In-Training Examination; 95% confidence interval, 2.68 to 4.54). An In-Training Examination threshold of 375, approximately 1 SD below the mean, yielded a positive predictive value of 0.92 and a negative predictive value of 0.50.

CONCLUSIONS
American Society of Nephrology In-Training Examination performance is significantly associated with American Board of Internal Medicine Nephrology Certification Examination score and passing status.


Design of a motion control system, convenient for a wide range of applications in industry, space, biology, medicine, particularly including more than one physics environment is very important. Well known control architectures like trajectory tracking, compliance control, interaction force control are scientific milestones which has common control task: to maintain desired system configuration. In this concept, motion control system can be an unconstrained motion-performed interaction with neither environment nor any other system, or constrained motionsystem in contact with environment and/or other systems. This paper provides the function based design approach to formulate control of constrained system particularly bilateral systems in micromanipulation applications. The control objective aimed to maintain desired functional relations between human and environment defining convenient tasks and their proper relations on master and slave motion systems. Preliminary results concerning position tracking, force control and transparency between master and slave systems are clearly demonstrated.


A very important phenomenon observed in the last decades is the development of the so-called "New Economy", characterized by the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). During this episode, very favourable economic conditions have characterized the US economy: high growth rates of output, strong growth in labour, low level of unemployment. As a consequence, a strong attention has been devoted to the study of what has been called the "ICT Revolution", both from an empirical and from a theoretical point of view. This thesis proposes some theoretical models that are able to describe the most important characteristics of the new economy, explaining the associated growth performance. In particular, Chapter 1 develops a model that is able to reproduce some features of the ICT revolution that emerge from the data, underlining the importance of embodiment and the long-run implications of embodied technological change, and focusing on the role of R&D and of innovation in the growth process of the new economy. In Chapter 2 the model is extended considering also the presence of human capital, in line with the recent theoretical and empirical advancements in the endogenous growth literature according to which not only R&D activity, but also human capital accumulation, is a primary determinant of economic growth. Indeed, in the new economy human capital can be of great importance, since education is crucial in acquiring the knowledge necessary to use the new technologies, and at the same time an increase in ICT makes it easier to accumulate human capital, that in this model is the true engine of growth. In Chapter 3, finally, the issue considered is represented by the role of another form of capital, organizational capital, that has recently been advocated to explain the productivity slowdown and that can be linked with the analysis of the ICT boom. The model proposed allows to deal with the phenomenon, observed in the last decades with the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies, represented by the adoption by many firms of new organizational practices, characterized by a tendency towards multi-tasking. Other aspects recently observed, and that the model is able to reproduce, are the increase in the share of skilled workers and in the proportion of workers employed in managerial occupations. The dissertation therefore elaborates some models that underline the fundamental role of a number of factors (innovation, human capital and organization) that are at the origin of the growth performance of the recent ICT-based economy.


There are Poincare group representations on complex Hilbert spaces, like the Dirac spinor field, or real Hilbert spaces, like the electromagnetic field tensor. The Majorana spinor is an element of a 4 dimensional real vector space. The Majorana spinor field is a space-time dependent Majorana spinor, solution of the free Dirac equation. The Majorana-Fourier and Majorana-Hankel transforms of Majorana spinor fields are defined and related to the linear and angular momenta of a spin one-half representation of the Poincare group. We show that the Majorana spinor field with finite mass is an unitary irreducible projective representation of the Poincare group on a real Hilbert space. Since the Bargmann-Wigner equations are valid for all spins and are based on the free Dirac equation, these results open the possibility to study Poincare group representations with arbitrary spins on real Hilbert spaces.


This volume covers a period when Europeans were making great advances in the production and application of pure knowledge, especially in the fields of navigation and discovery. Thus European powers gained empires around the globe and the benefits that came with them, while the rest of the world had to be content with supplying the raw material (i.e labour, bullion, wood, plants, ore) of these good things. This would not have been possible without navies and trading monopolies, enterprises in which the freedom of the seas was disputed, then gained or lost.
 The essays in this volume range between three eras in the age of discovery: first, the excitement of seeing something for the first time; second, the experience of understanding the importance of the new thing; and third, the disillusion incident to reframing the prehistory of humanity and its destiny without the usual signposts of an anthropocentric journey from innocence to salvation via sin, atonement and judgment. The maritime contribution to all three eras was enormous not simply because it provided a mobile platform for the inspection of the new but because it proved experimentally that there were no extremes of heroic virtue or of brutal depravity to which humans might not tend when necessity or wantonness called for them. Usually the evil side of humanity was assigned to `savages' but in the curiously singular person of the pirate, a mirror-image can be found of everyone – really, all people who lived on or by the sea were pirates of a sort.
 Commencing as an age of rational certainties, the Enlightenment gave way to the opposite. The symmetries of the Linnaean system yielded to the endless process of mutation Buffon called speciation. Rational government of the passions was succeeded by the cult of sensibility and spontaneous emotion. The mathematical exactness of Cartesian knowledge was supplanted by imagination. Sailors returned with pictures of mirages never seen before, the products of Nature's own imagination that posed a question posed again here: `No doubt they are real, but are they true?'


GENERAL ASPECTS OF DEPRESSION Depression in Children and Adolescents Joseph M. Rey and Philip Hazell Depression: Causes and Risk Factors Daniel J. Pilowsky Clinical Assessment of Children and Adolescents with Depression Carlo G. Carandang and Andres Martin PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT Introduction to Treating Depression in Children and Adolescents Joseph M. Rey and Boris Birmaher Engaging, Involving, Educating, and Supporting Patients, Families, and Schools During Treatment Sally N. Merry and Elizabeth McCauley How to Use Medication to Manage Depression Graham J. Emslie, Rongrong Tao, Paul Croarkin, and Taryn L. Mayes Using Other Biological Treatments: Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Vagus Nerve Stimulation, and Light Therapy Garry Walter and Neera Ghaziuddin How to Use CBT for Youth Depression: A Guide to Implementation David A. Langer, Angela Chiu, and Joan Rosenbaum Asarnow How to Use Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents (IPT-A) Laura Mufson, Helena Verdeli, Kathleen F. Clougherty, and Karen A. Shoum Using Family Therapy Leonard Woods Dynamic Psychotherapy for the Treatment of Depression in Youth Rachel Z. Ritvo How to Use Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments Joseph M. Rey Managing Acute Depressive Episodes: Putting It Together in Practice Raphael Kelvin, Paul Wilkinson, and Ian M. Goodyer Preventing, Detecting, and Managing Side Effects of Medication Stanley Kutcher, Ainslie McDougall, and Andrea Murphy Managing Crises and Emergencies in the Course of Treatment Ava T. Albrecht Treatment Resistant Depression Boris Birmaher and David Brent Managing Young People with Depression and Comorbid Conditions Maryann Hetrick, Kirti Saxena, and Carroll W. Hughes Managing Adolescents with Comorbid Depression and Substance Abuse Benjamin I. Goldstein Managing Adolescent Depression in Primary Care Amy Cheung and Rachel Zuckerbrot Prevention of Depression and Early Intervention with Sub-Clinical Depression Judy Garber PARTICULAR ISSUES ABOUT TREATMENT IN SPECIFIC GROUPS Treating Depression in Children and Adolescents with Chronic Physical Illness Roberto Ortiz-Aguayo and John V. Campo Treating Depression in the Developmentally Disabled: Intellectual Disability and Pervasive Developmental Disorders Bruce Tonge, Michael Gordon, and Glenn Melvin Depression in Immigrant and Minority Children and Youth Andres J. Pumariega, Eugenio Rothe, and Kenneth Rogers Childhood Depression: International Views and Treatment Practices F. Neslihan Inal-Emiroglu and Rasim Somer Diler


Background: Hypertension is well confirmed as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Researches in the treatment of hypertension has produced a multitude of drug classes with different efficacy profiles, which including β-blockers, diuretics, ACE inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers and calcium channel blockers. This study aimed to investigate the effects of captopril and amlodipine on some of reproductive abilities. Materials and Methods: The laboratory mice were 10-12 weeks and 23-25 g divided into three groups, six mice of each one. Group A served as control group; injected with 0.1 ml of normal saline, group B; injected with 0.1 ml of Captopril with 0.2 mg / kg, group C injected with 0.1 ml of amlodipine 0.08 mg / kg. Results: Decrease in sperm count and testis weights and testosterone hormone of Amlodipine treated mice. While the numbers of sperms and testis weight of captopril treated mice were comparable to that of control groups. But decrease normal sperms of captopril and Amlodipine treated mice comparable to that of control group. Conclusion: These results suggest that the treatment with amlodipine causes a significant testicular weight regression and reduction in sperm count.


Drawing on conversation analysis and politeness theory, this chapter deals with repair, face-work and participation (footing) shifts in interpreter-mediated talkshows. In order to account for the specific features of this form of dialogue interpreting, the notion of 'controlling participation' is suggested as a more relevant alternative to that of 'coordinating participation'. The chapter discusses several types of other-correction and other-initiation as employed by primary speakers (usually the host) to address various aspects of the interpreter's turn. Repairing actions, as well as other conversational moves (formulations, competitive interruptions, anticipatory completions) are described and characterized according to their face-threatening and role-challenging potential, as well the role they play as 'part of the show'.


Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection continues to be an important public health issue. Immunosuppression is responsible for the development of much comorbidity among HIV-infected patients. Of these, malignancies play an important role in the prognosis of the disease. Cancers diagnosed in HIV-infected patients can be divided into two main categories: AIDS-defining cancers and non-AIDS-defining cancers. In the second category, skin cancers represent an important subgroup, the most common being basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.


The owners of small businesses and others involved in for-profit work occasionally refuse to provide a service to a patient, client, or customer on the grounds that to provide the service would render them complicit in immoral conduct in violation of their religious beliefs. Some of these conscientious refusals might be protected by legislation, regulation, or court decision, as in the case of a doctor refusing to perform an abortion, or an employer refusing to provide employees with contraception coverage. The new question raised—and soon to be answered by the U.S. Supreme Court—is whether wedding vendors (bakers, florists, and the like) who refuse to provide goods and services to same-sex couples will be similarly protected or whether they will be required to abide by the non-discrimination norms of public accommodations law. For those weary of religious claims in the culture wars, the very notion that the Court might extend legal protections to wedding vendors in such situations tends to cast doubt more generally on religion-based refusals in the for-profit context.
The purpose of this article is to draw a bright line between the traditional category of complicity claims and this newer category of wedding vendor claims. Traditional claims typically involve health care personnel and others refusing to participate in activities they consider to be immoral—most often those that entail ethical issues surrounding the beginnings and endings of life, such as assisted reproduction and assisted suicide. In contrast, this newer set of claims involve wedding vendors refusing to endorse activities they consider to be immoral, like the marriage of a same-sex couple. Herein lies the critical distinction: participation in immoral activity is not the same thing as endorsement or approbation of someone else's immoral activity. The wedding vendors concede the distinction, as they expressly claim the right not to endorse a message with which they disagree, but they seek to extend the protections of traditional complicity jurisprudence to their claims. The article contends that the traditional complicity jurisprudence, which allows businesses to refuse to participate in activity they consider immoral, has little, if anything, to say about refusals to approve the conduct of others. The Supreme Court should not extend this jurisprudence to the wedding vendor context.


Abstract This paper investigates strategic alliances in the nonprofit sector in the form of franchising. Using a dynamic model of local public goods with endogenous affiliation and splitting, we show that local organizations may choose to affiliate with the national organization for faster capital accumulation. Temporary alliance occurs when a local organization strategically affiliates with the national organization only to break away after accumulating enough capital. Alliance is more likely to arise and persist when the local chapter is smaller, when the local chapter's mission is closer to the national organization's, when the national organization is more efficient in production, and when the local chapter is more patient. Moreover, regulation that requires the local chapter to be affiliated with the national organization would be welfare reducing when the local chapter is large, when the local and national missions differ substantially, and when production at the national organization is inefficient.


Electronic marking tools that incorporate statement banks have become increasingly prevalent within higher education. In an experiment, printed and emailed feedback was returned to 243 first-year students on a credit-bearing laboratory report assessment. A transmission approach was used, students being provided with comments on their work, but no guidance as to how they should use these remarks. A multiple-choice question test, undertaken before and after the return of feedback, was used to measure learning. Although returned comments included model answers, test scores showed no overall enhancement, even when students' marks for their laboratory reports were initially hidden. A negative and significant (p = .010) linear trend between relative test scores and test date suggests that even modest improvements in subject knowledge were lost over time. Despite this, students could accurately guess their mark based on emailed feedback alone, estimated and awarded marks being linearly correlated (p < .001). It is concluded that statement banks organised according to published assessment criteria can ultimately help students to appreciate how their work was graded. However, students should be encouraged to produce a structured response to received feedback if self-assessment is to occur.


Strategic change within an organisation is inevitable. Due to the competitive global landscape, organisations have to continuously adapt their strategies to remain in the market. Strategy change is most often met with resistance, and more so when the change involves downsizing. The effects of downsizing on employee morale, performance and commitment have been studied by numerous authors and a number of models for strategy change implementation consequently suggested. However, South Africa is faced with very particular challenges when dealing with change, including a high level of unemployment, fierce resistance to change in the form of collective action such as strikes, stay-aways or go-slows, political and social transformation happening simultaneously, global competition and the conflict between social and free markets within an emerging economy. Irrespective of the vast amount of international literature available on change management, there is a distinct lack of literature investigating the impact of strategy change in an emerging economy and a knowledge gap in terms of applying existing change theories in non-Western environments. This study was aimed at determining the impact of strategy change, particularly downsizing, on employee morale, performance and commitment at a global South-African based Telecommunication Company. The objectives of the study was to determine whether employees in South Africa are negatively affected by downsizing, and provide useful information to strategic managers in terms of implementation of strategy change in a South African environment. To determine the impact of downsizing as a strategy change, a questionnaire was designed based on the literature review to ascertain responses to three sections of questions, respectively measuring morale, performance and commitment. A sample of the target population was chosen based on their position/ employment type i.e. management, supervisor or general staff. The results of the empirical study revealed some very interesting points. Although all respondents demonstrated optimism in terms of their morale, performance and commitment, it was found that comparatively, managers are more negatively impacted during times of downsizing. The Telecommunication Company's structured nature, advances in political and social reform, and solid Training and Development policy shielded the employees from the full negative impacts of downsizing because of their positive core self evaluation. The substantial amount of neutral responses (especially under management) indicated that not all respondents revealed their true feelings, a common characteristic amongst collective people. It also surfaced that even though the majority of responses indicated positive morale and performance, most respondents were considering positions outside the organisation. Based on the literature review and results from the empirical investigation, a model was proposed to assist strategic managers in South Africa with change implementation.


There has been considerable attention from the cross-cultural pragmatics literature towards the various strategies speakers use when performing the requesting speech act. Speech acts are often used when communicating verbally in either the first language or a second language. This paper presents a study into the similarities and differences in the request strategies by Malaysian and Libyan postgraduate students at USM. The study majorly uses information from existing literature on what other people have written on this topic. The study findings will give new insights to the directness and requesting behaviors within Libyan and Malaysian students and the challenges of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication. This study has cultural implications such as awareness of the request strategies used in one culture compared to another culture. This study tackles the ability of Libyan and Malay learners to apply requests in English.  Furthermore, this study attempts to provide explanations for pragmatic errors that Libyan and Malay learners may perform. Keywords: Cross-Cultural, Strategies, Modifications, Linguistic.


This study challenges the claim that Jesus is the archetypical servant leader as described in contemporary leadership literature. Based on a theological reading of the Fourth Gospel, the paper suggests that, as a servant, Jesus cannot be understood apart from his mission and obedience to God. Consequently, Jesus was not primarily a servant leader but rather the Son who was sent to the world to enact the Father's will. In this regard, the Fourth Gospel provides a unique perspective that is barely noted in the current discourse on servant leadership modelled on the example of Christ. Although certain aspects of servant leadership theory correspond to John's portrayal of Jesus, the study concludes that other descriptions of him as a servant leader suffer from a one-sided and reductionist Christology. Implications of this view for Christian ministry are briefly sketched out.


Objective: β-Aminoisobutyric acid (BAIBA), a myokine, is a thymine catabolite that is induced during exercise, leading to browning of white fat, hepatic fatty acid oxidation, and suppression of hepatic lipogenesis. However, the effects of BAIBA on the progression of atherosclerosis remain unclear. Methods: We performed a Western blot analyses to determine various protein expression. ELISAs (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays), cell adhesion assays, and cell viability assays were also performed on human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs) and human monocytes (THP-1 cells). Results: In the current study, we demonstrate that BAIBA suppresses atherosclerotic reactions caused by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment via an AMPK-dependent pathway. Treatment of HUVECs and THP-1 cells with BAIBA inhibited the LPS-induced phosphorylation of nuclear factor-κB (NFκB) and the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines. In HUVECs, expression of adhesion molecules and LPS-stimulated adhesion of THP-1 cells to the endothelium were significantly decreased after BAIBA treatment. Furthermore, LPS-induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and cell toxicity were significantly decreased after BAIBA treatment of HUVECs. Notably, all of these proatherosclerotic effects were fully abrogated by treatment with small interfering RNA targeting AMPK. Conclusion: BAIBA ameliorates LPS-induced atherosclerotic reactions via AMPK-mediated suppression of inflammation and ER stress.


The problem of deriving so-called hard-error bounds for estimated transfer functions is addressed. A hard bound is one that is sure to be satisfied, i.e. the true system Nyquist plot will be confined with certainty to a given region, provided that the underlying assumptions are satisfied. By blending a priori knowledge and information obtained from measured data, it is shown how the uncertainty of transfer function estimates can be quantified. The emphasis is on errors due to model mismatch. The effects of unmodeled dynamics can be considered as bounded disturbances. Hence, techniques from set membership identification can be applied to this problem. The approach taken corresponds to weighted least-squares estimation, and provides hard frequency-domain transfer function error bounds. The main assumptions used in the current contribution are: that the measurement errors are bounded, that the true system is indeed linear with a certain degree of stability, and that there is some knowledge about the shape of the true frequency response. >


Reinforcement learning offers one of the most general framework to take traditional robotics towards true autonomy and versatility. However, applying reinforcement learning to high dimensional movement systems like humanoid robots remains an unsolved problem. In this paper, we discuss different approaches of reinforcement learning in terms of their applicability in humanoid robotics. Methods can be coarsely classified into three different categories, i.e., greedy methods, 'vanilla' policy gradient methods, and natural gradient methods. We discuss that greedy methods are not likely to scale into the domain humanoid robotics as they are problematic when used with function approximation. 'Vanilla' policy gradient methods on the other hand have been successfully applied on real-world robots including at least one humanoid robot [3]. We demonstrate that these methods can be significantly improved using the natural policy gradient instead of the regular policy gradient. A derivation of the natural policy gradient is provided, proving that the average policy gradient of Kakade [10] is indeed the true natural gradient. A general algorithm for estimating the natural gradient, the Natural Actor-Critic algorithm, is introduced. This algorithm converges to the nearest local minimum of the cost function with respect to the Fisher information metric under suitable conditions. The algorithm outperforms non-natural policy gradients by far in a cart-pole balancing evaluation, and for learning nonlinear dynamic motor primitives for humanoid robot control. It offers a promising route for the development of reinforcement learning for truly high-dimensionally continuous state-action systems.


Abstract Background Preliminary studies have suggested that the activity of anti-PD-1 immune check-point inhibitors in thyroid cancer is low. However, we hypothesize that combining CTLA-4 and PD-L1 clockade could have a higher effet in the setting of refractory thyroid carcinomas, in which the process of de-differentiation and evasive tumor resistance are associated with increased mutational load. Trial design This prospective, multi-center, open-label, phase II study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of Durvalumab plus Tremelimumab within three parallel cohorts: differentiated (DTC), medullary (MTC), and anaplastic (ATC) thyroid cancers. Pts will receive Durvalumab 1500mg plus Tremelimumab 75mg every 4 weeks for up to 4 cycles followed by Durvalumab until PD, unacceptable toxicity or patients' decision. Main end point in cohorts 1 and 2 is progression-free survival (PFS). We hypothesize an increase of 6-months from 25% in historical cohorts up to 45%. A Simon two-stage design will be employed with 17 pts per cohort in the first phase. If 5/17 pts in each cohort (DTC and MTC) are event free and without unacceptable toxicity at 6 months in the first stage, 19 additional pts will be reruited up to 36 pts per cohort. For cohort 3 (ATC), we hypothesize an improvement the probability of being alive at 6 months from 5% in historical cohorts up to 35%. 12 pts are needed in this cohort. Secondary objectives include overall response rate by irRECIST and RECIST, duration of response, safety profile and biomarkers. The main inclusion criteria for the three cohorts are: Cohort 1: Pts with locally advanced or metastatic DTC after PD on multikinase inhibitors (MKIs). Cohort 2: Pts with locally advanced or metastatic MTC after PD to MKIs. Cohort 3: Pts with ATC irrespective of prior therapy. No prior treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors is allowed. The study is currently recruiting pts with 6 out of 46 planned pts enrolled at time of submission. Clinical trial identification EudraCT: 2018-001066-42. Legal entity responsible for the study The authors. Funding Spanish Group of Neuroendocrine and Endocrine Tumors (GETNE). Disclosure J. Hernando Cubero: Speaker Bureau / Expert testimony: Eisai, Ipsen, Roche, Angelini; Travel / Accommodation / Expenses: Ipsen, Novartis, AAA, Roche, AstraZeneca, Eisai. M. Taberna Sanz: Advisory / Consultancy: Merck, Nanobiotics, AstraZeneca, MSD and Bristol Myers..A. Carmona Bayonas: Speaker Bureau / Expert testimony: Novartis, Ipsen; Travel / Accommodation / Expenses: Novartis, Ipsen. L. Iglesias: Advisory / Consultancy: Merck Serono, MSD, BMS, Bayer and Sanofi; Speaker Bureau / Expert testimony: Merck Serono, MSD, AstraZeneca and BMS..E. Grande: Advisory / Consultancy: Pfizer, Ipsen, BMS, Eisai, Roche, MSD, Sanofi, Adacap, Novartis, EUSA Pharma, Pierre Fabre, Lexicon, Celgene; Research grant / Funding (institution): MSD, Roche. J.M. Trigo Perez: Advisory / Consultancy: BMS, MSD, Behringer, GSK; Speaker Bureau / Expert testimony: AstraZeneca, Bayer, Roche; Travel / Accommodation / Expenses: MSD, BMS. T. Alonso Gordoa: Advisory / Consultancy: BMS, MSD, Roche, Astellas, IPSEN, Sanofi; Speaker Bureau / Expert testimony: Pfizer, Ipsen, Janssen, Astellas, Novartis.; Research grant / Funding (self): Roche; Travel / Accommodation / Expenses: Pfizer, Sanofi. J. Lavernia: Speaker Bureau / Expert testimony: Roche, BMS, Sun Pharma, Sanofi and Merck Serono. J. Capdevila: Advisory / Consultancy: Novartis, Pfizer, Ipsen, Exelixis, Bayer, Eisai, AAA, Amgen, Sanofi, Merck; Honoraria (institution): Eisai, Novartis, Ipsen, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, AAA. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


The present work describes an expedient approach for the direct conversion of indole-3-carboxaldehyde to 3-chlorooxindoles using a simple sustainable synthetic method. From an environmental perspective, a combination of NaCl/oxone in a CH3CN : H2O (1 : 1) system was developed for direct oxidative chlorination of a wide array of indole derivatives. This chlorination strategy is more viable, remarkably cheaper and provides easy access to potential 3-chlorooxindoles. In addition, this environmentally benign method can also be applicable for constructing isatin derivatives in good yields.


The aim of our work is to summarize the current state of knowledge on gut microbiota differences in children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders. To find the relevant articles, the PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases were searched. Articles in English presenting original data and comparing the composition of gut microbiota in child psychiatric patients with gut microbiota in healthy children and adolescents were selected. Finally, we identified 55 articles eligible for our purpose. The majority of patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were investigated. A smaller number of studies evaluating the gut microbiota in children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Rett syndrome, anorexia nervosa, depressive disorder (DD), and tic disorders were found. The main findings of this research are discussed in our review, focusing on the age-related gut microbiota specificity for psychiatric disorders and the differences between individual diagnosis. To conclude, the gut microbiota in children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders is evidently different from that in controls. The most pronounced differences are seen in children with ASD, less in ADHD. Moreover, the changes are not identical to those in adult psychiatric patients, as Ruminococcus, Turicibacter, and Bilophila were increased in adults, and decreased in children with ASD, and Parabacteroides and Alistipes were more frequently represented in adults, but less frequently represented in children with depression. The available data suggest some genera have a different abundance in individual psychiatric disorders (e.g., Bilophila, Bifidobacterium, Clostridium, Coprococcus, Faecalibacterium, and Ruminococcus), suggesting their importance for the gut–brain axis. Other bacterial genera might be more important for the pathophysiology of specific disorder in children and adolescents, as Akkermansia and Desulfovibrio for ASD, or Romboutsia for DD. Based on the research findings, we assume that gut microbiota corrections have the potential to improve clinical symptoms in psychiatric patients.


Perceptual experience is perspectival, and human minds occupy a variety of "viewpoints." These considerations provide grounds for both realist and anti-realist philosophies. Each is represented in adjacent areas of thought, and often connects with familiar debates between "conservatives" and "liberals," which in turn are commonly related to disputes about religious and naturalistic accounts of the world and of the place of human beings within it. These have been joined from an orthogonal direction by Thomas Nagel in his recent book Mind and Cosmos. This is considered and contrasted with the ideas of Thomas Aquinas before returning to the possibility of reconciling perspectivalism with an account of what it could mean to speak of the world as it is in itself.


This paper reports on a study of surface crack growth of two nuclear structural steels. SA333 GR6 carbon steel used for piping SA533 grade B pressure vessel steel, both tested under cyclic loads in 288/sup 0/C (550/sup 0/F), 0.2 ppm oxygen water at 10.34 mpa (1500 psi). Results are compared with tests on compact type (CT) specimen geometries tested in similar environments. It was found that, for the frequencies employed, the crack growth rates for the two specimen geometries were not widely different, despite the high net means stresses employed in the surface crack geometries. However, substantial differences were noted in the crack velocity response under static loading for the two geometries, suggesting that such differences can be expected in low frequency loading more typical of service conditions, raising questions about the applicability of CT geometry results for the materials, temperatures and environments used in this study. Temperature effects, air environments and R-value effects for surface crack geometries are also reported.


We present theoretical and experimental performance analysis of 40 Gb/s Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ) All-Optical Wavelength Conversion (AOWC) using a differentially-biased SOA-MZI. A frequency domain transfer function model for both the standard single-control SOA-MZI-based AOWC and for the differentially-biased SOA-MZI is analytically derived, exploiting first order perturbation theory techniques and showing that only the differentially-biased scheme can yield an almost flat low-pass filtering response enabling wavelength conversion at 40 Gb/s. The theoretically obtained results are also confirmed through experiments that demonstrate successful 40 Gb/s AOWC functionality for NRZ data signals only when a differentially-biased SOA-MZI configuration is employed, whereas an error-floor is obtained when 40 Gb/s NRZ AOWC with the standard single-control SOA-MZI scheme is attempted. The 1.7 dB negative power penalty obtained by the differentially-biased SOA-MZI architecture confirms its enhanced regenerative properties and its potential for extending 40 Gb/s optical transparent network dimensions by means of cascaded 2R AOWC stages.


Our aim here is to both provide a response to the Conference 'Please Specify!' and to find an alternate way of ensuring that the intrinsic generative nature of research and art is kept active, akin to the mobius strip-like path of both conclusions, and openings.

 "Midpointness" is a generative project. It is dismantled and reconstructed through the gradual accretion of surrounding connections, associations and influences of the curators, artists, students and other audiences who contribute to it. These are in the form of artworks, public events, texts, artefacts, performances or other interventions. 'An Obstract for Midpointness' (Obstract)is a piece of artistic research constructed before, during and after, "PLEASE SPECIFY!", The SAR Annual Conference 2017.

'Obstract' is as an element of the ongoing project "Midpointness" that seeks to invite us to consider the 'work' of art as art's labour or task. We seek to explore the dynamics of inner/outer dialogues of the process of artistic work, opening up other potentials that an artist researcher might hope for when he/she explores the generative potential of the work of artistic research directly within and in response to a conference about artistic research.

At the centre is spoken text that is a play on the tradition of the conference 'abstract.' The abstract is the site of an outline of intention, yet here we couple it with an 'obstruction' as a means of aggravating and diverting the attempt at a conclusion towards which an abstract, and indeed a formal presentation, might be aimed. "Obstract" suggests, by a process of intervention that the 'centre' (the work and/or the text) and its surrounding universe are completely indivisible. As such the principle of 'footnotes' filter through to the whole spoken text; the footnotes being analogous to the surrounding constellations within which the 'centre' of the work sits, swapping footnotes for centre and vice versa. The footnotes refer to points both real and imagined in the past, present and future.


The Mongol dalalya, 'beckoning of good-fortune', is a folk-religious ritual which also occurs in lamaized contexts. The different forms which the ritual takes are classified and analysed, reference being made to published accounts and to the author's fieldwork in Mongolia, and (to a limited extent) to comparative material for other Altaic areas and for Tibet. The relationship of the ritual to the sacrifice to the hearth-deity is examined. Mongol terminology specific to the ritual is analysed. Objects which appear as requisites in the ritual are described and illustrated, and their place in Mongol symbolic systems is analysed. All known texts of invocations to be recited at the ritual are listed and classified. Texts representative of each of the main categories identified are translated and edited. The study concludes that the ritual is a means of promoting the vital energy of men and herds; it has taken a number of different forms in different environments, under the influence of the contrasting ideologies of hunting and herding, of Mongol folk-religion and of lamaism. The ritual may be associated with earlier sacrifices to the ancestors.


The voltage stability problem in electric power systems is concerned with the analysis of events and mechanisms that can lead a system into inadmissible operating conditions from the voltage viewpoint. In the worst case, total collapse of the system may result, with disastrous consequences for both electricity utilities and customers. The analysis of this problem has become an important area of research over the past decade due to some instances of voltage collapse that have occurred in electric systems throughout the world. This work addresses the voltage stability problem within the framework of artificial neural networks. Although the field of neural networks was established during the late 1940s, only in the past few years has it experienced rapid development. The neural network approach offers some potential advantages to the solution of problems for which an analytical solution is difficult. Also, efficient and accurate computation may be achieved through neural networks. The first contribution of this work refers to the development of an artificial neural network capable of computing a static voltage stability index, which provides information on the stability of a given operating state in the power system. This analytical tool was implemented as a self-contained computational system which exhibited good accuracy and extremely low processing times when applied to some study cases. Dynamic characteristics of the electrical system in the voltage stability problem are very important. Therefore, in a second stage of the present work, the scope of the research was extended so as to take into account these new aspects. Another neural network-based computational system was developed and implemented with the purpose of providing some information on the behaviour of the electrical system in the immediate future. Examples and case studies are presented throughout the thesis in order to illustrate the most relevant aspects of both artificial neural networks and the computational models developed. A general discussion summarises the main contributions of the present work and topics for further research are outlined.


Measurement of the available soil P pool is required for making P fertilization recommendations. Extractants capable of estimating this P pool are needed. The objective of this study was to explore the utility of the acid ammonium oxalate method for estimating available soil P pools in diverse soils. Oxalate extraction in the dark dissolves mainly active noncrystalline Fe and Al in the soil. Oxalate extractable P (P ox ) has rarely been investigated for predicting the available P pool in highly weathered soils, where Fe and Al oxides are usually abundant. We estimated P ox in five highly weathered soils and three slightly weathered soils amended with varying amounts of P. The size of the available P pool in each soil was also estimated by a modified Hedley sequential extraction and verified in a 14-crop exhaustive greenhouse experiment. Results indicated that P ox in all soils appeared to be largely plant-available. P ox was found unsuitable for quantifying the available P pool in the calcareous, slightly weathered soils. Carbonates raised the pH of the oxalate solution and reduced the concentration of the oxalate anion to differing degrees, thus making this method unreliable for quantifying available P pools in calcareous soils. In highly weathered soils, the relationship between the quantity of available P and P ox was described by a linear equation, Y = 294.7 + 1.05 X (r 2 = 0.81), where Y is estimated available P in mg P kg ', and X is P ox in mg P kg 1 . The P ox was a good predictor of the available P pool in the highly weathered soils that were measured by the Hedley procedure and a multicrop exhaustion experiment.


"Gallagher, Timothy O'Grady, Glenn Patterson, Patrick McCabe, and many others - offer creative reflections on Healy's work, while literary critics provide a wide-ranging foundation for future Healy scholarship. In total, over forty contributors. Writing the Sky: Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy is a comprehensive collection of critical essays, memoirs, poetry, and other writerly responses devoted to the life and work of the late Dermot Healy (1947-2014). Healy was an accomplished poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and editor, and so these essays and observations address the entire range of his eclectic and exciting oeuvre. While paying due tribute to the memory of the man himself, the collection primarily seeks to establish a series of important critical perspectives through which Healy's writings can be properly viewed and assessed. Contemporary writers and poets - including Colm Toibin, Neil Jordan, Aidan Higgins, Alannah Hopkin, Kevin Barry, Annie Proulx, Michael Longley, Roddy Doyle, Tessors from more than a dozen countries provide insight into one of Ireland's most powerful and unique literary voices. This collection is absolutely crucial for everyone interested in the work of Dermot Healy and for all devotees of Irish literature" ―


Aim  We provide a new quantitative analysis of lizard reproductive ecology. Comparative studies of lizard reproduction to date have usually considered life-history components separately. Instead, we examine the rate of production (productivity hereafter) calculated as the total mass of offspring produced in a year. We test whether productivity is influenced by proxies of adult mortality rates such as insularity and fossorial habits, by measures of temperature such as environmental and body temperatures, mode of reproduction and activity times, and by environmental productivity and diet. We further examine whether low productivity is linked to high extinction risk.

Location  World-wide.

Methods  We assembled a database containing 551 lizard species, their phylogenetic relationships and multiple life history and ecological variables from the literature. We use phylogenetically informed statistical models to estimate the factors related to lizard productivity.

Results  Some, but not all, predictions of metabolic and life-history theories are supported. When analysed separately, clutch size, relative clutch mass and brood frequency are poorly correlated with body mass, but their product – productivity – is well correlated with mass. The allometry of productivity scales similarly to metabolic rate, suggesting that a constant fraction of assimilated energy is allocated to production irrespective of body size. Island species were less productive than continental species. Mass-specific productivity was positively correlated with environmental temperature, but not with body temperature. Viviparous lizards were less productive than egg-laying species. Diet and primary productivity were not associated with productivity in any model. Other effects, including lower productivity of fossorial, nocturnal and active foraging species were confounded with phylogeny. Productivity was not lower in species at risk of extinction.

Main conclusions  Our analyses show the value of focusing on the rate of annual biomass production (productivity), and generally supported associations between productivity and environmental temperature, factors that affect mortality and the number of broods a lizard can produce in a year, but not with measures of body temperature, environmental productivity or diet.


This article provides a critical overview of the field of distance language learning, challenging the way in which the field is often narrowly conceptualised as the development of technology-mediated language learning opportunities. Early sections focus on issues of concept and definition and both theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on the field. Emphasis is placed on evident shifts from a concern with structural and organisational issues to a focus on transactional issues associated with teaching/learning opportunities within emerging paradigms for distance language learning. The next section reviews choices and challenges in incorporating technology into distance language learning environments, foregrounding decisions about technology made in particular sociocultural contexts, the contribution of 'low-end' technologies and research directions in developing new learning spaces and in using online technologies. The investigation of learner contributions to distance language learning is an important avenue of enquiry in the field, given the preoccupation with technology and virtual learning environments, and this is the subject of section six. The two final sections identify future research directions and provide a series of conclusions about research and practice in distance language learning as technology-mediated interactions increasingly come to influence the way we think about the processes of language learning and teaching.


Did Americans respond to the recent Great Recession by demanding that government provide policy solutions to rising income insecurity, an expectation of state-of-the-art theorizing on the dynamics of mass opinion? Or did the recession erode support for government activism, in line with alternative scholarship pointing to economic factors having the reverse effect? We find that public support for government social programs declined sharply between 2008 and 2010, yet both fixed-effects and repeated survey analyses suggest economic change had little impact on policy-attitude formation. What accounts for these surprising developments? We consider alternative microfoundations emphasizing the importance of prior beliefs and biases to the formation of policy attitudes. Analyzing the General Social Surveys panel, our results suggest political partisanship has been central. Gallup and Evaluations of Government and Society surveys provide further evidence against the potentially confounding scenario of government overreach, in which federal programs adopted during the recession and the Obama presidency propelled voters away from government. We note implications for theoretical models of opinion formation, as well as directions for partisanship scholarship and interdisciplinary research on the Great Recession.


EU enlargement revives the debate around the participation to the EMU. We use a gravity model to see whether informal barriers have changed over a ten-year period covering the creation of the EMU, and whether their impact on European member countries' agricultural and food trade has been modified. We find that it has led to lower information costs. We observe a diminishing marginal trade impact of both information and institutional barriers: the lower the level of these barriers, the lower the magnitude of their impact on trade. But this finding can not be directly attributed to the introduction to the Euro.


Across countries, renting has been chosen by the young, the single and, more generally, the mobile, over ownership. In this paper, we use district-level data to draw inferences about the determinants of mobility and tenure choice throughout India, and whether these determinants are stable across time. Comparing regression results between 2001 and 2011, we see that the relationship between migration and tenure choice is not stable. Although there is no association between migration and renting homes in 2001, we find that migrants in 2011 were 11 percent less likely to be renters. This negative relationship between renting and migration is driven by women migrating for marriage – who account for almost 50 percent of all migrants. Our results suggest that women who move at marriage have a 36 percent lower chance of renting. Migrant men, on the other hand, are more likely to move for economic reasons and have a 27 percent higher probability of renting homes. We also find that the determinants of renting do not forecast 2011 from 2001 estimates very well, indicating demographic shifts and changes in tastes and preferences in this time period. JEL Classification: J610, R310


Traders, strategists, and other participants in the currency markets continuously seek to understand and interpret short-term exchange rate movements. One data set frequently used in those efforts is a weekly report of net futures market positions held by speculators on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In this article, the authors pursue a transaction-oriented line of research to track short-term exchange rate moves. They examine the data set for six currencies over a ten-year period and document a strong contemporaneous relationship between weekly changes in speculators' net positions and exchange rates. The authors find that knowing what speculators did over a given week gives one a 75 percent probability of correctly guessing an exchange rate's direction over that week. One explanation for this relationship is that these speculators-acting on their interpretation of public and private information-have some success anticipating how underlying demand will move exchange rates from their prevailing levels in the very short term.


This article addresses the link between research on adaptation to climate change and the related policy environment in which it operates. Drawing on recent case studies under the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) programme, we show how unpacking of policy processes through analysis of narratives, actors and politics can help shed light on important policy challenges for adaptation. The case studies reveal competing views on adaptation problems and strategies as well as their associated actors and political interests. They also identify spaces that could provide opportunities for policy engagement and influence, and ways of bridging research‐policy gaps to support adaptation. We argue that such analyses are critical in order to provide greater coherence between evidence from adaptation research and emerging government policies and strategies on climate change in developing countries.


This thesis looks at the development of a simulator for a lab setup related to heave-related issues in MPD (Managed Pressure Drilling) The aim of the lab is to create an environment for developing control methods to attenuate the pressure fluctuations generated by heave motion. The simulator is based on quasi-linear incompressible 1D pipe equations. The equations are simulated by decoupling and rewriting in terms of Riemann-invariants. The simulator parameters are discussed, and theoretical results are compared to experimental ones from the lab. The simulator is tuned by fitting the frequency response of the bottom hole pressure to the lab's. The wave speed of the simulator needs to be reduced significantly to align the resonance peaks with the frequencies found in experiments. Reasons for discrepancies between the lab and the model are discussed. The programming language used is C, through C-MEX functions for better runtimes. The simulator accuracy is satisfactory for disturbance frequencies up to about 0.25 Hz. For higher frequencies, the steady flow simplification used in the choke equation fails. A distributed observer is implemented within the same framework and is tested on data from the lab. The observer produces accurate estimates for low-frequency disturbances, but with a small phase lag.


Background: Time is a precious commodity, especially in the trauma setting, which requires continuous evaluation to ensure streamlined service delivery, quality patient care and employee efficiency. Objectives: The present study analyses the authors' institution's multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) scan process as part of the imaging turnaround time of trauma patients. It is intended to serve as a baseline for the institution, to offer a comparison with institutions worldwide and to improve service delivery. Method: Relevant categorical data were collected from the trauma patient register and radiological information system (RIS) from 01 February 2013 to 31 January 2014. A population of 1107 trauma patients who received a MDCT scan was included in the study. Temporal data were analysed as a continuum with reference to triage priority, time of day, type of CT scan and admission status. Results: The median trauma arrival to MDCT scan time (TTS) and reporting turnaround time (RTAT) were 69 (39–126) and 86 (53–146) minutes respectively. TTS was subdivided into the time when the patient arrived at trauma to the radiology referral (TTRef) and submission of the radiology request, to the arrival at the MDCT (RefTS) location. TTRef was statistically significantly longer than RefTS ( p < 0.0001). RTAT was subdivided into the arrival at the MDCT to the start of the radiology report (STR) and time taken to complete the report (RT). STR was statistically significantly longer than RT ( p < 0.0001). Conclusion: The time to scan (TTS) was comparable to, but unfortunately the report turnaround time (RTAT) lagged behind, the findings of some first-world institutions.


Novel and advanced photocatalytic materials for water splitting are of huge interest due to the increasing global energy crisis. In this work, MoS2/g-C3N4 heterojunctions are prepared as high-performance photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution using solar energy. Benefiting from the elaborate ion exchange, uniformly dispersed MoS2 quantum dots with controllable size and a high loading amount grow in situ on the surface of g-C3N4 nanosheets through a simple hydrothermal process, and tight heterostructures are obtained at the interface between the two semiconductors. The quantization of MoS2 enhances its redox activity in water splitting, and the compact heterojunction facilitates the separation of photoinduced charge carriers, resulting in efficient photocatalytic H2 production at the MoS2/g-C3N4 heterojunction. This work highlights ion exchange as a facile and effective method for obtaining high efficiency MoS2/g-C3N4 heterojunction photocatalysts.


Ice clouds play an important role in the energy budget of the atmosphere as well as in the hydrological cycle. Currently cloud ice is one of the largest remaining uncertainties in climate models. Large discrepancies arise from different assumptions on ice cloud properties, in particular on microphysics, which are not sufficiently constrained by measurements. Passive sub-millimeter wave (SMM) techniques have the potential of providing direct information on ice content and particle sizes with daily global coverage. Here we introduce a concept for a compact 2-receiver SMM sensor and demonstrate its capabilities on measurements of ice content, mean particle size, and cloud altitude.


Empirical studies of post-ADA employment effects foreground a phenomenon that is puzzling. Although analyses suggest that employing workers with disabilities can be cost effective, and despite a burgeoning economy in which the unemployment rate for most categories of workers has plummeted, unemployment of working age individuals with disabilities appears not to have similarly diminished. From the point of view defined by scholars applying the neoclassical labor market paradigm to Title I, the clearest explanation of this phenomenon would seem to be that the studies reporting the cost effectiveness of employing the disabled are incorrect (even if only overstated). Following from this explication is the conclusion that selecting workers with disabilities over nondisabled workers is an inefficient practice. In what follows, I examine and assess the arguments made by proponents of the view that the inefficiency of employing workers with disabilities is a deterrent to their inclusion in the labor market. If these arguments are sound, then rational market forces appear to be inexorably at work to attenuate the strategy embodied by Title I of the ADA. To the contrary, however, I will identify a market failure that prevents certain employers from reaching rational labor market decisions by creating a "taste for discrimination" in which the costs of including people with disabilities in a workforce are perceived as being greater than they really are. Further, I will propose an improved manner for assessing the efficiency of employing workers with disabilities and consider what this method implies regarding the rationality of Title I's strategy. Finally, I will show that the failure of the existing neoclassical economic model, as well as the Title I critiques that rely on it, is attributable at least in part to societal misconceptions about people with disabilities being built into the model's assumptions. That is, far from being neutral or objective, these critiques sanction and perpetuate the very irrational biases the ADA was designed to correct.


Efforts in structural biology have targeted the systematic determination of all protein structures through experimental determination or modeling. In recent years, 3-D electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) has assumed an increasingly important role in determining the structures of these large macromolecular assemblies to intermediate resolutions (6–10 Å). While these structures provide a snapshot of the assembly and its components in well-defined functional states, the resolution limits the ability to build accurate structural models. In contrast, sequence-based modeling techniques are capable of producing relatively robust structural models for isolated proteins or domains. In this work, we developed and applied a hybrid modeling approach, utilizing cryoEM density and ab initio modeling to produce a structural model for the core domain of a herpesvirus structural protein, VP26. Specifically, this method, first tested on simulated data, utilizes the cryoEM density map as a geometrical constraint in identifying the most native-like models from a gallery of models generated by ab initio modeling. The resulting model for the core domain of VP26, based on the 8.5-Å resolution herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) capsid cryoEM structure and mutational data, exhibited a novel fold. Additionally, the core domain of VP26 appeared to have a complementary interface to the known upper-domain structure of VP5, its cognate binding partner. While this new model provides for a better understanding of the assembly and interactions of VP26 in HSV-1, the approach itself may have broader applications in modeling the components of large macromolecular assemblies.


Introduction The explosive growth of the Internet and electronic mail (E-mail) is causing many educators to try integrating electronic materials and communication into their classrooms. Many of these educators are implicitly assuming that all students will use these new electronic resources once they are available. However, research to date has not explicitly tested this assumption. This paper tests this assumption and finds that even when students are given large incentives to use e-mail, over a quarter of the students in one class did not. Educators are interested in the Internet and e-mail because of pressures to improve teaching effectiveness. Teaching is increasingly more difficult because of the pressure to deliver knowledge more cost-effectively (Mingle 1995). The pressure of busier faculty and student lives results in a decreasing amount of time for out-of-class meetings. Lastly, some educators are receiving pressure to integrate academic courses with current computer technology. This research describes and quantifies a very simple one-semester experiment that measured how many college students would use computers without being forced. Students were given the option of having all lecture notes, homework questions and most hand-outs received electronically by simply singing up. Students who did not sign up received nothing. Before the semester's start, this incentive was expected to ensure almost all students learned and continually used computers. Unfortunately, even those strong incentives were not enough to encourage all students to use computers since over a quarter of the class never signed up. To understand why this significant fraction never received any materials electronically, a survey was run at the semester's end. This paper follows a long line of previous researched designed to test if new tools enhance student learning. For example, research has documented ideas such as regular video taping of lectures (Allison 1976; McConnell and Lamphear 1969) and using interactive video (Rhodes and Cerveny 1984). Computer-assisted instruction or CAI (Soper 1974; Smith and Smith 1989; Adams and Kroch 1989) has expanded so greatly that many students now have the choice of buying their textbooks with either Macintosh or PC software. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The next section first describes how the course was implemented and then describes the survey that quantified students' reactions. The third section describes the costs and benefits of distributing notes electronically. Lastly, a conclusion summarizes the paper, suggests improvements and discusses future directions for research. Implementation and Survey Design The experiment to provide class material electronically was run at Boston University, a large private North East institution, in the spring semester of the 1994-1995 academic year. All students were in a combined undergraduate and graduate labor economics class that met twice a week. Students that signed up were sent all homework questions and lecture notes by e-mail, usually the morning after the lecture. To receive messages students needed a computer account which was free to all registered students. Additionally, a student needed to send the instructor a short message asking for inclusion on the e-mail distribution list.(1) Sending a message showed a basic mastery of e-mail and provided an accurate return address. During the semester the teacher provided no instruction to students on how to use either the campus computer system or e-mail. The only help students received was a general announcement that computer accounts were free to students and where the computer account office was located. While students could sign up any time during the semester, all but two signed up before the first exam. Toward the end of the semester students were required to submit their homework by e-mail. To minimize problems, students worked on homework in small groups that enabled people with weak computer skills to team up with more proficient classmates. …


Feature Issue on Optical Code Division Multiple AccessI present an in-depth review of the trends and the directions taken by researchers worldwide in optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) systems. I highlight those trends and features that I believe are essential to the successful introduction of various OCDMA techniques in communication systems and data networks in the near future. In particular I begin by giving a comprehensive review of the construction of optical orthogonal codes (OOCs). Specifically I discuss the recently developed algorithms that are based on matrix algebra, which simplify and enhance the efficiencies of algorithms in OOC generation. In communication systems studies I first focus on and discuss various OCDMA techniques, such as incoherent and coherent OCDMA. A comprehensive discussion takes place on all important aspects of each OCDMA technique. In particular, I elaborate on enabling technologies that are needed prior to full scale consideration of OCDMA in communication systems. For incoherent OCDMA the technique is categorized into two distinguished techniques, namely, 1D and 2D OCDMA. For each technique I discuss the various receiver structures proposed to date. In particular I discuss a recently introduced powerful receiver structure based on optical AND logic gate elements. Based on this receiver structure I conclude that in many practical applications, OOCs with a cross-correlation value λ equal to 2 or 3, which have a much larger cardinality compared to OOCs with λ=1, perform much better. Many fundamental issues, including architectural consideration of multiple amplifiers, various acquisition algorithms, and advanced signaling methods, such as pulse position modulation, are discussed. For coherent OCDMA or spectrally encoded ultrashort light pulse OCDMA, I begin by having an in-depth discussion on the key and enabling technologies that are essential in the successful implementation of this very important and extremely powerful technique. In particular on the encoder-decoder side I present discussions on various key device technologies such as virtually imaged pulsed array, fiber Bragg gratings, and arrayed waveguide gratings. On the receiver side I elaborate on various nonlinear detection schemes used in such OCDMA networks. I will present an analytical framework on the above nonlinear detection schemes and discuss their pros and cons. I extend the discussion to various data networks. In particular I will discuss applications such as wireless OCDMA LAN, free-space OCDMA, fiber-to-the-home, and other code-division-multiple-access-based packet communication networks using label addressing and processing techniques to indicate the directions and the applications for which OCDMA systems are considered. It is believed that in the not so distant future OCDMA, once fully developed and matured, will be an inseparable part of advanced optical communication systems and networks, due to its various desirable features and functionalities.


International scientific collaboration, a fundamental phenomenon of science, has been studied from several perspectives for decades. In the spatial aspect of science, cities have generally been considered by their publication output or by their citation impact. Only a minority of scientometric studies focus on exploring collaboration patterns of cities. In this visualisation, we go beyond the well-known approaches and map international scientific collaboration patterns of the most prominent science hubs considering both the quantity and the impact of papers produced in the collaboration. The analysis involves 245 cities and the collaboration matrix contains a total number of 7718 international collaboration links. Results show that US–Europe co-publication links are more efficient in terms of producing highly cited papers than those international links that Asian cities have built in scientific collaboration.


Aims To investigate whether percutaneous left atrial appendage (LAA) closure guided by automated real-time integration of 2D-/3D-transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and fluoroscopy imaging results in decreased radiation exposure. Methods and Results In this open-label single-center study LAA closure (AmplatzerTM Cardiac Plug) was performed in 34 consecutive patients (8 women; 73.1±8.5 years) with (n = 17, EN+) or without (n = 17, EN-) integrated echocardiography/fluoroscopy imaging guidance (EchoNavigator® [EN]; Philips Healthcare). There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between both groups. Successful LAA closure was documented in all patients. Radiation dose was reduced in the EN+ group about 52% (EN+: 48.5±30.7 vs. EN-: 93.9±64.4 Gy/cm2; p = 0.01). Corresponding to the radiation dose fluoroscopy time was reduced (EN+: 16.7±7 vs. EN-: 24.0±11.4 min; p = 0.035). These advantages were not at the cost of increased procedure time (89.6±28.8 vs. 90.1±30.2 min; p = 0.96) or periprocedural complications. Contrast media amount was comparable between both groups (172.3±92.7 vs. 197.5±127.8 ml; p = 0.53). During short-term follow-up of at least 3 months (mean: 8.1±5.9 months) no device-related events occurred. Conclusions Automated real-time integration of echocardiography and fluoroscopy can be incorporated into procedural work-flow of percutaneous left atrial appendage closure without prolonging procedure time. This approach results in a relevant reduction of radiation exposure. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01262508


In response to several special characteristics of the so-called "new immigration" and to the well-known weaknesses of classical assimilation theory, several theoretical suggestions have recently been made and discussed, including, in particular, the "Theory of Segmented Assimilation" and the "New Assimilation Theory." In addition to the (classical) structural outcome of assimilation, these theories assume two other possible outcomes: ethnic stratification as the enduring social descent of following generations and selective acculturation as the social advancement by using and retaining ethnic resources and identities. This contribution reconstructs these theoretical developments and the presumed structural outcomes as special cases of a comprehensive model, i.e., the model of intergenerational integration, and systematizes sub-processes and single mechanisms outlined by the various theories. Another important result is the identification of conditions and background processes that do not necessarily occur empirically, but that underlie the different theories and structural outcomes as well as the proposed model of intergenerational integration.