Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in men refer to any combination of urinary symptoms. Many men experience lower urinary tract symptoms and the prevalence of these symptoms increases with age. Men with LUTS often experience urinary incontinence or overactive bladder symptoms. LUTS in men have significant detrimental effects on health-related quality of life, although symptoms are rarely health- or life-threatening. This article reviews the overlap of symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia and overactive in bladder in men and discusses
the currently recommended therapeutic options.


On May 6, 2010, in the span of a mere four and half minutes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost approximately 1,000 points. In the following fifteen minutes it recovered essentially all of its losses. This "Flash Crash" occurred in the absence of fundamental news that could explain the observed price pattern and is generally viewed as the result of endogenous factors related to the complexity of modern equity market trading. We present the first analysis of the entire order book at millisecond granularity, and not just of executed transactions, in an effort to explore the causes of the Flash Crash. We also examine information flows as reflected in a variety of data feeds provided to market participants during the Flash Crash. While assertions relating to causation of the Flash Crash must be accompanied by significant disclaimers, we suggest that it is highly unlikely that, as alleged by the United States Government, Navinder Sarao's spoofing orders, even if illegal, could have caused the Flash Crash, or that the crash was a foreseeable consequence of his spoofing activity. Instead, we find that the explanation offered by the joint CFTC-SEC Staff Report, which relies on prevailing market conditions combined with the introduction of a large equity sell order implemented in a particularly dislocating manner, is consistent with the data. We offer a simulation model that formalizes the process by which large sell orders of the sort observed in the CFTC-SEC Staff Report, combined with prevailing market conditions, could generate a Flash Crash in the absence of fundamental information. Our research also documents the emergence of heretofore unobserved anomalies in market data feeds that correlate very closely with the initiation of and recovery from the Flash Crash. Our analysis of these data feed anomalies is ongoing as we attempt to discern whether they were a symptom of the rapid trading that accompanied the Flash Crash or whether they were causal in the sense that they rationally contributed to traders' decisions to withdraw liquidity and then restore it after the anomalies were resolved.


Purpose The purpose of the study is to explore the reading interest of people that they like the paper print format or electronic format to consider their ease. Research Method – The study uses the focus group technique. Sample Size There were six participants. Findings – Mostly people used to read books in physical format rather than electronic format because of less stress on the eyes. Reading is much faster on paper print format as compared to E-format. Most participants agreed that note-taking in electronic format reading has a short lifespan, people can bits and chunks on paper print easily. E-books are more cost effective than paper print format. The E format can be shared within very short time but physically it is not as possible.


The book deals with both lawful movement and abduction of children into and out of the UK, including full coverage of the criminal law. It contains information and case-law from important overseas jurisdictions to enable practitioners to advise parents of abducted children on the likely responses of foreign courts. Also included are relevant source materials and precedents as well as full details of central authorities and other relevant agencies both in the UK and abroad.


According to standard human capital theory, firm-financed training cannot be explained if the skills obtained are general in nature. Nevertheless, in German-speaking countries, firms invest heavily in apprenticeship training although the skills are assumed to be general. In our paper, we study the extent to which apprenticeship training is general at all and how specificity of training may be defined based on Lazear's skill-weights approach. We build occupation-specific skill-weights and find that the more specific the skill portfolio in an occupation, the higher the net costs firms have to bear for these apprenticeship training occupations and, at the same time, the smaller the probability of an occupational change during an employee's entire career. Due to the new definition of occupational specificity, we thus find that apprenticeship training – previously assessed as general training – is very heterogeneous in its specificity.


Were America's Founders Christians or deists? Conservatives and secularists have taken each position respectively, mustering evidence to insist just how tall the wall separating church and state should be. Now Gregg Frazer puts their arguments to rest in the first comprehensive analysis of the Founders' beliefs as they themselves expressed them--showing that today's political right and left are both wrong. Going beyond church attendance or public pronouncements made for political ends, Frazer scrutinizes the Founders' candid declarations regarding religion found in their private writings. Distilling decades of research, he contends that these men were neither Christian nor deist but rather adherents of a system he labels "theistic rationalism," a hybrid belief system that combined elements of natural religion, Protestantism, and reason--with reason the decisive element. Frazer explains how this theological middle ground developed, what its core beliefs were, and how they were reflected in the thought of eight Founders: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. He argues convincingly that Congregationalist Adams is the clearest example of theistic rationalism; that presumed deists Jefferson and Franklin are less secular than supposed; and that even the famously taciturn Washington adheres to this theology. He also shows that the Founders held genuinely religious beliefs that aligned with morality, republican government, natural rights, science, and progress. Frazer's careful explication helps readers better understand the case for revolutionary recruitment, the religious references in the Declaration of Independence, and the religious elements--and lack thereof--in the Constitution. He also reveals how influential clergymen, backing their theology of theistic rationalism with reinterpreted Scripture, preached and published liberal democratic theory to justify rebellion. Deftly blending history, religion, and political thought, Frazer succeeds in showing that the American experiment was neither a wholly secular venture nor an attempt to create a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. By showcasing the actual approach taken by these key Founders, he suggests a viable solution to the twenty-first-century standoff over the relationship between church and state--and challenges partisans on both sides to articulate their visions for America on their own merits without holding the Founders hostage to positions they never held. This book is part of the American Political Thought series .


The examination of the ancient Egyptian-Coptic color terms, their grammatical identification, their range of usage, and their etymologies permit the following conclusions: There are four BCTs, all verbs, 'black,' 'white,' 'red' and 'green,' as traditionally translated. The focus of 'red' is in the red range and not in the middle of the red-with-yellow range. The focus of 'green' lies in the green range and not in the middle of the green-with-blue range nor in the pale green range. In the final, Coptic, stage, the partition of the red range into 'deep red' and 'light-red' must be assumed. The traditional written language allowed additional place for further verbal color terms, but these never entered the colloquial language as BCTs. Among these alternatives, the use of 'lapis lazuli-colored, blue' is strikingly common; that of 'charcoal-like, black' and 'golden' is less common. Egyptian did not develop a BCT for either blue or yellow. Basically Egyptian-Coptic remained at B&K Stage IIIa.


We take a multi-faceted approach to study the relativistic cosmic ray (CR) proton population in galaxy clusters. CR protons may be accelerated by structure formation shock waves, injected from radio galaxies into the intra-cluster medium, or result from supernova driven galactic winds. This
thesis addresses the following questions: do CR protons exist in galaxy clusters? What is the dynamic and cosmological impact of CRs? How can we observe them? How can we describe CRs and their interactions? The first major
part of this thesis investigates the question of the dynamic influence of CRs on the intra-cluster medium and searches for unbiased tracers of their existence using multi-frequency observational results. To this end, I develop an analytical framework to describe the hadronic interactions of CR protons with the ambient thermal plasma. In the second part, a description of CR gas for cosmological applications is presented that is especially suited for
hydrodynamical simulations. During the course of this work, I focus on developing a formalism for instantaneously identifying and estimating the strength of structure formation shocks during cosmological simulations to
accelerate CRs through diffusive shock acceleration.

Since the energetically dominant CR population is trapped by cluster magnetic fields, it can only be observed indirectly through non-thermal radiative
processes. CR protons interact hadronically with the ambient plasma and produce mainly neutral and charged pions that successively decay into gamma-rays, secondary electrons, and neutrinos. I develop an analytic formalism which
describes the induced radio synchrotron, inverse Compton, and gamma-ray emission. Comparing the expected gamma-ray flux to the upper limits obtained by the gamma-ray observatory EGRET, I am able to constrain the CR proton energy density in nearby cooling core clusters to < 20% relative to the thermal energy density. In this context, I study the hypothesis that the diffuse radio synchrotron emission of galaxy clusters is produced by hadronically originating relativistic electrons and I develop a non-parametric criterion to obtain the minimum energy state for an observed radio synchrotron emission: the excellent
agreement between the observed and theoretically expected radio surface brightness profile of the Perseus mini-halo and the small amount of energy density in CR protons needed to account for the observed radio emission makes this hadronic model an attractive explanation of radio mini-halos found in cooling core clusters. To explain the giant radio halo of Coma within the hadronic model of secondary electrons, the CR proton-to-thermal energy density profile has to increase radially up to moderate CR energy densities.
Cosmological simulations that self-consistently follow CR acceleration at shock waves predict such an energy density profile: strong shock waves, that occur predominantly in low density regions, are able to efficiently accelerate
high-energetic CRs, whereas weak central flow shocks inject only a low-energetic CR population which is strongly diminished by Coulomb interactions. This implies that the dynamic importance of the shock-injected CR energy density is largest in the low-density halo infall regions, but is
less important for the weaker shocks occurring in central high-density cluster regions.

As an extension of this work, I propose a new method in order to elucidate the content of the radio plasma bubbles located at cool cores of galaxy clusters. Using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and the Green Bank Telescope should be able to infer the dynamically dominant CR component of the plasma bubbles in suitable galaxy clusters within short observation times. Future high-sensitivity multi-frequency SZ observations
will be able to infer the energy spectrum of the dynamically dominant electron population. This knowledge can yield indirect indications for an underlying composition of relativistic outflows of radio galaxies because plasma bubbles represent the relic fluid of jets.

In the second major part of my thesis, I address the problem of constructing an accurate and self-consistent model for the description of CRs that aims at studying the dynamic influence of CRs on structure formation and galaxy
evolution. This will not only allow the production of realistic non-thermal emission signatures of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, but also allow in-vivo studies of dynamic effects driven by relativistic particles and the
star formation history. The developed model self-consistently traces relativistic protons originating from various kinds of sources, such as structure formation shock waves and supernovae driven galactic winds, and also
accounts for dissipative processes in the relativistic gas component. To this end, I develop a formalism for the identification and accurate estimation of the strength of structure formation shocks during cosmological smoothed
particle hydrodynamics simulations. Shocks not only play a decisive role for the thermalization of gas in virializing structures but also for the acceleration of CRs through diffusive shock acceleration. The formalism is
applicable both to ordinary non-relativistic thermal gas and to plasmas composed of CRs and thermal gas. I apply these methods to studying the properties of structure formation shocks in high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of the LambdaCDM model and find that most of the energy is
dissipated in weak internal shocks which are predominantly central flow shocks or merger shock waves traversing halo centers. Collapsed cosmological structures are surrounded by external shocks with a much higher Mach number, but they play only a minor role in the energy balance of thermalization. I show that after the epoch of cosmic reionization, the Mach number distribution is significantly modified by an efficient suppression of strong external shock waves due to the associated increase of the sound speed of the diffuse gas.


MAGIC (the Model of Acidification of Groundwater In Catchments) has been widely applied on catchments all over the world. The model has been used with annual time resolution to simulate the long-term effects of acidic deposition on surface water chemistry. Here MAGIC was applied using a monthly time step. The purpose was to simulate observed seasonal nitrate (N0 3 ) concentrations and fluxes at an upland heathland catchment in southwestern Norway during the period 1993-2004. The rates of the key ecosystem nitrogen (N) processes (mineralization, plant uptake, litterfall and immobilization) were assumed to be governed by temperature. A snow accumulation and melt routine was used. The rates were calibrated to obtain the best match between the observed and simulated N0 3 patterns. The best fit was obtained with standard yearly cycles for deposition and N parameters. The results show that MAGIC can explain 68 and 88% of the variation in seasonal N0 3 concentrations and fluxes, respectively. The calibrated model provides a tool for exploring the effects of future scenarios of climate change and N deposition on N0 3 in streamwater.


Jade is one of the most misunderstood gemstones. It is actzlally two separate materials: jadeite and nephrite. Together, these materials have more simulants than most other gems. Thus, i t is important to know the various simulants, and to understand how to separate them from jade. This article examines the key identifying properties of green jade (jadeite and nephrite) and contrasts them with the properties of the 10 most common green jnde simulants. Simple visual techniques are emphasized as well as the appropriate gemological tests.


The purpose of this study was to model expert judgment in test and instrument development using the manyfaceted Rasch model. A 150-item value orientation inventory-2 (VOI-2) assessing the value of physical education curriculum goals was developed and evaluated by 128 university educators and 103 school-based physical educators. The experts were asked to rate the consistency of each item to represent one part of the broad curriculum goals using a 5-point rating scale. The many-faceted Rasch model was used to calibrate the rating scores, and 6 facets—gender, ethnicity, employment type, rater, content area, and item—were defined. Severity and consistency of the experts' judgments were examined and corrected before being applied to item evaluation. Further, the impact of group membership on expert judgment was examined. Items were then evaluated based on their logit scores and the consistency of their performance. Results suggest that most VOI-2 items were content domain representative and the raters were truly experts. The many-faceted Rasch model demonstrates a psychometrically appropriate technique for applying expert judgment in test development.


The last decade has seen unprecedented advances in network and distributed-system technologies, which have opened up the way for the construction of global-scale systems based on completely new conceptions of computation and sharing of resources. The dream of integrating unlimited levels of processing power, unlimited amounts of information, and an unlimited variety of services, and offering the entire package in a reliable and seamless fashion to widely distributed users is quickly becoming reality. Scientific applications will be among the first to take advantage of such environments, as the demands of current and future experimental studies for intensive computation and processing of very large amounts of information are pressing. GRID technologies are at the forefront of these developments. While much has been written about computation in the GRID environment, data management has received less attention in the literature. Nevertheless, the GRID offers tremendous opportunities for large-scale distributed data management and at the same time poses major technical challenges in the area as well. The goal of this panel discussion is to identify these opportunities and challenges and examine whether the positive aspects of the GRID outweigh the negative ones or vice versa. In this direction, the panelists are called to answer some of the following questions: Is there new research to be done on data management over the GRID? Are there any new problems that arise from managing data over the GRID? For example, are there new problems with respect to security or heterogeneous information integration? Do classical problems require new solutions or do conventional approaches work well in the GRID environment? For example, how does one address issues of concurrency control, recovery, query processing and optimization? How does the GRID compare with other architectures, e.g., peer-to-peer, with respect to data management? Is the existing distributed computing infrastructure developed for the GRID, e.g., Condor, Globus, or Unicore, adequate for supporting the required data management functionality? Are there any particular difficulties when dealing with management of scientific data over the GRID compared to other kinds of data? How does workflow management interact with data management over the GRID?.


Presented at the 14th 14th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance ECMLG 2018:

From the article:

"Abstract: Scientific literature and practices emphasize that organizations have to align their business strategies with their IT strategy. Strategic alignment of business with IT in organizations is not only a prerequisite for organizations to be successful or competitive but also positively influences IT effectiveness and leads to greater profitability. At the same time
organizations have been struggling for a long time with the concept of strategic alignment. In this paper an enhanced concept of strategic alignment is given in such a way that organizations can practically use to align their business and IT.
Based on scientific research in this study the existing concept of strategic alignment model, i.e. the relationship between business and IT, was enhanced by placing the discipline of information management between business and IT and thus making information management responsible for the alignment or linking of business with IT. This conceptually enhanced
concept of strategic alignment was practically enhanced even further with the use of the Business information Service Library (BiSL) framework. This framework links business with IT on the strategically, managing and operational level of an organization. The BiSL process framework thus provides an description of the information management processes on the
different levels of an organization that have to be implemented and carried out to achieve strategic alignment within an organization. With the support of three experts in the field of information management and BiSL, an enhanced Strategic Alignment Model was constructed. To validate this model 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted in eleven
organizations. The results of these interviews show not only a strong and solid support for adding information management to the existing concept of strategic alignment but also indicate a strong and solid support for the use of the BiSL framework for implementing information management. These findings support the notion that the BiSL enhanced
Strategic Alignment Model not only provides a conceptually enhanced strategic alignment model but also provides organizations with a concept of strategic alignment that organization can practically use to align their business with IT."


We use a spatially explicit biogeochemical end-to-end ecosystem model, Atlantis, to simulate impacts from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequent recovery of fish guilds. Dose-response relationships with expected oil concentrations were utilized to estimate the impact on fish growth and mortality rates. We also examine the effects of fisheries closures and impacts on recruitment. We validate predictions of the model by comparing population trends and age structure before and after the oil spill with fisheries independent data. The model suggests that recruitment effects and fishery closures had little influence on biomass dynamics. However, at the assumed level of oil concentrations and toxicity, impacts on fish mortality and growth rates were large and commensurate with observations. Sensitivity analysis suggests the biomass of large reef fish decreased by 25% to 50% in areas most affected by the spill, and biomass of large demersal fish decreased even more, by 40% to 70%. Impacts on reef and demersal forage caused starvation mortality in predators and increased reliance on pelagic forage. Impacts on the food web translated effects of the spill far away from the oiled area. Effects on age structure suggest possible delayed impacts on fishery yields. Recovery of high-turnover populations generally is predicted to occur within 10 years, but some slower-growing populations may take 30+ years to fully recover.


Antimicrobial usage in animals contributes to the emergence of antimicrobial resistant bacterial strains. Investigations were carried out on how the characteristics, knowledge, attitude and practices of antimicrobial marketers influenced antimicrobials usage in animal production in Oyo and Kaduna States, Nigeria. Focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and structured questionnaires were used to gather information about the characteristics and activities of antimicrobial marketers. Overall, 70 (56.9 %) of 123 marketers had post-secondary education while 76 (61.8 %) were trained on the use of antimicrobials. Eighteen (14.6 %) of the marketers were licensed veterinarians. Only 51 (41.5 %) marketers displayed adequate knowledge about antimicrobials and antimicrobial usage. Sixty-seven (54.6 %) marketers requested a prescription before selling antimicrobials while 113 (91.9 %) marketer recommended antimicrobials for use in animals. Two-third of the marketers (66.7 %) prescribed antimicrobials without physically examining sick animals but based their prescriptions on verbal reports of clinical signs by farmers and on their personal experience. Marketers with higher educational qualification displayed more adequate knowledge of antimicrobials and antimicrobial usage than those with basic education background only. More years of experience in antimicrobial marketing did not translate to better knowledge on antimicrobial usage. Only 45 (36.6 %) respondents were aware of the existence of regulatory agencies monitoring the use of antimicrobials in animals. Farmers ignored the services of veterinarians in the diagnosis and control of animal diseases but resorted to drug marketers for help. Effective communication of existing legislations on antimicrobial usage, improved access to veterinary services and strict enforcement of regulatory policies are recommended for checking non-judicious use of antimicrobial agents in animal production. Sales of antimicrobial agents for animal use without veterinarian's prescription must be prohibited.


In the chapter the authors revisit one of the original topics in business angel research: to measure the scope of the business angel market and evaluate its impact on the economy, especially the financial contributions of business angels at the macro (market) level. This is an issue that has considerable policy relevance. Most policy initiatives to support business angel activities have been introduced without any strong empirical justification nor evidence to inform on the appropriateness of different types of policy measures. In this chapter, the authors summarize our knowledge about the size of the business angel market in different countries. The authors then turn their attention from the size of the market to its 'significance'; in other words, shifting from a concern with measuring the size of the market to a concern with the relative importance of business angels for funding new and growing ventures in the economy. The authors propose two sets of indicators to evaluate the significance of the business angel market – one that focuses on the supply perspective, that is, the relative importance of business angel finance compared to other sources, and the other that focuses on the demand perspective, that is, the extent to which business angel finance is available in relation to the demand for capital in the small and medium-sized entrepreneur sector.


Sheila Hicks (born 1934) is a pioneering artist noted for objects and public commissions whose structures are built of color and fiber. This volume accompanies the first major retrospective of Hicks's work; it documents the remarkable versatility and dramatically divergent scale of her textiles as well as her distinctive use, and surprising range, of materials. Hicks deliberately and provocatively engages what are often considered mutually exclusive domains, rethinking and pushing the limits of generally accepted contexts, conditions, and frameworks. These include distinct objects and temporal, performative actions; studio works and commissions for public buildings; and textiles made in artisanal workshops as well as for industrial production in places as different as Chile, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Sweden, and the United States. Three essays analyze the progression of Hicks's art and technique and her many modes of working. Among other topics, they examine the artist's relationship to the "expanded fields" of the "new sculpture" and the "new tapestry" beginning in the 1960s, the reclamation of craft as subject and technique for artists in many media, the integrated influences of international cultures, and the aesthetic, pedagogical, conceptual, and historical framework from which Hicks's work has developed. This publication reveals the full extent of Hicks's work, from exquisite miniature weavings to major sculptural pieces to such large-scale commissions as The Four Seasons of Fuji. Exquisitely designed and lavishly illustrated, this book demonstrates that Hicks's pioneering work with textiles has embraced yet reinvented tradition, successfully navigating the terrain between art, design, and architecture.


[1] The substorm mechanism is investigated by analyzing the numerical results obtained through the use of the recently refined magnetohydrodynamic model. After showing the growth phase features, the numerical solution reproduces the observed signatures of a substorm onset, including the formation of a near-Earth neutral line (NENL), earthward directed flow in the plasma sheet, a dipolarization, a geosynchronous D deflection, the development of the nightside field aligned currents (FACs), and electrojets in the ionosphere. The onset is triggered by a sudden collapse of the plasma sheet and a successive formation of a high-pressure region in the inner magnetosphere. The energy source of this high-pressure region is the magnetic tension released from the NENL. The tail disturbance is primary transmitted to the ionosphere by the region 2 FAC accompanying the high-pressure region formed in the inner magnetosphere. The associated nightside region 1 FAC is not connected to the traditional current wedge but to the cusp region. The region 1 FAC path to the ionosphere develops from dayside to nightside, so as to construct a grand loop with the region 2 FAC from the partial ring current. In the grand loop, the region 1 FAC provides a short circuit in the ionosphere for the region 2 FAC. In the expansion phase, convection enhances to relax the distorted pressure distribution formed at the onset, accompanied by a further development of dipolarization and a thickening of the plasma sheet in the magnetosphere and increases in the westward and eastward electrojets in the ionosphere. The present model can explain the explosive growth phase and the thinning of the midtail plasma sheet just after the onset.


It is well known that macronutrient intake and exercise influence cancer risk (1). They also have important metabolic effects because they determine energy balance at the whole organism level. There is accumulating evidence that the association between obesity and cancer risk may be attributable to the endocrine-metabolic consequences of chronic positive energy balance. Examples of candidate mediators of the effect of excess energy intake on risk of cancer are increased insulin levels and decreased adiponectin levels (2,3). Mechanistically, by increasing PI3K pathway activation (due to hyperinsulinemia) or decreasing AMPK activation (due to decreased adiponectin (4)) in various renewing epithelial cell populations at risk for transformation, these hormonal changes favor cell survival and proliferation over apoptosis. This increases the probability of survival of a clone bearing an oncogenic mutation, which in turn increases risk of subsequent 'hits' leading to full transformation. Recent population studies demonstrating these associations will be reviewed. Importantly, the effect of energy balance on cancer risk varies substantially with cancer type: for example, obesity is strongly associated with endometrial but not lung cancer, consistent with the view that optimizing metabolic risk factors may be insufficient to reduce cancer incidence in settings where carcinogen exposure is high. Furthermore, unexpected interactions between metabolic risk factors and prevention strategies have been observed: the prostate cancer prevention trial, for example, demonstrated that insulin secretion rate as reflected by c-peptide level is an important risk factor for high grade disease, but that this c-peptide-associated risk is specifically attenuated by finasteride (5). While there is considerable evidence that the hormonal consequences of positive energy balance lead to increased risk for many cancers, the possibility that high circulating levels of specific nutrient molecules may predispose to carcinogenesis or neoplastic progression is now receiving attention, and there is early evidence that branched chain amino acids (BCAA) may be important in this regard (6,7). BCAAs favor activation of mTOR, which increases proliferation as well as rate of oxidative phosphorylation (8), which in turn may increase oxidative DNA damage. Future laboratory and clinical research may identify key serum hormonal and metabolic analytes that are altered by effective prevention measures (and may even be the mediators of their effects), and these may serve as useful surrogate endpoints in clinical trials of proposed pharmacologic cancer prevention strategies, including metformin (9), as well as lifestyle and nutritional interventions. (1) Pollak M. Do cancer cells care if their host is hungry? Cell Metab. 2009 9(5):401-3 (2) Bao Y et al. A prospective study of plasma adiponectin and pancreatic cancer risk in five US cohorts. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013;105(2):95-103 (3) Pollak M. The insulin and insulin-like growth factor receptor family in neoplasia: an update. Nat Rev Cancer. 2012;12(3):159-69 (4) Zakikhani M et al. The effects of adiponectin and metformin on prostate and colon neoplasia involve activation of AMP-activated protein kinase. Cancer Prev Res. 2008 1(5):369-75 (5) Neuhouser ML et al. Finasteride modifies the relation between serum C-peptide and prostate cancer risk: results from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial. Cancer Prev. Res. 2010 3(3):279-89 (6) Mayer J et al. Elevated BCAA are an early event in pancreatic carcinoma development. Nature Med., in press (7) Liu KA et al. Leucine supplementation differentially enhances pancreatic cancer growth in lean and overweight mice. Cancer Metab. 2014 31;2(1):6. (8) Morita M et al. mTORC1 controls mitochondrial activity and biogenesis through 4E-BP-dependent translational regulation. Cell Metab. 2013;18(5):698-711. (9) Pollak M. Repurposing biguanides to target energy metabolism for cancer treatment. Nature Med. 2014 Jun;20(6):591-3. Citation Format: Michael N. Pollak. Metabolic approaches to cancer prevention. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2014 Sep 27-Oct 1; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2015;8(10 Suppl): Abstract nr PL04-01.


Objective: To extend the current knowledge base pertaining to condom failure among young African-American men by assessing their experiences with male condom use. Methods: Qualitative assessments were conducted with 19 African-American men (aged 18–29 years) who had just been diagnosed with an STI and reported using condoms in the previous 3 months. Results: Five categories were identified from the data. These categories pertained to: (1) the "fit and feel" of condoms; (2) condom brand and size; (3) application problems; (4) availability of condoms and lubricants; and (5) commitment to condom use. Common themes included reasons why men believed condoms would break or slip off during sex. Comfort problems, including tightly fitting condoms and condoms drying out during intercourse, were mentioned frequently. Condom associated erection problems were often described. Many men also noted that condom use reduced the level of sexual satisfaction for their female partners. Men noted that finding the right kind of condom was not always easy and it became apparent during the interviews that men typically did not acquire lubrication to add to condoms. Despite their expressed problems with using condoms, men were, none the less, typically emphatic that condom use is an important part of their protective behaviour against STIs. Conclusion: Men were highly motivated to use condoms; however, they experienced a broad range of problems with condom use. With the exception of losing the sensation of skin to skin contact, the vast majority of these problems may be amenable to behavioural interventions.


Biosorption experiments for Cr(VI), Cu(II), Cd(II) and Ni(II) were investigated in this study using nonliving biomass of different Pseudomonas species. The applicability of the Langmuir and Freundlich models for the different biosorbent was tested. The coefficient of determination (R 2 ) of both models were mostly greater than 0.9. In case of Ni(II) and Cu(II), their coefficients were found to be close to one. This indicates that both models adequately describe the experimental data of the biosorption of these metals. The maximum adsorption capacity was found to be the highest for Ni followed by Cd(II), Cu(II) and Cr(VI). Whereas the Freundlich constant k in case of Cd(II) was found to be greater than the other metals. Maximum Cr(VI) removal reached around 38% and its removal increased with the increase of Cr(VI) influent. Cu(II) removal was at its maximum value in presence of Cr(VI) as a binary metal, which reached 93% of its influent concentration. Concerning to Cd(II) and Ni(II) similar removal ratios were obtained, since it was ranged between 35 to 88% and their maximum removal were obtained in the case of individual Cd(II) and Ni(II).


Psouni and Apetroaia (2010) have recently introduced the Secure Base Script Test,SBST, for middle childhood. Based on Waters and Rodrigues-Doolabh's (2004)Narrative Script Assessment for assessing secure base script knowledge in adults,Psouni and Apetroaia's method is a narrative task in which children create short narratives by making use of four prompt word outlines that loosely suggest prototypical storylines implying secure base interactions with parents and peers.
Transcribed narratives are scored on a 7-point scale to reflect the relative degree of scripted knowledge of secure base interactions children have used to organize their narratives. A major advantage of the method is the ease with which it can be administered and scored, making it suitable for the testing of large subject samples. An additional advantage is the method's ability to directly tap into attachment related
representations at the level of specific cognitive architectures (Waters & Waters,2004). Though initial studies using the SBST show good internal consistency and strong inter-rater reliability, the instruments' convergent and discriminant validity has not been established. The present study aimed at (1) establishing convergent validity of the SBST by assessing whether the SBST was linked to a modified version of the
Security Scale, a questionnaire method developed for use with children in middle childhood, and (2) establishing discriminant validity for the SBST by assessing whether verbal creativity confounded children's secure base script knowledge as a source of secure base narrative in children's stories. We found no association between the SBST and the modified version of the Security Scale. A post hoc analysis of children's Security Scale data revealed that children who deliberated more over their
responses to the instrument's items were more negative in their appraisals of attachment relationships than those who responded without significant deliberation. We examined whether this finding supported the idea that children who responded without deliberation may have done so in order to defensively exclude attachmentrelated material when responding to the instrument's items. We found only marginal support for this possibility however. Verbal creativity did not appear to influence
raters' perception of subjects' scriptedness. This result however is tempered by concerns regarding the validity of one of the two methods used to score verbal creativity.


Photorefractive two-beam coupling measurements as a function of the orientation of the grating spacing at 514 nm have enabled us to precise the values of the electrooptic coefficients of BCT. We find rT 13 = 33pm. V-1 and rT 33 = 170pm. V-1. These values are in good accordance with other published values. For the interesting coefficient rT 42, we find a higher value rT 42 = 465pm. V-1 than the one previously published. The observation of beam-fanning and the fact that we have been able to implement a DPCM in a 45°-cut BCT (and not in a 0° cut crystal) confirms that the electrooptic coefficient rT 42 is higher than rT 33.


BACKGROUND: Violence against children from school staff is anecdotally common in low- and middle-income countries, but data on prevalence and associations with mental health and educational outcomes are lacking. METHODS: We report data from a cross-sectional survey conducted in June and July 2012 in Luwero District, Uganda. Forty-two primary schools representing 80% of students in the district were randomly selected; 100% agreed to participate. The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Child Abuse Screening Tool—Child Institutional; Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; and reading, spelling, and math tests were administered. We present descriptive statistics and logistic regression models, accounting for the complex sampling scheme used in the survey. RESULTS: We surveyed 3706 students and 577 school staff members; 93.3% (SE 1.0%) of boys and 94.2% (SE 1.6%) of girls attending primary school reported lifetime experience of physical violence from a school staff member, and >50% reported experience in the past week. Past-week physical violence was associated with increased odds of poor mental health and, for girls, double the odds of poor educational performance (adjusted odds ratio = 1.78, 95% confidence interval = 1.19–2.66). For boys, significant interactions were present. CONCLUSIONS: Despite a ban on corporal punishment in Ugandan schools since 1997, the use of violence against students is widespread and associated with poor mental health and educational performance. School violence may be an important but overlooked contributor to disease burden and poor educational performance in low- and middle-income settings.


Chronic osteomyelitis was produced by inoculating Staphylococcus aureus into rat tibia. The infection was characterised grossly by bone deformation and histopathologically by inflammation and the presence of coccal organisms sequestered within the bone tissue. Further observations by scanning electronmicroscopy demonstrated bacteria in microcolonies surrounded by dehydrated amorphous material that was considered to be glycocalyx. Transmission electronmicroscopy, when aided by antibody stabilisation, revealed extensive glycocalyx production within the tibia. These findings indicate that the rat model of chronic S. aureus osteomyelitis mimics the human infection with respect to the sessile mode of growth of bacteria within the bone. Serum antibody levels were assayed by ELISA and immunoblotting procedures. After an initial increase, ELISA titres remained relatively stable, apparently indicating the establishment of chronic osteomyelitis, whereas in immunoblotting an increase in titre over the course of infection was observed. Whole-cell ELISA revealed less subtle differences in antibody titre than did immunoblotting with cell-wall antigen. We found that mid-range antigens, including an antigen implicated as protein A, featured prominently in the immune response in this model of infection.


This thesis is about cultural variation. Its ethnographic focus is the Gamo highlands of southwest Ethiopia, where there are two politico-ritual systems, one based on sacrifices and the other based on initiations. While the sacrificial system is remarkably homogeneous over the area, the initiatory system varies considerably. The central purpose of this work is to try to understand why these two systems exhibit such different degrees of variation in the same setting and among the same people. After describing the structure of the two cultural systems as they exist in the late twentieth century, the thesis examines some of the politico-economic changes that have taken place in southern Ethiopia over the past few centuries, and considers how some of these external changes would have led to internal cultural change in the highlands. It suggests that external changes are manifested as strains on certain social relations, evidenced as either interpersonal conflicts or communal misfortune, and that people try to resolve these strains through discussions at assemblies. The particular organisation of the Gamo assemblies facilitates decisions that lead to incremental cultural change. The thesis then argues that these incremental changes have various intended and unintended consequences in the different cultural systems. The 'linked chain' pattern of interconnections in the initiatory system leads to complex nonlinear behaviour such that small incremental changes produce dramatic structural transformation, while the 'Russian doll' pattern of interconnections in the sacrificial system leads to linear behaviour such that small changes have only small effects. The thesis therefore concludes that, although change in both systems has been driven by the same politico-economic factors, the form of change has been different due to their different systemic organisation, leading the initiations to transform rather more than the sacrifices. It is for this reason, then, that they exhibit such different degrees of variation.


This has been an extraordinary year for the Institute. The Covid-19 pandemic and its health, social, economic and political impacts have created massive disruptions, transforming how people live and organisations function throughout the world. The challenges it has brought to how we at IDS contribute to creating a more equitable and sustainable world, where people everywhere are free from poverty and injustice, have been compounded by the UK Government's recent cuts to overseas aid. These have been imposed hastily and there can be no doubt that they will have drastic effects. Our strategy drives the structure of this Annual Review, which highlights our progress towards each of our five strategic priorities. We share impact stories from across the Institute that demonstrate our work towards these priorities. Not surprisingly, many of our key impacts this year relate to the pandemic. These include the wide-reaching influence of the Sanitation Learning Hub's Handwashing Compendium, the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform on Covid-19 response, and our work to provide rapid analysis and facilitated learning to the UK Government to support pandemic recovery. Other stories highlight exciting impacts such as large-scale successes in pedagogical advancement in Africa through equitable partnerships, and addressing digital exclusion that is affecting the most marginalised communities in our home city, Brighton, in the UK. We also marked 50 years of collaborative research with pastoralists, whose insights are prompting some major, and timely, rethinking of approaches to land management and climate change.


Over time and across countries, researchers have noted frequent and mostly unexplained gender differences in the levels of support for policies of free or freer trade: women tend to be less favorable toward policies of liberalizing trade than men. Using an economic security explanation based principally on a mobile factors approach, we find that it is not women generally who are more negative toward trade but particularly economically vulnerable women ??? i.e. women from the scarce labor factor. We utilize recent survey data on individuals??? attitudes toward different facets of trade and its effects across three disparate regions to examine this phenomenon empirically. An economic security approach helps to explain the marked differences in attitudes toward trade among lower- and higher-skilled females in developing and developed countries.


Suspended Animation: Children's Picture Boobs and the Fairy Tale of Modernity. By Nathalie op de Beech Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.262pp. This book has little to do with fairy tales and more to do with how American picture books created a "fairy tale" about progress and modernity primarily during the 1919-45 period. It is not a social history of American picture books for children. It is more a case study of selected picture books for children - some of them fairy tales - that demonstrate the changes and conflicts in publishing and artwork and their relations to the socioeconomic conditions of the interwar period that had ramifications for the post-World War II period. Op de Beecks superb study uncovers many neglected modernist motives and motivations of the culture industry that led to numerous innovations and transformed the earlier picture books into both high and low art that needs serious attention. Moreover, her comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach enables us to grasp that children's literature cannot be understood unless it is studied as part of general cultural movements that have a bearing on how children and adults are primed to view their worlds. Op de Beecks study is divided into an introduction, four chapters, and a postscript. The introduction clarifies her terminology and approach. She explains that "the idea of suspended animation implies technology and alludes to paused images and texts in sequence over a series of pages, an accumulation of information akin to, but distinct from, comic-strip panels or cinematic eels" (ix-x). The combination of words and illustrations in sequence forms a new communication mode; and these combinations need to be comprehended in their own dialectical context and socioeconomic context because picture books were not always produced the same way and can be considered historical, artistic, and industrial constructs that document changes and experiments in a given period. As op de Beeck emphasizes, "The picture book developed at a time when avant-garde art movements, sociopolitical climates, and changing technologies called for shifts in perceptions" (xvi). In Chapter 1 ("Here-and-Now Fairy Tales: Old World Tradition and Modem Technology"), op de Beeck examines the tensions between traditional picture books, many of them fairy tales, and the literary and artistic experiments, stimulated by new technologies and ideologies, from 1910 into the 1930s. Wanda Gags works receive a great deal of attention because they represent both modem and traditional tendencies in the great fairy-tale debate that took place between 1929 and 1931. This debate arose when many publishers, artists, and educators were calling for a more realistic children's literature against imaginative works such as fairy tales. Gags position was always ambivalent, and as op de Beeck points out, the debate was never resolved because childrens literature embraced both types while artistic modes of representation and production changed. In Chapter 2 ("Picture-Book Ethnography; Representing the Other"), op de Beeck considers some ideological aspects that involve the depiction of immigrants and white and nonwhite subjects. …


In this study a unified framework to carry out the simultaneous localisation and mapping of a mobile robot combining metric and topological techniques is presented. The robot moves in a real indoor environment and the algorithm makes use of the information provided by an omnidirectional camera mounted on the robot and its internal odometry. The hybrid approach consists in constructing simultaneously two maps of the environment, one metric and other topological with relationships between them which are updated in each step. The robot goes through the environment to build up a map while continuously captures images. To build the topological map the most relevant information from the scenes is extracted using a global appearance descriptor. A new node is added to the map when the appearance between two images is sufficiently different. Also, the authors check if there is a loop closure with a previous node. At the same time, a metrical map of the environment is computed. With this aim, the authors estimate the position of the robot when it captures a new image using a Monte–Carlo algorithm. The authors show how it is possible to obtain a reasonable performance both in time and accuracy in an indoor environment, when the involved parameters are properly tuned.


Addressing climate change is challenging because of its diverse meanings regarding the implications of science, values, risk, and governance. Climate change frames are central organizing ideas that allow us to identify why climate change is a problem of global concern, who is responsible, and the ways in which and by whom it should be governed. UN climate change conferences gather diverse actors for debating climate policy, allowing us to study the frames they represent and how they evolve. They examine the official side events at these conferences, considering the topics of all 2,214 side events from 1997 through 2011. The results show a prominence of the action and conformity frames, indicating that actors reluctant to change have not been engaged; a tendency to favor the social progress frame over the economic frame; that topical changes were not solely the result of new organizations being admitted; a rise in non-climatic issues indicating large potential for bandwagoning; and a symbiotic relationship between negotiations and side events.


The issue of tuberculosis during pregnancy is not simply an historical inquiry but rather an increasingly familiar clinical problem facing industrial nations as well as the developing countries of the world. This chapter focuses on the maternal aspects of tuberculous infection, as well as transmission to the fetus, and newborn. The epidemiology of tuberculosis in pregnancy reflects that of tuberculosis at large. A number of reports from the 1950s, showed that pregnancy did not predispose women to progressive disease. In a report of 250 women with active tuberculosis in the pretreatment era, 83.9% remained stable during pregnancy and 9.1% improved. Although only 7% had evidence of progressive disease during pregnancy, an additional 8.2% experienced progression in the year following pregnancy. Pregnancy itself, however, may mimic and thus mask the symptoms of early tuberculosis, such as tachypnea and fatigue; this in turn may delay diagnosis and treatment. Infection of the reproductive organs may result in infertility as well as abdominal or tubal pregnancy. With early recognition and effective chemotherapy, however, there is no evidence of an adverse effect on pregnancy. The tuberculin skin test (Mantoux) is the test of choice for diagnosing tuberculosis infection in pregnant women. These tests have potential advantages in terms of logistics and accuracy (not subjectively interpreted and not affected by previous Mycobacterium bovis BCG vaccination). The major side effect of isoniazid (INH) is hepatitis, which occurs most frequently in persons over 35 years of age.


INTRODUCTION The Sino-African relations started since Mao's presidency. As early as the 1960's China implemented an anti-Western imperialist agenda based on ideological solidarity with other third world or developing countries, China centered on building ideological solidarity with other developing countries on repelling western "Imperialism". Nowadays, China interests evolved into more pragmatic pursuits such as trade, investment and energy. In the Post Cold War era, however, the Sino-African relations have pragmatically shifted from their former ideological focus into an almost strictly economic paradigm- that is, a cooperation based on trade, investment, and energetic issues. West Africa is rich in natural resources like oil, gas, wood, diamond, gold, uranium. Nigeria, Mauritania, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Senegal, Conakry Guinea, Mali, Ghana and Bissau Guinea are ones of the most solicited by industrial countries. Recently, China has identified the African continent as a significant economic and strategic partner. America and Europe consider Africa like a treasure ruled by opportunists who didn't respected democratic rules...the rule of law and that free markets is being challenged by the escalating Chinese influence in Africa. Nowadays, the most pernicious effect of the renewed Chinese interest in Africa is that China is legitimizing and encouraging African's repressive regimes, by increasing the likehood of weak and failed states (P. Brooks and J.H. Shin, 2010). The United States and Europeans counties (France, England, and Germany...) were Africa's first strategic partners; now China is coming entering the scenery with new rules of partnership. The US interests lie in countering effectively these reinforced Sino-African cooperation these developments in Africa by deftly encouraging democratic processes, economic freedom and respect for human rights throughout the continent. China's fast-growing economic ties with Africa are attracting considerable attention. The relationship came into the spotlight during the Forum China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing in November, 2006 and the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Shanghai in May 2007. While the expansion of trade and investment between Africa and China has been generally welcomed, concerns have been expressed about how China's growing might affect African development. But what roles has China exactly played? What drives China's trade and financial involvement in Africa? What are the implications of the relationship for Africa and other development partners? This paper aims at shedding light on these questions, particularly the first two, by examining the Senegalese case. There have been relatively a few systematic studies of the resurging economic relations between China and Africa. Alden (2005) reviews the evolution of Sino-African economic relations since the 1970s; Edwards and Jenkins (2005) study trade-poverty links; Kennan and Stevens (2005) attempt to identify possible winners and losers among African countries as China becomes more prominent in world trade; Jenkins and Edwards (2006) examine the direct and indirect trade impact of China and India on sub-Saharan Africa. A recent study by an OECD team emphasizes trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), focusing on China's and India's role in specific commodity and energy markets. (Goldstein and al., 2006) A World Bank study investigates constraints or policy challenges "at the border," "behind the border," and "between the borders" for increasing Africa-Asia trade an investment (Broadman, 8). During the 1980s and 90s, under the effect of the oil price shocks the ensuing fall in world prices and significant political transformations (outside and inside Africa), interest in African oil declined. But the new century has again led to a surge in demand for African oil and gas. The major international energy firms are heavily investing in Africa; wells are being drilled along the entire coast, from Morocco, in the North, to Namibia, in the South, as well as in the interior. …


Summary Background The aim of the research was to evaluate the effectiveness of the phased rehabilitation program in patients after traumatic brain injury, one developed by the authors and controlled by the strategic plan, pertaining to their quality of life compared to patients treated according to a standard, phased rehabilitation program. Material/Methods The study included 40 patients of post traumatic brain injury treated at the Rehabilitation Clinic of the L. Rydygier Academy of Medical Sciences in Bydgoszcz and the Department of Medical Rehabilitation of the Cracow Rehabilitation Centre. An experimental group included 20 patients rehabilitated by a strategic approach and a control group consisted of 20 patients treated before the introduction of this approach. In assessing the effectiveness of rehabilitation, a structured interview was used with clinical observation and the Battery of Quality of Life Assessment. The study was conducted twice: before and after eight weeks of rehabilitation. Results The quality of life of people after brain injury is affected by self-service difficulties, difficulties in meeting the physiological needs and loss of psychophysical comfort, decreased mobility, impaired cognitive functions and executive and social functions. There is no consistency between the stated (subjective) level of quality of life of the patient, and the depth of objectively measured disability resulting from the injury sustained. Conclusions A rehabilitation program controlled by a strategic plan, in collaboration with the patient treated subjectively is more effective in improving the quality of life, since the cooperating patient is more motivated to carry out individually designed goals. A rehabilitation program based on a strategic plan is worthy of recommendation for the treatment and improvement of patients after cranio-cerebral trauma.


Shoreline mapping was used to reconstruct the historical shoreline evolution of Cedar Island, Virginia in an effort to clarify the debate on barrier island response to sea level rise -- continuous migration while maintaining land mass, in-place narrowing followed by migration, or disintegration over time. Events occurring on the immediately updrift Metomkin Island system also were examined to clarify Cedar Island changes. Data from 1910 to the present show that Cedar Island has remained positionally-stable, while thinning (i.e., losing land area) at varying rates. Island thinning increased significantly after 1962, when updrift interruptions in the longshore transport system were caused by the ephemeral inlet breaching of southern Metomkin Island and attendant sand trapping in Metomkin Bay. A field reconnaissance of Cedar Island showed that the island is not compensating for its land area losses by elevation gains, as remnant dunes are being severely scarped and flattened by overwash.


Predictive displays have proven their suitability to compensate time delays in visual feedback which impair the performance of teleoperation applications. Most current implementations employ simple computer graphics for the prediction of the visual feedback given to the operator who is controlling the remote manipulation. Furthermore, they require a well-known remote environment. The aim of the presented work is to improve the efficacy of the predictive display by increasing the degree of immersion and by enhancing the system's flexibility. Potential applications include maintenance and repair of machines located in remote plant- or office-type environments, which are typically non-static and a priori only partially known. Communication media are high- and medium-bandwidth LANs and WANs inducing round trip delays varying from 0.2 to 2 seconds. Additionally, a sufficient bandwidth cannot be assured during the entire remote operation. The paper describes a predictive display system which achieves photo-realism based on autonomously explored and updated scene models. Model acquisition is performed with a binocular CCD camera system. Photo-realism is obtained by using computer graphics techniques, especially the mapping of original, real textures. Besides the concepts, an early stage of implementation and first experimental results in scene reconstruction and photo-realistic scene prediction are presented.


Summary. Four unusual cases of Klinefelter's syndrome are described, in which motile spermatozoa were found in several ejaculates. One of these subjects was shown to be a 47XXY/46XY mosaic, but intensive cytogenic studies in the other three failed to reveal evidence of this. Records of proven parenthood may eventually disturb the present concept of sterility in this condition.


Using a combination of enhanced sampling molecular dynamics techniques and non-equilibrium alchemical transformations with full atomistic details, we have shown that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) may act as a mild inhibitor of important functional proteins for SARS-CoV2 replication, with potency increasing in the series PLpro, 3CLpro, RdRp. By analyzing the bound state configurations, we were able to improve the potency for the 3CLpro target, designing a novel HCQ-inspired compound, named PMP329, with predicted nanomolar activity. If confirmed in vitro, our results provide a molecular rationale for the use of HCQ or of strictly related derivatives in the treatment of Covid-19.


Hard of hearing since early childhood, John Christiansen spent the first 30 years of his life trying to fit in to a hearing world that did little to accommodate his communication needs. Although he excelled in academics, Christiansen found social situations stressful at every level, until he obtained a position as a professor of sociology at Gallaudet University. There he learned sign language and joined a new community. "Reflections: My Life in the Deaf and Hearing Worlds" grew out of his personal experiences inhabiting these two worlds.As a sociologist, Christiansen could identify the toll that trying to communicate with hearing people took on his psyche, the classic looking-glass self in action: I am what I think you think I am. He saw that people with hearing loss frequently blame themselves for social awkwardness and gaffs, even though the responsibility for clear communication should be shared. Still, after living in the hearing world for most of his life, he opted to undergo a cochlear implantation to try to improve interaction with his hearing friends, wife, and children.His description of adjusting to his cochlear implant brings fresh reality to the implant process. As he puts it, he was not a superstar. After ten years, though, he feels positive enough about his experience to endorse it. As a denouement to his affecting memoir, he describes the disruptive 2006 protest at Gallaudet over the choice of a new president from his vantage point as a member of the search committee. "Reflections" stands as a remarkable account of one person s navigation through the intricacies of two different and occasionally opposing worlds."


Abstract. The Variational Ensemble Kalman Filter (VEnKF), a recent data assimilation method that combines a variational assimilation of the Bayesian estimation problem with an ensemble of forecasts, is demonstrated in two-dimensional geophysical flows using a Quasi-Geostrophic (QG) model and a shallow water model. Using a synthetic experiment, a two layer QG model with model bias is solved on a cylindrical 40 x 20 domain. The performance of VEnKF on the QG model with increasing ensemble size is compared with the classical Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). It is shown that although convergence can be achieved with just 20 ensemble members, increasing the number of members results in a better estimate that approaches the one produced by EKF. In the second test case, a 2-D shallow water model is described using a real dam-break experiment. The VEnKF algorithm was used to assimilate observations obtained from a modified laboratory dam-break experiment with a two-dimensional setup of sensors at the downstream end. The wave meters are placed parallel to the direction of the flow alongside the flume walls to capture both cross flow and stream flow. In both test cases, VEnKF was able to predict genuinely two-dimensional flow patterns when the sensors had a two-dimensional geometry and was stable against model bias in the first test case. In the second test case, the experiments are complemented with an empirical study of the impact of observation interpolation on the stability of the VEnKF filter. In this study, a novel Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy type filter stability condition is observed that relates ensemble variance to the time interpolation distance between observations. The results of the two experiments shows that VEnKF is a good candidate for data assimilation problems and can be implemented in higher dimensional nonlinear models.


Ask any Canadian about a distinctly Canadian form of English, and most will offer an enthusiastic Bob-and-Doug-McKenzie 'eh' in response. A passionate few might also bring up the colour vs. color debate or our pronunciations of 'out' and 'about'. And some may point to the ubiquitous Canadian toque as evidence of a language that is all our own. If this is your idea of Canadian English, then it might surprise you that Katherine Barber, Editor-in-Chief of the best-selling Canadian Oxford Dictionary and author of the best-selling Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to Do With Pigs, has written a new book filled with nothing but made-in-Canada vocabulary. Only in Canada You Say highlights more than 1,200 words and phrases that are unique to our neck of the woods. Did you know, for example, that every time you ask for Gravol at the drug store, you're using a word that is unknown anywhere else? That those tasty butter tarts your mother used to make don't exist beyond our borders? Or that there are three distinctly Canadian sex words? And jokes about living in the Great White North aside, it is still pretty interesting to discover that there are 17 Canadian words for ice! Organized thematically, Only in Canada You Say covers Canadian English from coast to coast to coast, with sections dedicated to the things we love to do, where we live, how we get around, and what we wear. The entertaining and informative introductions to each section provide a fresh, often eye-opening, perspective on the reality of Canadian English from Canada's own 'Word Lady', Katherine Barber. Only in Canada You Say maybe 'eh' is just the beginning of this story! '


Churchman's five Inquiring Systems are considered in the light of Polanyi's distinction between Tacit Knowing and Practical Thinking. It is suggested that the five Inquiring Systems are distinct and crucial elements of the Learning Organization that can be divided into two perspectives: the modes of Tacit Knowing and the levels of Practical Thinking. Tacit Knowing critically contributes to the sustainable growth of an organization through its connection with (1) intuition (2) holism, and (3) ethics.


Main contractors for infrastructure projects need to comply with the following guidelines related to sustainability: (1) Law of Qatar; (2) Qatar Construction Specification 2015; (3) Environmental Impact Assessment (performed by an independent party, paid by the Employer); (4) Main Contractor's Contract Environmental/Sustainability Stipulations/Clauses. Infra projects that involve voluminous excavation works and subsequently dewatering like construction of tunnel/underpass and bored piles are required to comply with sustainability regulations in place. In the construction of tunnel/underpass, the main contractor should follow various processes to ensure compliance with sustainability requirements as per contract. First, the main contractor needs to get soil samples for every 5000 m3 for soil investigation. Then, reports are given to a consultant for review and any findings. Unfavorable results are reported to the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) for remediation. One type of remediation would be the injection of air to the contaminated areas to promote bacterial life that lives on hydrocarbon which is biodegradable. This is a long but effective process. Dewatering pumped water can be released to the sea through a 30 mm-diameter flexible rubber pipe. Deep well can be constructed and the water is pumped directly within. An EFA (environmental flood area), which is a temporary infiltration evaporation basin, is constructed (as per the associated cross-section and plan drawings). During the construction, a trained environmental inspector conducts daily site visits to check for silt. When the silt is mixed with seawater, it endangers the ecosystem, polluting its inhabitants with hydrocarbon (oil or diesel). If the inspector discovers hydrocarbon during dewatering, the entire volume of the polluted water is pumped into a tank and transported to Messaied Sewage Treatment Facilities for treatment. The treated water is then transported back to the sea. Caution should be exercised to remove foam and any wastage instantly, and any such incident should be reported immediately to the Consultant Reporting System. A good reporting system is recommended to allow clear and easy monitoring and controlling of all environmental sustainability issues. The recommendation guidelines are as follows. (1) A daily report should be submitted by a trained environmental engineer (usually trained by an in-house environmental manager employed by the main contractor). (2) All reported incidents should be properly documented, and a workflow on where to direct these reports and what should be done to remedy the incident, be it short term or long term, is followed. (3) A weekly report is completed and complied by the main contractor as per the contract. This will be a summary of the daily reports including the findings containing a key performance indicator calculation and rating plus a graphical representation in color. The weekly report is not required by the Ministry of Environment, nor is it specified in the Qatar Construction Specification; however, this is a vital KPI monitoring tool that enables immediate assessment or remedy if required. (4) A monthly report is provided by the main contractor, which shows all reported incidents for the month. It is reported to the consultant who in turn presents it to the MME.


The particle scattering asymmetry parameter of an ensemble of submicrometer particles, as well as the complete scattering phase function (angular distribution), is determined by measuring the Doppler spectrum of the scattered light. No calibration is required. The monitor incorporates a 532 nm laser with long coherence length, an integrating sphere to collect the scattered light, and a heterodyne (interferometric) detection scheme. Measurements of monodisperse polystyrene latex spheres and polydisperse ammonium sulfate particles indicate that the measured value of the asymmetry parameter is generally within ±0.03 of that calculated using Mie theory.


As the internet blossomed into ubiquity, piracy mushroomed with it. To control the threat, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA created a number of safeguards for copyright holders. But, the DMCA purposely ignored whether copyright holders could restrict future transfers of their legally purchased work — a concept known in physical property as the "first-sale doctrine." As a result, copyright holders began using licenses to control future transfers of their digital property.This was not the first time copyright holders have attempted to gain greater control over their work. The history of copyright law demonstrates a pattern of struggle between competing interests — with public access to creative works on one side and the need for incentive to create on the other side. Over time, courts and legislators have chosen different responses to this struggle. Each has encountered varying levels of success. But all have dealt exclusively in physical property.The world of physical property is different from that of digital property for two reasons. In the physical world, it is difficult and costly to duplicate works, and over time, these works degrade. By contrast, in the digital world, copying a book, a song, or a movie requires only a couple keystrokes and a mouse click. Additionally, copying a digital file does not affect its quality. In light of these differences, scholars have offered a number of solutions, focusing on the difference in copying difficulty between physical and digital property. This Note examines the history of copyright law to understand the various solutions available to lawmakers when dealing with the threat of piracy and considers the possibility of a solution focusing instead on the degradation difference between physical and digital property.


Incidents of discrimination due to implicit bias, or an unconscious prejudice in favor of or against certain groups, are extremely difficult to challenge in court because plaintiffs alleging discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause must prove that the discrimination was purposeful. Since our legal system often fails to provide relief where implicit bias has caused systemic discrimination, advocates for equity and inclusion should explore preventative measures that guard against the harms of this kind of systemic discrimination. This Comment argues that a new term "social pollution" should be used to properly classify systemic discrimination caused by implicit bias as a problem that should be regulated. First, this Comment discusses the pervasiveness of implicit bias. Then it discusses the Intent Doctrine in equal protection cases and explores reform proposals that ineffectively attempt to address the difficulty of proving implicit discrimination in Title VII disparatetreatment cases. Finally, this Comment uses environmental pollution to introduce the concept of social pollution and explores prospects for using environmental statutes as models for regulatory reform proposals that address the social pollution of systemic discrimination caused by implicit bias.


Abstract Ultramarine pigments were synthesized successfully from Na-A zeolite derived from kaolin waste. Na-A zeolite encapsulates the sulfur species formed and which act as chromophores, which circumvents their oxidation and the subsequent liberation of high levels of toxic gases during the reaction. Different Na-A zeolite matrices with various grain sizes (fine to coarse) were mixed with sulfur and sodium carbonate in various proportions to study the influence of these variables on the pigments' colours and hues. After calcination at 500°C for 5 h, the products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy and were classified by the Munsell system (colour and hue). Products with colour ranging from blue to green with various hues were obtained. Both colour and hue were affected by the amount of additives and by the particle size.


Pathways to Contemporary Islam: New Trends in Critical Engagement highlights that the current tensions in Islam and the Muslim world are the result of historical dynamics as opposed to an alleged incompatibility between religious tradition and modernity. The emphasis on pathways indicates that critical engagement and contestation have always been intrinsic to the history of Islam. The aim of the book is to elaborate the contemporary pathways and analyse the trends that contest the Islamic intellectual tradition, the relationship between religion and politics, and the individual and collective practice of religion. The collection of essays analyses the current efforts of critical re-engagement with the Islamic intellectual tradition and underlines the historical diversity of Islamic orthodoxies that led to the establishment of various pathways in the practice and role of religion in Muslim societies.


Does galaxy evolution proceed through the green valley via multiple pathways or as a single population? Motivated by recent results highlighting radically different evolutionary pathways between early- and late-type galaxies, we present results from a simple Bayesian approach to this problem wherein we model the star formation history (SFH) of a galaxy with two parameters, [t, τ] and compare the predicted and observed optical and near-ultraviolet colours. We use a novel method to investigate the morphological differences between the most probable SFHs for both disc-like and smooth-like populations of galaxies, by using a sample of 126 316 galaxies (0.01 < z < 0.25) with probabilistic estimates of morphology from Galaxy Zoo. We find a clear difference between the quenching time-scales preferred by smooth- and disc-like galaxies, with three possible routes through the green valley dominated by smooth- (rapid time-scales, attributed to major mergers), intermediate- (intermediate time-scales, attributed to minor mergers and galaxy interactions) and disc-like (slow time-scales, attributed to secular evolution) galaxies. We hypothesize that morphological changes occur in systems which have undergone quenching with an exponential time-scale τ < 1.5 Gyr, in order for the evolution of galaxies in the green valley to match the ratio of smooth to disc galaxies observed in the red sequence. These rapid time-scales are instrumental in the formation of the red sequence at earlier times; however, we find that galaxies currently passing through the green valley typically do so at intermediate time-scales.


We created the You Decide multimodal intervention to provide men with the information, skills, and reinforcement needed to engage in informed decision making (IDM) related to prostate cancer screening. We developed intervention materials based on three rounds of formative research conducted with 145 members of the intended recipient audience through 10 focus groups and more than 50 individual in-depth interviews. This report documents key findings from our formative research that may apply to the development of other IDM interventions, especially those related to prostate cancer. Our findings underscored (1) the difficulty of promoting IDM for cancer screening given people's high affinity for such screenings, and (2) the challenge of graphically communicating risk-related tradeoffs. We found that pretest participants had a preference for full-story narratives conveying personal experiences and interpersonal learning opportunities. Our formative research findings also supported the need to use plain language to address a range of health literacy levels. We describe our efforts to apply these formative research findings in our final intervention materials and discuss implications for future intervention research. Our findings underscore the importance of involving the intended audience in the process of developing intervention materials.


This paper presents Scribe, a scalable application- level multicast infrastructure. Scribe supports large numbers of groups, with a potentially large number of members per group. Scribe is built on top of Pastry, a generic peer-to-peer object lo- cation and routing substrate overlayed on the Internet, and lever- ages Pastry's reliability, self-organization, and locality properties. Pastry is used to create and manage groups and to build efficient multicast trees for the dissemination of messages to each group. Scribe provides best-effort reliability guarantees, and we outline how an application can extend Scribe to provide stronger relia- bility. Simulation results, based on a realistic network topology model, show that Scribe scales across a wide range of groups and group sizes. Also, it balances the load on the nodes while achieving acceptable delay and link stress when compared with Internet pro- tocol multicast.


Educated Czechs fared poorly during the communist regime (1948-89) but have done relatively well since the Velvet Revolution. This phase change is consistent with transition theory and suggests that educated Czechs may be more supportive of the postcommunist reforms as a consequence. To test this hypothesis, the authors examined 11 national surveys (1990-98) of Czech respondents to determine if economic standing and other controls explained the relation between education and attitudes about the country's reforms. They also tested whether the effects of education interacted with phases of the reforms. The results showed that better-educated respondents enjoyed an economic advantage, supportive of transition theory. However, this advantage and other controls did not explain the significant effects of education on attitudes about the Czech reforms. These pat terns were stable during the survey period with one exception, as indicated by education * time interaction terms. These findings suggest that values associated with education may play a role in attitudes about postcommunist reforms independent of economic standing, expanding the view that economic experiences during postcommunist reforms differentiate attitudes about them


Abstract: The Kherlen-Bars Pagoda is a little-known, undocumented monument in Dornad province of eastern Mongolia. This article argues that the pagoda was built during the period of Khitan rule in North Asia. It begins by comparing it with dated and undated pagodas of the Liao dynasty in eastern Inner Mongolia and Liaoning. The discussion then turns to less tangible aspects of Liao pagoda architecture that are observed at Kherlen-Bars: the relation between a tall monument and lower ones within viewing range, and the relation between a tall Khitan structure and a nearby walled town. A newly discovered Liao pagoda site in Xishanpo, Inner Mongolia, is presented. Finally, the article proposes sources for the three-monument arrangement at Kherlen-Bars in Northern Wei, Northern Qi, and the Silla kingdom of Korea.


A new approach is presented that relies upon 3D electromagnetic simulation results to characterize the complex permittivity of homogeneous dielectric materials. By modeling the test fixture and obtaining a set of simulated S-parameters through an iterative solution process, the dielectric constant and loss tangent can be found. With further development, the 3D simulation results may be used to replace the need for complex theoretical analysis of the measurement geometry. The method is applied to an X-band rectangular waveguide setup, for which the theoretical S-parameters can be readily calculated. A Teflon sample, for which the dielectric properties are well-known, is used for all measurements and calculations. After presenting a detailed derivation to obtain the theoretical S-parameters, the Teflon sample is measured and compared to the theoretical results, from which the comparison shows great promise. An inverse solution algorithm is used to solve for the material properties from the experimental S-parameters. Low-frequency measurement of the Teflon sheet was performed by using a dielectric capacitor test fixture. The results show the effect of an air gap between the electrode and sample, producing serious errors.


Financial capital (FC) can transform self-image, unlock potential and boost the productivity
and well-being of the poor. This paper assesses the access to FC by rural people in the Upper
East Region (UER) of Ghana. The study results showed that Rural Banks (RBs) are the main
source of FC to rural people in UER with only 21% of them having access to FC from the RBs
in pursuance of their livelihoods developments. It is recommended that the RBs and government
among others should take pragmatic measures towards covering more rural people who
constitute 84% of the population of UER.


ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 μm in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton– proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 105 charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.


Exceeding the posted speed limit, or speeding, is generally accepted as a major cause of road crashes and in particular fatal crashes. However, the actual proportion of crashes in which one or more vehicles was speeding is not easily determined. The exact travelling speed of a vehicle prior to a crash can only be determined by detailed crash reconstruction. Such a reconstruction is considered beyond the scope of regular traffic police who record the majority of the crash data that makes up the mass crash databases such as the South Australian Traffic Accident Reporting System (TARS). It is therefore thought that speeding is under-reported in the mass crash data. A method was developed by NSW to identify, from mass data, crashes that involved speeding as a factor. This method was subsequently used by other states, including South Australia. The Centre for Automotive Safety Research conducts the crash reconstructions required to determine speed as part of its at-scene in-depth crash investigation work. This paper compares the actual proportion of speeding crashes in the most recent set of at-scene in-depth crash investigation cases with that found by using the mass data and the method developed by the NSW Centre for Road Safety. It was found that the error 'excessive speed' recorded in the TARS database is not accurate in identifying crashes where a vehicle was speeding. The NSW Centre for Road Safety method of determining speeding in crashes was also found to lack accuracy, though it was more accurate than simply relying on the error 'excessive speed' in the TARS database. KEYWORDS: Speed, Speeding, Crash data Language: en


The name Mary Addison Hamilton (Addie) does not appear in any of the recorded histories of the accounting profession in Australia even though there is ample evidence to suggest that she is deserving of such a place. Addie was one of the first women to achieve membership of one of Australia's recognized professional accounting bodies and, thereby, one of the first in the British Empire. This distinction was achieved in the early twentieth century, when restriction of women entering the professions was common. In addition, Addie achieved a permanent position in the public sector at a time when Australian women were traditionally denied such positions. This article is a celebration and acknowledgment of the achievements of this remarkable woman who worked tirelessly as a clerk in the public service while using her accounting skills to train new accountants and assist a number of charitable and not-for-profit organizations.


Since both modern moral theory and evolutionary theory arose in the shadow of Newtonian and Humean conceptions of nature, debates about evolutionary ethics have typically been vexed by deeper problems with the nature of evolution itself as well as meta-ethical questions about the link between facts and values. Humean skepticism and mechanistic selectionism have recently coincided in postmodern attacks on essentialism,on meta-narratives of progress, on models of human nature, and on moral collectivism. Against this most recent wave of skepticism, however, contemporary reconstructions of evolution in light of complex systems science suggest useful ways of reinterpreting both evolutionary causation, the biology of human nature, and their implications for ethics.


Over the years since 1990 a number of significant changes have occurred as regards the importance placed by the governments of India and Kenya upon expanding and improving primary schooling. This has coincided with a period during which the international community has placed major priority upon such investment, and has included the objective of achieving universal primary education (UPE) as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Each of these countries' relationships with donors to education have become closer over the period, and each have had changes in aid modalities, away from projects towards programme funding. This policy brief examines how relationships between donors and recipient countries have influenced the content and conduct of education policy. Comparisons between the two countries are made in order to investigate the extent to which internationally accepted principles of good aid practice have affected the way aid is allocated and used. The findings are relevant to a number of similar aid contexts in the developing world.


In order to compare the dynamics of vitellogenin gene expression between naturally maturing prawns and prawns induced to mature artificially by eyestalk ablation, a cDNA encoding vitellogenin was cloned from a cDNA library prepared from the hepatopancreas of the kuruma prawn Penaeus (Marsupenaeus) japonicus, and a quantitative real-time reverse transcription — polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) system was developed. Sequence analysis revealed the likely possibility that vitellogenin cDNA from the hepatopancreas was identical to that from the ovary which had been isolated in a previous study. Based on this information, a quantitative real-time RT-PCR system was established and the dynamics of vitellogenin mRNA levels were examined. In naturally maturing prawns, vitellogenin mRNA levels were maintained at low levels during the previtellogenic stage, and thereafter, levels increased as vitellogenesis progressed but decreased during the latter stages of maturation in the hepatopancreas and ovary. In contrast, in eyestalk-ablated prawns, changes in mRNA levels differed in both tissues; an obvious increment of mRNA levels was revealed in the ovary, whereas mRNA levels were negligible in the hepatopancreas. This suggests that eyestalk ablation cannot be used to accurately simulate the natural process of vitellogenin gene expression during vitellogenesis, and that vitellogenin gene expression is regulated in a tissue-specific manner.


Symbolic search allows saving large amounts of memory compared to regular explicit-state search algorithms. This is crucial in optimal settings, in which common search algorithms often exhaust the available memory. So far, the most successful uses of symbolic search have been bidirectional blind search and the generation of abstraction heuristics like Pattern Databases. Despite its usefulness, several common techniques in explicit-state search have not been employed in symbolic search. In particular, mutexes and other constraining invariants, techniques that have been proven essential when doing regression, are yet to be exploited in conjunction with BDDs. In this paper we analyze the use of such constraints in symbolic search and its combination with minimization techniques common in BDD manipulation. Experimental results show a significant increase in performance, considerably above the current state of the art in optimal planning.