BACKGROUND
Health care professionals frequently advise patients to improve their health by stopping smoking. Such advice may be brief, or part of more intensive interventions.

OBJECTIVES
The aims of this review were to assess the effectiveness of advice from physicians in promoting smoking cessation; to compare minimal interventions by physicians with more intensive interventions; to assess the effectiveness of various aids to advice in promoting smoking cessation and to determine the effect of anti-smoking advice on disease specific and all cause mortality.

SEARCH STRATEGY
We searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group trials register and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register. Date of the most recent searches: October 1998.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised trials of smoking cessation advice from a medical practitioner in which abstinence was assessed at least six months after advice was first provided.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We extracted data in duplicate on the setting in which advice was given, type of advice given (minimal or intensive), and whether aids to advice were used, the outcome measures, method of randomisation and completeness of followup. The main outcome measure was abstinence from smoking after at least six months follow-up. We used the most rigorous definition of abstinence in each trial, and biochemically validated rates where available. Subjects lost to follow-up were counted as smokers. Where possible, meta-analysis was performed using a fixed effects model.

MAIN RESULTS
We identified thirty-one trials, conducted between 1972 and 1997, including over 26,000 smokers. In some trials, subjects were at risk of specified diseases (chest disease, diabetes, ischaemic heart disease), but most were from unselected populations. The most common setting for delivery of advice was primary care. Other settings included hospital wards and outpatient clinics, and industrial clinics. Pooled data from 16 trials of brief advice versus no advice (or usual care) revealed a small but significant increase in the odds of quitting (odds ratio 1.69, 95% confidence interval 1.45 to 1.98). This equates to an absolute difference in the cessation rate of about 2.5%. There was insufficient evidence, from indirect comparisons, to establish a significant difference in the effectiveness of physician advice according to the intensity of the intervention, the amount of follow-up provided, and whether or not various aids were used at the time of the consultation in addition to providing advice. However, direct comparison of intensive versus minimal advice showed a small advantage of intensive advice (odds ratio 1.44, 95% confidence interval 1.23 to 1.68). In one study which determined the effect of smoking advice on mortality at twenty years, there were no statistically significant differences in death rates in the group receiving advice.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Simple advice has a small effect on cessation rates. Additional manoeuvres appear to have only a small effect, though more intensive interventions are marginally more effective than minimal interventions.


Abstract Assessing the subsistence strategies of past populations; through their dietary and occupational patterns; could provide important information regarding social status and possible gender differences, especially in turbulent historical periods, as the one of the Crusader's occupation in Greece (1204-1460 AD). Therefore, the human sample from Aghia Triada in Thebes (13th-14th c. AD) serves as the ideal skeletal material. Diet was explored through two dental indicators; dental caries and tooth wear, while occupational stress was explored through three activity markers; osteoarthritis (OA), spinal facet remodeling and Schmorl's nodes. The aims of the present study are to assess the dietary and activity patterns of the stated population and explore possible sex differentiations. A total of 126 teeth and 350 vertebrae have been examined. The entire population presents a caries rate of 16.7%, and males present a much higher caries frequency than females (25.5% males vs. 9.9% females). Furthermore, females present significantly higher rates of osteophytes than males, whereas no significant sex differences were found regarding facet remodeling and Schmorl's nodes. Dental results confirm historical information of medieval Thebes having an agricultural economy and are also in agreement with isotopic data. In addition, our findings suggest very intense physical activity for both sexes, whereas the distribution of facet remodeling along the spine could indicate a possible gender division of labor. Our study proposes two positive correlations; between facet remodeling and osteophytes, and between Schmorl's nodes and facet remodelling; as activity indicators in past or/and modern populations. Finally, we strongly encourage the inclusion of spinal facet remodelling in studies focusing on occupational stress.


Dietary Supplementation with LCarnitine Induces Equal Utilization of Long-Chain Fatty Acids for Energy Production in Rats Trained with Walking
The present experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of L-carnitine supplementation on the fatty acid composition of epididymal adipose tissue and femoral muscle in rats trained with walking. The rats were assigned to four groups receiving dietary treatments to evaluate the effects of supplementation with 0 ppm L-carnitine or 50 ppm L-carnitine in combination with two types of exercise: free moving and walking (4 h/day at a speed of 840 m/h). L-carnitine supplementation significantly increased its level in the blood plasma. There was a main effect of L-carnitine supplementation on body weight gain and blood plasma triglyceride level, with both parameters reduced by L-carnitine supplementation. The results of the fatty acid composition analysis revealed that walking reduced the C16:0 level, resulting in a low total saturated fatty acid (SFA) proportion. Dietary L-carnitine suppressed the decrease in the C16:0 proportion observed in the walking group and accelerated the use of fatty acids for energy production so that it was the same as in the control condition. There was no specific relation between L-carnitine and fatty acid type. In conclusion, the current results suggest that dietary supplementation with L-carnitine reversed the unbalanced fatty acid degradation caused by walking without L-carnitine supplementation.


Students in the 2015 program (June 28 – July 17) will confront the challenge of global sustainability. Wake Forest University professors will expose students to the historical, ecological, political, economic, social, and legal facets of sustainability.


This article explores three entrepreneurial ventures that have evolved in proximity to online piracy. In reviewing the respective cases of Spotify, Skype, and The Pirate Bay, the argument outlines the radically divergent strategies with which the entrepreneurs have sought to legitimise their ventures and underlying technologies. The article concludes that: 1) the context of practices labelled 'pirate' are paradigmatic examples of fields in which entrepreneurs must work exceptionally hard to legitimise themselves; 2) in this context, it is crucial that the role of law is analytically isolated from the role of institutionalised legitimacy; 3) success in legitimisation is largely dependent upon the entrepreneur's ability to demonstrate that the venture is governed by 'the natural order' of the economy. It is further argued that piracy-proximate ventures may contribute to the entrepreneurship field, inasmuch as they teeter on the border of being considered too disruptive, and thus suffer from a 'liability of politicalness'.


We evaluate the efficacy of the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF), a program designed to stabilize the corporate bond market in the wake of the Covid-19 shock. The Fed announced the SMCCF on March 23 and expanded the program on April 9. Regression discontinuity estimates imply that these announcements reduced credit spreads on bonds eligible for purchase 70 basis points. We refine this analysis by constructing a sample of bonds—issued by the same set of companies—which differ in their SMCCF eligibility. A diff-in-diff analysis shows that both announcements had large effects on credit spreads, narrowing spreads 20 basis points on eligible bonds relative to their ineligible counterparts within the same set of issuers across the two announcement periods. The March 23 announcement also reduced bid-ask spreads ten basis points within ten days of the announcement. By lowering credit spreads and improving liquidity, the April 9 announcement had an especially pronounced effect on "fallen angels." The actual purchases lowered credit spreads by an additional five basis points and bid-ask spreads by two basis points. These results confirm that the SMCCF made it easier for companies to borrow in the corporate bond market.


Historically, we have built to overpower nature with minimal concern for environmental impact. The Solar Energy Efficient Dwelling: SEEDpod prototype is intended to respond to and advantageously interact with the forces of nature and the unique characteristics of each project site. These include the sun – utilized to create electricity, heat water/air and provide day lighting; water – harvested for domestic needs and irrigation of edible plants and landscaping; and air – used for ventilation and maintaining a healthy environment. The SEEDpod provides a tool for engagement with specific microclimates and the natural environment of its location. The arid Sonoran Desert, with limited vegetation, water resources and cloud cover has a climate characterized by a year round average diurnal temperature swing of 26°F. This variable condition enables the SEEDpod to employ an environmental control strategy in which the building envelope and surrounding vegetation form a "selective filter" that dynamically interacts with the surroundings. Establishing a homeostatic relationship becomes the premise upon which we can begin to improve the design quality, efficiency and environmental responsiveness of residential construction. Balance is achieved in this energy efficient solar prototype by dynamically interacting with energy inputs and outputs in service of climatic stability. Air exchange, humidity and thermal control, interior and exterior lighting conditions and natural resource management are integral components that are continuously engaged in order to achieve a healthy, energy-efficient, and sustainably-built environment.


Using the Green's tensor area integral equation method and reflection spectroscopy, resonant light scattering from rectangular gold nanostrips on quartz substrates fabricated with electron-beam lithography is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. Theory and experiments are compared and found in a good agreement. Design curves presenting the scattering resonance wavelength as a function of the nanostrip width allow one, by carefully choosing the strip width and thickness, to realize the resonance at a given wavelength in a broad wavelength spectrum ranging from the visible (~600 nm) to the near infrared including telecommunication wavelengths (~1600 nm).


A previously well 52-year-old gentleman presented with a 2-week history of itch, jaundice, lethargy, pale stools and dark urine. He had no risk factors for liver disease. On systematic questioning, the only new addition to his diet was an acai berry supplement drink to promote weight loss. Blood tests revealed markedly raised bilirubin and ALP, and slightly raised AST and ALT. Ferritin was also raised but was felt to represent an acute phase reactant. The remaining liver screen was unremarkable. Imaging showed a 12 mm hemangioma in segment VII of the liver but was otherwise normal, with no ductal dilatation noted. ERCP revealed normal ducts. Liver biopsy was performed and this revealed hepatocellular and canalicular cholestasis with minimal parenchymal inflammation. Portal tracts were inflamed with lymphocytes. Findings were felt to be consistent with ductal obstruction or drug reaction. Overall findings were felt to be in keeping with a drug reaction secondary to the acai berry supplement. He had been commenced on prednisolone, ursodeoxycholic acid, cholestyramine, lansoprazole and chlorphenamine in a district general hospital prior to transfer to the Liver Unit. On arrival, naltrexone was added to the regimen. His bilirubin peaked at 284 µ mol/L but soon decreased, and returned to normal levels within 2 months. High levels of D-aspartate are found in these berries, and this amino acid is involved in a pituitary pathway involved in stimulation of testosterone production. Alongside anabolic steroids, androgenic steroids have also been shown to be involved in development of cholestatic jaundice. Beta-sitosterol is also found in the berries and is a precursor of boldenone which is an anabolic steroid. These steroid pathways are among the hypotheses for development of cholestatic jaundice in this gentleman. J Med Cases. 2014;5(6):373-375 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jmc1794w


OBJECTIVE This study aimed to analyze the relationship of variability in hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) over years with subsequent depressive symptoms. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Subjects (n = 837) were participants of the Israel Diabetes and Cognitive Decline (IDCD) study, which aimed to examine the relationship of characteristics of long-term type 2 diabetes with cognitive decline. All pertain to a diabetes registry established in 1998, which contains an average of 18 HbA1c measurements per subject. The results presented here are based on the IDCD baseline examination. Symptoms of depression were assessed using the 15-item version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). To quantify the association between variability in glycemic control (measured as the SD of HbA1c measurements [HbA1c-SD]) since 1998 with the number of depression symptoms at IDCD baseline, incidence rate ratios (IRRs) and corresponding 95% CIs were estimated via negative binomial regression modeling and used to account for the overdispersion in GDS scores. RESULTS Subjects' ages averaged 72.74 years (SD 4.63 years), and the mean number of years in the diabetes registry was 8.7 (SD 2.64 years). The mean GDS score was 2.16 (SD 2.26); 10% of subjects had a GDS score ≥6, the cutoff for clinically significant depression. Mean HbA1c significantly correlated with HbA1c-SD (r = 0.6625; P < 0.0001). The SD, but not the mean, of HbA1c measurements was significantly associated with the number of subsequent depressive symptoms. For each additional 1% increase in HbA1c-SD, the number of depressive symptoms increased by a factor of 1.31 (IRR = 1.31 [95% CI 1.03–1.67]; P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS Variability in glycemic control is associated with more depressive symptoms.


Although learning from multiple representations has been shown to be effective in a variety of domains, little is known about the mechanisms by which it occurs. We analyzed log data on error-rate, hint-use, and time-spent obtained from two experiments with a Cognitive Tutor for fractions. The goal of the experiments was to compare learning from multiple graphical representations of fractions to learning from a single graphical representation. Finding that a simple statistical model did not fit data from either experiment, we searched over all possible mediation models consistent with background knowledge, finding several that fit the data well. We also searched over alternative measures of student error-rate, hint-use, and time-spent to see if our data were better modeled with simple monotonic or u-shaped non-monotonic relationships. We found no evidence for non-monotonicity. No matter what measures we used, time-spent was irrelevant, and hint-use was only occasionally relevant. Although the total effect of multiple representations on learning was positive, they also had a negative effect on learning, mediated by a higher error-rate. Our evidence suggests that multiple representations increase error-rate, which in turn inhibits learning. The mechanisms by which multiple representations improve learning are as yet unmodeled.


For any software developer who has spent days in "integration hell," cobbling together myriad software components, Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk illustrates how to transform integration from a necessary evil into an everyday part of the development process. The key, as the authors show, is to integrate regularly and often using continuous integration (CI) practices and techniques.The authors first examine the concept of CI and its practices from the ground up and then move on to explore other effective processes performed by CI systems, such as database integration, testing, inspection, deployment, and feedback. Through more than forty CI-related practices using application examples in different languages, readers learn that CI leads to more rapid software development, produces deployable software at every step in the development lifecycle, and reduces the time between defect introduction and detection, saving time and lowering costs. With successful implementation of CI, developers reduce risks and repetitive manual processes, and teams receive better project visibility.The book covers How to make integration a "non-event" on your software development projects How to reduce the amount of repetitive processes you perform when building your software Practices and techniques for using CI effectively with your teams Reducing the risks of late defect discovery, low-quality software, lack of visibility, and lack of deployable software Assessments of different CI servers and related tools on the market The book's companion Web site, www.integratebutton.com, provides updates and code examples.


In this work, we empirically explore the question: how can we assess the quality of samples from some target distribution? We assume that the samples are provided by some valid Monte Carlo procedure, so we are guaranteed that the collection of samples will asymptotically approximate the true distribution. Most current evaluation approaches focus on two questions: (1) Has the chain mixed, that is, is it sampling from the distribution? and (2) How independent are the samples (as MCMC procedures produce correlated samples)? Focusing on the case of Bayesian nonnegative matrix factorization, we empirically evaluate standard metrics of sampler quality as well as propose new metrics to capture aspects that these measures fail to expose. The aspect of sampling that is of particular interest to us is the ability (or inability) of sampling methods to move between multiple optima in NMF problems. As a proxy, we propose and study a number of metrics that might quantify the diversity of a set of NMF factorizations obtained by a sampler through quantifying the coverage of the posterior distribution. We compare the performance of a number of standard sampling methods for NMF in terms of these new metrics.


Weakly-supervised vision-language grounding aims to localize a target moment in a video or a specific region in an image according to the given sentence query, where only video-level or image-level sentence annotations are provided during training. Most existing approaches employ the MIL-based or reconstruction-based paradigms for the WSVLG task, but the former heavily depends on the quality of randomly-selected negative samples and the latter cannot directly optimize the visual-textual alignment score. In this paper, we propose a novel Counterfactual Contrastive Learning (CCL) to develop sufficient contrastive training between counterfactual positive and negative results, which are based on robust and destructive counterfactual transformations. Concretely, we design three counterfactual transformation strategies from the feature-, interactionand relation-level, where the feature-level method damages the visual features of selected proposals, interactionlevel approach confuses the vision-language interaction and relation-level strategy destroys the context clues in proposal relationships. Extensive experiments on five vision-language grounding datasets verify the effectiveness of our CCL paradigm.


This paper proposes a technique to synthesize parametric rate values in continuous-time Markov chains that ensure the validity of bounded reachability properties. Rate expressions over variables indicate the average speed of state changes and are expressed using the polynomials over reals. The key contribution is an algorithm that approximates the set of parameter values for which the stochastic real-time system guarantees the validity of bounded reachability properties. This algorithm is based on discretizing parameter ranges together with a refinement technique. This paper describes the algorithm, analyzes its time complexity, and shows its applicability by deriving parameter constraints for a real-time storage system with probabilistic error checking facilities.


Credit unions are regarded as financial service entities that operate within communities and are run by those communities. Logically then it would seem that much assistance and subsidisation is likely to be received from the community. Yet, most prior studies that evaluate the performance or efficiency of credit unions focus on the recorded costs. This paper uses a survey methodology to provide some insight into the pattern, extent and type of assistance received by credit unions in the most successful region of the United Kingdom (UK), Northern Ireland (NI). The results find material amounts of subsidisation within credit unions in NI, in particular, volunteer time contributed by members. The level of subsidisation varies, with small credit unions more dependent on assistance, than large. Given this finding the authors suggest that an accurate evaluation of credit union performance, or efficiency, should take subsidisation into account, otherwise the results will be biased.


PURPOSE: In radiation therapy treatment planning systems, structures are represented as parallel 2D contours. For treatment planning algorithms, structures must be converted into labelmap (i.e. 3D image denoting structure inside/outside) representations. This is often done by triangulated a surface from contours, which is converted into a binary labelmap. This surface to binary labelmap conversion can cause large errors in small structures. Binary labelmaps are often represented using one byte per voxel, meaning a large amount of memory is unused. Our goal is to develop a fractional labelmap representation containing non-binary values, allowing more information to be stored in the same amount of memory. METHODS: We implemented an algorithm in 3D Slicer, which converts surfaces to fractional labelmaps by creating 216 binary labelmaps, changing the labelmap origin on each iteration. The binary labelmap values are summed to create the fractional labelmap. In addition, an algorithm is implemented in the SlicerRT toolkit that calculates dose volume histograms (DVH) using fractional labelmaps. RESULTS: We found that with manually segmented RANDO head and neck structures, fractional labelmaps represented structure volume up to 19.07% (average 6.81%) more accurately than binary labelmaps, while occupying the same amount of memory. When compared to baseline DVH from treatment planning software, DVH from fractional labelmaps had agreement acceptance percent (1% ΔD, 1% ΔV) up to 57.46% higher (average 4.33%) than DVH from binary labelmaps. CONCLUSION: Fractional labelmaps promise to be an effective method for structure representation, allowing considerably more information to be stored in the same amount of memory.


The Internet, and the Web built on top of it, were intended to support an "entropic" physical and logical network map (Zittrain, 2013). That is, they have been designed to allow servers to be spread anywhere in the world in an ad hoc and evolving fashion, rather than a centralized one. Arbitrary distance among, and number of, servers causes no particular architectural problems, and indeed ensures that problems experienced by one data source remain unlinked to others. A Web page can be assembled from any number of upstream sources, through the use of various URLs, each pointing to a different location. To a user, the page looks unified. Over time, however, there are signs that the hosting and finding of Internet services has become more centralized. We explore and document one possible dimension of this centralization. We analyze the extent to which the Internet's global domain name resolution (DNS) system has preserved its distributed resilience given the rise of cloud-based hosting and infrastructure. We offer evidence of the dramatic concentration of the DNS hosting market in the hands of a small number of cloud service providers over a period spanning from 2011-2018. In addition, we examine changes in domains' tendency to "diversify" their pool of nameservers – how frequently domains employ DNS management services from multiple providers rather than just one provider. Throughout the paper, we use the catastrophic October 2016 attack on Dyn, a major DNS hosting provider, to illustrate the cybersecurity consequences of our analysis.


Faced with intolerable congestion and noxious pollution, cities around the world are rethinking their reliance on automobiles. In the United States a loosely organised livability movement seeks to reduce car use by reconfiguring urban space into denser, transit-oriented, walkable forms, a development pattern also associated with smart growth and new urbanism. Through a detailed case study of San Francisco, Jason Henderson examines how this is not just a struggle over what type of transportation is best for the city, but a series of ideologically charged political fights over issues of street space, public policy, and social justice. Historically San Francisco has hosted many activist demonstrations over its streets, from the freeway revolts of the 1960s to the first Critical Mass bicycle rides decades later. Today the city's planning and advocacy establishment is changing zoning laws to limit the number of parking spaces, encouraging new car-free housing near transit stations, and applying transit first policies, such as restricted bus lanes. Yet Henderson warns that the city s accomplishments should not be romanticised. Despite significant gains by livability advocates, automobiles continue to dominate the streets, and the city s financially strained bus system is slow and often unreliable. Both optimistic and cautionary, Henderson argues that ideology must be understood as part of the struggle for sustainable cities and that three competing points of view progressive, neoliberal, and conservative have come to dominate the contemporary discourse about urban mobility. Consistent with its iconic role as an incubator of environmental, labour, civil rights, and peace movements, San Francisco offers a compelling example of how the debate over sustainable urban transportation may unfold both in the United States and globally.


The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between dropping out of school and the perceived quality of the last school that Mexican teenagers attended, and examine the interaction between this educational factor and the economic status of this population. Based on the 2010 National Youth Survey, the researchers used the life table to describe this relationship, and Cox regression models to analyze it, including individual, family-related and educational covariables. The results show that the risk of dropping out of school is indirectly linked to school quality and, to a greater degree, to economic status; and that the gap between students dropping out based on school quality is slightly wider among adolescents of low academic status than among those of high status.


The phrase embroidered on the sleeping masks composing the work originates from the last known words of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the most important revolutionaries of the 20th century. Luxemburg wrote in the evening of her murder, on 15 January 1919: "The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built […]". Although Luxemburg's text begins with the admission of failure, it reflects a strong belief in the ability to transform the world through the power of the masses – a rather optimistic view of the human condition. In contrast, the work remains confined on the level of acknowledgement, without alluding to any further step to be taken. Rather, as the object on which the phrase has been embroidered suggests, what follows the realization of failure is sleep – a sleep of political and social consciousness as indicated by the rest of Luxemburg's text. Notably, this state of passivity should not be theorised independent of the individual forms of the sleeping masks, which are defined by their multiple colours. In his landmark book "The Society of the Spectacle" (1967), French philosopher Guy Debord argues that "spectacle is the guardian of sleep" (thesis 21). The multiple facades of the sleeping masks function, perhaps, as those "guardians".


Objective: Conservative restoration principles that accurately reduce plaque accumulation are the goals of restorative dentistry. Correct and perfect restoration has an important effect on health of periodontious tissues. This study was done to compare the methods of oral hygiene, over hanged removal and restoration changing on periodontal health and alveolar bone height of restored mandible molars with proximal over hanged amalgam. Materials and Methods: All patients with over hanged amalgam restoration were randomly divided into three groups. In order to survey the effect of over hanged removal on gingival and bleeding indices and alveolar bone height adjacent to mandible molar teeth, these indices were determined according to recurrent radio-graphical early signs of alveolar bone loss during three months. Sixty patients, 20 in each group, were studied. In the group I, overhang was removed with ultrasonic scale or bur and oral hygiene methods as usual were continued. In the group II, over-hang was left, but plaque controls as the prophylaxis and flossing were done. In the group III, restoration was changed and oral hygiene was done as usual. Plaque index and bleeding index were measured at the beginning of study and three months later. Findings: Statistical analysis of studied indices at the beginning and three months after treatment using paired test has shown significant

 differences in gingival inflammation, in all groups. Statistical analysis of indices using Tukey HSD test has also shown significant differences in decreasing gingival inflammation measure when the over hanged restoration was removed. While there is no difference between the other two groups. Conclusion: The results showed that plaque control causes subsidence of gingival inflammation and increasing of alveolar bone support, and it is more effective when the over hanged restoration is changed.


"Many-core" systems based on a Network-on-Chip (NoC) architecture offer various opportunities in terms of performance and computing capabilities, but at the same time they pose many challenges for the deployment of real-time systems, which must fulfill specific timing requirements at runtime. It is therefore essential to identify, at design time, the parameters that have an impact on the execution time of the tasks deployed on these systems and the upper bounds on the other key parameters. The focus of this work is to determine an upper bound on the traversal time of a packet when it is transmitted over the NoC infrastructure. Towards this aim, we first identify and explore some limitations in the existing recursive-calculus-based approaches to compute the Worst-Case Traversal Time (WCTT) of a packet. Then, we extend the existing model by integrating the characteristics of the tasks that generate the packets. For this extended model, we propose an algorithm called "Branch and Prune" (BP). Our proposed method provides tighter and safe estimates than the existing recursive-calculus-based approaches. Finally, we introduce a more general approach, namely "Branch, Prune and Collapse" (BPC) which offers a configurable parameter that provides a flexible trade-off between the computational complexity and the tightness of the computed estimate. The recursive-calculus methods and BP present two special cases of BPC when a trade-off parameter is 1 or ∞, respectively. Through simulations, we analyze this trade-off, reason about the implications of certain choices, and also provide some case studies to observe the impact of task parameters on the WCTT estimates.


A given quantity of fill may be placed over a given circular area in the shape of a cone, a truncated cone, with nearly uniform thickness. Depending on the shape of the fill, different non-uniform initial excess pore water pressure distributions can exist in the underlying saturated soil layer. This paper investigates the influence of the shape of the fill on the time-dependant consolidation behaviour of the underlying circular soil layer, which is draining only along a peripheral drain. Plots of the average degree of consolidation against time factor and degree of consolidation isochrones are developed for different axisymmetric embankment geometries. The results show that the way the load is spread within the circular area has significant influence on the rate of pore water pressure dissipation throughout the soil layer. The exact degree of consolidation at a point within the clay is computed to illustrate the variation in the degree of consolidation with the radial distance.


Owls are important contributors to the Tertiary small-vertebrate fossil record. They concentrate small-vertebrate remains by producing pellets rich in skeletal material that provide a sample of the small-vertebrate fauna of an area. A common assumption is that different predators inflict unique fragmentation and skeletal element representation signatures, thus providing a method for identifying a field assemblage as pellet derived, and possibly identifying the predator. In addition to the digestive process of pellet formation, the taphonomic history of a pellet includes the postregurgitation processes of weathering, disintegration, transport, and burial, all of which can introduce biases into an assemblage and confound paleoecological interpretation. Analysis of a modern accumulation of small-vertebrate remains from Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) pellets in a temperate forest environment on San Juan Island, Washington, reveals that fragmentation and skeletalelement representation change with residence time on the forest floor as pellets disintegrate and skeletal elements become dispersed. Matted hair initially protects the skeletal elements. As the pellet breaks down, the bones become dispersed, fragmentation of the bones increases (from 99% intact bones in intact pellets to 75% intact bones in fully dispersed pellets), and small, fragile skeletal elements are lost, resulting in a residual concentration of larger, more robust skeletal elements. The spatial distribution of skeletal elements below the roosting site follows a right-skewed, bimodal pattern. Skeletal elements are preserved in the soil to a depth of three centimeters. Post-regurgitation processes have the potential to distort the original faunal and skeletal composition of pellet-derived assemblages, thus masking any original predator-specific signatures. Actualistic taphonomic studies are necessary in order to understand how well pellet-derived assemblages capture information on local ecological and environmental conditions. This is a critical question that must be addressed to enable correction for such biases before pellet-derived assemblages are used for assessment of small-vertebrate community change and paleoenvironmental reconstruction.


In this study, data from breast MRI-guided near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) exams delivered to 44 patients scheduled for surgical resection (ending in 16 benign and 28 malignant diagnoses) were analyzed using a spatial sensitivity metric to quantify the adequacy of the optical measurements for interrogating the tumor region of interest, as derived from the concurrent MRI scan. Along with positional sensitivity, the incorporation of spectral priors and the selection of an appropriate regularization parameter in the image reconstruction were considered, and found to influence the diagnostic accuracy of the recovered images. Once optimized, the MRI/NIRS data was able to differentiate the malignant from benign lesions through both total hemoglobin (p = 0.0037) and tissue optical index (p = 0.00019), but required the relative spatial sensitivity of the optical measurement data to each lesion to be above 1%. Spectral constraints implemented during the reconstruction were required to obtain statistically significant diagnostic information from images of H2O, lipids, and Tissue Optical Index (TOI). These results confirm the need for optical systems that have homogenous spatial coverage of the breast while still being able to accommodate the normal range of breast sizes.


The scleractinian species Psammocora explanulata and Coscinaraea wellsi were originally classified in the family Siderastreidae, but in a recent morpho-molecular study it appeared that they are more closely related to each other and to the Fungiidae than to any siderastreid taxon. A subsequent morpho-molecular study of the Fungiidae provided new insights regarding the phylogenetic relationships within that family. In the present study existing molecular data sets of both families were analyzed jointly with those of new specimens and sequences of P. explanulata and C. wellsi. The results indicate that both species actually belong to the Cycloseris clade within the family Fungiidae. A reappraisal of their morphologic characters based on museum specimens and recently collected material substantiate the molecular results. Consequently, they are renamed Cycloseris explanulata and C. wellsi. They are polystomatous and encrusting like C. mokai, another species recently added to the genus, whereas all Cycloseris species were initially thought to be monostomatous and free-living. In the light of the new findings, the taxonomy and distribution data of C. explanulata and C. wellsi have been updated and revised. Finally, the ecological implications of the evolutionary history of the three encrusting polystomatous Cycloseris species and their free-living monostomatous congeners are discussed.


Energy conservation plays a vital role towards sustainable development of meat processing. Energy costs for many meat plants represent the fourth highest operational cost. In meat processing, moderate levels of both electrical and thermal energy are consumed in wide range of processes and applications. However, energy efficiency improvement in the meat processing industry have been a focus to increase the sustainability of meat processing in the past decades. This chapter started with the examination of the energy use in meat processing facilities. The emerging energy-efficient technologies for meat processing were discussed in detail. Energy requirement for well-cooked meats varies with cooking method, appliances, and consumer behavior. Energy consumption reduction during meat cooking may have an influence on global energy requirement. Selection of cooking method, fuel, and cookware are beneficial for reducing the carbon footprint of the cooking unit. This chapter also presents the effects on quality characteristics of meat and meat products by different cooking methods.


A person's affective state is a critical component of his/her experience and must be considered in HCI research. In fact, one's feelings are a necessary component of his/her rational thoughts and actions. Because, IS behavioral models assume rational actors, including affect in such models result in a more complete understanding of user behavior. Since so much HCI research is focused on user behavior, it is important that affect be considered. This paper identifies the extent to which affect has been included in prior HCI research and to encourage its continued use given its significant impact on behavior. It begins by defining the general meaning of affect. It then presents recent advances in the affect literature and reviews affect work within HCI to date. Besides revealing that affect is a variable of great interest in HCI, the paper provides a theoretical and practical justification for including affect in HCI future research.


Physical-layer network coding (PLNC) has the ability to drastically improve the throughput of multi-source wireless communication systems. In this paper, we focus on the problem of channel tracking in a Decode-and-Forward (DF) OFDM PLNC system. We proposed a Kalman Filter-based algorithm for tracking the frequency/time fading channel in this system. Tracking of the channel is performed in the time domain while data detection is implemented in the frequency domain. As an important advantage, this approach does not need for training of some subcarriers in every OFDM symbols and this, results in higher throughput, compared to other methods. High accuracy, no phase ambiguity, and stability in fast fading conditions are some other advantages of this approach.


Water is a vital resource, and can also sometimes be a destructive force. As such, it is important to manage this resource. The prediction of stream flows is an important component of this management. Hydrological models are very useful in accomplishing this task. The objective of this study is to develop and apply an optimization method useful for calibrating a deterministic model of the daily flows of the Miramichi River watershed (New Brunswick). The model used is the CEQUEAU model. The model is calibrated by applying a genetic algorithm. The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency criterion, modified to penalize physically unrealistic results, was used as the objective function. The model was calibrated using flow data (1975-2000) from a gauging station on the Southwest Miramichi River (catchment area of 5050 km2), obtaining a Nash-Sutcliffe criterion of 0.83. Model validation was performed using flow data (2001-2009) from the same station (Nash-Sutcliffe criterion value of 0.80). This suggests that the model calibration is sufficiently robust to be used for future predictions. A second model validation was performed using data from three other measuring stations on the same watershed. The model performed well in all three additional locations (Nash-Sutcliffe criterion values of 0.77, 0.76 and 0.74), but was performing less well when applied to smaller sub-basins. Nonetheless, the relatively strong performance of the model suggests that it could be used to predict flows anywhere in the watershed, but caution is suggested for applications in small sub-basins. The performance of the CEQUEAU model was also compared to a simple benchmark model (average of each calendar day). A sensitivity analysis was also performed.


An asymmetric ultrasonic interferometry high-pressure set-up for elastic wave velocity measurements under simulated Earth9s mantle conditions has been developed. The piston-cylinder experiments were performed in a system with a piston diameter of 22 mm. The pistons were designed to optimize ultrasonic transmission. Each piston was equipped with three lithium niobate transducers of 16.7 MHz natural frequency, one P-wave transducer and two S-wave transducers on one piston, and reverse on the other one. The configuration allows ultrasonic measurements in reflection, transmission, two and single transducer generation and detection for both compressional and shear wave velocities. In the symmetric configuration two platinum buffer rods were used inside the cell to transmit ultrasonic waves to the sample and as pressure transmitting medium. A similar configuration was used in multi-anvil experiments (MAX80 at HASYLAB, HPX97 at Universitat Bonn). A strong increase in signal-to-noise ratio was achieved by using an asymmetric configuration with high impedance contrasts, using fused quartz and sodium chloride as buffer rods. The configurations were tested with aluminium, San Carlos olivine single crystals and artificial polycrystalline anorthite samples up to 3 GPa pressure. The results of the first measurements with aluminium demonstrated the feasibility of ultrasonic interferometric methods in the multi-anvil pressure cell MAX80 and similar high-pressure systems. The experiments with a piston-cylinder apparatus, optimized and adapted to ultrasonic measurements, showed that the results are not influenced by the shape of the travel path. The experiments up to 3 GPa pressure with natural San Carlos olivine allowed a detailed comparison of the results with the published data of several authors. Artificial anorthite samples were used to check the feasibility of measurements with polycrystalline samples. Our data solved discrepancies between published high- pressure and normal-pressure data for polycrystalline anorthite leading to v p = 7.28 km/s, v s = 3.93 km/s at ambient conditions and dv p /dp = 0.027 km/s * GPa, dv s /dp = 0.001 km/s * GPa. In general all our data correspond to published results within the accuracy of the method.


In an age of user-generated content, multimedia sharing sites, and customized news aggregators, an assortment of Internet-based social interaction technologies transforms the Web and its users. A quintessential embodiment of social interaction technologies, blogs are widely used by people across diverse geographies to locate information, create and share content, initiate conversations, and collaborate and interact with others in various settings. This chapter surveys the global blogosphere landscape for the latest trends and developments in order to evaluate the overall direction that blogging might take in the future. The author posits that network-based peer production and social media convergence are the driving forces behind the current transformation of blogs. The participatory and inclusive nature of social interaction technologies makes blogging a medium of choice for disseminating user-driven content and particularly suitable for bottom-up grassroots initiatives, creativity, and innovation.


When designing a ship, a designer often begins with "an idea" of what the ship might look like and what specifications the ship should meet. The multidisciplinary design optimization model is a tool that combines an analysis and an optimization process and uses a measure of merit to obtain what it infers to be the best design. All that the designer has to know is the range of values of certain design variables that confine the design within a lower and an upper bound. The designer then feeds the MDO model with any arbitrary design within the bounds and the model searches for the best design that minimizes or maximizes a measure of merit and also meets a set of structural and stability requirements. The model is multidisciplinary because the analysis process, which calculates the measure of merit and other performance parameters, can be a combination of sub-processes used in various fields of engineering. The optimization process can also be a variety of mathematical programming techniques depending on the type of the design problem. The container ship design problem is a combination of discreet and continuous sub-problems. But to avail the advantages of gradient-based optimization algorithms, the design problem is molded into a fully continuous problem. The efficiency and effectiveness with which an optimization process achieves the best design depends on how well the design problem is posed for the optimizer and how well that particular optimization algorithm tackles the type of design problems posed before it. This led the author to investigate the details of the analysis and the optimization process within the MDO model and make modifications to each of the processes, so that the two become more compatible towards achieving a better final design. Modifications made within the optimization algorithm were then used to develop a generalized modification method that can be used to improve any gradient-based optimization algorithm. ii


The mother-baby relation corresponds for both to a trap in which the time of development shuts down. Our observations of dyads we were close to in nursery, mother-baby center and pediatric care settings argue in favor of a characteristic mother-baby distance disorder. The infant is invested as a « transition object », used by the mother as transitory support for her parental imagoes in the course of de-idealization, within an unaccomplished post-adolescent process. This results in a behavioral and emotional « house arrest » for the baby, which will have to conform to maternal expectations if it wants to be spared the abrupt experience of defensive withdrawal of maternal investment. Caught between idealization and refusal, the baby experiences early conflict only in its aspect of rupture, which causes a problem for the construction of its subjectivity.
 Traduction : Elizabeth Kelly-Penot


In the life sciences, there is wide-ranging debate about biodiversity. While nearly everyone is in favor of biodiversity and its conservation, methods for its assessment vary enormously. So what exactly is biodiversity? Most theoretical work on the subject assumes it has something to do with species richness - the number of species in a particular region - but in reality, it is much more than that. Arguing that we can not make rational decisions about what it is to be protected without knowing what biodiversity is, James Maclaurin and Kim Sterelny offer in "What Is Biodiversity?" a theoretical and conceptual exploration of the biological world and how diversity is valued.Here, Maclaurin and Sterelny investigate not only the origins of the concept of biodiversity, but also how that concept has been shaped by ecology and more recently by conservation biology. They explain the different types of biodiversity important in evolutionary theory, developmental biology, ecology, morphology, and taxonomy and conclude that biological heritage is rich in not just one biodiversity but many. Maclaurin and Sterelny also explore the case for the conservation of these biodiversities using option value theory, a tool borrowed from economics.An erudite, provocative, timely, and creative attempt to answer a fundamental question, "What Is Biodiversity?" will become a foundational text in the life sciences and studies thereof.


canadienne d'études de la Renaissance; Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society; Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium; Victoria University Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2020 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/


A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Masters of Business Administration at Strathmore University Business School


We investigate the evolution of a superconducting string network with arbitrary, constant string current in the friction dominated regime. In the absence of an external magnetic field the network always reaches a scaling solution. However, for string current stronger than a critical value, it is different than the usual horizon scaling of the nonsuperconducting string case. In this case the friction domination era never ends. Whilst the superconducting string network can be much denser than usually assumed, it can never dominate the universe energy density. It can, however, influence the cosmic microwave background radiation and the formation of large scale structure. When embedded in a primordial magnetic field of sufficient strength, the network never reaches scaling and, thus, eventually dominates the universe evolution.


This paper aims to investigate the causes leading to the gap between real effect and expected targets of college students' entrepreneurship in China, and lay a entrepreneurship foundation for the entrepreneurship team. In this paper, the entrepreneurial ability of college students was studied based on objective and psychological characteristics of venture. And entrepreneurship quality and professional quality of college students were analyzed. Entrepreneurship team functions in five dimensions: communication, management, cooperation, organization and service. The enterprise performance was evaluated based on competitive, financial and market performance. Then the corresponding relations among entrepreneurial ability, team functions, all factors relating to enterprise performance, dimensions and performance are revealed through empirical research; influences of social network support and investment on entrepreneurship are validated.


BACKGROUND
Preliminary evidence shows that discordance in stress experience, expression, and physiology (EEP) in adolescents is linked to depression, suicidal ideation (SI), non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and brain functioning. This study employs person-centered analysis to probe the relationship between stress responses, psychopathology, and neural patterns in female adolescents who are oversampled for engagement in NSSI.

METHODS
Adolescent females (N = 109, ages 12-17) underwent a social stress test from which self-report measures of stress experience, observer ratings of stress expression, and physiological metrics of stress (via salivary cortisol) were obtained. Multi-trajectory modeling was employed to identify concordant and discordant stress EEP groups. Depressive symptoms, SI and attempt, NSSI engagement, frontal and limbic activation to emotional stimuli, and resting state fronto-limbic connectivity were examined in the EEP groups derived from the multi-trajectory models.

RESULTS
Four groups were identified, three of which demonstrated relatively concordant EEP and one which demonstrated discordant EEP (High Experience-High Expression-Low Physiology). Further, replicating past research, the High Experience-High Expression-Low Physiology discordant group exhibited higher depressive symptoms, SI, suicide attempt, and NSSI episodes (only for sensitivity analyses based on past year) relative to other EEP groups. No significant group differences in brain functioning emerged.

CONCLUSION
Results indicate that within-person, multi-level patterns in stress responding capture risk for dysfunction including depression and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Further interrogating of system-level stress functioning may better inform assessment and intervention efforts.


Fragmenting History: Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of Empire Nobuko Ishitate-Okumiya Yamasaki Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Edward Mack Department of Comparative Literature and Department of Asian Languages and Literature By exploring various figures of gendered and sexualized female workers, such as street prostitutes, hostesses, comfort women, teachers, idols, and actresses, this dissertation reveals that women's bodies were highly contested territories of knowledge in the Japanese Empire. Their bodies were sites of political struggle where racial, national, and class differences met, competed, and complicated one another. The dissertation elucidates the processes by which those women's bodies became integral parts of Empire building during the imperial period (1894-1945), suggesting that its colonial and imperial legacies are still active even today. Unlike some preceding works on Japanese colonial literature have shown, many of these figures fall away from normative discourses of the trope of family contributing to Empire building. In other words, theirs is a politics of the perverse. With careful attention to intersections of race, sex, class, and affect, the dissertation contributes to the study of Japanese Empire, which tends to focus on men and avoids subtle readings of women's bodies. Chapter one, "'Genuinely' Japanese and 'Falsely' Japanese in Hayashi Kyôko's 'Yellow Sand,'" unpacks race-based Japanese nationalism by closely analyzing the tension between a Japanese street prostitute and middle-class Japanese mothers in Shanghai at the onset of the second Sino-Japanese War. Chapter two, "Resistance and Protest by Diasporic Korean Women: Lee Yang-ji and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha," metaphorically places Lee and Cha into dialogue, revealing that Korean women's bodies are political battlefields. Chapter three, "More as a Critic than as a Participant of the Empire: 'Landscape with a Patrolman: A Sketch from 1923,'" analyzes how the ideological structure of the Japanese Empire regulates, fixes, and generates everyday life in colonial Korea, arguing that Nakajima Atsushi's insight both implicitly and explicitly stood against the Japanese Empire's totalitarian ambitions. The chapter demonstrates the similarity of Nakajima's major and minor works, revealed in the rhetorical choices he makes and his ethical orientation toward others. Chapter four, "I Perform, therefore I am not: Ri Kôran's Building of the Empire," focuses on the film Suzhou Nights (1941) and elucidates the working dynamics of Japanese language education, bio-power, (carefully avoided) interracial marriage, and (implicitly avoided) inter-racial reproduction. The chapter argues that the film approximates the Nazi's contemporaneous idea of racial purity. A translation of Ri Kôran's speech on comfort women as a feminist activist appears in an appendix. The speech was published at the turn of the millennium.


This work considers the female body in ancient and medieval societies as seen through the eyes of doctors. In their writings on gynaecology, the medieval Authors that are studied here have made clear their thoughts on women, which are grounded in the texts of their predecessors (Greek and Latin doctors) but conditioned by their own religious beliefs - Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Their works were written not only to educate or inform other doctors and midwives, but also to aid medical students and to provide guidance for women who might seek it. These texts also reflect popular opinion when it comes to such issues, as in many instances they are closer to popular belief than to science. Our selected Authors wrote in order to gain recognition and prestige. They based their advice on texts written by earlier, widely recognized specialists and, in turn, their work became references for future doctors who, in their own writings, would cite them or recreate their work. From this point of view, it may be said that none of these doctors pursued an objective relative to our own current medical practices, but this does not necessarily mean that their texts are any less important. The texts studied in this work span almost twenty centuries, from the fifth century BC to the fifteenth century AD. In Spanish with English abstracts.


Libraries are using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for their operations and services by making huge investments and spending vast amounts of staff time for the selection, acquisition, retrieval, and dissemination of digital information. But the proliferation of computers, widespread acceptance of computer networks, explosive growth of Internet, increased reliance on electronic databases and the move from dedicated mainframe environments to client-server environments make libraries vulnerable to security threats. The moment user connects the computer to a Network or Internet, is the moment that the security of data has been compromised. Even the most secure systems, shepherded by the most intelligent and able system administrators, and employing the most up-to-date, tested software available are at risk every day. It is very essential to take all measures to protect the ICT infrastructure from security threats. However, libraries are lagging behind in realizing the need to protect their ICT resources and services from misuse, damage, theft, sabotage, mistake, etc. This paper deals with the issues related to the security of libraries in the present digital networked environment and makes recommendations for protecting ICT resources and services. The paper discusses security risks, strategies for security, security policy, personnel security, physical security, software security, network security, Internet security, access control, protection against computer viruses, protection of public terminals and backup information. This paper also discusses the need for professional assignments for library security and the importance of security training for library professionals.


The controlling of the polarization state of light is required for various photonic applications, e.g. for biomedical imaging, lithography, microscopy or ellipsometry. Major advantages ofmicro- and nanostructures for polarization control are realization of elements for spectralbands, where no alternatives exist (e.g. polarizers in the UV wavelength range) and betterintegration with optical elements or sensors. Nano-optical polarizers and wave plates can beused to fully manipulate and convert the state of polarization. The fabrication of sub-wavelength grating quarter-wave plates for applications in the visible and near infraredwavelength regime is challenging. In this work major grating structure deviations, namelygrating ridge tilt, chamfers on top of the ridges, grating displacement and their influence onphase retardation are investigated. Basing on this we present theoretical investigations andexperimental results for an in-situ process control. Thereby, the impact of structure deviationscan be compensated and a fine tuning of the phase retardation becomes feasible. Wedemonstrate this approach by fabrication of a wave plate for 532nm wavelength. This work isthe foundation for future development of such an in-situ process control.


Since 1996, U.S. bank holding companies could increase their Tier 1 capital not only by issuing dilutive common equity but also by issuing non-dilutive trust preferred securities (TPS). TPS are cumulative nonperpetual preferred securities issued by non-consolidated subsidiaries of bank holding companies whose sole asset is junior subordinated debt issued by the bank holding company. TPS count as debt for tax purposes but as Tier 1 capital for regulatory purposes. Bank holding companies quickly adopted TPS, with issuance outpacing common equity issuance each year from 1999-2008. By June 2007, over 80% of bank holding companies had TPS worth $140 billion in aggregate, comprising nearly 20% of Tier 1 capital. We investigate why bank holding companies issue TPS, and find strong evidence that they primarily use TPS to maintain their Tier 1 capital ratios during periods of rapid growth. We argue that the regulatory arbitrage opportunity afforded by TPS allowed banks to grow too quickly during the 2000s, resulting on average in worse stock and operating performance during the recent financial crisis.


A strategy for acquiring 3-D data of an unknown scene, using range images obtained by a light stripe range finder is addressed. The foci of attention are occluded regions, i.e., only the scene at the borders of the occlusions is modeled to compute the next move. Since the system has knowledge of the sensor geometry, it can resolve the appearance of occlusions by analyzing them. The problem of 3-D data acquisition is divided into two subproblems due to two types of occlusions. An occlusion arises either when the reflected laser light does not reach the camera or when the directed laser light does not reach the scene surface. After taking the range image of a scene, the regions of no data due to the first kind of occlusion are extracted. The missing data are acquired by rotating the sensor system in the scanning plane, which is defined by the first scan. After a complete image of the surface illuminated from the first scanning plane has been built, the regions of missing data due to the second kind of occlusions are located. Then, the directions of the next scanning planes for further 3-D data acquisition are computed. >


Transgenic mice expressing human HLA class II molecules provide a useful model for identifying HLA-restricted CD4+ epitopes. However, the influence of endogenous murine H-2-restricted T cell responses on HLA-restricted responses is not known. In the present study, we show that HLA-DR1 transgenic mice deficient for H-2 class II expression (HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta0/0) exhibit an equivalent expression level of the transgene HLA-DR1 and a similar diversity in the TCR repertoire, but a slightly different number of CD4+ peripheral T cells, when compared to HLA-DR1 transgenic mice in which H-2 class II molecules were retained (HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta+/+). More importantly, a strong antigen-specific HLA-DR1-restricted response was observed in nearly all HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta0/0 mice immunized with HBV envelope protein (HBs) or capsid protein (HBc), whereas weak HBs- or HBc-specific HLA-DR1-restricted responses were detected in half of the immunized HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta+/+ mice. Conversely, strong HBs- or HBc-specific H-2-restricted T cell responses were detected in HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta+/+ mice but not in HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta0/0 mice. Our results indicate that the coexpression of endogenous H-2 class II molecules reduces the intensity of HLA-DR1-restricted antigen-specific responses in transgenic mice, by favoring murine over human MHC recognition and education. Thus, HLA-DR1+/+/IAbeta0/0 mice represent a better model for identifying and characterizing HLA-DR1-restricted epitopes relevant for human disease.


The EUV spectrum of Fe viii is reviewed, using new solar observations from the Hinode EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), together with older solar and laboratory data. The most up-to-date scattering calculations are benchmarked against these experimental data, with the use of a large atomic structure calculation. Once adjustments are made to the excitation rates, good agreement is found between calculated and observed line intensities. All previous line identifications have been re-assessed. Several lines are identified here for the first time, most notably the strong decays from the 3s 2 3p 5 3d 24 Dj levels. It is shown that they provide a new, important diagnostic of electron temperature for the upper transition region. The temperatures obtained at the base of solar coronal loops are lower (logT [K] = 5.5) than those predicted by assuming ionization equilibrium (logT [K] = 5.6), however firm measurements will only be possible once better scattering calculations are available, and the EIS radiometric calibration is properly assessed.


This thesis investigates the scope, magnitude and performance of zombie funds in the Nordic private equity market. Our sample comprises of a total 266 funds from the 5 different Nordic countries. The vintage years of our sample funds are from 1998 to 2007, in order to grasp the two major economic downturns since the turn of the millennia. We cross-examine our sample with funds that have a vintage between 2008 until today, in order to identify potential zombie funds. Given this analysis, we find that the zombie funds constitute a substantial proportion of the total Nordic PE market. We are also able to distinguish the performance between 'normal' and zombie funds. Due to the absence of adequate interim performance measurements, this thesis applies different exits as an indication of success. We find that zombie funds are less likely to exit their portfolio companies compared to normal funds. This is true across all PE-backed exit types in our analysis. We also find that zombie funds are more likely to occur for smaller funds.


Surface-localized electromagnetic fields can induce strong reorientation of liquid crystals (LC's), thus making it possible to observe a whole new class of opto-electronic phenomena. We show the feasibility of reorientation of a LC by a spatially inhomogeneous electric field localized on a photorefractive substrate. The modulation of the space-charge density in the plane of the photorefractive substrate generates a component of the electric field, which is normal to the LC layer. The drift of ions enforced by that field can result in a surface-charge modulation pattern that can become permanent owing to adsorption of ions at the boundaries of the LC cell. The obtained results present large fundamental and practical interest for the visualization of surface-localized electric fields and the development of new principles of optical information processing and storage.


CPAs who use e-mail to market and develop their accounting practices may find themselves labeled "spammers" under a new federal law. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM), which took effect January 1, 2004, regulates business e-mail. Unwary CPAs could run afoul of the act even though it's designed to target the abuses, fraud and criminal activities of hard-core spammers. Fortunately, accounting firms still can use e-mail advertising if they follow the rules. Here's what practitioners need to know about the act and how to use it to improve the effectiveness of their e-mail programs and keep them in compliance with CAN-SPAM. REQUIREMENTS AND PENALTIES CAN-SPAM prohibits predatory and abusive commercial e-mail practices and specifies other requirements for protecting commercial e-mail users. (CPAs can find the text of the act at www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html.) The act provides both criminal and civil penalties. Enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, the criminal penalties include fines, imprisonment and forfeiture of equipment, software and any property acquired from the proceeds of illegal spamming. Civil penalties include injunctive relief and monetary damages that could total more than $6 million in cases with aggravating circumstances, such as using a program to search Web sites or other online locations to "harvest" e-mail addresses, randomly generating e-mail addresses and falsely registering Web sites. The act empowers the states' attorneys general to seek civil actions on behalf of their residents; it also provides Internet service providers (ISPs) with a "cause of action." CPAs should be aware the first civil action already has been filed under the act--a suit brought by an ISP naming a marketing company and its client as defendants. (More information is available at http://legal.hypertouch.com/bobvila/bobvila-complaint.html.) Before examining the specific requirements, let's look at how the act defines commercial e-mail and distinguishes it from other communications CPAs may send to current and prospective clients. Under the act, commercial e-mail refers to messages that have as their primary purpose advertising or promotion or are not transactional or "relationship" in nature. The latter include messages that primarily relate to previous transactions between the parties--for example, subscriptions, loans, accounts, delivery of goods or services, warranty or recall information, or messages about employment and benefit plans. Practitioners should note that all such messages must have accurate header information, including originating e-mail addresses and domain names. As senders, CPAs also must comply with other rules for commercial e-mails. They must clearly identify messages as advertisements or solicitations and indicate their content in the subject headings. Firms must provide a "clear and conspicuous" way for recipients to "opt cut"--refuse future e-mails--via a working return e-mail address or other mechanism that will function for 30 days after the firm sends the message. Once a firm receives an opt-out request, it cannot send any e-mail to that recipient beyond a 10-day grace period. For further identification and contact, a firm must include a valid physical postal address in its e-mails. FOLLOW THE RULES CPAs should look at their firms' e-mail solicitations and advertising carefully and take this self-assessment test: Message requirements * Am I sending e-mails with an appropriate originating address including the firm's domain name? For example, in "Tom.Doe@Doe_&_Co.xyz," the originating e-mail address is "Tom.Doe" and "Doe_&_Co.xyz" is the do-main name. * Does the firm operate different divisions or lines of business, and is it identifying a particular segment as the sender? Under the act a firm's technology consulting division would be an entity apart from its tax services division if it is operated separately and so identified in e-mails. …


This study focuses on technology transfer in the steel mini-mill industry. It identifies two central issues: how capacity is built and how demand is sustained, developing a three-dimensional perspective to bring into sharp focus the desirability and necessity of technology transfer. The three-dimensional perspective focuses on the changes in the marketplace for flat steel sheets, the responsiveness and sensitivity to these market changes, and applying the best available technology to obtain a high quality product. Prior to this study, technology transfer has been examined in a bivariate relationship, namely, how technology transfer contributed to the development process in developing countries and Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs). The framework formulated in this study showed that Japan was lagging behind all the steel-producing countries because, like the NICs, it imported the physical and organizational technologies that fostered its prosperity. Based on primary and secondary research, this study revealed that high levels of operational efficiency and sophisticated product quality were achieved through continuous improvement culminating in Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) consisting of Real Time Process Control. On the other hand, the research also revealed that China based the improvement of its steel industry on self-reliance combined with judicious selection of foreign collaboration. The theoretical underpinnings of the crucial issues in this study led to the development of an interactive model of technology transfer based upon stock and flow variables.


This study examines the impact of climate change on land use in the Prairie Pothole Region of Western Canada, with particular emphasis on how climate change will impact wetlands. A multi-region Positive Mathematical Programming model calibrates land use in the area to observed acreage in 2006. Policy simulations for both climate effects as well as the effects of biofuel policies determine how climate change will affect land use and wetlands. Given that the model calibrates to observed acreage, the policies provide a realistic view of how land use might change from current levels, given the effects of climate change. Results indicate that climate change could decrease wetlands in this area by as much as 50 percent. The effect will be very different depending on whether or not the social benefits of wetlands are considered, and the effects of climate change on wetlands are heterogeneous across the Prairie Provinces.


Geochronology of the Neogene calc-alkaline intrusive magmatism in the "Subvolcanic Zone" of the Eastern Carpathians (Romania) The Poiana Botizei-Ţibleş-Toroiaga-Rodna-Bârgâu intrusive area (PBTTRB), northwest Romania, known as the "Subvolcanic Zone", is located between the Gutâi (NW) and Câlimani (SE) volcanic massifs. It consists of rocks displaying a wide range of compositions and textures: equigranular or porphyritic with holocrystalline groundmass (gabbro-diorites, diorites, monzodiorites and granodiorites), and/or porphyritic with fine holocrystalline or glassycryptocrystalline groundmass, similar with effusive rocks: basalts, basaltic andesites, andesites, dacites and rhyolites. The time-span of intrusive rocks emplacement is similar with the nearest calc-alkaline volcanic rocks from Gutâi (NW) and Câlimani (SE) massifs. They are represented by stocks, laccoliths, dykes and sills typical for an upper crustal intrusive environment. In the absence of biostratigraphic evidence, a comprehensive K-Ar study of intrusive rocks using whole rock samples, groundmass and monomineral fractions (biotite, hornblende) has been carried out in order to understand the magmatic evolution of the area. The oldest K-Ar ages recorded in the analysed rocks are close to 11.5 Ma and magmatism continued to develop until about 8.0 Ma. The inception of intrusion emplacement in the PBTTRB is coeval with intrusive activity spatially related to volcanism within the neighbouring Gutâi and Câlimani massifs. However, its culmination at ca. 8 Ma ago is younger than the interruption of this activity at ca. 9.2 Ma in Gutâi and Câlimani Mts where intrusive activity resumed for ca. 1 Myr. These circumstances strongly suggest that the geodynamic evolution of the area controlled the development of both volcanic and intrusive activity and their reciprocal relationships. The overall geological data suggest that in the PBTTRB intra-lithospheric transpressional-transtensional tectonic processes controlled the generation and emplacement of intrusive bodies between ca. 12-8 Ma.


Automated decision making is used routinely throughout our every-day life. Recommender systems decide which jobs, movies, or other user profiles might be interesting to us. Spell checkers help us to make good use of language. Fraud detection systems decide if a credit card transactions should be verified more closely. Many of these decision making systems use machine learning methods that fit complex models to massive datasets. The successful deployment of machine learning (ML) methods to many (critical) application domains crucially depends on its explainability. Indeed, humans have a strong desire to get explanations that resolve the uncertainty about experienced phenomena like the predictions and decisions obtained from ML methods. Explainable ML is challenging since explanations must be tailored (personalized) to individual users with varying backgrounds. Some users might have received university-level education in ML, while other users might have no formal training in linear algebra. Linear regression with few features might be perfectly interpretable for the first group but might be considered a black-box by the latter. We propose a simple probabilistic model for the predictions and user knowledge. This model allows to study explainable ML using information theory. Explaining is here considered as the task of reducing the "surprise" incurred by a prediction. We quantify the effect of an explanation by the conditional mutual information between the explanation and prediction, given the user background.


Psalm 24 is often seen to be a 'baffling' psalm due to the juxtaposition of what seems to be thematically and structurally disparate material (creation, vv. 1–2; torah and sanctuary, vv. 3–6; divine warrior and sanctuary, vv. 7–10). Most unusual, however, is the juxtaposition of the final two stanzas, for they seem to cancel each other out. In vv. 3–6, human beings desire access to God within the sanctuary, whereas in vv. 7–10 God himself is about to access the same location. Various poetic clues indicate that these two entrance scenes have been intentionally brought into parallelism with each other, yet no satisfactory answer has been presented as to the meaning of this manoeuvre. In this article, a poetic analysis is proposed that goes beyond those proffered thus far by looking at the way in which the 'poetic function' creates a degree of 'narrative' self-referentiality within the psalm, in particular through its representation of time and space. The conclusion is that the psalm is a recalibration of liturgical material in terms of a grasp of the structure of the divine economy.


Abstract. Visual sampling techniques represent a valuable resource for a rapid, non-invasive data acquisition for underwater monitoring purposes. Long-term monitoring projects usually requires the collection of large quantities of data, and the visual analysis of a human expert operator remains, in this context, a very time consuming task. It has been estimated that only the 1-2% of the acquired images are later analyzed by scientists (Beijbom et al., 2012). Strategies for the automatic recognition of benthic communities are required to effectively exploit all the information contained in visual data. Supervised learning methods, the most promising classification techniques in this field, are commonly affected by two recurring issues: the wide diversity of marine organism, and the small amount of labeled data. In this work, we discuss the advantages offered by the use of annotated high resolution ortho-mosaics of seabed to classify and segment the investigated specimens, and we suggest several strategies to obtain a considerable per-pixel classification performance although the use of a reduced training dataset composed by a single ortho-mosaic. The proposed methodology can be applied to a large number of different species, making the procedure of marine organism identification an highly adaptable task.


Prostate cancer, with a prevalence of 9.6% and 679 000 cases diagnosed in 2002, is the third most common cancer worldwide.1 In the UK, it is the most common male cancer, representing 23% of all new cancer diagnoses, and is a major source of morbidity and mortality, causing 10 000 deaths in 2005.2 Over the past two decades, the incidence of prostate cancer has risen due to its more frequent diagnosis by a combination of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing, digital rectal examination (DRE), and transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided biopsy. In the UK, 5-year survival has improved from 31% in the 1970s to 71% in 2001,2 a finding attributed to the earlier detection of tumours, many of which behave indolently, and improvements in treatment. Although treatment of such "screening detected" cancers remains controversial, advances in surgical technique, facilitating postoperative preservation of continence and potency, mean that radical prostatectomy (RP) is increasingly offered as treatment of choice. The consequent increase in RP and pelvic lymphadenectomy (PLA) specimens received by pathology departments poses significant resource implications, highlighting the importance of effective and efficient specimen processing.

The biological behaviour of prostate cancer is heterogeneous and its underlying molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. Factors that might reliably predict outcome for individual patients (facilitating management and prognostication) have been identified and evaluated by two recent international consensus conferences.3 4 The first, organised by the College of American Pathologists (CAP),3 analysed and stratified existing predictive factors into one of three categories based on the strength of published evidence and opinions of its Prostate Working Group (table 1). The second, organised by the World Health Organization (WHO),4 concentrated on biopsy derived predictive factors. It ratified the CAP ranking and recommended the mandatory adoption in clinical practice of all category I factors, advised local discretion with …


Objective

The current study investigated gender differences with a focus on mood, personality characteristics, sleepiness/alertness and cognitive measures in a group of 103 clinically diagnosed burnout patients, who were enrolled in a five week rehabilitation program in specialized centers in Austria.

Methods

Patients completed a series of questionnaires measuring mood, burnout symptoms, sleep complaints and personality characteristics such as work-related coping. Additionally, all subjects were assessed with a cognitive test battery measuring specific components of executive functions and selective visual attention. Furthermore, to evaluate if gender differences generalize across potential burnout subgroups we performed a cluster analysis with the depression score and burnout-index as clustering variables.

Results

Our results revealed, that men and women did not differ in their depression scores, but women showed higher levels in emotional exhaustion and reduced vitality as well as reduced vigilance compared to men. Moreover, women showed higher levels of sleepiness and tiredness that also affected cognitive performance of more demanding executive control tasks. Finally, we found gender differences in personality characteristics and workrelated coping strategies. Men and women were equally distributed across all three burnout subgroups identified with cluster analysis, and gender differences were the same in all burnout subgroups.

Discussion

The observed gender differences in clinical burnout patients may have implications for the development of gender-specific rehabilitation programs.


Anti-PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin 9) monoclonal antibodies (Mab) are novel, potent lipid-lowering drugs. They demonstrated to improve the lipid profile in high cardiovascular risk patients. Anti-PCSK9 Mab inhibit the targeted low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-receptor degradation induced by PCSK9 protein and are able to reduce LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) levels on top of conventional lipid-lowering therapy. Though these drugs proved to be very safe in the short-term, little is known about the possible long-term effects, due to the short period of their marketing. The genetic low cholesterol syndromes (LCS) represent the natural models of the lipid-lowering anti-PCSK9 therapy, and a valuable opportunity to predict the long-term effects of these drugs. By looking at the clinical features of such models, we could be able to foresee possible drug-induced side effects. In the present review, the correspondences and discordances between the side effects of anti-PCSK9 therapy and the corresponding LCS models will be examined in the attempt to forecast possible long-term consequences of these novel lipid-lowering agents.


Our understanding remains limited as to how a TV program affects the viewers' reactions toward advertisements surrounding this program. This paper tries to shed light on this research topic, by proposing a global conceptualization of the media context effect on the performance of advertisements targeting young viewers. The paper equally stresses the theoretical as well as empirical contributions of this research.


Abstract Aims Human trafficking is a crime and a human rights violation that involves various and simultaneous traumatic events (sexual and physical violence, coercion). Yet, it is unknown how the patterning of violence and coercion affects the mental health of female and male trafficking survivors. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study using a sample of 1015 female and male survivors of trafficking who received post-trafficking assistance services in Cambodia, Thailand or Vietnam. We assessed symptoms of anxiety and depression with the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire. Violence was measured with questions from the World Health Organization International Study on Women's Health. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify distinct patterns of violence and coercion in females and males. Novel multi-step mixture modelling techniques were employed to assess the association of the emergent classes with anxiety, depression and PTSD in females and males. Results LCA identified two distinct classes of violence and coercion experiences in females (class I: severe sexual and physical violence and coercion (20%); class II: sexual violence and coercion (80%)) and males (class I: severe physical violence and coercion (41%); class II: personal coercion (59%)). Females in class I had a two-fold increase in the odds of anxiety (OR = 2.10; 95% CI: 1.57–2.81) and PTSD (OR = 2.07; 95% CI: 1.03–4.17) compared with females in class II, but differences in the prevalence of anxiety, depression and PTSD were not significant when comparing males in class I to class II. Conclusions Specific patterns of violence and coercion provide a more in-depth understanding of the role of gender in the experience of violence and coercion and its association with mental health in survivors of trafficking. This information could be useful to target comprehensive mental health services for female and male trafficking survivors.


Therapeutic footwear is provided to patients with the primary aims of reducing foot pain and improving foot health. Therefore, it is of concern that patients choose not to wear it. This choice has been attributed to its poor appearance. However, there may be other reasons for this choice and the reasons may be more complex than previously acknowledged. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the users' experiences of this footwear. In the context of this study the 'users' are women with rheumatoid arthritis.

This study was based on an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) that employed conversational style interviews to gather data. Ten women with RA and experience of wearing the footwear were recruited and following ethical approval the interviews were carried out, transcribed, organised and analysed.
Five organising themes emerged as findings. These were the participants:
• feelings about themselves,
• feelings about the footwear,
• unmet needs and expectations,
• behaviour with the footwear and
• feelings about the consultation with the practitioner.
The final, global theme was that the patient/practitioner consultation has a powerful influence on the women's feelings about themselves, the footwear, their expectations of it and their behaviour with it. This study has provided insight into their experiences of this footwear in that, unlike any other intervention, it replaces something that is normally worn and is part of an individual's perception of self and their perception of how others see them. The footwear impacts more on women's emotions than previously acknowledged and in addition, it has been found that the consultation influences their emotions and behaviour with the footwear. As well as improvements in footwear design and the service that delivers it, the training of the practitioners in a more patient focussed consultation style could improve the women's experience and engagement in the footwear as a health intervention, as well as something that is 'worn'.


Objective: To describe the pattern of ocular abnormalities among students attending schools for the hearing impaired in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted from February to March 2016 among hearing-impaired students who were older than 10 years. Students were selected from four schools using systematic random sampling. The students' sociodemographic characteristics, visual complaints, ocular, and family history were recorded using an interviewer-administered semistructured questionnaire. Ocular examination and refraction was conducted on each student. Data were analyzed using IBM-SPSS Statistics for Windows 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) with the test of association performed using the chi-square test and level of statistical significance set at P-value <0.05. Results: A total of 335 students participated in the study. Mean age was 17 ± 2.9 years (range 11–39 years). The prevalence of ocular abnormalities among the participants was 56.1%. These included allergic conjunctivitis 8 (2.4%), retinitis pigmentosa 3 (0.9%), phthisis bulbi 3 (0.9%), cataract 2 (0.6%), and Wardenburg syndrome 2 (0.6%). Seventy-five (22.4%) respondents were with coexisting ocular abnormalities. Conclusion: The prevalence of ocular abnormalities was found to be high among the hearing impaired, with refractive error being the most common. It is necessary for the eye care providers and other stakeholders to provide eye health education as well as affordable and accessible eye care services for hearing-impaired students so as to improve their overall quality of life.


John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost" (1667) is a literary landmark. His reworking of Biblical tales of the loss of Eden constitutes not only a gripping literary work, but a significant musing on fundamental human concerns ranging from freedom and fate to conscience and consciousness. Designed for students new to Milton's complex, lengthy work, this sourcebook: *outlines the often unfamiliar contexts of seventeenth-century England which are so crucial to "Paradise Lost" *completes the contextual study with a chronology and reprinted documents from the period *examines and reprints a broad range of responses to the poem, from early reactions to recent criticism *reprints the most frequently studied passages of the poem, along with extensive commentary and annotation of unfamiliar or significant terms used in Milton's work *provides cross-references between the textual, contextual and critical sections of the sourcebook, to show how all the materials can be called upon in an individual reader's encounter with the text *suggests further reading for those facing the huge array of critical work on the poem. With an emphasis on enjoying as well as understanding what can be a somewhat daunting work, this sourcebook will be a welcome resource for anyone new to "Paradise Lost".


Adsorption using biomaterials is a relatively new process for wastewater treatment which showed its evidence as an alternative to the conventional physicochemical methods, still expensive and difficult to implement. This paper falls within this framework and presents the results of the study of the adsorptive properties of two types of raw olive residues coming respectively from artisanal and modern oil mills, with respect to the cupric ions in solution in order to reveal the level of efficiency of this process as well as the optimal operating conditions to its realization for the two materials. To do this, this study is carried out along two axes. The first is devoted to the characterization of each bio adsorbent in order to determine its porosity, its chemical composition, its surface groups, etc. The second axis deals with the adsorption itself, its kinetic model, as well as optimal conditions with its realization. This study shows amongst other things that olive cakes are excellent adsorbents for copper with a maximum retained quantity of 370 mg/g for adsorption at room temperature and at medium pH (around 5), using a bio adsorbent of small particle size (less than 0.5 mm), preferentially obtained from a super-press artisanal oil mill.


This article sketches two contrasting ideal-typical narratives of sustainability, a disenchanting and an enchanting one, and argues that current thinking in sustainability is mainly situated in the narrative of disenchantment. This narrative is based on various obsolete philosophical assumptions, and hampers the transformation process, as it distances the population from being part of this. It then sketches the narrative of enchanting sustainability and shows how this has the capacity to engage, intrigue and motivate people to be involved. It is rooted in an arts-based approach of connecting aesthetics, associative thinking, reflective practice, emotion-based working, aspiration and intentionality. The article moves on beyond the two ideal-types, making a plea for a hybridization, and proposes transdisciplinary hermeneutics as a practice of realizing this hybridization. Finally it explains how arts-based education for sustainability is, in various ways, key in the transformation process towards enchanting and transdisciplinary sustainability.


Alterations of structure and density of cortical bone are associated with fragility fractures and can be assessed in vivo in humans at the tibia. Bone remodeling deficits in aging women have been recently linked to an increase in size of cortical pores. In this ex vivo study, we characterized the cortical microarchitecture of 19 tibiae from human donors (aged 69 to 94 years) to address, whether this can reflect impairments of the mechanical competence of the proximal femur, i.e., a major fracture site in osteoporosis. Scanning acoustic microscopy (12 μm pixel size) provided reference microstructural measurements at the left tibia, while the bone vBMD at this site was obtained using microcomputed tomography (microCT). The areal bone mineral density of both left and right femoral necks (aBMDneck) was measured by dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA), while homogenized nonlinear finite element models based on high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography provided hip stiffness and strength for one-legged standing and sideways falling loads. Hip strength was associated with aBMDneck (r = 0.74 to 0.78), with tibial cortical thickness (r = 0.81) and with measurements of the tibial cross-sectional geometry (r = 0.48 to 0.73) of the same leg. Tibial vBMD was associated with hip strength only for standing loads (r = 0.59 to 0.65). Cortical porosity (Ct.Po) of the tibia was not associated with any of the femoral parameters. However, the proportion of Ct.Po attributable to large pores (diameter > 100 μm) was associated with hip strength in both standing (r = -0.61) and falling (r = 0.48) conditions. When added to aBMDneck, the prevalence of large pores could explain up to 17% of the femur ultimate force. In conclusion, microstructural characteristics of the tibia reflect hip strength as well as femoral DXA, but it remains to be tested whether such properties can be measured in vivo.


In many areas of NLP reuse of utility tools such as parsers and POS taggers is now common, but this is still rare in NLG. The subfield of surface realisation has perhaps come closest, but at present we still lack a basis on which different surface realisers could be compared, chiefly because of the wide variety of different input representations used by different realisers. This paper outlines an idea for a shared task in surface realisation, where inputs are provided in a common-ground representation formalism which participants map to the types of input required by their system. These inputs are derived from existing annotated corpora developed for language analysis (parsing etc.). Outputs (realisations) are evaluated by automatic comparison against the human-authored text in the corpora as well as by human assessors.