Real-time itinerary information is increasingly used and the functionality of travel planners is becoming more and more advanced. This gives the users the opportunity to tailor their demands and receive simple and fast answers, either through a mobile app, website or voice mail. This thesis explores how the BusTUC system can be improved to take the needs of the users into account. To investigate this, the system is expanded to return answers also for tram departures, and support for visualizing routes in a map is added. 14 persons have tested the new system on a website. Then, the same persons have given feedback through a survey. These answers have been analyzed to discover problems in the web client, and to detect how the experience on the website is, in terms of response time. It seems that correspondence between different means of transportation is important to the users, but this functionality is not present in the current system. Several clients want the system to take all of Norway into account, not just Trondheim. The support for tram schedules and the map functionality seem to increase the credibility of the BusTUC answers, which again lead to more satisfied users. The report also describes how BusTUC can be used in another domain to return intelligent answers. This is an aspect that should be further explored in the future.


We use satellite observed and model atmospheric variables, including land surface temperature, snowfall, snow extent, precipitation, and water vapor contents to study the feasibility of quantifying anthropogenic climate change over high elevation areas such as the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Five types of satellite data and outputs from Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCMs) are used to study these climate change indicators: (1) AIRS/AMSU/HSB atmospheric sounding system onboard the Aqua platform, 2003 similar to 2009, (2) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra, 2001 similar to 2009, (3) The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation measurements, 1999 similar to 2009, (4) the ERA-interim (ECMWF Interim Reanalysis), 1989 similar to 2009, and (5) the Japanese 25-year Reanalysis Project (JRA-25) AGCM data, 1979 similar to 2009. We find that biases exist between temperature observations and model data 0.29 similar to 3.12 degrees C, AIRS and JRA-25, respectively. The trends for each of the atmospheric variables at best have a qualitative agreement, presumably because the data spans of satellite observations are too short (7 similar to 10 years). The temperature trends for 4000 similar to 5000 m over the Plateau are estimated to be 0.01 similar to 0.05 degrees C yr(-1), qualitatively agreeing with the published rate of 0.3 degrees C decade(-1) over the last three decades using in situ data.


In the Kuhnian view of theory choice, theories, as a matter of empirical fact, often score differently well with regard to the standard theoretical virtues. The case I discuss in this paper, however, is a case in which there was one theory which was more virtuous than all its competitors. In such cases practitioners' disparate weighting preferences, which Kuhn is so keen to emphasise, make no difference to theory choice: practitioners' choices will converge on one theory despite their different weighting preferences. The case I discuss in this paper concerns the Glashow-WeinbergSalam (GWS) model of electroweak interactions in the early 1970s. After considering the contemporary experimental evidence in its favour in detail, I argue that the GWS model was chosen not because the evidence in its favour was compelling, but rather because its virtues exceeded those of its competitors.


Spleen cells and serum from mice immunized with ectromelia virus suppressed the immune response to infectious virus when transferred intravenously into recipient mice given an immunizing virus dose. The suppression was reflected in decreased cytotoxic T-cell activity directed against H-2 compatible virus-infected target cells in the spleens of recipients. Suppression was observed when immune cells or serum were transferred 1-2 h or 1 day after immunization of recipients, but not 2 days after, and was maximal when 6-day immune spleen cells were used as suppressor cells. H-2 compatibility between donor and recipient mice was necessary for suppression to be expressed. Use of recombinant mice showed that I-region compatibility was neither sufficient nor necessary, and that D-region compatibility was sufficient. Specificity of suppression was suggested by the finding that cells and serum from mice immunized with Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium, had no suppressive activity on the antiviral response. Anti- theta treatment eliminated the ability of immune cells to suppress, and the suppressive effect was not markedly dose-dependent with respect to both cell dose and virus dose under the conditions employed. Virus levels in the spleens of recipients were significantly reduced after injection of immune cells. Adult thymectomy had no effect on the primary immune response to ectromelia virus infection, thus indicating no role for T1 cells in the suppressive mechanism. The results obtained therefore suggested that suppression in this system was due to effector T cells which triggered clearance of virus (and thus, of virus-induced antigens) necessary for the induction of precursors of effector T cells, and that this simple feed-back mechanism normally plays an important role in the regulation of the primary immune response to ectromelia infection at the level of precursor induction. The existence of other postinduction regulatory mechanisms, however, is unknown and under investigation.


Counter-Terrorism Networks in the European Union: Maintaining Democratic Legitimacy after 9/11 presents a model of democratic legitimacy for within international counter-terrorism co-operation. Exploring the current practices of European Union (EU) counter-terrorism policing, developed after 9/11, it highlights the current significant challenges to democratic legitimacy and seeks to present tools and solutions which ensure 'democratic' counter-terrorism actions and the protection of human rights.

Counter-terrorism policing is now a global concern, with co-operation between security authorities of different countries a crucial feature in the fight to prevent terrorism and extremism. Yet, given the emphasis on pre-emption, this type of policing tends to interfere to a far greater extent with the rights of the individual than traditional policing. This book scrutinises the current focus of enhanced communication between counter-terrorist associates at member-state and EU levels within Europe, alongside analysis of just how far the traditional, protective mechanisms of accountability and oversight are managing to keep up with this development. It proposes that current forms of counter-terrorism policing within the EU should be understood as networks - sets of expert institutional nodes or individual agents, from at least two countries - that are interconnected in order to authorize and provide security with regard to counter-terrorism, using the European Police Office (Europol) as a key example.


About the book: The Second Edition of this highly successful course reader provides a comprehensive, contemporary and critical review of the key issues in strategic human resource management. The book draws upon the work of some of the most influential and insightful writers on the subject of the strategic management of people in organizations. Through a series of carefully edited articles, students can explore current thinking on topics as diverse as performance, pay, process re-engineering, structure, ethics, culture, change and leadership.
This volume moves beyond strategic human resource management from the perspective of the policy setter. The book informs but also questions and, while recognising the legitimacy and importance of management perspectives, also captures the experience of workers on the receiving end of strategic initiatives. Students will be encouraged to consider core issues and difficult questions, such as:
" How should employees respond to the missionary zeal of their employers?
" How can we explain the increasing influence of gangmasters?
" What are the effects of management training on the identities of managers?
" Has strategic HRM been transformed from a model of commitment to one of exploitation?
Strategic Human Resource Management has been designed to meet the needs of course teaching at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It is an invaluable text that will help define the complex agenda of human resource management, strategy and organisations for students.


Commonwealth performance in environmental management can be systematically assessed and reviewed through public sector environmental audits. Australia's experiences in public sector environmental audit indicate that its difficulties lie in inadequate available baseline data and vague policy benchmarks. Significant governmental efforts are being made to address the national data problem but not the benchmarks. Recent trends towards more systematic government performance reporting may eventually feed back to improve benchmarks. Some urge the establishment of an Australian Commissioner for the Environment to implement performance reporting, amongst other tasks. The potential role of the Commissioner as national auditor in particular is examined, drawing largely on Canadian experience.


The purpose of this paper is to show how trust as an organizational value contributes to employee competence utilization in the case of innovation capability. Thus, it is the objective of this paper to analyze the positive impacts, but also potential limits of trust in business management. The research paper uses two different quantitative empirical studies drawn from German and Austrian mid-sized companies to empirically test this interrelation. As a result, the paper determines particular aspects of trust such as accountability, shared norms and the ability to take responsibility to be interrelated with the usage of employee competences and underlines a positive connection between product innovation performance and trust. However, the trust concept needs enriching elements to be balanced towards a feeling of mutual reliance and support creativity instead; inclusions of bridging social capital, elements of distrust and a pioneering spirit are to be mentioned here.


Embodied cultural capital is in the form of long-term mental and physical skills and characteristics and is part of the knowledge and ability of individuals. Cultural tendencies and propensities are one of the main factors in measuring the amount of embodied cultural assets. Kelileh and Demneh, which is considered one of the most significant objects of objectified cultural assets, is a rich treasure trove of embodied cultural assets. It is considered as one of the most enduring objective works of written cultural heritage among the nations of India, Iran and Arabia, as well as world literature. In the present study, based on the theoretical approach of Pierre Bourdieu's cultural capital, the main cultural tendencies in this book have been studied. In terms of methodology, information collection is library method, the technique of its study is qualitative studies and content analysis. Findings show that the characteristic of the tendency to acquire wisdom and knowledge in Kelileh and Demneh has a distinct prominence. The interaction of the Indian vote with the Brahman's base on various cultural issues, which is done with the aim of expanding wisdom and generalizing knowledge of the issues raised, is one of the best embodied manifestations of cultural capital. The search for knowledge and fascination of Anushirvan, the educated Sassanid king with knowledge, the search for wisdom by Borzoyeh and Ibn Muqaffa, who sometimes created important scientific and cultural movements in their time and the excessive interest of Amir Nasr ibn Ahmad Samani, Bahram Shah of Ghaznavi and Abu Ja'far Mansour ibn Abbas (founder of the Abbasid Caliphate) and some other rulers and scholars in science and culture are manifestations of cultural capital that are embodied in Kelileh and Demneh. Research aims: 1. Examining the cultural preferences of the identities and people in Kelileh and Demneh. 2. Explaining the manifestations of cultural capital embodied in the following components of the tendency to acquire wisdom and knowledge. Research questions: 1. What are the components of the cultural preferences of the identities and people in Kelileh and Demneh? 2. What are the manifestations of cultural capital embodied in Kelileh and Demneh in terms of interest in acquiring wisdom and knowledge?


We have measured the accuracy of in vitro synthesis by DNA polymerase I (large fragment) during translesion synthesis past an aminofluorene (AF) adduct. These studies were carried out using a site-specifically modified template which contained a single AF adduct. The template was prepared by first modifying the lone guanine in a 17 base long oligonucleotide and extensively purifying and characterizing this product. The modified 17mer was then ligated to a synthetic duplex to produce a 31 nucleotide long template strand containing the AF adduct annealed to a 14mer, such that the 3'-hydroxyl primer terminus was four nucleotides before the modified guanine. Synthesis on this template by DNA polymerase I efficiently bypassed the AF adduct and produced full-length duplex 31mers. T7 DNA polymerase, on the other hand, was unable to utilize the AF-modified template though it was active on an identical unmodified one. The strand synthesized by DNA polymerase I was then separated from the modified strand, annealed to a complementary oligonucleotide, and the resulting heteroduplex cloned into M13. Each of the 49 clones isolated had sequences which indicated that cytidine had been incorporated opposite the AF-modified guanine.


The present assessment evaluates the status of the 3M beaked redfish stock, regarded as a management unit composed of two populations from two very similar species (Sebastes mentella and Sebastes fasciatus). Survey bottom biomass and survey female spawning biomass were calculated based on the abundance at length from Canadian (1979-1985) and EU (1988-2000) bottom trawl surveys, and on the length weight relationships derived from EU survey data. The analytical assessment used a 1989-00 catch at age matrix starting at age 4 and incorporating the 1993-2000 redfish by-catch in the shrimp fishery at age. An Extended Survivor Analysis (Shepherd, 1999), including a 2000-1994 Retrospective Analysis, was first performed and complemented further by a Separable/Cohort analysis (Pope and Shepherd, 1982). Both models gave similar trends of stock biomass, spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality over the past twelve years. However the full weight of the former high catches of adult beaked redfish (greater than 30cm) on the SPA fit of the correspondent fishing mortalities lead to higher 1989-1993 F's from the Cohort analysis and lower 1989-1998 SSB's than those from XSA. A logistic surplus production model (ASPIC) which does not use the equilibrium assumption (Praguer, 1994 and 1995) was also applied using the 1959-2000 catch coupled with the STATLANT standardised CPUE series (1959-1993) and the age 4 plus EU bottom biomass (1988-2000). These last results, as regards biomass and fishing mortality trends are identical to the VPA based ones though with a faster rate of biomass increase over the final years of 1998-2000. Either VPA's and ASPIC analysis pointed out that the 3M beaked redfish stock experienced a steep decline from the second half of the eighties till 1994-1996. Biomass is increasing since then but is still well bellow the level estimated by each model for the beginning of the time series (1989). Till 1996 fishing mortality was kept well above Fmsy, due to a period of extremely high commercial catches from the direct fishery (1989-93) followed by an extremely high level of redfish by-catch in numbers from beginning of the 3M shrimp fishery (1993-94). From 1997 onwards fishing mortality dropped to values well below natural mortality allowing the survival and growth of the remainders from all cohorts, namely from those most abundant ones, and forcing a discrete growth of the biomass and female spawning biomass. Meanwhile, no new pulse of recruitment has occurred since 1990-1989. With the XSA survivors and recruitment randomly resampled from the 1998-00 geometric mean, short and medium term projections, under F and TAC status quo, were made for several probability levels. The underlying assumption of these projections was that no pulse of recruitment would be foreseen in the next coming years. Maintaining in the short term the catches at the TAC level will represent a 50% reduction on Fstatus quo . Under this scenario, and considering a high probability given by the 20% percentile profiles, catches will be anchored to levels between 4,000 tons and 5,000 tons till the end of this decade but female spawning stock biomass should reach in 2010 the vicinity of the 1990 SSB, that generated the last abundant cohort seen in this stock. Until 3M beaked redfish stock returns to a "normal" rhythm on the pulse of recruitment, the future increase of the female stock biomass will continue to be dependent on keeping fishing mortality well below F0.1. At the present magnitude of the exploitable stock biomass, and at least in the short term, this will correspond to an annual catch not going beyond 5,000 tons.


The past year has seen a dramatic pick-up on domestic securitizations in the People's Republic of China (PRC). This article provides an overview of the two main government-sponsored securitization schemes in the PRC—one administered by the China Bank Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the other administered by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). The article mainly focuses on the legal, regulatory, constitutional, and other issues that must be addressed before a viable public cross-border securitization market out of China can be developed. As with many financial initiatives in China, the CBRC and CSRC schemes are fairly new, and as such untested or inadequately tested in PRC courts. Moreover, the CBRC and CSRC regulations are administrative regulations and not statutory law. Concepts such as legal isolation, commingling, and bankruptcy remoteness as they apply to securitizations are new to this market and untested in its courts. From a legal point of view, the single best thing that could happen for a securitization market to develop in China, for both domestic and cross-border transactions, is for the National People's Congress (NPC) to enact a securitization statute as other civil law jurisdictions in Asia, such as Korea, have done.


Abstract The Chilean experience with price-based capital account regulations (i.e., deposits or reserve requirements on capital inflows) has been subject to extensive discussion in the recent literature. This paper presents evidence on the effectiveness of similar regulations in Colombia since September 1993, when traditional exchange controls were replaced by price-based regulations. It is important to emphasize that the Tobin tax equivalent of such regulations in Colombia has been quite high (13.6% and 6.4% tax for 12 and 36 months loans, respectively, in 1994-1998), and, as in Chile, it is certainly much higher than the rates suggested for an international Tobin tax. The econometric evidence presented indicates that these regulations have been effective in Colombia, both in terms of reducing the volume of flows and in improving the term structure of external borrowing. This indicates that price-based regulations give the authorities some room for maneuver to adopt restrictive monetary policies during international capital market booms. They have also been effective in improving the debt profile of the country, a crucial determinant of macroeconomic risks in the face of busts in the international capital market.


The characterization of rice husk from local rice mills has been studied and evaluated to determine its potential utilization as a biomass fuel for a cyclone gasifier. The raw rice husk was pre-treated throughout a grinding process into smaller sizes of particles which is within a range of 0.4 to 1 mm and the sample of ground rice husk was analyzed for its fuel characteristics. The result of proximate analysis shows that the ground rice husk with size distribution within 0.4 to 1 mm contains 13.4% of fixed carbon, 62.95% of volatile matter and 18.5% of ash on dry basis. The moisture content of the sample was measured and determined as 10.4% (wet basis) and the calorific value was found to be approximately 14.8 MJ kg-1 with bulk density of 91.46 kg m-3. The result of ultimate analysis validates both ash and moisture content which are found to be 18.15 and 10.4%, respectively. Other elemental compositions determined by the ultimate analysis are carbon (37.9%), hydrogen (5.2%), nitrogen (0.14%), sulfur (0.61%) and oxygen (27.7% by difference). The study has identified that the fuel characteristics of the ground rice husk is comparable with other types of biomass and thus, making it another potential source of fuel for the cyclone gasification system.


»Der Wiener Fußball und die Deutsche Wehrmacht – zwischen ,Pflichterfüllung' und Entziehung«. After 1945, stories about the Wehrmacht and football were integrated into the popular political history of anti-Nazi resistance in the newly formed Second Austrian Republic. This includes, for example, the alleged deployment of the team from SK Rapid to the front lines after their victory in the final of the 1941 German wartime football championship. Against the background of these myths, which were sometimes circulated even in football historiography, this contribution examines the similarities and differences between Viennese football after the 1938 Anschluss and the other regions of the Nazi Reich: How was the conscription of Viennese footballers accomplished and how involved were the players in the soldiers' football teams? Did the Viennese players enjoy the support of local Nazi functionaries or – like some of their national teammates – the help of "Reich Coach" Sepp Herberger in being held back from the front lines? What strategies did Viennese football players and clubs use in order to avoid being sent to the front, or to remain active as players? And to what extent were Viennese players or football officials involved in Nazi crimes during the war? This essay is based on the results of the research projects "Green-White under the Swastika. SK Rapid under National Socialism" and "Austrian victims of Nazi military justice."


Coal-fired power stations are responsible for around a third of Germany's carbon emissions. Failure to reduce the persistently high level of coal-fired power generation threatens Germany's climate targets for 2020 and 2050 and undermines a sustainable energy transition. Calculations by DIW Berlin and other expert opinions prove that, in the long term, lignite, in particular, is no longer relevant for the German energy system. However, if there is no significant increase in the price of CO2 emission certificates in the near future, a market-driven transition from coal to less CO2-intensive energy sources, such as natural gas, is unlikely to occur. Presently, a number of options for reducing the level of power generated by coal are being dicussed. Along with the reform of the Emissions Trading System (ETS), proposals also include minimum energy efficiency levels or greater flexibility requirements, national minimum prices for CO2 emission certificates, capacity mechanisms, a residual emissions cap for coal-fired power stations, emissions performance standards, and network development planning that respects the climate targets. The proposals address both existing and planned coal power plants.


The boll weevil, Anthonomus grandis, is the most important pest of cotton farms in Northeast Brazil and could cause significant losses to the production. The Boll Weevil Attract and Control Tube (BWACT) have been used by the producers as tactic of behavioural control. Because of their located and specific control, this method is considered an appropriate tool to the concepts of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), working as an alternative to the chemical control. This study sought to evaluate the use of such devices in the control of the boll weevil in cotton farms in Northeast Brazil. In comparative experiments among conventional management (where the use of the chemical control prevails), IPM, and their interactions with the use of BWACT, smaller number of applications of insecticides was verified for the control of the insect in areas where it was allied IPM plus BWACT. The device was efficient on the control of the boll weevil when installed at the planting time and reduced remaining populations of the insect after the stalk destruction. The adoption of IPM plus BWACT resulted in larger liquid incomes than the non adoption of IPM and the non use of the device.


In this paper, we propose an accurate and efficient timing synchronization method for distributed multi-input multi-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system in both AWGN and multi-path Rayleigh fading channels. A modified cyclic delay synchronization pattern (MCDSP) is proposed and it is verified to be especially suitable for distributed system which needs to separate the signal arriving time of each transmit antenna. At the receiver, two additional methods termed antenna cluster separation window (ACSW) and multi-path backward searching (MPBS) are employed to combat the multi-path effect.


The aim of this paper is to conduct an analysis of the changing geographies of production and industrial renewal in Sweden during the period 1978 to 2004. Conceptually, we build on the regional version of the technology shift cycle thesis. This is performed in two steps and by combinations of national and regional empirical evidence. First, we construct a taxonomic method that distinguishes between renewed, followers, transformed, induced, contracting, and obsolete industries in the national production system. These different kinds of industries have all had different roles in the dramatic transformation of Swedish manufacturing, and we empirically identify the groups of industries using new time series data. Second, the regional footprints of the transformation are investigated applying a systemic view of regional development. The results of our investigations provide a detailed picture of the anatomies of both sector and regional transformation of the Swedish economy.


This document provides a general mechanism to use the header extension
feature of RTP (the Real-Time Transport Protocol). It provides the
option to use a small number of small extensions in each RTP packet,
where the universe of possible extensions is large and registration is
de-centralized. The actual extensions in use in a session are signaled
in the setup information for that session. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


In modern buildings, glass is increasingly used as a load-carrying material in structural components, such as glass beams. For glass beams especially the edge strength of glass is important. However, the strength of glass is not a material constant but depends on various parameters, which makes glass, amongst other things, a challenging building material. One of the parameters influencing glass strength is the combination of humidity and stress, which may cause stress corrosion. The aim of the current study is to limit the effect of humidity at the glass edge. This is done by the application of a protective coating. In this exploratory study several coating solutions are tested applying the coating at the edge of glass specimens. These specimens are then subjected to in-plane four-point bending tests to determine their failure strength. The effects of the coatings on the edge strength are analyzed using the failure strength data from the bending tests. The results indicate that only one of the tested coatings has an effect on the glass edge strength.


The photograph of Hugo Ball, dressed in cardboard costume and conical hat, reciting the sound poem Karawane at a Cabaret Voltaire soiree, before being carried off stage in quasi-religious paroxysm, has achieved iconic status in the history of Dada. It is a-if not the-quintessential image of Zurich Dada. Ball's image, reproduced countless times, embodies and mythologizes the Dada cabaret and its innovation of sound poetry. It is scarcely surprising that the photograph is treasured, granting as it does a glimpse into Dada performances that have become infamous but remain irretrievable.


Since the rise of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, companies and organisations have performed social media analysis or data mining to help better understand their existing customers and to seek out potential new ones. This research has set about using this technique coupled with machine learning algorithms to explore the question of being able to identify highly intelligent people solely on their social media data. Given that there are millions of people worldwide sharing and collaborating online, the abundance of available data is potentially unlimited. The data collected as part of this research will be stored in a Big Data framework to ensure this work will be able to cope with the vast amounts of data available.

It was concluded that it's not possible to distinguish highly intelligent people by solely analysing their social media data. The observations from analysing over 1 million tweets show that social media users regularly boycott the use correct grammar and punctuation. The findings do suggest that Twitter's character restriction has a large influence on the quality of content posted.


In 2005, following the deaths of several marriage migrants known as "mailorder brides", the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act was created. Designed to regulate the international matchmaking industry and provide women with the information to make informed, safe decisions about their future partnership in an attempt to decrease instances of violence, this law was the result of an increase in awareness, collaboration between interested parties, and incorporation into a broader bill. For years, marriage brokers had operated using stereotypes about submissive foreign women to attract customers, recently bringing business onto the internet and creating websites marketing women as purchases. Five years after the passage of the law, however, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act fails to address six key vulnerabilities faced by female marriage migrants. For this reason, women immigrating to the United States to marry a spouse after introduction through a marriage broker still face an increased likelihood of domestic violence and even death. The author concludes with a discussion about future improvements in both legislation and operation to address violence against immigrant women.


Probiotics are Live microorganisms that confer a health benefit on the host.
The composition of the microflora in the gastrointestinal tract is rather constant in healthy subjects, but is easily disturbed by severe illness and the use of antibiotics. The intestinal barrier that separates the luminal contents, with a very high density of microorganisms, from an almost sterile milieu in the gut wall, is disrupted in critically illness. Probiotic bacteria have the ability to counteract those effects on the microflora and the gut wall.
Lactobacillus plantarum 299 and 299v has been shown to adhere to the intestinal mucosa throughout the gastrointestinal tract in healthy volunteers.
L pl 299v was given enterally to critically ill patients and it was verified from biopsies from the rectal mucosa that L pl 299v adheres and colonise also in critically ill patients on antibiotics.
Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that causes diarrhoea and aggressive inflammation in colon and infections with C diff is the most common health care related disease and is almost always related to the use of antibiotics. Probiotics have been used to reduce recurrence of C diff associated disease, and none of critically ill patients given L pl 299v enterally became infected with C diff compared to 19 % in the control group. L pl 299v was also shown to improve the intestinal permeability.
Ventilator Associated Pneumonia is caused by aspiration of infected secretions from the oropharynx. In intubated, mechanically ventilated critically ill patients the oropharyngeal microflora has been deranged and the risk of colonisation with enteric bacteria is high. Oral care procedures reduce the bacterial content in the oropharynx and the risk of developing VAP. L pl 299 was shown to be as effective as the standard oral care procedure using chlorhexidine, in reducing pathogenic.
Susceptibility to antibiotics of probiotics is vital in case one of the seldom appearing infections should occur. Re-isolates of L pl 299v from two studies in intensive care patients on broadspectrum antibiotics were tested against 22 different antibiotics and no change of susceptibility of clinical significance was detected when compared to the original strain.


Ubiquitous sensing enabled by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies cuts across many areas of modern day living. This offers the ability to measure, infer and understand environmental indicators, from delicate ecologies and natural resources to urban environments. The proliferation of these devices in a communicatingactuating network creates the Universal Object Interaction (UOI), wherein, sensors and actuators blend seamlessly with the environment around us, and the information is shared across platforms in order to develop a common operating picture (COP). Fuelled by the recent adaptation of a variety of enabling wireless technologies such as RFID tags and embedded sensor and actuator nodes, the IoT has stepped out of its infancy and is the next revolutionary technology in transforming the Internet into a fully integrated Future Internet. As we move from www (static pages web) to web2 (social networking web) to web3 (ubiquitous computing web), the need for data-on-demand using sophisticated intuitive queries increases significantly. This paper presents a Cloud centric vision for worldwide implementation of UOI. The key enabling technologies and application domains that are likely to drive IoT research in the near future are discussed. A Cloud implementation using Aneka, which is based on interaction of private and public Clouds, is presented. We conclude our UOI vision by expanding on the need for convergence of WSN, the Internet and distributed computing directed at technological research community.


skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights? It becomes relevant to talk about bench-learning that fosters generative learning, which rather than copying antiquated practices is preparing for the future.


LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY-MASS SPECTROMETRY FOR THE STUDY OF ARACHIDONIC ACID METABOLITES Xiaojing Liu Ian A. Blair, PhD Arachidonic acid (AA) oxidation metabolism has been an important research topic for decades, and numerous oxidation products as well as enzymes involved in AA metabolism together with their downstream metabolites have been identified, although unknown pathways still remain to be characterized. In the present a study a new AA metabolite, 11-oxo-eicosatetraenoic acid (ETE), generated from a major product of cyclooxygenase (COX-2), 11(R)-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (HETE), through 15-hydroxyprostaglandine dehydrogenase (15-PGDH)-mediated oxidation. 11-Oxo-ETE was found to have an anti-proliferative effect on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), with a similar IC50 to a wellknown antiinflammatory mediator, 15-deoxy-12,14-prostaglandin J2 (15d-PGJ2). It was also found that 11-oxo-ETE could be inactivated through the glutathione-S-transferase (GST)/glutathione (GSH) pathway by forming a GSH adduct, or by undergoing reduction to 11(S)-HETE through metabolism by unknown reductases. AA is also subject to non-enzymatic oxidation due to its bis-allylic hydrogen atoms and four double bonds. Chiral LC-MS methods were used to distinguish the enzymatic and non-enzymatic products by monitoring the relevant products that were formed. Non-enzymatic pathways generate racemic mixtures, while enzymatic pathways are normally highly stereoselective. It is known that both enzymatic and non-enzymatic oxidation of AA followed by decomposition of the resulting oxidized intermediates, can generates short-chain aldehydes such as 4-hydroperoxy-2(E)-nonenal (HPNE), 4-hydroxy-2(E) nonenal (HNE), and 4-oxo-2(E)-nonenal (ONE). However, it was discovered that the endoperoxide product of COX-2, PGG2, is a major contributor to the formation of these aldehydes. Moreover, PGG2 and other hydroperoxides generate HPNE or HNE with different chiral characteristics. From COX-2 expressing human colorectal adenocarcinoma epithelial cell line (LoVo) cell lysate, 4(S)-HNE was detected with high enantiomeric purity indicating that the primary source was prostaglandin G2 (PGG2) and not 15hydroperoxyeicosatetraenoic acid (HPETE) as had been previously suggested. Finally, through studies of 11(R)-HPETE and 15-HPETE decomposition, a new carboxylate-containing aldehyde, 11-oxoundeca-5,8-dienoic acid (OUDE) was identified. OUDE contains the -terminus of the lipid hydroperoxide precursor and is analogous to HNE, which is derived from the -terminus. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) together with chiral liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis showed that OUDE was a mixture of two double bond isomers. It has been proposed that the two isomers are generated as a result of a rearrangement reaction subsequent to the formation of OUDE. In addition, , by monitoring the chirality of the HNE that was formed from 11(R)-HPETE and 15-HPETE decomposition, a homolytic mechanism for HNE formation has been proposed. Degree Type Dissertation This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/661 Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Chemistry First Advisor Ian A. Blair Second Advisor E. J. Petersson Subject Categories Analytical Chemistry | Biochemistry This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/661 LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS SPECTROMETRY FOR THE STUDY OF ARACHIDONIC ACID METABOLITES


The aim of the present article is twofold. The first task is to provide a survey of the parallels to the title "Lord of spirits" in the Parables of Enoch (1 En. 37–71) to understand the background of the divine epithet. The studied parallels include titles in the Ancient Near Eastern literature, Biblical and Early Jewish texts, including Dead Sea Scrolls, magical compositions, and Christian texts (New Testament, Patristic and liturgical texts). The second task is to analyze the concept of "spirit" and its cognates in 1 Enoch to provide some clues to the function of the epithet within the composition. The survey aims to demonstrate that a generally accepted interpretation that associates the "spirits" with "angels" should not be overemphasized, since the basic meaning of the title "Lord of spirits" was to indicate God's authority over human spirits.


Greenhouse gas (GHG) removals by afforestation and reforestation project activities under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are vulnerable to a variety of risks and uncertainties, resulting in the partial or total reversal of such removals. Hence, GHG removals from these sink activities are considered to be of temporary nature and non-permanent. Specific modalities related to non-permanence will need to be developed in order to include afforestation and reforestation project activities under the CDM and for a decision on modalities to be reached at COP 9 in December 2003. Two main options on how to address non-permanence have been proposed, these being temporary credits and insurance of emission reduction credits. This paper discusses the practicality and potential difficulties of the insurance approach for addressing non-permanence of sequestered carbon stocks and the validity of CERs generated. The insurability of CERs or non-permanence is considered against common insurability criteria. The marketability of the insurance product and several technical questions in relation to developing this new market instrument are asked. In addition, inequities likely to arise if the approach is adopted as a mandatory modality are discussed.


Rapid economic development has occurred during the past few decades in China with the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) area as one of the most progressive areas. The urbanization, industrialization, agricultural and aquaculture activities result in extensive production and application of chemicals. Organohalogen contaminants (OHCs) have been widely used as i.e. pesticides, flame retardants and plasticizers. They are persistent, bioaccumulative and pose a potential threat to ecosystem and human health. However, limited research has been conducted in the YRD with respect to chemicals environmental exposure. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate the contamination level, distribution pattern and sources of OHCs in the YRD. Wildlife from different habitats are used to indicate the environmental pollution situation, and evaluate selected matrices for use in long term biomonitoring to determine the environmental stress the contamination may cause. In addition, a method is developed for dicofol analysis. Moreover, a specific effort is made to introduce statistic power analysis to assist in optimal sampling design. The thesis results show extensive contamination of OHCs in wildlife in the YRD. The occurrences of high concentrations of chlorinated paraffins (CPs) are reported in wildlife, in particular in terrestrial species, (i.e. short-tailed mamushi snake and peregrine falcon). Impurities and byproducts of pentachlorophenol products, i.e. polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (PCDEs) and hydroxylated polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (OH-PCDEs) are identified and reported for the first time in eggs from black-crowned night heron and whiskered tern. High concentrations of octachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (OCDD) are determined in these samples. The toxic equivalents (TEQs) of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) are at mean levels of 300 and 520 pg TEQ glw (WHO2005 TEQ) in eggs from the two bird species, respectively. This is two orders of magnitude higher than European Union (EU) regulation limit in chicken eggs. Also, a novel pattern of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) with octato decaCBs, contributing to as much as 20% of total PCBs therein, are reported in birds. The legacy POPs shows a common characteristic with relatively high level of organochlorine pesticides (i.e. DDT, hexacyclohexanes (HCHs) and Mirex), indicating historic applications. In contrast, rather low concentrations are shown of industrial chemicals such as PCBs and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). A refined and improved analytical method is developed to separate dicofol from its major decomposition compound, 4,4'-dichlorobenzophenone. Hence dicofol is possible to assess as such. Statistic power analysis demonstrates that sampling of sedentary species should be consistently spread over a larger area to monitor temporal trends of contaminants in a robust manner. The results presented in this thesis show high CPs and OCDD concentrations in wildlife. The levels and patterns of OHCs in YRD differ from other well studied areas of the world. This is likely due to the extensive production and use of chemicals in the YRD. The results strongly signal the need of research biomonitoring programs that meet the current situation of the YRD. Such programs will contribute to the management of chemicals and environment in YRD, with the potential to grow into the human health sector, and to expand to China as a whole.


Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women and the second most common cancer in the Jamaican population. Additionally, Jamaican women have a significant incidence of locally advanced cancer that has been shown to be associated with significant morbidity and inferior treatment outcomes. Delays in presentation and diagnosis further contribute to this treatment dilemma. On this background, a consensus group of healthcare practitioners involved in breast cancer care was convened by a joint initiative of the University of the West Indies and the Association of Surgeons in Jamaica. The objective of this body was to outline management guidelines to assist Jamaican physicians with management of patients with breast cancer. These guidelines are published below and are divided into four main headings: Screening, Making the diagnosis, Treatment and Aftercare. This document is aimed at both specialist and non-specialist physicians and includes an easy-to-follow algorithm as a brief summary of the treatment recommendations.


Abstract This article adds to the literature on video-aided professional development for teachers by presenting a schema-based framework for analyzing teachers' video-aided reflection on their own teaching. Qualitative analysis of two novice teachers' video-enhanced reflection was used to demonstrate how the framework could be used. Results emphasized the importance of participants' prior knowledge as a major influence on their ability to reflect. The authors contend that this is important because prior knowledge should determine the kind of guidance participants need in order to benefit most from video-aided reflection.


This paper inquires into an alternative foundation for investor rights linked to a theory of deliberative democracy and a procedural right to be heard. Theoretical accounts seeking to justify the rules-based system of international investment law typically rely on procedural defects in extant political systems. Investors, it is argued, are not well represented within host state political processes in which case the checking mechanism of investment arbitration provides 'virtual representation' to the otherwise unrepresented. The problem with this story is that it is not well supported by the empirical literature. It turns out that investors have a variety of means available to them by which they can make their preferences known to political actors or that help to mitigate the diminution of investment value as a result of political risk. This paper seeks to formulate a version of investor rights that corresponds better to concerns typically advanced to justify the investment law's strictures, namely, that the interests of foreign investors fail to get taken into account within host states. Drawing upon historical and contemporary accounts within political theory, the project advances a justification for investor protection that is limited principally to procedural protections associated with the Latin maxim audi alteram partem. After outlining the foundations for this approach in English administrative law and political theory, the paper turns to selected arbitral awards in order to illustrate how a right to be heard would be advantageous to all of the interests involved. The project proposes bringing together theory, history, and practice in order to ground a theory of investor protection that better reconciles power, politics, and democracy.


This thesis aims to design an appropriate human-following solution for a mobile robot. The research can be characterised as interactive model building for a Human Robot Interaction (HRI) scenario. It studies possible proposals for the robot system that learns to accomplish the task autonomously, based on the human preference about the positions and movements of the robot during the interaction. A multilayered feedforward network framework with backpropagation is the adopted learning strategy. The research breaks the task of following a human into three independent behaviours: social positioning, human avoidance and obstacle avoidance. Social positioning is the behaviour that moves the robot, via reasonable paths, to the most appropriate location to follow the human. Both the location and the paths reflect the preference of the human, which varies by individual. The main body of the research therefore proposes a using-while-learning system for this behaviour such that the robot can adapt to the human's preference autonomously. This research investigated multilayered feedforward networks with backpropagation learning to fulfil the social learning task. This learning model is less used in HRI because a complete set of correct training data doesn't exist as the human preference is initially unknown. The research proposes a novel method to generate the training data during the operation of learning and introduces the concept of adaptive and reactive learning. A novel training scheme that combines the two learning threads has been proposed, in which the learning is fast, robust and able to adapt to new features of the human preference online. The system enables the behaviour to be a real using-while-learning system as no pre-training of any form is needed to ensure the successful performance of the behaviour. Extensive simulations and interactive experiments with humans have also been conducted to prove the robustness of the system.


Depression and anxiety are common mental health disorders worldwide. People with psychiatric disorders often lack the ability to deal with aspects/activities of daily life. This article describes the development of the Compass app, an app designed to help individuals suffering from mental health disorders. The app presents organizational and planning tools to improve the daily life of these individuals, and, consequently, their well-being. A user-centered design approach was employed in the development of the app, and design requirements were established based on the literature on Mental Health, Psychology, Information and Graphic Design. A functional prototype of the app was created for user testing, and a satisfaction questionnaire was conducted with potential users. The results showed that Compass was a useful and usable app, and that its interface design was easy to interact with and navigate. The results also showed that there were some problems with the design of the app. These problems were taken into consideration in the redesign stage and led to improvements.


Parallel programming is no longer restricted to supercomputers and academia. From the decline of Moore's law with respect to CPU clock speed, hardware designers have introduced multi-core CPU architectures in commodity hardware. Consequently software engineers can not expect to reap the performance benefits of such target hardware without exploiting parallelism. Unfortunately, writing multi-threaded software comes at a cost. The costs are two-fold: the amount of time invested to parallelize software is greater than that of writing single-threaded programs, and the safety of multi-threaded software is difficult to ensure. Multi-threaded software allows threads to operate in the same memory-address space. When more than one thread has access to the same memory address, an unexpected interleaving of memory accesses can lead to subtle concurrency bugs. Intentional Concurrent Programming is a model that requires programmers to explicitly state their intents with respect to threads sharing objects in memory. Concurrency bugs will be detected and reported as violations of the stated intents. The current implementation of this model, known as V3, is thread-based, meaning that users deal directly with individual threads. The goal for this thesis is to generalize the model to be task-based. This abstraction not only allows the user to view the program as a collection of tasks to be executed by a pool of threads, but also removes the need to deal directly with individual threads. The hypothesis is that intents can be added to a task-based system, and common task-based applications can be expressed with the resulting system.


Historians and educationalists have often assumed that working-class adult education emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century with the introduction of state-funded technical colleges. This was not the case. In 1823, the Glasgow Mechanics' Institute was opened and within a few years similar institutions were being established across the whole of Britain. This culminated in the formation of the mechanics' institute movement which provided a foundation on which further education was established. This paper questions the generally accepted view of historians that mechanics' institutes made little contribution to adult working-class education, instead offering scientific knowledge to the middling classes. It addresses the issue of what educational impact the mechanics' institutes exerted upon the adult working classes in relation to some North of England institutes, particularly those that were members of the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes. The term working class only begins to emerge during the 1830s, the period when several institutes were being established, and for the purpose of this paper, the works of E.P. Thompson, E.J. Hobsbawm and R.S. Neale, with regard to class, and the lists of the occupations of those who attended mechanics' institutes, from the annual reports of the Yorkshire Union, form the basis of the debate, confirming that such institutions did indeed provide working-class adult education.


The work of the British theatre company Blast Theory explores intermedial dramaturgies that this thesis claims can be categorized as radical because they present a generative characteristic. Intermediality, understood here as the impact of analogue and digital technologies in theatrical performance, establishes complex relationships between physical and virtual spaces, structures that create a rich polyphony of multiple temporal orchestrations, and narratives that present a multiplicity of performative arrangements. Intermedial performance, as a performative and experiential event, encompasses a triad of performative interactions between performers, spectators and the media itself executed at and concentrated on the moment of the performance encounter. This research argues that this encounter displays a generative character – a moment at which all the attending performance variables come together in a constant process of performative re-activation thus generating the intermedial performance event.
Within this descriptive parameter, this research claims that recent performance conceptualizations fail to account for the work of Blast Theory. Contemporary performance and liveness debates focus principally on the ontology of performance. So, notwithstanding their differences, performance theorists such as Lavender (2002), Fischer-Lichte (2008), and Schechner (2003), and presentness/presence theorists such as Phelan (1993) and Power (2008) all agree that performance is an ontological, ephemeral, and fleeting event. While there are many valid points in these diverse approaches, they only offer a partial account of the specificities of the work of Blast Theory and, by extent, the intermedial performance event.

This thesis therefore relocates the terms of the debate on a constructivist epistemological basis. In this way, the thesis proposes that an intermedial performance event must be understood beyond the ontological approach by specifically interrogating the conditions of intelligibility; that is, its operative and intelligible architecture of attending elements and the participating subject. The key hypothesis shared is that in introducing a constructivist reading of epistemology, as described by Alfred Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze, a new account of intermediality in performance emerges as a radical dramaturgy, incorporating generative aspects, and with this, a unique type of intermedial performance subjectivity is enabled.


The purpose of the study is to review the current state of Islamic banking in Morocco, and to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of Islamic banking services in the country. Accordingly, a survey was conducted covering 400 respondents from most of the Moroccan regions, and data analysis was based on linear regression. The findings revealed that the main factors that influence the decision of the Moroccan customers to adopt Islamic banking services are relative advantage, compatibility and social influence. Furthermore, the findings revealed that the progress of Islamic banking in Morocco is faced by multiple legal and regulatory challenges.


We consider the problem of dynamically assigning application sessions of mobile users or user groups to service points. Such assignments must balance the trade-off between two conflicting goals. On the one hand, we would like to connect a user to the closest server in order to reduce network costs and service latencies. On the other hand, we would like to minimize the number of costly session migrations, or handoffs, between service points. We tackle this problem using two approaches. First, we employ algorithmic online optimization to obtain algorithms whose worst-case performance is within a factor of the optimal. Next, we extend them with opportunistic heuristics that achieve near-optimal practical average performance and scalability. We conduct case studies of two settings where such algorithms are required: wireless mesh networks with mobile users and wide-area groupware applications with or without mobility.


Previous studies of correlational reasoning have focused on the interpretation of 2 × 2 tables. The research in this article examined age trends in responses to problems involving more than 2 continuous variables. Instruments were developed and administered to Ss from Grade 4 through postgraduate (n = 20 in each grade) to produce multidimensional profiles of student growth. Experiment 1 found that correlational reasoning skills increased with age. Experiments 2 and 3 found that student performance could be improved through instruction. Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity of the instruments was obtained. Although there were similarities between results obtained with 2 × 2 data problems and results on continuous data problems, the evidence in support of a single correlational schema underlying both was ambiguous


The Generalized Least Squares (GLS) method estimates the straight-line calibration function by taking into account uncertainties in variables, heteroscedasticity and correlations. However, the efficiency of the method depends on a good knowledge of the method itself and of the calibration process. This paper details the characteristics of the calibration function and introduces the "model with errors in variables" which is more representative of the context. The GLS method is analysed in the three steps of the estimation process: assumption, computation and validation. Propagation of the uncertainty in input data to coefficients of the straight-line calibration function is also discussed. The measurement result is then computed with the estimated curve, directly and by inverse evaluation. The associated uncertainty is given by distinguishing the mean value without uncertainty and an individual value with its associated uncertainty. Two examples are analysed. Uncertainties in variables have little influence on the value of the measurement result and of coefficients of the straight-line calibration function. On the contrary, associated uncertainties are highly affected by them.


This publication is the fourth in a series that documents experiences in different dimensions of social development and social policy issues in Latin America, the Caribbean and East and Southeast Asia. This series has been orchestrated by the Inter-American Institute for Social Development (INDES) and the Japan Program (JPN) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). This volume documents valuable experiences related to the role of women and women's organizations in social development as presented at the workshop "Women's Participation in the Promotion of Social Development: Lessons from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean", held in Saitama, Japan from October 27-30, 2003. The workshop was organized by INDES and the Japan Program, with ample collaboration from the IDB office in Japan-Tokyo and financial support from the Government of Japan. During the workshop, 26 prominent researchers and practitioners from East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean as well as some invited guests formed a cross-regional exchange to discuss women?s role in the promotion of social development.


Human echinococcosis is an increasing public health issue in Kyrgyzstan, where Echinococcus granulosus and Echinococcus multilocularis are coendemic and domestic dogs are considered the primary source of human infection. A control scheme based upon dosing dogs with praziquantel was commenced in Kyrgyzstan in 2012 and was evaluated using ELISA tests to measure levels of Echinococcus-specific 'coproantigens' in canine faeces. The current study describes methods of interpretation of coproELISA test results, both prior to and during a control scheme, using data collected from dogs in southern Kyrgyzstan over a period of three years.

Current methods of coproELISA test interpretation based upon selection of a single cut-off value are described and found to have considerable limitations. To address this, Bayesian mixture modelling was used to transform raw coproantigen data into a metric which approximates the possible worm burden in individual dogs and reduces test misclassification at the population level. This approach was validated using data from a panel of faecal samples of known status and was applied to data from samples of unknown status collected from Kyrgyz dogs. Multiple correspondence analysis was used to characterise the Kyrgyz study sites and identify possible associations with canine infection status (incorporating both coproELISA and coproPCR results), but did not identify any strong relationships. A mixed effects logistic regression modelling approach combined with model averaging was used to identify temporal and seasonal trends in coproantigen and coproPCR prevalence. A trend of decreasing test prevalence over time with pronounced seasonality was found for some test results. Finally, a mathematical model of transmission of both Echinococcus granulosus and Echinococcus multilocularis in Kyrgyzstan was developed and used to simulate the effects of a number of different dog dosing strategies. Canine echinococcosis surveillance and control could be improved by tailoring methods of diagnostic test interpretation (population level/individual level, categorical/continuous) to the situation at hand.


On average, nearly $46 billion of property is given to charitable organizations each year, about twenty-five percent of the total charitable deduction. This makes the charitable contribution deduction for property a tax expenditure within a tax expenditure, yet it is rarely analyzed as such. It emerged as part of a noble effort to encourage contributions to worthy organizations. But the deduction for property has never worked well. The general rule allowing a deduction based on the fair market value of the property may have some intuitive appeal, but its implementation has yielded numerous exceptions and immense complexity. The Article argues that the extensive historical effort to allow a deduction for property contributions is a failure. Given the substantial direct and indirect costs involved, the uncertain benefit to the donee from property contributions, and the absence of any affirmative policy to favor property contributions as such, it is time to reverse the general rule and not allow a charitable deduction for property contributions. Reversing the general rule would provide many benefits — increased revenue, improved tax administration, fewer abusive transactions, a simpler and more equitable tax code, and a preference for cash. Exceptions to the general rule of disallowance may be warranted, but any exception should be analyzed and fashioned according to whether it provides a measurable benefit to the donee. By following a measurable benefit to the donee standard, emphasis will be placed on providing a tax benefit that is administrable and that is based on the goal — donee benefit. Any resulting complexity should be viewed as a cost of the incentive, and weighed accordingly in deciding whether it should be provided.


Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies yet the underlying pathophysiology is not clearly established. Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) has long been considered a heterogeneous disease with respect to histopathology, molecular biology, and clinical outcome. Treatment of ovarian cancer includes a combination of cytoreductive surgery and combination chemotherapy, with platinums and taxanes. Despite initial success, over 75% of patients with advanced disease will relapse around 18 months and the overall 5-year survival is approximately 50%. Cancer cells are known to be under intrinsic oxidative stress, which alters their metabolic activity and reduces apoptosis. Epithelial ovarian cancer has been shown to manifest a persistent pro-oxidant state as evident by the upregulation of several key oxidant enzymes in EOC tissues and cells. In the light of our scientific research and the most recent experimental and clinical observations, this chapter provides the reader with up to date most relevant findings on the role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis and prognosis of ovarian cancer, as well as a novel mechanism of apoptosis/survival in EOC cells.


In this paper, we study the modeling and control of the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) based wind turbine associated with a back-to-back converter connected to an isolated electrical network. The growth in exploiting renewable energy resources due to their availability and environmental advantages is the inevitable trend of electricity generation. In this paper, we use a voltage control strategy for a three-level PWM converter based on voltage oriented control (VOC), which guarantees high dynamic and static performance via an internal current control. The space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) with VOC is adopted to control the three-phase voltage source converter (VSC), to minimize the grid side current harmonics, active and reactive currents are controlled, respectively, in a d-q rotating coordinate system to achieve a unit power factor. The performance of the proposed overall system is evaluated using MATLAB/Simulink software by performing various simulations.


This book focuses on new small molecule approaches to combat viral infections. The chapters describe the discovery and development from bench through the clinic of relatively recently-approved antiviral drugs and compounds in advanced clinical development. Organized by a virus (such as HIV, HCV, RSV, influenza, HBV and CMV) and written by top academic and industrial authorities in the field, the book provides a unique opportunity to study, understand and apply discovery and development principles and learning without the need for an individual to research, analyze and synthesize all immense sourcing references. Topics showcase challenges and solutions of issues encountered, offering tremendous experience accumulated over many years of research that will be particularly useful to basic and bench scientists as well as clinicians as they continue discovering and developing new drugs and therapies.


This multidisciplinary volume brings together scholars and activists to examine expressions of racism in contemporary policy areas, including education, labour, immigration, media, and urban planning. While anti-racist struggles during the twentieth century were largely pitched against overt forms of racism (e.g., pogroms, genocide, segregation, apartheid, and 'ethnic cleansing'), it has become increasingly apparent that there are other, less visible, forms of racism. These subtler incarnations are of special interest to the contributors. The intent of Race, Racialization, and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond is to probe systemic forms of racism, as well as to suggest strategies for addressing them. The collection is organized by themes pertinent to political and social expressions of racism in Canada and the wider world, such as the state and its mediation of race, education and the perpetuation of racist marginalization, and the role of the media. The contributors argue that, in order to effectively combat racism, various methodological approaches are required, approaches that are reflective of the diversity of the world we seek to understand.


Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the US have relied on Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards and Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS). Economists often argue that these policies are inefficient relative to carbon pricing because they ignore existing vehicles and do not adequately reduce the incentive to drive. This paper presents evidence that the net social costs of carbon pricing are significantly less than previous thought. The bias arises from the fact that the demand elasticity for miles travelled varies systematically with vehicle emissions; dirtier vehicles are more responsive to changes in gasoline prices. This is true for all four emissions for which we have data--nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, and greenhouse gases--as well as weight. This reduces the net social costs associated with carbon pricing through increasing the co-benefits. Accounting for this heterogeneity implies that the welfare losses from $1.00 gas tax, or a $110 per ton of CO2 tax, are negative over the period of 1998 to 2008 even when we ignore the climate change benefits from the tax. Co-benefits increase by over 60 percent relative to ignoring the heterogeneity that we document. In addition, accounting for this heterogeneity raises the optimal gas tax associated with local pollution, as calculated by Parry and Small (2005), by as much as 57 percent. While our empirical setting is California, we present evidence that the effects may be larger for the rest of the US.


Using a classical non-linear theory, we analytically investigate possible ways for transforming the shape of a curved elastic membrane while keeping it tensioned and moderately strained. This is a critical issue because, as a rule, membranes must be considerably stretched in order to avoid wrinkling and slackening. If the final configuration is fixed, the membrane can be cut and formed according to the final shape, but this cannot be done if more configurations, considerably distant from one another, have to be achieved. Nevertheless, we propose large transformation movements that can be obtained starting from flat membranes while maintaining their strain as limited. We discuss in detail the paradigmatic example of the hyperbolic-paraboloid-shaped membrane. These opportunities are suitable for applications of transformable architecture because they do not require excessive tensioning, compatible with the strength of materials used for this kind of structures.


A key congressional spending panel has fired a shot across the bow of two federally chartered medical foundations, warning them that the way they disclose information about donors may not pass muster. It9s the latest controversy involving the traditionally low-profile foundations, which over the past quarter-century have funneled nearly $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for research, clinical trials, training, and educational programs. When Congress created the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the CDC Foundation in the early 1990s to raise private funds to support federal biomedical and health research, it ordered them to report "the source and amount of all gifts" they receive, as well as any restrictions on how the donations could be used. But legislators on the House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee that oversees NIH and CDC are worried the foundations may not be following those rules.


The primary objective of this research study was to observe the changes in the physical properties of cement coated secondary aggregates, namely surface roughness and angle of internal friction and how these properties are related to the performance of Open Graded Friction Course asphalt mixtures, OGFC made from these materials under laboratory Uniaxial, deformation and rutting testing simulating the traffic loading and temperature of the materials in service. The secondary aggregates, namely Croxden natural gravel aggregates, which is rejected by road engineers for use in road surfacing was upgraded with a specifically designed cement coating. Asphalt mixtures mechanical properties in terms of stiffness modulus, deformations and rutting were determined and analyzed using state-of-the-art laboratory test equipment and supported by technical literature from different information and resources. Three aggregate types were considered in this study; Arcow rock crushed aggregates( as a control aggregate), Croxden aggregate (as a secondary or low quality aggregates) and cement coated Croxden aggregate (as an upgraded material). One aggregate gradation was designed for all mixture types and the adopted aggregate gradation had a nominal maximum aggregate size (NMAS) of 14mm. Two binder types were selected, 100/150 pen binder and 40/60 pen binder to represent the soft and hard binders respectively that are commonly used by road engineers. This research also documents a survey of literature review that led to the design of a novel machine that is eagerly needed by the pavement industry to boost the knowledge and understanding of real tyre-road interaction. Computer software, SOLIDWORKS, was used to create a 3-dimentional model of the machine that was jointly named by the Highway Agency and Tarmac ltd., as Low Cost Asphalt Tasting Equipment (LoCATE). The machine was designed for use and for the first time to investigate the performance of the said mixtures under real traffic loading and environmental conditions and to correlate its results with those obtained using Repeated Load Indirect Tensile Test (RLIT) and Repeated Load Axial Test (RLAT), which were carried out at 10°C, 20°C, 30°C and 45°C. At an advanced stage of this research work and when the cost of fabricating LoCATE was found impossible to be met by LJMU, wheel tracking tests were done on the materials studied as a replacement of LoCATE and this part of the research program was achieved at Wolverhampton's bituminous testing laboratories in collaboration with Tarmac Ltd. In general, the results of this research investigation indicate that the introduction of cement coated aggregates to OGFC led to an outstanding improvement in the chemical properties of the coated natural aggregates and the stiffness and deformation properties/resistance of the road mixtures containing them. This was in comparison with that made from the uncoated aggregates in all the tests that have been carried out within this research study. Also, the effects of elevated temperature were investigated and it was found to have significant influence on the engineering properties, Indirect Tensile Stiffness Moduli (ITSM) and permanent deformation/rutting characteristic of the mixtures were also investigated. Outstanding new results were achieved, using LJMU cement coating paste for coating the waste natural aggregate and as thus this will hopefully eliminate the restriction imposed by road engineers on the use of natural gravel aggregates in road pavement surfacing layers. This is an outstanding knowledge extension in this field and marks a starting point for more research in this ever growing industry i. e. the use of waste and recycled aggregates in construction industry.


Purpose The aims of this study were (i) to develop a new portable slit-lamp mounted digital meniscometer (PDM) and (ii) to test its accuracy and repeatability compared to the existing Yokoi et al. videomeniscometer (VM). Methods We developed a novel application for an iPod or iPhone, which created an illuminated target of parallel black and white bands. This was used as a portable device with which to perform reflective meniscometry. The medians of three consecutive measurements on five glass capillaries (internal radii, 0.100 to 0.505 mm) were compared between VM and PDM at two different sessions. Also, the central lower tear meniscus radius (TMR) in 20 normal subjects (10 males and 10 females; mean [SD] age, 32.3 [9.3] years) was measured using both techniques. Correlations between the instruments were analyzed using the Pearson coefficient. Differences between sessions and instruments were analyzed using Bland-Altman plots, coefficient of repeatability, and paired t-tests. Results The PDM and VM were accurate in vitro (95% confidence interval [CI] of difference: PDM −0.0134 to +0.0074 mm, p = 0.468; VM −0.0282 to + 0.0226 mm; p = 0.775) and reproducible between sessions (95% coefficient of repeatability, 0.019 and 0.018, respectively). The mean difference between the PDM and VM in vitro was 0.0002 mm (95% CI, −0.0252 to + 0.0256; p = 0.984). In human subjects, mean (SD) TMR measured with the PDM (0.34 [0.10] mm) and VM (0.36 [0.11] mm) was significantly correlated (r = 0.940; p < 0.001), and there was no statistically significant difference between the measured TMR of the instruments (p = 0.124). Conclusions This new slit-lamp mounted digital meniscometer produces accurate and reliable measurements and provides similar values for tear meniscus radius, in human studies, to the existing VM. The instrument is suitable for use in both research and clinical practice.


The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 has severely limited immigrants' access to medical care. In enacting the legislation, Congress stated that immigrants were too great a burden on the U.S. medical system and cost the federal government too much. In reality, immigrants do not place an unduly high burden on the medical system. The Act also limits the autonomy of local medical providers by restricting their ability to provide preventive medical care, care that is better for patients' health and, in the long run, more cost effective. Further complicating this issue is that medical providers are often unable to recover complete reimbursement from the federal government because the Act authorizes repayment only for services rendered to patients in an emergency condition. This note calls for a repeal of the anti-immigrant provisions of the Act and suggests that decisions regarding the provision of care are best left to medical providers at the local level.


Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of self-myofascial release (MFR) via foam rolling immediately following strenuous activity on acute fatiguerelated impairments of muscular performance.
Methods: Healthy male (n=16) and female (n=9) subjects volunteered for this crossover design study. Subjects visited the laboratory three separate times. During visit 1, subjects were familiarized with performance testing procedures and the self-MFR foam rolling and fatigue protocols. For visits 2 and 3, subjects were first (T1) assessed for vertical jump height, velocity and power as well as dynamic reaction time (DRT). Subjects then performed the exercise fatigue protocol followed by either a self-MFR foam rolling treatment (MFR) or seated rest (CON). Immediately after, subjects repeated the performance tests (T2).
Results: CON resulted in a significantly greater percent decline from T1-T2 for average power (p=0.03), average velocity (p=0.02) and peak power (p=0.03) than the MFR treatment. No between-treatment differences were detected for %Δ vertical jump height (p=0.14) or DRT (p=0.20). According to magnitude-based inference analysis, MFR is likely beneficial in attenuating fatigue-induced kinematic decrements (i.e. power and velocity). MFR is possibly beneficial with respect to mitigating acute fatigue-related impairment of jump height and dynamic reaction time.
Conclusion: Results demonstrate the plausible short-term benefits of foam rolling on muscular performance decrements associated with acute muscular fatigue from exercise. Foam rolling following an exercise fatigue protocol blunted attenuation of movement velocity and power during a maximum vertical jump test but failed to alter decrements in direct performance outcomes (i.e. vertical jump height and DRT). Thus, a level of uncertainty remains with respect to the efficacy by which foam rolling blunts performance impairments provoked by strenuous exercise.


We present cosmological parameter constraints obtained from galaxy clusters identified by their Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect signature in the 2500 square-degree South Pole Telescope Sunyaev Zel'dovich (SPT-SZ) survey. We consider the 377 cluster candidates identified at with a detection significance greater than five, corresponding to the 95% purity threshold for the survey. We compute constraints on cosmological models using the measured cluster abundance as a function of mass and redshift. We include additional constraints from multi-wavelength observations, including Chandra X-ray data for 82 clusters and a weak lensing-based prior on the normalization of the mass-observable scaling relations. Assuming a spatially flat ΛCDM cosmology, we combine the cluster data with a prior on H0 and find and , with the parameter combination . These results are in good agreement with constraints from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from SPT, WMAP, and Planck, as well as with constraints from other cluster data sets. We also consider several extensions to ΛCDM, including models in which the equation of state of dark energy w, the species-summed neutrino mass, and/or the effective number of relativistic species ( ) are free parameters. When combined with constraints from the Planck CMB, H0, baryon acoustic oscillation, and SNe, adding the SPT cluster data improves the w constraint by 14%, to .


Highly configurable systems allow users to tailor software to specific needs. Valid combinations of configuration options are often restricted by intricate constraints. Describing options and constraints in a variability model allows reasoning about the supported configurations. To automate creating and verifying such models, we need to identify the origin of such constraints. We propose a static analysis approach, based on two rules, to extract configuration constraints from code. We apply it on four highly configurable systems to evaluate the accuracy of our approach and to determine which constraints are recoverable from the code. We find that our approach is highly accurate (93% and 77% respectively) and that we can recover 28% of existing constraints. We complement our approach with a qualitative study to identify constraint sources, triangulating results from our automatic extraction, manual inspections, and interviews with 27 developers. We find that, apart from low-level implementation dependencies, configuration constraints enforce correct runtime behavior, improve users' configuration experience, and prevent corner cases. While the majority of constraints is extractable from code, our results indicate that creating a complete model requires further substantial domain knowledge and testing. Our results aim at supporting researchers and practitioners working on variability model engineering, evolution, and verification techniques.


This book argues that A level English does not provide an appropriate curriculum for its students. Although specifications in English Language and English Language and Literature are available, many institutions still offer only English Literature. This course is largely uninformed by the radical changes that have transformed the subject in higher education. Where students do have a choice of A level English subject, it is often between two courses - Language and Literature - with little common conceptual basis or content. It is time then to reconsider English courses at this level. Even when taken together, the specifications available represent (rather like the AS/A2 curricular structure itself) a patchwork of older and newer elements that fails to provide a coherent vision of thesubject English. Crucially, they do not provide a focused means by which students can become creative and critical workers in language, citizens in a world of globalised digital communication. We make this argument in detailed and specific ways in the pages that follow.


The use of online collaborative learning has been widely used by educators in teaching and learning practices. The study investigated the responses of UiTM Pulau Pinang diploma students towards the use of online peer feedback in ESL writing. The study aimed to investigate the students' perspectives on using online collaborative writing in writing an essay, to examine the students' perceptions towards the usefulness of the features of Google Docs in online collaborative writing, to determine to what extent the students engage actively in providing online peer feedback on their peers' essays and to identify the students' insights about their confidence in essay writing after using online peer feedback through online collaborative writing. Mixed-methods research design was employed for this study. A total of 65 students were selected as the sample of this study. Three techniques were used for data collection, which were questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and online activity logs. The quantitative data were analysed by using SPSS 22.0, the interview transcripts were sorted by codes and themes, and the online activity logs were analysed according to the rubrics for Criteria for Assessing Quality in Online Discussion Forums by Nandi, Chang and Balbo (2012). It was found that ESL writers had positive perceptions towards the use of online collaborative writing and they participated actively in online discussions. Generally, the findings of the study highlighted the vast potentials of Web 2.0 technology in education to foster collaboration among ESL students in ESL writing. The findings could give further insights to policymakers, researchers, fellow academicians and pre-service teachers on the prospects of blended learning in diverse fields of education in Malaysia.


ABSTRACT An evidence-based reassessment of the phylogenetic relationships of conodonts shows that they are not "stem" gnathostomes, nor vertebrates, and not even craniates. A significant group of conodont workers have proposed or accepted a craniate designation for the conodont animal, an interpretation that is increasingly becoming established as accepted "fact". Against this prevailing trend, our conclusion is based on a revised analysis of traditional morphological features of both discrete conodont elements and apparatuses, histological investigation and a revised cladistic analysis modifying that used in the keystone publication promoted as proof of the hypothesis that conodonts are vertebrates. Our study suggests that conodonts possibly were not even chordates but demonstration of this is beyond the scope of this paper. To summarize, in conodonts there is low cephalization; presence of simple V-shaped trunk musculature and unique large-crystal albid material in the elements; lack of a dermal skeleton including characteristic vertebrate hard tissues of bone, dentine and enamel; lack of odontodes with bone of attachment and a unique pulp system; lack of segmentally-arranged paraxial elements and dermal elements in median fins, all of which supports neither a vertebrate nor a craniate relationship for conodonts.


Purpose – Unplanned changes in construction projects are common and lead to disruptive effects such as project delays, cost overruns and quality deviations. Rework due to unplanned changes can cost 10-15 per cent of contract value. By managing these changes more effectively, these disruptive effects can be minimised. Previous research has approached this problem from an information-processing view. In this knowledge age, the purpose of this paper is to argue that effective change management can be brought about by better understanding the significant role of knowledge during change situations. Design/methodology/approach – Within this knowledge-based context, the question of how construction project teams manage knowledge during unplanned change in the construction phase within collaborative team settings is investigated through a selected case study sample within the UK construction industry. Findings – Case study findings conclude that different forms of knowledge are created and shared between project team members during change events which is very much socially constructed and centred on tacit knowledge and experience of project personnel. Originality/value – Building on the case study findings the paper finally offers a model that represents the role of knowledge during managing project change.


Lily's grandmother tells her all about the mysterious whales out in the bay, and Lily longs to hear their magical song. Gary Blythe's richly evocative artwork creates an incredibly atmospheric world for a timeless tale of wildlife and wonder. This stunning, award-winning picture book has been refreshed and redesigned in a new edition, making it perfect for a new generation to share and fall in love with.


There is abundant evidence of long-term changes in the abundance offish populations, but the causes are not known. It is almost certain that climatic changes are responsible in part, but the role of population regulatory mechanisms is unclear. The evidence is conflicting. The ability of fish populations to sustain levels of fishing mortality several times the level of natural mortality suggests strong regulatory mechanisms. The persistence of stocks for centuries, with few extinctions or explosions, also implies some regulation, but not necessarily strong regulation. The high levels of fluctuation in recruitment suggest weak regulation except in the earliest stages of the life history. Under weak regulation the time taken for effective explosions or extinctions is long, maybe a century for 1000-fold changes in abundance. There are few historical records that imply greater stability (persistence) of stocks than this. Analysis of stock-recruitment diagrams (the fisheries biologists9 version of κ -factor analysis) rarely yields clear evidence for or against regulation, because of high levels of fluctuation, which cannot therefore be because of single-species deterministic chaos (though multispecies chaos remains a possibility). Even the exceptions to this rule (North Sea herring, Georges Bank haddock) are not wholly convincing. Conversely, it is credible that these and other long-term declines of recruitment (Northeast Arctic cod, North Sea haddock) could be due to regulation, since stock sizes also fell. Regrettably we cannot distinguish the chicken and the egg. It is indeed quite plausible that the only regulatory process operating for fish populations is a stochastic one: increased (and non-normal) variability at low stock sizes. This would give strong regulation in the mean, because of the increasing excess of the mean over the median at low stock sizes, but only because of increasingly large, but increasingly infrequent, outstanding year-classes. This sounds such an accurate description of heavily fished stocks that further exploration of this mechanism seems warranted.


The partial constitutions of the Au-Ge-X and Au-Pb-X ternary alloys have been investigated, where X is a metallic element, selected from the sub-groups period 1m and rrm of the periodic table (In, Ga, Zn, or Cd), which forms one or more stable compounds with gold, but which forms no stable compound with Ge and Pb. The Smith Thermal Analysis Method, supplemented by metallographic and X-ray techniques, was used to determine the constitutions of the ternary systems. Eutectiferous, pseudobinary systems were found between Ge and the stable congruent intermediate compounds, AuIn, Auln2' AuGa, AuGa2' AuZn and AuCd. The solubility of Ge in the AuX compounds was not determined directly. However, it was 1.3 at.% Ge for Zn and Cd containing alloys and less than 1.0 at. % Ge for In and Ga containing alloys at the eutectic temperatures, which is in accordance with the Hume-Rothery rule. Ternary eutectic points were also determined in the Auln-AuIn2-Ge, Auln2-In-Ge and AuGa-AuGa2-Ge partial ternary systems. No evidence of liquid immiscibility was found in any of these ternary systems. The experimental results obtained were in good agreement with computed features of the diagrams. However, pseudobinary systems were not found between Pb and the stable congruent melting intermediate compounds, AuG a, AuGa2' AuZn and Aued (the Auln-Pb and AuIn2-Pb sections had already been investigated). The evidence of an extensive liquid immiscibility was found in each of these systems. The miscibility in the liquid state was found to decrease progressively down group IV when the elements of this group react with AuX compounds, which can be attributed to the progressive increase of the atomic size and decrease in electronegativities and solubility parameters of the elements, down this group. Two rules were derived to relate the liquid immiscibility/miscibility of ternary systems. One of the rules based upon the atomic sizes and melting points of the constituent elements showed a fair agreement with many systems. However, the other rule based upon the solubility parameter and electronegativities of the constituent elements showed good agreement with immiscible systems, but gave a poor predictability for miscible systems. The lower temperature equilibria of the Au-rich portion of the Au-Sn binary phase diagram are not well defined. So, long term heat treatment of samples at appropriate temperatures and compositions was carried out. Optical microscopy and SEMIEDAX techniques were employed and hence the low temperature equilibria of the Au-Sn binary system have been amended.


Clinical Biomechanics of the Lower Extremity is a comprehensive text addressing the principles of anatomic and biomechanical development and the clinical application of these principles to disease/disorder management. The emphasis of the book is on practical information applicable to the daily practice of lower extremity care. Topics covered include: the physical examination and the assessment of disorders having a biomechanical basis, casting techniques, prescription writing, orthotic trouble-shooting, splinting and shoe prescription for athletic activity.


Background: Despite the efforts to enhance hygiene education and personal hygiene and use of antibiotics and vaccination, infectious diseases remain the second cause of mortality worldwide. Vaccination is one of the greatest medical achievements in the prevention of mortality and morbidity, which has decreased treatment costs. This study aimed to compare the complications caused by pentavalent and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccination in infants aged 2-6 months. Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on all the infants aged 2-6 months referred to the healthcare centers of Anzali, Iran. Demographic data and complications of vaccination were collected from all the samples. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, Fisher's exact test, Chi-square, and Mann-Whitney U test, and logistic regression analysis in SPSS. Results: In total, 353 infants, including 163 female (46.2) and 190 male (53.8), were enrolled in this study. According to the results, 229 infants (64.9) presented with vaccination complications. Fewer side effects were noted in infants receiving pentavalent vaccination compared to those receiving DTP vaccination (P=0.38). In order of occurrence, the most common complications of DTP vaccination were fever, excessive crying, and fussiness, respectively. Moreover, a significant correlation was observed between the used milk by infants and the extent of complications caused by vaccination in the pentavalent group (P=0.037). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, application of pentavalent vaccination not only minimizes the local reactions, but it also diminishes local discomfort through reducing the number of injections. Therefore, infants receiving this type of vaccination encounter minimum local reactions. It is recommended that further investigation be conducted on larger sample sizes in multiple healthcare centers.


Digital services have undergone a shift to multi-actor constellations characterised by the utilisation of personal data. By involving external actors, service capability and variety increase but so does the number of actors that gain access to personal data. Here, privacy policies are legal documents that serve two primary functions: specifying the purpose and details of data processing in a binding manner and informing users about it. Privacy policies therefore have special importance in which the processing is based on user consent. In a case study of the platform eBay, we identified 18 problems that point out difficulties in achieving consent in a meaningful way in today's large-scale and massively interconnected digital service ecosystems. Based on these problems, the design goals are determined which help to find meaningful consent in digital service ecosystems. These goals include notifications for changed purposes of data processing in ecosystems or the reasonability of time needed for consent in relation to the usage time of the service. Thus far, no legal limits govern the reasonability of efforts for consent to privacy policies. This requires a fundamental rethinking of the concept of consent or far-reaching automation of privacy-related legal acts.