OBJECTIVE
To determine current population characteristics of, clinical findings in, and survival times for cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

DESIGN
Retrospective study.

ANIMALS
260 cats with HCM.

PROCEDURE
Information was obtained from the medical records. Cats were classified into 1 of 4 clinical groups (congestive heart failure [CHF] group, arterial thromboembolism [ATE] group, syncope group, or cats without clinical signs [subclinical group]) on the basis of the primary clinical signs at the initial examination.

RESULTS
120 cats were classified in the CHF group, 43 in the ATE group, 10 in the syncope group, and 87 in the subclinical group. Antecedent events that may have precipitated CHF included i.v. fluid administration, anesthesia, surgery, and recent corticosteroid administration. Median survival time was 709 days (range, 2 to 4,418 days) for cats that survived > 24 hours. Cats in the subclinical group lived the longest (median survival time, 1,129 days; range, 2 to 3,778 days), followed by cats in the syncope group (654 days; range, 28 to 1,505 days), cats in the CHF group (563 days; range, 2 to 4,418 days), and cats in the ATE group (184 days; range, 2 to 2,278 days). Causes of death included ATE (n = 56), CHF (49), sudden death (13), and noncardiac causes (27). In univariate analyses, survival time was negatively correlated with left atrial size, age, right ventricular enlargement, and thoracentesis. Cats with systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve lived longer than cats without this echocardiographic finding. In multivariate analyses, only age and left atrial size remained significant predictors of survival time.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Although overall survival time for cats with HCM was similar to earlier reports, survival times for cats with CHF or ATE were longer than previously reported.


Multicluster systems have emerged as a promising infrastructure for provisioning of cost-effective high-performance computing and communications. Analytical models of communication networks in cluster systems have been widely reported. However, for tractability and simplicity, the existing models are based on the assumptions that the network traffic follows the nonbursty Poisson arrival process and the message destinations are uniformly distributed. Recent measurement studies have shown that the traffic generated by real-world applications reveals the bursty nature in both the spatial domain (i.e., nonuniform distribution of message destinations) and temporal domain (i.e., bursty message arrival process). In order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the system performance, a novel analytical model is developed for communication networks in multicluster systems in the presence of the spatio-temporal bursty traffic. The spatial traffic burstiness is captured by the communication locality and the temporal traffic burstiness is modeled by the Markov-modulated Poisson process. After validating its accuracy through extensive simulation experiments, the model is used to investigate the impact of bursty message arrivals and communication locality on network performance. The analytical results demonstrate that the communication locality can relieve the degrading effects of bursty message arrivals on the network performance.


High temperature oxidation is the main cause for the degradation of materials used at elevated temperature which is responsible for the major shut down of turbines, boilers and incinerators used in large units. An attempt has been made to use Cr3C225%NiCr coating deposited by D-gun technique on Superni 600 alloy. These coatings are generally used for wear applications. This coating has been studied for oxidation at 900C under cyclic conditions. Sound and adherent coatings of 150-250 μm can be obtained by D-gun process. The bare and coated alloys were subjected to cyclic oxidation in air for 100 cycles. Weight change/area has been plotted against number of cycles and to monitor the oxidation kinetics. The scale formed after oxidation both on the bare and coated alloys has been examined using FESEM/EDX, XRD, and Cross-sectional/Mapping analysis. The weight gain by coated Superni 600 was found to be about 80% less than that of bare Superni 600. D-gun sprayed Cr3C2-NiCr coating has contributed to increase in the oxidation resistance of coated superalloy. These types of coatings can be developed for high temperature applications for both corrosion and erosion resistance. Copyright © 2013 VBRI press.


Enhanced recovery surgery (ERS) has revolutionised patient outcomes.  It involves a standardised peri-operative patient management regiment, leading to a reduction of length of stay, morbidity and mortality.  ERS requires extensive peri operative assessment accompanied by numerous investigations and data collection within restricted time.  For this reason, several units have allowed such services to be specialist nurse-led.  The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate web-based intranet software in assisting the ERS service of our institution. The use of an ERS software in conjunction with a nurse-led service is effective and important for the success of implementing an ERS scheme.  The improvement in practice resulted in a significant reduction of the length of hospital stay.  In the long term, with the availability of these software-generated data, clinicians will be provided to further evaluate and improve their practice.  Such specialised software tailored according to the needs of specific departments should be fully supported by the hospital management and the IT departments.  This approach provides information to allow evidence-based comparisons within different institutions and this open source software can act as a template to achieve this.


Purpose: Carcinogenesis is an adaptive process between nascent tumor cells and their microenvironment, including the modification of inflammatory responses from antitumorigenic to protumorigenic. Radiation exposure can stimulate inflammatory responses that inhibit or promote carcinogenesis. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of radiation exposure on lung cancer progression in vivo and assess the relevance of this knowledge to human carcinogenesis. Experimental Design: K-ras mice were irradiated with various doses and dose regimens and then monitored until death.Microarray analyses were performed using Illumina BeadChips onwhole lung tissue 70 days after irradiation with a fractionated or acute dose of radiation and compared with age-matched unirradiated controls. Unique group classifiers were derived by comparative genomic analysis of three experimental cohorts. Survival analyses were performed using principal component analysis and k-means clustering on three lung adenocarcinoma, three breast adenocarcinoma, and two lung squamous carcinoma annotated microarray datasets. Results:Radiation exposure accelerates lung cancer progression in the K-ras lung cancermousemodel with dose fractionation being more permissive for cancer progression. A nonrandom inflammatory signature associated with this progression was elicited from whole lung tissue containing only benign lesions and predicts human lung and breast cancer patient survival across multiple datasets. Immunohistochemical analyses suggest that tumor cells drive predictive signature. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that radiation exposure can cooperate with benign lesions in a transgenicmodel of cancer by affecting inflammatory pathways, and that clinically relevant similarities exist between human lung and breast carcinogenesis. Clin Cancer Res; 20(6); 1610–22. 2014 AACR.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this paper is to construct a comprehensive framework of research dissemination and utilization that is useful for both health policy and clinical decision-making.

ORGANIZING CONSTRUCT
The framework illustrates that the process of the adoption of research evidence into health-care decision-making is influenced by a variety of characteristics related to the individual, organization, environment and innovation. The framework also demonstrates the complex inter-relationships among these characteristics as progression through the five stages of innovation namely, knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation occurs. Finally, the framework integrates the concepts of research dissemination, evidence-based decision-making and research utilization within the diffusion of innovations theory.

METHODS
During the discussion of each stage of the innovation adoption process, relevant literature from the management field (i.e., diffusion of innovations, organizational management and decision-making) and health-care sector (i.e., research dissemination and utilization and evidence-based practice) is summarized. Studies providing empirical data contributing to the development of the framework were assessed for methodological quality.

CONCLUSIONS
The process of research dissemination and utilization is complex and determined by numerous intervening variables related to the innovation (research evidence), organization, environment and individual.


This study sought to determine if educators could deliver StressOFF Strategies (SOS), a brief classroombased stress management program (Shapiro & Heath, 2013) to students and to evaluate educators' perspectives on SOS delivery. Seventeen educators participated in a two-day training and delivered the program to 555 adolescents (51.4% female; Mage = 14.45 years, SD = 0.74). Student evaluations revealed equivalent student satisfaction with educator and SOS team delivery on students' program rating; furthermore, 100% of educators strongly agreed (38.5%) or agreed (61.5%) that SOS was relevant, met their expectations, and was feasible within their school. Implications for schools and educators will be discussed.


This thesis examines spectrality in Elizabethan literature, focusing on the ghost as a figuration of disjuncture within contemporary constructions of the dead. Taking account of the cultural unease and uncertainties about the afterlife generated during the Reformation, I explore how particular conceptualizations of the dead manifest instabilities that move the figure of the ghost into the disturbing role of the spectre. The literature I examine ranges from Elizabethan translations of Seneca and key theological treatises to examples of the English revenge tragedy produced by Shakespeare, Marston, and Chettle. In drawing upon this cross-section of work, I highlight the resonances between varying forms of spectrality in order to explore ways in which the ghost incorporates, but also exceeds, the theatre's requirement for dramatic excess. It thus becomes clear that the presence of the spectre extends beyond the immediate purposes of particular writers or genres to expose a wider disruption of the relation between, and ontologies of, the living and the dead. The theoretical apparatus for this project is drawn primarily from deconstruction and psychoanalytic theory, with attention to the uncanny as an area in which the two intersect and overlap. These modes of analysis usefully highlight areas of disturbance and slippage within the linguistic and conceptual structures by which the living and dead are defined and understood. In adopting this approach, I aim to expand upon and complicate existing scholarship concerning the figure of the ghost in relation to sixteenth-century theological, philosophical, mythological, and popular discourses and traditions. I do so by demonstrating that the emergence of the uncanny arises through a culturally specific haunting of the form and language of Elizabethan treatments of the dead. The spectre thereby emerges as a figure that is as much the product as the cause of instabilities and erosion within the Elizabethan construction and containment of the dead. I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Catherine Stevens October 31 2010


The aim of this work was to study the transport across the blood-brain barrier (BBB), blood and liver distribution kinetics, metabolic interaction and local liver metabolism of carbamazepine (CBZ) in the rat, using microdialysis with the internal standard technique as in vivo calibration method. CBZ and its major metabolite, carbamazepine-10,11-epoxide (CBZ-EPO), are homogenously distributed to hippocampus and cerebellum. The ratios of the areas under the concentration-time curve (AUC) for both brain regions to blood AUC were not different from unity for CBZ; they were 0.46 +/- 0.08 (hippocampus) and 0.45 +/- 0.05 (cerebellum) for CBZ-EPO. In addition, the disposition of CBZ and CBZ-EPO in blood and liver, after a single dose of CBZ, was studied in control animals and in rats after pretreatment with clomipramine (CLOMI). A 2-fold increase in the blood AUC of CBZ and a decrease to 33% of the blood AUC of CBZ-EPO in the pretreated group demonstrate the metabolic inhibition of CBZ-EPO formation by clomipramine. The ratios of the AUCCBZ-EPO to the AUCCBZ, as a measure of CBZ-EPO formation, were not different for blood and liver within the control and the clomipramine-pretreated groups, but the ratios were significantly lower for liver and blood in the clomipramine group compared with the control animals. In addition, CBZ was administered locally in the extracellular fluid of the liver via the microdialysis probe. The liver metabolic ratio, expressed as the ratio of the formed CBZ-EPO concentration to the CBZ concentration administered, ranged from 18.2 +/- 1.2% to 19.6 +/- 1.6%.


A key step in the transformation of raw sequencing reads into biological insights is the trimming of adapter sequences and low-quality bases. Read trimming has been shown to increase the quality and reliability while decreasing the computational requirements of downstream analyses. Many read trimming software tools are available; however, no tool simultaneously provides the accuracy, computational efficiency, and feature set required to handle the types and volumes of data generated in modern sequencing-based experiments. Here we introduce Atropos and show that it trims reads with high sensitivity and specificity while maintaining leading-edge speed. Compared to other state-of-the-art read trimming tools, Atropos achieves significant increases in trimming accuracy while remaining competitive in execution times. Furthermore, Atropos maintains high accuracy even when trimming data with elevated rates of sequencing errors. The accuracy, high performance, and broad feature set offered by Atropos makes it an appropriate choice for the pre-processing of Illumina, ABI SOLiD, and other current-generation short-read sequencing datasets. Atropos is open source and free software written in Python (3.3+) and available at https://github.com/jdidion/atropos.


Taking an example of play as our point of departure, we consider what it means to be a child and to perform (Butler, Feminism/Postmodernism, 1990; Gender, 1990. Routledge: New York) childhood. By drawing on poststructuralist accounts of subjectivity, language and meaning (Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1979. Penguin: Harmondsworth; Derrida, Dissemination, 1974. Athlone: London), we argue that despite powerful discourses that seek to contain childhood, children manage to exceed or interrupt sites of containment. We then go on to suggest that if children themselves are moving beyond some of the discourses in which they are enwrapped, how might we seek to further destabilise what 'becoming' (Deleuze,1990: http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpdeleuze3.htm) child might mean and what might be the implications for our practice(s) with children.


This paper is predicated on a strong believe that the gender make up of African parliaments must reflect the gender demographics of African states. It is only when that is achieved that the concepts of equality, nondiscrimination and democracy can gain their true meaning. The paper asserts that the under-representation of women is prevalent amid the existence of international, regional and domestic instruments all providing for their right to representation in decision-making processes. Thus, it demonstrates that there is a gap between de jure and de facto representation. The paper then argues that the convoluted ideology of patriarchy, sacrosanct cultures, inviolable religions, the constructed public / private dichotomy, low levels of education, and the negative impact of globalisation all act in concert to deny African women their rightful place in decision-making institutions, particularly parliaments. The Rwandan and South African models are explored for purposes of gaining insights on how they have contrived to reach and exceed the critical mass of women in their parliaments. The study of these two countries' models shows that a combination of temporary special measures and gender mainstreaming, buttressed by strong legal and institutional frameworks, are effective tools in emancipating women and ensuring their representation in parliaments.


Background: Several techniques are available for the assessment of facial movement and activity, and facial disability can be evaluated through self-administered questionnaires. However, the relationship between these objective and subjective measurements has not been examined to date. The present study examined the relationship between electromyographic data of the levator anguli oris muscle with the facial disability index in patients with longter m facial paralysis. We hypothesized that individuals with greater facial asymmetry have lower facial disability index scores. Methods: Patients were assessed using a clinical scale for the evaluation of facial expression, 2 facial disability index subscales, and the results of surface electromyography (sEMG). Seventeen long-term facial paralysis patients were analyzed and compared to 17 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Results: Significant differences between right and left hemifaces during smiling and at rest were detected in the experimental group, but not in the controls. Statistical analyses also indicated a weak correlation between sEMG (facial asymmetry) and facial disability index. Conclusions: The use of modern data analysis techniques such as sEMG in combination with self-reported data is of great benefit to clinicians and their patients. The identification of a combination of measurements from randomized trials that can best determine the most effective treatment for patients with facial paralysis should be the objective of future studies.


Many fruits and fruit juices are enzymatically treated to aid the process of liquefaction, juice extraction, viscosity reduction and juice clarification. Polygalacturonases are a major component of enzyme mixtures used for these purposes. Endopolygalacturonases (EPG) fragment the pectin homogalacturonan chain, cutting the molecule within a contiguous stretch of demethylated galacturonic acid (GA) residues. To increase our understanding of this process, GA oligomers with a degree of polymerization (DP) ranging from 7–21 were digested with two commercial endopolygalacturonases (EPG M1 and EPG M2). Peptide mass fingerprinting with MALDI-TOF MS suggested identity of the EPGs as EPG II from Aspergillus niger (EPG M1) and endo-PG I from A. aculeatus (EPG M2). Aliquots were collected at various time points during the digestion and the resulting fragmentation patterns were determined. Individual oligomer masses were estimated and converted to molar concentrations. The distribution of cleavage products produced by the EPGs differed. Smaller fragments, especially GA monomer, were produced earlier with EPG M1. Rate constants for each of 81 possible reactions were estimated by computer simulation. When compared to optimized data for individual reactions, the experimental data provided a good fit, thus indicating the model is a good approximation of the fragmentation process.


Advanced educational technologies are developing rapidly and online MOOC courses are becoming more prevalent, creating an enthusiasm for the seemingly limitless data-driven possibilities to affect advances in learning and enhance the learning experience. For these possibilities to unfold, the expertise and collaboration of many specialists will be necessary to improve data collection, to foster the development of better predictive models, and to assure models are interpretable and actionable. The big data collected from MOOCs needs to be bigger, not in its height (number of students) but in its width more meta-data and information on learners' cognitive and self-regulatory states needs to be collected in addition to correctness and completion rates. This more detailed articulation will help open up the black box approach to machine learning models where prediction is the primary goal. Instead, a data-driven learner model approach uses fine grain data that is conceived and developed from cognitive principles to build explanatory models with practical implications to improve student learning.


Over a period of several centuries, the academic study of risk has evolved as a distinct body of thought, which continues to influence conceptual developments in fields such as economics, management, politics and sociology. However, few scholarly works have given a chronological account of cultural and intellectual trends relating to the understanding and analysis of risks. Risk: A Study of its Origins, History and Politics aims to fill this gap by providing a detailed study of key turning points in the evolution of society's understanding of risk. Using a wide range of primary and secondary materials, Matthias Beck and Beth Kewell map the political origins and moral reach of some of the most influential ideas associated with risk and uncertainty at specific periods of time. The historical focus of the book makes it an excellent introduction for readers who wish to go beyond specific risk management techniques and their theoretical underpinnings, to gain an understanding of the history and politics of risk.


OF DISSERTATION DECELERATING OPEN CHANNEL FLOW OVER GRAVEL: TURBULENCE STRUCTURE & SENSOR DEVELOPMENT This dissertation describes investigations of fully turbulent decelerating hydraulically roughbed flow over gravel and the development of technology to measure turbulence and associated sediment transport in streams. Theory is developed for predicting velocity distributions in simple uniform flow using the asymptotic invariance principle and tested using laboratory and field collected data. A mixed scale is developed that accounts for bed derived turbulent structures throughout the flows depth and is used to parameterize the external boundary's effect on the flow for the logarithmic and outer layers. The asymptotic invariance principle and similarity analysis is conducted for the equations of motion in the outer region of decelerating flow over gravel to define equilibrium conditions for this class of flows with the velocity scale is the freestream velocity. The combination of time series and time averaged statistical analysis of turbulent flow is used to elucidate the structure of flow under decelerating conditions. Time averaged statistical measures of turbulence confirm results of others for higher Froude number approaching transcritical and time series analysis shows the effects of decelerating flow on turbulence to be frequency dependent. Wireless velocity sensors were developed and found capable of measuring time averaged velocity and able to resolve macroturbulence from time series data. A semitheoretical model of elastic deformation of cantilever beams under hydraulic forcing was coupled with circuit theory to develop a calibration procedure for the VBS that requires only three measurement points, one of which is at zero velocity. Light based sensors are developed to estimate light attenuation in water for ecological research or estimating sediment concentration in water. A semi-theoretical scaling of light attenuation and sediment properties was developed which predicts light attenuation from sediment properties. The combination of new theory on open channel velocity, turbulent structure and field sensors for measuring turbulence and sediment offers the possibility to extend our laboratory knowledge to realistic flow situations.


ABSTRACT The relationship between racial attitudes and public opinion about climate change is examined. Public opinion data from Pew and American National Election Studies surveys are used to show that racial identification and prejudices are increasingly correlated with opinions about climate change during the Obama presidency. Results show that racial identification became a significant predictor of climate change concern following Obama's election in 2008, and that high levels of racial resentment are strongly correlated with reduced agreement with the scientific consensus on climate change. These results offer evidence for an effect termed the spillover of racialization. This helps further explain why the public remains so polarized on climate change, given the extent to which racial grievances and identities have become entangled with elite communication about climate change and its related policies today.


Computational linguistics studies natural language in its various manifestations from a computational point of view, both on the theoretical level (modeling grammar modules dealing with natural language form and meaning, and the relation between these two) and on the practical level (developing applications for language and speech technology). Right from the start in the 1950ties, there have been strong links with computer science, logic, and many areas of mathematics - one can think of Chomsky's contributions to the theory of formal languages and automata, or Lambek's logical modeling of natural language syntax. The symposium on Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics 2018 (LACompLing2018) assesses the place of logic, mathematics, and computer science in present day computational linguistics. It intends to be a forum for presenting new results as well as work in progress.


When symbolic AI approaches are applied to handle continuous valued attributes, there is a requirement to transform the continuous attribute values to symbolic data. In this paper, a novel distribution-index-based discretizer is proposed for such a transformation. Based on definitions of dichotomic entropy and a compound distributional index, a simple criterion is applied to discretize continuous attributes adaptively. The dichotomic entropy indicates the homogeneity degree of the decision value distribution, and is applied to determine the best splitting point. The compound distributional index combines both the homogeneity degrees of attribute value distributions and the decision value distribution, and is applied to determine which interval should be split further; thus, a potentially improved solution of the discretization problem can be found efficiently. Based on multiple reducts in rough set theory, a multiknowledge approach can attain high decision accuracy for information systems with a large number of attributes and missing values. In this paper, our discretizer is combined with the multiknowledge approach to further improve decision accuracy for information systems with continuous attributes. Experimental results on benchmark data sets show that the new discretizer can improve not only the multiknowledge approach, but also the naive Bayes classifier and the C5.0 tree


This study was carried out to determine yield and seed quality of 14 soybean varieties (Blaze, Ataem-7, Bravo, İlksoy, Çetinbey, Nova, Atakişi, Cinsoy, Adasoy, Umut-2002, Türksoy, Arısoy, HA.16-21 and SA-88), conducted with 3 replicates, according to the Randomized Block Experimental Design in the Osmaniye region, Turkey during 2016 growing season. Plant height, seed number per pod, first pod height, number of branches per plant, number of pods per node, number of pods per plant, harvest index, protein content, oil content, hundred seed weight, seed yield and fatty acid composition were the parameters examined. It was found that the controlled parameters values at different soybean varieties ranged as follows: plant height – between 69.47cm (Blaze) and 101.83cm (HA.16-21); number of seeds per pod – between 1.82 units/pod (Adasoy) and 2.21 units/pod (Blaze); first pod height – between 13.10cm (Blaze) and 22.53 cm (Umut-2002); number of branches per plant – between 1.07 units/plant (HA.16-21) and 3.00 units/plant (Nova); number of pods per node – between 2.43 units/node (Umut-2002) and 4.81 units/node (Adasoy); number of pods per plant – between 27.40 units/plant (Umut-2002) and 47.73 units/plant (Adasoy); Harvest Index values – between 43.99% (HA.16-21) and 54.72% (Ataem) 55.42% (Blaze); protein content – between 36.09% (Nova) and 39.17% (Çetinbey); oil content – between 15.71% (Blaze) and 19.73% (Türksoy) 19.82% (Arısoy); 100 seed weight – between 12.54g (Arısoy) and 19.18g (Çetinbey); seed yield – between 2470.41 kg/ha (Arısoy) and 3280.03 kg/ha (Adasoy); acid composition values: palmitic acid – from 9.97% (Türksoy) to 11.47% (Çetinbey); stearic acid – from 3.82% (Ataem-7) to 4.38% (Türksoy); oleic acid – from 22.39% (Bravo) to 28.14% (Çetinbey); linoleic acid – from 47.30% (Çetinbey) to 53.26% (Ataem-7) and linolenic acid – from 5.49% (Türksoy) to 6.88% (Bravo). The soybean varieties tested showed different advantages over the individual parameters: in terms of seed yield Adasoy (3280.03 kg/ha) and Atakişi (3260.60 kg/ha) varieties; in terms of protein content Çetinbey (39.17%) followed by SA-88 (38.55%) genotype; in terms of oil content Türksoy variety (19.82%) followed by Arisoy (19.73%) variety; in terms of fatty acid composition the results are very diverse.


In the UK the New Labour government under Tony Blair bought into the 'War on Terror' declared by George Bush Junior in 2001 the consequences for the general public was a significant loss of civil liberties that was supposedly justified by the enhanced degree of risk. In opposition the Conservatives argued that this loss was unacceptable and that on a sliding scale of freedom and security, freedom should always take priority as the fundamental political principle. In power from 2010 alongside their Liberal Democrat partners, they sought to return what had been lost, and to rebalance the scales. One of the central means of achieving this has been to increase surveillance rather than employ more direct alternatives. This essay aims to evaluate in theory and practice how effective this attempt has been. Is the UK now both safer and freer?


Enterococcus faecalis is a significant human pathogen worldwide and is responsible for severe nosocomial and community-acquired infections. Although enterococcal meningitis is rare, mortality is considerable, reaching 21 %. Nevertheless, the pathogenetic mechanisms of this infection remain poorly understood, even though the ability of E. faecalis to avoid or survive phagocytic attack in vivo may be very important during the infection process. We previously showed that the manganese-cofactored superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) SodA of E. faecalis was implicated in oxidative stress responses and, interestingly, in the survival within mouse peritoneal macrophages using an in vivo-in vitro infection model. In the present study, we investigated the role of MnSOD in the interaction of E. faecalis with microglia, the brain-resident macrophages. By using an in vitro infection model, murine microglial cells were challenged in parallel with the wild-type strain JH2-2 and its isogenic sodA deletion mutant. While both strains were phagocytosed by microglia efficiently and to a similar extent, the ΔsodA mutant was found to be significantly more susceptible to microglial killing than JH2-2, as assessed by the antimicrobial protection assay. In addition, a significantly higher percentage of acidic ΔsodA-containing phagosomes was found and these also underwent enhanced maturation as determined by the expression of endolysosomal markers. In conclusion, these results show that the MnSOD of E. faecalis contributes to survival of the bacterium in microglial cells by influencing their antimicrobial activity, and this could even be important for intracellular killing in neutrophils and thus for E. faecalis pathogenesis.


This summary paper provides an overview of the content of stereology. The typical problem at hand centers around some three dimensional object that has an internal structure that determines its function, performance, or response. To understand and quantify the geometry of that structure it is necessary to probe it with geometric entities: points, lines, planes volumes, etc. Meaningful results are obtained only if the set of probes chosen for use in the assessment is drawn uniformly from the population of such probes for the structure as a whole. This requires an understanding of the population of each kind of probe. Interaction of the probes with the structure produce geometric events which are the focus of stereological measurements. In almost all applications the measurement that is made is a simple count of the number of these events. Rigorous application of these requirements for sample design produce unbiased estimates of geometric properties of features in the structure no matter how complex are the features or what their arrangement in space. It is this assumption-free characteristic of the methodology that makes it a powerful tool for characterizing the internal structure of three dimensional objects.


This article offers a description and discussion of "shadowing" as a data collection and analytic tool, highlighting potential research opportunities related to the direct observation of individuals—principally political elites—in their normal daily routine for an extended period of time, often between one day and one week. In contrast with large-scale data collection methods, including surveys, shadowing enables researchers to develop detailed observations of political behavior that are not limited by the availability of administrative data or the constraints of a questionnaire or an interview guide. Unlike more in-depth qualitative methods, such as ethnography, shadowing is scalable in a manner that allows for larger sample sizes and the potential for medium-N inference. I provide a detailed account of how to design and conduct a shadowing study, including sampling strategies, techniques for coding shadowing data, and processes for drawing inferences about the behavior of shadowed subjects, drawing on examples from a completed shadowing-based study. I also discuss ways to mitigate selection and observer biases, presenting results that suggest these can be no more pronounced when shadowing political elites than in other forms of observational research.


How do dictators stay in power? When, and how, do they use repression to do so? Dictators and their Secret Police explores the role of the coercive apparatus under authoritarian rule in Asia - how these secret organizations originated, how they operated, and how their violence affected ordinary citizens. Greitens argues that autocrats face a coercive dilemma: whether to create internal security forces designed to manage popular mobilization, or defend against potential coup. Violence against civilians, she suggests, is a byproduct of their attempt to resolve this dilemma. Drawing on a wealth of new historical evidence, this book challenges conventional wisdom on dictatorship: what autocrats are threatened by, how they respond, and how this affects the lives and security of the millions under their rule. It offers an unprecedented view into the use of surveillance, coercion, and violence, and sheds new light on the institutional and social foundations of authoritarian power.


The threat of patent "hold-up", in which patent holders demand compensation from implementers of technical standards following wide-scale adoption of those standards, has focused significant governmental, academic and industry attention on means for averting such scenarios. One method of addressing patent hold-up risk is the imposition of an obligation on patent holders participating in the standardization process to license their standards-essential patents to implementers on "fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory" (FRAND) terms. The precise meaning of FRAND commitments, however, have proven difficult to determine with precision, leading to further litigation and uncertainty. An alternative approach proposes that each patent holder participating in a standards-development organization (SDO) to disclose in advance ("ex ante") the material terms on which it will license its standards-essential patents. The risks and merits of such ex ante licensing disclosure policies have been debated extensively. In 2006-07 the U.S. Department of Justice approved limited ex ante licensing disclosure policies adopted by two U.S.-based voluntary SDOs, VMEBus International Trade Association (VITA) and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). At the time these policies were adopted, critics predicted that early disclosure of patent licensing terms could lead to anticompetitive conduct by standards implementers and would unduly burden the already lengthy and costly standards development process. This study represents the first empirical investigation of the effects of ex ante licensing disclosure policies on standards development. We examined data relating to SDO membership, standards projects initiated, standards approved, speed of the standardization process, individual time commitment and quality of standards for VITA, IEEE and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) from 2003/4 to 2010. We also conducted a survey of VITA participants to assess individual reactions to the adoption of the VITA ex ante policy in 2007. In general, we did not find that ex ante disclosure policies resulted in measurable negative effects on the number of standards started or adopted, personal time commitments or quality of standards, nor was there compelling evidence that ex ante policies caused the lengthening of time required for standardization or the depression of royalty rates. There was some evidence to suggest that the adoption of ex ante policies may have contributed positively to some of these variables. Moreover, a significant majority of VITA participants responding to our survey felt that the information elicited by the organization's ex ante policy was important and improved the overall openness and transparency of the standards-development process. Thus, while there are numerous areas in which further study and analysis may be warranted, and other organizations in which the implementation of ex ante policies may have different effects, we conclude, on the basis of the data that we have reviewed, that the process-based criticisms of ex ante policies and the predicted negative effects flowing from the adoption of such polices, are not supported by the evidence reviewed.


The brain directs its limited processing resources through various selection mechanisms, broadly referred to as attention. Spatial selection, one such mechanism, is sometimes likened to a spotlight, continuously highlighting regions of the visual scene for preferential processing. Evidence suggests that the operation of this spotlight is linked, at least in part, to neural oscillations. In fact, rhythmic fluctuations attributable to spatial selection have been directly observed in behavior. When spatial selection is fixed at a single target location, visual-target detection oscillates at 8 Hz. When spatial selection is split between two equally likely target locations, visual-target detection at each location instead oscillates at 4 Hz, with peaks in detection alternating between the two locations. Landau and Fries (2012) proposed that these oscillatory patterns at 8 and 4 Hz are attributable to the same neural source, either sampling a single location or alternately sampling two locations. We recently observed both patterns during an experimental task that utilized three potential target locations. A cue (80% valid) indicated the location where a visual target was most likely to occur. As predicted, visual-target detection at the cued location oscillated at 8 Hz, suggesting that participants successfully deployed spatial selection. Yet visual-target detection at each of two uncued locations oscillated at 4 Hz, with peaks in detection alternating between the uncued locations. I will argue that these behavioral data, rather than reflecting a single neural source, support the existence of two attentional spotlights that concurrently sample the visual scene: one fixed spotlight that samples the most relevant location, and a second moving spotlight that rhythmically monitors less relevant locations. We have now replicated these behavioral findings in two monkeys, demonstrating that rhythmic sampling is consistent across primate species. We will next use electrophysiological recordings to investigate the neural sources underlying these behavioral oscillations.


Developing methods that can identify important patterns in complex large-scale temporal datasets is one of the key challenges in machine learning and data mining research. Our work focuses on the development of methods that can, based on past data, identify unusual patient-management actions in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) of the current patient and raise alerts if such actions are encountered. We developed and evaluated a conditional-outlier detection approach for identifying clinical actions such as omissions of medication orders or laboratory orders in the intensive care unit (ICU) that are unusual with respect to past patient care. We used data from 24,658 ICU patient admissions to first learn the outlier models and then to generate 240 medication and laboratory omission alerts. The alerts were evaluated by a group of 18 intensive care physicians. The results show the true positive alert rate for all study alerts ranged from 0.42 to 0.53, which is promising and compares favorably to the positive alert rates of existing clinical alerting systems.


This dissertation has been embarked upon to identify the factors that act as impediments to the
successful adoption and practice of strategic management and to recommend ways of lessening
their effect. The study has been motivated by the realisation that despite the practice of strategic
management in quasi government institutions, there are still problems of organizational
performance. The study takes on single-case, cross-sectional case study approach at District
Development Fund (DD.F). The major respondents are the Provincial Coordinator, six Heads of
Departments, twelve District Heads and fifty four employees from different divisions. The use of
secondary sources of data is also made such as District Development Fund Act Number 58 of
1981 and Circulars. The main instruments of data collection are the questionnaire and semi
structured interviews. Observation is also used, though to a limited degree. The study uses the
variables identified in literature and other past research works on the subject as the basis for its
investigation. The research conducted at D.D.F confirms that some of the potential impediments
to strategic management outlined in literature could be an impediment to the adoption and
practice of strategic management, while other variables have not been found to be very critical.
Strategic planning is a well understood concept at D.D.F. Strategic plans are developed
meticulously and follow all the recommended steps such as setting of organisational goals and
objectives. Strategic planning has therefore not been found to be a factor that could contribute to
ineffective strategic management at D.D.F Communication or dissemination of information
comes out as one of the major barriers to effective strategic management at D.D.F. There seems
to be an information barrier between top management and employees. It is noted that the leaders
do not communicate effectively with junior employees. These negative attributes therefore are
potential barriers to effective strategic planning. This tends to negatively affect buy-in and
ownership of the strategic plan. Communication is therefore confirmed as being a potential
barrier to successful strategic planning. There is overwhelming evidence that resource
constraints negatively affect strategic management at D.D.F. This is further compounded by the
fact that resources are not effectively used to meet strategic requirements. Lack of financial
resources has been found to be particularly problematic as it tends to affect the availability of
other resources. It is concluded that inadequate resources are a barrier to successful strategic
management. D.D.F has been found to have commendable recruitment and training and
development policies. These policies are however not complemented by performance evaluation
and reward systems that would ensure that management and staff exerts their energies towards
the attainment of the Fund's goals and objectives. For this, reason human resources management
is found to be a potential barrier to effective strategic management at D.D.F. Participation in
strategic planning at D.D.F has a negative impact. There is overwhelming agreement that top
management, lower levels management and employees do not participate in strategic planning.
Such a situation is bound to affect the ownership of the plan by the sidelined employees thereby
adversely affecting its implementation. Lack of participation by employees is therefore a barrier
to effective strategic management. Respondents have generally passed a vote of confidence in
the leadership role of D.D.F. Employees are also not convinced that the leadership provides them
with the necessary resources for them to accomplish their tasks. Employee participation in
decision making also does not seem to be actively encouraged. These negative traits in D.D.F's
culture have a potential to adversely affect strategic management. It is concluded that there are
negative cultural practices at D.D.F that are potential barriers to strategic management. Strategic
performance monitoring and evaluation systems seem to be absent at D.D.F. For strategic
management to be a success it is necessary to have performance measurement and evaluation
systems that have in-built feedback mechanisms. Evaluation and control is therefore as Strong
barrier to effective strategic management at D.D.F. In conclusion, most of the barriers to
successful management that are identified in the literature have been confirmed to be in existence
at D.D.F barring just a few. Recommendations have been made on to reduce or eliminate the
effects of these impediments. The limitations of this particular study are acknowledged and
recommendations are made on how future studies could be conducted so as to bring out more
generalisable results.


Laszlo in Action is the first comprehensive guide to the Laszlo system and its language LZX. OpenLaszlo is an increasingly popular open-source platform for the development and delivery of rich internet applications across multiple platforms: Flash, DHTML, and J2ME. The dramatic emergence of Ajax over the past year was a first step in the transition from page-oriented HTML web applications towards more full-featured rich internet applications. OpenLaszlo provides another important step in this continuing evolutionary process through the increased productivity resulting from LZX's declarative approach. It provides developers with the tools to create web-based applications offering the usability and interactivity associated with desktop applications, and the low costs associated with web-based deployment. The cross-platform nature of Laszlo LZX applications allows source code with only minimum modifications to run natively on all popular web browsers, on all desktop operating systems, on the Flash platform, and other platforms in the future. Written to address the needs of a wide spectrum of developers, ranging from client-side HTML and JavaScript developers all the way to enterprise-class Java or Rails engineers, this book provides a very hands-on approach towards building applications that solve real-world problems across both the Flash and DHTML platforms. Starting with the fundamentals of Laszlo LZX, the authors quickly move towards applying this knowledge to the design and development of a full-scale application called the Laszlo Market. This provides a working context to assist understanding the underlying concepts of Laszlo LZX and, more importantly, how to apply this knowledge in innovative ways. The construction of the Laszlo Market proceeds over the course of the book illustrating topics starting with an initial wireframe and storyboard design to optimization issues dealing with the application's deployment across the Flash and DHTML platforms.


Condition monitoring (CM) of rotary machines has gained increasing importance and extensive research in recent years. Due to the rapid growth of data volume, automated data processing is necessary in order to deal with massive data efficiently to produce timely and accurate diagnostic results. Artificial intelligence (AI) and adaptive data processing approaches can be promising solutions to the challenge of large data volume. Unfortunately, the majority of AI-based techniques in CM have been developed for only the post-processing (classification) stage, whereas the critical tasks including feature extraction and selection are still manually processed, which often require considerable time and efforts but also yield a performance depending on prior knowledge and diagnostic expertise.

To achieve an automatic data processing, the research of this PhD project provides an integrated framework with two main approaches. Firstly, it focuses on extending AI techniques in all phases, including feature extraction by applying Componential Coding Neural Network (CCNN) which has been found to have unique properties of being trained through unsupervised learning, capable of dealing with raw datasets, translation invariance and high computational efficiency. These advantages of CCNN make it particularly suitable for automated analyzing of the vibration data arisen from typical machine components such as the rolling element bearings which exhibit periodic phenomena with high non-stationary and strong noise contamination. Then, once an anomaly is detected, a further analysis technique to identify the fault is proposed using a multiresolution data analysis approach based on Double-Density Discrete Wavelet Transform (DD-DWT) which was grounded on over-sampled filter banks with smooth tight frames. This makes it nearly shift-invariant which is important for extracting non-stationary periodical peaks. Also, in order to denoise and enhance the diagnostic features, a novel level-dependant adaptive thresholding method based on harmonic to signal ratio (HSR) is developed and implemented on the selected wavelet coefficients. This method has been developed to be a semi-automated (adaptive) approach to facilitate the process of fault diagnosis. The developed framework has been evaluated using both simulated and measured datasets from typical healthy and defective tapered roller bearings which are critical parts of all rotating machines. The results have demonstrated that the CCNN is a robust technique for early fault detection, and also showed that adaptive DD-DWT is a robust technique for diagnosing the faults induced to test bearings. The developed framework has achieved multi-objectives of high detection sensitivity, reliable diagnosis and minimized computing complexity.


The Internet routing ecosystem is facing substantial scalability challenges due to continuous, significant growth of the state represented in the data plane. Distributed switch architectures introduce additional constraints on efficiency of implementations from both lookup time and memory footprint perspectives. In this paper we explore efficient forwarding information base (FIB) representations in common distributed switch architectures. Our approach introduces substantial savings in memory footprint transparently for existing hardware. Our results are supported by an extensive simulation study on real IPv4 and IPv6 FIBs.


The field of metagenomics has shown great promise in the ability to recover microbial DNA from communities whose members resist traditional cultivation techniques, although in most instances the recovered material comprises short anonymous genomic fragments rather than complete genome sequences. In order to effectively assess the microbial diversity and ecology represented in such samples, accurate methods for DNA classification capable of assigning metagenomic fragments into their most likely taxonomic unit are required. Existing DNA classification methods have shown high levels of accuracy in attempting to classify sequences derived from low-complexity communities, however genome distinguishability generally deteriorates for complex communities or those containing closely related organisms. The goal of this thesis was to identify factors both intrinsic or external to the genome that may lead to the improvement of existing DNA classification methods and to probe the fundamental limitations of composition-based genome distinguishability. To assess the suite of factors affecting the distinguishability of genomes, support vector machine classifiers were trained to discriminate between pairs of microbial genomes using the relative frequencies of oligonucleotide patterns calculated from orthologous genes or short genomic fragments, and the resulting classification accuracy scores used as the measure of genomic distinguishability. Models were generated in order to relate distinguishability to several measures of genomic and taxonomic similarity, and interesting outlier genome pairs were identified by large residuals to the fitted models. Examination of the outlier pairs identified numerous factors that influence genome distinguishability, including genome reduction, extreme G+C composition, lateral gene transfer, and habitat-induced genome convergence. Fragments containing multiple protein-coding and non-coding sequences showed an increased tendency for misclassification, except in cases where the genomes were very closely related. Analysis of the biological function annotations associated with each fragment demonstrated that certain functional role categories showed increased or decreased tendency for misclassification. The use of pre-processing steps including DNA recoding, unsupervised clustering, 'symmetrization' of oligonucleotide frequencies, and correction for G+C content did not improve distinguishability. Existing composition-based DNA classifiers will benefit from the results reported in this thesis. Sequence-segmentation approaches will improve genome distinguishability by decreasing fragment heterogeneity, while factors such as habitat, lifestyle, extreme G+C composition, genome reduction, and biological role annotations may be used to express confidence in the classification of individual fragments. Although genome distinguishability tends to be proportional to genomic and taxonomic relatedness, these trends can be violated for closely related genome pairs that have undergone rapid compositional divergence, or unrelated genome pairs that have converged in composition due to similar habitats or unusual selective pressures. Additionally, there are fundamental limits to the resolution of composition-based classifiers when applied to genomic fragments typical of current metagenomic studies.


This study of the literature has provided us with a comprehensive bibliography concerning languages for special purposes. Dissapointingly most publications do not deal with our main problem: languages for special purposes at school. The publications do, however, contain scattered pieces of information that had consequences for our ideas of:a. what languages for special purposes areb. the problemi that languages for special purposes can cause at school.A.We make the following distinctions in languages for special purposes:1. the language of one subject (e.g. the language of hunting);2. the general aspect of languages for special purposes;3. the language of one school subject (e.g. the language of biology lessons);4. the general aspect of languages f or special purposes at school.We have concerned ourselves with the domains 3 and 4. As a register a language for special purposes has language and non-language characteristics. We have opted for a wide definition of languages for special purposes so that we can identify all communicative problems connected with these registers.B.Languages for special purposes can be problematic in education in the following ways:1. A language for special purposes as used by teachers (specialists), is a difficult register for pupils (laymen);2. Alongside implicit use of languages for special purposes (problem 1) it is possible that a teacher will want to pay explicit attention to the general aspect of languages for special purposes or that he will teach his pupils a special register. Consequently the aims, the organi-zation and the possibilities of explicit language for special purposes-teaching become an educational problem, (problem 2)3. Languages for special purposes can be a specific learning exercise for foreign/second-language teaching.The solution to the first problem must be sought in an analytical structure, with which the teacher can determine which communication problems are caused by his language use. The result of the study of the literature is, that we now are in a position to formulate better the questions that relate to this problem,The solution to the second problem depends on the teacher's conception of the social and educational consequences of languages for special purposes and his view of education. The consequence of this study is a list of proposals of what form teaching language for special purposes would have to take.The third problem is outside our area of investigation.


The notion of conflict, peace, education and development that characterise discussions about the Solomon Islands immediate past, present and future prospects are complex and
interrelated. These terms are interrelated as conflict, peace and education affect development. Likewise, poor development can be one of the causes of conflict. Development as a multidimensional reality consists of interrelated issues such as the economy, health, education,
social relations and governance. To this end, a macro-perspective of the relationship between conflict, peace, education and development is important, particularly in post-conflict reconstruction. In the Solomon Islands, conflict has not occurred in a vacuum. It has been strongly influenced by the turbulent socio-cultural variables of the country. Long-term peacebuilding efforts in the Solomon Islands ultimately depend on effectively reconnecting thinking and practice to conflict, peace, education and development.


The novel optical, electronic, and/or magnetic properties of metal and semiconductor nanoparticles have resulted in extensive research on new methods for their preparation. An ideal preparation method would allow the particle size, size distribution, crystallinity, and particle shape to be easily controlled, and would be applicable to a wide variety of material systems. Numerous preparation methods have been reported, each with its inherent advantages and disadvantages; however, an ideal method has yet to emerge. The most widely applied methods for nanoparticle preparation include the sonochemical reduction of organometallic reagents,(1&2) the solvothermal method of Alivisatos,(3) reactions in microemulsions,(4-6) the polyol method (reduction by alcohols),(7-9) and the use of polymer and solgel materials as hosts.(10-13) In addition to these methods, there are a variety of methods that take advantage of the unique properties of a supercritical fluid.(14&15) Through simple variations of temperature and pressure, the properties of a supercritical fluid can be continuously tuned from gas-like to liquid-like without undergoing a phase change. Nanoparticle preparation methods that utilize supercritical fluids are briefly reviewed below using the following categories: Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions (RESS), Reactive Supercritical Fluid Processing, and Supercritical Fluid Microemulsions. Because of its easily accessible critical temperature and pressure andmore » environmentally benign nature, carbon dioxide is the most widely used supercritical solvent. Supercritical CO2 is unfortunately a poor solvent for many polar or ionic species, which has impeded its use in the preparation of metal and semiconductor nanoparticles. We have developed a reactive supercritical fluid processing method using supercritical carbon dioxide for the preparation of metal and metal sulfide particles and used it to prepare narrowly distributed nanoparticles of silver (Ag) and silver sulfide (Ag2S). The preparation and characterization of these materials and the effects of processing conditions on particle properties is reported.« less


Trust is an important component of all successful commercial exchanges. Indeed, there is now a considerable literature on the economic importance of trust as well as the relationship between trust and institutions. Although there is now a sizeable literature on the economic importance of trust, and on the institutions that are associated with higher levels of trust, this literature remains relatively silent on the potential of markets to generate trust and, more specifically, how market actors discover whom to trust and, perhaps more importantly, whom not to trust. In this paper, we build on research by market process theorists that understands the market as a discovery process. We argue that the market is also a discovery process through which market participants acquire knowledge about their trading partners' dispositions, moral priorities, and personalities. Specifically, we argue that the market facilitates the identification of trustworthy and untrustworthy individuals and is, thus, a process for the discovery of whom to trust and whom not to trust. Additionally, we report experimental evidence that suggests that although market participants are trusting of strangers (at least in our experimental setting), they are less trusting of trading partners who have proven to be untrustworthy in past dealings.


This study addresses the methodological and conceptual challenges associated with the application of disconnected frameworks of organizational theory and case studies, focused on "efficiency, effectiveness, and economy" to investigate complex educational phenomena in post-Soviet higher education systems under the condition of restructuring. I use the example of university restructuring and institutional curricular innovation implementation in Russian higher education to test and validate an alternative model, which employs ecological principles as the guiding value system and utilizes conceptual synthesis at all stages of this case study. The resulting descriptive model comprises antecedents, processes, and contents of university restructuring under three broad categories: organization, environment, and relation. Elaborated with an ecological approach, this model enriches the current vision of curricular innovation implementation from lineal to the perspectives of emergence, networking, and self-organization principles of ecological science. In discussing the results of the study, I offer a new research model with its possible methodological constraints as well as its great potentials to advance the sub-field of educational policy and educational administration.


Antiangiogenic agents and therapeutic strategies have entered the clinical oncology arena. The classical tumor size measurements defined to monitor efficacy of chemotherapy, however, might not be appropriate for these newer therapeutics. We previously found that circulating endothelial cells (CECs) were increased in number and more viable in cancer patients compared with control subjects. We investigated the correlation between CEC kinetics and clinical outcome in patients with advanced breast cancer receiving metronomic chemotherapy, a therapeutic strategy associated with antiangiogenic activity and anticancer efficacy. CEC number and viability were measured by flow cytometry in patients and in preclinical models. CECs were decreased in patients for whom no overall clinical benefit (defined as a clinical response or a stable disease) was observed compared with those who had a clinical benefit (P = .015). This difference was due to an increased fraction of apoptotic CECs in patients with a clinical benefit. Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that CEC values greater than 11/microL were associated with a longer progression-free survival (P = .001) and an improved overall survival (P = .005). Preclinical models indicated that the source of apoptotic CECs was most likely the tumor vasculature. CEC kinetics and viability are very promising as predictors of clinical response in patients undergoing metronomic chemotherapy.


The recent development of high-speed trains (HSTs), as a high-mobility intelligent transportation system, and the growing demands of broad-band services for HST users, introduce new challenges to wireless communication systems for HSTs. The deployment of mobile relay stations on top of the train carriages is one of the promising solutions for HST wireless systems. For a proper design and evaluation of HST wireless communication systems, we need accurate channel models that can mimic the underlying channel characteristics for different HST scenarios. In this paper, a novel nonstationary geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM) is proposed for wideband multiple-input multiple-output HST channels in rural macrocell scenarios. The corresponding simulation model is then developed with angle parameters calculated by the modified method of equal areas. Both channel models can also be used to model nonstationary vehicle-to-infrastructure channels in vehicular communication networks. The system functions and statistical properties of the proposed channel models are investigated based on a theoretical framework that describes nonstationary channels. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed channel models have the capability to characterize the nonstationarity of HST channels. The statistical properties of the simulation model, verified by the simulation results, can match those of the proposed theoretical GBSM. An excellent agreement is achieved between the stationary intervals of the proposed simulation model and those of relevant measurement data, demonstrating the utility of the proposed channel models.


MPISS is an automatic file transfer system that implements a combination of standard and mission-unique transfer protocols required by the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) Precipitation Processing System (PPS) to control the flow of data between the MOC and the PPS. The primary features of MPISS are file transfers (both with and without PPS specific protocols), logging of file transfer and system events to local files and a standard messaging bus, short term storage of data files to facilitate retransmissions, and generation of file transfer accounting reports. The system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) to control the system, allow manual operations, and to display events in real time. The PPS specific protocols are an enhanced version of those that were developed for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). All file transfers between the MOC and the PPS use the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). For reports and data files generated within the MOC, no additional protocols are used when transferring files to the PPS. For observatory data files, an additional handshaking protocol of data notices and data receipts is used. MPISS generates and sends to the PPS data notices containing data start and stop times along with a checksum for the file for each observatory data file transmitted. MPISS retrieves the PPS generated data receipts that indicate the success or failure of the PPS to ingest the data file and/or notice. MPISS retransmits the appropriate files as indicated in the receipt when required. MPISS also automatically retrieves files from the PPS. The unique feature of this software is the use of both standard and PPS specific protocols in parallel. The advantage of this capability is that it supports users that require the PPS protocol as well as those that do not require it. The system is highly configurable to accommodate the needs of future users.


The Data Alignment Tool (DAT) was built to assist with the analysis of data used in testing fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) tools and building commissioning (Cx) tools. The data sources were the Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed (VCBT) [1] and data collected from real buildings. The raw data processed by the DAT typically spanned multiple input files, and was not in a format appropriate for the analysis tools. The features provided by the DAT were implemented to address the specific needs of the tools being tested, but should also be applicable to a wide range of other uses. The DAT can read data from one or more data files, perform several useful operations on it, and save it with a variety of options. The operations implemented include combining subsets of columns from multiple data files into one output file, reducing data by modifying the time span between data points, performing unit conversions, and filtering data by time of day. Output file operations include a column filter or splitting out files by date. As a manual process, each of these operations would be time consuming, tedious and error prone. The DAT largely automates these operations.


PU.1 is a member of the ETS family of transcription factors that is known to be important for hematopoietic development. Recently, haploinsufficiency for PU.1 has been shown to cause a shift in myelomonocytic progenitor fate toward the myeloid lineage. We have previously shown that transgenic mice expressing PML-RARalpha (PR) and RARalpha-PML frequently develop acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) in association with a large (>20 Mb) interstitial deletion of chromosome 2 that includes PU.1. To directly assess the relevance of levels of expression of PU.1 for leukemia progression, we bred hCG-PR mice with PU.1+/- mice and assessed their phenotype. Young, nonleukemic hCG-PR x PU.1+/- mice developed splenomegaly because of the abnormal expansion of myeloid cells in their spleens. hCG-PR x PU.1+/- mice developed a typical APL syndrome after a long latent period, but the penetrance of disease was 84%, compared with 7% in hCG-PR x PU.1+/+ mice (P < 0.0001). The residual PU.1 allele in hCG-PR x PU.1+/- APL cells was expressed, and complete exonic resequencing revealed no detectable mutations in nine of nine samples. However, PR expression in U937 myelomonocytic cells and primary murine myeloid bone marrow cells caused a reduction in PU.1 mRNA levels. Therefore, the loss of one copy of PU.1 through a deletional mechanism, plus down-regulation of the residual allele caused by PR expression, may synergize to expand the pool of myeloid progenitors that are susceptible to transformation, increasing the penetrance of APL.


In this paper, we make multi-step forecasts of the annual growth rates of the real Gross Regional Product (GRP) for each of the 31 Chinese provinces simultaneously. Beside the usual panel data models, we use panel models that explicitly account for spatial dependence between the GRP growth rates. In addition, the possibility of spatial effects being different for different groups of provinces (Interior and Coast) is allowed for. We find that both pooling and accounting for spatial effects helps substantially improve the forecast performance compared to the benchmark models estimated for each of the provinces separately. It is also shown that the effect of accounting for spatial dependence is even more pronounced at longer forecasting horizons (the forecast accuracy gain as measured by the root mean squared forecast error is about 8% at the 1-year horizon and exceeds 25% at the 13- and 14-year horizon).


Context: Sexual assault is a crime of violence that incorporates unwanted sexual behaviour, such as sexual coercion, uninvited kissing, fondling, touching and ultimately, rape. Individuals prone to sexual abuse are usually the young, poor, and vulnerable members of society, who are often subject to other forms of social vices, such as domestic violence. Aims: To ascertain the pattern of sexual assault in people presenting to a large gynaecological unit of a tertiary referral centre, in Nigeria. Settings and Design: Methods and Material: The study is a descriptive cross-sectional study that was undertaken over a 2-year period from January 2011 to December 2012. Statistical analysis used: SPSS. Results: The prevalence of sexual assault in this study was 1.64%. The majority (90.3%) of victims were single. At least a third (n=35) had secondary education. 62.65% of the patients delayed presentation until after 24hours, (n=52). The commonest reason for delay in presentation was of fear or embarrassment in 51.80% (n=43). The commonest place of assault was at the assailant's home in 33.7% (n=28). Many cases of assault occurred at night. 63.65% of the victims wanted suspects to be prosecuted (n=53). 67.46% of the victims expressed the desire to take legal action (n=56). Only 51.80% of the respondents (n=43) were aware of a route of seeking re-dress. Conclusions: Victims of sexual assault delay their presentation to health facilities because of fear and embarrassment. A significant percentage of the victims do not know how to obtain medical help.


ABSTRACT Introduction and objective: Perforation of the bladder or urethra and erosion of the mesh after cystocele repair surgery are not uncommon and have potentially serious complications. Traditionally, surgical management of such complications has involved excision of the mesh using either a transurethral approach or open surgery. In this video, we present our experience of laparoscopic transvesical surgery for exposed mesh and stone. Materials and methods: Patient was placed in the lithotomy position under general anesthesia and a 30° operating cystoscope was inserted under direct vision. After filling the bladder with 300 mL normal saline, a 5 - mm VersaStep™ bladeless trocar was placed 2 cm above the pubic symphysis. Two more 5 mm trocars were placed bilaterally at 3 cm intervals from the initial trocar site. The pneumovesicum state was maintained at 8 - 12 mmHg and a 5 mm telescope was introduced. Using a curved dissector and curved Mayo scissors, the exposed mesh was mobilized and removed. Interrupted 4 - 0 Vicryl sutures were used to close the defect. To localize the ureteral orifice, intravenous Indigo Carmine was used. The bladder stones were removed through the urethra using a stone basket, guided using a ureteral stent pusher. Results: Total operation time was 55 min and the Foley catheter was removed at post - operative day 5 after postoperative cystography. Conclusions: Excellent visualization of mesh exposure and ureteral orifice was possible under laparoscopic transvesical surgery, and reconstruction including the mucosa and muscle layer was able to be achieved. This method is useful and feasible, with minimal invasiveness and an early post - operative recovery.


From the Publisher:
Although numerous sources document aspects of user-centered design,there are few references that consider how a designer transforms the information gathered about users and their work into an effective user interface design.
This book explains just how designers bridge that gap. A group of leading experts in GUI design describe their methods in the context of specific design projects, and while the projects, processes, and methods vary considerably, the common theme is building a bridge between user requirements and user interface design.


In the present study, a numerical simulation for the diffusion of hydrogen jet in a enclosure was performed to aid the leakage test of the hydrogen for the safety of the hydrogen vehicle. The temporal and spatial distributions of the hydrogen concentration in the test chamber are predicted from the present numerical analyses. Flammable region of 4-74% and explosive region of 18-59% hydrogen by volume was identified from the present results. Factors influencing the diffusion of the hydrogen jet were examined to evaluate the effectiveness of forced ventilation for relieving the accumulation of the leaked hydrogen gas in the chamber, which include location of open windows, size of leakage nozzle, and leakage rate among others. The distribution of the concentration of the leaked hydrogen for various cases can be used as a database in various applications for the hydrogen safety.


The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an international market selection which will result in a suitable choice of market for an SME that is about to place offshore production in an emerging market. A focus during the thesis is directed towards potential risks that may occur and how SMEs can manage these. In order to fulfill this purpose the authors have developed two main research questions:How can an SME use the IMS-framework to select an emerging market for offshore production?How can an SME manage potential risks when placing offshore production in an emerging market?The theoretical framework consists of the description of the international market selection process that is relevant as it is the framework from which the selection of a target market originates. Further, a description of theories on entry modes and risk management is presented in order to provide insight on how SMEs can manage risks when placing production in an emerging market. The empirical chapter consists of interviews from a case company as well as Business Sweden and is structured in accordance to the theoretical chapter.In the analysis the theoretical frameworks are discussed and connected to the empirical findings. In the initial part of the analysis the international market selection is presented and discussed before it culminates in the authors chosen target market. The latter part of the analysis addresses the risk management SMEs is faced with when placing offshore production in an emerging market.The conclusion provides the reader with the chosen target market for the case company. It also shows that SMEs ought to apply a risk averse mindset when placing their production in an emerging market. The authors finally present suggestions for further research regarding SMEs ventures to place production in emerging markets.


Background Postural control is defined as the control of body's position in space for balance purpose. Postural control in static conditions is known as postural steadiness, whereas in the dynamic volitional perturbations, it is noted as postural stability. Postural stability can be affected owing to central or peripheral lesions; one of the central lesions with postural instability is Parkinson's disease (PD). However, peripheral neuropathies that affect stability are one of the most common complications of diabetes mellitus. Aim The aim was to assess postural stability in patients with PD and those with type 2 diabetes as examples of central and peripheral lesions, respectively, and to compare the results with the findings obtained from the normal control group. Patients and methods The patient group in the study was divided into two subgroups: subgroup 1 consisted of 15 patients diagnosed as having PD and subgroup 2 included 15 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Control group consisted of 15 normal age-matched participants. Postural assessment was performed using computerized dynamic posturography. This included the automatic motor assessments tests, including motor control test and adaptation test, and functional limitation tests such as tandem walk. Results This research showed that there is a statistically significant difference between control group and subgroup with PD in all tested parameters. A statistically significant difference was found between control group and subgroup with diabetes in all parameters of adaptation test and speed test. Moreover, there is a statistically significant difference between the two subgroups in most of tested parameters, with the highest value in PD group. Conclusion The findings reflect that postural stability is more affected with central lesion than peripheral lesion.


Insulin production in pancreatic β cells is stepped up in tandem with glucose-dependent insulin secretion. Calcium, which triggers secretion, stimulates the calpain-dependent cleavage of islet cell autoantigen 512 (ICA512), a catalytically inactive member of the receptor tyrosine phosphatase family that is associated with secretory granules. The cleaved cytosolic fragment (ICA512-CCF) translocates to the nucleus, where it stimulates insulin gene transcription. Mziaut et al. stimulated rat insulinoma INS-1 cells with glucose and a depolarizing concentration of KCl and found that a calpain inhibitor attenuated the increase in pro-ICA512 abundance seen after 2 hours of stimulation followed by 4 hours of incubation in glucose-free saline. Moreover, cells expressing an ICA512-CCF-GFP fusion protein showed increased abundance of endogenous ICA512 mRNA and pro-ICA512, as well as increased abundance of mRNA encoding other components of secretory granules. ICA512-CCF-GFP expression enhanced the nuclear abundance of total and phosphorylated STATs (signal transducers and activators of transcription), and glucose only enhanced the growth-hormone dependent nuclear accumulation of STAT5b in cultured pancreatic islets if they expressed ICA512. Both coimmunoprecipitation and fluorescence resonance energy transfer analysis indicated that ICA512 bound to STAT5b; moreover, a fusion protein containing the cytoplasmic domain of ICA512 inhibited the in vitro dephosphorylation of STAT5. ICA512-CCF-GFP enhanced STAT5-dependent transcriptional activity, and STAT5b knockdown led to a decrease in pro-ICA512 abundance. The E3 SUMO ligase PIASy bound to and sumoylated ICA512; PIASy inhibited STAT5-dependent transcriptional activity and an in vitro assay indicated that sumoylation of ICA512 decreased its binding to STAT5. Thus, the data define a retrograde pathway involving STAT5 through which ICA512 regulates production of secretory granule components. H. Mziaut, M. Trajkovski, S. Kersting, A. Ehninger, A. Altkrüger, R. P. Lemaitre, D. Schmidt, H. D. Saeger, M. S. Lee, D. N. Drechsel, S. Müller, M. Solimena, Synergy of glucose and growth hormone signalling in islet cells through ICA512 and STAT5. Nat. Cell Biol. 8, 435-445 (2006). [PubMed]


When does a metric space admit a bilipschitz embedding into some finite-dimensional Euclidean space? There does not seem to be a simple answer to this question. Results of Assouad [A1], [A2], [A3] do provide a simple answer if one permits some small ("snowflake") deformations of the metric, but unfortunately these deformations immediately disrupt some basic aspects of geometry and analysis, like rectifiability, differentiability, and curves of finite length. Here we discuss a (somewhat technical) criterion which permits more modest deformations, based on small powers of an $A_1$ weight. For many purposes this type of deformation is quite innocuous, as in standard results in harmonic analysis about $A_p$ weights [J], [Ga], [St2]. In particular, it cooperates well with "uniform rectifiability" [DS2], [DS4].


Although cross-trained workers offer numerous operational advantages for extended-hour service businesses, they must first be scheduled for duty. The outcome from those decisions, usually made a week or more in advance, varies with realized service demand, worker attendance, and the way available cross-trained workers are deployed once the demands for service are known. By ignoring the joint variability of attendance and demand, we show that existing workforce scheduling models tend to overstate expected schedule performance and systematically undervalue the benefits of cross-training. We propose a two-stage stochastic program for profit-oriented cross-trained workforce scheduling and allocation decisions that is driven by service completion estimates obtained from the convolution of the employee attendance and service demand distributions. Those estimates, reflecting optimal worker allocation decisions over all plausible realizations of attendance and demand, provide the gradient information used to guide workforce scheduling decisions. Comparing the performance of workforce scheduling decisions for hundreds of different hypothetical service environments, we find that solutions based on convolution estimates are more profitable, favor proportionately more cross-trained workers and fewer specialists, and tend to recommend significantly larger (smaller) staffing levels for services under high (low) contribution margins than workforce schedules developed with independent expectations of attendance and demand.


This research investigates the relationship between a manufacturer's use of information technology (IT) (particularly electronic procurement) and the number of suppliers in its supply chain. Will a manufacturer use more or fewer suppliers due to the increasing use of IT? Based on data from a sample of 150 U. S. manufacturers, we find no direct relationship between e-procurement and number of suppliers at the aggregate level. However, when we distinguish the type of goods purchased, we find that the use of electronic procurement is associated with buying from more suppliers for custom goods but from fewer suppliers for standard (or commodity) goods. It is possible that for commodity goods, an efficiently functioning transparent market ensures that a few suppliers are sufficient, whereas for custom goods the need for protection from opportunistic vendor holdup leads to the use of more suppliers. Further, the positive relationship between number of suppliers and electronic procurement for custom goods is negatively moderated by deeper buyer-supplier system integration. This implies that such integration can help buyers obtain better "fit" for their customized requirements, an alternative to increasing fit by employing more suppliers as proposed in the extant literature.


Behavior-based safety (BBS) systems have shown to be effective in decreasing injury rates in industry. Typical BBS systems use a peer-to-peer observation via a critical behavior checklist (CBC) to measure the rates of safe and at-risk behavior for observed employees. A key feature of these programs is quality participation. The current study sought to test if using a shorter CBC with a few behaviors (5-8) would increase quality participation in BBS systems. No such increases were observed. Instead, results indicated that many employees did not utilize the new eight-behavior CBC. Interviews with managers on each vessel revealed that implementation methods on each vessel varied considerably. Furthermore, many employees relied on memory, rather than using a CBC. The implications of inconsistent implementation and memory reliance are discussed.


The sequence stratigraphic model, although no longer focused on eustasy and accommodation, has been until recently based largely on observation and interpretation of outcrop and subsurface data. This approach may be restrictive if the current model places limits on what is observed and how observations are interpreted. To make progress in our understanding of strata, the sequence stratigraphic model and method should be tested against and fully incorporate theoretical and experimental results that provide new knowledge of (1) autogenesis, (2) intrinsic stratigraphic responses, (3) alluvial grade, and (4) scales appropriate to single depositional systems evolving with relative sea-level changes. More extensive inclusion of analogue and numerical experimental results could lead to significant modification and refinement of existing sequence stratigraphic models.


This is the case of strategic decision in marketing issue, particularly in
Strategic Distribution System. The case background provided complete
scenario of the potential threats to Perodua 's future and discussed in length
the current and future effects of the deficiency in distribution facilities to
Perodua overall operation. The case write-up also presented the proposed
plan for the establishment of an Integrated Delivery Center (IDe) in Klang
Valley.
In the case analysis, several strategic tools were employed in order to
evaluate the competitive position and direction for Perodua . The findings
were used to analyze the possible problem(s) and propose best alternative
solutions for Perodua to embark on. The analysis also provided various
scale of action plan to be undertaken by Perodua in its effort to improve
Perodua 's position and put Perodua in the proper direction in meeting the
market challenges in the new millennium.


London is famous for Big Ben, Paris for the Eiffel Tower and Rome for the Colosseum. Barcelona, on the other hand, is associated not with one or two buildings but with the blossoming of an entire movement in art history called Modernism. In Germany it was called Jugendstil; in Austria, Sezession; in Italy, Stile Liberty; and in France it was Art Nouveau. An extraordinary period straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Barcelona's brand of Art Nouveau was characterized by organic shapes and patterns integrated by all aspects of art and design. The movement, along with its high craftsmanship, was interpreted to be a spontaneous reaction to the Industrial Revolution's trend of mass production. Besides being a survey of the most significant buildings by Domenech i Montaner, Antoni Gaudi, Josep Maria Jujol, and Puig i Cadafalch, this book also provides a detailed analysis of the forms created by the most important craftsmen of the period, many of whom have been relegated to anonymity for decades.


SYNOPSIS When Willy Mutunga became Kenya's chief justice in 2011, he made reductions in judicial delay and corruption top priorities. Drawing on previous plans to fix the same issues, Mutunga and his team developed a far-reaching reform program: the Judiciary Transformation Framework. Their goals included addressing administrative problems that had hindered citizens' access to justice and opening up a historically closed institution to public engagement. Judges, magistrates, and court staff helped court registrars standardize and speed up administrative processes. Early efforts to introduce new technologies that would reduce delays—one of Kenya's 2012–14 Open Government Partnership commitments—failed to achieve nationwide implementation. But the newly created Performance Management Directorate developed a case-tracking system that facilitated nationwide monitoring of delays and workloads. The newly established Office of the Judiciary Ombudsperson and strengthened Court Users' Committees opened lines of communication for citizens to register complaints, suggest changes, and receive responses. Although many reforms were in early stages in 2015, Mutunga and his team developed and enacted policies that changed the ways the judiciary served the Kenyan public.


This study evaluates a data-assimilated model simulation of near-surface circulation in DeSoto Canyon (DSC), Gulf of Mexico, with emphasis on analyzing moored current-meter observations and comparing them with satellite data and model results. The study period is for two years from April 1997 to April 1999. The model results are from a high-resolution Gulf of Mexico model forced by analyzed wind and surface heat flux. Two types of data are used to deduce near-surface circulation: moored current meters at 13 locations in the DSC, and satellite sea level anomaly. The moored currents are mapped through multivariate objective analysis to produce surface currents and surface geopotentials, against which satellite- and model-derived sea surface heights and geostrophic currents are compared. Coupled patterns between the observations, model results, and satellite data are obtained using the singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis. There are two dominant modes: a ''single-eddy'' mode, in which currents are concentrated at the foot of the canyon, and an ''eddy-pair'' mode, in which one eddy is at the foot of the canyon and the other, a counterrotating eddy, is over the head of canyon. Mode 1 appears to be associated with the mesoscale eddy traveling around the Loop Current crest and trough, and mode 2 is associated with the intrusion of Loop Current crest and trough over the west Florida shelf. The observed and model currents are in good agreement about the means and variances. The model currents also appear to be well constrained by the steep topography. However, the model velocity field contains only the first mode. The satellite-derived velocity field, on the other hand, contains both the first and second modes; though, the satellite field does not adequately resolve the velocity structures over the slope.


Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modern democracies: there are career politicians (i.e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave politics before retirement and work in the private sector). In this paper, we propose a dynamic equilibrium model of the careers of politicians in an environment with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are heterogeneous with respect to their market ability and political skills. Our analysis provides an explanation for the existence of career politicians and individuals with political careers, and their motivations. We also investigate the effects of monetary incentives and other features of the political-economic environment on the quality of politicians and their careers. We show that an increase in the salary a politician receives while in office decreases the average quality of individuals who become politicians, decreases turnover in office, and may either decrease or increase the average quality of career politicians.


Previous studies of insurance fraud have perceived the crime as easy to commit, easily justified by those who do so (seeing insurers as 'fair game'), and with a low chance of detection. Police interest has typically been perceived to be low.
Although there are a range of studies of fraudsters, insurance fraudsters have largely escaped research attention. Little is known about their perceptions of the risks involved and why they choose to commit insurance frauds over other types of offences.
The offences discussed by opportunistic insurance fraudsters were characterised by being spur of the moment decisions with little planning (and therefore involving no direct attempts to target an insurer), but being instigated because of a chance occurrence and a need and/or desire for money.
Opportunities arose when a legitimate claim was being made and there was a chance to claim for more than legally entitled; when others introduced the idea; when it was easy to do; and because sometimes the fraudster was emotionally unstable. The opportunity to make money was a key driver.
Given the lack of planning, the fraudsters did not consider the risk factors; concerns about getting caught before the offence took place did not feature prominently.
None of the opportunistic insurance fraudsters claimed they had gained from their offences, moreover they said they suffered additional consequences beyond the caution or sentence they received. This included an adverse family reaction, financial consequences, and the stigma involved in being categorised as an offender.
In acting quickly and without thought insurance fraudsters made mistakes. They were subsequently caught due to a variety of factors, including good work by insurers and the police. Some claimed they did not understand their policies.
There seems much to be gained by highlighting the fact that opportunistic insurance fraudsters do get caught, and that there are consequences beyond those that stem from the conviction; and in
reminding the public generally and policyholders specifically that insurance fraud has consequences and is not a victimless crime.
Four individuals who were drawn into insurance frauds in different ways were interviewed.
Lee became a ghost broker principally because it provided an easy way of deceiving people without them realising it. He exploited a range of loopholes including ignorance and carelessness amongst those he sold policies to.
Matt orchestrated fraud from inside an insurance company. He had an addiction he could not deal with and was able to exploit
Perpetuity Research and Consultancy International Ltd his inside knowledge with the help of colleagues and a friend who permitted fraudulent claims on his policy.
Ahmed claimed to be ignorant and a victim himself of an organised gang of insurance fraudsters, although he was convicted of several offences.
Alan was caught up in the police response to an organised gang of insurance fraudsters. He was innocent of the organised offences although he pleaded guilty to involvement in a different
insurance related offence, albeit a minor one.
The case studies highlight the ways in which fraudsters exploit public ignorance and carelessness and lax policies and practices by insurers, and the dangers for those who come too close to organised offences.
They highlight the importance to those responsible for prevention to be continually on their guard, and on the ball, as offenders seek and exploit a range of easy opportunities.


Understanding the structure of complex networks and uncovering the properties of their constituents has been for many decades at the center of study of several fundamental sciences, especially in the fields of biological and social networks. Given the large scale and interconnected nature of these types of networks, there is a need for tools that enable us to make sense of these structures. This chapter explores how, for a given network, there are a range of emergent dynamic structures that support the different behaviors exhibited by the network's various state space attractors. We use a selected Boolean Network, calculate a variety of structural and dynamic parameters, explore the various dynamic structures that are associated with it and consider the activities associated with each of the network's nodes when in certain modes/attractors. This work is a follow-up to past work aiming to develop robust complexity-informed tools with particular emphasis on network dynamics.