EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * MONEY LAUNDERING HELPS ILLICIT ORGANIZATIONS by lowering their cost of capital, giving them a competitive advantage over legitimate businesses. * NEITHER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS NOR THE BUSINESS community alone has the resources to counter international money laundering by drug cartels and other organized criminal groups. * ACCOUNTANTS ACTING IN A NUMBER OF PROFESSIONAL capacities have contributed their expertise in implementing and monitoring controls that hinder money laundering and in identifying warning signs of possible illegal activity. * THE PROFESSION WILL BE CALLED UPON for continued help in creating controls that are effective in fighting the growth in money laundering. * MANY NON-AUDITING PRACTITIONERS MAY BE SURPRISED to find they have certain responsibilities in the war against money laundering. * FEDERAL LEGISLATION AND RELATED REGULATIONS applying to money laundering have been in effect since 1970 and they have increased in number and scope over the years. * THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SEEKS to improve controls in laxly regulated jurisdictions where money launderers base their operations. All practitioners--not just auditors--need to understand how regulators expect them to help. Until approximately 10 years ago, law enforcement officials in the United States and around the world waged the battle against money laundering without support from the business community or other branches of government. At the time, few of the world's governments had passed laws making money laundering itself a crime. Instead, they focused on activities--such as drug trafficking--that led up to it. Because this strategy didn't address all aspects of the growing problem, however, it was only partly effective. CPAs entered the picture in the early 1990s when, in response to government requests for their help, forensic accountants scoured financial institutions' records for signs of money laundering activity. The evidence they accumulated helped prosecute offenders and contributed to the fight against further offenses. Now in recognition of accountants' expertise in devising controls that make it more difficult to launder illicit proceeds, government and the business community are asking the profession to come up with recommendations on now to deny money launderers and their accomplices in organized crime opportunities to legitimize their illegal gains. Meanwhile, many nations have supported these undertakings by classifying money laundering as a severely punishable felony. Independent auditors and other accounting practitioners have a role to play in ongoing public and private-sector efforts to prevent money laundering. The following information on U.S. and international regulatory and legal initiatives to combat money laundering explores the details of that function. THE LAW OF THE LAND To fully understand their part in the fight against money laundering, CPAs should familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA, Titles I and II of Public Law 91-508) and related regulations (31 CFR Part 103), the federal "Money Laundering Laws" (18 U.S.C. 1956-1960) and the rules and regulations issued by the federal bank supervisory agencies, the SEC and securities industry self-regulatory organizations and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. These provisions govern most of the registration, recordkeeping, reporting and control obligations financial institutions and individuals have with respect to money laundering. They also establish civil and criminal penalties for failure to meet related obligations. The BSA (31 U.S.C. 5312(a)(2)) defines only certain kinds of businesses as "financial institutions" (See "Who Has to Care About the BSA and Why") and requires them to report to the Treasury signs of potential money laundering or any other suspicious activity. …


This research is an exploration of nurse education leadership, as identified and experienced by nurse teachers working in a Higher Education (HE) environment. In total 18 nurse teachers were interviewed who formed a whole population sample. The author is identified as a coworker and part of the community being researched. Semi-structured interviews and field notes were used to triangulate the data and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. From the findings, the interviewees can be seen to have a strong professional focus and look to their own health and nursing structures to provide leadership. The acceptance of the authority of these institutions and people can be broadly located in a bureaucratic model. Their expectations of people they identified as leaders conforms to a transformational model of leadership, as they identified that leaders were people who had vision, values and influence and of particular importance was the identification of how these individuals made them feel valued. They identified themselves as problematic within the HE environment in which they work and identify being excluded from the collegiate structures and working practices of the university. The findings illuminate problems in the identification and role of nurse education leadership and their position within the university, which this author suggests are areas that need further exploration and have policy implications.


The objective of the
present study was to identify dietary
parameters for predicting body weight change (ΔBW) in Mexican-born women
(Mexicans) following immigration to Quebec City, Canada. Methods: Changes
in fruit (ΔF), vegetable (ΔV), fruit and vegetable (ΔFV), and fat (ΔFat) intake
were assessed according to post-immigration periods (1-5 years, 6-10
years, 11-20 years) using a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ).
Anthropometric measures were also conducted in 87 Mexicans (study group) and
88 native-born Quebecers (comparison group) aged 18-65 years. Associations
were calculated using full and partial robust regression models adjusting
for potential confounders (origin, education, income, age, length of
residence in Quebec City). Results: There was no difference in ΔBW between the
groups. Body weight (BW) increased significantly in both Mexican (5.5 ± 0.9
kg, P P β = 0.03, P = 0.003), but not
correlated with origin, ΔF, or ΔV. ΔBW was negatively associated with
education (β = –4.33, P = 0.007) and positively associated
with length of residence (β = 0.3, P = 0.003). Partial models indicated ΔF
(β = –1.35, P β = –1.04, P = 0.0001), and ΔFV (β = –2.27, P β = 0.16, P = 0.04) was positively associated with ΔFat. Conclusions: Change in body weight
could be predicted by
length of residence, education, and change in fat intake in Mexican immigrant
women and native-born Quebecers whereas changes in fruit and
vegetable intakes could be predicted by Mexican or Quebec origin.


Abstract Nuclear waste drums can contain a collection of radioactive components of uncertain activity and randomly dispersed in position. This implies that the dose-rate at the surface of different drums in a large assembly of similar drums can have significant variations according to the physical makeup and configuration of the waste components. The present paper addresses this problem by treating the drum, and its waste, as a stochastic medium. It is assumed that the sources in the drum contribute a dose-rate to some external point. The strengths and positions are chosen by random numbers, the dose-rate is calculated and, from several thousand realizations, a probability distribution for the dose-rate is obtained. It is shown that a very close approximation to the dose-rate probability function is the log-normal distribution. This allows some useful statistical indicators, which are of environmental importance, to be calculated with little effort. As an example of a practical situation met in the storage of radioactive waste containers, we study the problem of "hotspots." These arise in drums in which most of the activity is concentrated on one radioactive component and hence can lead to the possibility of large surface dose-rates. It is shown how the dose-rate, the variance, and some other statistical indicators depend on the relative activities on the sources. The results highlight the importance of such hotspots and the need to quantify their effect.


The Arctic is undergoing rapid climatic and environmental change, most notably in the spatial extent and thickness of the sea ice. Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic are directly affected by these changes, with dramatic change in sea ice conditions documented in recent years. We use a case study from the Inuit community of Igloolik to examine the processes and conditions shaping human vulnerability to sea ice change. In 2006, the ocean froze 3 to 4 wk later than normal, with little remnant ice during the summer. Igloolik residents described this state of sea ice as anom- alous, and Inuit observations were consistent with instrumental sea-ice data. We examined how com- munity members experienced and responded to the anomalous ice conditions of 2006, using our analysis of this perceptual/behavioral data as a lens for exploring vulnerability and its determinants. Inuit observations shed light on the implications of such ice conditions for human use of this arctic environment, including reduced ability to procure traditional food. Effects on the community were exacerbated by other climate-related conditions and non-climatic stresses, including increasing fuel prices and longer-term socio-cultural trends. The case study also indicates significant adaptive capacity: anomalous ice years are increasingly becoming the norm and there is evidence that social learning and responsive local institutions are reducing the physical risks of using the ice in a chang- ing climate. Climatic extremes documented in 2006 are projected to be the new mid-century norm as a result of anthropogenic climate change. The case study therefore offers a baseline for examining potential future vulnerabilities.


Abstract The detection of a neutron star merger by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and Advanced Virgo gravitational wave detectors, and the subsequent detection of an electromagnetic counterpart have opened a new era of transient astronomy. With upgrades to the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory and Advanced Virgo detectors and new detectors coming online in Japan and India, neutron star mergers will be detected at a higher rate in the future, starting with the O3 observing run which will begin in early 2019. The detection of electromagnetic emission from these mergers provides vital information about merger parameters and allows independent measurement of the Hubble constant. The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder is expected to become fully operational in early 2019, and its 30 deg2 field of view will enable us to rapidly survey large areas of sky. In this work we explore prospects for detecting both prompt and long-term radio emission from neutron star mergers with Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder and determine an observing strategy that optimises the use of telescope time. We investigate different strategies to tile the sky with telescope pointings in order to detect radio counterparts with limited observing time, using 475 simulated gravitational wave events. Our results show a significant improvement in observing efficiency when compared with a naïve strategy of covering the entire localisation above some confidence threshold, even when achieving the same total probability covered.


Mudstone strata have a vast variety of physical, biogenic, and chemical attributes at the lamina to bed scale (approximately millimeters to decimeters thick). Our observations of more than 7 km of Paleozoic to Cenozoic mudstones revealed ordered patterns in this variety, i.e., recurrent associations of lithofacies, bedding style, sedimentary structures, and stratal architecture at bedset to parasequence scales (approximately decimeters to meters thick). We quantified characteristics of each association and their stacking patterns in vertical succession and linked them to sets of depositional processes. Most shelf mudstone strata appear to have accumulated in one of three facies association successions (FASs) that can be related to depositional regimes through characteristic modes of sediment transport and accumulation, as well as variations in benthic-energy and oxygen levels. We interpret these three FASs as records of mud accumulation on different portions of continental shelves that were dominated by storm waves, river floods, or tidal currents. Each FAS records a distinct parasequence type. This approach can help fully integrate insights from oceanographic studies into more robust interpretations of the rock record and rock-property maps.


The paper addresses the problem of forecasting consumer expenditure from social media data. Previous research of the topic exploited the intuition that search engine traffic reflects purchase intentions and constructed predictive models of consumer behaviour from search query volumes. In contrast, we derive predictors from explicit expressions of purchase intentions found in social media posts. Two types of predictors created from these expressions are explored: those based on word embeddings and those based on topical word clusters. We introduce a new clustering method, which takes into account temporal co-occurrence of words, in addition to their semantic similarity, in order to create predictors relevant to the forecasting problem. The predictors are evaluated against baselines that use only macroeconomic variables, and against models trained on search traffic data. Conducting experiments with three different regression methods on Facebook and Twitter data, we find that both word embeddings and word clusters help to reduce forecasting errors in comparison to purely macroeconomic models. In most experimental settings, the error reduction is statistically significant, and is comparable to error reduction achieved with search traffic variables.


Mineral oil (MO), a dielectric insulating fluid, is commonly used as coolant and lubricant in various applications, such as in high voltage power transmission systems and machinery. The mode of heat transfer in most of these systems is natural convection. Prolonged operation at higher temperatures leads to the degradation of the dielectric coolant, which leads to diverse problems, such as shortage or breakdown of these devices and apparatuses. Increasing the heat transfer capability of the insulating fluid will minimize the energy consumption of the system, prolonging its useful life. It is proposed to improve the heat transfer performance of insulating fluid by the addition of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), which is synthesized and finally obtained in 2D-nanosheets through wet exfoliation technique, without affecting its electrical insulating property. h-BN was reported to have superb effect on thermal conductivity of MO (∼ 80% increase at 0.10wt.%) on addition at very low filler fraction [1], thermal stability of up to 800°C [2], and good electrical insulating properties due to its nature (electron band gap of approx. 4.5eV). The present work reports the application of nano-oil (MO + h-BN 2D-nanosheets) for enhanced heat dissipation. A rectangular thermosyphon loop was modeled as the thermal system in transformer. The aspect ratio of the loop and the positions of the heater and cooler were chosen according to the stability criterion so that the flow remains stable and unidirectional throughout the experiment. The effect on heat removal by varying the concentration of h-BN 2D-nanosheets (h-BNNS) in MO was measured and discussed.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Purpose of reviewSince the implementation of the model for end-stage liver disease scoring system for organ allocation in orthotopic liver transplantation in 2002, the number of combined liver and kidney transplantations (CLKTs) that have been performed in the USA has increased significantly. To standardize the evaluation and selection of CLKT candidates, consensus conferences were held in March 2006 and September 2007. In this article, we review the studies on CLKT, especially concentrating on studies published in 2008 and 2009, to assess the impact of the model for end-stage liver disease system and two consensus conferences. Recent findingsThe hepatorenal syndrome, usually a reversible cause of renal failure, has to be differentiated from other causes of chronic kidney disease that are potentially nonreversible and mandate CLKT. Despite published guidelines, it still remains difficult to clearly delineate appropriate candidates for CLKT, especially when the cause of renal disease remains controversial. Performing renal biopsies might help in decision-making. Chronic kidney disease patients with glomerular filtration rate less than 30 ml/min, hepatorenal syndrome patients with requirement of renal replacement therapy more than 8–12 weeks, and patients with renal biopsy findings of more than 30% fibrosis and glomerulosclerosis would get benefit receiving CLKT. SummaryIn this era of organ shortage, with tens of thousands of patients listed for kidney transplantation, it is paramount that the organs should be scrupulously allocated to those in real need. However, patients with advanced renal disease should not receive orthotopic liver transplantation alone, which significantly decreases their survival.


We present a client/server database system with the potential to make all DNA sequences searchable. The database estimated to be approximately 200 Gbps, contains various types of sequences, including WGS and clone reads, draft assemblies, finished sequences, refSeq etc. The search engine will be SSAHA2, a package combined SSAHA (sequence search and alignment by hashing algorithm) with cross/spl I.bar/match. Matching seeds of a few kmer words are detected by the SSAHA algorithm. Both query and subject sequences are cut off according to the locations of the matching seeds and then passed to cross/spl I.bar/match for full alignment. We aim to develop a platform-independent client/server system which can provide a near real-time (under 10 seconds) search service for a clustered database.


In this paper we write our way into the space generated by the ending/not ending of the Bristol Collaborative Writing Group that we had all engaged with for over seven years. This writing was to have taken the form of a post script or 'after writes,' since we ended, or 'petered out,' some months before. Rather than ending responsibly, with attention to matters of 'closure,' talk of transition and carefully held space for reflective thinking (Birnbaum & Cichetti, 2008), we unravelled somewhat unceremoniously on the way back from lunch at the Pizza Express, perched outside the gents in the downstairs foyer at the university, unable to find an empty room to host our farewells. Yet in a manner completely congruent with our starting out and working together, the task we had set ourselves to end did not materialise as it 'should.' This special issue has afforded us the opportunity to attend differently to our endings/beginnings and also to each other "as if for the first time" (Eliot, 1944). And in doing so, we have learnt more about a richness of being together, an invisible dynamic, that has lurked secretly throughout our meanderings, revealing itself only when we abandoned intentfulness and allowed ourselves the indulgence of being, rather than doing.


Advances in information and communication technologies enable new paradigms for connectivity involving vehicles, infrastructure, and the broader road transportation system environment. Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications under the aegis of the connected vehicle are being leveraged for novel applications related to traffic safety, management, and control, which lead to a V2V-based traffic system. Within the framework of a V2V-based traffic system, this study proposes an integrated modeling framework to model the dynamics of a V2V-based traffic system that entails spatiotemporal interdependencies among the traffic flow dynamics, V2V communication constraints, the dynamics of information flow propagation, and V2V-based application. The proposed framework systematically exploits their spatiotemporal interdependencies by theoretical and computational approaches.First, a graph-based multi-layer framework is proposed to model the V2V-based advanced traveler information system (ATIS) as a complex system which is comprised of coupled network layers. This framework addresses the dynamics of each physical vehicular traffic flow, inter-vehicle communication, and information flow propagation components within a layer, while capturing their interactions among layers. This enables the capabilities to transparently understand the spatiotemporal evolution of information flow propagation through a graph structure. A novel contribution is the systematic modeling of an evolving information flow network that is characterized as the manifestation of spatiotemporal events in the other two networks to enhance the understanding of the information flow evolution by capturing the dynamics of the interactions involving the traffic flow and the inter-vehicle communication layers. The graph-based approach enables the computationally efficient tracking of information propagation using a simple graph-based search algorithm and the computationally efficient storage of information through a single graph database.Second, this dissertation proposes analytical approaches that enable theoretical investigation into the qualitative properties of information flow propagation speed. The proposed analytical models, motivated from spatiotemporal epidemiology, introduce the concept of an information flow propagation wave (IFPW) to facilitate the analysis of the information propagation characteristics and impacts of traffic dynamics at a macroscopic level. The first model consists of a system of difference equations in the discrete-space and discrete-time domains where an information dissemination is described in the upper layer and a vehicular traffic flow is modeled in the lower layer. This study further proposes a continuous-space and continuous-time analytical model that can provide a closed-form solution for the IFPW speed to establish an analytical relationship between the IFPW speed and the underlying traffic flow dynamics. It can corporate the effects of congested traffic, such as the backward traffic propagation wave, on information flow propagation. Thereby, it illustrates the linkage between information flow propagation and the underlying traffic dynamics. Further, it captures V2V communication constraints in a realistic manner using a probabilistic communication kernel (which captures the probability).Third, within the integrated modeling framework, this dissertation captures the impact of information flow propagation on traffic safety and control applications. The proposed multi-anticipative forward collision warning system predicts the driver's maneuver intention using a coupled hidden Markov model, which is one of statistical machine learning techniques. It significantly reduces the false alarm rates by addressing the uncertainty associate improves the performance of the future motion prediction, while currently available sensor-based kinematic models for addressing the uncertainty associated with the future motion prediction. A network-level simulation framework is developed to investigate a V2V-based ATIS in a large-scale network by capturing its inter-dependencies and feedback loop. This modeling framework provides the understanding of the relationship between the travelers' routing decisions and information flow propagation.This thesis provides a holistic understanding of information flow propagation characteristics in space and time by characterizing interactions among information flow propagation, and underlying traffic flow, and V2V communications characteristics. The proposed models and the closed-form solution of IFPW speed can help in designing effective V2V-based traffic systems, without relying on computationally expensive numerical methods. An innovative aspect of this approach represents a building block to develop both descriptive capabilities and prescriptive strategies related to propagating the flow of useful information efficiently and synergistically generating routing mechanisms that enhance the traffic network performance. Given the lack of appropriate methodologies to characterize the information flow propagation, this thesis expects to make a novel and significant contribution to understanding the characteristics of V2V-based traffic systems and their analysis.


With the opening of Central Eastern Europe German firms have gained access to low labor costs in close geographical proximity. Intense debate about the impact this has had on the "German model" of capitalism has ensued. This paper argues that, in fact, production shifts are taking place in which cost-cutting motives are an important guideline. German firms, however, hesitate to aggressively utilize this new option in their internal domestic labor policy. Rather, firms tend to avoid confrontations with their employees on "job exports". The necessity of collaboration on both sides of the border, the relative strength of workers in the domestic high-quality production system, and the constraints of industrial relations provide explanations for the moderate behavior. So far, the outcome of the bargained reorganization is that firms gain more labor flexibility, performance-related differentiation, and labor-cost rationalization without challenging the institutionalized long-term employment commitments for their core workforce.


This document discusses and proposes a new framework to improve the quality of programs supporting such reforms in Latin America. Firstly, it responds to the risk that the reforms in the region might be reversed, which might originate in the lack of public support for privatization and the succession of crises and events in the recent past (problems of supply in Chile and Brazil; price peaks in the spot market in El Salvador; the commercial unsustainability of the pool in Colombia; the ENRON/Andersen scandal, and the Argentine crisis among others), that have provided the enemies of reform with new political space. Secondly, it responds to evidence that the consolidation of sector reforms is not automatic, involving as it does the simultaneous creation of traditions of respect for the rights of investors and consumers. Finally, this paper partly builds upon the experience gathered from a project supporting the sustainability of electricity reform in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras.


This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of absenteeism. The authors extend the typical labor-leisure model used to analyze the decision to skip work to include firm-level policy variables relevant to the absenteeism decision and uncertainty about the cost of absenteeism. Estimates based on data from Statistics Canada's Workplace Employee Survey (1999–2002), with controls for observed and unobserved demographic, job, and firm characteristics (including workplace practices), indicate that work arrangements were important determinants of absence. For example, the authors find strong evidence that standard weekday work hours, work-at-home options, and reduced workweeks were associated with reduced absence, whereas shift work and compressed work weeks were associated with increased absence.


Improving staff engagement has become a priority for NHS leaders, although efforts in this area vary between organisations. University Hospital Bristol NHS Foundation Trust (UH Bristol) is a tertiary teaching hospital where concerns about staff satisfaction and communication were reflected in the 2014 staff survey. To improve staff engagement, a real-time feedback mechanism to capture staff experience and to facilitate feedback from local leaders, was developed and piloted using the Model for Improvement. Initially piloted in two areas in January 2015, the Staff Participation Engagement and Communication application (SPEaC-app) was gradually rolled out to 23 areas within the trust by November 2016. The 2015 staff survey revealed significant improvements in staff motivation, satisfaction with level of responsibility and involvement, and perceived support from managers. These improvements cannot be attributed to this new mechanism in their entirety, but local surveys indicated satisfaction with SPEaC-app, the majority reporting that giving feedback about their shift was valuable while fewer staff had noticed changes in their work area as a result of the comments made via SPEaC-app. Between March 2015 and November 2016, 9259 entries were recorded, with an average of 15 entries per day across all areas. Of the entries, 45.7% were positive and nearly 40% were negative, and 'team working' was the most frequent theme. The project has identified the key factors associated with usability of the SPEaC-app, including, access, location, reliability and perceived privacy of the SPEaC-app. The SPEaC-app is valued and used most by staff in areas where feedback from local leaders is regular, rapid and comprehensive, and where staff comments are acted upon, leading to tangible change. This suggests that strong, consistent local management is required in order to embed it in new areas. SPEaC-app has the potential to support local engagement between managers and their service delivery teams, stimulate tangible improvements in service delivery and support the process of change. Longer term data are needed to determine whether SPEaC-app can influence other factors including staff turnover, recruitment and retention.


Numerous studies have measured the economic impact of increased consumption of locally grown foods. As many advocates have set goals for increasing consumption of locally grown foods to a specific percentage, the missing piece of information is, what is the current percentage of locally grown food being consumed in a given city, state or region. To date, no credible set of methods has been used to measure the percentage of food consumption that is locally grown. In this paper, we apply previously developed methods to measure how much food is currently eaten and would be eaten if USDA Dietary Guidelines were followed. We also propose a set of methods to measure how much of current food consumption currently comes from Vermont. The methods include a set of interviews and surveys of major food buyers and distributors, triangulated with USDA data to scale up results to statewide levels. The methods will be vetted by a team of national experts and be tested in a Vermont pilot study, refined, and finally made available to scholars nationwide for replication. Results will inform changes to current systems which will facilitate future efforts to track local food consumption. • A local seasonal diet based on USDA Dietary Guidelines would create more revenue than a local seasonal diet based on current consumption patterns.


This article describes a low vision rehabilitation program operating within a hospital-based outpatient rehabilitation clinic. The program uses a team approach combining ophthalmology and occupational therapy services. Patients are referred to the program by their primary care physician for a low vision evaluation completed jointly by the ophthalmologist and occupational therapist. The ophthalmology portion of the evaluation includes assessment of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity function, and macular perimetry with a scanning laser ophthalmoscope. The occupational therapy evaluation focuses on assessing the functional limitations experienced by the patient due to the vision loss and determining how the patient is best able to use remaining vision to complete daily activities. Occupational therapy treatment emphasizes training the patient to use remaining vision as efficiently and effectively as possible to complete daily activities and includes training in use of optical devices. Because of the specialized nature of the service provided, additional postgraduate preparation is needed to enable occupational therapists to provide effective low vision rehabilitation.


This thesis focuses on the treaty rights to water quality of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole tribes (collectively referred to as the "Five Civilized Tribes"). Although each tribe is an independent, sovereign nation, the tribes share a collective history as the largest and most dominant tribes in what is now the southeastern United States and the eventual forced removal from their respective ancestral homelands to lands in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in the 1830s. The legal mechanism for accomplishing this forced relocation was "removal treaties" between the United States and each of the five tribal governments, which the United States pursued under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Although these treaties had tragic consequences, the United States made promises and vested legal rights (in the new homelands) in exchange for these tribes vacating their ancestral homelands. This thesis will examine whether the property rights in their new tribal homelands in Indian Territory include enforceable rights to water quality.


The focus of this article is on European perceptions and attitudes towards the New Silk Roads or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The New Silk Roads is neither a formal policy nor a clearly defined geographical or geopolitical strategy, rather it is an evolving narrative. These perceptions have been partly shaped by the importance of the EU–China bilateral relation as well as European plans towards Asian connectivity. Europe's developing strategic approach towards Eurasia has also affected these views as well as national prerogatives. Since 2017, a more coordinated European approach has evolved. The EU greatly welcomes Chinese initiatives of increasing investments in cross-border infrastructure with the view that it should adhere to market rules, international financial and environmental norms. Through BRI, China has focused more on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Mediterranean region. Some of the projects have led to concerns over the possibility of diluting European political unity or investments rules. There is, however, much room for greater political coordination among European countries, notably by being more proactive in promoting, for example, the infrastructure projects which the EU has already financed in CEE and by generally seeking to promote the EU–Asia connectivity plans.


The Several isotherms and kinetics models for zinc biosorption by the padinaboergeseni as brown algae were investigated. The effects of operating parameters such as initial pH, temperature, ionic strength, initial zinc concentration, biomass concentration and contact time on the Zn biosorption were analysed. Design of the experiments was done in the response surface methodology by using Box–Behnken model in the Minitab software for cooperating parameters such as initial pH, temperature, ionic strength and contact time. A mathematical function for zinc uptake by padina boergeseni was developed.


Sustainable development has taken centre stage in our global conscience. Until recently, wehave been focused on economic prosperity, driven by the mechanistic worldviewof the scientific method. Once the cracks appeared, as a society, we have beenlooking for a deeper meaning and approach to life. Through a literature review,the paper proposes that current 'experts', using the engineering profession asan example, are not able to address the wicked problems confronting us, sincethey prevail within the reductionist mode of knowledge production. We needdesign thinkers - who are natural systemic practitioners -to solve systemicproblems, which is characterised by sustainable development. A futuresecond paper will draw on the behaviour of non-linear, complex adaptive systemsas self-organising emergence at the edge of chaos and re-interpret the designthinking process in a way which encompasses the intuitive, non-linear andqualitative way in which sustainable development problems need to be addressed.


We present an investigation into parsing the Penn Chinese Treebank using a Data-Oriented Parsing (DOP) approach. DOP
comprises an experience-based approach to natural language parsing. Most published research in the DOP framework uses PStrees as its representation schema. Drawbacks of the DOP approach centre around issues of efficiency. We incorporate recent advances in DOP parsing techniques into a novel DOP parser which generates a compact representation of all subtrees which can be derived from any full parse tree.
We compare our work to previous work on parsing the Penn Chinese Treebank, and provide both a quantitative and qualitative evaluation. While our results in terms of Precision and Recall are slightly below those published in related research, our approach requires no manual encoding of head rules, nor is a development phase per se necessary.
We also note that certain constructions which were problematic in this previous work can be handled correctly by our DOP parser. Finally, we observe that the 'DOP Hypothesis' is confirmed for parsing the Penn Chinese Treebank.


Wildlife conservation plans generally require reliable data about population abundance and density. Aerial surveys often can provide these data; however, associated costs necessitate designing and conducting surveys efficiently. We developed methods to simulate population distributions of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) wintering in western Mississippi, USA, by combining bird observations from three previous strip-transect surveys and habitat data from three sets of satellite images representing conditions when surveys were conducted. For each simulated population distribution, we compared 12 primary survey designs and two secondary design options by using coefficients of variation (CV) of population indices as the primary criterion for assessing survey performance. In all, 3 of the 12 primary designs provided the best precision (CV ≤ 11.7%) and performed equally well (diff ≤ 0.6%). Features of the designs that provided the largest gains in precision were optimal allocation of sample effort among strata and configuring the study area into five rather than four strata, to more precisely estimate mallard indices in areas of consistently high density. Of the two secondary design options, we found including a second observer to double the size of strip transects increased precision or decreased costs, whereas ratio estimation using auxiliary habitat data from satellite images did not increase precision appreciably. We recommend future surveys of mallard populations in our study area use the strata we developed, optimally allocate samples among strata, employ PPS or EPS sampling, and include two observers when qualified staff are available. More generally, the methods we developed to simulate population distributions from prior survey data provide a cost-effective method to assess performance of alternative wildlife surveys critical to informing management decisions, and could be extended to account for effects of detectability on estimates of true abundance.


: Purpose: The study examines the rehabilitation and reconstruction of a community and community-based settlement post-earthquake in Banguntapan District, Bantul Regency, Special Region of Yogyakarta. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research uses qualitative analysis. Procedures used in data collection included observation, interviews and existing documentation. To ensure the validity of data, the author used triangulation. The analysis method used is qualitative-interactive analysis, which consists of three activities that run simultaneously, namely; data reduction, data presentation, and conclusions. Findings: The results show that the basic approach adopted by Re-Kompak JRF is the participation of the community through the combination of development based on community groups and value-based development. Practical implications: Development based on community groups means to position the people in the community as the main actors who are believed to be able to take important decisions about their lives and be able to organize their settlement recovery with appropriate assistance. Originality/Value: Development is based on value, meaning that settlement development must be a means of developing values toward social capital development.


A method to determine the capacity of beef to oxidize was developed by spectrophotometrically measuring the formation of conjugated dienes after inducing oxidation. The assay was tested by comparing the oxidation capacity and oxidation products (2-thiobabutaric acid reactive substances) of beef stored in a cooler with various packaging types. There was an inverse relationship between oxidation capacity and oxidation products. As oxidation increases, the oxidation capacity of samples declines. This method of measuring oxidation capacity provides useful information without having to wait for oxidation to occur. measurement of in by in induction of lipid with


Shoot em' up game is one of the sub-genre of action game. This action game is attractive because the game play usually use the interesting user interface and easily affect human emotion. With the aim to eliminate all the enemy, this kind of game will be boredom the player if the enemy behavior are monotones. This game needs a controller to add dynamic system into the enemy such as the artificial intelligence. Therefore, this paper proposes Fuzzy Takagi Sugeno method that will take several input and give the response as the output. So, the game will manipulate the enemy behavior that make the game more challenging and interesting to be played.


Chronic autoimmune diseases are driven by cells that respond to tissue components of the body. Inflammation in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes or multiple sclerosis, can be suppressed by drug therapy. However, the broad range of immunosuppressive action of these drugs often does not restrict to the autoimmune response, but increases the risk of serious infection. Therefore, therapies that restrict to suppression of only the auto-immune response need to be developed. CD4+ T cells that recognize cartilage are responsible for induction of arthritis because they direct their actions to cartilage in the joints. Such T cells are present in the joints of arthritis patients. Therefore, we hypothesized that T cells specific for the cartilage-derived antigen proteoglycan can be used to target arthritis with suppressive agents after introduction of genes that express suppressive agents in these T cells. For our studies we used cartilage proteoglycan-induced arthritis, which is a chronic arthritis in mice. This arthritis represents many features of rheumatoid arthritis, and is mediated by Th1 cells, B cells and antibodies. To enable studies on cartilage-specific T cells, we generated a transgenic mouse expressing a proteoglycan-specific T cell receptor on its T cells. Due to the high number of cartilage-specific T cells, transgenic mice were highly susceptible for arthritis. Moreover, the T cell response of transgenic mice with arthritis shifted to an excessive Th1-phenotype. Therefore, these transgenic mice were useful donors for arthritogenic CD4+ T cells. To explore gene therapy of inflammation with T cells, we provided proteoglycan-specific T cells with different genes encoding immunosuppressive proteins. The genes were isolated from mouse cells and inserted into T cells by retroviruses. Retroviral transduction of T cells resulted in up to 80% of cells expressing the transgenes (IL-4, IL-10, TNF-alpha-Receptor-Ig, IL-1 receptor antagonist). T cells expressing the inserted genes were sorted by flow cytometry and transferred to mice with arthritis. Especially T cells that were manipulated to express IL-10 were able to induce significant suppression of joint inflammation. Moreover, only the IL-10-producing T cells that expressed the cartilage-specific T cell receptor suppressed arthritis, indicating specificity of therapy. In addition, manipulated T cells suppressed production of pro-inflammatory proteins like TNF-alpha, IL-17, IL-2 and PG-specific IgG2a antibodies. Strikingly, we discovered that propagation of IL-10 production in cells of the treated recipient was the mechanism that was used by the transferred IL-10-producing T cells to suppress arthritis. Among the recipient's cells, T cells and B cells were found to express increased levels of IL-10. Because interleukin-10 is an immunomodulatory cytokine expressed by cells in order to naturally prevent exacerbation of inflammation in healthy individuals, these results indicate that T cells producing IL-10 restore natural immunosuppressive immune responses in arthritis. In conclusion, manipulation of pro-inflammatory T cells that recognize tissue components is a powerful approach to specifically target inflammation in chronic autoimmune diseases. In addition, moving focus from suppression of pro-inflammatory mediators to propagation of immunosuppressive functions of cells may provide a more comprehensive insight in mechanisms that support specific regulatory capacities of the immune system.


An in-depth evaluation of the Quanterix© Simoa™ platform was undertaken by scientists from the AAPS Emerging Technologies Focus Group to determine the overall performance of the technology as well as provide guidance to future users. In order to test the platform in a non-GLP bioanalytical setting, a cross-site evaluation of the Quanterix IL-6 biomarker kit was performed. Parameters tested during this evaluation included sensitivity, accuracy and precision, and parallelism in human serum from normal individuals. The results demonstrated improved sensitivity compared to the claimed sensitivity of other commercially available IL-6 kits and showed excellent site-to-site reproducibility. Observed issues included difficulties with system reliability and a lack of parallelism and specificity in a subset of samples. Overall, these results demonstrate that while there are challenges to the Simoa platform this technology offers automation capabilities and excellent sensitivity that enhance bioanalysis especially of low-abundance analytes.


One of the most interesting art movements of modern times began when art teacher Geoffrey Bardon, working in the Papunya settlement 250 miles from Alice Springs in the Western desert of Australia, asked a group of children to paint their school house with the curious design motifs he had noticed. The youngsters asked their elders to do it. From those first five rudimentary school murals, Bardon supplied the Aboriginals with paints, brushes and canvases, spawning the creation of art that has attracted buyers around the world. The idea spread like wild yams in the bush. At first, only men were the painters of the sacred images being transferred from body and rock to two-dimensional surfaces. Today, men and women Aboriginal artists both contribute to this outpouring. This book covers the developments in each settlement as the world's oldest, continuous art evolved into an art that is comfortable on gallery walls everywhere because of its patterns and bold colors. The visuals, arcs, concentric circles, parallel lines point to eternal ideas in the Aboriginal culture, ideograms that bear the weight of 50,000 years and provide us with a new kind of seeing, writes Judith Ryan. (National Gallery of Victoria)


After 500 years Henry VIII still retains a public fascination unmatched by any monarch before or since. Whilst his popular image is firmly associated with his appetites - sexual and gastronomic - scholars have long recognized that his reign also ushered in profound changes to English society and culture, the legacy of which endure to this day. To help take stock of such a multifaceted and contested history, this volume presents a collection of 17 essays that showcase the very latest thinking and research on Henry and his court. Divided into seven parts, the book highlights how the political, religious and cultural aspects of Henry's reign came together to create a one of the most significant and transformative periods of English history. The volume is genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing on literature, art history, architecture and drama to enrich our knowledge. The first part is a powerful and personal account by Professor George W. Bernard of his experience of writing about Henry and his reign. The next parts - Material Culture and Images - reflect a historical concern with non-documentary evidence, exploring how objects, collections, paintings and buildings can provide unrivalled insight into the world of the Tudor court. The parts on Court Culture and Performance explore the literary and theatrical world and the performative aspects of court life, looking at how the Tudor court attempted to present itself to the world, as well as how it was represented by others. The part on Reactions focuses upon the political and religious currents stirred up by Henry's policies, and how they in turn came to influence his actions. Through this wide-ranging, yet thematically coherent approach, a fascinating window is opened into the world of Henry VIII and his court. In particular, building on research undertaken over the last ten years, a number of contributors focus on topics that have been neglected by traditional historical writing, for example gender, graffiti and clothing. With contributions from many of the leading scholars of Tudor England, the collection offers not only a snapshot of the latest historical thinking, but also provides a starting point for future research into the world of this colourful, but often misrepresented monarch.


OBJECTIVES
To examine the criterion validity of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) using clinical data from the Veterans Health Administration (VA) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP).

DATA SOURCES
Fifty five thousand seven hundred and fifty two matched hospitalizations from 2001 VA inpatient surgical discharge data and NSQIP chart-abstracted data.

STUDY DESIGN
We examined the sensitivities, specificities, positive predictive values (PPVs), and positive likelihood ratios of five surgical PSIs that corresponded to NSQIP adverse events. We created and tested alternative definitions of each PSI.

DATA COLLECTION
FY01 inpatient discharge data were merged with 2001 NSQIP data abstracted from medical records for major noncardiac surgeries.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Sensitivities were 19-56 percent for original PSI definitions; and 37-63 percent using alternative PSI definitions. PPVs were 22-74 percent and did not improve with modifications. Positive likelihood ratios were 65-524 using original definitions, and 64-744 using alternative definitions. "Postoperative respiratory failure" and "postoperative wound dehiscence" exhibited significant increases in sensitivity after modifications.

CONCLUSIONS
PSI sensitivities and PPVs were moderate. For three of the five PSIs, AHRQ has incorporated our alternative, higher sensitivity definitions into current PSI algorithms. Further validation should be considered before most of the PSIs evaluated herein are used to publicly compare or reward hospital performance.


Granite soil is widely distributed in Peninsular Malaysia. Steep terrain, heavy
seasonal rainfall and deep tropical weathering are the main causes of numerous slope failures in this formation. Information on the shear strength of soil and
its behaviour is essential for safe and economic design geotechnical structures. In order to study the fundamental behaviour of this residual soil, direct shear
tests were conducted on remoulded and undisturbed specimens. The soil was subjected to soaked and unsoaked conditions to study the effects of wetting. In
addition, triaxial CD and C tests were also conducted. The behaviour in direct and triaxial shear did not indicate peak strength in the stress-strain plots in all
specimens. In direct shear tests, significant volume change behaviour was observed between unsoaked and soaked specimens. The shear strengths of
soaked specimens were significantly lower than that of unsoaked specimens. Thus the effects of wetting is very obvious. In triaxial tests, the strength
parameters (c', tP') for CD and CD tests were not found similar. All important observations are highligted in the paper.


Paul Lomami Tchibamba (1914–85) is often described as the Congo's first novelist. Previous research in French and English has depicted Tchibamba's work as a straightforward example of 'writing back' to the colonial canon. However, this article advances scholarship on Tchibamba's work by demonstrating that his later writing responds not only to Henry Morton Stanley's account of the imperial subjugation of the Congo, but to Joseph Conrad's questioning of colonialist narratives of 'progress'. Drawing on recent theoretical work that examines intertextuality in postcolonial fiction, this article demonstrates that while Tchibamba is highly critical of Stanley, he enters into dialogue with Conrad's exposure of colonial brutality. Bringing together comparative research insights from Congolese and European literatures, this article also employs literary translation. This is the first time that excerpts from two of Tchibamba's most important responses to colonial authors have been translated into English. Also for the first time, Tchibamba's novella Ngemena is shown to be a crucial postcolonial Congolese response to Heart of Darkness. Through close textual analysis of Tchibamba's use of irony and imagery, this article's key findings are that, while Tchibamba nuances Conrad's disparaging portrait of a chief, he develops the ironic mode of Conrad's An Outpost of Progress, and updates the journey upriver into the interior in Heart of Darkness. This article illustrates the complex and nuanced way in which Tchibamba interacts with his European intertexts, deploying close analyses of his responses to Conradian imagery.


What are boys like? Who is the creature inhabiting the twilight zone between the perils of the Oedipus complex and the Strum und Drang of puberty? In With the Boys, Gary Alan Fine examines the American male preadolescent by studying the world of Little League baseball. Drawings on three years of firsthand observation of five Little Leagues, Fine describes how, through organized sport and its accompanying activities, boys learn to play, work, and generally be "men."


A miniature broadband light source is a critical element in a spectrophotometric microsystem. The design, fabrication, and characterization of a highly stable, miniature broadband light source that comprises filaments of single-crystal silicon are presented. Electrical current versus voltage and radiant emittance spectra under constant voltage bias are measured and related to filament dimensions. A maximum stable operating temperature for these filaments is estimated to be 1200 K. Resistance drift is demonstrated to be less than 0.5% over a 10-h period of continuous operation with visible incandescence. Emittance spectra of a multifilament array, measured at three different electrical biases, are presented and shown to compare well with theoretical blackbody radiation spectra. A continuous, total radiated power of 10.7 mW was achieved with a 1 mm x 1 mm filament array with peak emittance at lambda=2.7 micrometers.


Women's Organization and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority. By Shireen Hassim. Madison, Wise: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 355. $24.95 paper. This book discusses the intersection between the growth of women's organizations and democracy in South Africa. It examines the struggle for women's rights and how it was affected by issues of race, class, and ideology during the campaign against apartheid and after independence. The study is an empirical analysis of women's groups and how they changed over time as they negotiated this difficult terrain. It analyzes how they dealt with divisions over the role of women in the nationalist struggle and the various tensions within and between groups concerning inclusion and exclusion, strategy and tactics, the desire for autonomy, and other matters. The volume unveils the enormous difficulties women had asserting themselves within a largely male-centric nationalist movement and addressing the problem of violence against women and children. It also examines how women's organizations dealt with issues related to leadership, including the role of Winnie Mandela, and how the legalization of political parties paved the way for separate women's organizations outside the ANC, eventually leading to the equality of women being enshrined in the constitution. The study covers the entire history of the struggles of South African women from 1913 onwards. It is divided into eight chapters that discuss the following: feminism and nationalism, which situate the study theoretically; the emergence of women as a political constituency; the ANC in exile; the return of the ANC women's league; transition and its impact on the South African women's movement; political parties, quotas and representation in the new democracy; one women, one desk, one typist- moving into the bureaucracy; and autonomy, engagement, and democratic consolidation. Each chapter is packed full of interesting empirical data gleaned from primary and secondary sources as well as from in-depth interviews. Throughout these chapters, Hassim effectively connects her findings to the broader theoretical literature and to the history of women's struggles in other parts of the world as well as including a comprehensive bibliography. While raising generic issues, the book's primary appeal is to individuals interested in the history of women's organizations and democracy in South Africa and the relationship between feminism and nationalism. South African women's organizations fought against being thought of as derivatives of middle class feminism in the west. …


Econometric analyses of treatment response commonly use instrumental variable (IV) assumptions to identify treatment effects. Yet the credibility of IV assumptions is often a matter of considerable disagreement, with much debate about whether some covariate is or is not a 'valid instrument' in an application of interest. There is therefore good reason to consider weaker but more credible assumptions. To this end, we introduce monotone instrumental variable (MIV) assumptions. A particularly interesting special case of an MIV assumption is monotone treatment selection (MTS). IV and MIV assumptions may be imposed alone or in combination with other assumptions. We study the identifying power of MIV assumptions in three informational settings: MIV alone; MIV combined with the classical linear response assumption; MIV combined with the monotone treatment response (MTR) assumption. We apply the results to the problem of inference on the returns to schooling. We analyze wage data reported by white male respondents to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and use the respondent's AFQT score as an MIV. We find that this MIV assumption has little identifying power when imposed alone. However, combining the MIV assumption with the MTR and MTS assumptions yields fairly tight bounds on two distinct measures of the returns to schooling.


This paper describes strategies for dynamically analyzing an application's memory access behavior. These strategies make it possible to detect when a read or write is about to occur at a given location in memory while an application is executing. An application's memory access behavior can provide additional insight into its behavior. For example, it may be able to provide an idea of how data propagates throughout the address space. Three individual strategies which can be used to intercept memory accesses are described in this paper. Each strategy makes use of a unique method of intercepting memory accesses. These methods include the use of Dynamic Binary Instrumentation (DBI), x86 hardware paging features, and x86 segmentation features. A detailed description of the design and implementation of these strategies for 32-bit versions of Windows is given. Potential uses for these analysis techniques are described in detail.


This chapter critically analyzes the legal and regulatory framework for Electronic Health Records in Europe and the US. At both parts of the world, the development of EHRs is evolving quickly, but many different approaches have proven possible. Different approaches resulted in different EHR solutions and different regulatory instruments. In Europe governmental bodies have been the driving force behind the development and implementation of EHRs. Consequently many European countries established a new legal framework simultaneously with the roll-out of government-initiated eHealth structures. In the US the driving force was – up until now – not so much the government, but rather private companies, insurance companies and healthcare organizations. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a strong focus on Personal Health Records. Last year however, the US government issued the largest stimulus package ever in order to encourage the adoption of EHR solutions. From this insight the question arises whether the legal regulation of electronic patient records is a prerequisite to their roll-out and acceptance or is it really just an unavoidable by-product?


One of the most unwanted and unavoidable consequences of the economic recession is the high rate of unemployment. Graduate students in Croatia are faced with lack of employment possibilities, and for some of them the self-employment looks like a good solution. In this paper, we investigate attitudes and intentions of graduate students at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture regarding to selfemployment. Most of the surveyed students are in the age between 21 and 25 years, and they have already got some kind of knowledge about entrepreneurship during the formal education. In addition, majority of them have the experience of part-time jobs. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model was used to find out to which extent students' attitudes and experience influence their expressed self-employment intentions. The results revealed that Zagreb students' scores are close but somewhat lower than the same scores found in the comparable study from Australia. This goes for the investigated variables: (1) previous entrepreneurial experience (PEE), perceived desirability of selfemployment (PDSE), perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy (PESE) and self-employment intentions (SEI). It was found that the score on the PEE is significantly related to scores on the PDSE (p=0.000), and PESE (p=0.000), which means that the experience positively influence respondents' attitudes on self-employment and self-efficacy. There is also a statistically significant difference in the on the SEI with respect to the PDSE (ANOVA F=9.804, p=0.000): respondents that consider self-employment more desirable expressed higher intention to perform it. The PDSE was found as the most influencing model variable in regards to the self-employment intention. The results points out the importance of previous experience, role models and positive attitudes towards self-employment in the process of the entrepreneurship development in young, educated population.


Abstract Convergent continental margins are the primary host of both growth and loss of continental crust. Continental growth largely occurs via subduction-driven magmatism, whereas continental loss largely occurs via subduction erosion and sediment subduction. Because the latter typically involves partial recycling into magmas, both growth and loss of continental crust can be represented in the magmatic record. The degree of crustal recycling can be estimated from the initial Hf isotope signatures in both magmatic and detrital zircon grains. Recent insights into the geodynamic evolution of the Peruvian margin, in combination with a new dataset of Hf isotopic data on zircon from the Carboniferous to Early Cretaceous, enable us to (1) compare the geodynamic history of the southern Peruvian margin with its Hf isotopic evolution, and (2) quantify the crustal growth between 500 and 135 Ma. The data exhibit a correlation with trends in isotope composition v. time and reflect the dominantly extensional regime that prevailed from the onset of subduction from 530 Ma to c. 135 Ma. This study demonstrates that the Peruvian margin experienced continental growth with juvenile input to arc magmatism of 30–45% on average, and illustrates the use of U–Pb and Hf isotopes in zircon as a tool to trace episodes of crustal growth through time. Supplementary material: Hf istopic analyses on zircon (A1 and A2) and new U–Pb zircon ages (A3) are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18661.


Context: Interferon (IFN)-α2b in Peyronie's disease (PD). Aims: This study aims to evaluate clinical efficacy of the IFN-α2b in both subjective and objective manner for the treatment of PD and compared with previously used intralesional verapamil in terms of cost-benefit analysis. Settings and Design: Prospective study. Materials and Methods: A prospective study conducted from January 2013 to July 2016 in the Department of Urology, Government Medical College, Kota, Rajasthan, India. We included patients with identifiable Peyronie's plaque with or without pain, curvature ranging between 30 and 90 degrees. We excluded patients with a calcified plaque and the ventral location of the plaque, any infective foci over the penis, erectile dysfunction due to other etiologies and patients who had received previous intralesional therapy. Patients were evaluated by clinical history, physical examination including plaque location, size, consistency, and penile curvature. Patients received intralesional IFN-α2b in a dose of 3 × 106 IU. Patients completed the visual analogue pain (VAS) score for pain, and International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5) questionnaire at first visit as well as at follow-up of 1 month and 3 months. Statistical Analysis Used: Comparisons were performed using the paired Student's t-test and Chi-square tests as appropriate. Patient's objective and subjective clinical characteristics were described as a means (standard deviation). Results: We included 86 patients in this study. Patients had a mean age of 48.6 years, mean plaque volume 256 mm3, and disease duration of 15.2 years. After 1 month of treatment, there was a significant change in plaque volume 256– 60.8 mm3; P < 0.01) and penile curvature 34.8– 24.6°; P < 0.01). The patients reported significant improvement in pain score VAS and IIEF-5. Conclusions: IFN-α2b, as minimal invasive (intralesional) options for the treatment of PD, demonstrated significant improvement in plaque volume, penile curvature with minimal complications. Patients subjectively reported significant improvement in pain on erection and sexual activities. IFN-α2b and verapamil had an almost similar clinical outcome, but verapamil at much lower cost.


In this paper we consider the problem of deriving upper bounds on the number of state variables required for an n-state universal asynchronous state assignment (i.e., a state assignment which is valid for any n-state asynchronous sequential function). We will consider a special class of state assignments called SST assignments which were first derived by Liu [1] and later extended by Tracey [2]. In these assignments all variables which must change in a given transition are allowed to change simultaneously without critical races. The best universal bound known so far has been developed by Liu and requires 2so-1 state variables, where S0 = [log2n], n being the number of states, and [x] being the least integer > x. We shall show how this bound can be substantially improved. We further show that, by generalizing the state assignment to allow multiple codings for states, the bounds can be still further improved.


The emotional experience of products can have enormous impact on the overall product experience: someone who is feeling positive is more likely to be accepting of novel products or to be more tolerant of unexpected or unusual interface behaviours. Being able to improve users' emotions through product interaction has clear benefits and is currently the focus of designers all over the world. The extent to which touch-based information can affect a user's experience and observable behaviour has been given relatively little attention in haptic technology or other touch-based products where research has tended to focus on psychophysics relating to technical development, in the case of the former, and usability in the case of the latter. The objective of this research was therefore to begin to explore generalizable and useful relationship(s) between design parameters specific to the sense of touch and the emotional response to tactile experiences. To this end, a theoretical 'touch-emotion model' was developed that incorporates stages from existing information and emotion processing models, and a subset of pathways (the 'Affective', 'Cognitive', and 'Behaviour Pathways') was explored. Four experiments were performed to examine how changes in various touch factors, such as surface roughness and availability of haptic (that is, touch-based) information during exploration, impacted user emotional experience and behaviour in the context of the model's framework. These experiments also manipulated factors related to the experience of touch in real-world situations, such as the availability of visual information and product context. Exploration of the different pathways of the touch-emotion model guided the analysis of the experiments. In exploring the Affective Pathway, a robust relationship was found between increasing roughness and decreasing emotional valence (n = 36, p ≤ 0.005), regardless of the availability of haptic or visual information. This finding expands earlier research that focused on the effect of tactile stimuli on user preference. The impact of texture on the Cognitive Pathway was examined by priming participants to think of the stimuli as objects varying in emotional commitment, such as a common mug (lower) or a personal cell phone (higher). Emov tional response again decreased as roughness increased, regardless of primed context (n = 27, p ≤ 0.002) and the primed contexts marginally appeared to generally improve or reduce emotional response (n = 27, p ≤ 0.08). Finally, the exploration of the Behaviour Pathway considered the ability of roughness-evoked emotion to act as a mediator between physical stimuli and observable behaviour, revealing that, contrary to the hypothesis that increased emotional valence would increase time spent reflecting on the stimuli, increased emotion magnitude (regardless of the positive or negative valence of the emotion) was associated with increased time spent in reflection (n = 33, p ≤ 0.002). Results relating to the Behaviour Pathway suggested that the portion of the touch-emotion model that included the last stages of information processing, observable behaviour, may need to be revised. However, the insights of the Affective and Cognitive Pathway analyses are consistent with the information processing stages within those pathways and give support to the related portions of the touch-emotion model. The analysis of demographics data collected from all four experiments also revealed interesting findings which are anticipated to have application in customizing haptic technology for individual users. For example, correlations were found between self-reported tactual importance (measured with a questionnaire) and age (n = 79, r = 0.28, p ≤ 0.03) and between self-reported tactual importance and sensitivity to increased roughness (n = 79, r = -0.27, p ≤ 0.04). Higher response times were also observed with increased age (rIT = 0.49, rRT = 0.48; p ≤ 0.01). This research contributes to the understanding of how emotion and emotionevoked behaviour may be impacted by changing touch factors using the exemplar of roughness as the touch factor of interest, experienced multimodally and in varying situations. If a design goal is to contribute to user emotional experience of a product, then the findings of this work have the potential to impact design decisions relating to surface texture components of hand-held products as well as for virtual surface textures generated by haptic technology. Further, the touchemotion model may provide a guide for the systematic exploration of the relationships between surface texture, cognitive processing, and emotional response.


This paper presents a novel haptic device providing both kinesthetic and cutaneous cues informative of shape geometry at the contact point. The system is composed of a supporting kinesthetic haptic interface and an innovative fingertip haptic display that can instantaneously orient a small plate along the tangent plane at the contact point with a virtual shape and bring it in contact with the fingertip. We show how this local augmentation of displayed haptic information can improve human performance in shape exploration, by assessing perception thresholds in curvature discrimination. When kinesthetic feedback was enriched with cutaneous cues, we found a significantly lower threshold for curvature discrimination (1.51 0.2 m-1 vs. 2.62 0.61 m-1, p < .05) for stimuli constituted of spheres with curvature ranging in the interval from 46 m-1. This confirms the importance in haptic perception of the stimulation of cutaneous mechanoreceptors at the fingertip.


The present study was designed to evaluate the chitosan, which has been obtained by deacetylation of chitin, as a biosorbent. The chitin was isolated from fermented shrimp waste by an important local industrial food biopolymer. The aim of this work was the characterization of chitosan and preparation of cross-linked chitosan- tripolyphosphate (chitosan-TPP) beads for the removal of allura red food dye from aqueous solutions. Conditions of batch adsorption such as pH, time and adsorbent dose were examined. The effectiveness of cross-linked chitosan beads for dye removal was found to be higher for pH 2 (98%, percentage of dye removal) and tends to decrease at pHs of 3 to 11 (up to 49%). The values of percentage removal show that the adsorption capacity increases with time of contact and dosage of chitosan-TPP, but red dye adsorption is mainly influenced by pH level. The cross-linked chitosan-TPP beads can significantly adsorb allura red monoazo dye from aqueous solutions even at acidic pHs unlike raw chitosan beads that tend to dissolve in acidic solutions. Consequently, this modified chitosan has characteristics that allow minimization of environmental pollution and widening the valorization of shrimp waste.


A method for improved performance of feed-forward carrier-envelope phase stabilization in amplified laser sources is presented and experimentally demonstrated. The phase stabilization scheme is applicable for a broad range of repetition rates spanning from subhertz to 100 kHz. The method relies on driving an acousto-optic frequency shifter by few-cycle transients. The phase of these transients suitably controls the grating phase of the generated index grating inside the shifter material. This approach removes beam pointing as well as amplitude noise issues observed in continuously driven feed-forward schemes. The synthesis of these gratings can be understood as the acoustic equivalent of mode-locking or acoustic frequency combs.


This thesis presents coupled model for the floating off-shore wind turbines, using a 10-MW machine as an example. The idea put forward is to employ high fidelity Navier-Stokes solvers for air and water. For this reason, the Helicopter Multi-Block solver was used for air, and the Smoothed Particles Hydrodynamic method was used for water. A multi-body solver was implemented to solve for the wind turbine dynamics. All solvers were validated before coupling, and results are presented in this thesis. The employed, loosely coupled, algorithm is described in detail, and the importance of coupling is assessed. Additional aerodynamic cases were studied to form the foundation for further model development.

The study started from the aerodynamic analysis of a 10-MW wind turbine. Straight and pre-bent configurations of the blade were investigated under the assumption of uniform inflow. Next, the effects of the atmospheric boundary inflow and atmospheric turbulence were studied. For this, the power law wind speed profile was employed, and atmospheric turbulence was introduced using Mann's model.

The aero-elasticity of the 10-MW rotor was studied next. The structural model was constructed using NASTRAN, and the natural frequencies and modes were compared to published results, showing good agreement. This model was then used for steady and unsteady aero-elastic computations.

The effects of employing deformable trailing and leading edge flaps on a 10-MW wind turbine were also investigated. The results showed that the trailing edge flap can be used to control flap-wise bending of the blade, whilst the leading edge flap can be used to counter additional pitching moment created by the trailing edge flap.
A floating 10-MW rotor was considered next, as well as forced yaw and pitch oscillations of the machine. The results showed large variations in thrust and power as the wind turbine pitched about a point located 119m below the rotor. The vortex ring state was also encountered when the wind turbine was forced to a pitching motion with amplitude of 5° and period of 8.8s.

A coupled method for the analysis of the dynamics of floating off-shore wind turbines was finally described, along with the test cases and numerical parameters. The results of decoupled and coupled computations are presented and analysed. The results showed that the employed floating turbine under studied conditions did not enter a vortex ring state. A turbulent wake state was encountered, but only at the initial pitching phase. The gyroscopic effects were also small for studied system, and did not cause significant rotations due to large inertia of the employed floater.


Online writing plays a complex and increasingly prominent role in the life of organizations. From newsletters to press releases, social media marketing and advertising, to virtual presentations and interactions via e-mail and instant messaging, digital writing intertwines and affects the day-to-day running of the company - yet we rarely pay enough attention to it. Typing on the screen can become particularly problematic because digital text-based communication increases the opportunities for misunderstanding: it lacks the direct audio-visual contact and the norms and conventions that would normally help people to understand each other. Providing a clear, convincing and approachable discussion, this book addresses arenas of online writing: virtual teamwork, instant messaging, emails, corporate communication channels, and social media. Instead of offering do and don't lists, however, it teaches the reader to develop a practice that is observant, reflective, and grounded in the understanding of the basic principles of language and communication. Through real-life examples and case studies, it helps the reader to notice previously unnoticed small details, question previously unchallenged assumptions and practices, and become a competent digital communicator in a wide range of professional contexts.


THIS ESSAY HAS GROWN out of a long and energetic email exchange between the authors, undertaken because we both love Jane Austen's fragment The Watsons but have not read a great deal about it recently that has helped us to appreciate it more. Ever since the publication of the eighth volume of Persuasions in 1986, containing several essays on this fragment of a novel, it has received relatively little attention as literature. An important exception is Juliet McMaster's splendid 1994 essay, "Emma Watson: Jane Austen's Uncompleted Heroine." McMaster focuses on the literary qualities of the fragment and, on that basis, considers how Austen would have developed it; she also extends a reading of the fragment set forth in her 1986 Persuasions essay, which sees Emma's excessive refinement as a major theme. Our conclusions differ in part because McMaster's focus lies in filling in the blanks to point toward completion; we wish to concentrate on enjoying the subtleties of what is already there. The question that discussion of The Watsons usually raises is, why did Austen never finish it? (1) This query has received many responses, and although we will consider some of them later, we want to begin by approaching this work differently--not as a biographical puzzle but as if it comprised the first forty pages of a completed Austen novel. If it were Pride and Prejudice, for instance, we would have eight short chapters to read, and the last would take us to the witty and complex exchange at Netherfield between Elizabeth, Darcy, and Caroline Bingley on accomplished women. If it were Persuasion, we would, in five chapters, have witnessed the exile of Sir Walter and Elizabeth to Bath and Anne Elliot's arrival at Uppercross in order to minister to her sister's whines. The Watsons' forty pages fall somewhere between those two novels' openings in offering energy and depth and complexity of exposition. If Austen had finished the novel, we believe, it would have almost as many admirers as they. Obviously, that belief cannot be substantiated, but what we hope to show is that close attention to these forty pages as literature reveals comedy and subtleties of character and theme that make this fragment as challenging and pleasurable to read and think about as the openings of Austen's other works. As is usual in these openings, the first sentence of The Watsons announces important themes and points us toward sources of comedy: The first winter assembly in the Town of D. in Surry was to be held on Tuesday Octr ye 13th, & it was generally expected to be a very good one; a long list of Country Families was confidently run over as sure of attending, & sanguine hopes were entertained that the Osbornes themselves would be there. (314) (2) Right away, this sentence announces the rigid social stratification and snobbery that infuses the tale and establishes a superficial equation in this world between goodness and social rank. A "good" ball is one in which the local gentry are prominent--many "Country Families" attend--and which attracts the Osbornes, who, we soon learn, are the local aristocrats. The narrator's use of the passive voice underscores the prevalence of this shallow equation but keeps it from attaching to individual snobs. We must wait to encounter the many varieties of comic snobbery and rudeness practiced by Lord Osborne, Tom Musgrave, others at the ball, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, and Robert and Jane Watson. At the start, then, not individuals but the social world itself--everyone and no one--is indicted. That world alone seems to offer the ball that "was to be held" and seems to focus its attention on attendance, which "was generally expected" and "was confidently run over," so that "hopes were entertained." Social snobbery is thus proclaimed but disavowed in this grammatical formulation--just as the opening of Pride and Prejudice proclaims but uses the passive voice to disavow the "truth universally acknowledged" about the need of young women without fortunes for husbands who have them. …


GERCHEVA, P., A. ZHIVONDOV, L. NACHEVA and D. AVANZATO, 2008. Transsexual forms of pistachio (Pistacia terebinthus L.) from Bulgaria – biotechnological approaches for preservation, multiplication and inclusion in selection programs. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 14: 449-453 The present article includes a detailed survey of the application of the biotechnological approaches to the multiplication and study of the Pistacia (pistachio) – nut fruit crop not widespread in Bulgaria, which economic significance in Mediterranean region and around the world grows continuously. The main reason for the development of the culture is the high nourishing value of the fruits, the existence of wild species and the potential for inter- and interspecies hybridization and mainly the exceptional drought resistance of the kind which allows its cultivation in soils that are under no irrigation, small-productive, stony and sliding (pliant to erosion) soils. The Pistacia genus (Anacardiaceae) includes 12 deciduous species, all of which are trees. These species are dioecious, anemophylic and have their male and female flowers on separate trees. Among them, only P. vera is domesticated. For the industrial plantations of pistachio there should be plant a male tree for every 8-11 female trees, thus 10 % from the pistachio plantation is non-productive. In the summer of 2002, Dr. D. Avanzato found a rare transsexual form of P. terebinthus in the Rhodopi Mountain. Later existence of a whole isolated population of these trees is determined. The discovered trees are the first case of a defined transsexual form among P. terebinthus. The study of the area where this transsexual form of Pistacia terebinthus was found and the common application of in vivo and in vitro methods for propagation and molecular markers will allow its preservation and use as a rootstock and as a donor for monoeciousness in the pistachio hybridization programs.


In 1993, Shaw v. Reno created a doctrine of racial gerrymandering that has now been in existence for 25 years. This Article examines the doctrine's impact over that time—whether it has achieved the goals the Court set out for the doctrine in Shaw and whether it has had other consequences. This Article examines the doctrine's impact through the lens of the place where the doctrine first took root and has been most heavily litigated over the last 25 years—North Carolina's congressional districts. This Article also draws upon the existing empirical literature in its assessment of the doctrine's impact. In doing so, this Article represents the first comprehensive assessment of the doctrine. Ultimately, the Article concludes that while more research could and should be done in this realm, racial gerrymandering doctrine does not appear to have achieved the goals the Court set out for it. In addition, the doctrine has likely had little additional impact other than to make districts more compact and cost state governments money for litigation and compliance. For these reasons, the Article concludes that the doctrine should be abandoned absent additional research documenting a systematically meaningful positive impact on American democracy.


Teachers have become the major topic of discussion, occasionally blamed for students' poor performance, failure, and poor implementation of new reforms. This paper explores and discusses the recent issues with which teachers in the United States of America and South Africa are confronted, including teacher layoffs, abolishment of teacher tenure, evaluation of teachers by their students' tests score, teacher lack of support, deteriorating school condition, and mixed messages over what teachers should do. In discussing these issues, the paper raises many questions and concerns and argues that too much of a pressure on teachers will not necessarily bring the desired outcomes, but rather be the recipe for disaster of our education system. To conclude, it proposes some suggestions to be considered in order to change the current status quo and yield the desired results.


Aims. This work reports on radiative transition rates and electron impact excitation collision strengths for levels of the 3s23p, 3s3p2, 3s24s, and 3s23d configurations of . Methods. The radiative data were computed using the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-Amaldi central potential, but with the modifications introduced by Bautista (2008) that account for the effects of electron-electron interactions. We also introduce new schemes for the optimization of the variational parameters of the potential. Additional calculations were carried out with the Relativistic Hartree-Fock and the multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock methods. Collision strengths in LS-coupling were calculated in the close coupling approximation with the R-matrix method. Then, fine structure collision strengths were obtained by means of the intermediate-coupling frame transformation (ICFT) method which accounts for spin-orbit coupling effects. Results. We present extensive comparisons between the results of different approximations and with the most recent calculations and experiments available in the literature. From these comparisons we derive a recommended set of gf-values and radiative transition rates with their corresponding estimated uncertainties. We also study the effects of different approximations in the representation of the target ion on the electron-impact collision strengths. Our most accurate set of collision strengths were integrated over a Maxwellian distribution of electron energies and the resulting effective collision strengths are given for a wide range of temperatures. Our results present significant differences from recent calculations with the B-spline non-orthogonal R-matrix method. We discuss the sources of the differences.


By combining morphological and molecular analyses we scrutinize the taxonomic status of selected ant species of the Tetramorium bicarinatum (NYLANDER, 1846) species group. We confirm Apomyrmex manobo CALILUNG, 2000 as a member of the genus Tetramorium, and evaluate whether T. manobo and T. scabrum MAYR, 1879, which currently is a junior synonym of T. pacificum MAYR, 1870, are specifically distinct from T. pacificum. Morphometry shows clear differences between workers of the three ants. Sequence comparison of 700 bp of the mitochondrial COI gene confirms that they constitute separate species, embedded in the T. bicarinatum species group. Thus, we confirm T. manobo as a valid species and revive T. scabrum sp.rev. from synonymy. Pronounced morphological variation between T. scabrum populations indicates the possible existence of more than one species. We discuss our findings in terms of plesiomorphy and / or convergent evolution of worker morphology. Tetramorium manobo appears to be a Philippine endemic restricted to the subregion "Greater Mindanao", where it inhabits forest habitats. In contrast, on the Philippines T. pacificum is found only in disturbed habitats. Additionally, we review the ants of the T. bicarinatum group currently known from the Philippines and add the first record of T. obtusidens VIEHMEYER, 1916.


Abstract How can the marked national differences in the rates of women's participation in the labour market, and in their involvement in part‐time work, be explained? While institutional conditions, for example childcare policy, can have a contextual importance, these are not adequate for understanding women's different orientations and practices in combining paid and unpaid work. Rather, we must examine the idea that the social practice of women is heavily influenced by predominant norms and values about the 'correct' gender division of labour. Culture must therefore be included in any explanation of cross‐national differences in employment patterns. This is the task of this paper. After briefly examining the limitations of pre‐existing explanations, the paper goes on to present an alternative theorization which conceptualizes the links between gendered natures, structures and action. This new theoretical approach is then applied to a comparative analysis of changing employment patterns in Finland, Germa...


The policy debate surrounding patent hold-up in markets for standardized products is now well into its second decade with no end in sight. Fundamental questions including the definition of hold-up, whether it exists in the marketplace, and what impact it has on innovation, continue to bedevil scholars, policy makers and industry. Yet it is not clear that this debate needs to continue. Patent hold-up is a pattern of market behavior, not a legally-cognizable wrong. Whether it is commonplace or rare is largely irrelevant to liability in any given case. To the extent that hold-up behavior constitutes an abuse of market power, with resulting harms to competition, longstanding doctrines of antitrust and competition law exist to sanction it. To the extent that hold-up impedes the efficient operation of standard-setting processes, SDOs can, and have, adopted internal procedures, including disclosure and licensing requirements, to curtail that behavior. Thus, the ongoing hunt for empirical evidence of systemic patent hold-up in standardized product markets, or a lack thereof, seems a fruitless academic exercise. The absence of systemic hold-up actually tells us little about individual firm behavior that can and should be sanctioned by the law, and it may thus be time to close the debate over the systemic prevalence of this form of behavior.


This built project by Barber is one of a series of five hostel designs for St Mungo's Association around London. It acts as a
stepping stone or 'mini-foyer' facility in Clapham for homeless people attempting to make the jump from institutional hostel living
to independent living. This strategy is now enshrined as government policy, but Barber was the first to give it a distinctive
architectural agenda. All these hostels are being part-funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government, and
are seen as research exemplars for others to learn from. As such, the Cedars Road Hostel should be read in conjunction with
the four further schemes for the same client association: one at Church Walk in Hackney, one the Cinderella House in
Southwark, one at St Pancras Way near Kings Cross – all of them built and in use – and another, far larger scheme currently in
design for a mixed hostel/housing development in Lewisham.
Research issues are those of how to adapt the program requirements and site conditions to create new types of low-cost
community building for homeless people, and again how to utilise new fabrication technologies with a tight budget and
construction schedule. The research driver in these projects is that of architecture as a social endeavour which can meet and
enhance community needs. Cedars Road and its companion hostels should thus be understood as an ambitious and innovative
attempt to devise an architectural approach which provides benefits to those in socially vulnerable positions without dominating
or alienating them. The 'foyer' idea is one that developed in France and then Britain a decade or so ago, and which is now being
given a new lease of life by these projects for St Mungo's Association. Cedars Road was written up glowingly in RIBA Journal
(August 2007, pp. 40-46).


This paper develops direct tests for evaluating the performance of two types of emergency employment programs put in place in Chile since 1999. Our results suggest: First, decentralized and "market-driven" programs (subsidies for hiring and training) are more efficient in terms of productivity, but are targeted to people that are less vulnerable to unemployment. Second, direct employment programs result in moderate increases of the income of the households of the participants. This increase may be outweighted by the costs (in present value) associated with higher school drop-out and participation rates. Third, if analysed at a municipality level (comuna), centralized programs do not target municipalities with higher unemployment, increased vulnerability to unemployment, or even lower median income levels, but are strongly correlated with the political affiliation of its major. Finally, our results suggest that the population targeted in direct employment programs is not more vulnerable to unemployment than the actually unemployed.


How do memorials shape who we think we are? And how are our identities involved when we debate, create, and interact with memorials? This essay engages in a conversation with scholarship on intersectional identities and memorial practices in Berlin. Intersectionality scholarship, with its roots in US critical race feminism, has much to offer for thinking about the complexity of identities, yet it does not consider the role of memory, time, and temporality. The scholarship on memory and memorials, in turn, does not sufficiently consider the complexity of identities of those who are memorialized and of those who visit memorials. The essay asks how three different monuments for Nazi victims in Berlin allow for or facilitate the memory of complex identities. The example of the Monument for the Persecuted Homosexuals shows that memorial practices can be crucial in contemporary identity politics and social movements. The essay calls for a more self-reflexive approach to the role of identities and complexity in memorial scholarship and practice.