The immense development rate of wireless technologies has also brought new requirements for the RF design of transmitters. The design challenge is to optimize multiband devices with minimal dimensions and weight as well as an appealing appearance, which nevertheless operate well within varyingly complex environments such as frequently changing positions within the closest vicinity of the human body. The optimization of such transceivers requires new analysis tools providing precise measurement of electric and magnetic field strength distributions, even in the closest proximity of RF transmitters. In this study, novel field probes were analyzed optimized, and constructed enabling not only the assessment of the local field strength, but also information on the polarization of the field. The ellipse parameters are reconstructed by a combination of a downhill simplex and a Givens updating algorithm, which has proven to be fast and robust. The developed probes and procedures greatly enhance the quality of the information needed for analysis and optimization of antennas and transmitters.


Narrative and storytelling play an important part in knowledge management in policing and criminal justice contexts. As probationary constables and young officers, officers learn the job from listening to the stories of others, and for this reason part of being a successful police officer is learning to be a competent storyteller. Officers learn to gather intelligence by listening to the stories, or whispers, of criminals and members of the public with whom they come into contact. They spend numerous hours on patrol swapping work stories with colleagues and learn to give narrated evidence in court. Policing is therefore a narrative-bounded activity. Stories enable people to share experiences and pass on what they know. Storytelling is therefore a useful way of capturing and sharing knowledge. Stories are told daily throughout an organisation in the corridor, over coffee, by e-mail or through social media. Indeed Ward and Sbarcea (2001) suggest that recently there has been an increase in stories as carriers of knowledge in organisations. Telling stories can also be a way of processing a particular experience, and can have therapeutic benefits for the storyteller. In this briefing paper, we report on a research project into the use of online blogging within a policing context that we are embarking on to investigate this exciting and under-researched area of policing studies and knowledge management. The aim of our project is to examine the current use of story-telling within the UK Police Service blogosphere. There are many blogs written by members of the emergency services. Such blogs appear to have three main functions: to educate the public (for example, on when to ring 999); to share the bloggers experience with other professionals, thus sharing and managing knowledge and learning from other professionals comments; and to use the therapeutic side of blogging to work through difficult experiences encountered on the job. This aim will be achieved through the following objectives:- ¢ To determine whether stories in blogs are an effective way of sharing and transferring knowledge and learning from experience. ¢ To determine whether stories in blogs are an effective way of educating the public. ¢ To identify how such storytelling and blogging can be used as a form of therapy by the blogger. ¢ To identify the benefits/barriers to storytelling in blogs within the Police Services ¢ To identify any differences between the sexes within such storytelling and blogging.


For certain singularly perturbed two-component reaction–diffusion systems, the bifurcation diagram of steady-state spike solutions is characterized by a saddle-node behaviour in terms of some parameter in the system. For some such systems, such as the Gray–Scott model, a spike self-replication behaviour is observed as the parameter varies across the saddle-node point. We demonstrate and analyse a qualitatively new type of transition as a parameter is slowly decreased below the saddle node value, which is characterized by a finite-time blow-up of the spike solution. More specifically, we use a blend of asymptotic analysis, linear stability theory, and full numerical computations to analyse a wide variety of dynamical instabilities, and ultimately finite-time blow-up behaviour, for localized spike solutions that occur as a parameter β is slowly ramped in time below various linear stability and existence thresholds associated with steady-state spike solutions. The transition or route to an ultimate finite-time blow-up can include spike nucleation, spike annihilation, or spike amplitude oscillation, depending on the specific parameter regime. Our detailed analysis of the existence and linear stability of multi-spike patterns, through the analysis of an explicitly solvable non-local eigenvalue problem, provides a theoretical guide for predicting which transition will be realized. Finally, we analyse the blow-up profile for a shadow limit of the reaction–diffusion system. For the resulting non-local scalar parabolic problem, we derive an explicit expression for the blow-up rate near the parameter range where blow-up is predicted. This blow-up rate is confirmed with full numerical simulations of the full PDE. Moreover, we analyse the linear stability of this solution that blows up in finite time.


We study the effect of entrepreneurship and its allocation between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship on three indicators of countries' wellbeing: monetary wellbeing, non-monetary wellbeing and our own indicator of a country's ability to translate economic growth into non-monetary wellbeing. We take into consideration that there is a feedback effect from monetary and non-monetary wellbeing to entrepreneurial allocation. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor we establish that opportunity entrepreneurship may contribute towards national wellbeing and that better wellbeing in turn may stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship. Hence, entrepreneurship may contribute towards countries' wellbeing in a broad sense, and countries with higher levels of wellbeing may contribute towards opportunity entrepreneurship.


Forty million Americans indulged in a national obsession in 1930: they eagerly tuned in Amos 'n' Andy, the nightly radio comedy in which a pair of white actors portrayed the adventures of two black men making a new life in the big city. Meanwhile, some angry African Americans demanded that Amos 'n' Andy be banned, even as others gathered in the barbershops and radio stores of Harlem to chuckle over the adventures of Amos, Andy, and the Kingfish. Melvin Patrick Ely unveils a fascinating tale of America's shifting color line, in which two professional directors of blackface minstrel shows manage to produce a serives so rich and complex that it wins admirers ranging from ultra-racists to outspoken racial egalitarians. Eventually, the pair stir further controversy when they bring their show to television. In a preface written especially for this new edition of his acclaimed classic, Ely shows how white and black responses to his Adventures of Amos 'n' Andy since 1991 tell a revealing story of their own about racial hopes and fears at the turn of the twenty-first century.


Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a public health problem globally, but especially so in sub-Saharan Africa. They contribute significantly to the burden of disease in South Africa and are recognised as major contributors to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic, with other potential complications when not managed properly. First-line doctors play a critical role in the management of persons suffering from STIs, and need to comply with the national guidelines for STI management. Aim: To determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of doctors working in Jubilee District Hospital, Metsweding region, Tshwane, regarding the STI syndromic management (SM) guidelines. Setting: Jubilee District Hospital in Tshwane North, Gauteng province, South Africa. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study using a self-administered questionnaire was conducted. Results: Forty-three of the 50 doctors employed at the hospital participated in the study. Fourteen (32.6%) of the doctors were in the 36–40-year age group. Most of the doctors (36 or 83.7%) had only the basic bachelor's degree, and only 4 (9.3%) attended additional STI training. Only 2 respondents (4.6%) had correct knowledge concerning management of male urethritis syndrome and 10 (23.3%) regarding management of genital ulcer syndrome. In compliance with the national SM guidelines for STIs, 22 (52.4%) of the doctors said they made a diagnosis of STIs using history and physical examination. Only 7 (16.7%) said they asked their patients during every consultation about the number of sexual partners, 21 (51.7%) said they always counsel/screen patients with STIs for HIV infection, and only 4 (9.5%) said they always filled in partner notification slips after attending to the index patient with STIs. This study demonstrated a relationship between doctors' knowledge of the SM guidelines for STIs and their age. Conclusion: Overall the knowledge and practices of doctors at Jubilee District Hospital were suboptimal, and training on the SM of STIs should be made available to address this. Management should introduce regular monitoring, evaluation and supportive services for the doctors regarding their management of STIs according to the guidelines.


The powders of the BiInSn alloy were produced by the ultrasonic atomization and the ultrasonic mixed crushing using the different dispersants. In this study, the composition, microstructure, melting point, and size of these powders were observed. The viscosity of different solutions of the dispersants and the mechanical properties of the sintered bulk materials were also tested. From the data analysis and results, we found that the composition of the powders using the different methods was consistent with the as-cast state. In addition, the size of powder produced by ultrasonic mixed crushing was significantly smaller than that ultrasonic atomization. And during the ultrasonic crushing process, with the increase of the viscosity of the dispersant, the size of the final powder also decreased, and even submicron powder were produced. The product of submicron powder could effectively improve the density and mechanical properties of sintered materials. And the principles of ultrasonic atomization and ultrasonic mixed crushing were discussed. We found that the mechanism of ultrasonic mixed crushing to produce powder was the micro-shock-wave theory of ultrasonic cavitation. At the same time, these dispersants were effective in keeping the droplets separate from each other and preventing them from merging back into the larger droplets. The droplet was solidified into a powder by rapid cooling in the end.


We report on the use of either reactive magnetron sputtering or screen printing to deposit tin and tungsten-oxide gas-sensitive layers onto integrated micromachined arrays. The procedures allow the deposition of the sensing layers before membranes have been etched, which leads to gas microsensors with an excellent fabrication yield. The microstructure of the sensitive films is analyzed by means of SEM and EDX. The response of the different microarrays to ethanol, acetone, and ammonia vapors and their binary mixtures, and toxic gases such as NO/sub 2/ and CO, is studied at different operating temperatures. The response of the different sensors to ambient humidity is also investigated. Finally, it is shown that by using PCA and fuzzy ARTMAP neural networks, it is possible to simultaneously identify and quantify the toxic gases with a 100% success rate. A 95% success rate is obtained in the semi-quantitative analysis of vapors and vapor mixtures. These results prove the viability and usefulness of the techniques introduced to obtain integrated sensor microarrays that are suitable for battery-powered gas/vapor monitors.


This research explores from what organisational experiences and developments the Balearic Islands' Spatial Data Infrastructures could benefit from Catalonia's SDI. Four case studies are the basis of the research: the SDI of Catalonia (IDEC), the SDI of the Balearic Islands (IDEIB), the SDI of Mallorca (IDEmallorca) and the SDI of Menorca (IDEmenorca). The purpose of this research is because the Balearic Islands' autonomous region is a subnational entity in the early phase of building a SDI. The archipelago is taking its first SDI steps and affronting the challenges that this supposes. Considering the IDEC won the eSDINet+ 2009 best practice award and because of the cultural and physical closeness the IDEC is considered the best SDI node from which the Balearic Islands SDI nodes could benefit from. However, there is also the danger of just copying the IDEC case. Further, there's consideration of the uniqueness of each case study. Besides, it's known the experience of one case leads to dilemmas because the nature of assessing SDIs is nontrivial. Therefore, during the research, there's been consideration about the non-trivial aspects of the SDI assessment. The three important features considered in the non-trivial issue of SDIs are: ambiguity, multi-faceted nature and non-trivial SDI assessment with the need to cope with risk. The case study investigation method was performed for three reasons. First, to learn about the organisational status. Second, to answer "how" and "why" questions. And, third, it is an appropriate way to research the sub-national SDIs in the Balearic Islands and Catalonia. The responsibilities of all the case studies are to make the spatial information accessible for all the users. Then, the roles of all the case studies are public information distribution, link from IDEE to their node and participant in the IDEE. Among other organisation aspects the triangular organisational structure and the maturity matrix were investigated and analysed. Through the surveys it was found out there are various similarities and differences between the Balearic Islands' and the Catalan triangular organisation structure and other organisational aspects. The IDEC, created in 2001, and the IDEIB, that began in 2007, are at the network GII stage and at the "internetwork" stage, respectively. Both have a similar triangular organisation structure based on their responsibilities. Further IDEmallorca, which started in 2008, is at the intermediary GII stage, and IDEmenorca, which also began in 2008, is at the exchange GII stage. Besides, both follow a similar triangular organisation pattern. After performing a SWOT analysis of the cases studies based on the eSDI-Net+ indicators and the survey answers it is possible to affirm the Balearic Islands SDI nodes have a series of common strengths. These common strengths are: enable value adding services, existing Geoportal and view services, openness with data services (WMS), processes to assess SDI use and user satisfaction, service performance measurements, training provided to staff, legal status of the SDI node organisations and SDI related documentation in Catalan. Then, the weaknesses that all the Balearic Islands SDI nodes need to solve, according to this research, are the lack of strategy and technology and data problems. Also, the IDEmallorca and the IDEmenorca need to solve the following constraints: lack of support of the Councils to the SDI node, inadequate resources and insufficient awareness, poor perception and lack of commitment. To solve these constraints the Balearic Islands SDIs can benefit from the experiences and developments of the IDEC. These experiences and developments are thirteen: learn from other experiences; importance of encouraging local entities; coordination and collaboration between the regional and local entities; sectorial approach; support of the SDI in the organisation; raise awareness on SDI benefits; more partnerships; digital information available; focus on end-users; system engineering point of view; consider project environment; eGovernment funding; total investment paid back in 6 months.


Severe losses of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] grain yield occur as a result of the disease sudden death syndrome (SDS), caused by Fusarium solani (Mart.) Sacc. f. sp. phaseoli (Burk.) Snyd. & Hans., type A. Selection for resistance to SDS is currently the most efficient means of yield protection. This study was undertaken within adapted soybean germplasm to identify and characterize loci underlying useful field resistance to SDS. One hundred eleven polymorphic DNA markers were compared with SDS disease response among 100 recombinant inbred lines derived from a cross between a durably SDS resistant cultivar, 'Forrest', and a SDS susceptible cultivar, 'Essex'. SDS disease incidence (DI) and disease severity (DS) were determined in replicated, F.solani infested field-test sites during 4 yr encompassing five locations. Four separate chromosomal segments were strongly associated with mean SDS DI across 5 locations (P < 0.001). In a previous report using the same genetic materials tested in the same environments two of these quantitative trait loci (QTL) had been identified. With the further analysis with 40 additional markers, two more QTL were detected. The two new QTL were stably associated with SDS resistance within each of five F. solani infested locations (P < 0.007). These two loci were identified by RAPD markers OI03 450 and OG13 490 and by OE04 450 and OE02 1000 . The alleles that conferred resistance were both derived from Forrest. Jointly, the four QTL accounted for about 65% of total phenotypic variability in mean DI and 50% in mean DS. DNA markers can be used to define alleles conferring resistance to SDS. Selection for the SDS resistance QTL may allow efficient selection of resistant genotypes with good yield potential in F. solani infested fields.


There is growing interest in using a structure of claims, arguments, and evidence to explain why all critical software hazards have been eliminated or adequately mitigated in mission-critical and safety-critical systems. Such a structure has been called a dependability case, an assurance case, or a (goal-structured) safety case. Dependability cases are sometimes viewed as adding no extra value, e.g., given an existing hazard analysis, what is the added value of a dependability case showing how the hazard is mitigated? In this paper we present an example to show the value a dependability case adds to a traditional hazard analysis.


Background This study investigated the effects and underlying mechanisms of emodin on cough variant asthma (CVA) in mice. Material/Methods The bronchial asthma mouse model was successfully established by use of ovalbumin (OVA) sensitization and challenge. The BALB/c mice were divided into 6 groups: a control group, an OVA model without or with emodin (15, 30, 60 mg/kg) group, and a dexamethasone (0.5 mg/g) group. The effect of the treatment was determined by measuring airway responsiveness. The levels of immunoglobulin molecules, as well as inflammatory cytokines in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and serum, were determined by ELISA. The lung tissues were stained by hematoxylin-eosin (HE). The expressions of Notch receptors (Notch 1–3) and Delta-like (DLL) 4 in the lung tissues were detected by RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. Results Compared with the model group, emodin treatment significantly increased the levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE) and IgG1/IgG2a in BALF and serum (p<0.05). HE results indicated that emodin inhibited the infiltration of inflammatory cells and that emodin reduced the levels of inflammatory cytokines, interleukin (IL)-5, IL-17, and interferon (IFN)-γ in BALF and serum (p<0.05). Furthermore, the expressions of Notch 1, 2, 3, and DLL4 in lung tissue were inhibited by emodin treatment. Conclusions The results demonstrated that emodin alleviated inflammation in CVA mice, which might be associated with suppression of the Notch pathway. Emodin might be a promising therapeutic agent for allergic asthma.


The capsular polysaccharide of Escherichia coli K5 has been hypothesised to promote virulence through its molecular mimicry of host heparan sulphate. To test this hypothesis, we have produced pure oligosaccharides from K5 capsular polysaccharide and investigated their conformational properties with ultra-high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) (900 MHz). Ultra-high-field affords a significant resolution enhancement over previous studies and allowed a full-atomic assignment of the K5 hexasaccharide for the first time. All carbohydrate rings adopt a 4C1 conformation, the amide sidechains have a trans orientation and the hydroxymethyl group is freely exposed to bulk solvent. Initial models of the glycosidic linkage conformation based upon simple interpretation of NOE cross-peaks suggests that the β1→4 linkage adopts a 3D geometry of φ ≈ 60°, ψ ≈ 0° and the α1→4 linkage prefers φ ≈ –30°, ψ ≈ –30° (φ and ψ being defined by dihedral angles involving linkage protons). In this conformation the overall molecular geometries of K5 polysaccharide, heparan sulphate and even fully-sulphated heparin are remarkably similar. These results substantiate the hypothesis that the K5 capsular polysaccharide confers virulence to E. coli K5 by being a 3D molecular mimetic of host heparan sulphate, helping it to evade detection by the mammalian immune system.


This article examines the cultural significance of some new 'signs and symbols' of punishment that are to be found taking place (albeit in uneven measure) across English-based jurisdictions at the present time. What I want to suggest is that these developments may be pointers to the emergence of a new penal culture, which makes possible a set of arrangements and strategies that are different from those which had been in the forefront of the modernist penal framework. Some of the values on which this structure had been founded, particularly during the welfare era of the 20th century, bear correspondence to trends seen by Norbert Elias (1939; 1982) as central to the 'civilizing' of modern Western societies. For him, the 'civilizing' process was not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but a social construction based on contingent historical developments - which at any time could be thrown into a 'decivilizing' reverse by such phenomena as war, natural disaster and economic collapse (Garland, 1990). Under such circumstances, there is likely to be a resurrection of practices and behaviour from different cultural eras (Mennell, 1990). This theoretical framework will be used here to analyse current penal trends and their implications.


Computer simulations create a context that is well fitted for exploratory or discovery learning. The aim of the present two studies was to gain deeper insight into what constitutes exploratory learning and to assess the effects of a number of instructional support measures. The domain involved was control theory at the university level. In the first study we made an inventory of exploratory learning processes by observing 17 students working with a computer simulation and analyzing students' thinking-aloud protocols. Subjects received a structured assignment with hints as an instructional support measure. In the second study, 91 students received an open-ended assignment with instructional support that consisted of an information sheet and a set of fill-in forms. On both sheets and forms, six cells were presented. A cell was given for each of the following six learning processes: identifying variables and parameters, generating hypotheses, designing an experiment, predicting, interpreting data, and drawing of conclusions. Information sheets were either of a domain specific or of a general nature. The set of fill-in forms were either free or had the cell HYPOTHESIS already filled in. The statements of the students on the fill-in forms were analyzed in a stepwise order. Twenty-two detailed learning processes were identified and classified. Two of the main classes of processes are transformative and regulative. Both studies showed that students were reluctant to apply learning processes that are considered characteristic for exploratory learning. Furthermore, students had problems with the exploratory learning processes, especially with the processes of generating hypotheses, interpreting data, and drawing conclusions. Effects of the instructional support measures were not conclusive. Hints did not result in significant improvements of the study process. Supporting learning processes with information sheets appeared to help students in performing learning processes, but no different effects of domain specific and general information could be found. Students who were provided with hypotheses showed a higher global activity level and higher scores in domain correctness of their learning processes.


Texturing of silicon wafers is an important process step in fabrication of solar cells in order to reduce the reflection of incoming light radiation on the solar cell surfaces. The conventional wet chemical etching methods have clear limitations in etching and texturing of multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers. Chemical etching of mc-Si wafers in alkaline solutions results in a coarse and non uniform surface morphology since the dissolution rate depends on the grain orientation. In contrast to alkaline etching, textures formed by acidic etchants (HF+HNO3) are uniform. However, acidic etching is difficult to control, the disposal of the waste is expensive and the method is in general environmentally hazardous. The aim of this thesis is to study an environmentally friendly etching method, which is supposed to be an alternative to acidic texturing of both single and multicrystalline B-doped silicon wafers. The method is based on anodic polarization of Si in alkaline solutions.In spite of the fact that silicon is one of the most studied elements due to its applicability in electronic devices, its electrochemistry in alkaline solutions at increased temperatures and at high potentials has been scarcely investigated. In the first part of the thesis monocrystalline (100) and (111) silicon samples were polarized in a strong alkaline solution at different temperatures and potentials in order to study anodic passivation mechanism. In the second part single- and multicrystalline Si-wafers were textured by utilizing electrochemical treatment in hot alkaline solutions.Anodic dissolution and passivation of Si (100) and Si (111) were studied by potentiodynamic and potentiostatic polarizations in 2 M KOH at temperatures ranging from 23 oC to 70 oC and at potentials from the open circuit potential (OCP) to 14.5 V (with respect to Ag/AgCl reference electrode). Potentiostatic polarization experiments were performed on as-received (mechanically sawed or polished) and pre-etched (at OCP in the alkaline test solution) samples. The composition and thickness of the reaction products formed on the surfaces were analysed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The morphology of the surfaces was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).The oxide products formed during passivation was analyzed after polarization to the Flade potential at about 1 V. A thin (about 1 nm) homogeneous layer of Sioxyhydroxide (H2SiO3) is formed at this potential. It is formed on both crystal orientations independent of temperature. The hydrated silica layer is gradually transformed into the stoichiometric oxide SiO2 by polarizing Si (100) above the Flade potential at 23 oC or 30 oC. The phase change is indicated by an oxidation peak at around 4 V during potentiodynamic polarizations. Further, XPS analysis shows that both hydrated and dehydrated silica coexist at this potential. The oxide thickness formed during potentiodynamic polarization to 14.5 V is 22 nm. Oxygen evolution is observed at about 4 V. At higher potentials the oxygen evolution is inhibited due to growth of thick oxide. The stoichiometric oxide SiO2 forms and grows with increasing potential and exposure time on Si (111) at all temperatures irrespective of pre-etching. The thicknesses of the oxide are in the range 3 nm to 40 nm depending on the polarization method, potential and exposure time.The formation and growth of SiO2 on Si (100) at 40 oC and higher temperatures depends on surface pre-etching. Polarization of pre-etched Si (100) at 40 oC and higher temperatures does not form SiO2 on the surface. The compound present after polarization at all potentials was the thin, 1 nm thick hydrated silica layer. It was formed irrespectively of the polarization method or potential. Thus, pre-etching is an important parameter in the oxidation mechanism of Si (100). Oxide growth on non-pre-etched Si (100) at the high temperatures was similar to that of Si (111). However, pre-etching of Si (100) for more than 10 min at the high temperatures results in formation of pyramidal hillocks on the surface. During polarization at the high temperatures, the pyramidal hillocks are dissolved and the surface becomes flattened. Hydrated silica layer is the only detected oxidation product at all potentials.In the second part of the thesis a method is developed for electrochemical texturing of as-cut multicrystalline and single crystals, Si (111) and Si (100), in alkaline solutions. The wafers are potentiostatically polarized in 2 M KOH and 4 M KOH at temperatures in the range 30 oC to 70 oC. The applied potentials are varied from 20 V to 50 V (referred to Pt-counter electrode). Before the polarization, the samples are pre-etched in the test solution to remove the deformed zone on the as-cut surfaces. The morphology of the textured surfaces, the composition and thickness of the surface products and the light reflectivity are analyzed by utilizing SEM, XPS and Lambda UV/Vis/NIR spectrophotometer, respectively.Pre-etching of multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers results in anisotropic surface morphology with protrusions and valleys due to etching of different grains at different etch rates in alkaline solutions. During anodic polarization at potentials above 20 V and at temperatures at 40 oC and above, all the grains are uniformly textured. At 25 V and 30 V, micro-pits are formed on the protrusions. With increasing the potential to 40 V and 50 V, concave cavities are formed on the entire surface. Isotropic texturing is achieved. Isotropic texturing on mc-Si wafers is characterized by formation of the concave cavities of 1 to 10 μm. Inside the micropits and cavities, nano-pits are formed. Their lateral size is in the range 100 nm to 200 nm. At 50 V, the nano-pits are etched away and the cavities become shallower due to enhanced dissolution. The lowest average reflectivity, 17%, is achieved on electrochemically textured surface after polarization at 40 V for 10 min in 4 M KOH at 50 oC, which is 50% lower than the reflectivity on the pre-etched surface.A model for the isotropic texturing mechanism is proposed based on XPS analysis and electrochemical measurements. It is suggested that the formation of pits and concave cavities is due to local pH variations caused by oxygen evolution reaction, which control formation and dissolution of the surface oxide. Protons formed during oxygen evolution reduce the pH on the surface locally. Hereby, SiO2 becomes stable and grows on the surface in the low pH area. For prolonged exposure the growth of the oxide passivates the surface and lowers the oxidation rate of Si and water. Due to high alkalinity of the electrolyte, oxide dissolves at weak points thus creating pits. Oxidation of silicon and oxygen evolution occurs at the oxide breakdown sites. Continuous formation and local dissolution of oxide causes the formation of micro-pitted surface.Formation of pits and concave cavities are not affected by changes in the electrolyte concentration and temperature. However, pre-etching is an important factor in obtaining the uniform textures on all the grains of the mc-Si wafers. This is due to the fact that pre-etching influences the formation of SiO2 on (100) grains at high temperatures. Isotropic textures are not obtained on mc-Si wafers containing significant number of (100) grains when pre-etched for more than 10 min.On Si (111) wafer surfaces, pre-etching results in formation of steps and terraces. The terraces contain true (111) planes are stable and steps contain fast etching planes such as (100) and (110) are more reactive. During polarization, terrace planes are passivated by formation of a stable oxide, and pits are initiated at the step edges. With increasing potential, temperature and exposure time, pitting spreads over the terrace planes. The surface reflectance is decreased with increasing pit coverage.It is demonstrated that the electrochemical texturing method can effectively replace the present isotropic etching by acidic etchants. Both single crystal and multicrystalline materials have successfully been textured.


To assess the nutritional and anthropometric status, to compared the relationship between socioeconomic statuses (SES) of rural adolescents of West Bengal. A cross sectional survey was carried out among 80 rural adolescent in North 24-Parganas district. Dietary nutritional status was assessed following standard method. Anthropometric measurement like height and, weight and mid arm circumference was measured and the body mass index (BMI) was computed. The new international BMIbased cut-off points were utilized to identify thinness, overweight and obesity. The results reveal that children belonging to high socioeconomic status (HSES) consumed significantly higher amount of dietary nutrient compared to low socioeconomic status (LSES). Moreover, consumption of dietary fat among girls in both SES was similar. Overall, the prevalence of thinness was 47.5%. The prevalence of thinness was higher in LSES (21.3%) compared with HSES (1.3%). Overall, the prevalence of overweight was 16.3%. It was observed in HSES, especially among girls. Similarly, prevalence of thinness was higher among girls (30.0%) in LSES compared to boys (12.5%) from the same SES. The present study shows that nutrient intakes were lower among children with LSES in both sexes. Thus, mean anthropometric characteristics was lower in this group. Consequently, much more emphasis needs to be given to increase the nutrient of their diets especially among adolescents belonging to LSES.


A finite element formulation for the analysis of thin elastic plates subjected to transverse loading and including nonlinear geometric effects associated with large deflections is presented. The analysis utilizes local co-ordinate axes which translate and rotate with the individual elements so that the small deflection Kirchhoff formulation remains valid, with respect to these axes, and may be applied to determine element stiffness and resisting forces. Nonlinear terms in the strain displacement equations are included in the coordinate transformation and change of plate configuration is included in the equilibrium equations. The formulation is applied, using an iterative technique and an approximate incremental stiffness, to obtain solutions to a number of typical large deflection plate problems. Results include an inextensional plate problem, cylindrical bending, and a square plate with simple edge condition. Deflection and stress results are compared with solutions available in the literature.


Cancer Immunosurveillance Gone Bad? A subset of patients who develop scleroderma, a debilitating autoimmune disease, have an elevated risk of developing cancer. These patients harbor autoantibodies to RPC1, an RNA polymerase subunit encoded by the POLR3A gene. Joseph et al. (p. 152, published online December 5; see the Perspective by Teng and Smyth) explored whether the RPC1 autoantibodies target a "foreign" antigen derived from a mutated POLR3A gene. Sequence analysis revealed that POLR3A mutations were present in tumors from six of eight patients with RPC1 autoantibodies but in no tumors from eight control patients who lacked RPC1 autoantibodies. Cell culture data suggested that the POLR3A mutations triggered cellular and humoral immune responses in the patients. These results provide support for the "immunosurveillance" hypothesis, which posits the continual eradication of nascent tumor cells via immune responses. The immune system's response to a mutant protein produced by an incipient cancer may help to explain an autoimmune disease. [Also see Perspective by Teng and Smyth] Autoimmune diseases are thought to be initiated by exposures to foreign antigens that cross-react with endogenous molecules. Scleroderma is an autoimmune connective tissue disease in which patients make antibodies to a limited group of autoantigens, including RPC1, encoded by the POLR3A gene. As patients with scleroderma and antibodies against RPC1 are at increased risk for cancer, we hypothesized that the "foreign" antigens in this autoimmune disease are encoded by somatically mutated genes in the patients' incipient cancers. Studying cancers from scleroderma patients, we found genetic alterations of the POLR3A locus in six of eight patients with antibodies to RPC1 but not in eight patients without antibodies to RPC1. Analyses of peripheral blood lymphocytes and serum suggested that POLR3A mutations triggered cellular immunity and cross-reactive humoral immune responses. These results offer insight into the pathogenesis of scleroderma and provide support for the idea that acquired immunity helps to control naturally occurring cancers.


Drawing upon policy documents and interview data, this article critically assesses how the conservation, interpretation and promotion of built heritage is used as a categorical identity referent within urban regeneration discourse in Ireland. The paper is critical of two inter-related dynamics. First, it addresses the relation between "culture-led" urban regeneration and the construction of a "sense of place". Second, it problematizes parallel attempts to constitute a sanitized and marketable urbanism expressed via a rhetorical and contrived veneer of European identity. A fundamental premise of the discussion is that the challenge of articulating a coherent and "distinctive" sense of urban cultural identity has become an issue of problematic salience in the context of European regional cities -not only between various cities, but also within such cities themselves. In particular, the discussion is intended to provide empirical evidence of how a regional municipality utilizes efforts to preserve the built environment and claims about local heritage in order to encourage tourism and economic regeneration. It is argued that the contextualizing of local planning discourse within European policy initiatives serves to legitimate the vision of renewal being proposed. Utilizing discourse analysis assists in displaying how policy architects exert a normalizing view of urban redevelopment, the conclusion is drawn that regeneration discourse is operationalized with the imperative of sustaining economic viability, one in which the existent built heritage of the city acquires the ascription of functional commodity held amidst the marketplace of European cities.


Contextual representations of words derived by neural language models have proven to effectively encode the subtle distinctions that might occur between different meanings of the same word. However, these representations are not tied to a semantic network, hence they leave the word meanings implicit and thereby neglect the information that can be derived from the knowledge base itself. In this paper, we propose SensEmBERT, a knowledge-based approach that brings together the expressive power of language modelling and the vast amount of knowledge contained in a semantic network to produce high-quality latent semantic representations of word meanings in multiple languages. Our vectors lie in a space comparable with that of contextualized word embeddings, thus allowing a word occurrence to be easily linked to its meaning by applying a simple nearest neighbour approach.We show that, whilst not relying on manual semantic annotations, SensEmBERT is able to either achieve or surpass state-of-the-art results attained by most of the supervised neural approaches on the English Word Sense Disambiguation task. When scaling to other languages, our representations prove to be equally effective as their English counterpart and outperform the existing state of the art on all the Word Sense Disambiguation multilingual datasets. The embeddings are released in five different languages at http://sensembert.org.


Convolution code is a kind of widely used error-correcting codes in the error control field, in order to solve the Viterbi decoding of higher complex degree and lower speed etc. problem, a kind of efficient and reliable Viterbi decode method has been put forward specially. Firstly, the principle of Viterbi decode has been introduced by detail; Secondly, in order to improve the parallel decoding speed, Viterbi decoding algorithm is improved; And then, according to the improved algorithm to achieve high speed and parallel Viterbi decoding method, which is realized easily by FPGA; Finally, the function simulation and test for (2, 1, 7) convolution code has been carried out. The experimental results show that: when the system clock is 64 MHz, eventually the decoding rate of not less than 16 Mbps, improved Viterbi decoding algorithm has lower complexity, improved Viterbi decoding efficiency.


ONE-DIMENSIONAL PERFORMANCE MODELING OF CENTRIFUGAL FLOW VANED DIFFUSERS Jamin J. Bitter Department of Mechanical Engineering Master of Science The Two Element in Series (TEIS) and Two Zone models stand out as powerful tools that enable deeper understanding of compressor stage designs after they have been tested. The insights gained from these investigations have aided in improving new stage designs. Up to now, it has only been possible to use the TEIS and Two Zone models for analysis of test data due to the inability to predict the four required input parameters for untested machines. Empirical models for the TEIS and Two Zone model input parameters, ηa5, ηb5, χ5, and δ5p, for two different types of vaned diffusers, channel and cascade, are proposed. These models were developed with frozen impeller modeling. This is the first time that modeling the TEIS and Two Zone input parameters has been attempted for vaned diffusers and impeller-diffuser coupling was not considered in this initial investigation. The centrifugal compressor experimental data used in the model building was obtained from Concepts NREC, an industry sponsor. Each dataset provided was evaluated for quality and reliability and only the data deemed reliable were used in the model building databases. The empirical models presented are built solely on this higher quality data. Seven models are proposed for use in predicting the TEIS and Two Zone model input parameters ηa5, ηb5, χ5, and δ5p. Models for ηa5, ηb5, and δ5p are specific to the type of vane present in the diffuser, while the model for χ5 is common to both diffuser types. These are the first models ever built for the TEIS and Two Zone model inputs applied to channel and cascade diffusers and become a benchmark for future studies. The work with these models is not complete, however. The databases are not of a size that data could be withheld from empirical model building for the express purpose of validation. Instead the model performance is evaluated by applying all of the models, simultaneously, to the database from which they were built. The determination of the effectiveness of the combined modeling is based on the average error across the entire speedline. The models proved to be effective and a contributing step to employing such models for use in future compressor design.


In his introduction to the published version of Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, Athol Fugard summarized his approach to the shaping of the play (in close collaboration with the two actors, John Kani and Winston Ntshona) as "challenge and response": challenges thrown out by the director, to which the actors were invited to respond; challenges devised by the actors, to which the director had to invent a response. But once it went into performance, Sizwe Bansi itself became a challenge to which audiences responded - a response often so dramatic that some performances of a play initially intended to last for 60 minutes or so continued for up to 3 hours. In other words, here the audience reaction posed a challenge to which the play-in-performance responded by changing its own shape. And if one takes another step back, Sizwe Bansi as a whole may be viewed as a theatrical response to the very complicated and dynamic sociopolitical situation that may be summarized as "apartheid." At the same time, the performances of the play, as of other plays by Fugard and other dramatists, black and white, posed a challenge to which the apartheid situation, and the regime controlling it, were forced to find new responses. In short, Fugard's play illustrates a highly textured dialectic in which much of the functioning of the arts, but most pertinently of theater, during the apartheid era was foregrounded. This paper focuses on different expressions of this dialectic in different phases and on different social and cultural levels of South Africa under apartheid. In this way I hope to arrive at an evaluation of the critical new challenges faced by theater in the country today. My focus on South Africa does not mean that I have any wish to inflate the importance or the significance of theater in what for many must be a geographically remote place, at first sight perhaps peripheral to the theater of the West. But I hope that by looking at the complexity of the two-way challenge-and-response relationship in one specific context, some questions about the possible place and function of theater in today's world at large may be illuminated. Two of the terms I have just used need early clarification. The relationship between theater and society works in (at least) two directions, because nobody in her or his right mind would suggest that theater, or any other form of art for that matter, can ever be "explained" as a mere response to a mere challenge. Certainly, in South Africa at least, as the playwright Zakes Mda recently emphasized in "Current Trends in Theater-for-Development in South Africa," theater has not only responded to challenges but also has become, itself, a catalyst for social and political change. The second term I wish to emphasize is the matter of questions, rather than answers. For I hold with the poet Allan Vizents that "an artist is a problem finder, not a problem solver." It is necessary, at the outset, to have some understanding of the constraints placed on theater under apartheid. First of all, and most obviously, until a comparatively late stage, neither audiences nor casts could be mixed, except by special permit. This meant that, by and large, white experience had to be interpreted to white audiences by white actors in theaters designated for whites only. Black theatrical presentations were predominantly confined to black audiences, more often than not without any of the facilities (lighting, costumes, sound effects, even a decent auditorium, even a stage) which white theater would regard as a sine qua non. And theater for so-called "coloured" people, like most of life's other experiences, found itself somewhere between that of the two main groups - usually characterized by the same deprivation as black theater, but sometimes with slightly improved facilities, as at the Three Arts Theater or in the Eoan Opera Group in Cape Town. Even within the separate groups, censorship imposed further restrictions. Some of the most daring cultural opposition to the political establishment came from within theater, and actors, directors, even management in the (all-white) performing arts councils of the different provinces (particularly in the Orange Free State) often made commendable efforts to challenge apartheid in their productions. …


Abstract Slow subsidence and tectonic quiescence along the New York Promontory margin of Laurentia mean that the carbonate-dominated Tribes Hill and overlying Rochdale formations serve as proxies for the magnitude and timing of Tremadocian eustatic changes. Both formations are unconformity-bound, deepening–shoaling, depositional sequences that double in thickness from the craton into the parautochthonous, western Appalachian Mountains. A consistent, 'layer cake' succession of member-level units of the formations persists through this region. The Tribes Hill Formation (late early Tremadocian, late Skullrockian, late Fauna B–Rossodus manitouensis Chron) unconformably overlies the terminal Cambrian Little Falls Formation as the lowest Ordovician unit on the New York Promontory. It was deposited during the strong early Tremadocian, or Stonehenge, transgression that inundated Laurentia, brought dysoxic/anoxic (d/a) slope water onto the shelf and led to deposition of the Schaghticoke d/a interval (black mudstone and 'ribbon limestone') on the Laurentian continental slope. The uniform lithofacies succession of the Tribes Hill includes a lower sand-rich member; a middle, dark grey to black mudstone that records d/a in eastern exposures; and an upper, shoaling-up carbonate highstand facies. A widespread (12000+ km2) thrombolitic interval in the highstand carbonate suggests the New York Promontory was rimmed by thrombolites during deposition of the Tribes Hill. Offlap and erosion of the Tribes Hill was followed by the relatively feeble sea-level rise of the Rochdale transgression (new) in Laurentia, and deposition of the Rochdale Formation. The Rochdale transgression, correlated with the Kierograptus Drowning Interval in Baltica, marks a eustatic rise. The Rochdale Formation represents a short Early Ordovician interval (early late Tremadocian, middle–late Stairsian, Macerodus dianae Chron). It correlates with a depositional sequence that forms the middle Boat Harbour Formation in west Newfoundland and with the Rte 299 d/a interval on the east Laurentian slope. The Rochdale has a lower carbonate with abundant quartz silt (Comstock Member, new) and an upper, thrombolitic (Hawk Member, new) high-stand facies. Tribes Hill and Rochdale faunas are mollusc-rich, generally trilobite-poor, and have low diversity, Laurentian faunal province conodonts. Ulrichodina rutnika Landing n. sp. is rare in Rochdale conodont assemblages. Trilobites are also low in diversity, but locally form coquinas in the middle Tribes Hill. The poorly preserved Rochdale trilobites include the bathyurid Randaynia, at least two hystricurid species and Leiostegium.


Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) accumulate in patients and animals with cancer where they mediate systemic immune suppression and obstruct immune-based cancer therapies. We have previously demonstrated that inflammation, which frequently accompanies tumor onset and progression, increases the rate of accumulation and the suppressive potency of MDSC. To determine how inflammation enhances MDSC levels and activity we used mass spectrometry to identify proteins produced by MDSC induced in highly inflammatory settings. Proteomic pathway analysis identified the Fas pathway and caspase network proteins, leading us to hypothesize that inflammation enhances MDSC accumulation by increasing MDSC resistance to Fas-mediated apoptosis. The MS findings were validated and extended by biological studies. Using activated caspase 3 and caspase 8 as indicators of apoptosis, flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, and Western blot analyses demonstrated that inflammation-induced MDSC treated with a Fas agonist contain lower levels of activated caspases, suggesting that inflammation enhances resistance to Fas-mediated apoptosis. Resistance to Fas-mediated apoptosis was confirmed by viability studies of MDSC treated with a Fas agonist. These results suggest that an inflammatory environment, which is frequently present in tumor-bearing individuals, protects MDSC against extrinsic-induced apoptosis resulting in MDSC with a longer in vivo half-life, and may explain why MDSC accumulate more rapidly and to higher levels in inflammatory settings.


In this thesis, farmers` perceptions of climate change have been examined. Questionnaires were sent to 400 cereal farmers in the southernmost county of Sweden, Scania, of whom 221 replied. Four themes have been investigated: the farmers perceptions on past climate changes, their perceptions on future climate changes, their opinions on how the authorities are managing the climate change issue and their opinions on adaptation to climate change. Study results indicate that 9 out of 10 farmers had experienced some type of climate change over the last 15 years. The most common notion was that the climate has become more "periodized" and that winters have become milder. As many as 97% of the farmers thought that the climate will change during the coming 30 years, but only 67% believes that temperatures will rise. There are different opinions on whether climate change will be mostly positive or negative for agriculture in Scania, although most of the farmers think that the negative consequences will dominate. Most respondents think that the amount of information they receive from authorities, about climate change, is satisfactory. However, the majority thinks that the quality, or relevance, of the information is poor. They also think that more should be done in Sweden in order both to mitigateand adapt to climate change. Large differences occur about the opinions on the EUmembership, in light of climate change, but most respondents are positive towards the membership. Nine out of ten farmers have already started to adapt to climate change or consider doing so. The adaptations preferred by most farmers concern water management. Both improved drainage and expanded irrigation are seen as relevant adaptation measures. Many farmers also consider "reduced soil disturbance" as an adaptation measure to climate change. When it comes to crop choice, it seems as most adaptations are done as preventive measures to reduce risks rather than to take advantage of new opportunities. The results of this study indicate similarities to other studies. In relation to farmers in other contexts i.e. in developed nations, the Scanian farmers are generally more aware of climate change. In some regards the farmers expectations for future climate change are in line with scientific predictions for Scania, but for other aspects, there are discrepancies. The farmers tend to underestimate the future temperature rises but overestimate the increase in periodized and more extreme weather. The current study can be of good value for the authorities engaged in agriculture and climate change related issues. To possess knowledge of the farmers` opinions may facilitate the cooperation between authorities and farmers. This is an aspect of high importance from an agroecological viewpoint, where good communication and integration of different actors in the food system web, is emphasized. Table of contents


The paper examines evolutionary explanations of risk preferences. First, the paper argues that evolutionary psychology is ill-suited for explaining prospect theory risk preferences since the empirical evidence does not support the universality of the fourfold pattern of risk preferences postulated by prospect theory. Second, the paper argues that explaining prospect theory risk preferences by means of risk-sensitive foraging models is incomplete since this approach does not offer a rationale for the observed diversity in human decision making involving monetary gambles. Finally, the paper suggests adopting a wider perspective on evolutionary approaches to human behaviour that also takes into account the role of cultural processes in shaping risk preferences.


This research shows the growing utility of internet-based digital models in reviving the crisis-stricken traditional print monograph publishing. The rising prices of scientific journals in the past three decades forced academic and research libraries to resort to cutbacks on monograph budgets. The declining sales to libraries and rising production costs led to a significant drop in global demand for print monographs, rendering monograph publishing financially unattractive. Combining the flexibility of digitized content with the global reach of the Internet, three emerging digital models — print on demand, bundled e-books, and e-consortia — are beginning to revamp the monograph publishing business.


Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Lonely Planet Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Experience the romance of Georgia's past at Tbilisi Old Town, take a long trip to the Svaneti villages, or hear your voice echo in Geghard; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan Travel Guide: *Colour maps and images throughout *Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests *Insider tips save you time and money and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots *Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices *Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss *Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including customs, history, literature, cinema, music, dance, architecture, politics, landscapes, and cuisine *Over 46 local maps *Useful features - including Top Experiences, If You Like (activity guide), and Month-by-Month (annual festival calendar) *Coverage of Baku, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Svaneti, Quba, Kazbegi, Abkhazia, Adjara, Kakheti, Naxcivan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ismayilli, Samtskhe-Javakheti, the Great Caucasus, Gyumri, Zaqatala, Telavi, Geghard, Lahic, Haghpat, Sanahin, and more Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, John Noble, Michael Kohn, and Danielle Systermans. About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)


Foreign born people are uniquely qualified to stimulate trade between their present country of residence and the country in which they were born. This study provides an empirical investigation of the link between migration and trade flows for Sweden. Trade and migration data for Sweden and 180 partner countries between 2002 and 2007 are used to estimate an augmented gravity model. The results show a statistically strong, positive and robust link between migration and increased trade flows. The analysis derives the effect from the ability of foreignborn people to improve the flow of information between Sweden and their former home countries. This study argues, in light of the findings, that immigration can be used as an instrument for increased foreign trade and that the issue of migration thus deserves increased focus in trade policy and economic policy.


The primary objective of this article is to explore some distinctions between Christian and secular views of transformation, characteristics of transformational development and the holistic practitioner. To meet this aim, relevant literature has been explored. The article argues that the Christian's development motivation, goal and process are distinctive . The affirmation of indigenous knowledge; peaceful relationships, self-worth, empowerment and spiritual development are basic characteristics of transformational development. The paper also insists that the attitudes and characteristics of a holistic practitioner play a crucial role in realising these characteristics of transformational development. Understanding the value of this could assist faith-based organization and church-based development agency staff in engaging holistically.


Observations in the littoral zone of a large lake (Lake Constance) revealed strong and periodic fluctuations of temperature and current velocity on timescales between 10 and 15 min associated with high‐frequency internal waves. The peak in the spectral energy of the current velocity fluctuations associated with high‐frequency internal waves follows the seasonal dynamics of stratification, described by the stability frequency N. A comparison between the nearshore current velocity measurements in the littoral zone with temperature measurements in the pelagic of Lake Constance revealed a strong coupling between the occurrence of high‐frequency internal waves in the littoral zone and the passage of the basin‐scale internal Kelvin wave with a period of about 4 d.


New goods are at the heart of economic progress. The eleven essays in this volume include historical treatments of new goods and their diffusion; practical exercises in measurement addressed to recent and ongoing innovations; and real-world methods of devising quantitative adjustments for quality change. The lead article in Part I contains a striking analysis of the history of light over two millenia. Other essays in Part I develop new price indexes for automobiles back to 1906; trace the role of the air conditioner in the development of the American south; and treat the germ theory of disease as an economic innovation. In Part II essays measure the economic impact of more recent innovations, including anti-ulcer drugs, new breakfast cereals, and computers. Part III explores methods and defects in the treatment of quality change in the official price data of the United States, Canada, and Japan. This pathbreaking volume will interest anyone who studies economic growth, productivity, and the American standard of living.


The elasticity of taxable income (ETI) is often interpreted as a sufficient statistic to assess the welfare costs of taxation. Building on the conceptual framework of Chetty (2009), we show that this assertion does no longer hold for tax systems with deduction possibilities if (i) deductions generate externalities and (ii) deductions are responsive to tax rate changes. While the first condition should arguably hold for almost any imaginable tax deduction, we provide a thorough empirical examination of the second condition. Relying on rich German panel data from administrative tax records, we exploit several tax reforms that were implemented in Germany between 2001 and 2008. Our baseline estimates indicate an overall ETI of 0.49 and an elasticity of deductions with respect to the net-of-tax rate of -2.80. Given that the majority of deductions in the German income tax system generate externalities, our nonzero deduction elasticity suggests that the ETI is not sufficient to calculate the welfare cost of taxation.


In the past 4 years, the emergence of Fusarium head blight (FHB) of irrigated barley in the Northern Cape Province (NCP) became a concern to the malting and brewing industries, and the food and feed companies in South Africa. This motivated an epidemiological survey whereby 320 single-spored Fusarium isolates were obtained from diseased barley kernels collected in the NCP over 2 consecutive crop years (2008-2009) on two barley cultivars (potential malting varieties) at several locations. A multiplex PCR using previously published species-specific primers was utilized to simultaneously detect the most frequently encountered species of the FHB complex, including Fusarium graminearum, F. culmorum, F. avenaceum and F. poae. For isolates that could not be identified using PCR, further characterization was performed through sequence analyses. Fusarium graminearum (91.9%) was the dominant species, while F. boothii (6.25%), one of the species within the F. graminearum species complex, F. equiseti (1.25%) and F. poae (0.6%) were isolated far less frequently. Within the F. graminearum species complex, most of the isolates (99.7%) belonged to the 15-ADON chemotype. A real-time PCR assay based on SYBR Green technology was used to accurately quantify F. graminearum in barley samples. This is the first report on Fusarium species and their mycotoxin profiles associated with FHB of barley in South Africa.


This paper studies how to retrieve aggregate information from the trading volume of Taiwan composite stock index options (TXO) with better quality by modifying the two option-information aggregation methods introduced in Holowczak et al. (2014). To study an emerging market such as the Taiwan options market, whose major players are retail investors, we take into consideration the retail participation rate and the trading distribution across moneyness, in addition to factors such as option market depth, liquidity, and investors' trading purposes, as discussed in Holowczak et al. (2014). Retail investors, who are generally less well-informed, have traded mainly nearby TXO options with expirations of less than one month. Therefore, the weights of nearby contracts should be reduced. Furthermore, both institutions and retail investors have traded more at near- the-money TXO options, and consequently the weights of in-the-money options and out-of-the-money options should be discounted to accommodate the uneven option trading across money- ness. In addition, we fi nd that there is a dichotomy in the information roles of out-of-the-money options: the information content of their trades is higher (lower) when market volatility increases (decreases). Based on this fi nding, we establish a VIX-adjusted put-call ratio which increases (decreases) the weight of out-of-the-money options when the market VIX is larger (smaller) than its previous average level. Our model, as revised for an emerging market such as the Taiwan options market, has outperformed in explaining contemporaneous price changes and has shown very good predictive ability for large downside market moves.


The Australian Institute for School Teaching and Leadership's (AITSL's) Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, Standard 1, requires teachers to demonstrate professional knowledge as to how students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds learn. Sleeter (2011) and Macfarlane, Glynn, Cavanagh, and Bateman (2007) argue that professional learning in culturally responsive pedagogy can impact teacher effectiveness but the how to apply it into the classroom context is not clearly understood.

In Far North Queensland, Australia, schools in the last 10-15 years have been involved in the resettlement of refugees from a number of countries under the UNHCR program. Although the State education department has a long history of catering for students who have English as an additional language (EAL), professional learning in second language acquisition and working cross-culturally has been sparse and predominantly focussed on Indigenous-specific needs. Many teachers seem to have had little, if any, initial training or opportunities for sustained professional learning in culturally responsive pedagogy more broadly. Nor, it seems, is this a priority. A large body of literature around refugee resettlement (Bean et al., 2006; Pugh, Every, & Hattam, 2012; Taylor, 2008; Taylor & Sidhu, 2011) suggests that schools play a major component in the successful resettlement of refugee children. This paper presents a critical review of literature focused on critically responsive pedagogy and effective teaching of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The review identifies that personal and professional nature of culturally responsive pedagogy presents significant challenges for teacher education and ongoing professional learning and that more research is needed into how to support teachers' culturally responsive capabilities in contexts of practice.


Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Hess Deep Expedition 345 was designed to sample lower crustal primitive gabbroic rocks that formed at the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise (EPR) in order to test models of magmatic accretion and the intensity of hydrothermal cooling at depth. The Hess Deep Rift was selected to exploit tectonic exposures of young EPR plutonic crust, building upon results from ODP Leg 147 as well as more recent submersible, remotely operated vehicle, and near-bottom surveys. The primary goal was to acquire the observations required to test end-member crustal accretion models that were in large part based on relationships from ophiolites, in combination with mid-ocean ridge geophysical studies. This goal was achieved with the recovery of primitive layered olivine gabbros and troctolites with many unexpected mineralogical and textural relationships, such as the abundance of orthopyroxene and the preservation of delicate skeletal olivine textures. Site U1415 is located along the southern slope of an intrarift ridge within the Hess Deep Rift between 4675 and 4850 water depths. Specific hole locations were selected in the general area of the proposed drill sites (HD-01B-HD-03B) using a combination of geomorphology, seafloor observations, and shallow subsurface seismic data. A total of 16 holes were drilled. The primary science results were obtained from coring of two ~110 m deep reentry holes (U1415J and U1415P) and five single-bit holes (U1415E and U1415G-U1415I). Despite deep water depths and challenging drilling conditions, reasonable recovery for hard rock expeditions (15%-30%) was achieved at three 35-110 m deep holes (U1415I, U1415J, and U1415P). The other holes occupied during this expedition included two failed attempts to establish reentry capability (Holes U1415K and U1415M) and six jet-in tests to assess sediment thickness (Holes U1415A-U1415D, U1415F, and U1415L). Olivine gabbro and troctolite are the dominant plutonic rock types recovered at Site U1415, with minor gabbro, clinopyroxene oikocryst-bearing troctolite, clinopyroxene oikocryst-bearing gabbro, and gabbronorite. These rocks exhibit cumulate textures similar to those found in layered basic intrusions and some ophiolite complexes. All lithologies are primitive, with Mg# between 0.76 and 0.89, falling within the global range of primitive oceanic gabbros. Spectacular modal and/or grain size layering was prevalent in >50% of the recovered core, displaying either simple or diffuse boundaries. Magmatic foliation largely defined by the shape-preferred orientation of plagioclase and olivine is moderate to strong in intervals with simple modal layering but weak to absent in the troctolite series and largely absent in the multitextured lay-ered series. The abundance of orthopyroxene in these primitive rocks was unexpected and deviates from the standard model for mid-ocean-ridge basalt crystallization. Pres-ervation of delicate skeletal olivine grains suggests that at least part of the recovered section of the lower crust was not subjected to significant hypersolidus or subsolidus strain. The metamorphic mineral assemblages record the cooling of primitive gabbroic lithologies from EPR magmatic conditions (>1000°C) to zeolite facies conditions ( 2 km beneath the sheeted dike-plutonic transition and thus represents the lower half to a third of the EPR plutonic crust. The orientation of the magmatic fabrics and magnetic inclinations of the core suggest that Site U1415 is composed of a series of 30-65 m thick blocks that likely formed by mass wasting. Sampling three or four blocks of relatively fresh rocks proved advantageous, as it facilitated observations of two distinct types of layering and troctolite units with varying grain size, lithologic associations, and textures. The mineralogical and textural relationships show that in several respects the Oman ophiolite is not the ideal model for fast-spreading ocean crust and call into question some aspects of both of the end-member accretion models that were to be tested. The results of the IODP Hess Deep Expedition 345 provide a reference section for primitive fast-spreading lower crust that did not exist before. This highlights the necessity of ocean drilling to address questions related to the origin and evolution of the lower ocean crust.


ABSTRACT 'Warfare tourism' represents an increasingly significant dimension of contemporary tourism. This paper provides a fresh perspective on participation in 'warfare tourism' by investigating the behaviour and experiences of a living veteran and his son returning to two theatres of war in which the veteran had served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Active interviews with the two family members were used to gather rich data regarding the two extended trips, which had been funded by 'Heroes Return', to Australia in 2012 and Sri Lanka in 2013. The findings indicate that some of the facets of visiting the fallen at other dark tourism sites, such as empathetic identification and personal connection, are also very relevant to trips shared between the living. However, with the living these contribute to a powerful co-created experience in which 'closer' bonds between the travellers can be developed. Furthermore, whilst the experiences at times represented 'bitter-sweet' nostalgia for the veteran, they also provided the son with the opportunity to 'look through his father's eyes' from both a past and current perspective. Given that there will be war veterans as long as conflicts exist, the results have valuable messages for all those dealing with veterans in the future.


The remarkable growth of biological data is a motivation to accelerate the discovery of solutions in many domains of computational bioinformatics. In different phases of the computational pipelines, pattern matching is a very practical operation. For example, pattern matching enables users to find the locations of particular DNA subsequences in a database or DNA sequence. Furthermore, in these expanding biological databases, some patterns are updated over time. To perform faster searches, high-speed pattern matching algorithms are needed. The present paper introduces three pattern matching algorithms that are specially formulated to speed up searches on large DNA sequences. The proposed algorithms raise performance by utilizing word processing (in place of the character processing presented in previous works) and also by searching the least frequent word of the pattern in the sequence. In terms of time cost, the experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the presented algorithms over the other simulated algorithms.


Abstract The nonlinear vibration analysis of a magneto-rheological elastomer (MRE) sandwich plate is conducted experimentally. Experiments have been performed in order to construct the frequency-response curves in the vicinity of the fundamental natural frequency of an MRE sandwich plate (plate A) in either the absence or presence of a localised external magnetic field at 3 different geometrical locations, for both small and medium magnetic fields. Furthermore, experiments have also been conducted on a pure aluminium plate (plate B) with an equal thickness to the MRE sandwich plate (plate A) in order to examine the influence of the MRE layer on the nonlinear dynamics of the system. An electrodynamic shaker was used to directly force each system and the displacement at the centre of the plate was measured. Meanwhile, permanent magnets were used to apply a localised magnetic field for the experiments where the MRE sandwich plate was subject to an external magnetic field. It was observed all the MRE systems displayed strong hardening-type nonlinear behaviour, however, with increasing magnetic field this behaviour transitioned to a weak hardening-type nonlinearity.


This book challenges commonplace notions of popular sovereignty and the idea of "the People". Since the 1960s, hostility and mistrust towards the U.S. government has risen precipitously. At the same time, the field of public administration has wrestled with its own crisis of legitimacy. What is at the root of current antigovernment sentiment? Conventionally, two explanations for this problem persist. Some see it primarily in moral terms, a deficit of Constitutional or democratic values in government. Others emphasize government's performance failures and managerial inefficiency. Thomas J. Catlaw departs from both explanations in this groundbreaking study and demonstrates that the current crisis of government originates in the uncritical manner in which we have accepted the idea of "the People." He contends that this unifying, foundational concept - and the notion of political representation it entails - has failed. While illuminating some of our most pressing social and political problems, Catlaw shows how the idea of The People, far from serving to unify, relies in fact on a distinctive logic of exclusion. True political power is the power to determine what constitutes the normal, natural life of the electorate. Today, the exclusionary practices that once made up or fabricated the People are increasingly contested. In turn, government and political power now appear more invasive, less legitimate, and our shared reality appears more fragmented and disconnected. In order to address this crisis and reinvigorate democracy, Catlaw argues, we must accept as bankrupt the premise of the People and the idea of representation itself. "Fabricating the People" boldly proposes a post-representational governance that reframes the practice of modern democracy and reinvents the role of public administration.


As an area of research that continues to develop, the study of linguistics worldwide presents the opportunity for the improvement of cross-cultural communication through education and research. Language educators are charged with the task of instructing students to effectively communicate across cultures in a multi-lingual word. The Handbook of Research on Teaching Methods in Language Translation and Interpretation presents an interdisciplinary approach to educational contexts across cultures for the study of verbal and written linguistics in order to broaden students' communicative and problem solving abilities. This book is an essential reference source for academicians, researchers, professionals, and students in the fields of education and linguistics, interested in the assessment and evaluation of pedagogical research to enhance learning methodologies and practices.


Unemployment in East and West Europe In this paper, we use 1991-2005 panel data on the unemployed, vacancies, inflow into unemployment, and outflow from unemployment in five former communist economies and in the western part of Germany (a benchmark western economy) to examine the evolution of unemployment together with that of inflows into unemployment and vacancies. The comparison of the transition economies with an otherwise similar and spatially close market economy is useful because it enables us to identify the main differences and similarities in the evolution of the key variables, and thus draw conclusions as to whether different or similar factors cause high unemployment. JEL Classification: P2, J4, J6, C33


The success of long-distance slurry pipelines is in many cases dependent on careful preparation of the solids prior to transport. Positive displacement pumps are employed. However, for each of these very long pipelines, there are numerous 1/2 to 10 mile long pipelines for which pre-preparation of solids is neither practical or economical and the design of the pipeline and the pumping equipment must accommodate widely ranging fluid properties. These 'intermediate-length' pipelines most often employ a series arrangement of abrasion resistant centrifugal pumps as the prime movers. This paper discusses the design of such pipelines.


Scholarship on the legal profession tends to situate cause lawyers in a state of adversarial tension with government lawyers. In this conventional account, cause lawyers challenge the agenda of government attorneys, who represent institutional interests and the status quo. From this oppositional perspective, socio-legal scholars explore the activity of lawyers working at public-interest law firms, for general social movement organizations, and in private practice. For some time, however, cause lawyers have moved in and out of government, thus complicating the traditional picture of lawyer-state opposition. This Article aims to identify and understand the significant role that cause lawyers play inside the state. It does so by drawing on recent social movement scholarship exploring the overlapping and interdependent relationship between movements and the state. Ultimately, this Article identifies four key impacts that cause lawyers within the state may produce: (1) reforming the state itself; (2) shaping state personnel and priorities; (3) harnessing state power to advance shared movement-state goals; and (4) facilitating and mediating relationships between the movement and the state. These productive functions, however, also come with significant limitations. By appealing to governmental authority and involving the state as a pro-movement force, cause lawyers in government positions may channel movement activity toward moderate goals and into institutional, state-centered tactics. Accordingly, this Article explores not only the benefits but also the costs of cause lawyer movement in and out of the state.


Query-based web search is becoming an integral part of many people's daily activities. Most do not realize that their search history can be used to identify them (and their interests). In July 2006, AOL released an anonymized search query log of some 600K randomly selected users. While valuable as a research tool, the anonymization was insufficient: individuals could be identified from the contents of the queries alone. We propose a client-centered approach based on deniable search: actual user queries are replaced with a set of k queries that hide the actual query. We formalize the definition of Deniable Search and develop two complementary schemes that achieve deniable privacy for web search.
In the first approach of Plausibly Deniable Search, cover queries have characteristics similar to the user query but on unrelated topics. The system ensures that any of these k queries will produce the same set of k queries, giving k possible topics the user could have been searching for. We also investigate a system for generating queries automatically by creating clusters of a query log in the semantic space. In the second approach, we ensure that sequences of queries (and cover queries) retain deniability. Real user queries share terms and topics in a sequence as the users refine queries. We extract features from user query logs and use them to generate cover query sequences that have similar properties. We evaluate the methods using a large query log and DMOZ categorized webpages.


Recently, advanced thermomechanical hot rolling schedules followed by direct quenching are being developed in order to avoid reheating and quenching treatment after hot rolling to eliminate an energy and cost consuming step. The use of boron as an alloying element is a widely known practice in high strength medium carbon steels to increase the strength due its potential for delaying phase transformation and improving hardenability. In addition, a significant synergetic effect on hardenability could be reached combining B with microalloying elements (adding Nb, Mo or Nb-Mo). With the purpose of exploring the effect of microalloying elements and thermomechanical rolling schedule, laboratory thermomechanical simulations reproducing plate mill conditions were performed using ultra high strength steels micro-alloyed with Nb, Mo, and Nb-Mo. To that end, plane compression tests were performed, consisting of an initial preconditioning step, followed by several roughing and finishing deformation passes and a final quenching step. After fast cooling to room temperature, a tempering treatment was applied. In the present paper, the complex interaction between the martensitic microstructure, the tempering treatment, the addition of microalloying elements, and the resulting tensile properties was evaluated. For that purpose, an exhaustive EBSD quantification was carried out in both quenched as well as quenched and tempered states for all the steel grades and the contribution of different strengthening mechanisms on yield strength was analyzed. Highest tensile properties are achieved combining Nb and Mo, for both quenched (Q) and quenched and tempered states (Q&T), reaching yield strength values of 1107 MPa and 977 MPa, respectively. Higher tempering resistance was measured for the Mo-bearing steels, making the CMnNbMoB steel the one with the lowest softening after tempering. For CMnB grade, the yield strength reduction after tempering of about 413 MPa was measured, while for NbMo micro-alloyed steel, yield strength softening is considerably reduced to 130 MPa.


Expert finding systems employ social networks analysis and natural language processing to identify candidate experts in organization or enterprise datasets based on a user's profile, her documents, and her interaction with other users. Expert discovery in public social networks such as Facebook faces the challenges of matching users to a wide range of expertise areas, because of the diverse human interests. In this paper we analyze the social graph and the user's interactions in the form of posts and group memberships to model user interests and fields of expertise. The proposed model reflects expertise and interests of users based on experimental analysis of the explicit and implicit social data in Online Social Networks (OSNs). It employs social networks analysis, text mining, text classification, and semantic text similarity techniques to analyze and discover the latent semantic social graph model that can express user's expertise. The proposed model also considers the semantic similarity between user's posts and his groups, Influence of friendship on group's membership, and Influence of friendship on user's posts. Experiments on the Facebook data show significant validity of the proposed model.


The pion-mass dependence of hyperon electromagnetic properties is determined using two-flavor heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. Specifically we compute chiral corrections to the charge radii, magnetic moments, and magnetic radii of the spin one-half hyperons, as well as the charge radii, magnetic moments, magnetic radii, electric quadrupole moments, and quadrupole radii of the spin three-half hyperons. Results for the nucleon and delta are also included. Efficacy of the two-flavor theory is investigated by analyzing the role played by virtual kaons. For the electromagnetic properties of spin one-half hyperons, kaon loop contributions are shown to be well described by terms analytic in the pion mass squared. Similarly kaon contributions to the magnetic moments of spin three-half hyperons are well described in the two-flavor theory. The remaining electromagnetic properties of spin three-half resonances can be described in two-flavor chiral perturbation theory, however, this description fails just beyond the physical pion mass. For the case of experimentally known hyperon magnetic moments and charge radii, we demonstrate that chiral corrections are under reasonable control, in contrast to the behavior of these observables in the three-flavor chiral expansion. The formulas we derive are ideal for performing the pion-mass extrapolation of lattice QCD data obtained atmore » the physical strange quark mass.« less


Remote method invocation in Java RMI allows the flow of control to pass across local Java threads and thereby span multiple virtual machines. However, the resulting distributed threads do not strictly follow the paradigm of their local Java counterparts for at least three reasons. Firstly, the absence of a global thread identity causes problems when reentering monitors. Secondly, blocks synchronized on remote objects do not work properly. Thirdly, the thread interruption mechanism for threads executing a remote call is broken. These problems make multi-threaded distributed programming complicated and error prone. We present a two-level solution: On the library level, we extend KaRMI (Philippsen et al. (2000)), a fast replacement for RMI, with global thread identities for eliminating problems with monitor reentry. Problem with synchronization on remote objects are solved with a facility for remote monitor acquisition. Our interrupt forwarding mechanism enables the application to get full control over its distributed threads. On the language level, we integrate these extensions with JavaParty's transparent remote objects (Philippsen et al. (1997)) to get transparent distributed threads. We finally evaluate our approach with benchmarks that show costs and benefits of our overall design.


Traditionally, most irrigation practices in Southern Europe have been based on gravity-fed surface irrigation systems. Currently, these systems remain a relevant typology in the European Union (EU) member states of the Mediterranean areas, where it is often the only sustainable method for farmers due to the small size of agricultural holdings, their reduced capacity and readiness to invest and the low ratio between yield profits and irrigation costs. In the last several years, in response to European and national directives, surface irrigation has garnered increasing attention at the political and bureaucratic levels due to frequent criticisms of its postulated low efficiency and high water wastage. However, these systems commonly provide a number of ecosystem services and nature-based solutions that increase the positive externalities in different rural socio-ecological contexts and often have the potential to extend these services and provide solutions that are compatible with economical sustainability. This study aims to discuss the prospects for new practices and for the rehabilitation and modernization of the gravity-fed surface irrigation systems in EU Mediterranean areas to enhance water efficiency, thus gaining both economic advantages and environmental benefits. The difficulties, stimuli for improvements and peculiarities of the irrigation water management of four rural environments located in Italy, Spain and Portugal were analyzed and compared to the current state of the gravity-fed surface irrigation systems with hypothetical future improvements achievable by innovative technologies and practices. In these different case studies, the current gravity-fed surface irrigation systems have an obsolete regulatory structure; water-use efficiency is not a driving criterion for the management of the conveyance and distribution canal network, and farmers are not yet adequately encouraged to adopt more efficient gravity-fed irrigation practices. A continuous knowledge exchange is thus necessary for the interaction of all irrigation water managers and farmers to improve their eco-efficiency and to preserve and promote their cultural heritage across the entire water supply and delivery chains. We argue that the best way forward will require precisely targeted rehabilitation measures of gravity-fed surface irrigation systems based on the integrated use of decision support services, gate automation, remote and feedback controls and real-time flow optimization.


OBJECTIVE
Although attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults is associated with significant morbidity and dysfunction and afflicts both sexes, relatively few imaging studies have examined female subjects and none have had sufficient power to adequately examine sex differences. The authors examined sex differences in the neural functioning of adults with ADHD during performance of a verbal working memory task.

METHOD
The participants were 44 adults with ADHD matched on age, sex, and estimated IQ to 49 comparison subjects. Accuracy and reaction time on an N-back task were measured to assess working memory. The blood-oxygen-level-dependent functional MRI response was used as a measure of neural activity.

RESULTS
A group-by-sex analysis of variance showed no between-group differences in either reaction time or percent correct for the working memory task. For both sexes combined, the adults with ADHD showed less activity than comparison subjects in prefrontal regions. However, sex-by-group analyses revealed an interaction, such that male ADHD subjects showed significantly less activity in right frontal, temporal, and subcortical regions and left occipital and cerebellar regions relative to male comparison subjects, whereas female ADHD subjects showed no differences from female comparison subjects. Exploratory correlation analyses revealed negative associations between working-memory-related activation and number of hyperactive symptoms for men and number of inattentive symptoms for women.

CONCLUSIONS
Male but not female adults with ADHD showed significantly altered patterns of neural activity during a verbal working memory task. Men and women showed different associations between neural activity and ADHD symptoms.


Background The challenges of wheelchair provision and use in less resourced settings are the focus of global efforts to enhance wheelchair service delivery. The shortage of professional wheelchair service providers in these settings necessitates the collaboration of multiple stakeholders, including community-based rehabilitation (CBR) workers, whose role needs to be further understood. Objectives The aim of this study was to determine what CBR workers in three areas of Uganda perceived as (1) the challenges with wheelchair provision and use, (2) the factors contributing to these challenges, (3) the role they themselves can potentially play and (4) what facilitators they need to achieve this. Method This qualitative study in the transformative paradigm comprised focus group discussions to gather perceptions from 21 CBR workers in three areas of Uganda, each with an operational wheelchair service, participant observations and field notes. Thematic analysis of data was implemented. Results Community-based rehabilitation workers' perceptions of challenges were similar while perceived causes of challenges differed as influenced by location, historical and current wheelchair availability and the CBR workers' roles. Their main responsibilities included assistance in overcoming barriers to access the service, transfer of skills and knowledge related to wheelchairs, follow-up of users for wheelchair-related problem-solving, and user and community empowerment. Conclusion Community-based rehabilitation workers can contribute in various ways to wheelchair service delivery and inclusion of wheelchair users; however, their capabilities are not consistently applied. Considering the diversity of contextual challenges, CBR workers' range of responsive approaches, knowledge of networks and ability to work in the community make their input valuable. However, to optimise their contribution, specific planning for their training and financial needs and effective engagement in the wheelchair services delivery system are essential. Keywords wheelchairs; less resourced settings; community-based rehabilitation; wheelchair service provision; service steps; Uganda; empowerment; inclusion; assistive device.


Background: In cirrhotic patients, variceal bleeding remains a major cause of death. After a variceal bleeding episode, mortality and rebleeding rates spike for the first 6 weeks before levelling off. We aimed to evaluate the performance of AIMS65 score in comparison with Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) score and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score in predicting 6-week mortality and rebleeding in cirrhotic patients with variceal bleeding.

Method: Data were collected prospectively from patients with cirrhosis and variceal bleeding at Gastroenterology and Hepatology Department of Cho Ray hospital from September 2016 to April 2017. The primary endpoint was 6-week mortality and rebleeding. The prognostic value of AIMS65, CTP, and MELD scoring systems for 6-week mortality and rebleeding was compared by receiver operating characteristics curves (ROC) and the area under the curve (AUC).

Results: Among 80 patients, 15% rebled and 25% died during 6-week follow-up. AUCROC of AIMS65, CTP, and MELD scores in predicting 6-week rebleeding were 0.68, 0.54, and 0.48, respectively. AUCROC of AIMS65, CTP, and MELD scores in predicting 6-week mortality were 0.80, 0.74, and 0.64, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of AIMS65 score at the cutoff point of 2 were 95%, 55%, 41.3%, and 97%, respectively.

Conclusion: AIMS65 score is a simple yet applicable tool for risk stratification in cirrhotic patients with variceal bleeding. We recommend using AIMS65 score with a cut-off point of 2 to identify patients at increased risk for 6-week mortality after variceal bleeding.


"Medicinal Plants of the World" is a comprehensive and scientifically accurate guide to the best-known and most important medicinal plants. The book includes descriptions of more than 300 medicinal plants and their close relatives. Each entry gives a short summary with a description of the plant, the geographical origin, therapeutic category, historical and modern uses, active ingredients, and pharmacological effects. More than 500 full-color photographs assist in the identification of the plants. It is an essential reference guide for health care professionals - doctors, nurses, and especially pharmacists - or anyone with an interest in medicinal plants and their uses.