Background Until recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the annual mortality burden of influenza to be 250 000 to 500 000 all-cause deaths globally; however, a 2017 study indicated a substantially higher mortality burden, at 290 000-650 000 influenza-associated deaths from respiratory causes alone, and a 2019 study estimated 99 000-200 000 deaths from lower respiratory tract infections directly caused by influenza. Here we revisit global and regional estimates of influenza mortality burden and explore mortality trends over time and geography. Methods We compiled influenza-associated excess respiratory mortality estimates for 31 countries representing 5 WHO regions during 2002-2011. From these we extrapolated the influenza burden for all 193 countries of the world using a multiple imputation approach. We then used mixed linear regression models to identify factors associated with high seasonal influenza mortality burden, including influenza types and subtypes, health care and socio-demographic development indicators, and baseline mortality levels. Results We estimated an average of 389 000 (uncertainty range 294 000-518 000) respiratory deaths were associated with influenza globally each year during the study period, corresponding to ~ 2% of all annual respiratory deaths. Of these, 67% were among people 65 years and older. Global burden estimates were robust to the choice of countries included in the extrapolation model. For people <65 years, higher baseline respiratory mortality, lower level of access to health care and seasons dominated by the A(H1N1)pdm09 subtype were associated with higher influenza-associated mortality, while lower level of socio-demographic development and A(H3N2) dominance was associated with higher influenza mortality in adults ≥65 years. Conclusions Our global estimate of influenza-associated excess respiratory mortality is consistent with the 2017 estimate, despite a different modelling strategy, and the lower 2019 estimate which only captured deaths directly caused by influenza. Our finding that baseline respiratory mortality and access to health care are associated with influenza-related mortality in persons <65 years suggests that health care improvements in low and middle-income countries might substantially reduce seasonal influenza mortality. Our estimates add to the body of evidence on the variation in influenza burden over time and geography, and begin to address the relationship between influenza-associated mortality, health and development.


The subsurface of the southern part of the Maracaibo Basin has been studied in much less detail than the central and northern basin because hydrocarbon-rich rocks of Cretaceous and Paleogene age are deeply buried to a depth of 4.5 km (2.7 mi) by a thick Neogene clastic section eroded off of surrounding mountain ranges. In this article, we describe the results of the interpretation of 1600-km2 (617-mi2) three-dimensional (3-D) seismic reflection data centered on this horizontal to monoclinally southwestward-dipping middle Cretaceous to Holocene section adjacent to a zone of northwestward overthrusting along the mountain front of the Mrida Andes. To establish the structural and stratigraphic history of the 3-D seismic study area, a series of time slices were constructed at key horizons through the 3-D seismic volume. The ages of units in these time slices were correlated to stratigraphic formations known from outcrops at the basin edges, well data from the 3-D seismic study area, and subsurface correlation with better studied areas in the northern basin. The type and orientations of structures along each time horizon were mapped to constrain the successive structural and stratigraphic events that affected the different tectonosequences in the southern Maracaibo Basin. The main tectonic events recorded both by structures and unconformity-bound tectonosequences include the following events from youngest to oldest: (1) Pliocene–Holocene shortening produced by the uplift of the Mrida Andes and overthrusting at the mountain front has produced an approximately 6-km (3.7-mi)-deep localized foredeep basin; the axial traces of these folds trend northeast-southwest and parallel the strike of a set of normal faults; all structural features are consistent with regional northwest-southeast shortening. A low-angle thrust fault responsible for the formation of the main northeast-southwest fold is inferred to continue downdip as a flat-lying thrust that may be continuous with low-angle thrust faults observed along the northern Mrida Andes mountain front. The level of thrust detachment occurs at the Cretaceous Coln shale and accommodates a negligible amount of shortening (500 m; 1640 ft). (2) Late Miocene–Pliocene shortening caused by uplift of the Sierra de Perij and the Mrida Andes produced an inversion of north-south–striking normal faults and folds in a parallel orientation. The axial traces of these folds and the trend of inverted structures coincide with the trends of the most prolific Eocene sandstone reservoirs in the central and northern Lake Maracaibo areas. (3) Late Paleocene–middle Eocene formation of a foreland basin is related to the southward overthrusting at the northeastern margin of the basin; normal faults with an average trend of S37E record flexure of the basin during this event; faults also include the southern splayed termination of the left-lateral Icotea strike-slip fault. (4) The termination of the Icotea fault in the south lake area is consistent with the small amount of left-lateral strike-slip displacement previously inferred from the geometry of the Eocene Icotea pull-apart basin in central Lake Maracaibo.


the Global Food Initiative is to use UC campuses as testing grounds for improvements in the ways that large food supply chains and waste streams are managed. New methods and tools developed within the university can then be shared with other institutions to achieve broader-scale impacts. The waste audit toolkit developed by the Zero Waste Dining subcommittee is an example. The subcommittee — made up of Sean Murray, associate director for campus dining at UC Merced, and Tyson Monagle, a sustainability steward with Aramark who works in partnership with UC Irvine Hospitality & Dining — developed a simple spreadsheet-based tool to help foodservice operators gather the data needed to assess the current state of their waste streams: how much waste is produced in various categories, and how much is being recycled, composted or landfilled. The tool is designed to support campus food service operations as they work to develop strategies to meet UC's 2020 systemwide goal of having just 5% of campus waste streams, by weight, sent to landfills (this level of diversion is considered "zero waste", even though some waste, mainly items that are not readily recyclable, will continue to be landfilled). "Food service operators are worried that tracking this kind of information takes too much time," said Monagle. "This is about showing that it is simple and easy to do," and putting into place systems that allow all food service operators to track waste periodically, he said. While a number of dining operations within the UC system already collect such data, Monagle said, many don't — particularly smaller-scale ones with more limited resources. Documenting the components of food service waste streams helps to identify what waste-reduction strategies are needed. Steps can range from signage and education campaigns to clarify to diners and staff about what can and can't be composted and recycled, to changes in the types of carry-out containers provided, to sourcing more food items in bulk to reduce single-serve packaging. "It's a lot of little things," said Murray. Another benefit of looking closely at food service waste streams is that it encourages operators to scrutinize all of their sourcing and food-preparation processes, which can lead to reductions in the amount of food waste that is generated in the first place (as opposed to just making sure that what is wasted gets composted). A colossal amount of food is wasted worldwide each year — about 70 billion pounds in the United States alone, or 40% of what we produce — and that waste is a major source of avoidable greenhouse gas emissions. A recent UC video (bit.ly/2pipfTX) called food waste "the world's dumbest environmental problem." In March, Monagle presented the waste audit toolkit at a meeting in Ohio of Presidents United to Solve Hunger (PUSH), a consortium of university leaders that works on food security issues, including waste. "One of the great things was realizing how many people there are out there that want to use this toolkit," he said. "We come at it from within UC, which is already driving very hard toward sustainability. But there are people from all over, who might not be at the same step yet." c —Editors UC GLOBAL FOOD INITIATIVE UPDATE


This paper will pursue the theme of death as a transgression against the created order through the works of five authors-the Apostle Paul, William Shakespeare, Alfred Telmyson, Dylan Thomas, and J.R.R. Tolkien-while also providing a brief overview of the perspectives on death presented in each author's writings. The paper will demonstrate that although the five authors treat death with varying degrees of positive and negative tone, often in proportion to the orthodoxy of their Christian beliefs, their writings are in agreement that man was not created to die, and that death should not be spoken or written of lightly.


Fenugreek is a well known herb for its medicinal and cosmetic qualities such as hypocholesterlaenic, antibiotic and antifertility activities. The purpose of the work was to study the influence of environmental conditions on physico chemical properties of herb grown in four different geographic locations. The values of moisture, oil and total phenolic contents were recorded higher in fenugreek seed grown in Yemen as 5.47 ± 0.66, 7.04 ± 0.21 and 18.52 ± 1.80 respectively, where as ash content was higher in Egyptian seed with sodium, iron and copper content. Calcium and magnesium were the most abundant mineral in all the samples followed by potassium and sodium. The polunsturated linoleic and linoleic fatty acid were the major fatty acids. The ratio of C18:2/ C18:3 was lowest (0.957) in Egypt followed by Yemen, India and Saudia. The amino acid composition revealed the presence of most essentail amino acids in Yeman seeds. These wide variations in compositions indicated the effects of environmental, cultiavars regions and and biotic factors.


Education of composite materials at the undergraduate (junior year) level requires a different set and knowledge of understanding than is taught at the graduate level. Additionally, undergraduates learn by doing; seeing things and physically understanding how they perform helps to reinforce the different concepts. This paper will cover a semester based project that has students design build and test a composite material that must withstand the impact a supersonic Ping-Pong ball. This extreme use helps motivate the students in two ways. First it provides a very different type of experiment keeping them motivated. Second it provides an open ended solution that allows students to think differently and enables creativity in solutions. During the semester students fabricate the materials and test them to get a better understanding of their response and material constants. The final competition is a weight based solution compared to the other groups in the class. During the impact event high speed videos of the impact are taken so that students can get a better idea of how their structures withstand the impact.


Antiretroviral therapy places extraordinarily high demands on adherence, since non-adherence affects both individuals and society due to the spread of resistant viral strains. The aims of the thesis were to investigate the prevalence of adherence in Swedish HIV-infected patients, changes in adherence over time, and factors associated with adherence, including patients' readiness to adhere. Further, to investigate the collaboration between nurses, doctors and pharmacists after the introduction of a HIV-clinic satellite pharmacy. Data were collected via two cross-sectional patient surveys in 1998 and 2002, qualitative interviews with health care personnel at a major HIV clinic, and a nation-wide, cross-sectional patient survey in 2003-2004. The level of adherence improved from 28% in 1998 to 57% in 2002, possibly due to simplified treatment and a new multi-professional treatment model at the clinic. The proportion of adherent patients was 63% in the nationwide survey. Factors associated with adherence were high age, high quality patient-provider relationships, no drug or alcohol problems and shorter time on treatment. A hypothesized structural equational model, using readiness and adherence as separate latent concepts, was tested and found to support readiness as a distinct factor influencing adherence. The health care personnel believed that conventional pharmacies had several disadvantages in serving the HIV infected population. They found the HIV-clinic satellite pharmacy valuable, since it contributed to increased communication and trust between the health care professions, and improved teamwork in medication management.In conclusion, the level of adherence increased over time, and several factors associated with adherence were identified. Improved collaboration between health care professionals may enhance treatment support, and increased attention should be given to interventions that focus on the individual's readiness for behavioural change in order to optimize treatment outcomes.


Ductile shear zones localise tectonic stresses and accommodate plate motions in the middle to lower crust and mantle, and control the strength of much of the Earth. Despite a common assumption that ductile shear zones deform under nominally steady-state conditions, changes in stress and strain rate are anticipated during shear zone formation and localisation, and in mid-crustal shear zones which are periodically loaded from above by earthquakes. Here, the microstructural response to changes in stress and strain rate is explored with particular emphasis on the evolution of grain size, crystallographic fabric and dominant deformation mechanism. A broad range of techniques have been applied, including electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), titanium-in-quartz (TitaniQ) thermobarometry, numerical modelling of grain size evolution and Griggs apparatus experimentation. For context, quartzofeldspathic mylonites of the Alpine Fault zone (AFZ) of New Zealand have been studied and are used to relate numerical and laboratory studies to nature. During shear around rigid garnet porphyroclasts, quartz in the AFZ mylonites undergoes grain size reduction by dynamic recrystallisation in response to increasing stresses and strain rates adjacent to a porphyroclast. Meanwhile, quartz [c]-axes reveal increasing amounts of slip on rhomb <a> and prism <a> planes. These results are replicated in the laboratory by shear of quartz around alumina piston asperities, during which prism<a> slip becomes dominant and resistant to subsequent replacement as stresses reduce. Recrystallised quartz grain sizes in the AFZ mylonites are consistent with differential stresses of ∼50 MPa, which are well replicated by finite element models using quartz rheological data. Quartz deformation in the AFZ mylonites ceased at around 500◦C, as recorded by the preservation of grain boundary migration microstructures and titanium-in-quartz concentrations, which appear well equilibrated due to rapid grain boundary migration during deformation. Rates of grain size increase downshear of garnet porphyroclasts far exceed laboratory-measured rates of static annealing. This discrepancy probably reflects the additional contribution of internal strain-energy driven grain boundary migration to surface-energy driven grain growth, enhancing grain growth rates in favourably oriented grains at the expense and 'elimination' of unfavourably oriented grains. In experiments simulating rapid strain rate changes analogous to mid-crustal seismic stress cycling, plagioclase aggregates undergo rapid dynamic recrystallisation during a strain rate increase, and are remain weakened long after strain rates and stresses return to ambient levels. The longevity and degree of mechanical weakening depend on the rate of grain growth to re-establish steady-state conditions, and the dominant deformation mechanism. If dislocation creep is dominant throughout a strain rate perturbation, no mechanical weakening is observed. However, if grain size sensitive processes of diffusion creep and grain boundary sliding dominate, mechanical weakening is achieved. Grain size reduction in response to a stress increase is inferred to cause weakening of a crystallographic fabric through enhanced grain boundary sliding, though fabric weakening appears slow. In numerical models of grain growth during a postseismic stress and strain rate drop, rapid rates of grain growth are required to re-establish microstructural steady-state conditions on timescales equivalent to typical earthquake recurrence intervals. Despite this, dynamic grain growth rates calculated for natural AFZ quartz are sufficiently rapid to allow at least a partial return to steady-state during a typical 300-year AFZ interseismic period.


Interest in xylanase production and applications is due to its importance in the bioconversion of hemicellulose and pulp and paper industry.

An active xylanolytic Bacillus subtilis IBB strain was isolated by enrichment culture and serial dilution methods after screening a large number of isolates. Culture conditions were optimized for maximal cell growth and enzyme production. Significant level of xylanase was secreted when B. subtilis IBB was grown in the presence of glucose as carbon source suggesting that enzyme is synthesized constitutively. Maximum cell growth and xylanase production were obtained when B. subtilis IBB was grown on xylan as a carbon source and ammonium sulphate as a nitrogen source at pH 6.0 after 10 hours of fermentation at 50oC. When the medium was supplemented with .0.25% sucrose, in addition to 0.5% xylan. Xylanase activity increased by more than 2 fold. Xylanase activity was enhanced by another 20% when 0.2% Tween 80 was added while 0.2% Triton-X 100 increased the activity by 10%. The maximal xylanase activity obtained after optimizing fermentation conditions was 12.8 U/ml of culture supernatant. Amongst the natural substrates used, 0.5% pretreated bagasse was found to be the best carbon source for xylanase production giving 4.0 U of xylanase per ml of culture supernatant. About 1.7 fold increase in xylanase activity97.0 U/ml) was observed when the medium was supplemented with 0.25% sucrose.

The enzyme was purified 7.5 fold by chromatography on Q-Sepharose chromatofcusing and gel filtration on Sephadex G-75. The molecular weight of the purified xylanase was found to be 22 kDa by SDS-PAGE. The purified enzyme showed a high specific activity of 1200 units/mg protein. The optimum pH and temperature for xylanase 25 ml increased from 15.1 to 28.0 and 14.8 to 28.2 % respectively when amount of the enzyme was increased from 10U to 20U. On further increasing the enzyme concentration upto 40U, the degree hydrolysis of rice straw and bagasse increased from 28.2 to 36.0 and 28.2 to 35.5% respectively.

Xylanase treatment to Kraft pulp resulted increased percentage loss in weight with increasing incubation period Kappa number decreased from 70.0 to 56.0 when the incubation period was increased upto 6 hours in 25 ml reaction mixture containing 1.0 g of pulp sample at 50oC . 2.0-6.8% weight losses of pulp samples were observed when the amount of xylanase was increased from 20 to 100U under the same reaction conditions. Kappa number decreased from 70.0 to 45.0 with the loss of lignin contents from 10.0 to 6.4% when the amount of xylanase was increased from 20 to 100U. the amount of reducing sugars in the hydrolysates increased with the increasing enzyme concentration.

When the amount of pulp was increased from 1.0 to 3.0 g in 25 ml reaction mixture, the percentage weight losses decreased from 5.2 to 4.0. An increase in reducing sugars was observed in the hydrolysates. Lignin contents were reduced accompanied by decrease in kappa number from 70.0 to 41.0

The gene coding for xylanase activity in B. subtilis IBB was cloned E. coli by using pUC 19 as a vector. The transformants were screened for xylanase activity on the basis of clearing haloes around the colonies grown on agar plates containing xylan as detected by staining with Congo red. A single xylanase positive clone was identified containing 1.8 kb genomic insert. Xylanase activity secreted in the culture medium by E. coli clone was 1.5 fold higher than that produced by the parent B. subtilis strain and supplementation of LB medium with xylan resulted in the further increase in xylanase activity. This showed that the expression of xylanase gene was under the control of the xylanase promoter carried by the insert. Southern hybridization analysis showed that Sau3AI fragment of the chromosomal DNA was cloned in recombinant plasmid.

Xylanase from E. coli clone was purified by Q-Sepharose chromatography and chromatofocusing. The purified enzyme had a MW of 32 kDa. The pH and temperature optima were 6.0 and 60oC, respectively. The enzyme was stable upto 60oC and between the pH range of 5.0-8.0. The enzymatic properties were almost identical to those of purified xylanase of parent strain i.e. B. subtilis IBB except the molecular weight. Insertion of xylanase gene into cloning vector may be performed in such a way so as to fuse each other, producing a hybrid gene, so the product of gene expression is a hybrid protein with increased molecular weight.

Production of xylanases from xylanase genes cloned into a non cellulolytic host is one means of achieving culluluase free preparation. So crude culture supernatant from E. coli xylanase positive clone holds a greater potential for mass production and applications in pulp, paper and jute processing industries.


In this letter, we propose a novel cooperative caching scheme for the next-generation Internet — content oriented networking (CON), trying to minimize the content access delay for mobile users. We formulate the caching problem as a mixed integer programming model and propose a heuristic solution based on Lagrangian relaxation. Simulation results show that this scheme can greatly reduce content access delay.


Abstract Objective: Our aim was to describe the developmental process of a training program for nurses to communicate existential issues with severely ill patients. Method: The Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions was used to develop a training program for nurses to communicate about existential issues with their patients. The steps in the framework were employed to describe the development of the training intervention, and the development, feasibility and piloting, evaluation, and implementation phases. The development and feasibility phases are described in the Methods section. The evaluation and implementation phases are described in the Results section. Results: In the evaluation phase, the effectiveness of the intervention was shown as nurses' confidence in communication increased after training. The understanding of the change process was considered to be that the nurses could describe their way of communicating in terms of prerequisites, process, and content. Some efforts have been made to implement the training intervention, but these require further elaboration. Significance of results: Existential and spiritual issues are very important to severely ill patients, and healthcare professionals need to be attentive to such questions. It is important that professionals be properly prepared when patients need this communication. An evidence-based training intervention could provide such preparation. Healthcare staff were able to identify situations where existential issues were apparent, and they reported that their confidence in communication about existential issues increased after attending a short-term training program that included reflection. In order to design a program that should be permanently implemented, more knowledge is needed of patients' perceptions of the quality of the healthcare staff's existential support.


This thesis discusses the issues and challenges associated with the design and operation of a data analysis facility for a high-energy physics experiment at a multi-purpose computing centre. At the spotlight is a Tier-2 centre of the distributed computing model of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The design steps, examined in the thesis, include analysis and optimization of the I/O access patterns of the user workload, integration of the storage resources, and development of the techniques for effective system administration and operation of the facility in a shared computing environment. A number of I/O access performance issues on multiple levels of the I/O subsystem, introduced by utilization of hard disks for data storage, have been addressed by the means of exhaustive benchmarking and thorough analysis of the I/O of the user applications in the ALICE software framework. Defining the set of requirements to the storage system, describing the potential performance bottlenecks and single points of failure and examining possible ways to avoid them allows one to develop guidelines for selecting the way how to integrate the storage resources. The solution, how to preserve a specific software stack for the experiment in a shared environment, is presented along with its effects on the user workload performance. The proposal for a flexible model to deploy and operate the ALICE Tier-2 infrastructure and applications in a virtual environment through adoption of the cloud computing technology and the 'Infrastructure as Code' concept completes the thesis. Scientific software applications can be efficiently computed in a virtual environment, and there is an urgent need to adapt the infrastructure for effective usage of cloud resources.


Pollutant transport studies in estuaries may be divided into two general types: firstly, those where a new pollutant will be discharged into an existing estuary; and secondly, those where the estuarine geometry will be changed permanently, The first type of problem is analyzed more easily because distributions of existing natural or artificial tracers can be used to determine rates of transport and diffusion. For this type of problem one-dimensional or time-averaged two-dimensional models, employing apparent diffusivities evaluated from existing tracers, are often satisfactory. When permanent changes in the system are envisaged, however, it is likely that the bulk or apparent diffusivities of space and time-averaged models will be changed in unpredictable ways. Hence to determine what will be the effect of dredging a new channel in an estuary, or permanently changing the distribution of fresh water inflow, more sophisticated models must include the underlying mechanisms of pollutant transport and diffusion. The purpose of this paper is to present a two-dimensional, non-time averaged model which is computationally fast, seems to be reasonably accurate, and can be used to predict the effect of permanent changes wherever a two dimensional representation is satisfactory.


In Pakistan, cotton crop has been under enormous threat of cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) over the last four decades. In order to estimate genetic diversity in cotton germplasm CLCuD resistance, we assessed 100 cotton genotypes for their CLCuD resistance/tolerance and other related agronomical traits. Various statistical analytical tools, including correlation analysis, cluster analysis, and principal component analysis (PCA), were used to select the best genotypes. These genotypes can be used in future breeding programs to generate CLCuD resistant varieties. The same set of procedures could be utilized for other diseases in other crops. CLCuD incidence showed a significant negative genotypic correlation with yield-contributing traits followed by a significant negative association for phenotypic correlation. The seed cotton yield showed significant positive genotypic and phenotypic correlations with plant height, number of bolls per plant, and boll weight. From the PCA we identified five principal components (PCs) that explained a significant amount of the variance among the variables, which may be used for selection of cotton genotypes with CLCuD resistance. Of the five PCs, the first four contributed more towards the total variability and had eigenvalues greater than one. The cluster analysis showed that the genotypes in one of the clusters performed particularly well with respect to CLCuD tolerance. These genotypes can be utilized for development of varieties with increased CLCuD tolerance.


Several pieces of evidence suggest that silicate grains in primitive meteorites are not interstellar grains but condensates formed in the early solar system. Moreover, the size distribution of matrix grains in chondrites implies that these condensates might be formed as nanometer-sized grains. Therefore, we propose a novel scenario for rocky planetesimal formation in which nanometer-sized silicate grains are produced by evaporation and recondensation events in early solar nebula, and rocky planetesimals are formed via aggregation of these nanograins. We reveal that silicate nanograins can grow into rocky planetesimals via direct aggregation without catastrophic fragmentation and serious radial drift, and our results provide a suitable condition for protoplanet formation in our solar system.


: The paper deals with a variable multifunctional simulation tool that enables to design and assemble animated models of various technological processes controlled by externally connected fuzzy logic unit. It enables to verify the correctness of fuzzy controller settings in the future control of real technological processes in practice. This tool represents an effective, innovative, and creative concept important to understanding control approach of technological processes modeling as an insight to behavior of real industrial processes and their control which is based on fuzzy logic. On the base of this animated simulation, real technological processes control can be realized successfully according to producer demands afterwards. Models of technological processes assembled by this simulation tool can be then externally controlled by various control strategies (traditional PID controllers, ON-OFF controllers,PLC controllers, fuzzy logic controllers etc.) via a proper real controller connected to the computer. In the paper, two-conveyor-belt system for product packing is shown. The goal consists in control of synchronization of products and boxes placed on individual conveyor belts in order to pack the product into the box. The main concern here is to improve dynamic performance and control efficiency with the help of assembling an animated model of the controlled technological process and its external control by a fuzzy logic unit.


Objective To estimate the efficacy of a probiotic yogurt compared to a pasteurised yogurt for the prevention of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea in children. Design and setting This was a multisite, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted between September 2009 and 2012. The study was conducted through general practices and pharmacies in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. Participants and interventions Children (aged 1–12 years) prescribed antibiotics, were randomised to receive 200 g/day of either yogurt (probiotic) containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), Bifidobacterium lactis (Bb-12) and Lactobacillus acidophilus (La-5) or a pasteurised yogurt (placebo) for the same duration as their antibiotic treatment. Outcomes Stool frequency and consistency were recorded for the duration of treatment plus 1 week. Primary outcome was stool frequency and consistency, classified at different levels of diarrhoea severity. Due to the small number of cases of diarrhoea, comparisons between groups were made using Fisher's exact analysis. Results 72 children commenced and 70 children (36 placebo and 34 probiotic) completed the trial. There were no incidents of severe diarrhoea (stool consistency ≥6, ≥3 stools/day for ≥2 consecutive days) in the probiotic group and six in the placebo group (Fisher's exact p=0.025). There was also only one episode of minor diarrhoea (stool consistency ≥5, ≥2 stools/day for ≥2 days in the probiotic group compared to 21 in the placebo group (Fisher's exact p<0.001). The probiotic group reported fewer adverse events (1 had abdominal pain, 1 vomited and 1 had headache) than the placebo group (6 had abdominal pain, 4 had loss of appetite and 1 had nausea). Conclusions A yogurt combination of LGG, La-5 and Bb-12 is an effective method for reducing the incidence of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea in children. Trial registration number Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000281291


Metallothionein-I/II (MT-I/II) is a 6-7 kDa, cysteine rich, zinc and copper binding
protein. MT-I/II null mutant (−/−) mice have an altered response to brain injury.
Therefore, MT-I/II has been proposed to be a protective protein after brain injury but
the mechanism by which it confers protection remains elusive. There is a possibility
that MT-I/II has protective actions within the injured brain but MT-I/II also has the
capacity to modulate the immune system which plays a role in the progression of brain
injury. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the differences in the progression of brain
injury between wild type and MT-I/II−/− mice with particular emphasis on the action of
MT-I/II in organs peripheral to the central nervous system after brain injury. Using a
cryolesion brain injury model, neuron death in MT-I/II−/− mice was prolonged at later
stages of the brain injury (7 days post-injury) meanwhile it had ceased in wild type
mice. In conjunction with this occurrence, the numbers of T cells infiltrating the injury
site were significantly higher in MT-I/II−/− mice at 7 days post-injury. Chemokine
mRNA synthesis was analysed to determine if MT-I/II−/− mice had altered chemotactic
signals that may affect the rate of T cell infiltration but differences were rarely observed
when compared to wild type mice. In MT-I/II−/− mice, circulating leukocytes showed
no differences to wild type mice in the relative ratios of lymphocytes, neutrophils,
monocytes or T cells. However, the absolute white blood cell count was significantly
higher in the blood of MT-I/II−/− mice, but only at 7 days post-injury. MT-I/II−/− mice
were also found to have lower levels of the marker of alternatively activated
macrophages, Ym1, than wild type mice, both in macrophages in the brain and in
monocytes in the blood after brain injury. Therefore, there appear to be several immune
system differences between MT-I/II−/− mice and wild type mice after brain injury. To
further investigate the role of MT-I/II after brain injury, MT-I and MT-II mRNA levels
were quantified by reverse transcriptase PCR. An enzyme-linked immunoassay
(ELISA) was developed to measure MT-I/II protein levels in brain and liver after brain
injury. Both MT-I and MT-II mRNA levels increase at 1 day post-injury in brain and
liver and are decreased by 7 days post-injury. MT-I/II protein in brain was highest at 1
day post-injury but in the liver was maximally expressed at 7 days post injury. This
increase in hepatic MT-I/II protein resulted in a higher hepatic zinc content in wild type
mice compared to MT-I/II−/− mice. Therefore these results suggest that brain injury
induces a hepatic MT-I/II response which may be responsible for modulation of the
essential trace metal, zinc after brain injury.


On December 10, 1998, Sun Microsystems lodged a complaint with the European Commission relating to Microsoft Corporation's refusal to give Sun the information and technology necessary to allow its work group server operating systems to interoperate effectively with the Windows client PC operating system. Thereafter, the Commission, acting on its own initiative, launched an investigation relating to (1) Microsoft's Windows 2000 generation of client PC and work group server operating systems and (2) the integration by Microsoft of its Windows Media Player in its Windows client PC operating system. The Commission subsequently found that Microsoft (1) had dominant positions in the markets for client PC operating systems and work group server operating systems and (2) had abused its dominant positions in violation of Article 82 EC and Article 54 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA).


In this paper we present the results of the StatSearch case study that aimed at providing enhanced access to statistical data available on the Web. In the scope of this case study we developed a prototype of an information access tool combining query- based search engine with semi-automated navigation techniques exploiting hierarchical structuring of available data. This tool enables a better control of the information retrieval, improving the quality and ease of the access to statistical information. The central part of the presented StatSearch tool consists in the design of an algorithm for automated navigation through a tree-like hierarchical document structure. The algorithm relies on the computation of query related relevance score distributions over the available database to identify the most relevant clusters in the data structure. These most relevant clusters are then proposed to the user for navigation, or, alternatively, are the support for the automated navigation process. Several approaches to automation of the navigation are compared and natural language processing techniques allowing more precise and coherent computation of textual similarities are briefly described. The resulting StatSearch prototype was evaluated by the Swedish Statistical Office (SCB) on a sample of over 5000 English documents accessible through the SCB web site. The evaluation was based on supervised on-site usability testing and aimed at identification of the prototype's potentials and its added value with respect to information access as objectively perceived by users. The evaluation method and obtained results are presented. The case study was carried out in the framework of the NEMIS Network of Excellence in Text Mining and Its Applications in Statistics (IST- 2001-37574).


With pressure for greater accountability and value for money in public budgets, widening the use of results-based financing (RBF) and setting up adequate independent mechanisms to verify results is becoming increasingly important. In January 2012, the World Bank launched the Program-for-Results (PforR), an innovative financing instrument that disburses funds upon delivery of verified results in developing country programs. Until now, the use of independent verification has been limited to output-based aid (OBA), which is one of the RBF modalities; however, there is potential for more widespread use of independent verification. This note highlights lessons from projects funded by the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) and the World Bank, and discusses elements that can best ensure the independence and effectiveness of a verification system.


Europe's efforts to stabilize its finances are failing, and the region needs to prepare for widespread restructuring of sovereign and bank debt. Peter Boone and Simon Johnson argue that Europe's financial system has relied on a policy of protecting creditors from default and has thus spread pervasive moral hazard—a presumption by creditors that they will not take losses on their loans to Greece and other ailing countries. The authors argue that this situation is no longer tenable and examine three possible scenarios for the coming months as the sovereign debt crisis evolves. Under the first scenario, the euro area would try to reassert its commitment to avoid defaults and inflation. This continuation of the moral hazard regime would require severe austerity for Greece and other countries on the periphery of the euro area. The second scenario involves elimination of the moral hazard regime. The euro area would admit that some sovereigns have too much debt. A series of debt restructurings would follow. The final scenario would be for policymakers to continue to contradict themselves by promising selective defaults or restructurings of some countries' debts while maintaining that they can ensure the stability of the rest of the euro area. But the authors argue that it is an illusion to believe that selective restructuring would not introduce contagion. Such an approach would result in panic, massive capital flight, and disorderly defaults. The ensuing chaos would in turn lead to a negatively charged political atmosphere that would make consensus nearly impossible.


In 2012, the Supreme Court held in Knox v. SEIU, Local 1000 that a union representing government employees may assess money from the employees whom it represents to support political activity only if those employees first opt in to supporting political expenditures. In reaching this holding, the Court reasoned that public sector employees have a First Amendment right to refuse to contribute money to support the political speech of their union and that protection of that First Amendment right requires states to allow such assessments only if the employees first opt to make a financial contribution. Knox is the latest in a long series of Supreme Court cases delineating when a union selected as the exclusive bargaining representative by the majority of employees in a workplace violates the First Amendment rights of dissenting employees by acting on behalf of the majority. The Court's next case in this line, Harris v. Quinn, which was argued in January and will be decided later this year, presents the question whether home care workers who are state employees have a First Amendment right to refuse to pay the union anything for the services the union is statutorily obligated to provide them. The petitioners in Harris invite the Court to overrule decades of precedent and hold that the First Amendment prohibits a union representing government employees from collecting dues or fees from dissenting employees. In colloquial terms, the petitioners in Harris seek to have the Supreme Court declare that, as a matter of the First Amendment, all government employment must be on a "right-to-work" basis. The petitioners in Harris argued that bargaining on behalf of employees is petitioning the government and "political in nature" even when it addresses wages, and it violates the First Amendment to require dissenting employees to support the union's bargaining. As the Justices recognized at oral argument, the logical extension of the petitioners' argument is that the First Amendment invalidates any statute allowing employees to bargain collectively on the basis of exclusive representation. While the petitioners noted that the Harris case itself did not require the Court to consider whether empowering a union to be the exclusive representative of employees for purposes of negotiating wages and working conditions necessarily involves compelled speech with respect to those employees who disagree with the majority representative's positions, their brief invited the Court to find collective bargaining on the basis of exclusive representation to be unconstitutional. This article analyzes Harris, Knox, and other leading Court cases to assess union representation and the First Amendment, contradictions in applied standards of associational speech, and the future of public sector collective bargaining.


This paper analyzes the impact of an ethanol import tariff in conjunction with a consumption mandate and tax credit. A tax credit alone acts as a subsidy to ethanol producers, equally benefiting exporters like Brazil. If an import tariff is imposed to offset the tax credit, world prices of ethanol decline by less than the tariff (unless oil prices are unaffected). Eliminating the tariff with a tax credit in place results in a significant gain to exporters like Brazil but eliminating the tax credit too reduces the initial benefits to Brazil of the tariff reduction substantially. The results change however if there is "water" in the tax credit. Then exporters benefit much more with the elimination of both the tariff and tax credit compared to a situation of both policies in place. If only a mandate was in place, exporters like Brazil again benefit as much as domestic ethanol producers do. Eliminating the tariff with a mandate results in an increase in domestic ethanol prices (even if oil prices do not change) because more domestic supply is required to maintain the mandate. The tariff therefore has a smaller negative impact on world ethanol prices with a mandate compared to a tax credit. A tax credit with a binding mandate is a subsidy to fuel consumers and only indirectly benefits ethanol producers if ethanol prices increase due to increased demand for ethanol with the increase in fuel consumption). Therefore, eliminating the tax credit with a binding mandate has little effect on market prices of ethanol – domestic and foreign producers alike benefit very little with a tax credit in this situation. Brazil would much prefer the elimination of the tax credit and the so-called offsetting import tariff when a mandate is binding. Hence, the protective effects of an import tariff are not additive with either a tax credit or the price premium due to a mandate.


The late Palaeolithic Ahrensburgian site at Zonhoven-Molenheide was situated in a sandy podzol. It comprised several concentrations with more than 11,500 flint artefacts, of which more than 1,800 were refitted. Both horizontal and vertical distribution of the remains is discussed in detail. 76 figures illustrate profile sections, artefacts and refits. The occupation fits into the Younger Dryas (Late Glacial) period with an AMS date of 10,760 BP. Regionally, the Ahrensburgian is defined typologically as an assemblage with numerous Zonhoven points, a variable number of Ahrensburgian points and numerous endscrapers and burins. Connections with other European sites are discussed.


This paper contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of developing country rural labour markets by re-evaluating the available evidence on the levels and composition of income sources adopted by rural households in order to understand the relationship between the various economic activities taking place in rural areas and their implications for economic growth and poverty reduction. This is achieved in two parts: First, the paper introduces the Rural Income Generating Activities (RIGA) database, a newly constructed FAO repository of household survey data, income measures and cross-country comparable indicators. Second, using the RIGA database, the paper undertakes a descriptive analysis of the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors of the rural economy, assessing the importance of rural non-farm activities within the complex income strategies adopted by rural households in developing countries and their relationship to poverty and inequality.


The present article describes a case involving a 74-year-old woman who presented with atypical chest pain and was found to have a giant aneurysm of the left sinus of Valsalva. Computed tomography coronary angiography performed before surgery showed a left main stem arising from the superior aspect of the left coronary sinus (stretched superiorly over, but not within, the aneurysm sac). The patient underwent surgery and an aortic valve replacement and root graft were performed. Intraoperatively, there was a progressive reduction in systemic arterial pressure and cardiac output disappeared, culminating in ventricular fibrillation, which was believed to be due to ischemia induced by the stretching of the native coronary arteries over the roof of the aneurysm sac. Therefore, the patient underwent coronary artery bypass grafting with revascularization of the left-sided system. The authors suggest that preoperative assessment, including noninvasive assessment of myocardial ischaemia, should be part of the work-up.


However, having a baby brings positive emotions such as happiness, sense of maturity and proud, parenting's issue could cause high level of stress and child's characteristics was a detrimental factor which can effect on parent's stress, so the aim of this research was comparison of stress of caring in mothers of children with developmental, external, and internal disorders and normal children. The study population included all mothers of children with developmental, emotional, and disruptive behavior disorders, and mothers with normal children in Hamadan (a city in Iran). 240 mothers (4 groups include 60 mothers) were chosen based on simple random sampling. Family inventory of life events and changes Mc Cubbin, Patterson & Wilson was used for assessing participants. The results showed that maternal stress in mothers with children who have diagnosis of disruptive behavior disorders were significantly more than of mothers of children with developmental disorders, emotional and mothers of normal children. The present study showed that disruptive behavior disorders in children have a greater impact on their mothers. So, we suggest approved psychological interventions for helping mothers of children with psychological problems, particularly children with external disorders.


The spatial distribution of the local density of states (LDOS) at band edges on large-sized two-dimensional Thue–Morse dielectric systems has been investigated by means of a parallel implementation of the multipole expansion method. From the study of the LDOS participation number, the optical modes have been classified as critical, namely as intermediate between uniformly extended and exponentially localized. The exponent of power-law decay of their envelopes has been determined. Furthermore, multifractal analysis by a standard box-counting method has been performed. Almost all of the investigated modes exhibit a strong multifractal character. These results can be exploited for the designing of novel light source devices based on aperiodic order.


Car navigation is a field in broad expansion and the industry quickly developed a standard to model cartographic data useful for the applications of the road transport telematics: GDF, Geographic Data Files. Since its first version in 1988, GDF became an ISO standard in 2004, written by the technical committee TC 204. Consequently, the providers of data for navigation (Tele Atlas and Navteq) improved the content of their cartographic products by covering the road networks of the most part of the countries. Thus, this data model and its content are considered as a reference for many computer applications of navigation and management of the road and traffic. This project aims to evaluate the potential of ISO-GDF for the road information system (SIR) in Switzerland, from which the basic concepts (location, topology, geometry) are described in the standards SN 640.910 and following. The first part of the project is focused on the formulation of the requirements in terms of data for the road networks for the main business processes of road maintenance management. This step allowed to highlight classes of objects described in the GDF data model. The second step is a comparison between the definitions and data models described in VSS standards about the SIR and the content of ISO-GDF standard. This semantic and conceptual study checks the degree of compatibility between the data and the models according to the basic criteria: geometry, topology, attributes and space location. Based on this comparison, the study shows the potential benefits of the coupling between the data according to the GDF standard with basic data from the SIR. This third step aims at applying procedures to transfer and transform GDF data set into a format compatible with VSS standards for the spatial location, the geometry of the axes and the topology of the road network. These concepts of coupling were partially used by the project MISTRA for the import of basic data of GDF type. The fourth part deals with the management of GDF type data combined with data from the SIR. Several scenarios are described according to the type of operation (import, update, manipulation) and according to the contents existing beforehand in the SIR. The last part focuses on legal and organisational aspects which are fundamental elements when an information system, managed by a public administration, assimilates data of the GDF type coming from a private supplier. By its methodical approach, this project allows a comparison of models and definitions of road objects by highlighting the degrees of compatibility, while showing the practical features offered by the mechanisms of coupling. The choice of project MISTRA to integrate basic data of GDF type fully illustrates the growing role of data from private cartographic suppliers in the management of public infrastructures. However, the management of multiple data sources (public, private) in a SIR remains a complex operation about update and manipulation. In this context, the public-private partnerships can only extend in order to guarantee a quality of services for the road infrastructures and traffic management.


Recent exciting, ambitious applications in agent technology involve agents acting individually or in teams in support of critical activities of individual humans or entire human organizations. Applications range from intelligent homes [13], to "routine" organizational coordination[16], to electronic commerce[4] to long-term space missions[12, 6]. These new applications have brought forth an increasing interest in agents' adjustable autonomy (AA), i.e., in agents' dynamically adjusting their own level of autonomy based on the situation[8]. In fact, many of these applications will not be deployed, unless reliable AA reasoning is a central component. At the heart of AA is the question of whether and when agents should make autonomous decisions and when they should transfer decision-making control to other entities (e.g., human users). Unfortunately, previous work in adjustable autonomy has focused on individual agent-human interactions and tile techniques developed fail to scale-up to complex heterogeneous organizations. Indeed, as a first step, we focused on a smallscale, but real-world agent-human organization called Electric Elves, where an individual agent and human worked together within a larger multiagent context. Although'the application limits the interactions among entities, key weaknesses of previous approaches to adjustable autonomy are readily apparent. In particular, previous approaches to transferof-control are seen to be too rigid, employing one-shot transfersof-control that can result in unacceptable coordination failures. Furthermore, the previous approaches ignore potential costs (e.g., from delays) to an agent's team due to such transfers of control. To remedy such problems, we propose a novel approach to AA, based on the notion of a transfer-of-control strategy. A transfer-of-control strategy consists of a conditional sequence of two types of actions: (i) actions to transfer decision-making control (e.g., from the agent to the user or vice versa) and (ii) actions to change an agent's pre-specified coordination constraints with team members, aimed at minimizing miscoordination costs. The goal is for high quality individual decisions to be made with minimal disruption to the coordination of the team. We operationalize such strategies via Markov decision processes (MDPs) which select the optimal strategy given an uncertain environment and costs to individuals and teams. We have developed a general reward function and state representation for such an MDP, to facilitate application of the approach to different domains. We present results from a careful evaluation of this approach, including via its use in our real-world, deployed Electric Elves system.


Application of surface miners is gaining popularity in different surface mines of India due to the wide range of advantages offered by them. More than 100 surface miners are operating in India in different coal, limestone and bauxite mines today. For new start-ups, however, it is imperative to select appropriate specifications of surface miner considering the rock/rockmass properties for a given production target and chip size. The emphasis of this paper is on performance estimation of different available models of surface miner with varied machine parameters and rock conditions for facilitating the selection of a particular model for a given production requirement. From the review of literature, it was found that the specific energy required to cut the rock is predominantly influenced by uniaxial compressive strength of rock and the same can be determined through laboratory investigations. The current study envelops the development of an approach for the estimation of theoretical production capacity of surface miner along with simulation studies for achieving a particular cut size. The theoretical production capacity of a few surface miners, based on their respective specifications was analysed and found to range from 264 to 5865 m 3 /h for the chip size varying from 50 to 175 mm. The suggested approach can be useful to draw appropriate specifications of surface miner for a given production. Instantaneous cutting rate was observed to be high for rock strength less than 50 MPa. Pick consumption was also arrived at in different mines. The suggested approach was also illustrated with a case study followed by validation.


This paper comes from a February 2012 Symposium, "The Role of ADR Mechanisms in Public Sector Labor Disputes: What Is at Stake, Where We Can Improve & How We Can Learn from the Private Sector." It discusses the history of an important form of alternative dispute resolution: the use of what is called "interest arbitration" to resolve bargaining impasses in public-sector labor relations. This process is used in many states as an alternative to strikes. While interest arbitration has been a crucial part of public-sector labor law and labor relations for decades, it has come under increased scrutiny recently. Indeed, in the wave of laws passed in 2011 restricting the rights of public-sector unions to bargain collectively, interest arbitration was repeatedly attacked, and in several states it was eliminated or restricted.This paper gives a historical overview of the development of interest arbitration, discussing how and why it developed as it did. This development was neither inevitable nor "natural" in that many other western democracies generally allow public workers to strike. But only a few states in the U.S. allows any public workers to strike. Thus, the question is: why did U.S. law and policy develop the way it did? This paper traces the relevant history from 1919 through to the new, restrictive laws of 2011. It starts with the Boston Police strike of 1919 — a seminal event in the history of public-sector labor law, that had a profound and lasting impact on how U.S. policymakers felt about dispute resolution in public sector labor law. It then turns to the first public-sector labor law permitting collective bargaining — passed, ironically in view of recent events, in Wisconsin in 1959 — and describes how concerns about dispute resolution were central to debates over that law. The paper continues by explaining how interest arbitration in public-sector labor relations has evolved and how it has worked from the 1960s into the 21st century. Finally, the paper explores the very recent developments in this area in the laws of 2011.


In the recent years, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) has attracted much attention as a source of green energy and alternative to internal combustion engines. The PEMFC produces electrical power with heat and water as only byproducts. Water is needed to providing proper hydration of membrane and its ionic conductivity in PEMFCs, but excess water accumulation known as flooding phenomenon decreases reaction sites on gas diffusion and increases mass transport loss and consequently it leads to performance loss of PEMFC. Proper water management depends on characterization and study two-phase flow phenomenon of PEMFC as flooding. In the present work, the two-phase flow in the cathode channel of transparent PEMFC with single serpentine flow field is studied by direct optical visualization and utilization of Digital Image Processing for different inlet flow parameters and operational conditions. Liquid water accumulation in the cathode channel is quantified and the water coverage ratio is calculated as a scale of water content of the cathode channel in the unsteady and time-averaged states. Increasing the temperature and stoichiometry decrease the accumulation of liquid water in the cathode channel while increasing the reactants relative humidity leads to accumulation of more liquid water. Observations show in higher cathode stoichiometries, the effect of anode stoichiometry on the water coverage ratio decreases. The effect of anode stoichiometry on the water coverage ratio is more than the cathode stoichiometry.In higher anode stoichiometries, the effect of cathode stoichiometry on the water coverage ratio decreases so that the change in cathode stoichiometry has no significant effect on the values of water coverage ratio.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


South Africa has a long track record in Southern Ocean and Antarctic research and has recently invested considerable funds in acquiring new infrastructure for ongoing support of this research. This infrastructure includes a new base at Marion Island and a purpose-built ice capable research vessel, which greatly expand research opportunities. Despite this investment, South Africa's standing as a participant in this critical field is threatened by confusion, lack of funding, lack of consultation and lack of transparency. The research endeavour is presently bedevilled by political manoeuvring among groups with divergent interests that too often have little to do with science, while past and present contributors of research are excluded from discussions that aim to formulate research strategy. This state of affairs is detrimental to the country's aims of developing a leadership role in climate change and Antarctic research and squanders both financial and human capital.


The paper reports on an investigation into the mechanisms and development of the breakdown of a triggered water gap plane-parallel electrode system with an electrically isolated trigger pin. A fast (5000 fps) CCD camera was used to observe the gap after a voltage pulse had been applied to the trigger pin. The optical observations obtained by the high-speed digital camera show the development and collapse of a bubble formed as a result of the (500ns) trigger pulse. Simulation results using QuickField software indicated that the magnitude of the electric field within the bubble increased after the main voltage had been applied across the water gap. Due to the lower electrical strength of water vapour, an electric avalanche was initiated within the bubble. The complete gap breaks down as a consequence of the discharge within the bubble and the subsequent streamer propagation in the water gap.


Some of the most difficult questions to answer when designing a distributed application are related to mobility: what information to transfer between sites and when and how to transfer it. Network-transparent distribution, the property that a program's behavior is independent of how it is partitioned among sites, does not directly address these questions. Therefore we propose to extend all language entities with a network behavior that enables efficient distributed programming by giving the programmer a simple and predictable control over network communication patterns. In particular, we show how to give objects an arbitrary mobility behavior that is independent of the objects definition. In this way, the syntax and semantics of objects are the same regardless of whether they are used as stationary servers, mobile agents, or simply as caches. These ideas have been implemented in Distributed Oz, a concurrent object-oriented language that is state aware and has dataflow synchronization. We prove that the implementation of objects in Distributed Oz is network transparent. To satisfy the predictability condition, the implementation avoids forwarding chains through intermediate sites. The implementation is an extension to the publicly available DFKI Oz 2.0 system.


We performed stable isotope analyses of fecal pellets to investigate temporal and spatial patterns in the diet of free-ranging, thirteen-lined ground squirrels (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus). Samples were collected opportunistically from a population in SW Michigan from May to September 2012. We found a statistically significant increases in d13C values throughout the study period, possibly correlating to a late-season flush of C-4 plants. Also, samples collected within 25 m of a cornfield had a mean d13C value of -20.470%, a value significantly higher than those outside the 25 m border (mean=26.192%). This patternmay be indicative of a C-4 rich diet probably due to increased corn consumption. Similarly, we found that the d15N values of pellets collected near the cornfield were also significantly higher (mean of 3.229%) than those further away (mean=1.765%). This may imply increased animal/insect consumption, or, more likely, is an artifact of artificial fertilizers.


The inner moons of Jupiter and Saturn migrate outwards due to tidal energy dissipation within the planets, the details of which remain poorly understood. We demonstrate that resonance locking between moons and internal oscillation modes of the planet can produce rapid tidal migration. Resonance locking arises due to the internal structural evolution of the planet and typically produces an outward migration rate comparable to the age of the Solar system. Resonance locking predicts a similar migration time-scale but a different effective tidal quality factor Q governing the migration of each moon. The theory also predicts nearly constant migration time-scales a function of semimajor axis, such that effective Q values were larger in the past. Recent measurements of Jupiter and Saturn's moon systems find effective Q values that are smaller than expected (and are different between moons), and which correspond to migration time-scales of ∼10 Gyr. If confirmed, the measurements are broadly consistent with resonance locking as the dominant source of tidal dissipation in Jupiter and Saturn. Resonance locking also provides solutions to several problems posed by current measurements: it naturally explains the exceptionally small Q governing Rhea's migration, it allows the large heating rate of Enceladus to be achieved in an equilibrium eccentricity configuration, and it resolves evolutionary problems arising from present-day migration/heating rates.


Conditional Neural Movement Primitives (CNMPs) is a learning from demonstration framework that is designed as a robotic movement learning and generation system built on top of a recent deep neural architecture, namely Conditional Neural Processes (CNPs). Based on CNPs, CNMPs extract the prior knowledge directly from the training data by sampling observations from it, and uses it to predict a conditional distribution over any other target points. CNMPs specifically learns complex temporal multi-modal sensorimotor relations in connection with external parameters and goals; produces movement trajectories in joint or task space; and executes these trajectories through a high-level feedback control loop. Conditioned with an external goal that is encoded in the sensorimotor space of the robot, predicted sensorimotor trajectory that is expected to be observed during the successful execution of the task is generated by the CNMP, and the corresponding motor commands are executed. In order to detect and react to unexpected events during action execution, CNMP is further conditioned with the actual sensor readings in each time-step. Through simulations and real robot experiments, we showed that CNMPs can learn the nonlinear relations between low-dimensional parameter spaces and complex movement trajectories from few demonstrations; and they can also model the associations between high-dimensional sensorimotor spaces and complex motions using large number of demonstrations. The experiments further showed that even the task parameters were not explicitly provided to the system, the robot could learn their influence by associating the learned sensorimotor representations with the movement trajectories. The robot, for example, learned the influence of object weights and shapes through exploiting its sensorimotor space that includes proprioception and force measurements; and be able to change the movement trajectory on the fly when one of these factors were changed through external intervention.


The scientific community has come to the conclusion that the climate is changing, but the existence of climate change continues to be rejected or doubted, creating communication challenges for professionals. The purpose of this study was to determine how education and communication professionals involved in climate-change communication are framing the discussions about climate change with agricultural producers. Semi-structured phone interviews were conducted to address terminology usage, challenges encountered, overcoming challenges, and utilization of social media when educating and communicating about climate change. Responses from professionals indicated: 1) they do not avoid using the term "climate change" but are concerned about jargon in materials; 2) the majority agreed the public believes climate change is happening; 3) not addressing the root causes of climate change; 4) framing messages; 5) addressing adaption options using local data; and 6) climate organizations are promoting materials on social media. This study recommends practitioners frame conversations depending on the audience and avoid using terminology that is not accepted by the target audience. Future research should investigate the effectiveness and uses of social media to engage desired audiences.


The concept of media logic, a theoretical framework for explaining the relationship between mass media and culture, was first introduced in Altheide and Snow's influential work, "Media Logic. "In "Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era, "the authors expand their analysis of how organizational considerations promote a distinctive media logic, which in turn is conductive to a media culture. They trace the ethnography of that media culture, including the knowledge, techniques, and assumptions that encourage media professionals to acquire particular cognitive and evaluative criteria and thereby present events primarily for the media's own ends. Case studies and examples of the mass media presentation of entertainment, news, politics, organized religion, and sports during the past twenty years illustrate how scheduling, sources of information, style, format, and professional awards influence how the world is portrayed in the various media. The authors analyze the influence of media logic on society's perceptions and judgments of issues and its impact on public opinion, culture, and social institutions.


In 1990, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware - then a one-judge backwater - began competing for big bankruptcy cases. In six years, that court achieved a near monopoly. In 2000, LoPucki and Kalin discovered that 42% of the companies filing in Delaware during that six year period of ascendency refiled bankruptcy within five years of their emergence, as compared with only 6% of those filing in courts other than Delaware and New York. In a later study, we found the (1) the failure of the companies reorganized in Delaware during the period of ascendency was robust across several measures of failure and (2) the Delaware filers were not different from the other court filers in any way that might account for the higher refailure rates. In a review of LoPucki's book Courting Failure (University of Michigan Press 2005), An Efficiency-Based Explanation for Current Corporate Reorganization Practice, 73 University of Chicago Law Review 425 (2006), Professors Kenneth Ayotte and David A. Skeel, Jr. came to Delaware's defense with an economic model and new empirical evidence. They argued, in essence, that companies with worse prospects for reorganization chose Delaware reorganization because it was cheaper. Because this group of companies was weaker, creditors put them "on a short[er] leash," by saddling them with high debt levels. The higher rate of refiling that resulted was nevertheless efficient because refiling costs were low. In this essay we respond that the Ayotte-Skeel model is based on the assumption of a selection effect for which there is neither a shred of empirical evidence nor even a variable proposed for measurement. We demonstrate that it is mathematically impossible for the cost savings from Delaware's shorter bankruptcies to offset the cost of so many second bankruptcies. We also note that the Ayotte-Skeel model leads to several predictions in conflict with the empirical evidence. We argue that refailure is costly and propose an empirical approach to quantify those costs. We praise Ayotte and Skeel's discovery that the EBITDA of firms emerging from Delaware bankruptcy was not significantly different from the EBITDA of firms emerging from bankruptcy in other courts during the period of ascendency. We agree that their findings suggest leverage played a greater role in the failure of the Delaware companies than we had previously thought. Lastly, we respond to Ayotte and Skeel's argument that DIP lenders, other creditors, and bankruptcy courts can prevent the case placers from using their leverage over the bankruptcy courts to externalize costs. The DIP lenders will not prevent the externalization because they are themselves case placers. Other creditors cannot prevent the externalization because no procedural means exist by which they could do so. The bankruptcy courts cannot prevent the externalization because the case placers avoid courts that attempt to place limits on them.


The large volume of data generated by tandem mass spectrometric analyses of protein digests has led to a computational bottleneck as researchers struggle to identify and quantify proteins from complex peptide mixtures. To address this challenge, this paper presents a novel peptide fragment fingerprinting digital-hardware solution implemented on a FPGA system which achieves over 1000× speed gain over an equivalent software implementation running on a dual quad-core server. The proposed solution is highly scalable as the performance can be ramped-up linearly by deploying the design on multiple FPGA devices.


The objective of this thesis is to carry out a survival analysis for patients with breast cancer. Using data from the Nanakaly and Hewa hospitals in the cities of Erbil and Suleimaniah, respectively, cases where there is hidden censoring on survival time were investigated. The aim of this study was to identify the main risk factors and quantify the overall risk for breast cancer. We developed a new Markov chain-based method for generating survival curves and hazard functions. In particular we adjusted the Kaplan Meier analysis to find a survival curve with hidden censoring of the data, and also estimated a survival function from the biased one obtained directly from the data by generating new models in two cases; with and without censoring. To ensure the validity of the suggested model we considered different simulation techniques applied to the Nanakaly data. Because of the availability of a good survival function, we chose to work with a German data set. As a result we conclude that our model performs well in many circumstances, and its predictions, even when less accurate, are always an improvement on considering the apparent survival curves from the unadjusted data.

For the data from Nanakaly hospital, the only variable we had to consider was age at diagnosis and the survival results showed that this was a significant variable. With far more detailed reports available for Hewa hospital, we were able to identify estrogen abundance, smoking habits and tumour grade, as having a statistically significant impact on the incidence of breast cancer. On the other hand, when analysing the Nanakaly and Hewa data for comparison with German data, in all three cases the survival curve is greater among younger patients. The suggested models may be verified using cross validation or by using new data.

Finally, we note that it would be preferable to have accurate data to applying our methods to imperfect data. Therefore we established both a general and a specific flowchart to collect the data in the future. Encouraging the implementation of the recommended procedures might serve to obtain the data needed to develop a more comprehensive understanding of breast cancer in Kurdistan.


Human induced biodiversity loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction levels. The field of biodiversity economics analyses the socio-economic causes of and solutions to biodiversity loss by combining the disciplines of economics, ecology and biology. This field has shown a remarkable degree of transformation over the past four decades and now incorporates the analysis of the entire diversity of biological resources within the living world. Biodiversity Economics presents a series of papers that show how bio-economic analysis can be applied to the examination and evaluation of the problem of various forms of biodiversity loss. Containing state-of-the-art bio-economic research by some of the leading practitioners in the field, this volume will be an essential research tool to those working on biodiversity issues in the academic, policy and private sectors.


The paper proposes a new approach based on Joint Entropy Maximisation (JEM) using a soft decision feedback equalizer (S-DE) to suppress error propagation. In its first section, the paper presents the principle of the solution and the theoretical framework based on entropy maximisation, which allows introducing the soft decision device without assuming that the channel distortion is Gaussian. Because JE is a nonlinear function, a gradient descent algorithm is used for maximising. Then an equivalence of JEM and ISIC (Inter-Symbol Interference Cancellation) is proved in order to establish that an equalised single carrier system using coded modulation (8phase shift keying associated with a convolution code) offers similar performances when compared with multicarrier modulation. In the second section the paper develop an adequate receiver model for joint convolution coding and S-DFE. The error correction decoder uses a standard Viterbi algorithm. The DFE consists of a feedforward finite impulse response (FIR) filter (FFF) and a feedback filter (FBF) implemented as a transversal FIR filter. FFF eliminates the precursor ISI, while FBF minimise the effect of residual ISI using soft decisions by the joint coding and equalisation process. The third main section of the paper describes the proposed method for estimating optimum soft feedback using a maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) algorithm. Then, performances of the soft decision device in a simulated environment are analysed on a structure with 8 taps for FFF and 5 taps for FBF. Since the purpose of the evaluation was to compare the proposed S-DFE with a former HEFE, the coded packet error rate was estimated in a two-path and in a sixpath channel. We have shown that in some case the proposed algorithm offers better convergence rate and robustness when compared with the corresponding existing algorithm. Some conclusions on the extension of the S-DFE techniques in vary applications are finally presented.


In 1998, in the context of "unanticipated" international financial turmoil, and concerned about the negative impact on the region's countries, the Board of Governors authorized the Board of Executive Directors to waive certain limitations on the lending program to permit the Bank to approve fast-disbursing lending on emergency terms for a period of one year. The Bank eventually approved nine emergency loans distributed among six countries for a total dollar value of US7.6 billion dollars. OVE has prepared this report (RE-251) to present the evidence on achievements with these emergency loans to date. Because of the short time frame, no direct field research has been possible, creating primary reliance on existing Bank data sources, principally project performance monitoring reports, tranche release reports and, where available, project completion reports (PCRs).


This paper is a theoretical study of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in the presence of an endogenous role of bank capital. The basic framework is a standard Dynamic New Keynesian model with price stickiness modified so as firms as well as banks face endogenous financial frictions in obtaining external funds from their respective debtors. This implies that an external financial premium exists, thereby motivating the endogenous role of entrepreneurial net worth and bank capital in the model. In the terminology of Van den Heuvel (2001), the model exhibits the unconventional 'bank capital ' channel of monetary policy. The simulation result highlights a financial accelerator effect in that endogenous evolution of bank capital, together with that of entrepreneurial net worth, operate to amplify and propagate the effect of a monetary shock in the macroeconomy.


The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project's costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.


The charge-density-wave (CDW) linear-chain metal NbSe/sub 3/ shows :e striking non-Ohmic behavior when the applied electric field exceeds approx. 0.1 V/cm. Hall effect, transverse magnetoresistance, conductivity anisotropy, and Shubnikov--de Haas measurements using sufficiently low current densities to avoid Ohmic breakdown have been published. We propose a simple two-band model to account for the temperature dependence of these quantities as well as the (magnetic) field dependence of the Hall constant in the Ohmic regime below 58 K. The model has six unknowns (carrier concentrations and mobilities) that are fixed by six experimental numbers at each temperature T. The solution shows that all the mobilities obey a power-law behavior versus T, whereas the carrier concentrations are both T independent up to 40 K. Above 40 K the hole population rises sharply, analogous to the theoretical predictions for an excitonic insulator. This implies that the CDW gap occurs on the hole surface. Using the parameters of the model, we have recomputed the resistivities, Hall constant, and magnetoresistance, and they have been shown to agree with all the available experimental data. Thus the conventional single-particle picture with the additional hypothesis of a BCS-type gap on the hole surface is adequate for understanding the transportmore » properties of NbSe/sub 3/ in the zero-frequency-Ohmic regime. We also interpret the SdH data in terms of the two-band model.« less


The K65R mutation in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) is associated with viral cross-resistance to 2′,3′-dideoxyinosine, 2′,3′-dideoxycytidine, and 2′,3′-dideoxy-3′-thiacytidine. We have found that in vitro DNA synthesis by K65R RT is significantly more processive than that of wild type (wt) RT. Depending on the template/primer (T/P) used, the total incorporation of nucleotides under single processive cycle conditions was 20-50% higher with K65R RT than with wt RT. With heteropolymeric T/P, the total incorporation of dNMP by K65R and wt RT was similar under continuous DNA synthesis reaction conditions. However, under single processive cycle conditions, the rate of full-length polymerization product synthesis by K65R RT was about 2-fold higher than that by wt RT. We also found a decreased rate of T/P dissociation during K65R RT DNA synthesis, which is consistent with the increased processivity of the enzyme. We postulate that the increased processivity of the K65R RT may be a compensatory response to the decreased affinity of this mutant for certain dNTP substrates, allowing normal viral replication kinetics.


The educatiuonal achievements of British Muslims, particularly South Asians, have been studied in past decades, but, unfortunately, the impact of digital technologies on young Muslim children has not recieved sufficient attention. In addition, past studies mostly relied on quantitative methods to gain knowledge on the educational achievements of British Muslims.

The thesis is grounded in a qualitative approach within a social constructionist paradigm, to elicit the views of young British Muslim girls on their use of digital technologies for educational achievements. The data presented were obtained by carrying out semi-structured interviews with a sample of young (14-19 year old) British Muslim girls at three single-sex Islamic faith schools, and were analysed using mainly template analysis, and also matrix analysis and cross-case analysis within and cross the case studies.

It was found that most of the female Muslim students interviewed for this research study were satisfied and performed competently at case Islamic faith schools. Furthermore, the educational success at school A was attributable to educational norms and values relative to the provision of digital resources and skilled teaching staff. The educational experiences of school B and C were problematic, largely because of access to digital technologies, and provision of digital content and skilled teaching staff. Another factor of students' underachievement was found to be that parents had limited levels of education and inadequate understanding of the education. Most of the students had a positive attitude towards the technologies.

The thesis concludes that the educational achievement of British Muslim girls in schools is closely related to access to digital technologies, digital academic content, skilled academic staff and the technological, infrastructure in schools. The net effect of digital technologies is positive on Muslim girls in the increasingly competitive nature of the education system.

The thesis is original and the first study of this kind that offers an insight into the access to digital technologies and educational attainment of young British Muslin girls that is reflected in key concepts through the usage and incorporation of technologies in education. Other aspects of this research include the issues of provision of technologies at home and parents' educational level, contribution to knowledge, and the need for further broader and longitudinal study.


Utilizing John Paul II's numerous statements addressed to Polish and international academic circles, this paper attempts to reconstruct the Pope's views on the foundations of the university which he perceived to be a "cultural masterpiece". The paper refers to the Pope's opinion that academics need to face three elementary tasks: research, transmission of knowledge, and – last but not least – the formation of the younger generation's character. It emphasizes that the Polish Pope considered the development of basic sciences very important and warned against the dominance of applied sciences. The Pope demanded that the humanities be returned to their proper position and reminded Polish scholars that they are obliged to teach "wise patriotism". The final part of the paper attempts to address the efficacy of the Pope's teachings. It concludes that, in the second part of the 90's, the Pope initiated a broad process of healing Polish academic life, a process that continues today.


Many desktop applications have moved away from heavy client-side programs tolighter web-based solutions served from the cloud. Mobile applications have also beentraditionally client-based in the form of native applications. With the use of HTML5,however, there is a growing shift towards web apps as opposed to native. HTML5technologies are enabling mobile apps to run in the browser with some native appfunctionality. HTML5 has received a great deal of attention since its release in 2009,there are numerous articles and discussions on the Internet. Some developers are verynegative and some are very positive towards the idea that it is a serious contender inmobile application development. This report presents research carried out to get theviews of developers as to their current use of HTML5 and how much they expect tobe developing mobile apps using HTML5 in the future. Judging by the level ofresponse gained and comments given, this is a very hot topic right now. The researchshows that HTML5 is a viable alternative to native app development but it has somelimitations and has some way to go before it could begin to replace native appdevelopment altogether.


Using 45 rain gauges, located in the center of French-speaking Switzerland (approx. 1,600 sq. km), we evaluate an annual mean precipitation map for the years 1974, 1975 and 1976. This estimate is based mainly on the anomaly method. For the index elevation, we selected an average altitude over an area of optimized size. This was evaluated from the best linear regression between index elevation of different areas and the precipitations. An anomaly map was estimated using universal kriging: the structural analysis of the anomaly values permitted the adjustment of a variogram which made it possible to evaluate the spatial dependence of the anomaly variable. In order to obtain the precipitation map, not only was an anomaly map used but also a smoothed altitude map. This was calculated with the aid of an altimetric data bank covering the west part of Switzerland


One of the provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that affects retirees is the waiver of required minimum distributions (RMDs) for 2020. The waiver, which applies to all 401(k) and individual retirement account (IRA) owners, provides flexibility so that retirees can avoid liquidating assets at low prices and preserve their assets. In this Issue Brief, we explore historical IRA withdrawal patterns of older Americans, including those taking only RMDs and those taking distributions that exceed the RMD level. We look at prior crises, such as the Great Recession of 2008–2009, to see how withdrawal patterns were affected by both financial hardships and RMD waivers during that time. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) examines the IRA withdrawal behavior of older Americans in the 50–70 and 71-and-older age groups, before and after the age of RMDs, from 2002–2016, biennially. We find that: • Both the share of households reporting IRA withdrawals and the average percentage of their account balances withdrawn went up between 2008 and 2010 for IRA owners ages 50–70, suggesting that during market downturns, households are more likely to withdraw too much, too fast from their IRAs. • For households ages 71 and older who were subject to RMDs, the 2008 market downturn did not appear to have increased the share withdrawing from their IRAs. However, it did result in increased average withdrawals relative to account balances for those taking withdrawals in excess of the RMD. The 2009 RMD waiver had a modest impact in lowering the share of households who made RMD-only withdrawals. • IRA withdrawals of households ages 50–70 and those ages 71 and older who withdrew more than the RMD were associated with a decline in the households' other financial assets. • On average, households ages 71 and older who withdrew only RMDs increased their other financial savings and non-housing wealth. • Both the share of households taking withdrawals that exceeded RMDs and the average percentage of the IRA balance withdrawn increased as income decreased.


Introduction Inherent and acquired cisplatin resistance reduces the effectiveness of this agent in the management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying this process may result in the development of novel agents to enhance the sensitivity of cisplatin. Methods An isogenic model of cisplatin resistance was generated in a panel of NSCLC cell lines (A549, SKMES-1, MOR, H460). Over a period of twelve months, cisplatin resistant (CisR) cell lines were derived from original, age-matched parent cells (PT) and subsequently characterized. Proliferation (MTT) and clonogenic survival assays (crystal violet) were carried out between PT and CisR cells. Cellular response to cisplatin-induced apoptosis and cell cycle distribution were examined by FACS analysis. A panel of cancer stem cell and pluripotent markers was examined in addition to the EMT proteins, c-Met and β-catenin. Cisplatin-DNA adduct formation, DNA damage (γH2AX) and cellular platinum uptake (ICP-MS) was also assessed. Results Characterisation studies demonstrated a decreased proliferative capacity of lung tumour cells in response to cisplatin, increased resistance to cisplatin-induced cell death, accumulation of resistant cells in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle and enhanced clonogenic survival ability. Moreover, resistant cells displayed a putative stem-like signature with increased expression of CD133+/CD44+cells and increased ALDH activity relative to their corresponding parental cells. The stem cell markers, Nanog, Oct-4 and SOX-2, were significantly upregulated as were the EMT markers, c-Met and β-catenin. While resistant sublines demonstrated decreased uptake of cisplatin in response to treatment, reduced cisplatin-GpG DNA adduct formation and significantly decreased γH2AX foci were observed compared to parental cell lines. Conclusion Our results identified cisplatin resistant subpopulations of NSCLC cells with a putative stem-like signature, providing a further understanding of the cellular events associated with the cisplatin resistance phenotype in lung cancer.


T he genetic information encoded in either genomic DNA or transcribed mRNAs has become an enticing target for chemical modifications and potential therapeutic indications. Specifically, the search for methods that selectively prevent expression of unwanted genes has been actively pursued for more than a decade. Theoretically, it is possible to exploit the selective Watson-Crick hydrogen bond formation between complementary nucleic acid strands to control gene expression either by preventing transcription of genomic DNA (an antigene strategy) or by interfering with the translation of mRNAs (an antisense strategy) to gene products. With the advent of rapid and efficient methods for automated synthesis of oligonucleotides, it has indeed been possible to prepare modified oligonucleotides complementary to specific nucleotide sequences of mRNA targets. As a consequence of binding, and on the basis of particular cellular mechanisms, these oligonucleotides can disrupt the flow of genetic information from transcribed mRNAs to proteins. Thus, gene expression can be controlled at the mRNA level by modified oligonucleotides, and this antisense strategy has led, over the years, to the development of therapeutic oligonucleotides against cancer and various infectious diseases in humans. In this context, UNIT 4.1 reports recent advances in the application of oligonucleotides as drug candidates, describes the relationship between oligonucleotide modifications and their therapeutic profiles, and provides general guidelines for enhancing oligonucleotide drug properties.


Growing concern over water contamination from agricultural activities has prompted an expanded effort by states to design policies and programs to monitor and mitigate the contamination problem. Data limitations have forced states to focus first-round policy initiatives on data collection and monitoring efforts, as well as on funding research centers and research projects. Data bases and information systems pertaining to agriculture and water quality were surveyed for five states--Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wisconsin. For these five states, a total of over fifty state agencies, state offices of federal agencies, and research centers were visited. The states are compared in terms of their agricultural activities, hydrogeologic environments, water use, evidence of water contamination, legislation, state agencies, water quality monitoring systems, data bases, and research projects. The comparison provides a framework for discussion of issues related to collection, analysis, and archiving of environmental data.