On February 6, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada made a unanimous decision that it is unconstitutional to prohibit physician-assisted death. Physician-assisted death includes both physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. In the past weeks, much has been said about end-of-life care and physician-assisted death being a "therapeutic service" for some Canadians, but critical elements have been lacking or clouding this discussion. In particular, little has been said about what palliative care is, and while much has been said about death, little has been said about the life stage of dying. Lastly, a myriad of confusing language has been used in this debate. Physician-assisted death is not "medically-aided dying," nor should it be confused with palliative care.

The World Health Organization's definition of palliative care states that "palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual." Palliative care also "affirms life and regards dying as a normal process" and "intends neither to hasten or postpone death." By definition, palliative care does not hasten death, but supports dying as a natural life process.

When faced with a life-threatening illness, all aspects of personhood are affected, and distress is often experienced across multiple interconnected domains—physical, psychosocial, existential, and spiritual. Palliative care seeks to identify and alleviate suffering across the trajectory of a life-threatening illness, including care at the end of life, and supports living well while dying. To those ends, palliative care must address all aspects of personhood and provide holistic person-centred care through an integrated interprofessional team approach.

Dying is hard work for everyone involved—the patient, the family, and care providers. It is innately an existential matter and asks us what life is all about. Dying is a normal process and a final growth stage of life. Like birth, it is an important developmental stage in the lives of humans, but unlike birth, it is one that we seldom talk about as a society. Those of us privileged to work with and to journey alongside the dying and their families will tell you that dying can be transformative: relationships can be healed and past hurts reconciled. Dying is often a time of spiritual growth and creation of a legacy for loved ones.

Requests for hastened death are predominately related to existential suffering and do not correlate with physical symptoms such as pain. Those existential concerns are typically the result of a loss of control, loss of hope, and loss of meaning in life, or a sense of burden to others. Thanks to the great work of Canadian palliative care physicians such as Balfour Mount and Harvey Chochinov, holistic dignity-conserving palliative care interventions that aim to restore purpose, meaning, and hope in the face of the loss that accompanies a life-threatening illness have been developed. Such therapies help a person to focus on living while dying.

The foundations of our work in palliative care are trust and relationship. Trust between patient and physician, between family and care providers, and between the members of the health care team. Is trust really engendered when we reach out with one hand inviting patients to engage in the hard and intense work of addressing their suffering, while in the other hand we hold the needle to end life?

Suffering is limited not only to the individual. Individuals are inevitably part of a community—family, friends, and caregivers, to name a few. Individual choices affect that entire community. Although it has been said that very few will choose physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, the effects of that individual choice will spill over onto the many. There will be members of the community, as well as other patients and families receiving care from the same health care team, who will find the individual's act to be morally unconscionable and would be caused harm as a result. Many patients and families are already reluctant to involve palliative care in their treatment out of the mistaken fear of what that means: giving up hope and imminent dying. If physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, or both, were to become part of the provision of palliative care, many more people would likely decide to forgo palliative care.

Lastly, we need to be clear on the language being used. Many different terminologies have been used interchangeably in the media since the Supreme Court decision. We are not talking about "medically-aided dying" or "physician-aided dying"—that is the work done every day in palliative care by providing the best possible symptom management for those who are dying. And let us not confuse that work with a decision to discontinue life-prolonging therapy such as dialysis, chemotherapy, or assisted ventilation, whereby death occurs because of the underlying illness. What we mean when we say "physician-assisted suicide" or "physician-assisted euthanasia" is an act with the direct intention of causing death through a lethal dose of medication. Some might call it killing, and by all reasonable definitions, it does not belong in the realm of palliative care.

I am proud to be a palliative care physician. I am privileged to journey alongside those facing a life-threatening illness. My work is to provide care with the intention of alleviating suffering and restoring dignity, and to focus on living while dying. As a palliative care physician, I do not intentionally hasten death, but approach dying as a normal process and important stage of life. Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia go against the very core of the palliative care approach and have no place within palliative care.


The location and distribution of some of the storage constituents in the structures of rapeseed and its products were investigated. Hand-cut or glycol methacrylate-embedded sections were stained with dyes or fluorochromes of known specificities and examined using fluorescence, bright-field and/or polarizing microscopy. Results obtained from the study were based upon observations of characteristics of the various stainings, birefringence, induced fluorescence and autofluorescence. The effects of enzymatic hydrolysis, solvents and processing on the cellular structures and their affinity for certain dyes/ fluorochromes were also investigated. Major and minor storage constituents were tentatively located in the structure of rapeseed. Lipids and proteins were stored within separate cellular organelles which were distributed throughout the aleurone layer of the endosperm and cells of the embryo. These two accounted for the major portions of rapeseed storage reserves. Phytin crystals were detected inside the protein bodies of the embryonic cells. Most of the rapeseed polysaccharides were present as structural (cellwall) carbohydrates of which amyloid was one of the major components. The seed coat of rapeseed is a complex structure containing structural carbohydrates, mucilage and lignin. The testa of the yellow seed-coated cultivar, Candle, was structurally and chemically different from that of other rapeseed varieties. Initial paper received February 3, 1982. Final manuscript received July 16, 1982 . Direct inquiries to S.H. Yiu. Telephone number: 613-995-9428 .


Agents are systems that optimize an objective function in an environment. Together, the goal and the environment induce secondary objectives, incentives. Modeling the agent-environment interaction in graphical models called influence diagrams, we can answer two fundamental questions about an agent's incentives directly from the graph: (1) which nodes is the agent incentivized to observe, and (2) which nodes is the agent incentivized to influence? The answers tell us which information and influence points need extra protection. For example, we may want a classifier for job applications to not use the ethnicity of the candidate, and a reinforcement learning agent not to take direct control of its reward mechanism. Different algorithms and training paradigms can lead to different influence diagrams, so our method can be used to identify algorithms with problematic incentives and help in designing algorithms with better incentives.


"The Caspian Gates" is the fourth in Harry Sidebottom's captivating "Warrior of Rome Series". AD262 - the Imperium is in turmoil after the struggle for the throne. Furthermore, Ephesus, Asia's metropolis, lies in ruins, shattered by a mighty earthquake. Its citizens live in fear as the mob overwhelms the city, baying for blood to avenge the gods who have punished them. Yet an even greater threat to the Empire advances from the North. The barbaric Goth tribes sail towards Ephesus, determined to pillage the city. Only Ballista, Warrior of Rome, knows the ways of the barbarians, and only he can defeat them. The Goths' appetite for brutality and destruction is limitless and before long Ballista is locked into a deadly bloodfeud, with an enemy that has sworn to destroy him - and the Imperium - at all costs. Dr Harry Sidebottom is a leading authority on ancient warfare - he applies his knowledge with a spectacular flair for sheer explosive action and knuckle-whitening drama. Fans of Bernard Cornwell will love Sidebottom's recreation of the ancient world. Praise for Harry Sidebottom: "Sidebottom's prose blazes with searing scholarship". ("The Times"). "The best sort of red-blooded historical fiction". (Andrew Taylor, author of "The American Boy"). Dr. Harry Sidebottom is Fellow of St Benets Hall, and Lecturer at Lincoln College, Oxford - where he specializes in ancient warfare and classical art.


We review the statistical theory of helical twisting power and propose an alternative derivation of the results obtained by Nordio and co-workers [1999, J. chem. Soc. Perkin Trans., 2, 411]. We examine chiral indices which include an interaction between the host and dopant, then compare these with chiral indices dependent only on the dopant structure. We discuss the need for the inclusion of the interaction between dopant and host in the description of chiral induction, and discuss alternative measures of chirality and their shortcomings. We show that both the previously suggested surface indices and the newly proposed one vanish for at least one class of non-trivial chiral structures. We compare the results obtained from these surface indices with a more general 3D chiral index and evaluate these indices for four helicene (M)-1–4 molecules.


Containers in Linux are under active development and have different uses like security, isolation and resource guarantees. In order to provide a resource guarantee for containers, resource controllers are used as basic building blocks to monitor and control utilization of system resources like CPU time, resident memory and I/O bandwidth, among others. While CPU time and I/O bandwidth are renewable resources, memory is a nonrenewable resource in the system. Infrastructure to monitor and control resident memory used by a container adds a new dimension to the existing page allocation and reclaim logic. In order to assess the impact of any change in memory management implementation, we propose adding parameters to modify VM1 behavior and instrument code paths and collect data against common workloads like file-server, web-server, database-server and developer desktop. Data of interest would be reclaim rate, page scan density, LRU2 quantum, page container affinity and page generation. This paper discusses, in detail, the design and performance issues of RSS controller and pagecache controller within the container framework. Some of the modifications to the current page reclaim logic that could help containers are also evaluated.


Ineffective goal striving may be overcome using a simple self-regulation strategy: preparing goal striving in advance by forming implementation intentions (i.e., making if-then plans). This strategy helps to cope with the classic challenges to goal striving: getting started, staying on track, not overextending oneself, and disengaging from faulty means. Interestingly, these beneficial effects are observed no matter whether hindrances from within (e.g., ego depletion) or outside (e.g., social influence) the person are to be dealt with. In this essay, the processes on which the beneficial effects of implementation intentions are based will be discussed by pointing to relevant research using cognitive task paradigms and assessing brain data. Moreover, recent findings are reported demonstrating that implementation intentions can be used to curb reflexive cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses that interfere with a person's focal goal pursuit. In closing this essay, a behavior change intervention (i.e., mental contrasting with implementation intentions) is introduced that establishes the prerequisites for implementation intention effects to occur, and research areas in psychology are pointed to that could benefit from conducting implementation intention research.


Introduction Diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) are the major causes of sight loss in people with diabetes. Due to the increased prevalence of diabetes, the workload related to these complications is increasing making it difficult for Hospital Eye Services (HSE) to meet demands. Methods and analysis Effectiveness of Multimodal imaging for the Evaluation of Retinal oedema And new vesseLs in Diabetic retinopathy (EMERALD) is a prospective, case-referent, cross-sectional diagnostic study. It aims at determining the diagnostic performance, cost-effectiveness and acceptability of a new form of surveillance for people with stable DMO and/or PDR, which entails multimodal imaging and image review by an ophthalmic grader, using the current standard of care (evaluation of patients in clinic by an ophthalmologist) as the reference standard. If safe, cost-effective and acceptable, this pathway could help HES by freeing ophthalmologist time. The primary outcome of EMERALD is sensitivity of the new surveillance pathway in detecting active DMO/PDR. Secondary outcomes include specificity, agreement between new and the standard care pathway, positive and negative likelihood ratios, cost-effectiveness, acceptability, proportion of patients requiring subsequent full clinical assessment, unable to undergo imaging, with inadequate quality images or indeterminate findings. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval was obtained for this study from the Office for Research Ethics Committees Northern Ireland (reference 17/NI/0124). Study results will be published as a Health Technology Assessment monograph, in peer-reviewed national and international journals and presented at national/international conferences and to patient groups. Trial registration number NCT03490318 and ISRCTN10856638.


Dynamic characteristic identification provides an important insight about structural behavior of steel structures. The experimental modal analysis is used to detect dynamic characteristics and consists of several phases. First, forced-vibration tests are carried out, spectral functions are produced, dynamic characteristics are determined by analyzing processed spectral functions, and, finally, analytical models are calibrated or updated depending on experimental analysis results. In this study, forced-vibration testing is conducted on the steel footbridge by using an impact hammer. Low-amplitude broadband excitations are applied using an impact hammer to excite the bridge. The excitation force and measured responses are processed by passing them through a band-pass filter to obtain frequency-response functions, cross-power spectra, auto-power spectra, power spectral densities, and spectrograms. The system-identification procedure is based on input-output measurements. The obtained system-identification results are compared with the analytical results, which were obtained in a different previous study. A very good agreement is observed, thus providing a reliable set of identified modal properties (natural frequencies, damping ratios, and mode shapes) of the structure. The good correlations between analytical and experimental analyses show that no anomalies are detected along the structure. The experimental mode shapes are similar to what is expected from this type of structure. There is not any unexpected mechanism that changes the dynamic characteristics of the system.


In this paper, we explore the role of labor markets for monetary policy in the euro area in a New Keynesian model in which labor markets are characterized by search and matching frictions. We first investigate to which extent a more flexible labor market would alter the business cycle behavior and the transmission of monetary policy. We find that while a lower degree of wage rigidity makes monetary policy more effective, i.e. a monetary policy shock transmits faster onto inflation, the importance of other labor market rigidities for the transmission of shocks is rather limited. Second, having estimated the model by Bayesian techniques we analyze to which extent labor market shocks, such as disturbances in the vacancy posting process, shocks to the separation rate and variations in bargaining power are important determinants of business cycle fluctuations. Our results point primarily towards disturbances in the bargaining process as a significant contributor to inflation and output fluctuations. In sum, the paper supports current central bank practice which appears to put considerable effort into monitoring euro area wage dynamics and which appears to treat some of the other labor market information as less important for monetary policy.


In this book Peter Lee provides a complete description and survey of the field of semantics based compiler generation and presents a new method for expressing the formal semantics of programming languages that allows realistic compilers to be generated automatically.The method Lee describes has two main advantages over previous methods. First, it allows compilers to be generated automatically. The compilers are realistic in the sense that they compile programs as efficiently as hand crafted compilers do, and the object programs they produce run as efficiently as the object programs produced by hand crafted compilers. The second advantage is that it makes it easier to comprehend and write the semantics than other methods.The book demonstrates a working compiler generator called MESS which is used to generate a realistic compiler for a Pascal-like language. The generated compiler is then compared with several hand crafted compilers and shown to have at least comparable, and in some cases superior, performance.Peter Lee is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. "Realistic Compiler Generation" is included in the series Foundations of Computing, edited by Michael Garey and Albert Meyer.


Previously, we showed that cholinergic interneurons of the dorsal striatum lose cilia in mice harboring the Parkinson's disease associated, kinase activating, R1441C LRRK2 mutation (Dhekne et al., 2018). Here we show that this phenotype is also seen in two mouse strains carrying the most common human G2019S LRRK2 mutation. Heterozygous loss of the PPM1H phosphatase that is specific for LRRK2-phosphorylated Rab GTPases (Berndsen et al., 2019) yields the same cilia loss phenotype, strongly supporting a connection between Rab GTPase phosphorylation and cilia loss. In addition, astrocytes throughout the striatum show a ciliation defect in LRRK2 and PPM1H-/+ mutant models. Hedgehog signaling requires cilia, and loss of cilia correlates here with a loss in induction of Hedgehog signaling as monitored by in situ hybridization of Gli1 transcripts. These data support a model in which LRRK2 and PPM1H mutant mice struggle to receive and respond to critical Hedgehog signals in the nigral-striatal pathway.


ABSTRACT The potential of technological innovation to address urban sustainability has been widely acknowledged over the last decade. Across cities globally, local governments have engaged in partnership arrangements with the private sector to initiate pilot projects for urban innovation, typically co-funded by innovation subsidies. A recurring challenge however is how to scale up successful projects and generate more impact. Drawing on the business and management literature, we introduce the concept of organizational ambidexterity to provide a novel theoretical perspective on sustainable urban innovations. We examine how to align exploration (i.e., test and experiment with digital technologies, products, platforms, and services) with exploitation (i.e., reaping the financial benefits from digital technologies by bringing products, platforms, and services to the market), rooted in the literature on smart cities. We conclude that the concept of ambidexterity, as elaborated in the business and management literature and practiced by firms, can be translated to the city policy domain, provided that upscaling or exploitation in a smart city context also includes the translation of insights from urban experiments, successful or not, into new routines, regulations, protocols, and stakeholder/citizen engagement methods.


Abstract Measurements of brightness temperature from the water vapor band channels of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration polar satellites from 1981 through 1988 are analyzed. Only clear and cloud-cleared measurements from the operational sounding product are used to produce averages for bins of 2.5° latitude by 2.5° longitude and 5 days. The standard deviations of random errors for these bins are estimated. A unique feature of this dataset is its ability to identify the dry regions in the middle and upper troposphere with unprecedented detail. Results agree with the known climatology in the tropics.


"This is a harrowing, compelling story. Evoking a child's voice and viewpoint, Ung has written a book filled with vivid and unforgettable details. I lost a night's sleep to this book because I literally could not put it down, and even when I finally did, I lost another night's sleep just from the sheer, echoing power of it." -- Lucy Grealy, author of" Autobiography of a Face" From a childhood survivor of Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime comes an unforgettable narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit. Until the age of five, Lounge Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights, and sassing her parents. While her beautiful mother worried that Loung was a troublemaker -- that she stomped around like a thirsty cow -- her beloved father knew Lounge was a clever girl. When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Ung's family fled their home and moved from village to village to hide their identity, their education, their former life of privilege. Eventually, the family dispersed in order to survive. Because Lounge was resilient and determined, she was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, while other siblings were sent to labor camps. As the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia, destroying the Khmer Rouge, Loung and her surviving siblings were slowly reunited. Bolstered by the shocking bravery of one brother, the vision of the others -- and sustained be her sister's gentle kindness amid brutality -- Loung forged on tocreate for herself a courageous new life.


Dual amylin and calcitonin receptor agonists (DACRAs) are novel candidates for treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity because of their beneficial effects on body weight, blood glucose, insulin sensitivity, and food preference, at least short-term. DACRAs activate the receptors for a prolonged time period, resulting in metabolic effects superior to those of amylin. Because of the prolonged receptor activation, different dosing intervals and, hence, less frequent receptor activation might change the efficacy of DACRA treatment in terms of weight loss and food preference. In this study, we compared daily dosing to dosing every other day with the aim of understanding the optimal balance between efficacy and tolerability. Obese and lean male Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with the DACRA KBP-088, applying two different dosing intervals (1.5 nmol/kg once daily and 3 nmol/kg every other day) to assess the effect on body weight, food intake, glucose tolerance, and food preference when given the choice between chow (13% fat) and a high-fat diet (60% fat). Treatment with KBP-088 induced significant weight loss, reduction in adiposity, improvement in glucose control, and altered food preference toward food that is less calorie-dense. KBP-088 dosed every other day (3 nmol/kg) was superior to KBP-088 once daily (1.5 nmol/kg) in terms of weight loss and improvement of food preference. The beneficial effects were evident in both lean and obese rats. Hence, dosing KBP-088 every other day positively affects overall efficacy on metabolic parameters regardless of the lean/obese state, suggesting that less-frequent dosing with KBP-088 could be feasible. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Here, we show that food preference can be altered chronically toward choices that are less calorie-dense by pharmacological treatment. Further, pharmacological dosing regimens affect the efficacy differently, as dosing every other day improved body weight loss and alterations in food preference compared with daily dosing. This suggest that alterations of the dosing regimens could be feasible in the treatment of obesity.


Data security has consistently been a major issue in information technology. In the cloud computing environment, it becomes particularly serious because the data is located in different places even in all the globe. Data security and privacy protection are the two main factors of user's concerns about the cloud technology. Though many techniques on the topics in cloud computing have been investigated in both academics and industries, data security and privacy protection are becoming more important for the future development of cloud computing technology in government, industry, and business. Data security and privacy protection issues are relevant to both hardware and software in the cloud architecture. This study is to review different security techniques and challenges from both software and hardware aspects for protecting data in the cloud and aims at enhancing the data security and privacy protection for the trustworthy cloud environment. In this paper, we make a comparative research analysis of the existing research work regarding the data security and privacy protection techniques used in the cloud computing


Purpose — Shape memory alloy (SMA) stents have been used increasingly for the treatment of complex arterial oc-clusions. There is an immediate need to quantify the mechanical performance of SMA stents to open occluded arteries. Methods — The stent crimping and expanding process was assessed through both numerical modeling and in-vitro studies. The implantation of a SMA stent in curved arteries with eccentric stenosis were simulated to evaluate the effect of artery curvature on arterial mechanics. Results — The crimping process stored a considerable amount of strain energy in the stent, which were then re-leased through self-expansion until a balance between the stent and stenosed artery was achieved. The deployed SMA stent exhibited a dog-bone shape, where the longitudinal ends of the stent penetrated into the artery causing arterial stress concentrations. However, the maximum arterial stress was observed at the central portion of artery contacting the thin side of the plaque. Furthermore, stent-induced arterial mechanics were more pronounced in the curved artery than the straight artery. The maximum Von Mises stress in the curved artery with a curvature of 0.05 mm -1 was 37% larger than that found in the straight artery. The percentage of the intimal area at higher stress level (> 0.05 MPa) is 5.51% in the curved artery, compared to 1.76% in the straight artery. Conclusions — This work provided a fundamental understanding of the behavior of SMA stent and its impact on the vascular wall, and illuminated the possibilities for exploiting their potential to alleviate arterial injury.


The prickly pear is a product with origin in Latin America and that was led by the conquerors to other continents that were eligible for cultivation. Mexico has the highest diversity and abundance of species (around 80) and prickly pear cultivars worldwide, so it is regarded as a center of origin and spread of the plant. The production potential of this crop is due to the wealth of genetic material, to the surface dedicated to do so and the many climates where the ground has been established. By 2010, in Mexico there were 415,086 tons, particularly in the State of Mexico, it accounted for 43.0% of national production. The study was conducted in the municipalities of Nopaltepec and Axapusco that are located in the Orient region of the state. The methodological tool which was used for the analysis of profitability is the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM), in order to quantify the profitability of the tuna production in the affected municipalities. The results obtained show that the producers were profitable production for the 2011 production cycle, production units Nopaltepec do a better management of orchards Axapusco producers, therefore, have higher incomes as well as make greater investments activities also. It generated a significant economic benefit in the purchase of tradable inputs and domestic factors where manual labor is the most important, so the fruit is very demanding labor by the nature of the process of obtaining the product.


Three influential calls for reform in legal education, the MacCrate Report, the Carnegie Report, and most recently the Stuckey Report, have all recommended that professors use teaching methods to provide greater opportunities for students to practice problem solving skills and receive feedback on their performance. Being a lawyer is much more than memorizing rules; students need to be able to understand the big picture and use the details to problem solve. This article details how to use audio and written podcast summaries to help students see the big picture in a subject and how each smaller topic fits together into that bigger picture. On the detail side, quizzes and "Treasure Hunts" get students to read statutes apply them to different problem situations. The article ends by providing the specific programs I use to deliver this supplemental material to students.


This paper is concerned with the significant symbolic and ritual applications of water in the Christian religion. The presence of water both actual and figural in the Christian tradition stretches back to pre-Christian Judaism and the history of water as it appears in the scriptural accounts. The history of the relation between water and Christian faith and ideas begins in the religions of Israel and extends continuously up to the present. This history is marked by the geography, ancient politics, and anthropology of water and water usage, such that the scriptures cannot be properly understood without taking these into account. In recent eco-theological reflection, water has become an object of renewed religious concern. The author reflects on how the Christian symbolism of water sets up a reciprocal relation between water as a religious, as well as a natural, resource.


Modification of natural coastlines is prevalent as human coastal populations swell and effects of global climate change become clearer. We investigated effects of shoreline hardening and environmental factors on benthic infauna and trophic structure in the Patuxent River, Maryland, a stressed mesohaline Chesapeake Bay tributary. We characterized differences in density, diversity, biomass, and trophic structure for large (>3 mm) and small (>500 μm) infauna adjacent to natural marsh, riprap, and bulkhead (i.e., seawall) shores throughout the river. Akaike information criterion model comparisons were used to assess the evidence for differences in benthic infaunal structure using primary (shoreline type) and secondary (e.g., sediment grain size, predator abundance) variables. There was strong evidence for secondary factors to explain reduced biomass of infauna adjacent to developed shorelines. For large infauna, evidence suggested that shorelines with riprap had reduced diversity, and with bulkhead had increased diversity. Increased wave energy and chlorophyll-a were associated with high densities for both size fractions riprap shorelines. Trends suggested high biomass and more carnivores, omnivores, and deposit feeders adjacent to natural marshes, compared to low biomass and more filter feeders at developed shorelines. While similar studies in lower Chesapeake Bay systems have shown clear effects of shoreline type on benthic communities, the extensive development in the Patuxent River may contribute to larger-scale stress, yet some shoreline-specific effects were detected. Non-parametric tests revealed differences in infaunal communities by shoreline type and river zone. Thus, the benthic community in this estuary is driven by local shoreline effects, as well as large-scale physical and biotic factors.


Seasonal variations of snow cover fraction (SFC) over the Tibet Plateau (TP) are examined using the data acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra spacecraft. In this study, we first evaluate the accuracy of the MODIS high‐resolution snow cover data by comparing the data with in‐situ Chinese snow observations. Results show that overall accuracy of MODIS snow data is about 90% over the TP area. Statistical analysis is then performed over the MODIS snow data during 2000–2006. It is found that the most persistent snow cover is located in the southern and western edges of the TP within large mountain ridges and western part of Yarlung Zangbo valley. The higher SCFs are mostly concentrated in the regions where the elevation is higher than 6000 m. The duration for snow persistence varies in different elevation ranges and generally becomes longer with increases in the terrain elevation.


The Cooltown project at HP Labs applies Web technology to develop systems that support the users of wireless, handheld devices interacting with their environment, anywhere they may be. The basic elements of Web technology useful for ubiquitous computing are described in several papers and on-line resources from the Cooltown project [1-5]. Here we will give a flavor of the Cooltown user experience, discuss ways that context can be used in web systems, and explain why we think a web-based system for ubiquitous computing can achieve network effects. In our conclusion we will mention some of the many remaining challenges and our initial user studies platform.


It is currently common to use spatially unresolved multifilter broadband photometry to determine the masses of individual stellar clusters (and hence the cluster mass function, CMF). I analyze the stochastic effects introduced by the sampling of the stellar initial mass function (SIMF) in the derivation of the individual masses and the CMF, and I establish that such effects are the largest contributor to the observational uncertainties. An analytical solution, valid in the limit where uncertainties are small, is provided to establish the range of cluster masses over which the CMF slope can be obtained with a given accuracy. The validity of the analytical solution is extended to higher mass uncertainties using Monte Carlo simulations and the Gamma approximation. The value of the Poisson mass is calculated for a large range of ages and a variety of filters for solar-metallicity clusters measured with single-filter photometry. A method that uses the code CHORIZOS is presented to simultaneously derive masses, ages, and extinctions. The classical method of using unweighted UBV photometry to simultaneously establish ages and extinctions of stellar clusters is found to be unreliable for clusters older than ≈30 Ma, even for relatively large cluster masses. On the other hand, augmenting the filter set to include longer-wavelength filters and using weights for each filter increases the range of masses and ages that can be accurately measured with unresolved photometry. Nevertheless, a relatively large range of masses and ages is found to be dominated by SIMF sampling effects that render the observed masses useless, even when using UBVRIJHK photometry. A revision of some literature results affected by these effects is presented and possible solutions for future observations and analyses are suggested.


A low-complexity method of interleaver design, sub-vector interleaving, for both parallel and serially concatenated convolutional codes (PCCCs and SCCCs, respectively) is presented here. Since the method is low-complexity, it is uniquely suitable for designing long interleavers.
Sub-vector interleaving is based on a dynamical system representation of the constituent encoders employed by PCCCs and SCCCs. Simultaneous trellis termination can be achieved with a single tail sequence using sub-vector interleaving for both PCCCs and SCCCs. In the case of PCCCs, the error floor can be lowered by sub-vector interleaving which allows for an increase in the weight of the free distance codeword and the elimination of the lowest weight codewords generated by weight-2 terminating input sequences that determine the error floor at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). In the case of SCCCs, sub-vector interleaving lowers the error floor by increasing the weight of the free distance codewords. Interleaver gain can also be increased for SCCCs by interleaving the lowest weight codewords from the outer into non-terminating input sequences to the inner encoder.
Sub-vector constrained S-random interleaving, a method for incorporating S-random interleaving into sub-vector interleavers, is also proposed. Simulations show that short interleavers incorporating S-random interleaving into sub-vector interleavers perform as well as or better than those designed by the best and most complex methods for designing short interleavers. A method for randomly generating sub-vector constrained S-random interleavers that maximizes the spreading factor, S, is also examined.
The convergence of the turbo decoding algorithm to maximum-likelihood decisions on the decoded input sequence is required to demonstrate the improvement in BER performance caused by the use of sub-vector interleavers. Convergence to maximum-likelihood decisions by the decoder do not always occur in the regions where it is feasible to generate the statistically significant numbers of error events required to approximate the BER performance for a particular coding scheme employing a sub-vector interleaver. Therefore, a technique for classifying error events by the mode of convergence of the decoder is used to illuminate the effect of the sub-vector interleaver at SNRs where it is possible to simulate the BER performance of the coding scheme.


Words and constructions regularly have multiple meanings, and it may be difficult delineating these meanings and whether they are instances of monosemy or polysemy. This paper discusses this problem with regard to some uses of 'give'. Some uses fall under the definition of a literal meaning 'cause someone to obtain something' (e.g. give someone a present) while others are more figurative such as give someone a slap. A problem for delineating these different senses comes from 'bridging contexts' such as give someone a kiss, which can be marginally construed as 'causing someone to obtain a kiss' but also as a figurative usage meaning 'kiss someone'. Evidence for this comes from syntactic tests such as the dative alternation (in which for example give a kiss to your mother is more acceptable than ?give a slap to your mother or *give a wash to the car), and polysemy tests such as zeugma, which yield contradictory results when applied to such bridging contexts. A hypothesis is that individual usages may be situated along a continuum, with no necessity for a sharp cut-off point between different senses. A way of representing this continuum is a semantic map in the sense of Cysouw (2010), with different individual uses separated by a certain 'semantic distance' reflecting semantic and syntactic behaviour. The 'semantic map' idea is suggested to be a solution to the general problem of how to delineate word senses, and in particular a semantic map which represents a 'family tree' of individual uses.


Two necropolises and a fortified settlement discovered near the village of Kaptol in the Požega Valley (Croatia) form one of the most important Hallstatt complexes in this part of Europe. The importance of the large and prosperous settlement accompanied by elite burials with prestigious goods from distant areas is probably based on the transitional position of the Hallstatt centre in Kaptol within the communication network, which connected the Mediterranean cultural area with the rich seats of Hallstatt princes in Central Europe. An important role in this system was played by the Iron Age cultures of the Balkans and Pannonia, which were closely and directly connected with the centre at Kaptol. The paper presents the research of the necropolis at Gradci, where fourteen tumuli were excavated in the period between 2001 and 2010. The paper also briefly presents the results of a ground survey of the hillfort, which suggests a longer life span for the settlement and its possible continuity into the La Tene Period.


We introduce a new family of sequences $\{t_k(n)\}_{n=-\infty}^{\infty}$ for given positive integer $k$ . We call these new sequences as generalized Alcuin's sequences because we get Alcuin's sequence which has several interesting properties when $k=3$ . Also, $\{t_k(n)\}_{n=0}^{\infty}$ counts the number of partitions of $n-k$ with parts being $k, \left(k-1\right), 2\left(k-1\right),$ $3\left(k-1\right)$ , $\ldots, \left(k-1\right)\left(k-1\right)$ . We find an explicit linear recurrence equation and the generating function for $\{t_k(n)\}_{n=-\infty}^{\infty}$ . For the special case $k=4$ and $k=5$ , we get a simpler formula for $\{t_k(n)\}_{n=-\infty}^{\infty}$ and investigate the period of $\{t_k(n)\}_{n=-\infty}^{\infty}$ modulo a fixed integer. Also, we get a formula for $p_{5}\left(n\right)$ which is the number of partitions of $n$ into exactly $5$ parts.


A growing economics literature establishes a causal link between in utero shocks and health and human capital in adulthood. Most studies rely on extreme negative shocks such as famine and pandemics. We are the first to examine the impact of a positive and policy-driven change in economic resources available in utero and during childhood. In particular, we focus on the introduction of a key element of the U.S. safety net, the Food Stamp Program, which was rolled out across counties in the U.S. between 1961 and 1975. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assemble unique data linking family background and county of residence in early childhood to adult health and economic outcomes. The identification comes from variation across counties and over birth cohorts in exposure to the food stamp program. Our findings indicate that the food stamp program has effects decades after initial exposure. Specifically, access to food stamps in childhood leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of "metabolic syndrome" (obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes) and, for women, an increase in economic self-sufficiency. Overall, our results suggest substantial internal and external benefits of the safety net that have not previously been quantified.


Effects of three different macrophytic covers and the presence of alternative prey on survival of grass shrimp (Palaemonetes pugio and P. vulgaris) subjected to predation by killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) were studied in the laboratory. Overall, survival of P. vulgaris was significantly greater (82%) than that of P. pugio (70%). This difference in survival was attributed to the greater tendency of P. pugio to swim outside the covers, making it more vulnerable to predation. Both prey species responded similarly to the different cover conditions. Survival without cover (gravel substrate) was 48%. In cover provided by a plastic plant made to resemble Ambulia, 75% of the starting population survived. In cover furnished by field-collected specimens of the flat chlorophyte, Ulva, survival was 71%, compared to 98% survival in the branched green alga, Codium. Predation pressure on neither species was significantly enhanced or diminished by the presence of a second prey species. For both grass shrimp species, increased survival in Codium in the presence of the predator was attributed to the physically more complex nature of this macrophytic cover.


Virtually all criminal law scholars, and many jurists, Republican legislators, and special interest groups bemoan the over-federalization of criminal law, which they perceive as the inevitable result of too many federal laws being enacted and enforced at the whims of Congress and federal prosecutors. This uncontrolled growth, they argue, disrupts the delicate balance between state and federal law enforcement systems by draining resources and attention away from local law enforcement. We believe that such claims are largely unfounded or misdirected. While it is true that there are more federal criminal laws in existence than ever before, empirical evidence indicates that the size of the federal criminal code has little (if anything) to do with the annual number of federal prosecutions. In fact, as we demonstrate in Part I, while federal criminal caseloads have grown in recent decades almost all of the growth can be attributed to tougher federal drug and immigration enforcement policies, and not to a creeping federal encroachment upon areas traditional state concern. A review of federal criminal caseload data from 1940 onward reveals that rates of prosecution for most offense types remained stable, indicating there's been no seismic change in the balance between federal and state law enforcement systems. In fact, most indicators suggest that federal resources continue to be expended primarily to vindicate and protect federal interests, while states remain the first line of defense against violent crimes, sex crimes, property crimes, and the like. In Part II, we explore and analyze scholars' condemnation of federal criminal law enforcement as arbitrary or disruptive of states' ability to craft local solutions to local problems. We respond directly to concerns over sentencing disparities between the state and federal systems, and the perception that some defendants are arbitrarily selected for prosecution. We argue that, in the vast majority of cases, federal prosecutors make reasoned, sensible decisions when selecting cases for federal prosecution. Even assuming arguendo that selection for federal prosecution was random, we find no support in case law for the proposition that random selection would be unjust or violate constitutional principles. The very nature of Our Federalism not only permits but encourages state and federal entities to identify and protect their (frequently overlapping) interests as they see fit. Finally, in Part III, we respond to the criticism that the over-federalization of criminal law has created an explosion of regulatory offenses without culpability, and a series of overbroad and vague federal criminal prohibitions. There are few if any unwitting individuals wrongly imprisoned because of unfair prosecutions. Instead, Congressional drafting deficiencies have been resolved by our long history of Supreme Court intervention in cases where federal statutes might otherwise raise due process concerns. The Court has successfully imposed extra-textual mens rea requirements to public welfare offenses, and similarly narrowed the interpretation of mail fraud, obstruction, and RICO.


This study offers a reconstruction of a crucial event of pan-Eurasian historical significance—namely, the Battle of Muhi in 1241—by focusing on two primary source accounts of Batu Khan ascending a hill shortly before the battle. The two sources are not related to each other, and they represent two fundamentally different source groups related to the battle. By using a complex analytical approach, this article tries to identify the character and significance of the hill in question—something made difficult by the fact that there are no hills or mountains near the battlefield today. The attested purposes that Mongol rulers and troops had for ascending mountains are explored for clues. A hypothesis emerges according to which Batu likely ascended two different types of hill, one being a small mound (kurgan) of the type which characteristically dotted Hungary's landscape around the battlefield. The other hill, which he ascended for religious ritual purposes, was probably one of the more prominent features in the area of Szerencs about thirty kilometers from the site of the clash. Several earlier attempts to identify the hill are now revisited in this study with two different types of approaches. Combining a unique range of textual accounts with recent archaeological findings, we suggest a drastic and perhaps more accurate reinterpretation of the course of events leading up to the important battle than the interpretations which have been proposed so far. Furthermore, by looking closely at the different narrative structures of the sources we can identify attempts by medieval authors of Central European and Asian texts to contextualize this event within their general interpretations of the battle. Thus, the main arguments of this article cross real and figurative frontiers in contemporary accounts of the episode and in their modern interpretations. This research forms part of an interdisciplinary research project carried out by a group of scholars dealing with the historical, archaeological, and topographical aspects of the Battle of Muhi.


This article is a reflection of civil defence training as a basic element of education. The research focuses on the period after the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 to the time before World War II in 1939. The aim of the research is to explore the basic approaches to the implementation of civil defence training in terms of the creation of a new state and in relation to civil defence education in Czechoslovakia. A comparative historical analysis forms the basis of the research into the issue of statehood through education. The comparative historical analysis method is used as a specific tool for qualitative research. This is a procedure which can be applied to the basic elements of the statehood issue in education, through which it is possible to learn more about this phenomenon and subsequently explain it. Perceptions and ideas about the tasks of the state have gradually changed and evolved. This includes the creation and development of the legal order, and the provision of security and public order within the state. Civil defence training was targeted in such a way as to create an environment in which every citizen, irrespective of their nationality, religion, political opinion and social environment, had the physical and mental ability and willingness to enthusiastically and faithfully fulfil their civic duties.


BACKGROUND Thalassemia is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder, in which the patient requires life-long blood transfusion. As Indonesia harbors 6 to 10% thalassemia carriers, thalassemia prevention measures such as early screening and education in the community are urgently needed. The aim of this study was to explore the knowledge, attitude and practice about thalassemia among young medical students. METHODS A cross-sectional analytic observational study was conducted on 179 subjects in 2015, using a questionnaire with items on knowledge, attitude and practice about thalassemia for data collection. After signing informed consent, the questionnaire was filled in by the students and a blood test was performed when the students agreed to be examined. Detection of probable thalassemia carrier status was done by determination of hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin. RESULTS The knowledge about thalassemia of the first year medical students (n=179) was good (21.1%), moderate (70.9%) and poor (21.1%). Only 67 (38.3%) of the students agreed to a blood examination for determination of their carrier status after filling-in the questionnaire. The knowledge of thalassemia among first year medical students was statistically related to the timing when they would agree to have their thalassemia carrier status examined (p=0.021, one way ANOVA test). CONCLUSION A higher thalassemia knowledge score causes medical students to be willing to undergo thalassemia carrier status examination at an earlier point in timing. A well-organized educational program focusing on thalassemia and early screening in young adults may enhance the thalassemia prevention program.


This paper examines the economic issues leading up to the 2011 NFL lockout and the resultant Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFLPA. The history of labor relations between the league and the union is presented. The league's antitrust situation that led up to the 1993 CBA is discussed in detail, along with the economic consequences of that agreement and its successors through 2006. The issues dividing the players and the league in the wake of the 2006 CBA are discussed. The key events during the 2011 lockout and the details of the 2011-2020 CBA are provided.


In this paper, we review the most common specifications of discrete-time stochas- tic volatility (SV) models and illustrate the major principles of corresponding Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based statistical inference. We provide a hands-on ap- proach which is easily implemented in empirical applications and financial practice and can be straightforwardly extended in various directions. We illustrate empirical results based on different SV specifications using returns on stock indices and foreign exchange rates.


What explains different levels of clientelism across countries? Why do some politicians deliver clientelistic goods to their electoral constituencies, and why do some voters demand them? This article focuses on the historical origins of trust in states and shows that they have a lasting impact on contemporary patterns of patronage. The shift to programmatic politics reflects a historical transition from personalized trust in politicians to trust in impersonal bureaucracies tasked by political parties to implement policy. Past experience with public bureaucracy informs the expectations of voters and parties regarding the performance of the state and its ability to provide public goods, which in turn shape the degree of clientelistic exchange across societies. To capture state capacity, the authors focus on the critical juncture before the expansion of women's suffrage, and use the ability of public bureaucracies to reduce infant mortality in the interwar period as a proxy for historical state capacity and as an instrument to predict trust. Macrodata from eightyeight electoral democracies and microdata from the most recent wave of the World Value Survey provide supportive evidence for the theory.


Abstract. An overview of the turbulent structures seen by MF, HF and VHF radars in the troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere is presented, drawing on evidence from previous radar measurements, in situ studies, laboratory observations, observations at frequencies other than those under focus, and modelling studies. We are particularly interested in structures at scales less than one radar pulse length, and smaller than the beam width, and especially the degree of anisotropy of turbulence at these scales. Previous radar observations are especially important in regard to the degree of anisotropy, and we highlight the role that these studies have had in furthering our understanding in this area. The contrasts and similarities between the models of anisotropic turbulence and specular reflection are considered. The need for more intense studies of anisotropy at MF, HF and VHF is especially highlighted, since this is an area in which these radars can make important contributions to the understanding of atmospheric turbulence. Key words. Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (turbulence) – Atmospheric composition and structure (instruments and techniques) – History of geophysics (atmospheric sciences)


Over 110 recipes to build simple and complex motion graphics in the blink of an eye with this book and ebook Overview Easy to follow, hands-on instructions that simplify the learning process Lots of in-depth information for FCPX users looking to integrate more Motion Graphics into their projects Learn keyboard shortcuts that will save you hours and navigate Motion's interface like an expert In Detail Lets face it, people like images that move. Whether you see images on a moving billboard, walk into a bank with an LCD screen, watch TV, or surf the Web, Motion Graphics are everywhere. With an even greater demand to integrate Motion Graphics in just about every type of video or interactive content there is, this book will help you get there with Motion 5. It's all about creating eye-catching titles, transitions, and effects! "Apple Motion 5 Cookbook" contains exercises for the beginner and seasoned motion graphics user. You will learn how to navigate Motions interface and quickly grasp the tools available to you while creating sophisticated and sleek animations in both 2D and 3D environments. Not forgetting visual effects, we will also explore Motion Tracking and Green Screen Techniques that will help you composite like a Pro. Lets launch the application, grab a cup of coffee, and get started on this exciting journey! The exercises will take you right from creating your very first Motion project through to export. You will learn how to navigate quickly and efficiently through Motion's complex interface and toolsets so that you can focus oncreating your masterpiece! You will learn how to create a new project and import material into that project from the Media Browser and Motions vast and rich content library. From there, you will learn to manipulate and animate these source files using Motion's behaviors, classic keyframing techniques, adding filters, and master the built-in tools such as particle systems that will knock your socks off! Last but not least, you will export your projects to a variety of different formats including DVD, as a Final Cut Pro generator, and the Web. The "Apple Motion 5 Cookbook" contains downloadable content for each chapter and is packed with screenshots and illustrations. After reading this book, youll be creating Motion graphics and visual effects in no time! What you will learn from this book Import Media using the Media Browser including Photoshop and Illustrator files Finish projects by using only whats available to you in Motions vast content library Build complex animations without ever having to add a keyframe Create incredible particle systems from any source file with the click of a button Add Cameras, Lights, Reflection and Depth of Field to your scene Make your text animate in seconds using one of several built-in behaviors Use Motions keyer on greenscreen clips with ease Create beautiful transition, effects, and titles to use directly in FCPX Approach Step-by-step, practical recipes to build simple and complex Motion Graphics with Motion 5 Who this book is written for "Apple Motion 5 Cookbook" is designed for Final Cut Pro X video editors and Motion 5 users looking to gain more knowledge of how Motion works, and to get more of a WOW factor in projects. Its also aimed at designers and motion designers alike, who are looking to build on their skillsets.


How do Family and Medical Leave Act rights operate in practice in the courts and in the workplace? This empirical study examines how institutions and social practices transform the meaning of these rights to recreate inequality. Workplace rules and norms built around the family wage ideal, the assumption that disability and work are mutually exclusive, and management's historical control over time all constrain opportunities for social change. Yet workers can also mobilize rights as a cultural discourse to change the social meaning of family and medical leave. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from social constructivism and new institutionalism, this study explains how institutions transform rights to recreate systems of power and inequality but at the same time also provide opportunities for law to change social structure. It provides a fresh look at the perennial debate about law and social change by examining how institutions shape the process of rights mobilization.


Development tools are a prerequisite for crafting software. They offer the lenses through which developers perceive and reason about their software systems. Generic development tools, while having a wide range of applicability, ignore the contextual nature of software systems and do not allow developers to directly reason in terms of domain abstractions. Domain-specific development tools, tailored to particular application domains, can address this problem. While it has clear advantages, incorporating domain abstractions into development tools is a challenging activity. The wide range of domains and contextual tasks that development tools need to support leads to costly or ad hoc mechanisms to incorporate and discover domain abstractions. Inherently, this limits developers from taking advantage of domain-specific information during the development and maintenance of their systems. To overcome this problem, we propose to embed domain abstractions into development tools through the design of moldable tools that support the inexpensive creation of domain-specific extensions capturing domain abstractions, and that automatically select extensions based on the domain model and the developer's interaction with the domain model. This solution aims to reduce the cost of creating extensions. Towards this goal, it provides precise extension points together with internal DSLs for configuring common types of extensions. This solution facilitates automatic discovery by enabling extension creators to specify together with an extension an activation predicate that captures the context in which that extension is applicable. We validate the moldable tools approach by applying it, in the context of objectoriented applications, to improve three development activities, namely: reasoning about run-time objects, searching for domain-specific artifacts, and reasoning about run-time behavior. For each activity we identify limitations of current tools, show how redesigning those tools following the moldable tools approach addresses the identified limitations, and discuss the cost for creating domain-specific extensions. We demonstrate that moldable tools address an existing need by analyzing the increase in domain-specific extensions after we integrated the moldable tools solving the aforementioned tasks with an IDE. We also show what kinds of custom environments developers can create by continuously adapting their development tools.


Universal Design for Learning is the best way to teach all students effectively but how can a busy teacher get started with UDL right now? Answers are in this vibrant, research-based guidebook, created by seasoned teacher and former UDL Coordinator Loui Lord Nelson. K-12 educators will learn how to use the three key principles of UDL Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression to present information in multiple ways and meet the needs of diverse learners. Written in first person, like a face-to-face talk with a passionate educator, the book gives teachers a reader-friendly UDL primer and a practical framework for implementation, with detailed guidelines on lesson planning and checkpoints that help them stay on track. USE UDL PRINCIPLES TO HELP STUDENTS: sharpen executive function skills, such as goal-setting and strategy development improve comprehension and information processing stay engaged during lessons and overcome distractions communicate effectively using multiple tools, including both high and low/no technology options develop self-regulation and self-assessment skills sustain effort and persistence increase autonomy show what they know through flexible, individualized assessment options PRACTICAL MATERIALS: Diverse examples of successfully using UDL across grades, sample assignments and activity ideas, and helpful tips and personal reflections from teachers and administrators. Videos included online! Watch 16 short clips with UDL tips from experienced educators: www.brookespublishing.com/nelson-videos ENHANCED E-BOOK VERSION AVAILABLE! The full-color e-book includes 16 embedded video clips of teachers and administrators offering tips on key UDL topics, such as choosing goals, promoting executive function, recruiting student interest, and helping students generalize new skills. For the best reading experience please install one of the following free e-reader apps, all of which support video: To read on your personal computer (Windows or Mac): Google Chrome's Readium AppTo read on an iPad or iPhone: Apple's iBooks or Gitden EPUB3 Book ReaderTo read on an Android device (tablet or mobile): Gitden EPUB3 Book Reader or Gitden Sony reader with reader extensionOnce your app is installed, follow these easy steps for downloading your e-book: Purchase the e-book through the device on which you will be reading.From your confirmation email or your Brookes Publishing website account, click the download link provided.The e-book will download*. If reading on your personal computer, transfer the file (which will be saved to your Downloads folder unless otherwise directed by you) to your reader library. If you are reading on a tablet or mobile device select the reader in which the e-book should be opened. Thata s it! You are now ready to read your enhanced e-book!*The download time of the "Design and Deliver" e-book will vary slightly, but will likely take 30 minutes to an hour due to file size."


The index published in Economic Freedom of the World measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom. The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of privately owned property. Forty-two data points are used to construct a summary index and to measure the degree of economic freedom in five broad areas:


Endemic biota of native grasslands commonly co-exist with introduced grazing mammals, and often this is seen as a conservation threat. The endangered pygmy bluetongue lizard (Tiliqua adelaidensis) is restricted to remnants of native grassland in the mid-north of South Australia, with a long history of sheep grazing. Pygmy bluetongue lizards use ambush predation from their burrow entrances, and prey capture may be more efficient in a habitat with low vegetation density. We experimentally investigated changes in predatory behaviour in this lizard, with different grass density. We maintained and filmed captive lizards, in sequence, in grassed and bare habitat, and in habitat with low and high grass density, and provided them with crickets (Teleogryllus commodus) as prey. In habitats with lower grass density lizards emerged from their burrows more, made more prey capture attempts, and these attempts were more often made with the body further emerged from the burrow. We suggest that some grazing by domestic stock might benefit predatory efficiency for this lizard, perhaps by allowing a clearer view of approaching prey when grass density is lower. Our results conform with a previous study of the behaviour of pygmy bluetongue lizards in their natural burrows in the field under different simulated grazing regimes. From a broader perspective, together the results suggest a balance between detrimental impacts and benefits from grazing pressures on grassland lizard species in other geographical regions, and the potential to maintain conservation good will among farming communities.


Distance estimation is important to many Internet applications, most notably for a WWW client that needs to select a server among several potential candidates. Current approaches to distance (i.e., time delay) estimation in the Internet are based on placing Tracer stations in key locations and conducting measurements between them. The Tracers construct an approximated map of the Internet after processing the information obtained from these measurements. This work presents a novel algorithm, based on algebraic tools, that computes additional distances, which are not explicitly measured. As such, the algorithm extracts more information from the same amount of measurement data. Our algorithm has several practical imparts. First, it can reduce the number of Tracers and measurements without sacrificing information. Second, our algorithm is able to compute distance estimates between locations where Tracers cannot be placed. This is especially important when unidirectional measurements are conducted, since such measurements require specialized equipment which cannot be placed everywhere. To evaluate the algorithm's performance, we tested it both on randomly generated topologies and on real Internet measurements. Our results show that the algorithm computes up to 50-200% additional distances beyond the basic Tracer-to-Tracer measurements.


Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is the major route of receptor internalization at the plasma membrane. Analysis of constitutive CME is complicated by the fact that initiation of endocytic events is unpredictable. When and where a clathrin-coated pit will form and what cargo it will contain are difficult to foresee. Here we describe a series of genetically encoded reporters that allow the initiation of CME on demand. This is achieved by inducibly tethering a clathrin "hook" to a plasma membrane "anchor". Our design incorporates temporal and spatial control of initiation using chemical and optical tools, and the cargo is defined. Since this system bypasses multiple steps in vesicle creation, we term it "hot-wiring". In this paper, we use hot-wired endocytosis to define the functional interactions between clathrin and the β2 subunit of the AP2 complex. However, there are numerous applications for this new technology, which we hope will be broadly useful to the field.


We propose an integral imaging system that uses three lens arrays, including two convex lens arrays and a concave lens array. Compared with the conventional integral imaging system, the proposed system can remarkably enhance the viewing angle. The maximum viewing angle can be enlarged to 48o, which is 4.8 times wider than that of the conventional system. The principle of the proposed system is elucidated, and the experimental results are presented in this letter.


Automatic document summarization is a problem of creating a document surrogate that adequately represents the full document content. We aim at a summarization system that can replicate the quality of summaries created by humans. In this paper we investigate the machine learning method for extracting full sentences from documents based on the document semantic graph structure. In particular, we explore how the Support Vector Machines (SVM) learning method is affected by the quality of linguistic analyses and the corresponding semantic graph representations. We apply two types of linguistic analysis: (1) a simple part-of-speech tagging of noun phrases and verbs and (2) full logical form analysis which identifies Subject-Predicate-Object triples, and then build the semantic graphs. We train the SVM classifier to identify summary nodes and use these nodes to extract sentences. Experiments with the DUC 2002 and CAST datasets show that the SVM based extraction of sentences does not differ significantly for the simple and the sophisticated syntactic analysis. In both cases the graph attributes used in learning are essential for the classifier performance and the quality of extracted summaries.


This paper is a data-driven analysis of Shakespeare's punning discourse carried out on a collection of puns culled from two comedies, viz. "Love's Labour's Lost" (LLL) and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (TGV). A pun is defined here as a phenomenon which depends on the juxtaposition of identical/similar forms and dissimilar meanings . The study is designed to examine the phenomenon from a strictly socio-pragmatic vantage point and sets out to explore the impact of punsters' social roles (public/professional, rather than private, i.e. those of clowns and pages) on the peculiarities of their punning which prove to have considerable potential for explaining various contextually strategic moves, such as the choice of interlocutor to pun with, the topic to play on, the number of puns to make in individual interactions, etc. It becomes plainly evident that, while both pages and clowns fit into the category of habitual punsters, their punning practices are markedly different, being a product of acerbic wit in the former case, and of intellectual primitivism in the latter.


Silvicultural operation need to notice the species diversity. To this study Gomarlang district in marivan region, northern zagros forest was selected. In this study 30 circle sample plots (500 m2) were collected by random method. In every sample plot the kind of species and number of trees and shrub were recorded. In the sample plots the micro plots of 5 m by 5 m (i.e. area of 25 m2) were designed and Herbaceous and shrub information was recorded then. Species diversity indexes including Shannon Wiener (H׳), Simpson (1-D) and Margaleff (R1) were used to evaluate plant diversity in each sample plot. Data analyzing was done by Past and Ecological Methodological software's. Results showed that 8 tree species, 8 shrub species and 64 herb species observed in the site study. The plant species that identified in the studied region belonged to 16 trees and shrub species in 9 families. Overall results showed that the presence of 80 plant species in the study area indicates the high biodiversity in the Northern Zagros forest and herbaceous layer had the highest richness, evenness and diversity.


Sound water policy and management rests on sound hydrometeorological and ecological data. Conversely, unrepresentative, poorly collected, or erroneously archived data introduce uncertainty regarding the magnitude, rate, and direction of environmental change, in addition to undermining confidence in decision‐making processes. Unfortunately, data biases and errors can enter the information flow at various stages, starting with site selection, instrumentation, sampling/measurement procedures, postprocessing and ending with archiving systems. Techniques such as visual inspection of raw data, graphical representation, and comparison between sites, outlier, and trend detection, and referral to metadata can all help uncover spurious data. Tell‐tale signs of ambiguous and/or anomalous data are highlighted using 12 carefully chosen cases drawn mainly from hydrology ('the dirty dozen'). These include evidence of changes in site or local conditions (due to land management, river regulation, or urbanization); modifications to instrumentation or inconsistent observer behavior; mismatched or misrepresentative sampling in space and time; treatment of missing values, postprocessing and data storage errors. Also for raising awareness of pitfalls, recommendations are provided for uncovering lapses in data quality after the information has been gathered. It is noted that error detection and attribution are more problematic for very large data sets, where observation networks are automated, or when various information sources have been combined. In these cases, more holistic indicators of data integrity are needed that reflect the overall information life‐cycle and application(s) of the hydrological data. WIREs Water 2017, 4:e1209. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1209


Pediatric mandibular fractures have been successfully managed in various ways. The use of a lingual splint is an option. This article presents a 4-year old boy who was treated by an alternative conservative method with a combination of an arch bar plus a lingual splint, circum-mandibular wiring and IMF for the reduction, stabilization and fixation of a severely displaced bilateral mandibular body fracture. This technique is a reliable, noninvasive procedure; it also limits the discomfort and morbidity associated with maxillomandibular fixation or open reduction and internal fixation in pediatric patients


The recently presented and published results of the VISION phase III study of Lu-PSMA617 for metastatic castrationresistant prostate cancer (1) are indeed one of the greatest success stories in the history of nuclear medicine (2). They add to the earlier experiences from first-in-humans studies (3–5) to phase II studies (6). However, danger lurks in this wave of unprecedented progress. The fact that more than 85% of screened participants met the Ga-PSMA11 eligibility criteria (1) made some question the need for prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET imaging before Lu-PSMA treatment. This questioning of the need for PSMA PET is done without re-evaluating the eligibility criteria themselves (not all lesions had to be PSMA-positive) and their impact on study outcomes. Some will be ready to make the argument that excluding PSMA PET will eliminate costs and increase access to therapy. Let us next clearly make the case against this approach. One of the undisputed principles of treating patients with cancer is knowing the extent of disease to the best of one's ability. Physicians practicing medical or radiation oncology who do not accurately define where cancer is and where it is not before using chemotherapy or external radiation would be viewed as derelict in their duties. So why would radioligand therapy for prostate cancer be treated any differently? Lu-PSMA617 is not expected have a low cost, nor is it without adverse events. Therefore, proper patient selection based on targeted PSMA PET imaging is necessary. By excluding patients unlikely to respond, PSMA PET will likely save health-care costs in the long run. It will also contribute prognostic factors for prediction of response to treatment (7), as well as reduce the possibility of adverse events by excluding ineligible patients. In fact, more PSMA PET imaging is likely needed during radioligand therapy, such as for evaluation of response to therapy mid-treatment and after the last cycle, replacing standard assessments with CT and bone scintigraphy. The biology of prostate cancer is complex, and a single imaging test, no matter how good, may not be sufficient to properly select patients. The TheraP phase II study required baseline Ga-PSMA11 PET, as well as F-FDG PET to exclude patients with active disease sites lacking PSMA expression (6). The outcomes, not surprisingly, appear superior to those reported in VISION and serve as a further argument for accurate eligibility screening. Access to PSMA PET in the United States was a considerable issue before the Food and Drug Administration approval of 2 radiopharmaceuticals (Ga-PSMA11 and F-DCFPyL). With industry backing and logistics being addressed, the big limiting factor will be inaccurate claims that imaging is not needed before treatment. We have been through similar debates for the treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer (8). Some physicians still chose not to conduct a whole-body scan with a diagnostic activity of either I or I. Others, including our group, always obtain this information. There are several reasons for this divergence of opinion. First, most patients with differentiated thyroid cancer have a very good prognosis. This is not the case with prostate cancer. Physicians often equate the excellent outcome with how they manage the cancer rather than with the natural history of the disease. They argue that if the patients have a good outcome without a whole-body scan then the scan is not necessary. Second, obtaining a posttherapy scan provides information regarding staging. But since when is it appropriate to stage disease after treating the patient? Third, stunning was debated and put to rest (9). There is no need to go through the same for radioligand therapy in prostate cancer. European Association of Nuclear Medicine procedure guidelines for radionuclide therapy with Lu-labeled PSMA ligands properly include PSMA PET imaging for patient selection (10). These guidelines should be reviewed regularly and revised as needed to include emerging data demonstrating the benefits of PSMA PET imaging. Additional professional organizations should endorse them and make them a part of appropriate-use criteria. The additional resources and cost to obtain the useful information from PSMA PET are a small fraction of what a prostate cancer patient and the health-care system will spend from the discovery of an elevated prostate-specific antigen level through referral to specialists, biopsy, surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, radioligand therapy, and the long-term follow-up of the cancer. Andrei Iagaru, MD


We report a bioinformatic analysis of the datasets of sequences of all ten genes from the 2009 H1N1 influenza A pandemic in the state of Wisconsin. The gene with the greatest summed information entropy was found to be the hemagglutinin (HA) gene. Based upon the viral ID identifier of the HA gene sequence, the sequences of all of the genes were sorted into two subsets, depending upon whether the nucleotide occupying the position of maximum entropy, position 658 of the HA sequence, was either A or U. It was found that the information entropy (H) distributions of subsets differed significantly from each other, from H distributions of randomly generated subsets and from the H distributions of the complete datasets of each gene. Mutual information (MI) values facilitated identification of nine nucleotide positions, distributed over seven of the influenza genes, at which the nucleotide subsets were disjoint, or almost disjoint. Nucleotide frequencies at these nine positions were used to compute mutual information values that subsequently served as weighting factors for edges in a graph net-work. Seven of the nucleotide positions in the graph network are sites of synonymous mutations. Three of these sites of synonymous mutation are within a single gene, the M1 gene, which occupied the position of greatest graph centrality. It is proposed that these bioinformatic and network graph results may reflect alterations in M1-mediated viral packaging and exteriorization, known to be susceptible to synonymous mutations.


Purpose and Objectives: This article: discusses historic milestones of the death with dignity movement,provides legislation, reimbursement, and programming updates,discusses the influence of shared decision making, andexplores ethical implications of the evolution of end-of-life care for case managers. Primary Practice Settings(s): Applicable to all health care sectors where case management is practiced. Findings/Conclusion: Few topics are more intimate and multifaceted for case managers than engaging with today's culturally diverse patient populations around end-of-life processes. The already prominent focus of this issue has been further elevated by a series of events to receive public attention. These include the Institute of Medicine's 2014 report—Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life, rising numbers of patients around the globe requesting to end life on their own terms, and corresponding death with dignity initiatives and legislation. Another vital factor in the end-of-life equation involves how the latest generation of shared decision making influences the management of treatment dialogues among practitioners, patients, as well as insurance companies. Case managers are at the intersection of these complex interactions, working to achieve ethical, as well as legal accountability to the patient, employer, and profession while balancing personal perspectives. Implications for Case Management Practice: Professionals strive to effectively intervene with patients and their support systems facing end-of-life care decisions. It is essential case managers actively consider the intricacies of ethical practice and current contexts including death with dignity legislation, shared decision making, and shifts in regulations and reimbursement for end-of-life care. Case management's ethical envelope will continue to be pushed. To that end amid shifting societal constructs, professionals must have mastery of applicable codes, standards, principles, and rules essential for adherence to ethical practice.


We draw on the social information processing (SIP) model to argue that users' earlier experiences with online social environments tend to attribute human-like characteristics to robots. Specifically, when users engage in socially-charged electronic environments to interact and communicate electronically with others, they find ways to overcome the relative lack of cues to adapt to the medium; this includes in terms of reacting to emotional relationships (Walther, 1997). We hypothesize that individuals who have a high sense of online community, engage with avatars and have higher levels of competence communicating with information and communication technologies (ICT), are more likely to recognize humanlike cues in robots. This in turn leads them to accept robots as part of their social and physical environments. A "robotic" social distance scale was developed to measure willingness to accept robots, and the results based on this scale, from an empirical study of college students (N = 874) are explored. The findings show that whereas avatar engagement and sense of online community have a strong effect on robots acceptance, recognition of human-like characteristics partially mediates the association between these concepts; this is even after accounting for predictors expected to affect attitudes toward robots such as religion, gender, age and robots' appearance. The article ends by exploring the implications of this research for greater social acceptability of robots in various human domains.


In this paper, we investigate semisymmetric graphs which arise from affine primitive permutation groups. We give a characterization of such graphs, and then construct an infinite family of semisymmetric graphs which contains the Gray graph as the third smallest member. Then, as a consequence, we obtain a factorization,of the complete bipartite graph $K_{p^{sp^t},p^{sp^t}}$ into connected semisymmetric graphs, where $p$ is an prime, $1\le t\le s$ with $s\ge2$ while $p=2$.


This paper aims to model the convergence of economic development of Albania within the Western Balkans and in the context of European integration aspirations of the region. The conclusion of this paper is that the Balkan countries have converged among themselves and toward European Union (EU). But the speed of the convergence is moderated with the hit of global crisis and the recovery still seems difficult to the rate of pre-crisis. As economies in transition that are attempting to converge with the European development stages, the economies of the Balkan countries have to go through structural evolutions that are similar among countries. The variables used in this study are the income per capita, growth rate, sector contribution to GDP growth and the added value per worker in agriculture. The data is measured for the period from 1995 to 2015 in order to establish a substantial data series for trend analysis and understanding if countries in the study are converging or diverging with EU in terms of their income and economies profile. The issue of the productivity and further specialization of their output by using their advantages in resources comes into question.


Derrida and Economics analyses two essays of Jacques Derrida on the
Public and Democracy, alongside other essays reflecting these
political works. However, Derrida's political thought will be taken
seriously by emphasising Economics before Politics. Economics will be
viewed as a detour, a detour inflecting every attempt to present a
meaningful political position or stable political realm. For Derrida,
economics has the force of an oblique ruse.
Derrida ADd BconoDdcs aligns Derrida's view of economics with the
Eighteenth Century realisation that a stable SOciety, analogous to
the Antique ideal of the Polis, is neither a common goal nor a proper
object for Political philosophy. Here, Classical economics emerges as
an oblique attempt to construct the conditions for the possibility of
a political body through economic relations. This epistemological 'en
passant' is familiar, in Britain, as Adam Smith's' Invisible Hand'.
For Derrida, the equi valent Continental ruse is distinguished by a
faith in 'dialectical idealisation'; a process bent upon securing an
idealised po 11 tical space, but unable to limit its more speculati ve
drifts.
If Classical economics represents an attempt to construct the
possibility of the Body Politic, Derrida's political essays
deconstruct this possibility. His emphasiS upon the 'possible'
highlights the effects of risk and competition in an economy that
could never comfortably be identified wi th a stable Polt tical realm.
For Derrida, economics is not simply an attempt to secure or rewrite
more direct Political discourses. As he argues, its every detour is
haunted by the possibility of speculative failure. Derrida argues an
enthusiasm for economics can also imply a preoccupation with the
finitude of the Body Politic. This observation allows him to comment
upon the valorisation of death or redundancy in certain poli tical
discourses; i. e. those analyses that, in the throes of Depression,
remain devoted to the idea of redundancy as though to the object of a
renewed political will.


Background: A novel enveloped RNA beta coronavirus, Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused severe and even fetal pneumonia in China and other countries from December 2019. Early detection of severe patients with COVID-19 is of great significance to shorten the disease course and reduce mortality. Methods: We assembled a retrospective cohort of 80 patients (including 56 mild and 24 severe) with COVID-19 infection treated at Beijing You'an Hospital. We used univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses to select the risk factors of severe and even fetal pneumonia and build scoring system for prediction, which was validated later on in a group of 22 COVID-19 patients. Results: Age, white blood cell count, neutrophil, glomerular filtration rate, and myoglobin were selected by multivariate analysis as candidates of scoring system for prediction of disease severity in COVID-19. The scoring system was applied to calculate the predictive value and found that the percentage of ICU admission (20%, 6/30) and ventilation (16.7%, 5/30) in patients with high risk was much higher than those (2%, 1/50; 2%, 1/50) in patients with low risk (p = 0.009; p = 0.026). The AUC of scoring system was 0.906, sensitivity of prediction is 70.8%, and the specificity is 89.3%. According to scoring system, the probability of patients in high risk group developing severe disease was 20.24 times than that in low risk group. Conclusions: The possibility of severity in COVID-19 infection predicted by scoring system could help patients to receiving different therapy strategies at a very early stage. Topic: COVID-19, severe and fetal pneumonia, logistic regression, scoring system, prediction.


Objective To quantify the associations between muscle-strengthening activities and the risk of non-communicable diseases and mortality in adults independent of aerobic activities. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Data sources MEDLINE and Embase were searched from inception to June 2021 and the reference lists of all related articles were reviewed. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Prospective cohort studies that examined the association between muscle-strengthening activities and health outcomes in adults aged ≥18 years without severe health conditions. Results Sixteen studies met the eligibility criteria. Muscle-strengthening activities were associated with a 10–17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD), total cancer, diabetes and lung cancer. No association was found between muscle-strengthening activities and the risk of some site-specific cancers (colon, kidney, bladder and pancreatic cancers). J-shaped associations with the maximum risk reduction (approximately 10–20%) at approximately 30–60 min/week of muscle-strengthening activities were found for all-cause mortality, CVD and total cancer, whereas an L-shaped association showing a large risk reduction at up to 60 min/week of muscle-strengthening activities was observed for diabetes. Combined muscle-strengthening and aerobic activities (versus none) were associated with a lower risk of all-cause, CVD and total cancer mortality. Conclusion Muscle-strengthening activities were inversely associated with the risk of all-cause mortality and major non-communicable diseases including CVD, total cancer, diabetes and lung cancer; however, the influence of a higher volume of muscle-strengthening activities on all-cause mortality, CVD and total cancer is unclear when considering the observed J-shaped associations. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42020219808.


OF DISSERTATION WOMEN IN WHITE: A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT MEDICAL EDUCATION AT ONE SCHOOL BETWEEN WORLD WAR II AND TITLE IX The Women in White generation of women physicians who graduated from American medical schools between World War II and the enactment of Title IX were trailblazers. They successfully pursued and achieved physician careers during a time when doctoring was still considered "man's work." They helped to clear a path to a modern medical student culture where women and men had more choices. In a 2008 oral history interview, Dr. Jacqueline Noonan, world-renowned pediatric cardiologist, discoverer of the congenital heart condition known as "Noonan Syndrome," and the first woman appointed to a chairman role at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, said it was exciting to observe and experience the cultural changes brought about by increasing numbers of women physicians. Rather than devoting all of their lives only to work, Noonan observed that many women were interested in professional careers balanced with family life and personal time. Because of the cultural changes brought about by women, she believes today's medical men are making these same choices as well. The Women in White trailblazer generation of women physicians pushed agendas which were not typical. They successfully pursued professional careers, defined their own domestic roles, and brought a new dimension to medicine. These women became leaders of medical associations, chairs of academic departments, discoverers and scientists, and givers of compassionate and innovative care in their communities. The trailblazer generation of women physicians helped pave the way to contemporary medicine.


JAMA InternMed 2013; doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.6633 A diet rich in red meat is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. In three longstanding cohorts from the US, adults who increased their intake by half a serving a week in a four year period had an increased risk of diabetes over the next four years (pooled hazard ratio 1.48, 95% CI 1.37 to 1.59). Cutting intake took longer to make a difference, but risk of diabetes fell by 14% over 12–16 years of follow-up (hazard ratio 0.86, 0.80 to 0.93). Eating more red meat tends to increase body weight, and this explained some but not all of the association between red meat and diabetes in this study. All analyses were adjusted for other changes in lifestyle and quality of diet. If red meat does cause diabetes directly (still a big if), saturated fat is one potential culprit, says a linked comment (doi:10.1001/ jamainternmed.2013.7399). Adipocytes stuffed with saturated fat are pro-inflammatory, and this has a knock-on effect on insulin resistance through oxidative stress. The colour of meat, which is determined by the content of myoglobin and haemoglobin, is probably irrelevant to risk of diabetes, and we should move away from classifying meat as red or otherwise. Fatty meat, not red meat is the problem.


The thermal multihadron production observed in different high energy collisions poses many basic problems: why do even elementary, and hadron-hadron, collisions show thermal behaviour? Why is there in such interactions a suppression of strange particle production? Why does the strangeness suppression almost disappear in relativistic heavy ion collisions? Why in these collisions is the thermalization time less than fm/c? We show that the recently proposed mechanism of thermal hadron production through Hawking-Unruh radiation can naturally answer the previous questions. Indeed, the interpretation of quark (q)-antiquark () pairs production, by the sequential string breaking, as tunneling through the event horizon of colour confinement leads to thermal behavior with a universal temperature, Mev, related to the quark acceleration, a, by . The resulting temperature depends on the quark mass and then on the content of the produced hadrons, causing a deviation from full equilibrium and hence a suppression of strange particle production in elementary collisions. In nucleus-nucleus collisions, where the quark density is much bigger, one has to introduce an average temperature (acceleration) which dilutes the quark mass effect and the strangeness suppression almost disappears.