Widely-prescribed prodrug opioids (e.g., hydrocodone) require conversion by liver enzyme CYP-2D6 to exert their analgesic effects. The most commonly prescribed antidepressant, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), inhibits CYP-2D6 activity and therefore may reduce the effectiveness of prodrug opioids. We used a machine learning approach to identify patients prescribed a combination of SSRIs and prodrug opioids postoperatively and to examine the effect of this combination on postoperative pain control. Using EHR data from an academic medical center, we identified patients receiving surgery over a 9-year period. We developed and validated natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to extract depression-related information (diagnosis, SSRI use, symptoms) from structured and unstructured data elements. The primary outcome was the difference between preoperative pain score and postoperative pain at discharge, 3-week and 8-week time points. We developed computational models to predict the increase or decrease in the postoperative pain across the 3 time points by using the patient's EHR data (e.g. medications, vitals, demographics) captured before surgery. We evaluate the generalizability of the model using 10-fold cross-validation method where the holdout test method is repeated 10 times and mean area-under-the-curve (AUC) is considered as evaluation metrics for the prediction performance. We identified 4,306 surgical patients with symptoms of depression. A total of 14.1% were prescribed both an SSRI and a prodrug opioid, 29.4% were prescribed an SSRI and a non-prodrug opioid, 18.6% were prescribed a prodrug opioid but were not on SSRIs, and 37.5% were prescribed a non-prodrug opioid but were not on SSRIs. Our NLP algorithm identified depression with a F1 score of 0.95 against manual annotation of 300 randomly sampled clinical notes. On average, patients receiving prodrug opioids had lower average pain scores (p<0.05), with the exception of the SSRI+ group at 3-weeks postoperative follow-up. However, SSRI+/Prodrug+ had significantly worse pain control at discharge, 3 and 8-week follow-up (p < .01) compared to SSRI+/Prodrug- patients, whereas there was no difference in pain control among the SSRI- patients by prodrug opioid (p>0.05). The machine learning algorithm accurately predicted the increase or decrease of the discharge, 3-week and 8-week follow-up pain scores when compared to the pre-operative pain score using 10-fold cross validation (mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.87, 0.81, and 0.69, respectively). Preoperative pain, surgery type, and opioid tolerance were the strongest predictors of postoperative pain control. We provide the first direct clinical evidence that the known ability of SSRIs to inhibit prodrug opioid effectiveness is associated with worse pain control among depressed patients. Current prescribing patterns indicate that prescribers may not account for this interaction when choosing an opioid. The study results imply that prescribers might instead choose direct acting opioids (e.g. oxycodone or morphine) in depressed patients on SSRIs.


 Abstract— Stop line violation causes in myanmar when the back wheel of the car either passed over or reach at the stop line when the red light changes. the objective of this work is to design and implement algorithms for stop line detection system (slds) in myanmar. this paper presents a robust time algorithms of license plate localization, segmentation and detection of the stop line violated car in the low resolution videos. the proposed license plate localization algorithm consists of required preprocessing operations leading to successful plate detection. projection analysis is designed to estimate the position of the license plate region within the scene image in order to reduce the search space before applying any technique and rectangle detection based on the geometric features of license plate for localization of the license plate. evaluation is conducted on the video files from the surveillance camera of the road in myanmar in accordance with accepted rules. this system is intended to use for one sided way. it is extracted the segmented license plate and then calculated depending on the location of the stop line and the license plate. if the location of the license plate is passed over the stop line, it is defined as the violated car. otherwise, the car is non-violated. this detection system should be performed in real time, almost watching cars passing the stop line at a street intersection in front of video recording device.


Square-planar diamagnetic nickel(II) complexes 5a and 5b containing 16-membered diamino-diimino ligands were prepared from the corresponding open-chain complexes 2a and 2b via condensation with o-phthalic dialdehyde in methanol. The solid-state structure of the starting complex 2b revealed the cisoid conformation of aryl groups compared to the transoid one found in the case of 2a . At the same time, the cisoid conformation is not retained in acetone solution: rather, the tert-Bu-substituted complex 2b was fully transformed into the trans form whereas its analogue 2a exhibits both cis and transforms in acetone solution. The cisoid conformation was also observed for the cyclic structures 5a and 5b by X-ray analysis and VT NMR experiments. The borohydride reduction of 5a with subsequent cyanide-assisted removal of nickel led to a new 16-membered tetraazamacrocycle 6 . Its X-ray structure showed a cisoid conformation supported by two intramolecular hydrogen bonds that was also sustained in solution. VT NMR experiments revealed the degenerative interconvertion of a macrocycle with activation energy ca. 41.9 ± 0.8


We present a novel approach to find relevant features for identifying four subtypes of Guillain- Barre Syndrome (GBS). Our method consists of a combination of Quenching Simulated Annealing (QSA) and Partitions Around M edoids (PAM ), named QSA-PAM method. A 156-feature real dataset containing clinical, serological and nerve conduction test data from GBS patients was used for experiments. Different feature subsets were randomly selected from the dataset using QSA. New datasets created using these feature subsets were used as input for PAM to build four clusters, corresponding to a specific GBS subtype each. Finally, purity of clusters was measured. Sixteen features from the original dataset were encountered relevant for identifying GBS subtypes with a purity of 0.8992. This work represents the first effort to find relevant features for identifying GBS subtypes using computational techniques. The results of this work may help specialists to broaden the understanding of the differences among subtypes of GBS.


This essay will examine the concept of third-generation trauma after the Holocaust and the ways in which Jewish American novelists seek to access, recreate and artistically represent (or 're-present') such a traumatic past that is by definition inaccessible. A striking feature in the novels by the latest generation of Jewish American writers - notably the work of Jonathan Safran Foer and Judy Budnitz - is the almost obsessive return to mythology and fairy tales in the literary recreation of their grandparents' era. My essay will argue that this is due to a commonality of purpose that characterizes and drives both mythology and fairy tales on the one hand, and the third generation's imaginative, postmemorial approach to the past on the other hand.


The fundamental question in business and in personal life is the same: What really matters? In this book one of America's most widely admired business leaders distills a lifetime of experience, including failures as well as successes, to reveal his answers. John Pepper, president, CEO, and chairman of Procter & Gamble for a combined 16 years, underscores the importance of continuous change, innovation, and renewal as prerequisites for growth and sound leadership. In What Really Matters he suggests that a preparedness to alter perspective, rethink assumptions, or change course is central not only to understanding customer needs and keeping costs under control but also to developing talent, organizing global businesses, and supporting communities. While he discusses specific business tactics, he notes that they all center on fundamental tenets: listen to and respect the customer, engender personal accountability and passionate ownership, encourage diversity, and create a vibrant, trusting institution that incorporates employees and their families. In his own years as an executive, Pepper has demonstrated that a profitable business can create and sustain a culture that shapes--and is shaped by--ethical behavior. His profoundly important advice and counsel belong in the lexicon and practice of every leader.


This article uses the concept of the 'new home front' to address the ethical and political reframing of national and international politics in the 'war on terror'. It examines the links between ethics and politics in the context of links between 'home' and the 'front'. The first thing to make clear is that the 'new home front' in the war on terror has multiple dimensions to it. Just as it refers to links between 'home' (as in national or domestic) and the 'front' (as in the military spheres of action in Iraq and Afghanistan), it also refers literally to the home front, with terrorist attacks and continuing threats of them in the UK, importantly from home-grown as well as internationally networked terrorists. So there is a complex spatiality involved in the ethical contexts of policies and politics related to the war on terror that binds security issues at home to military action overseas in ways that are overt or not. I aim to unpack some of the less obvious dimensions of that complexity in three areas. All three relate to the problematic nature of assumed separations between domestic and foreign policy, between what is considered to be 'out there' (overseas, foreign) and what is 'in here' (home, domestic). The first area concerns the varied impacts of new media connections as part of everyday life. The new media (the internet and diverse mobile devices linked to it) have disrupted traditional national vertical (top-down) linkages between political agents, the mass media and the public through a myriad horizontal real-time online connections. This means that it is far harder for governments to control the ethical content of information distributed about war, as demonstrated, for example, by the dissemination of pictures of prisoners being tortured in Abu Ghraib prison. The second area of spatial complexity relates to the pervasiveness of security concerns as integrative of domestic and foreign influences, in contrast to the predominant traditional view of security threats as external. The significance of home-grown terrorism, and intelligence and policing efforts to detect, prevent and punish it, have led to new ethical dilemmas for liberal democracies. The winning of hearts and minds is as much about persuading citizens of the legitimacy of the security imperatives that limit their liberal freedoms—the very freedoms such imperatives are ultimately intended to protect—as it is about encouraging them to be vigilant and report on any suspicions they may have about potential threats. The third area of spatial complexity is probably the least overtly recognized in terms of the ethics and politics of the war on terror. It relates to everyday citizenship and multiculturalism and gender. Here the collective and individual arenas are touched on in ways that demonstrate some of the deeper politics of the war on terror, including identity politics. Multiculturalism has been substantially in the foreground of this war and a new reflexivity about liberalism within and beyond the UK. Women and gender relations have been central to ethical tensions in the war on terror. They have frequently featured in links between foreign and domestic policy, including in the contexts of multicultural politics and religious issues.


The Idea of civil society signifies liberal Western values, including freedom of the individual from arbitrary violence and of private property from arbitrary seizure. Realization of personal security requires the sanctity and enforcement of legal rights. The experience of democratic societies has demonstrated that the existence of well-established independent associations, such as political parties, labor unions, professional societies, and guilds mediating between their respective members and the state apparatus, has been indispensable for the formation and survival of civil society. The paper examines the establishment and functioning of guilds in Iran as both promoters of, and obstacles to, the development of civil society.
Guilds and civil society evolved in the course of economic and political development of the West and played an important role in the formation of modern bourgeois capitalism and commercial democracy. Indeed, the formation of guilds has long been considered as a major characteristic of pre-modern city, both in Europe and in the Middle East. The medieval European guilds seem, however, to be characterized by a greater degree of independence than their counterparts in the Islamic world. Furthermore, it seems that the idea of individual liberty, equality before law, and security of property was widespread in latter period of medieval Europe.
In pre-modern Islamic Middle East guild-like associations called asnaf, were often set up either by city authorities or were normally used for tax collection and corvee services. When, in modern times, the guild's corvee was abolished and guild tax system lost its importance for the state revenues, the guilds were drawn into the political arena. Thus, in Iran, during the constitutional revolution of 1906-9, the guilds of Tehran and a number of other cities created political associations that functioned as effective instruments of mass mobilization. Persian governments or its domestic challengers have ever since attempted to organize the asnaf in larger units either as politically-oriented associations and unions or as purely administrative bodies created by the state. "High Council of Guilds" or "Chamber of Guilds" in the 1960's and 1970's and "Central Council of Guilds" in the post-revolutionary period are examples of the latter. Since 1950's the state has used both the guilds and government-run associations as instruments for its periodic campaigns against price gouging.
The tradition-bound Iranian merchants, shopkeepers and craftsmen, while jealous of their economic and occupational independence, continue to entertain age-old suspicions about modern state institutions and values. They, therefore, seem to have had contradictory impact on the development of civil society in Iran.


Objective: Severe acute respiratory syndrome virus (SARS-CoV-2) has infected millions of people worldwide. Our goal was to identify risk factors associated with admission and disease severity in patients with SARS-CoV-2. Design: This was an observational, retrospective study based on real-world data for 7,995 patients with SARS-CoV-2 from a clinical data repository. Setting: Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) is a five-hospital academic health system serving a diverse patient population with community and teaching facilities in both urban and suburban areas. Populations: The study included adult patients who had SARS-CoV-2 testing at YNHH between March 1 and April 30, 2020. Main outcome and performance measures: Primary outcomes were admission and in-hospital mortality for patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection as determined by RT-PCR testing. We also assessed features associated with the need for respiratory support. Results: Of the 28605 patients tested for SARS-CoV-2, 7995 patients (27.9%) had an infection (median age 52.3 years) and 2154 (26.9%) of these had an associated admission (median age 66.2 years). Of admitted patients, 1633 (75.8%) had a discharge disposition at the end of the study period. Of these, 192 (11.8%) required invasive mechanical ventilation and 227 (13.5%) expired. Increased age and male sex were positively associated with admission and in-hospital mortality (median age 81.9 years), while comorbidities had a much weaker association with the risk of admission or mortality. Black race (OR 1.43, 95%CI 1.14-1.78) and Hispanic ethnicity (OR 1.81, 95%CI 1.50-2.18) were identified as risk factors for admission, but, among discharged patients, age-adjusted in-hospital mortality was not significantly different among racial and ethnic groups. Conclusions: This observational study identified, among people testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, older age and male sex as the most strongly associated risks for admission and in-hospital mortality in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. While minority racial and ethnic groups had increased burden of disease and risk of admission, age-adjusted in-hospital mortality for discharged patients was not significantly different among racial and ethnic groups. Ongoing studies will be needed to continue to evaluate these risks, particularly in the setting of evolving treatment guidelines.


In the empirical literature on labour supply, several static models are developed to incorporate constraints on working hours. These models do not address to what extent working hours are constrained within jobs, and to what extent working hours can be adjusted by means of changing employer. The aim of this paper is to measure the flexibility of working hours within and between jobs by utilizing subjective information on individual preferences to adjustments in working hours. The potential endogeneity of both the subjective information and job mobility will be taken into account. Furthermore, we argue that the Netherlands is an interesting country for the study of working hour flexibility, as part-time employment is fairly common. Empirical analysis based on a sample of employed women in the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel (1987-1989) shows, however, that the flexibility of working hours within jobs is low. Job mobility is a means of adjustment in working hours mainly for women who want to work more hours.


Length of coronary sinus is important in the design of cannulation devices used in cardiac resynchronization therapy and percutaneous mitral valve annuloplasty. It displays gender and population variations that may account for the failure rate of these procedures. Cardiac conditions requiring these procedures are common in black African populations. Studies of the coronary sinus from African populations, however, are scarce and altogether absent for Kenya. The aim of the current study was to determine the length of coronary sinus among black Kenyans. Coronary sinuses of seventy-four hearts (43 males and 31 females) of adult age range (20-70years) black Kenyans obtained during autopsy were studied at the Department of Human Anatomy, University of Nairobi, Kenya. Heart samples were classified into male and female and weighed. Lengths of the heart, left atrio-ventricular groove and coronary sinus were measured in millimeters. The mean coronary sinus length was 39.55±5.32 mm while that of heart was 139.73±13.86 mm. The length of left atrio-ventricular groove length was 66.12±9.97 mm. The sinus occupied 60% of the groove and correlated positively with the length of the groove. The coronary sinus of the study population is shorter than those reported for Caucasian populations. The length correlated with that of the atrioventricular groove and the heart. Key words : Length, Coronary sinus, heart, black African.


We study a notion of guesswork, where multiple agents intend to launch a coordinated brute-force attack to find a single binary secret string, and each agent has access to side information generated through either a BEC or a BSC. The average number of trials required to find the secret string grows exponentially with the length of the string, and the rate of the growth is called the guesswork exponent. We compute the guesswork exponent for several multi-agent attacks. We show that a multi-agent attack reduces the guesswork exponent compared to a single agent, even when the agents do not exchange information to coordinate their attack, and try to individually guess the secret string using a predetermined scheme in a decentralized fashion. Further, we show that the guesswork exponent of two agents who do coordinate their attack is strictly smaller than that of any finite number of agents individually performing decentralized guesswork.


The architecture of a software product line is one of its most important artifacts as it represents an abstraction of the products that can be generated. It is cru- cial to evaluate the quality attributes of a product line architecture in order to: increase the productivity of the product line process and the quality of the products; provide a means to understand the potential behavior of the products and, consequently, decrease their time to market; and, improve the handling of the product line variability. The evaluation of product line architecture can serve as a basis to analyze the managerial and economical values of a product line for software managers and architects. Most of the current research on the evaluation of product line architecture does not take into account metrics directly obtained from UML models and their variabilities; the met- rics used instead are dif fi cult to be applied in general and to be used for quantitative analysis. This paper presents a Systematic Evaluation Method for UML-based Soft- ware Product Line Architecture, the SystEM-PLA. SystEM-PLA differs from current research as it provides stakeholders with a means to: (i) estimate and analyze potential products; (ii) use predefined basic UML-based metrics to compose quality attribute metrics; (iii) perform feasibility and trade-off analysis of a product line architecture with respect to its quality attributes; and, (iv) make the evaluation of product line architecture more flexible. An example using the SEI's Arcade Game Maker (AGM) product line is presented as a proof of concept, illustrating SystEM-PLA activities. Metrics for complexity and extensibility quality attributes are defined and used to perform a trade-off analysis.


Scarred Lands Scarred Lands is a compelling documentary exploring the underreported environmental impacts of war and preparations for war. The film confronts the immensely broad ecological and human ramifications of everything from technological development and natural resource exhaustion to weapons testing and modern warfare itself. Ecosystems around the world are in distress from forces of humanity's own making: increasing population, unsustainable demands on natural resources, habitat and species loss, and climate change. One of the most destructive of human behaviors—war—is not commonly included as a contributor to the growing global environmental crisis. Yet, in all its stages, from the production of weapons through combat, military operations pollute land, air, and water, destroy entire ecosystems, and drain limited natural resources. Using archival material from the U.S. Civil War through more recent wars, along with expert testimony and eyewitness accounts, the film clearly presents the environmental and human cost of combat, and argues for public scrutiny of the ecological and human impact of war as essential to a more sustainable—and secure—world.


The new labrid species, Cirrhilabrus isosceles, is described from six specimens, 31.0–56.7 mm SL, collected from the Ryukyu Archipelago of Japan and the northern reaches of the Philippines in the western Pacific Ocean. The holotype and a paratype were collected at 35 m depth from Funauki Bay, Iriomote-jima, Ryukyu Islands, while the four other paratypes were collected at 24–36 m from Fuga Island, Cagayan Province, northern Philippines. The new species is distinguished by features of the terminal-phase male: i.e. color pattern, a prominent long mid-dorsal-fin basal dark spot, and a broadly lanceolate caudal fin. Despite its atypical caudal-fin shape, the new species has similar color patterns to the Cirrhilabrus lunatus species complex, which differ in having a somewhat lunate caudal fin. Indeed, the mtDNA barcode COI sequences for the new species matches those of some other members of the C. lunatus complex, specifically C. cf. lunatus, C. brunneus, and C. squirei (shared mtDNA haplotypes among species has been documented in other Cirrhilabrus species complexes). Cirrhilabrus isosceles is sympatric with three other members of the C. lunatus complex, and apparently hybridizes with at


Dramatic warming and upheaval of the carbon system at the end of the Paleocene Epoch have been linked to massive dissociation of sedimentary methane hydrate. However, testing the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum hydrate dissociation hypothesis has been hindered by the inability of available proxy records to resolve the initial sequence of events. The cause of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum carbon isotope excursion remains speculative, primarily due to uncertainties in the timing and duration of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. We present new high-resolution stable isotope records based on analyses of single planktonic and benthic foraminiferal shells from Ocean Drilling Program Site 690 (Weddell Sea, Southern Ocean), demonstrating that the initial carbon isotope excursion was geologically instantaneous and was preceded by a brief period of gradual surface-water warming. Both of these findings support the thermal dissociation of methane hydrate as the cause of the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum carbon isotope excursion. Furthermore, the data reveal that the methane-derived carbon was mixed from the surface ocean downward, suggesting that a significant fraction of the initial dissociated hydrate methane reached the atmosphere prior to oxidation.


Abstract. We present the hypothesis of homogeneous nucleation of ice nano-particles in the polar summer mesosphere. The nucleation of condensed phase is traced back to the first step on the formation pathway, which is assumed to be the transition of water vapor to amorphous cluster. Amorphous clusters then freeze into water ice, likely metastable cubic ice, when they reach the critical size. The estimates based on the equilibrium thermodynamics give the critical size (radius) of amorphous water clusters as about 1.0 nm. The same estimates for the final transition step, that is the transformation of cubic to hexagonal ice, give the critical size of about 15 nm at typical upper mesospheric conditions during the polar summer (temperature T=150 K, water vapor density ρvapor=109 cm−3).


Deep neural network (DNN) has emerged as a powerful machine learning technique for various artificial intelligence applications. Due to the unique advantages on speed, area, and power, specific hardware design has become a very attractive solution for the efficient deployment of DNN. However, the huge resource cost of multipliers makes the fully-parallel implementations of multiplication-intensive DNN still very prohibitive in many real-time resource-constrained embedded applications. This brief proposes a fully-parallel area-efficient stochastic DNN design. By leveraging stochastic computing (SC) technique, the computations of DNN are implemented using very simple stochastic logic, thereby enabling low-complexity fully-parallel DNN design. In addition, to avoid the accuracy loss incurred by the approximation of SC, we propose an accuracy-aware DNN datapath architecture to retain the test accuracy of stochastic DNN. Moreover, we propose a novel low-complexity architecture for the binary-to-stochastic (B-to-S) interface to drastically reduce the footprint of the peripheral B-to-S circuit. Experimental results show that the proposed stochastic DNN design achieves much better hardware performance than non-stochastic design with negligible test accuracy loss.


Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate (EGCG) has been extensively studied for its protective effect against cardiovascular disorders. This effect has been attributed to its action on multiple molecular pathways and transmembrane proteins, including the cardiac Nav1.5 channels, which are inhibited in a dose-dependent manner. However, the molecular mechanism underlying this effect remains to be unveiled. To this aim, we have characterized the EGCG effect on Nav1.5 using electrophysiology and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. EGCG superfusion induced a dose-dependent inhibition of Nav1.5 expressed in tsA201 cells, negatively shifted the steady-state inactivation curve, slowed the inactivation kinetics, and delayed the recovery from fast inactivation. However, EGCG had no effect on the voltage-dependence of activation and showed little use-dependent block on Nav1.5. Finally, MD simulations suggested that EGCG does not preferentially stay in the center of the bilayer, but that it spontaneously relocates to the membrane headgroup region. Moreover, no sign of spontaneous crossing from one leaflet to the other was observed, indicating a relatively large free energy barrier associated with EGCG transport across the membrane. These results indicate that EGCG may exert its biophysical effect via access to its binding site through the cell membrane or via a bilayer-mediated mechanism.


This paper empirically examines industry determinants of the shape of Swedish firm size distributions at the 3-digit (NACE) industry level between 1999-2004 for surviving firms. Recent theoretical studies have begun to develop a better understanding of the causal mechanisms behind the shape of firm size distributions. At the same time there is a growing need for more systematic empirical research. This paper therefore presents a two-stage empirical model, in which the shape parameters of the size distribution are estimated in a first stage, with firm size measured as number of employees. In a second stage regression analysis, a number of hypotheses regarding economic variables that may determine the distributional shape are tested. The result from the first step are largely consistent with previous statistical findings confirming a power law. The main finding, however, is that increases in industry capital and financial constraint exert a considerable influence on the size distribution, shaping it over time towards thinner tails, and hence fewer large firms.


Upon hydrogen absorption, magnesium (Mg) spontaneously converts to the thermodynamically favoured β-MgH2 phase, but this leads to hydrogen release/uptake far from the desired low temperatures and fast kinetics. Conversion to the metastable γ-MgH2 phase should lead to improved hydrogen sorption properties. However, experimental verification of such a hypothesis remained distant. In this work, we report the electrochemical synthesis of nanosized Mg leading to the formation of a mixed γ/β hydride phase upon hydrogen absorption with a high γ-MgH2 content (29.6%). More remarkably, full release of hydrogen from these phases occurred at 200 °C only and upon hydrogen reabsorption at 100 °C, the γ/β-MgH2 mixture was restored. It was thus possible to determine for the first time the effect of γ-MgH2 on the kinetic and thermodynamic properties of the Mg/H2 reaction. The presence of γ-MgH2 was found to lead to a significant reduction of the apparent activation energy from 106.2 ± 4.0 to 69.1 ± 2.9 kJ mol−1 and a reduction of the Mg/H2 reaction enthalpy from 74.8 ± 1.0 to 57.7 ± 5.3 kJ mol−1 H2. However, this was accompanied by a concomitant decrease in entropy limiting the reduction of hydrogen desorption temperatures. γ-MgH2 can thus lead to improve hydrogen kinetics but to reach ambient hydrogen uptake and release ways to tune the enthalpy/entropy compensation effects have to be devised.


Since the 1990's, forest resource maps and small area estimates have been produced by combining national forest inventory (NFI) field plot data, optical satellite images and numerical map data using a non-parametric k-nearest neighbour method. In Finland, thematic maps of forest variables have been produced by the means of multi-source NFI (MS-NFI) for eight to ten times depending on the geographical area, but the resulting time series have not been systematically utilized. The objective of this study was to explore the possibilities of the time series for monitoring the key ecosystem condition indicators for forests. To this end, a contextual Mann-Kendall (CMK) test was applied to detect trends in time-series of two decades of thematic maps. The usefulness of the observed trends may depend both on the scale of the phenomena themselves and the uncertainties involved in the maps. Thus, several spatial scales were tested: the MS-NFI maps at 16 × 16 m2 pixel size and units of 240 × 240 m2, 1200 × 1200 m2 and 12 000 × 12 000 m2 aggregated from the MS-NFI map data. The CMK test detected areas of significant increasing trends of mean volume on both study sites and at various unit sizes except for the original thematic map pixel size. For other variables such as the mean volume of tree species groups, the proportion of broadleaved tree species and the stand age, significant trends were mostly found only for the largest unit size, 12 000 × 12 000 m2. The multiple testing corrections decreased the amount of significant p-values from the CMK test strongly. The study showed that significant trends can be detected enabling indicators of ecosystem services to be monitored from a time-series of satellite image-based thematic forest maps.


This review assesses existing data, models, and other knowledge-based methods for valuing the effects of sustainable land management including the cost of land degradation on a global scale. The overall development goal of sustainable human well-being should be to obtain social, ecologic, and economic viability, not merely growth of the market economy. Therefore new and more integrated methods to value sustainable development are needed. There is a huge amount of data and methods currently available to model and analyze land management practices. However, it is scattered and requires consolidation and reformatting to be useful. In this review we collected and evaluated databases and computer models that could be useful for analyzing and valuing land management options for sustaining natural capital and maximizing ecosystem services. The current methods and models are not well equipped to handle large scale transdisciplinary analyses and a major conclusion of this synthesis paper is that there is a need for further development of the integrated approaches, which considers all four types of capital (human, built, natural, and social), and their interaction at spatially explicit, multiple scales. This should be facilitated by adapting existing models and make them and their outcomes more accessible to stakeholders. Other shortcomings and caveats of models should be addressed by adding the 'human factor', for instance, in participatory decision-making and scenario testing. For integration of the models themselves, a more participatory approach to model development is also recommended, along with the possibility of adding advanced gaming interfaces to the models to allow them to be "played" by a large number of interested parties and their trade-off decisions to be accumulated and compared. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ∗ Corresponding author at: Aarhus University, Department of Agroecology, 8820 Tjele, E-mail address: email@example.com (K.G. Turner). ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.07.017 304-3800/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Denmark. Tel.: +45 50464025.


This study explored teachers' perceptions of their job resources, how they are constructed under perceived change demands and the perceived influence of participants' school contexts. A mixed-methods research design was followed. It consisted of a pilot-study, a survey and two rounds of semi-structured interviews in a convenience sample of secondary school teachers that were employed in schools located in a region of the Midlands in UK from June 2010 till July 2013.

Based on Demerouti et al.'s (2001) generic definition of job resources, six aspects of participants' perceptions of Job resources were addressed:
a) teachers' perceptions of their schools as learning organisations,
b) teachers' perceptions of their school activities/arrangements,
c) teachers' perceptions of Job resources and their Positive Psychological capital,
d) teachers' perceptions of their sources of engagement support,
e) teachers' perceptions of available sources of support, and
f) teachers' perceptions of the influence of their school contexts' on their perceived sources of support.

This thesis will present a literature review of key areas in relation to the study's research questions and methodological issues regarding its research design. It will discuss each aspect of teachers' perceptions of job resources in relation to relevant literature and it will show how the findings answered the research questions, present the study's limitations and contribution to the field.

Overall, the study's findings are in accordance to psychological and educational research in teachers' perceptions of sources of support in their work-environment. In particular, the surveys' and interviews' analyses showed that those sources of support mainly involve teachers' perceptions of their relationships with their colleagues and leadership as well as their perceptions of their participation in decision-making committees and their perceived influence in any developments in their schools.

The contribution of this study is that it focuses on what individual teachers perceive as most important for them. This is important as it can highlight what sources of support may best meet the needs of individual teachers. This became especially evident through the analysis of interviewees' responses about what supported them when they faced a change in their careers.

Most importantly the present study showed the complexity of adopting a holistic approach towards teachers' job resources. For example, participants in both surveys and participants in the first round of interviews focused on non-work related aspects of their lives to describe what supports their engagement in their work. On the other hand, in the second round of interviews, where the focus was on the perceived influence of participants' school contexts on teachers' perceptions, such descriptions did not occur. Finally, the use of both surveys and interviews to explore teachers' perceptions of job resources allowed both targeting specific factors in teachers' work-environment, as well as letting individuals reflect on them.


The European Union (EU) has developed ambitious strategies to transform the economy, but it is happening too slowly and not uniformly. There is need to set up a smart regulatory mix governing products sold in the EU, designed to achieve coherence and reduce fragmentation of the existing framework pertaining to products and waste, consumer protection, and trade rules. Moreover, CE policies must be developed for the purpose of limiting environmental and social impacts throughout the life cycle of products, extending product lifetime notably through repair and reuse activities and shaping more sustainable consumption behaviours. The new Circular Economy Action Plan released in March 2020 offers great prospects for developing a policy framework for sustainable production and consumption , but the real challenge will lie in developing specific measures to transform objectives into effective legislation.

The reform proposals presented in this report cover a wide range of issues related to product regulation and contain crucial elements to increasing the sustainability of production and consumption.


The cruise industry is a part of the 'post-tourism' sector that, in contrast to cultural tourism, does not seek to represent culture for consumption by the tourist, but fabricates it, creating a hyperreal tourist experience. The music is a core aspect of the cruise experience. This paper investigates the music performed on a 2009 cruise of the MV Carnival Paradise and considers how touristic meaning (as opposed to inherent meaning) is infused in the music. It finds that the music of cruise ships is used to construct a cultural cocoon which mediates and protects guests from interaction with the cultures through which they travel. It turns attention inwards, constructing the fabricated geography and culture of the ship as the destination. In so doing, it encourages consumption on the ship itself and thereby contributes to the overall profitability of the ship.


FOSS4G 2010 FOSS4G is "the conference" for Open Source Geospatial Software and on september 2010 will meet in Barcelona, Spain. At FOSS4G you will meet all kind of actors: Free Software developers and any kind of representatives from companies, institutions and the academic world. The spatial industry is undergoing rapid innovations and the open source spatial community is one of the forces driving the change.


With its colorful, block-based interface, The LEGO(R) MINDSTORMS(R) EV3 programming language is designed to allow anyone to program intelligent robots, but its powerful features can be intimidating at first. The Art of LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Programming is a full-color, beginner-friendly guide designed to bridge that gap. Inside, you'll discover how to combine core EV3 elements like blocks, data wires, files, and variables to create sophisticated programs. You'll also learn good programming practices, memory management, and helpful debugging strategies - general skills that will be relevant to programming in any language. All of the book's programs work with one general-purpose test robot that you'll build early on. As you follow along, you'll program your robot to: React to different environments and respond to commands Follow a wall to navigate a maze Display drawings that you input with dials, sensors, and data wires on the EV3 screen Play a Simon Says-style game that uses arrays to save your high score Follow a line using a PID-type controller like the ones in real industrial systems The Art of LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Programming covers both the Home and Education Editions of the EV3 set, making it perfect for kids, parents, and teachers alike. Whether your robotics lab is the living room or the classroom, this is the complete guide to EV3 programming that you've been waiting for. Requirements: One LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Home OR Education set (#31313 OR #45544)


Abstract. An empirical period-of-record flow–duration curve (FDC) describes the percentage of time (duration) in which a given streamflow was equaled or exceeded over an historical period of time. In many practical applications one has to construct FDCs in basins that are ungauged or where very few observations are available. We present an application strategy of top-kriging, which makes the geostatistical procedure capable of predicting FDCs in ungauged catchments. Previous applications of top-kriging mainly focused on the prediction of point streamflow indices (e.g. flood quantiles, low-flow indices, etc.); here the procedure is used to predict the entire curve in ungauged sites as a weighted average of standardised empirical FDCs through the traditional linear-weighting scheme of kriging methods. In particular, we propose to standardise empirical FDCs by a reference index-flow value (i.e. mean annual flow, or mean annual precipitation × the drainage area) and to compute the overall negative deviation of the curves from this reference value. We then propose to use these values, which we term total negative deviation (TND), for expressing the hydrological similarity between catchments and for deriving the geostatistical weights. We focus on the prediction of FDCs for 18 unregulated catchments located in central Italy, and we quantify the accuracy of the proposed technique under various operational conditions through an extensive cross-validation and sensitivity analysis. The cross-validation points out that top-kriging is a reliable approach for predicting FDCs with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency measures ranging from 0.85 to 0.96 (depending on the model settings) very low biases over the entire duration range, and an enhanced representation of the low-flow regime relative to other regionalisation models that were recently developed for the same study region.


How is sport in contemporary society related to sport in earlier civilizations? Why is the expenditure of energy involved in sport considered exhilarating, while the equivalent expenditure of energy in other contexts can be dispiriting? David Sansone offers answers to these questions and advances a revolutionary thesis to account for the widespread phenomenon of sport. Drawing upon ethnological findings to demonstrate the ritual character of sport, he explores the relationship between ancient Greek sport and sacrificial ritual and traces elements common to both back to primitive origins.


At the end of the nineteenth century, American corporate law changed into its modern, permissive form. Emerging first in \NJ[,] the new laws allowed corporations to own each other, and using them capitalists solved their collective action problem of ruinous competition, reorganizing American industry in a great merger wave. The most famous explanation for why the law changed, the efficiency argument, has been refuted by economic sociologists and political scientists who instead argue that the law changed because of the combination of powerful actors pursuing their interests and contingent conditions such as state fiscal crises. From this critical juncture, the law developed path-dependently. But these conditions did not occur in \NJ[,] and the actual development of the law there, with several anti-incumbent changes in a relatively short period, do not fit with a path-dependent model. Neither does the simultaneous adoption of both permissive corporate laws modeled on \NJ[']s, and their reaction, restrictive antitrust laws, across the United States. To address these problems, this dissertation develops a theoretical framework in which institutional change is determined by how the institution serves the interests of incumbents in adjoining fields. In its first part, this dissertation applies this framework to the development of corporate law in \NJ over time, comparing 28 failed and successful attempts to change the law, 1830-1913. In its second part, it tests this framework on the adoption of This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1068 permissive and restrictive corporate laws across the United States, 1889-1915. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods on new datasets of bills, votes, laws, politicians, corporations, and taxes, this dissertation finds that how existing law served political and economic incumbents' interests, by limiting competition and providing tax revenues, explain its change and persistence. The power and interest relationships among classes are reflected back into the state through taxation, mediated by state capacity. Politicians sit like both spider and fly in a web of dependencies among actors and policies. When the web is tight, institutions persist, when it loosens, change is possible. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Sociology First Advisor Randall Collins


Michael Allen's latest work on the profoundly influential Florentine thinker of the fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino, will be welcomed by philosophers, literary scholars, and historians of the Renaissance, as well as by classicists. Ficino was responsible for inaugurating, shaping, and disseminating the wide-ranging philosophico-cultural movement known as Renaissance Platonism, and his views on the "Sophist," which he saw as Plato's preeminent ontological dialogue, are of signal interest. This dialogue also served Ficino as a vehicle for exploring a number of other humanist, philosophical, and magical preoccupations, including the theme of man the artist and creator.


This paper presents the final policy recommendations coming out of the CHALLENGE project on the Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security. It aims to provide a synthesis of the main policy-relevant inputs that have been presented during the five-year research project and at the same time, refining them in light of the Stockholm programme to be adopted at the conclusion of the Swedish Presidency of the EU in December. The paper first offers a synthesised overview of the most relevant policy contributions achieved by the CHALLENGE project and then moves into an overview of the specific recommendations organised by policy theme. A final section reviews those recommendations that can be considered to be more 'general' or 'horizontal' in character and that are particularly targeted towards the development of new strategies for the implementation of innovative evaluation mechanisms.


The digital divide is conventionally measured in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment diffusion, which comes down to counting the number of computers or phones, among other devices. This article fine-tunes these approximations by estimating the amount of digital information that is stored, communicated, and computed by these devices. The installed stock of ICT equipment in the consumer segment is multiplied with its corresponding technological performance, resulting in the "installed technological capacity" for storage (in bits), bandwidth (in bits per second), and computational power (in computations per second). This leads to new insights. Despite the rapidly decreasing digital equipment divide, there is an increasing gap in terms of information-processing capacity. It is shown that in 1996 the average inhabitant of the industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had a capacity of 49 kibps more than its counterpart from Latin America and the Caribbean. Ten years later, this gap widened to 577 kibps per inhabitant. This innovative approach toward the quantification of the digital divide leads to numerous new challenges for the research agenda.


Offenders in justice system settings have high rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in comparison with the general population. Consequently, justice systems are using screening tools to identify and manage these individuals. Currently, that includes screening for TBI history and gross cognitive impairment. The present study attempted to determine whether the modified Ohio State University Traumatic Brain Injury Identification Method (OSU TBI-ID) was predictive of ongoing cognitive impairment as measured by the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM) Core Battery. If so, the OSU TBI-ID could be used as a stand-alone measure of TBI history and impairment. This study had 223 participants (male = 160, female = 62). Sensitivity and specificity results revealed poor (.65) to very poor (.36) estimates for all OSU TBI-ID indices across all ANAM subtests. This study suggests that screening for lifetime history of TBI does not identify cognitive impairment. Implications for screening policy and future research are discussed.


Monthly sampling showed that the granules and small pebbles of the bay beaches can display pronounced longshore grading from time to time but that the overall picture is complicated by changing beach height and slope, local variations between minor headlands, and sorting parallel with, normal to, and vertically through, the beach, rather than longshore adjustment alone. Particle size is reflected in geological composition. A short term intensive study of part of the area, designed to show relationships between surface particle size and the wave parameters, only produced significant correlations on Slapton beach. These were between mean phi (ø) size and the square root of the significant wave height (H31/2) and, to a lesser extent, between mean ø size and direction of wave approach (θ°) Thereafter, two tracer experiments using polyurethane-coated shingle were carried out on Slapton beach. Where statistically valid results were obtained it was shown that: there was virtually no correlation between wave parameters and sediment transport; maximum longshore transport corresponded with smallest particle size; differing factors (ø weight and frequency, linear parameters, ratios and shape indexes) assumed importance on different occasions and in different beach zones; recoveries at high, mid or low tide levels were often atypical of both the overall recovered population for that tide, and for the injected population.


Many cities seek utilities monitoring with centrally managed Internet of Things (IoT) systems. This requires the development of numerous reliable low-cost wireless sensors, such as water temperature and flow meters, that can transmit information from subterranean pipes to surface-mounted receivers. Traditional radio communication systems are either unable to penetrate through multiple feet of earthen and manmade material, or have impractically large energy requirements which necessitate either frequent replacement of batteries, or a complex (and expensive) built-in energy harvesting system. Magnetic signaling systems do not suffer from this drawback: low-frequency electromagnetic waves have been shown to penetrate well through several feet of earth and water. In the past, these signals were too weak for practical use; however, this has changed with the recent proliferation of high-sensitivity magnetometers and compact rare-earth magnets. A permanent magnet can be either rotated or vibrated to create an oscillating magnetic field. Utilizing this phenomenon, two types of magnetic transmitter are investigated in this study: one which uses a propeller to directly rotate a diametrically magnetized neodymium magnet; and a second in which a permanent magnet is oscillated back-and-forth across a novel soft-magnet Y-stator, which projects a switching magnetic field. In principle, these oscillating magnetic fields can be used for communication from subterranean infrastructure sensors—such as flow meters and leak detection devices—to an aboveground long range (LoRa) radio-networked Arduino receiver equipped with a magnetometer. Simulation software models the oscillating electromagnetic fields produced by the Y-stator configuration. Laboratory performance and field tests establish the capability of two IoTlinked leak-detection sensors that use magnetic telemetry. Remote datalogging demonstrates the viability of integrating many sensors and surface receivers into a single LoRa wireless IoT network.


Recent studies, using a cell-free system, have suggested that thiol-dependent nonenzymatic bioactivation may be responsible for the superior antitumor activity of the mitomycin C analogue BMS-181174 [N-7-[2-(4-nitrophenyldithio)ethyl]mitomycin C] when compared to the parent compound. If operational in tumor cells, this pathway could have enormous clinical implications since tumor cell resistance to a variety of anticancer agents is often associated with increased glutathione (GSH) levels and BMS-181174 may be used to reverse this mechanism of resistance. The present study was undertaken to determine the role of GSH in cellular activation of BMS-181174 using a pair of well-characterized human bladder cancer cells (J82 and SCaBER) as a model. A 20-h pretreatment of J82 and SCaBER cells with a nontoxic concentration of D,L-buthionine-S,R-sulfoximine (BSO) caused about 80-88% reduction in cellular GSH levels. Surprisingly, the sensitivity of both cells to BMS-181174 was increased, not reduced, by BSO-induced GSH depletion. On the other hand, the cytotoxicity of BMS-181174 was significantly reduced in both cells by a 4-h pretreatment with 1 mM GSH. Like BSO, a 4-h pretreatment with another thiol compound (cysteine) resulted in a statistically significant sensitization of both cells to BMS-181174. Cellular GSH levels were not affected in either of the cell lines by pretreatment with GSH or cysteine. In conclusion, the results or the present study argue against a role of GSH in cellular nonenzymatic activation of BMS-181174 in J82 and SCaBER cells.


Regulation of adenylate cyclases and extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases by delta-opioid receptors in HEK293 cells

Stimulation of G protein coupled opioid receptors result in both inhibition of adenylate cyclases and stimulation of extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases ERK1/2. As regulation of cellular effectors may be accomplished by various G proteins as well as by the different G protein subunits (G alpha, G betagamma), delta-opioid receptors were thus examined for activating different G proteins underlying different regulation of these cellular effectors.

In transfected HEK293 cells, activation of delta-opioid receptors by peptidergic opioids (DADLE, DPDPE) and alkaloids (etorphine, morphine) brought about concentration-dependent inhibition of adenylate cyclases and stimulation of the ERKs, respectively. Since the high-affinity opioids DADLE, DPDPE and etorphine accomplished regulation of respective effector molecules already at nanomolar ligand concentrations, a 1000-fold higher dose of low-affinity agonist morphine was required for both inhibition of adenylate cyclases and ERK activation. However, for all tested opioids, a higher EC50 could have been determined for inhibition of adenylate cyclases than for stimulation of the ERKs. Thus, adenylate cyclases expressed in HEK cells seems to be more sensitive to delta-opioid receptor activation than the ERKs.

As previously shown, exposure of HEK-DOR cells to pertussis toxin (PTX) resulted in incomplete inhibition of adenylate cyclases by DADLE and DPDPE, whereas etorphine and morphine totally lost their ability to inhibit the cyclases under these conditions. In contrast, activation of ERKs by all tested opioids was abolished by PTX treatment. However, PTX also blocked ERK activation by Gq-coupled receptors and receptor tyrosine kinases, both regulating ERKs independent from PTX-sensitive Gi proteins. Thus, PTX is suggested to inhibit ERK activation also independent from affecting G protein activation. Since inhibition of G alpha q subunits by the G alpha q-binding protein EBP50 did not affect effector regulation, inhibition of G alpha q and G alpha 12 mediated signaling by neomycin and 1-butanol brought about partial blockade of ERK activation by all tested opioids. Exposure of HEK-DOR cells with neomycin and 1-butanol together even totally blocked ERK activation by respective opioids. In contrast, inhibition of G alpha 11 signaling partially blocked inhibition of adenylate cyclases by DADLE and DPDPE, whereas regulation of the cyclases by the alkaloids was not affected under this condition. Since inhibition of G betagamma signaling by phosducin did not affect regulation of adenylate cyclases and ERKs by opioids, delta-opoioid receptors are supposed to regulate these cellular effectors by G alpha subunits.

Although the tested cellular effectors are regulated differently, inhibition of adenylate cyclases seems to support activation of ERKs, since simultaneous stimulation of the cyclases by forskolin impairs ERK activation by DPDPE and etorphin. In contrast, activation of ERKs did not affect regulation of the cyclases by delta-opioid receptors.

Together the findings let suppose that different G alpha subunits might be involved in regulation of adenylate cyclases and ERKs by delta-opioid receptors. Since stimulation of delta-receptors might be supposed to bring about inhibition of adenylate cyclases by G alpha i and G alpha 11 subunits, alkaloids seems to regulate cyclases by G alpha i subunits. In contrast, both peptide and alkaloid opioids seem to stimulate ERKs by G alpha 11- and G alpha 12-mediated signaling.


Malabsorption, weight loss and vitamin/mineral-deficiencies characterize classical celiac disease (CD). This study aimed to assess the nutritional and vitamin/mineral status of current "early diagnosed" untreated adult CD-patients in the Netherlands. Newly diagnosed adult CD-patients were included (n = 80, 42.8 ± 15.1 years) and a comparable sample of 24 healthy Dutch subjects was added to compare vitamin concentrations. Nutritional status and serum concentrations of folic acid, vitamin A, B6, B12, and (25-hydroxy) D, zinc, haemoglobin (Hb) and ferritin were determined (before prescribing gluten free diet). Almost all CD-patients (87%) had at least one value below the lower limit of reference. Specifically, for vitamin A, 7.5% of patients showed deficient levels, for vitamin B6 14.5%, folic acid 20%, and vitamin B12 19%. Likewise, zinc deficiency was observed in 67% of the CD-patients, 46% had decreased iron storage, and 32% had anaemia. Overall, 17% were malnourished (>10% undesired weight loss), 22% of the women were underweight (Body Mass Index (BMI) < 18.5), and 29% of the patients were overweight (BMI > 25). Vitamin deficiencies were barely seen in healthy controls, with the exception of vitamin B12. Vitamin/mineral deficiencies were counter-intuitively not associated with a (higher) grade of histological intestinal damage or (impaired) nutritional status. In conclusion, vitamin/mineral deficiencies are still common in newly "early diagnosed" CD-patients, even though the prevalence of obesity at initial diagnosis is rising. Extensive nutritional assessments seem warranted to guide nutritional advices and follow-up in CD treatment.


With the emergence and continuous growth of wireless data services, the value of wireless networks is not only defined by how many users it can support, but also by its ability to concentrate large amounts of data capacity at localized spots. Information theory provides a mathematical framework which quantifies the maximum achievable data rate over a communication channel. More importantly, information theoretic study for capacity of cellular systems suggests base station cooperation as a mean of overcoming inter-cell interference limitations. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the information theoretic capacity of the cellular uplink. In order to quantify the performance of the current and future engineering solutions, the designers need to know the rate limits that a particular multi-user cellular system can provide and how far from the limit, lays the efficiency of their design. The gap between the information theoretic limit and the performance of currently known systems will also determine if the current systems are already saturated or have a potential to provide higher rates. More specifically, the thesis focuses on extending the known formulations for the cellular uplink under BS cooperation by; 1) incorporating, modeling and investigating the various effects of the multi-user channel that correspond to a real-world communication system (e.g. path loss, multipath and shadow fading, thermal noise) to provide a fundamental limit for the capacity of the wireless cellular network, 2) evaluating the effect of various practical parameters of real-world cellular systems on capacity, such as inter site distance, number of UTs per-cell, UT distribution over the cells, UT transmit power, 3) investigating how multiple directional antennas for site sectorization may improve the networks communication rates and, 4) exploring the achieving communication rates of clustered cellular systems as a more feasible strategy to be implemented nowadays to find when clustered cooperation becomes more beneficial.


Immunotherapy is a significant cancer treatment as it uses the body's natural immune system to fight cancer. To help boost the immune system, monoclonal antibodies (MABs) are used as they bind to cancer cells helping the immune system recognize these cells. In this paper, we present a mathematical model of nonlinear partial differential equations describing the interaction between the immune cells, MABs, and cancer cells. After nondimensionalizing the model, we analyzed the long-term behavior and found later that it is consistent with the numerical results. Then, we calculated the numerical solutions of the model with different values of the parameters (relative growth rate of cancer cells and the number of immune cells that are removed after killing a cancer cell) to determine the values that help increase the effectiveness of the treatment. We have considered the continuous delivery of antibodies over a certain period of time. These simulations showed that immune cells will eradicate cancer if the number of immune cells that are removed after killing a cancer cell is less than one. However, if each immune cell kills only one cancer cell, then the treatment reduces the cancer to a steady state or almost a steady state. On the other hand, if the relative growth rate of cancer cells is very small and each cancer cell needs more than one immune cell to kill it, then again, we get a steady state for cancer. However, if the relative growth rate is not small, then the cancer will grow after an initial decrease. This study could be implemented into a clinical trial with different delivery protocols of the drug to improve cancer treatment.


SUMMARY EhNCABP166 is an Entamoeba histolytica actin-binding protein that localizes to the nucleus and cytoplasm. Bioinformatic analysis of the EhNCABP166 amino acid sequence shows the presence of 3 bipartite nuclear localization signals (NLS) and a nuclear export signal (NES). The present study aimed to investigate the functionality of these signals in 3 ways. First, we fused each potential NLS to a cytoplasmic domain of ehFLN to determine whether the localization of this domain could be altered by the presence of the NLSs. Furthermore, the localization of each domain of EhNCABP166 was determined. Similarly, we generated mutations in the first block of bipartite signals from the domains that contained these signals. Additionally, we added an NES to 2 constructs that were then evaluated. We confirmed the intranuclear localization of EhNCABP166 using transmission electron microscopy. Fusion of each NLS resulted in shuttling of the cytoplasmic domain to the nucleus. With the exception of 2 domains, all of the evaluated domains localized within the nucleus. A mutation in the first block of bipartite signals affected the localization of the domains containing an NLS. The addition of an NES shifted the localization of these domains to the cytoplasm. The results presented here establish EhNCABP166 as a protein containing functional nuclear localization signals and a nuclear export signal.


Inventory and assessment of aquatic biodiversity were conducted in Alanib River in Mt. Kitanglad, Bukidnon, which is one of the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites in Mindanao. The species richness and abundance of fishes, macroinvertebrates, plankton and also vascular plants in the riparian vegetation were evaluated in relation to the influence of land use, water quality and elevation. The results of this study revealed that there were 2 species of fishes, 6 orders of macro-invertebrates 14 species of plankton and 237 species of vascular plants were identified. The surrounding land uses and human activities along the river were found to have significant impact on the overall water quality and biodiversity of the aquatic biota and riparian vegetation of Alanib River. The increasing human population and agricultural intensification at the lower section of the river contributed to the relatively lower water quality, presence of pollution tolerant phytoplankton and macro-invertebrate groups as well as invasive species of vascular plants. Hence, the overall results of this study revealed that the integrity of Alanib River in terms of its biophysical and chemical condition is severely threatened especially in the downstream section due to various anthropogenic activities which can degrade its overall environmental quality. Keywords - Assessment, stream health, river, biodiversity, composition, Mindanao.


Quincy Troupe's candid account of his friendship with Miles Davis is a revealing portrait of a great musician and an intimate study of a unique relationship. It is also an engrossing chronicle of the author's own development, both artistic and personal. As Davis' collaborator on "Miles: The Autobiography", Troupe - one of the major poets to emerge from the 1960s - had exceptional access to the musician. This memoir goes beyond the life portrayed in the autobiography to describe in detail the processes of Davis' spectacular creativity and the joys and difficulties his passionate, contradictory temperament posed to the men's friendship. It shows how Miles Davis, both as a black man and an artist, influenced not only Quincy Troupe but whole generations.Troupe has written that Miles Davis was "irascible, contemptuous, brutally honest, ill-tempered when things didn't go his way, complex, fair-minded, humble, kind and a son-of-a-bitch." The author's love and appreciation for Davis make him a keen, though not uncritical, observer. He captures and conveys the power of the musician's presence, the mesmerizing force of his personality, and the restless energy that lay at the root of his creativity. He also shows Davis' lighter side: cooking, prowling the streets of Manhattan, painting, riding his horse at his Malibu home. Troupe discusses Davis' musical output, situating his albums in the context of the times - both political and musical - out of which they emerged. "Miles and Me" is an unparalleled look at the act of creation and the forces behind it, at how the innovations of one person can inspire both those he knows and loves and the world at large.


The existing public access policy for our three journals—The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, and The Journal of General Physiology—is fully compliant with new policies from the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Wellcome Trust. In addition to mandating public access, the new policies specify licensing terms for reuse of content by third parties, in particular for text and data mining. We question the need for these specific terms, and we have added a statement to our licensing policy stipulating that anyone, including commercial entities, is permitted to mine our published text and data.


The characterization of parasitic couplings contributing to mechatronic assemblies' wide band Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) behavior is complex but increasingly essential for meeting needed performance and regulations. This article presents a comparative study of analytical and numerical approaches to determine the capacitive couplings in wound structures as an effort to develop a comprehensive approach to predict and prevent undesired couplings. The approach is based on physical and structural parameters analysis instead of behavioral characterization, allowing the use of predictive tools in the early design stage of mechatronic systems. The analytical model presented is compared to simulation methods applied to a three-layer inductor. Calculations converge to similar results. In the last part of the work, an experimental measurement of stray capacitance is done on an actual stator winding and compared to the analytical predictions of parasitic capacitances.


Blockchain is one of the most popular distributed ledger technologies. It can solve the trust issue among enterprises. Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned blockchain aiming at enterprise-grade business applications. However, compared to traditional distributed database solutions, one issue of blockchain based application development is the limited data access. For Fabric, the ledger data can only be retrieved by limited interfaces provided by Fabric SDKs or chaincode. In order to meet the requirements of data query and provide flexible query functions for real applications built on Fabric, this paper proposed a ledger data query platform called Ledgerdata Refiner. With ledger data analysis middleware, we provide sufficient interfaces for users to retrieve block or transaction efficiently. It is also able to track historical operations for any specific state. In addition, schemas of ledger state have been analyzed and clustered, which enable users to perform rich queries against ledger data. Finally, we validate the effectiveness of our query platform on a real application.


Agricultural extension trends have involved greater use of collaborative "discussion group" dissemination approaches. These discussion groups involve regular participatory meetings between a consistent cohort of farmers and extension practitioners with occasional input from industry and research stakeholders. In Ireland, policy change, small farm scale and low incomes are some of the factors incentivising beef farmers and industry to seek increased whole-farm income efficiency. Whole-farm comparative analysis may provide a means of identifying and explaining efficiency drivers at farm level. This article describes the development of BEEFMARK, a benchmarking model with potential to act as a tool to facilitate farmer-farmer and farmer-adviser group learning within discussion groups. BEEFMARK utilised Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure beef farm income and scale efficiency and to identify and characterise efficient peer farms which act as benchmarks for similarly structured, but lower efficiency farms. Market derived gross output (€) per livestock unit was positively associated with farm efficiency while greater overhead and concentrate feed expenditure was negatively associated with income and scale efficiency.


Since 2001, the CERT Insider Threat Center at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has collected and analyzed information about more than seven hundred insider cyber crimes, ranging from national security espionage to theft of trade secrets. The CERT Guide to Insider Threats describes CERTs findings in practical terms, offering specific guidance and countermeasures that can be immediately applied by executives, managers, security officers, and operational staff within any private, government, or military organization. The authors systematically address attacks by all types of malicious insiders, including current and former employees, contractors, business partners, outsourcers, and even cloud-computing vendors. They cover all major types of insider cyber crime: IT sabotage, intellectual property theft, and fraud. For each, they present a crime profile describing how the crime tends to evolve over time, as well as motivations, attack methods, organizational issues, and precursor warnings that could have helped the organization prevent the incident or detect it earlier. Beyond identifying crucial patterns of suspicious behavior, the authors present concrete defensive measures for protecting both systems and data. This book also conveys the big picture of the insider threat problem over time: the complex interactions and unintended consequences of existing policies, practices, technology, insider mindsets, and organizational culture. Most important, it offers actionable recommendations for the entire organization, from executive management and board members to IT, data owners, HR, and legal departments. With this book, you will find out how to Identify hidden signs of insider IT sabotage, theft of sensitive information, and fraud Recognize insider threats throughout the software development life cycle Use advanced threat controls to resist attacks by both technical and nontechnical insiders Increase the effectiveness of existing technical security tools by enhancing rules, configurations, and associated business processes Prepare for unusual insider attacks, including attacks linked to organized crime or the Internet underground By implementing this books security practices, you will be incorporating protection mechanisms designed to resist the vast majority of malicious insider attacks.


Convection heat transfer can be enhanced by imposed turbulence in the annular flow of a double pipe heat exchanger. This paper presents and discusses the results obtained from experimental measurement by the installation of turbulence promoters, having rib configuration, on the inner surface of the cold flow annulus of a counter flow double-pipe heat exchanger. The promoters have been selected with rib's height to hydraulic diameter, e/Dh equal to 0.107 and two pitch to height ratios, p/e equal to 10 and 15. The annular cold flow was investigated within Reynolds number range of 2000 to 20000. The measured data enabled us to estimate the friction factor, Reynolds number and Stanton number of each case in order to analyse the performance enhancement of the double pipe heat exchanger. The results showed that enhancement in the heat transfer, in terms of the Stanton number, was combined with a small penalty in the pressure drop, which was due to an increase in the friction factor values. Within the tested ranges of e/Dh and Re, the performance index indicated enhancement of about 1.3 to 1.8 at pitch to p/e = 10. It is recommended to investigate more cases of rib's heights and installation in the hot fluid flow side.


We present a fully functional material extrusion printer for optically transparent glass. The printer is comprised of scalable modular elements, able to operate at the high temperatures required to process glass from a molten state to an annealed product. We demonstrate a process enabling the construction of 3D parts as described by Computer Aided Design (CAD) models. Processing parameters such as temperature, which control glass viscosity, and flow rate, layer height and feed rate, can thus be adjusted to tailor printing to the desired component, its shape and its properties. We explored, defined and hard-coded geometric constraints and coiling patterns as well as the integration of various colors into the current controllable process, contributing to a new design and manufacturing space. We report on performed characterization of the printed material executed to determine their morphological, mechanical and optical properties. Printed parts demonstrated strong adhesion between layers and satisfying optical clarity. Demonstration of this molten glass 3D printer and fabricated objects demonstrates the production of parts, which are highly repeatable, enable light transmission, and resemble the visual and mechanical performance of glass constructs that are conventionally obtained. Utilizing the optical nature of glass, complex caustic patterns were created by projecting light through the printed objects. The 3D printed glass objects described here can thus be extended to implementations across scales and functional domains including product and architectural design. This research lies at the intersection of design, engineering, science and art, representing a highly interdisciplinary approach.


The article links the literatures on citizenship studies and electronic democracy by analyzing the extent to which theories and practices of citizenship are being transformed in the age of the Internet. Distinguishing between the different citizenship traditions of liberal-individualism and civic-republicanism, we analyze the interplay between generic technological tools and the divergent historical legacies of citizenship in Turkey and Britain. Based on our analysis of governmental portals, main e-government applications, and censorship and surveillance practices, we argue that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) serve the states' interests by enabling increased surveillance capabilities, more efficient bureaucracy, better border controls and criminal investigations. In both countries, citizens benefit from electronic service-delivery applications primarily as consumers of public services, while their role as citizens are not particularly enhanced. Parallel to these convergence tendencies, we observe striking differences in the way electronic citizenship is practiced in these two countries, stemming from different traditions of citizenship as well as different levels of democracy consolidation. Despite some of the transformative power of the ICTs, their use is largely shaped by the existing understandings of citizenship in both countries.


Objective: The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of the wordmaginating teaching method in reducing learning problems and improvement of reading and writing skills of students. Materials & Methods: 20 children with learning disabilities LD (boys & girls) were trained in this research. They were selected randomly from clients of a LD center. Nine of these students were trained using traditional learning methods and eleven students were trained in the way of improved wordmaginating method. To assess students' learning conditions and characteristics, three sets of researcher-made reading and writing tests were used before and after the training course. Also, for follow-up, after six months of completion of the training course, the tests were applied. Results: Comparison of the pre-test, post-test, and follow-up of two groups in reading and writing skills (post-test P<0.0001), (P<0.05), revealed significantly superior performance of the students who had worked with wordmaginating process. Conclusion: Wordmaginating teaching method not only improved the performances of reading and writing of the tested group significantly, but also the persistence of educational achievements after a few


There is much interest in the use of biometrics for verification, identification, and "screening" applications, collectively called biometric authentication. This interest has been heightened because of the threat of terrorism. Biometric authentication systems offer advantages over systems based on knowledge or possession such as unsupervised (legacy) authentication systems based on password/PIN and supervised (legacy) authentication systems based on driver's licences and passports. The most important advantage is increased security: when a person is authenticated based on a biometric, the probability that this person is the originally enrolled person can be statistically estimated or computed in some other way. When a person is authenticated based on a password or even based on human observation, no such probabilities can be determined. Of course, the mere capability to compute this probability is not sufficient, what is needed is that the probability of correct authentication is high and the error probabilities are low. Achieving this probabilistic linking by introducing biometrics in authentication systems brings along many design choices and may introduce additional security loopholes. This document studies the many aspects of biometric applications that are an issue even before a particular biometrics has been selected; it further studies many issues that are associated with the currently popular biometric identifiers, namely, finger, face, voice, iris, hand (geometry) and signature.


The aim of this study was to discover Swedish child healthcare (CHC) nurses' experiences of language assessment in children who do not have Swedish as their mother tongue. A CHC nurse has qualifications in child health, and their role is to promote good health and prevent illness. As immigration to Sweden is at the highest level ever recorded (Statistics Sweden, 2014), there is an increasing need for language assessment. In this study, 'mother tongue' is defined as the language a child learns first, which is synonymous with the term 'first language' (Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, 2016). The CHC nurses in this study were Swedish-speaking, but conducted speech and language assessments among children who did not speak Swedish; for example, who had a mother tongue other than Swedish. It is important to acquire knowledge of CHC nurses' experiences of language assessment.


ABSTRACT

This study applies social science methodology to the innovation of e-learning so that decision makers and other stakeholders can assess aspects of its effectiveness, to provide a more secure base for action. In this study, e-learning's effectiveness was evaluated at two universities in Saudi Arabia, through male learners' perceptions. Some account was taken of variables to assess statistically significant differences in their views. The data was collected by mixed methods: using a questionnaire from a sample of 300 learners and a focus group interview attended, later, by 21 learners.
The findings showed that e-learners believe that they are able to learn autonomously using all features made available by the technology. They reported that they were motivated by the interactivity of e-learning and pursued their courses with intensity and success. There was positive agreement in all four dimensions considered by the research. Significant variables within this positive rating were previous e-learning experience and ICT skills. The study also collected learners' views about the positives and negatives of e-learning, its requirements and barriers, as well as learners' suggestions for the development of e-learning. Learners appreciated the opportunities offered by e-learning and the way it supported their studies, facilitating communication and accommodating their learning needs and circumstances. They recognised that it helped to meet an increased demand for learning. On the other hand, they noted some hazards to physical and social health and some confusion arising from the diversity of information accessible through ICT. They felt improvements could be made by planning, training and by specialized personnel. Most of the barriers they noted arose from infrastructural weaknesses and lack of acceptance of e-learning. Respondents said they were aware of financial constraints and of language barriers. Universities, working closely with communities and the private sector, could address many of these identified issues in products and infrastructure. This study concludes with some recommendations as well as suggestions for future research.


Wine grape cultivar selection was examined as a use of biotechnology and a part of integrated plant disease management in grape and wine production. The efficacy of 18 wine grape cultivars against various wine grape diseases was examined using a relatively low-input fungicide regimen to determine whether these diseases can be managed under hot and humid southeastern Virginia conditions over 5 years. Disease developments of black rot, Botrytis bunch rot, downy mildew, Phomopsis cane and leaf spot, and powdery mildew was evaluated. Although overall level of disease was low in each year, we observed a significant ( P ≤ 0.05) effect of cultivar in many cases, indicating the importance of cultivar selection. Cultivars such as 'Norton', 'Noire', 'Traminette', 'Vidal blanc', and 'Viognier' were found to be less susceptible to the major diseases under Virginia environmental conditions.


This paper studies the cross-regional variation of interest rates in China in the 1930s. Based on county-level data from the Buck (1941) rural surveys, we examine factors that may have influenced rural interest rates in pre-1949 China. Since the quality of institutions that define property rights and facilitate contract enforcement is important for such transactions as land tenancy arrangements, we treat land tenancy rate (or percentage of owner-farmers) as a proxy for institutional quality. Contrary to the popular belief among historians and economists that usury or high interest rates caused persistent poverty, we find that while the monopoly-exploitation hypothesis has little explanatory power, a regioni¯s institutional quality and income level are persistent and significant determinants of interest rates. Thus, poverty is a key driver of high rates of interest. Economic growth and the development of market institutions are crucial for lowering high interest rates and combating usury.


Today's media-scape presents recording and archiving as one of the major media practices performed by an increasingly growing number of people. Practically every personal digital device is equipped with some recording function allowing to capture and categorize texts, sound clips, images, video sequences, geographical location and increasingly bio-physiological processes. On the other hand, often without us being aware, the same technology passively tracks and records ever more detailed information about our behaviours, movements and decisions. As some scholars suggest, latest advancements in technology made the dreams of recording one's whole life come true. This total capture becomes a condition that calls for reaction. In this paper I interrogate the idea of a passive and automatized capturing by confronting it with a concept of a reflective and proactive recording practice. As an exemplification of the latter I introduce a set of artistic practices I have been performing regularly since 2009. These practices aim at constructing a record of my life and the space I find myself in. Contesting the enthusiasm around the technologically enabled possibility of recording entirety of one's life I argue that recording and archiving are generative and active processes requiring reflective and critical approach to media technologies that they inherently rely on.


This Article asks the question: When does disclosure actually help security? The discussion begins with a paradox. Most experts in computer and network security are familiar with the slogan that there is no security through obscurity. The Open Source and encryption view is that revealing the details of a system will actually tend to improve security, notably due to peer review. In sharp contrast, a famous World War II slogan says loose lips sink ships. Most experts in the military and intelligence areas believe that secrecy is a critical tool for maintaining security. Both cannot be right - disclosure cannot both help and hurt security. Using a law and economics approach to resolve the paradox, Part I provides a model for deciding when either the Open Source or the military/intelligence viewpoints is likely to be correct. The model analyzes the costs and benefits of disclosure for both attackers and defenders. The model also sheds light on when disclosure is likely to provide net benefits in two other important cases: information sharing (such as between the FBI and the CIA) and the public domain. Part II explains why many computer and network security problems appear different from the traditional security problems of the physical world. The analysis focuses on the nature of the first-time attack or the degree of what the paper calls uniqueness in the defense. Many defensive tricks, including secrecy, are more effective the first time there is an attack on a physical base or computer system. Secrecy is far less effective, however, if the attackers can probe the defenses repeatedly and learn from those probes. It turns out that many of the key areas of computer security involve circumstances where there can be repeated, low-cost attacks. For instance, firewalls, mass-market software, and encryption algorithms all can be attacked repeatedly by hackers. Under such circumstances, a strategy of secrecy - of security through obscurity - is less likely to be effective than for the military case. Part III applies the analytic tools developed earlier in the paper to issues including the following: the enlargement of the public domain in a world of search engines; the relationship between disclosure and deterrence; the importance of not disclosing passwords or the combination to a safe; why secrecy in surveillance may improve security (while also threatening other important values); and variables that affect when Open Source or proprietary software may provide better security. Part III also explains how the academic literature on the Efficient Capital Markets Hypothesis can illuminate important issues in computer and network security. In short, this Article provides the first systematic explanation of how to decide when disclosure improves security, both for physical- and cyber-security settings.


There has been a global trend for religions to respond to environmental agendas, using rituals and ceremonies, with many studies showing that traditions and beliefs have established the importance of places as 'sacred'. This concept lends itself very well to the ideals and beliefs found in a conservation movement. This article aims to investigate this connection to show how it helps build a meaningful relationship between people, water and place. It focuses on a case study in Pang Jum Pee Village, Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, where a need for change was recognised, from village economies centred on deforestation, to ones with more emphasis on conservation ethics. In the process, a community committee initiated two rituals of Buat Pa and Seub Cha Ta Rum Num. The results indicated that the spiritual and sociocultural meaning hidden in those rituals helped embed conservation in a construction of sense of place. A spiritual belief interplaying with the doctrine of Buddhism influenced the attitude and behaviour of villagers towards the ecological services provided by forests and water, services which supported their livelihood. At the same time, those rituals as social events could reproduce a social unity or sense of community for Pang Jum Pee villagers since the ceremonies required cooperation, by constructing a collective commitment to forests and water as common property. The study also identified the role of reciprocity in ritual performance in connecting a social network of conservation among neighbouring villages and external agencies.


John Milton alludes to the classical myth of Pandora several times in his writings. His earliest reference is in his third prolusion, "On the Harmony of the Spheres," which he wrote while a student at Christ's College, Cambridge, between 1625 and 1632. "The fact that we are unable to hear this harmony," says Milton, "seems certainly to be due to the presumption of that thief Prometheus, which brought so many evils upon men" (CPW 1:238-39). Though Milton does not mention Pandora by name, her eventual role in the Fall is implicit in his remarks (CPW 1:239n15). His first explicit allusion to Pandora is in his fourth prolusion, "In the Destruction of any Substance there can be no Resolution into First Matter," which he begins by saying: "This is not the place in which to enquire too nicely whether Error escaped from Pandora's box, or from the depths of the Styx, or lastly whether he is to be accounted one of the sons of Earth who conspired against the gods" (CPW 1:249). Milton makes his final reference to Pandora in Paradise Lost (1667 and 1674), where he compares the unfallen Eve to the character from classical myth. Eve is [...] more adorn'd, More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods Endow'd with all thir gifts, and O too like In sad event. (4.713-16) Between his Cambridge years and Paradise Lost, Milton mentions Pandora in the 1644 second edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. In that greatly expanded version of the 1643 first edition, he alludes to Pandora to illuminate the Fall and to absolve God of responsibility for creating sin: Yet considering the perfection wherin man was created, and might have stood, no decree necessitating his free will, but subsequent though not in time yet in order to causes which were in his owne power, they [the Jesuits and Arminians] might, methinks be perswaded to absolve both God and us. Whenas the doctrine of Plato and Chrysippus with their followers the Academics and the Stoics, who knew not what a consummat and most adorned Pandora was bestow'd upon Adam to be the nurse and guide of his arbitrary happinesse and perseverance, I mean his native innocence and perfection, which might have kept him from being our true Epimetheus, and though they taught of vertue and vice to be both the gift of divine destiny, they could yet find reasons not invalid, to justifie the counsels of God and Fate from the insulsity of mortall tongues: That mans own freewill self corrupted is the adequat and sufficient cause of his disobedience besides [i.e., other than] Fate; as Homer also wanted not [i.e., did not fail] to expresse both in his Iliad and Odyssei. (CPW 2:293-94) The above passage has yielded conflicting interpretations. Milton alludes to "a consummat and most adorned Pandora" given to Adam, and some critics have read his words as a reference to Eve. Such a reading, in turn, makes Milton seem more charitable toward women in his divorce tract. Others, however, have challenged the interpretation that Eve was given to Adam "to be the nurse and guide of his arbitrary happinesse and perseverance," and also that she "might have kept him from being our true Epimetheus." So, too, Eve had been condemned in patristic writings, thus making her an unlikely moral guardian. While Milton's allusion to Pandora in The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce has generated debate, the meaning of the passage becomes clearer in light of the writings of the Church Father Tertullian, with whose works Milton was well acquainted. Tertullian denounces Eve and associates her with Pandora, but he also treats Pandora as a rhetorical figure denoting the perfect combination of all good gifts. The myth of Pandora originated with Hesiod, who says in the Theogony (c. 720 B.C.) that at Zeus' command Hephaestus made her to avenge Prometheus' theft of fire. Athena adorned her, and Hephaestus crowned her. …


This paper uses the conceptual tools of technology-in-practice and the enacted structures to examine the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on the activities of learning networks, that is inter-firm networks specifically formed to enable their members to share and increase their knowledge. The basic assumption is that the measurement of the real impact of Information and Communication Technologies on organisational forms and functions require the identification of the routines and everyday practices deployed before and after the implementation of a new system. Therefore the paper starts with identifying the inter- organisational routines deployed by learning networks and discusses the implementation of a technological platform in three learning networks in Austria, France and Ireland. The emerging technologies-in-practice are identified and the way that these technologies-in-practice fail or succeed to enhance the relevant routines is analysed. A survey among the learning networks members gives further insights into the actual aspects of the network routines that were affected by the introduced technology and its situated usages.

The paper argues that, in the context of a network, only the alignment of transparent with receptive technologies-in-practice instigated by different stakeholders can produce a real impact on the inter-organisational routines and structures. In fact the alignment of technologies-in-practice within the network can influence critically several repertoires of inter-organisational routines such as the communication and informal knowledge sharing routines, with critical implications for the improvement of the whole network.