This paper gives an overview of the principles project of Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions (AFFECT), the coalition of business, consumer and library customers of mass-market software products. AFFECT has successfully blocked passage of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) since two quick enactments in 2000, before the opposition effectively organized. The law of mass-market digital products is in need of clarification to protect both the consumer interest and the public interest in sound information policy that fosters innovation and competition. Unfortunately, UCITA is poorly drafted and not an improvement over the existing patchwork of common law, Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, and federal intellectual property law. UCITA is slanted toward mass-market producers and against the interests of consumers and the public more generally. AFFECT has now moved beyond opposition to a bad statute and is engaged in a positive search for better alternatives. As a first step, it has produced a statement of principles. These principles can be used as a basis for specific reform efforts, including drafting a model license and writing a more modest and targeted model statute than UCITA. They also can be used by consumer protection officials and consumers' counsel to choose cases to litigate and by consumer advocates to identify bad practices to bring to the attention of the media and the consuming public. The principles have been written to be accessible to the general public as well as lawyers and policymakers. Many end-users of mass-market digital products are alarmed by unfair terms and practices. They are looking for ways to effect change. The principles identify what is wrong in current practices as they envision better ones. This paper, in addition to tracing the origins of the principles in the struggle against UCITA and discussing their possible uses, explains their underlying theory. The principles draw upon familiar ideas from the law of contracts, commercial transactions, consumer protection and intellectual property law. They also adapt these ideas to the digital world. Some key concepts are good advance disclosure (easy on the Internet) to maximize shopping for the best terms, meaningful assent, and substantive limits on terms that are unfair or contrary to public policy, particularly information policy. The principles also reflect the insight that the category "consumer" should include all customers who purchase mass-market products with non-negotiated terms. The minority of customers who read and shop over terms introduce only weak competition in non-salient terms in the mass-market. This is why substantive limits are also needed. In mass-market transactions, general standards such as unconscionability - requiring expensive and time-consuming case-by-case litigation - are not an effective way to deal with identified problems that could be quickly solved by specific rules. The principles address such common issues in the world of digital products as transfer and use rights, disclosure of product defects, and security of systems and data.


This study surveyed German heterosexual men's interest and engagement in a variety of dominant behaviors observed in recent analyses of pornography. Interest in watching popular pornographic movies or more frequent consumption of pornography was associated with men's desire to engage in or having already engaged in behaviors such as hair pulling, spanking a partner hard enough to leave a mark, facial ejaculation, confinement, double-penetration (i.e. penetrating a partner's anus or vagina simultaneously with another man), ass-to-mouth (i.e. anally penetrating a partner and then inserting the penis directly into her mouth), penile gagging, facial slapping, choking, and name-calling (e.g. "slut" or "whore"). Consistent with past experimental research on the effect of alcohol and pornography exposure on men's likelihood of sexual coercion, men who had engaged in the most dominant behaviors were those who frequently consumed pornography and regularly consumed alcohol before or during sex.


Predictive models of epidemic cholera need to resolve at suitable aggregation levels spatial data pertaining to local communities, epidemiological records, hydrologic drivers, waterways, patterns of human mobility and proxies of exposure rates. We address the above issue in a formal model comparison framework and provide a quantitative assessment of the explanatory and predictive abilities of various model settings with different spatial aggregation levels and coupling mechanisms. Reference is made to records of the recent Haiti cholera epidemics. Our intensive computations and objective model comparisons show that spatially explicit models accounting for spatial connections have better explanatory power than spatially disconnected ones for short-to-intermediate calibration windows, while parsimonious, spatially disconnected models perform better with long training sets. On average, spatially connected models show better predictive ability than disconnected ones. We suggest limits and validity of the various approaches and discuss the pathway towards the development of case-specific predictive tools in the context of emergency management.


Ray tracing is one of the photorealistic rendering method. Ray tracing process takes a long time because of the calculation of lighting effects and optical effects caused by the material of the object. The length of rendering time increases with the increasing complexity of the shape of the object, such as a mesh object. To minimize processing time, generally done by reducing the complexity of the mesh, which reduces the number of face that forms a mesh object. How to reduce the number of face is to combine adjacent face to face. The downside of this method is that the object surface resulting display will look grainy/triangular - facet (checkered). The proposed method in this study aims to refine the visualization of objects that complexity is not high. Triangular surface mesh - terms appear due to the calculation of the same color for each face that form a mesh. If the face has a color gradation, the mesh will look smooth surface. To produce a color gradation on a broad face, normal calculation was used, ie in proportion adopting b - splines curve calculations. Testing is done by comparing the results of the use of normal B - splines to the simple method of subdivision (a method of face vast divide into several smaller face , so that the finer the mesh surface) with ray tracing rendering method. From the experimental results, it can be concluded that the results of ray tracing using b - splines normal when compared with the subdivision, the results are not too different. From the aspect of long rendering process, the more the number of face of a mesh, it also increase the effectiveness of rendering time process. However, the increase is not proportional to the increase in the number of mesh


Assessing IT business value has long been recognized as a major challenge, stemming largely from the considerable variability in the role and contribution of IT. This study examines the business value associated with business intelligence (BI) systems, suggesting that business value assessment is largely contingent on system type and should consider its unique contribution. The study adopts a process-oriented approach to evaluating the value contribution of BI, arguing that it stems from the improvement of business processes. The study develops and tests a research model that explains the unique mechanisms through which BI creates business value. The model draws on the resource-based view to identify key resources and capabilities that determine the impact of BI on business processes and, consequently, on organizational performance. Furthermore, the research model seeks to analyse the manner in which the organizational approach to innovation moderates the business value of BI. Analysis of data collected from 159 managers and IT/BI experts, using Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) techniques, shows that BI largely contributes to business value by improving both operational and strategic business processes. Further, it highlights the effect of the organizational approach toward exploration on transforming BI resources into capabilities and further into business


The authors report the case of a patient harboring a posterior fossa neuroepithelial cyst who presented with positional facial weakness and syncope. The patient recovered rapidly after cyst fenestration and placement of an internal cyst-cisternal shunt. The pathogenesis and principles of diagnosis and management of these rare lesions are reviewed.


One of the central challenges facing public decision-makers at the national and supranational levels in Europe is how to maximise citizen participation in processes that lead to determinations with legal effects. In classic political and public law theory, the challenge has typically been analysed with reference to models of representative democracy (for instance, as relate to exercises of legislative power) or due process guarantees (as apply to those to be directly affected by administrative decisions). However, while such models may previously have provided a sufficient intellectual framework for critiquing levels of participation, the issue of citizen engagement is now regarded as markedly more complex. This is because power is no longer exercised solely by the State and its administrative bodies, but also by a range of other national, international and supranational actors who may not easily (or at all) be viewed through the prism of delegation theory. Of these actors, the most influential are the EU institutions, and it has become commonplace to doubt whether the exercise of public power at the European level can ever be attributed to the legitimating repository of "the public". Traditional democratic discourse has thus reached its terminus, and something new is required. It is the search for that revised framework that provides the starting point for this collection of essays. Each of the essays – there are 4 longer ones and 2 discussion pieces – originate from a seminar held in Torino in 2006, and they seek to explore "a different avenue for the legitimisation of public powers,


We consider rate-distortion (RD) optimized multi-flow video delivery in unstructured overlay networks. We show that this problem can be studied as a distributed rate allocation. To solve the problem over the participating peers in the overlay, we apply classical decomposition techniques such that the network-wide utility of video distortion is minimized. Media packets are assumed to be piggy-backed with RD preambles that contain information regarding their impact on decoder video distortion and their size. This allows for converting the calculated optimal rate allocation at every node into simple forwarding or dropping actions. Furthermore, the proposed distributed media streaming framework employs a network inference algorithm for minimizing the flow of duplicate packets over the network and utilizing thus more efficiently the available resources. Our simulation results indicate that significant quality benefits can be achieved when the precise RD characteristics of a media presentation are taken into account.


During the current economic crisis recurring questions on the validity of the liberal economic system have resurfaced concerning the role of the state and the free market, the proactive use of fiscal policies, economic nationalism, and environmental sustainability. However, due to the depth and scope of the crisis new emphasis is being placed on these issues. This book attaches great importance to the specific consequences for the European Union by addressing critical themes surrounding its role in the new era of global economic governance. These include the coherence of common monetary policy with national fiscal policies, new financial regulation and supervision, and the future sustainability of national rescue plans and their compatibility with ambitious targets, such as those addressing climate change.


New and Collected Poems: 1931 2001 celebrates seven decades of Czeslaw Milosz's exceptional career. Widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of our time, Milosz is a master of probing inquiry and graceful expression. His poetry is infused with a tireless spirit and penetrating insight into fundamental human dilemmas and the staggering yet simple truth that "to exist on the earth is beyond any power to name."


The G20 is committed to supporting equitable and sustainable growth. But new data shows that a lot needs to change if they are to live up to this pledge. The stakes are high: analysis in this paper suggests that without attention to growing inequality, strong growth is unlikely to be enough to prevent poverty increasing in some G20 countries over the next decade. Income inequality is growing in almost all G20 members, while it is falling in many low- and lower middle-income countries. Meanwhile, environmentally unsustainable economic expansion is driving dangerous climate change, and depleting the natural resources upon which poor people depend most for their livelihoods. Without action, inequality will render the benefits of growth inaccessible to the poor, even as they bear the costs of this expansion through the impacts of a changing climate and environmental degradation. It's time for the G20 to practice what it preaches.


In view of urbanization trends coupled with climate‐change challenges, it is increasingly important to establish less‐harmful means of urban living. To date, urban metabolism (UM) studies have quantified the aggregate material and energy flows into and out of cities and, further, have identified how consumer activity causes these flows. However, little attention has been paid to the networks of conversion processes that link consumer end‐use demands to aggregate metabolic flows. Here, we conduct a systematic literature search to assemble a database of 202 urban energy, water, and waste management processes. We show how the database can help planners and policy makers choose the preferred process to meet a specific resource management need; identify synergies between energy, water, and waste management processes; and compute optimal networks of processes to meet an area's consumer demand at minimum environmental cost. We make our database publicly available under an open‐source license and discuss the possibilities for how it might be used alongside other industrial ecology data sets to enhance research opportunities. This will encourage more holistic UM analyses, which appreciate how both consumer activity and the engineered urban system work together to influence aggregate metabolic flows and thus support efforts to make cities more sustainable.


The need to incorporate graduate attributes as a pre requisite for incorporating activity based learning in commerce education is stressed in this report. Incorporating activity based learning is mainly intended to equip the graduates with specified attributes, derived from the expectation of various stakeholders. In higher education globally, graduate attributes are recognized as a critical outcome of a modern university education. The major universities and accreditation bodies have given prominent importance to graduate attributes, while designing program curriculum. Program curriculum is revised often to accomodate to suit industry expectations. The level of activity based learning in commerce education is based on its attainment of graduate attributes. This report reviews literature on graduate attributes and its importance in developing quality education. We summarize the report indicating the need for continuous industry-academia interaction, to decide on the level of activity based learning in commerce education.


Background Delineation of PSMA-positive tumor volume on PET using PSMA-ligands is of highest clinical interest as changes of PSMA-PET/CT-derived whole tumor volume (WTV) have shown to correlate with treatment response in metastatic prostate cancer patients. So far, WTV estimation was performed on PET using 68Ga-labeled ligands; nonetheless, 18F-labeled PET ligands are gaining increasing importance due to advantages over 68Ga-labeled compounds. However, standardized tumor delineation methods for 18F-labeled PET ligands have not been established so far. As correlation of PET-based information and morphological extent in osseous and visceral metastases is hampered by morphological delineation, low contrast in liver tissue and movement artefacts, we correlated CT-based volume of lymph node metastases (LNM) and different PET-based delineation approaches for thresholding on 18F-PSMA-1007 PET. Methods Fifty patients with metastatic prostate cancer, 18F-PSMA-1007 PET/CT and non-bulky LNM (short-axis diameter ≥10mm) were included. Fifty LNM were volumetrically assessed on contrast-enhanced CT (volumetric reference standard). Different approaches for tumor volume delineation were applied and correlated with the reference standard: I) fixed SUV threshold, II) isocontour thresholding relative to SUVmax (SUV%), and thresholds relative to III) liver (SUVliver), IV) parotis (SUVparotis) and V) spleen (SUVspleen). Results A fixed SUV of 4.0 (r=0.807, r2 = 0.651, p<0.001) showed the best overall association with the volumetric reference. 55% SUVmax (r=0.627, r2 = 0.393, p<0.001) showed highest association using an isocontour-based threshold. Best background-based approaches were 60% SUVliver (r=0.715, r2 = 0.511, p<0.001), 80% SUVparotis (r=0.762, r2 = 0.581, p<0.001) and 60% SUVspleen (r=0.645, r2 = 0.416, p<0.001). Background tissues SUVliver, SUVparotis & SUVspleen did not correlate (p>0.05 each). Recently reported cut-offs for intraprostatic tumor delineation (isocontour 44% SUVmax, 42% SUVmax and 20% SUVmax) revealed inferior association for LNM delineation. Conclusions A threshold of SUV 4.0 for tumor delineation showed highest association with volumetric reference standard irrespective of potential changes in PSMA-avidity of background tissues (e. g. parotis). This approach is easily applicable in clinical routine without specific software requirements. Further studies applying this approach for total tumor volume delineation are initiated.


This article critically discusses the use of movement, games and sport in cooperation for development, in post conflict rehabilitation and in the context of violence, disaster and conflict. Pointing out the ambivalent nature of sport and its limitations, we conclude that, if we really want to achieve an impact through movement, games and sport, we should use them as tools with concrete strategies according to specific goals, local context and based on the interests, needs and leadership of the participants. In addition, we argue that in psychosocial intervention, sport is even more powerful combined with other movement, educational or therapeutic methods, and interventions. In spite of a few interesting evaluation and research projects, which we discuss briefly in this article, we still generally lack knowledge about the effects of the applied strategies. Nevertheless, we conclude that there are some possible key factors and basic aspects to contribute to the development of pertinent and effective projects using the potential of movement, games and sport in psychosocial interventions within cooperation for development. We also highlight the importance of the relationship with, and between, the participants and the active, dynamic and participatory character of the intervention.


Private labels have become more important than ever in the food industry and the shares of private labels in grocery stores are growing. When private labels (PL) were introduced on the market the goal was to offer customers a cheaper alternative to national brands (NB), but today this has changed and PL are used to compete with other PL´s. The consumers demand for quality has increased which affects the motives and strategies for private labels. The industry is affected by different factors and PL´s must change their strategy to attract customers and create loyalty. By studying the motives, strategies, driving forces and challenges for private labels within the swedish food industry, it is possible to create a greater understanding of todays market situation. The data was collected through six interviews with different people within the food industry and the answers were analyzed. Afterwards the results were observed through a lens of theories and previous studies and the conclusion shows that profitability, customer loyalty, image and competitiveness are motives that are important for PL´s within the food industry. The stakeholders are using different strategies to achieve their goals and the study shows that better margins on goods, brand equity and differentiating to gain competitive advantages are strategies that are used frequently in the industry. It is important to have long-term relationships with other operators in the industry to develop PL´s with high quality and trends are forcing the industry to work in short cycles.


Because of decreasing physical activity of children, they are becoming more obese. Moreover, commuting to school has become more passive during the past decades. The objective was to update the previous systematic reviews by narrowing down the topic to body mass index of children (3-12 years) as a representative of body composition.  Applying search terms such as active transport to school, body mass index, childhood obesity, and so on in four online databases: PubMed, ScienceDirect, WorldCat, and Google Scholar. Peer-reviewed English journal papers published between 2005 and 2015 presenting empirical quantitative studies were eligible studies to be reviewed. 310 journal papers were screened, 27 of which were reviewed by studying the full text. The final 13 papers were limited to those that focused only on active commuting to school and body mass index of children and adolescents. Out of 13 final studies, 3 found conclusive associations, three indicate partial associations in subgroups or societal or geographical limitations, and seven show no correlations. The existing literature are still inconsistent, so this study suggests conducting surveys with larger samples on less-studied contexts and applying more complex statistical methods for adjusting some of the variables. It is also argued that this topic can be culturally and contextually specific.


Generative models operate at fixed resolution, even though natural images come in a variety of sizes. As high-resolution details are downsampled away and low-resolution images are discarded altogether, precious supervision is lost. We argue that every pixel matters and create datasets with variable-size images, collected at their native resolutions. To take advantage of varied-size data, we introduce continuous-scale training, a process that samples patches at random scales to train a new generator with variable output resolutions. First, conditioning the generator on a target scale allows us to generate higher resolution images than previously possible, without adding layers to the model. Second, by conditioning on continuous coordinates, we can sample patches that still obey a consistent global layout, which also allows for scalable training at higher resolutions. Controlled FFHQ experiments show that our method can take advantage of multi-resolution training data better than discrete multi-scale approaches, achieving better FID scores and cleaner high-frequency details. We also train on other natural image domains including churches, mountains, and birds, and demonstrate arbitrary scale synthesis with both coherent global layouts and realistic local details, going beyond 2K resolution in our experiments. Our project page is available at: https://chail.github.io/anyres-gan/.


Several low-lying levels in the exotic N = Z nucleus 62Ga have been observed for the first time using a new fast β-decay tagging system at the Argonne National Laboratory. The system provides enhanced selectivity on proton-rich nuclei, produced in heavy-ion fusion-evaporation reactions, that exhibit 'fast' β decays compared with isobaric contaminants. A 103 MeV beam of 40Ca ions, produced by the Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS), was used to bombard an isotopically enriched 24Mg target, allowing 62Ga nuclei to be produced via the evaporation of one proton and one neutron in heavy-ion fusion evaporation reactions. Prompt γ rays were detected by the Gammasphere array, and recoiling reaction products dispersed by their mass-to-charge ratio by the fragment mass analyzer (FMA). New β-tagging capabilities were provided by the installation of a 1 mm thick, highly segmented 160×160 double-sided Silicon strip detector (DSSD) at the focal plane of the FMA, which allowed implanted reaction residues to be correlated in both space and time with subsequent β+ decays. The experiment was carried out with the benefit of digital acquisition systems for the Gammasphere, FMA and DSSD. The exotic nucleus 62Ga has a β-decay half-life of ∼ 100 ms. The main contaminants in the 40Ca + 24Mg fusion-evaporation reaction are 62Zn, which has a ∼ 9 hour half-life, and 58Ni, which is stable. A clean 'singles' γ-ray spectrum of 62Ga transitions was made permissible for the first time by the high levels of selectivity achieved, through requiring the detection of a β particle in the DSSD in close proximity to implanted reaction residues within 400 ms of implantation. Several low-lying low-spin states are reported in this thesis work, and discussed in the context of previous experimental results and theoretical predictions made using shell model, deformed shell model and IBM-4 calculations.


Background: Keloids are characterized by an overabundance of collagen deposition due to elevated activity and proliferation of fibroblasts, which lead to hypoxic conditions. Adaptation to these conditions is regulated by the transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α). Cytoglobin (Cygb), a reactive oxygen species scavenger, is a target gene of HIF-1α. In our previous study, we showed that Cygb expression in keloid tissue was correlated with HIF-1α expression. However, whether HIF-1α regulates Cygb expression and the proliferation of keloid fibroblasts remained unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the role of HIF-1α in Cygb expression and fibroblast proliferation of keloids. Methods: This was an in vitro study using a primary culture of keloid fibroblasts in which ibuprofen was used to inhibit HIF-1α expression. The expression of HIF-1α and Cygb mRNA were analyzed using quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) methods, and their protein levels were analyzed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Fibroblast proliferation was analyzed using a Trypan blue exclusion assay. Results: Inhibition of HIF-1α by ibuprofen decreased Cygb mRNA expression but not in all the samples, followed by a decrease in the protein level of Cygb. There was a positive correlation between the HIF-1α protein and Cygb mRNA, probably due to the regulation of Cygb by HIF-1α at the mRNA level, but not the protein level. The proliferation of keloid fibroblasts was significantly decreased and positively correlated with the HIF-1α protein. Conclusion: HIF-1α regulates Cygb expression and fibroblast proliferation in keloids.


Pierre Bourdieu's structural constructivist theory of politics offers powerful instruments for a critical analy-sis of political power. In this paper, I explore structural constructivism as a theory of politics and of Euro-pean integration. By structural constructivism I refer to a mostly French research tradition that develops some of Bourdieu's theoretical tools. In European studies, social constructivism has provided an alternative to traditional approaches such as intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism. Structural constructivism remedies some of the weaknesses of most versions of social constructivism, such as their diffuse concep-tion of power and ideational notion of culture. This paper develops a structural constructivist approach that examines the European Union as a multileveled and polycentric emerging political field.


The purpose of the research about the foreign languages that pronounce Arabically in
the Makiyyah surah are to know how the process happened and also to know the
importance in the Arabic language. This process enlighten several important aspects
such as words repetition, pronunciation, evidence and the origin of the words. To fulfill
the research, I have made the reference in a lot of dependable resources. The research is
definitely revealing the new word in that process. Like the al-Mu'arrab, al-Dakhil and
many other words that derived from the process, for example standard can be
concluded on behalf of time and language. Hence, to clarify and searching every
foreign word, we must depend on the guidelines stated by the language experts. Each
word that turn into Arabic must possessed certain criteria. In this research I discover
about 64 more foreign words that turn into Arabic word from 17 different languages


Background: The technique of arthroscopic subacromial decompression (ASD) is an effective alternative to the open operation. The arthroscopic procedure is technically demanding. Patients and methods: Between January 2016 and February 2018, sixteen male patients, who fulfilled the criteria of the subacromial impingement syndrome, underwent arthroscopy, stability testing under anesthesia and arthroscopic acromioplasty. Pain was the chief complaint of every patient in this study. We used modified UCLA shoulder rating scale for clinical evaluation of the all patients. Pre-operative radiographs included an AP and axillary views added to 30° caudal tilt view or a supraspinatus outlet view were done routinely. MRI of the shoulder was done for all cases. Results: Satisfactory results were achieved in all patients and 6 of them were excellent according to UCLA score. Eight patients had good results and two fair, but no poor results were found in this study up to one year postoperative. Pain relief was the most dramatic benefit but function also improved. The subacromial space of the patients was filled with hypertrophic fibrous bands of bursal stroma, often with fibro-fatty tissue. Hyperemia was often observed. Surface ulcerations were identified on the rotator cuff in 8 cases. Rotator cuff partial tear in 4 cases. Conclusion:  In cases of primary impingement, calcific tendinitis, or partial thickness rotator cuff tears the arthroscopic acromioplasty and decompression, is the procedure of choice provided that no shoulder instability. The right indications and skilled hands, the results are better than the results of open acromioplasty, as the patients recover faster with less risk of deltoid muscle complications.


China is engaged in the largest healthcare construction program in history, expecting to build more than 2,000 hospitals and a large number of healthcare facilities at all scale over the next few years. This once-in-a-lifetime construction boom provides a valuable opportunity to rethink Chinese hospital design, and especially to consider how to design modern hospitals that are effective and efficient in delivering care, and are responsive to the cultural needs of the Chinese people as well. This dissertation seeks to rigorously define these issues and develop metrics that link design to key healthcare processes. This study uses a range of concepts and analysis tools drawn from cross-culture organizational communications, evidence-based design, space syntax and other research traditions. This thesis develops and refines metrics for four main drivers of nursing unit design: space economy, staff efficiency, natural light and cultural preferences for communication. Communication among Chinese healthcare workers is strongly influenced by cultural preferences for patterns of authority and decision-making reflected in organizational culture and rooted in Confucian principles of hierarchical social structure (Dengji), social network (Guanxi) and face (Mianzi). While the dissertation builds on a longstanding tradition of research focusing on healthcare space economy and staff efficiency, new measures for cultural preferences are proposed and tested. Based on emerging theories of cross-cultural organizational communication by Hofstede and other scholars, and space syntax, this study particularly explores how cultural preferences for face-to-face communication are reflected in the design of Chinese nursing units. Based on the proposed metrics, the dissertation analyzes six pairs of Chinese and US nursing units, matched on layout type. While the Chinese nursing units appear Western, deeper quantitative analysis of their layouts reveals significant national differences in the application of unit typologies in China when compared to those in the U.S. It shows that Chinese hospital design is rooted in cultural preferences such as for positive energy (qi) based on Fengshui theory, and in Confucian principles of hierarchy, social networking and face.


It has been shown that input-output linkages along supply chains affect firms' performance such as sales, productivity, and innovative capacity. This paper explores a new aspect in the literature, examining how supply chain relations influence financial transactions between firms. More specifically, this paper, using an exhaustive dataset on buyer-supplier networks in Japan, studies whether supply chain disruptions due to the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011 affected firms' utilization of trade credit. We find evidence showing that customers who were affected by the earthquake imposed a larger amount of trade credit on their suppliers (i.e., utilized fewer cash transactions) even two years after the earthquake. In addition, trade credit of indirect suppliers (e.g., suppliers of suppliers) of affected customers also increased, indicating that the effect of supply chain disruptions on trade credit propagates through production linkages. We further find heterogeneous effects of the supply chain disruptions on firms' trade credit; the effect is larger for suppliers with a better financial performance before the disaster.


Background The effect of lipid-lowering drugs (LLDs) on coronary heart disease is well documented, particularly in patients with established ischaemic heart disease. However, intensity of the use of these drugs is low. The aim of this linkage study was to analyse the use of serum cholesterol measurements and LLDs among patients with a history of myocardial infarction (MI) in a Danish population. Methods Information on serum cholesterol values was retrieved from the hospital's Department of Clinical Chemistry for all patients from the Odense municipality and four surrounding municipalities (213 868 inhabitants) hospitalised at Odense University Hospital for MI between1994–1997. Information on LLD use was obtained from a prescription database. Only patients alive at discharge were included in the investigation. The total observation period was from 1993–1998. Results In all, 1018 patients were eligible for observation and 39% of the patients who met the criteria for LLD reimbursement (MI and serum cholesterol >5.4 mmol/L) started treatment. Relatively more males than females and relatively more patients under the age of 70 years were treated. Patients above the age of 70 years were prescribed these drugs at a slower rate. Conclusions More attention to the insufficient use of lipid-lowering drug treatment in patients with established coronary heart disease is needed.


This thesis examines the impact of engineering cultures on women engineering
students' gendered and professional identities. It is simultaneously focused on
exploring how identity shapes, and is shaped by, women's experiences of engineering
cultures and the relationship between gendered and professional identities. The
research is set within the context of existing research on women in engineering, much
of which has focused either on women's experiences in industry or experiences of staff
in academia, which does not acknowledge the importance of higher education (HE) as
a gatekeeper to the engineering professions. Furthermore, despite numerous
initiatives aimed at increasing the percentage of women entering engineering, the
proportion of women studying engineering has remained stable, around fifteen percent,
for the last few years.
The research is grounded in an interpretivist approach, although it adopts a
multimethod research design. Specifically it draws upon qualitative interviews with 43
women and 18 men engineering students, a questionnaire with responses from 656
engineering undergraduates and two focus groups with 13 women engineering
students from seven departments at one university. These datasets are analysed with
the aid of NVivo and SPSS to explore women engineering students' career choices;
women's experiences of the HE engineering culture; the relationship between
engineering education culture and women's identities; whether there are cultural
nuances between engineering disciplines; and, implications for strategies to attract and
retain more women in engineering.
Key findings from the research are that women and men make career choices based
on similar factors, including the influence of socialisers, knowledge of the engineering
professions, skills, ability and attributes, and career rewards. However, the extent to
which each of these factors are important is gendered. The research also highlights
key characteristics of the HE engineering culture, including competition, camaraderie,
gendered humour, intensity, more theoretical than practical, help and support for
women students and reinforcement of gender binaries. These findings all suggest that
women are assimilated into the engineering culture or, at least, develop coping
mechanisms for surviving in the existing culture. These strategies reveal a complex
and difficult balancing act between being a woman and being an engineer, in claiming
a rightful place as an engineer, denying gendered experiences and becoming critical of
other women. The research also tackles two key issues, rarely discussed in the extant
literature. Firstly the help and support women students receive from lecturers and other
staff, and the negative impact this has, and may continue to have, on women.
Secondly, the analysis of discipline differences shows that design and technology is
significantly different from other engineering disciplines in terms of culture(s) and
women's experiences.
The thesis concludes that women's enculturation into engineering results in their 'doing
gender' in a particular way. This means that women's implicit and explicit devaluing
and rejection of femaleness, fails to challenge the gendered cultures of engineering
and, in many ways, upholds an environment which is hostile to women.


ABSTRACT Background: We examined the efficacy and safety of saxagliptin as an add-on to insulin in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Research design and methods: We randomized 240 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus on insulin monotherapy to 5-mg saxagliptin or placebo as add-on therapy for a 16-week, double-blind period. All patients received 5-mg saxagliptin and insulin for an additional 36 weeks (open-label extension). Change in hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) at Week 16 was the main endpoint. Results: At Week 16, the adjusted change in HbA1c from baseline increased by 0.51% with placebo and decreased by 0.40% with saxagliptin (difference −0.92% [95% confidence interval −1.07%, −0.76%; p < 0.001]). In patients receiving saxagliptin, reductions in HbA1c at Week 16 were maintained to Week 52, while switching from placebo to saxagliptin resulted in a similar reduction in HbA1c. The incidence of hypoglycemia was not markedly increased with saxagliptin versus placebo in the double-blind period and did not increase substantially during the open-label extension period. The efficacy and safety of saxagliptin was similar between the elderly and non-elderly patient groups. Conclusions: Adding saxagliptin to ongoing insulin therapy improved glycemic control and was well tolerated in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes.


In the present study a survey was performed in order to investigate if the use of heuristics in decision-making has an influence on the impulse buying tendency. Another aim of the study was to see if there were any age differences with regard to the use of heuristics and the impulse buying tendency. The study was conducted with students from Goteborg University and Karlstad University in Sweden (n = 69), with different educational backgrounds. Participants filled out a booklet of questions divided in two parts. One part measured impulse buying tendencies, and the second part measured the use of heuristics in decision-making. One hypothesis was that impulse buyers would use heuristics to a higher degree than planned buyers. It was also hypothesized that young participants would be more impulsive buyers because they use heuristics more than older participants. The results gave no support to the hypothesis that impulse buyers would use heuristics to a higher degree than planned buyers. Support for the second hypothesis was received as 20-24 year old high achievers on the heuristics test were found to be significantly more impulsive buyers than low achievers in the same age group.


The 1990's mark the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. In this context, the Wind Effects Committee of the Structural Division strongly endorses the establishment of a coordinated research program in wind engineering - the Wind Hazards Reduction Program (WHRP). This Program would be a cooperative study of the performance and protection of buildings and structures under wind action to improve our understanding of structural behavior, to improve codes of practice for wind engineering design, to develop advances in engineering to improve structural performance, and to develop guidelines for urban planning. This paper outlines the motivation for such an effort, and identifies critical unresolved issues to be addressed by coordinated analytical and experimental programs, full-scale measurements, physical modeling, computational modeling, and meteorological studies.


Data encryption has become an increasingly important factor in everyday work. Users seek a method of securing their data with maximum comfort and minimum additional requirements on their part; they want a security system that protects any files used by any of their applications, without resorting to application-specific encryption methods. Performance is an important factor to users since encryption can be time consuming. Operating system vendors want to provide this functionality but without incurring the large costs of developing a new file system. This paper describes the design and implementation of Cryptfs — a file system that was designed as a stackable Vnode layer loadable kernel module[5, 15, 19]. Cryptfs operates by "encapsulating" a client file system with a layer of encryption transparent to the user. Being kernel resident, Cryptfs performs better than user-level or NFS based file servers such as CFS[2] and TCFS[3]. It is 2 to 37 times faster on micro-benchmarks such as read and write; this translates to 12-52% application speedup, as exemplified by a large build. Cryptfs offers stronger security by basing its keys on process session IDs as well as user IDs, and by the fact that kernel memory is harder to access. Working at and above the vnode level, Cryptfs is more portable than a file system which works directly with native media such as disks and networks. Cryptfs can operate on top of any other native file system such as UFS/FFS[8] and NFS[11, 16]. Finally, Cryptfs requires no changes to client file systems or remote servers.


During the early Miocene ignimbrite flare-up, significant parts of the Central Andes (17–20°S) were covered by large-volume ignimbrites. High-precision 206Pb/238U zircon dates constrain the flare-up in northern Chile at c. 18°S to a 3 myr period, starting with the deposition of the Poconchile ignimbrite at 22.736 ± 0.021 Ma. Of four main pulses, the two largest occurred at 21.924 ± 0.017 and 19.711 ± 0.036 Ma, when the >1000 km3 in volume Cardones and Oxaya ignimbrites erupted, respectively. The ignimbrites are high-SiO2 rhyolites and show significant heterogeneities in crystal content, mineral proportions and trace-element compositions. The zoned Oxaya ignimbrite implies incremental extraction of a crystal-poor magma overlying a crystal-rich magma. In contrast, petrological and textural heterogeneities in pumice clasts are spread throughout the Cardones ignimbrite and we propose magma mixing caused by destabilization of multiple magma bodies within a magmatic mush system. Distal and medial deposits of the Cardones ignimbrite, with a maximum welded thickness of at least 1000 m, entirely covered the western flank of the Central Andes, which implies infill of a significant topographic relief. Both compaction and welding resulted in a maximum thickness reduction of around 30% for the Cardones ignimbrite. Supplementary material: U–Pb method and complete data tables, ICP-OES and ICP-MS method and complete data tables, and detailed stratigraphic description of the Cardones ignimbrite are available at http://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.2858707.


The duration of a bond approximately measures the interest rate risk caused by parallel shifts of the yield curve. This paper uses a generalization of the duration suggested by Diebold et al. (2006a), that takes the variations of the level, the slope and the curvature of the yield curve into account. As the dynamics of the yield curve are well approximated using these three factors we obtain a reasonable risk assessment. Compared with other approaches that take non-parallel shifts into account the approach considered here is very intuitive as it is similar to the classical duration. A case study exemplifies that in addition to the level the risk factors slope and curvature matter. Actually, we find a risk reducing effect due to the positive correlation between the innovations to the level respectively the slope.


In a televised viewers' feedback program, a senior executive responded to public criticism of UK television's scheduling and censorship of imported cult TV. Key examples included Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel. The executive stated: "The problem is, with some of the series we acquire from the States, in the States they go out at eight o'clock or nine o'clock. We don't have that option here because we want to be showing history documentaries or some other more serious programming at eight or nine o'clock."[i] TV channels in the UK do not perceive programs like Buffy and Angel, which have garnered critical and ratings success in the USA, as appropriate for a similarly prominent timeslot. Although peak time programs can include entertainment shows, these are generally UK productions, such as lifestyle or drama.
This chapter analyses the circumstances within which British viewers are able to see Buffy and Angel, and the implications of those circumstances for their experiences as audience members and fans. First, we outline the British TV system in general, and the different missions and purposes of the relevant TV channels. We also address the specifics of scheduling Buffy and Angel, including the role of censorship and editing of episodes. The way certain channels understand their role as broadcasters, in particular for a young or "family" audience, has implications for how Buffy and Angel are presented. Our study concentrates on Buffy as it reached the fourth season, a time when its growing success spawned the spin-off Angel. In the second section, we explore the consequences of the scheduling and censorship of these programs in relation to the viewing experience, specifically through on-line fan communities. The experience of being a Buffy or Angel fan in the UK highlights culturally specific fan activity. We focus on the British context for the scheduling and reception of Buffy and Angel as a case study which illuminates different broadcasting attitudes to, and viewer experiences of, cult TV. Because of its passionate fan base and these kinds of scheduling considerations, cult TV series such as Buffy and Angel offer an especially revealing case of contemporary transnational reception practices.


Discourse on literary translation is characterised by an extensive use of figurative language. The "mask" represents a recurrent metaphor used by translators as well as translation theorists. This article will probe some of its possible interpretations and their impact on the translational discourse. I will also discuss images associated with the idea of the text or the translator in disguise. Moreover, this article seeks to demonstrate that the idea of the "mask" could hold a practical potential, if one uses the metaphor as a kind of analytical tool. I apply the mask metaphor when analysing short textual excerpts from three contemporary novels and their translations. My aim is to combine this philosophical framework with the pragmatic dimensions of the translational process. I prove that the idea of the "mask", often interpreted in negative terms, nevertheless emphasises the problematics of visibility versus invisibility while also raising important questions concerning the dialectics of the translator's creativity and responsibility. The mask metaphor can therefore catalyse needed research on fundamental problems in translation.


The Agricultural Ecology of Hay Meadows within the Somerset . Levels and Moors Environmentally Sensitive Area. Francis William Kirkham Ecologicai and productivity responses to agricultural management were studied over eiglit years in species-ricii hay meadows within a Site of Special Scientific Interest on a Somerset peat moor. The vegetation typified that of many wet meadows on the Somerset Levels and elsewhere, definable as MG5 {Cynosurus cristatus-Centaurea nigra meadow) and MG8 {Cynosurus cristatus-Caittia palustris flood pasture) within the National Vegetation Classification. The effects of inorganic fertilizers on species diversity, soil nitrogen loss and agricultural productivity (hay yield and beef production during aftermath grazing), were investigated during 1986-90. These data were subsequently analyzed for the effects of variations in water table depth on productivity and soil N losses. Further studies in 1991-93 covered: (a) soil seed bank composition in relation to above ground vegetation; (b) the effect of different cutting dates on seed rain, vegetation composition and herbage yield and quality; and (c) seed shedding as influenced by hay making operations. The vegetation was sensitive to even small fertilizer inputs, particularly of P and K, both in terms of increased productivity and reduced botanical diversity. Species diversity also declined on unfertilized plots in one experiment, after a change from aftermath grazing to cutting only. Leaching and denitrification of soil N following N application were both high compared with soils elsewhere, due to the high water table. Fertilizers caused a four-fold shift in soil seed bank composition towards nitrophilous species and increased the ratio of short-term to long-term persistent species. Cutting in May or September affected both the total seed rain and the balance of species represented and significantly reduced vegetation diversity, compared with cutting in July or August. The thesis includes an extensive literature review and the results are discussed in the context of (a) current theories on the relationships between species diversity, soil fertility, disturbance and productivity, and (b) hay meadow management within Environmentally Sensitive Areas. It is concluded that production response to fertilizers is not constrained by the species richness of the vegetation, but there is no scope for increasing soil fertility without reducing species diversity. Nitrate leaching risk is increased with N rates above about 75 kg ha'̂ year"̂ at ambient water table levels, but no N should be applied where high water tables are maintained. Occasional cutting after July is necessary to allow most species to set seed and to maintain a persistent soil seed bank.


Abstract This essay aims to shed light on two online phenomena dominated by women in the contemporary Swedish context—blogs about terminal illness and support groups for the bereaved—and explore what they mean for those afflicted by suffering and loss. We will show that in the shadow of the grand interruption—the moment when the life narrative itself is cut off because of imminent or sudden death—the studied online activities of mourners and the illness stricken, but also and more profoundly, the internet itself, become literal lifelines, both individual and collective. When they assume a salvific vital role this entails both possibilities and predicaments. Studying various renditions of lifeline communication both enables a re-conceptualization of our culture of connectivity as an existential and ambivalent terrain and requires an "upgrading" of the existential to our contemporary technological culture. In forging existential philosophy and the new materialism into a productive, if not tensionless, conversation we stress, firstly, that in emphasizing life and downplaying subjective death some strands of affect theory may neglect the universal absolutes of death and suffering, as sources of fecundity. Ontologically, technologies are lifelines precisely because of severe illness and loss. And secondly, we show that through their practices these women partake in what Karl Jaspers calls a truly "existential elucidation" in both words and deeds, but also importantly through affective encounters online. Their practices display the significance of shared vulnerability in and through the digital. Lifeline communication offers, beyond narrative, the simple promise of being there for one another online, in mutual ethical veneration of both silence and alterity. Hence, attending to grand interruptions allows for appreciating important and heretofore neglected existential implications of mediation, from the horizon of those who in the wake of loss or ill health stand before the abyss, and who live and die with the technology.


The relation between entrepreneurial learning and innovation is poorly understood – especially with respect to how entrepreneurs build up their capability to create new ventures. In this chapter we employ arguments from theories of experiential learning to examine the extent to which entrepreneurs' prior career experience is associated with entrepreneurial knowledge that can be productively used in the new venture creation process. We relate entrepreneurial knowledge to two distinct learning outcomes: the ability to (1) recognize new venture opportunities, and (2) cope with liabilities of newness. Based on analysis of data from 291 Swedish entrepreneurs, we provide novel insights into how and why entrepreneurs differ in their experientially acquired abilities in different phases of the new venture creation process. © 2012, IGI Global.


The report describes the architecture of \emph{Cuypers}, a system supporting second and third generation Web-based multimedia. First generation Web-content encodes information in handwritten (HTML) Web pages. Second generation Web content generates HTML pages on demand, e.g. by filling in templates with content retrieved dynamically from a database or transformation of structured documents using style sheets (e.g. XSLT). Third generation Web pages will make use of rich markup (e.g. XML) along with metadata (e.g. RDF) schemes to make the content not only machine readable but also machine processable --- a necessary pre-requisite to the \emph{Semantic Web}. While text-based content on the Web is already rapidly approaching the third generation, multimedia content is still trying to catch up with second generation techniques. Multimedia document processing has a number of fundamentally different requirements from text which make it more difficult to incorporate within the document processing chain. In particular, multimedia transformation uses different document and presentation abstractions, its formatting rules cannot be based on text-flow, it requires feedback from the formatting back-end and is hard to describe in the functional style of current style languages. We state the requirements for second generation processing of multimedia and describe how these have been incorporated in our prototype multimedia document transformation environment, \emph{Cuypers}. The system overcomes a number of the restrictions of the text-flow based tool sets by integrating a number of conceptually distinct processing steps in a single runtime execution environment. We describe the need for these different processing steps and describe them in turn (semantic structure, communicative device, qualitative constraints, quantitative constraints, final form presentation), and illustrate our approach by means of an example. We conclude by discussing the models and techniques required for the creation of third generation multimedia content.


This article aims to explain the 2011 Tunisian transition by offering a historical institutional and a game-theoretic analysis of how the army played a crucial role in the fall of Ben Ali's regime. What is the rationality behind the military's decision to refuse Ben Ali's order to open fire on the demonstrators? Why did the Tunisian army repressed protesters in the revolt of the Gafsa Mining Basin in 2008, and refused to do so in the decisive uprising of 2011? How to explain the speed at which the Tunisian regime fell? It is argued that the balance of power on the field was such that the army was better-off to back the population and used a strategic entry point to bring a decisive "coup" to the regime. The high degree of institutionalization of the Tunisian army is seen as a precondition to make such an independent decision. The army's commitment to back the population constituted a strong signal to the protesters as well as to foreign allies, causing a rapid fall of the Tunisian dictatorship. This paper offers the first analysis applying game theory to explain the 2011 Tunisian transition and, more precisely, the interactions between Ben Ali's regime and the army. While several analyses focus on the unprecedented popular mobilization to explain Ben Ali's fall, only a few authors attempted to explain the role of the militaries. However, while they emphasize on the "disdain" of the army towards the regime, we, instead, claim that the rationality of one of the most professional army of the region to understand how and why the militaries refused to repress demonstrators in the 2011 national protests.


The demand for knowledge workers is on the increase, yet little is known about their career perceptions and attitudes. The objective of this article is to determine the factors affecting the career development of knowledge workers in South Africa. Part-time learners of a postgraduate course were used as a purposive sample and 82 completed questionnaires were received. The results of the online survey provide an interesting look at the unique career issues knowledge workers experience from a South African perspective. Issues identified dealt with the lack of importance placed upon organisational training, the lack of interest in temporary work assignments and the low importance placed on learning from mentors. Organisations need to take note of their reward structures as knowledge workers have indicated that promotions and rewards based on their knowledge is insufficient.


In this paper, we propose a new online feature selection algorithm for streaming data. We aim to focus on the following two problems which remain unaddressed in literature. First, most existing online feature selection algorithms merely utilize the first-order information of the data streams, regardless of the fact that second-order information explores the correlations between features and significantly improves the performance. Second, most online feature selection algorithms are based on the balanced data presumption, which is not true in many real-world applications. For example, in fraud detection, the number of positive examples are much less than negative examples because most cases are not fraud. The balanced assumption will make the selected features biased towards the majority class and fail to detect the fraud cases. We propose an Adaptive Sparse Confidence-Weighted (ASCW) algorithm to solve the aforementioned two problems. We first introduce an `0-norm constraint into the second-order confidence-weighted (CW) learning for feature selection. Then the original loss is substituted with a cost-sensitive loss function to address the imbalanced data issue. Furthermore, our algorithm maintains multiple sparse CW learner with the corresponding cost vector to dynamically select an optimal cost. We theoretically enhance the theory of sparse CW learning and analyze the performance behavior in F-measure. Empirical studies show the superior performance over the stateof-the-art online learning methods in the online-batch setting.


ABSTRACT With the enactment of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, more attention has turned to the composition and size of corporate boards of directors. With the new regulations, we have seen an increase in the number of independent board members and a decrease in the average size of boards. This study of S & P 500 firms shows that firms with the most independent boards in the sample perform significantly better than firms with less independent boards. Also, the inverse relationship between board size and firm performance, found in earlier studies using samples before the new regulations, is not found using our recent sample. With the overall increase in independence levels, it appears that boards have become more objective and efficient in their monitoring of management, irrespective of board size. INTRODUCTION Stricter regulations concerning boards of directors have brought about significant adjustments in the structure, practices, and sizes of boards. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the SEC, NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX have created more rules and guidelines in an attempt to restore investor confidence in that monitoring body, the corporate board of directors. Several regulations are still pending but corporations have scrambled to comply with relatively new rules and guidelines. In order to rebuild investor confidence, one focus of study is board independence. The directors are responsible for ensuring that management acts in the best interests of the shareholders. Many corporations have made board changes to increase the independence of their board composition. Sixty-four percent of Standard & Poor's Super 1,500 companies currently "have boards that are at least 2/3 independent, as compared with only 57% ofthat group just last year" [IRRC, 2003, p. 14]. Many believe that independent directors would be more likely to monitor and perhaps challenge management if needed. The presence of outside or independent directors may decrease agency costs experienced by most firms, and should increase the overall performance and value of the firm. Individuals affiliated with the corporation may make decisions that promote their own best interests rather than shareholder wealth. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has specifically addressed the independence of audit committees, and under the pending governance changes at the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX, boards are to have at least a majority of independent directors. In addition, these regulations may require total independence of audit, compensation and nominating committees. Several studies have addressed the question of outside directors and their effect on firm performance, but the findings are mixed [Hermalin and Weisbach (1991), (2002)]. Dahya and McConnell (2002) study firms that recently increased their board's independence and find that those boards are significantly more likely to replace the CEO after a record of poor firm performance. Included in the new guidelines are some stricter definitions of what constitutes an "independent" director. Due to the guidelines set forth in Sarbanes-Oxley, the NYSE, AMEX, and the NASDAQ have proposed strict independence definitions, but they all vary. In this study, we adopt the "independence" definition set forth by the Investor Responsibility Research Center which is stricter than that of the exchanges. For example, the NASDAQ states that if the severance of an employee was at least three years ago, then he/she can be considered an "independent" board member. The IRRC does not consider a board member "independent" if he/she is: 1 . a former employee of the company or of a majority-owned subsidiary, 2. a provider of professional services to the company or an executive, 3. a customer of or supplier to the company, unless the transaction occurred in the natural course of business, 4. a designee under a documented agreement between the company and a group, such as a significant shareholder, 5. …


This paper reports on the potential impact of demand response (DR) strategies in commercial buildings in California based on the Demand Response Quick Assessment Tool (DRQAT), which uses EnergyPlus simulation prototypes for office and retail buildings. The study describes the potential impact of building size, thermal mass, climate, and DR strategies on demand savings in commercial buildings. Sensitivity analyses are performed to evaluate how these factors influence the demand shift and shed during the peak period. The whole-building peak demand of a commercial building with high thermal mass in a hot climate zone can be reduced by 30percent using an optimized demand response strategy. Results are summarized for various simulation scenarios designed to help owners and managers understand the potential savings for demand response deployment. Simulated demand savings under various scenarios were compared to field-measured data in numerous climate zones, allowing calibration of the prototype models. The simulation results are compared to the peak demand data from the Commercial End-Use Survey for commercial buildings in California. On the economic side, a set of electricity rates are used to evaluate the impact of the DR strategies on economic savings for different thermal mass and climate conditions. Our comparison of recent simulation to field test results provides an understanding of the DR potential in commercial buildings.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of the present study was to examine: (1) the prevalence of tooth loss in persons living in community dwellings and (2) the strength of the association identified between tooth loss experience and the psychosocial factors of lifestyle, stress, and anxiety.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
A cross-sectional study was carried out in a convenience sample where data were collected by means of self-administered questionnaires of lifestyle and psychosocial factors (stress and anxiety) and a clinical examination. A total of 516 subjects aged 14-30 years of age were included in the study. Subjects had a visual dental examination. Prevalence and mean of tooth loss were calculated excluding third molars, and their related factors were adjusted in a binary logistic regression.

RESULTS
Mean age of participants was 17.4+/-3.0 years; 45.5% were men. The prevalence of tooth loss (when at least one tooth was lost) was 20.5%. Among the 516 persons, a total of 201 teeth were lost with a mean tooth loss 0.39+/-0.95 overall. Mean tooth loss in subjects with at least one missing tooth was 1.90+/-1.26 teeth. Results adjusted by anxiety in the multivariate logistic regression model showed tooth loss was associated with lifestyle (OR=1.95, 95% CI=1.17 - 3.24), age (OR=2.65, 95% CI=1.64 - 4.26), and Angle's malocclusion II and III (OR=2.86; 95% CI=1.67 - 4.90). A slight association toward tooth loss was observed (p<0.10) in the sex and stress variables.

CONCLUSIONS
Lifestyle and tooth loss have a substantial association. According to age group, these results suggest tooth loss is an oral health problem in the study population.


In response to the critical challenges of the current Internet architecture and its protocols, a set of so-called clean slate designs has been proposed. Common among them is an addressing scheme that separates location and identity with self-certifying, flat and non-aggregatable address components. Each component is long, reaching a few kilobits, and would consume an amount of fast memory in data plane devices (e.g., routers) that is far beyond existing capacities. To address this challenge, we present Caesar, a high-speed and length-agnostic forwarding engine for future border routers, performing most of the lookups within three fast memory accesses. To compress forwarding states, Caesar constructs scalable and reliable Bloom filters in Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM). To guarantee correctness, Caesar detects false positives at high speed and develops a blacklisting approach to handling them. In addition, we optimize our design by introducing a hashing scheme that reduces the number of hash computations from k to log(k) per lookup based on hash coding theory. We handle routing updates while keeping filters highly utilized in address removals. We perform extensive analysis and simulations using real traffic and routing traces to demonstrate the benefits of our design. Our evaluation shows that Caesar is more energy-efficient and less expensive (in terms of total cost) compared to optimized IPv6 TCAM-based solutions by up to 67% and 43% respectively. In addition, the total cost of our design is approximately the same for various address lengths.


Religions in Focus engages with the religious lives of members of some of the most significant religions today. It presents religions as contemporary ways of life that motivate and inspire people. Because religious people refer to sacred texts, honour the founders of their religions, learn from elders, or mould their lives according to authoritative teachings, Religions in Focus explains the relationship between tradition and contemporary practice. It offers an introduction to religions that is rooted in the best scholarship of the Study of Religions and provides a secure foundation for further study. A team of Religious Studies scholars from many countries, all skilled communicators about the contemporary religions with which they are thoroughly familiar, introduce what it means to live as a religious person today. They insist that however old or young these religions may be, what is most interesting is the ways in which people express them today. This is not a history of religions but an insightful introduction to living religions. A guide to further study and a companion website will point to ways of building on knowledge gained in studying this book, and applying skills developed in studying people's religious lives.


Single photon emitters often rely on a strong nonlinearity to make the behavior of a quantum mode susceptible to a change in the number of quanta between one and two. In most systems, the strength of nonlinearity is weak, such that changes at the single quantum level have little effect. Here, we consider coupled quantum modes and find that they can be strongly sensitive at the single quantum level, even if nonlinear interactions are modest. As examples, we consider solid-state implementations based on the tunneling of polaritons between quantum boxes or their parametric modes in a microcavity. We find that these systems can act as promising single photon emitters.


An examination of the relationship between the traditional duties of banks to their customers and data privacy laws is of increasing international relevance because of the growing ubiquity of data privacy laws. At the end of the 1980s the Vienna Convention required state parties to criminalise money laundering, and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) started development of its '40 recommendations' including 'suspicion-based reporting' to a state authority, exemption of banks from any consequent breaches of bank-customer confidentiality, and similar exemption of international requests for mutual assistance. The enactment by legislatures across the world of those recommendations, and subsequent recommendations concerning measures for reporting of 'suspicious transactions', counter-terrorist financing, anti-sanctions avoidance, and anti-corruption, have led to the global retreat of the banker's traditional duty of confidentiality in an increasingly wide and complex range of circumstances, beyond the acronym 'AML-CTF'.
However, since the 1970s a somewhat inconsistent development to which banks (among other entities) were subject gradually became 'globalised': the development of 'data privacy' laws (also called 'data protection' and 'information privacy' laws), which imposed on banks an overlapping but very different range of obligations from the traditional duties owed by banks to their customers.
This chapter first explains both the contours of the increasingly global phenomenon of data privacy laws, and that these laws have considerable uniformity in their content. The core principles of data privacy laws are then examined, using examples from jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific, comparing those principles with the duties of bankers. Conclusions are drawn about the extent to which the two differ or are similar, and the overall approach that banks might take to dealing with the diversity of data privacy laws.
Banks everywhere will increasingly have to take into account data privacy laws, in addition to their traditional duties. The breadth of obligations imposed by these laws, while often in parallel with traditional duties, are generally of much broader scope, and will require new accommodations in banking practice, particularly for banks with multinational operations. However, the statutory exceptions to data privacy laws, particularly in relation to law enforcement and revenue protection, will very often apply to banks, and the specific statutory provisions concerning AML-CTF will usually override the requirements of data privacy laws. The standards imposed by data privacy laws, and penalties for their breach, are becoming stronger, and that is likely to continue to occur.


It has been previously suggested that the characteristics that are driving the taxonomic homogenisation of the global avifauna, through the extinction of native bird species and the establishment of exotic bird species, are opposite sides of the same coin. One of the most important tools that conservation biologists and wildlife managers have to ameliorate the extinction of a species is to reintroduce populations to stronghold areas from which they have been extirpated or were not previously common. In this paper, we address the question of what the study of exotic bird intro- ductions can tell us to inform the translocation of native species. We review the relative importance of the five factors that ha ve been suggested significantly to influence the successful establishment of non-native species: introduction effort, environmental matching, species' interactions, species' life histories, and phylogenetic relatedness. Current evidence suggests that introduction effort will be an important determinant of release, but how many individuals need to be released, and in how many separate release events, is contingent on characteristics of species and environment. The importance of climate matching for introduction success suggests that the success of translocations will depend greatly on the study and amelioration of the problem that caused the initial population decline. This is most problematic in situations where the decline is associated with human-induced climate change. Migratory and sexually selected species may be harder to re-establish, but related species may differ substantially in their likelihood of success. We suggest that further insights into the reintroduction process may be gained particularly by studying species that are experiencing a threat in their native range but which are also being widely released as exotics outside of this range.


Manufacturers of three organophosphate insecticides are urging EPA to abandon its process for assessing the risks of pesticides on endangered species. The companies—Dow AgroSciences, Makhteshim Agan of North America (Adama), and FMC Corp.—claim that EPA's approach is fundamentally flawed. At issue are biological evaluations of three pesticides—chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion—released by EPA in the final days of the Obama Administration. The evaluations conclude that the three chemicals are likely to adversely affect more than 1,000 endangered species. The three companies claim that EPA failed to adequately describe its risk assessment approach, making it difficult to evaluate and reproduce the results. The companies are also questioning EPA's use of studies that were not evaluated for data quality and relevance and why the agency failed to consider several studies submitted by the pesticide industry. In addition, the companies say that EPA's estimates for exposure to the pesticides are "unrealistica...


Many text extraction and classification systems have been developed for English and other international languages; most of the languages are based on Roman letters. However, Arabic language is one of the difficult languages which have special rules and morphology. Not many systems have been developed for Arabic text categorization. Arabic language is one of the Semitic languages with morphology that is more complicated than English. Due to its complex morphology, there is a need for pre-processing routines to extract the roots of the words then classify them according to the group of acts or meaning. In this thesis, a system has been developed and tested for text classification. The system is based on two stages, the first is to extract the roots from text and the second is to classify the text according to predefined categories. The linguistic root extraction stage is composed of two main phases. The first phase is to handle removal of affixes including prefixes, suffixes and infixes. Prefixes and suffixes are removed depending on the length of the word, while checking its morphological pattern after each deduction to remove infixes. In the second phase, the root extraction algorithm is formulated to handle weak, defined, eliminated-long-vowel and two-letter geminated words, as there is a substantial great amount of irregular Arabic words in texts. Once the roots are extracted, they are checked against a predefined list of 3800 triliteral and 900 quad literal roots. Series of experiments has been conducted to improve and test the performance of the proposed algorithm. The obtained results revealed that the developed algorithm has better accuracy than the existing stemming algorithm. The second stage is the document classification stage. In this stage two nonparametric classifiers are tested, namely Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The system is trained on 6 categories: culture, economy, international, local, religion and sports. The system is trained on 80% of the available data. From each category, the 10 top frequent terms are selected as features. Testing the classification algorithms has been done on the remaining 20% of the documents. The results of ANN and SVM are compared to the standard method used for text classification, the terms frequency-based method. Results show that ANN and SVM have better accuracy (80-90%) compared to the standard method (60-70%). The proposed method proves the ability to categorize the Arabic text documents into the appropriate categories with a high precision rate.


Direct conversion of carbon dioxide to formic acid at thermodynamic equilibrium is an advantage of enzymatic catalysis, hardly replicated by synthetic analogs, but of high priority for carbon-neutral energy schemes. The bio-mimetic potential of totally inorganic Pd@TiO2 nanoparticles is envisioned herein in combination with Single Walled Carbon NanoHorns (SWCNHs). The high surface nano-carbon entanglement templates a wide distribution of "hard-soft" bimetallic sites where the small Pd nanoparticles (1.5 nm) are shielded within the TiO2 phase (Pd@TiO2), while being electrically wired to the electrode by the nanocarbon support. This hybrid electrocatalyst activates CO2 reduction to formic acid at near zero overpotential in the aqueous phase (onset potential at E < −0.05 V vs. RHE, pH = 7.4), while being able to evolve hydrogen via sequential formic acid dehydrogenation. The net result hints at a unique CO2 "circular catalysis" where formic acid versus H2 selectivity is addressable by flow-reactor technology.


Background: In the mental health field, the psychotropic polypharmacy is frequently observed, a significant risk factor for the occurrence of drug interactions. Objective: Identify potential drug interactions on the prescriptions of mental health services users and describe the associated factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 11 services. Sociodemographic data and information about the use of drug were obtained through interviews of users, analysis of prescriptions and medical charts, using a semi-structured questionnaire. Potential drug interactions were identified using the Micromedex® database, the association with sociodemographic characteristics and aspects related to the medicines prescribed were analyzed using the prevalence ratio. Results: The number of medicines prescribed ranged from 0 to 9, with an average of 3.38 (SD=1.76) per user, the most prescribed being haloperidol (12.3%), clonazepam (8.2%) and biperiden (7.9%). The proportion of interactions considering the number of users interviewed was 35.1%. The most frequent between potential interactions were haloperidol and fluoxetine (9.1%); haloperidol and carbamazepine (8.8%); and carbamazepine and chlorpromazine (5.9%). The highest prevalence ratio (PR) for the occurrence of potential interactions was in women (PR=1.36; 95% CI 1.08:1.71), users who had reported improper medicine use (PR=1.36; 95% CI: 1.07:1.72) and those with more than 5 prescribed medicines (PR=1.87; 95% CI: 1.49:2.33). Conclusion: Potential drug interactions were observed in more than one-third of the user's Brazilian mental health services. The profile of interactions detected could guide the pharmacotherapeutic follow-up of priority users, and help the multidisciplinary team identify signs and symptoms that can influence the treatment of users. Key words: Drug interactions, Drug prescriptions, Psychotropic drugs, Mental health, Mental health services.


We analyze factors explaining the very different patterns of industrialization across the 42 counties of England between 1760 and 1830. Against the widespread view that high wages and cheap coal drove industrialization, we find that industrialization was restricted to low wage areas, while energy availability (coal or water) had little impact Instead we find that industrialization can largely be explained by two factors related to the human capability of the labour force. Instead of being composed of landless labourers, successful industrializers had large numbers of small farms, which are associated with better nutrition and height. Secondly, industrializing counties had a high density of population relative to agricultural land, indicating extensive rural industrial activity: counties that were already reliant on small scale industry, with the technical and entrepreneurial skills this generated, experienced the strongest industrial growth. Looking at 1830s France we find that the strongest predictor of industrialization again is quality of workers shown by height of the population, although market access and availability of water power were also important.


In this paper, an attempt is made to represent 5+1 dimensional gravity (via ADM formalism) in terms of the loop constructions introduced by the author in a companion paper. The "momenta" and "velocity" from the earlier paper, which were proven to be cobordant loops in 6 D; are used as the new loop variables. In the process, the Hamiltonian, Diffeomorphism and Gauss constraints are written in polynomials of these loop variables. Other constraints such as the "Q" constraint and simplicity constraints arise due to greater degrees of freedom. We then undergo the Master Constraint treatment to resolve the constraints. Then, a pre-quantum version of the theory is examined; and the properties of the Grassmannian of the Hilbert Space are explored.


The paper documents how the bulb has had an impact in regards to the vernacular of places such as how the light bulb was used in Camp Dora as part of V2 production during World War Two. However, I also consider the contemporary relevance of the bulb by exploring how the move from incandescent lighting to energy saving bulbs has found a new use for bulbs as artwork and even gardens. To provide the paper with a critical and historical depth, I will draw upon the work of many thinkers such as Rene Descartes and his theory of light as well as how complex scientific theories such as The Big Bang and black hole theory are often explained through light bulb metaphors. The paper will also use literature examples of how light bulbs have been imagined, such as Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and the sentient 'all seeing' bulb.


Detailed 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating and paleomagnetic analysis of dacite porphyry sills and dikes that intrude Cretaceous sedimentary rocks in the northern Madison Range in southwestern Montana show that Laramide shortening was essentially complete by ∼69 Ma. A negative paleomagnetic fold test indicates that Laramide folding occurred before cooling of the dacite sills and dikes at ∼69 Ma. Laramide deformation began synchronous with deposition of the Livingston Formation rocks at ∼79 Ma. These results are consistent with previous observations in the region that show the onset of Laramide deformation in the northern Rocky Mountains becoming progressively younger toward the east. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating of additional igneous rocks in the northern Madison Valley and around Norris, Montana better define post-Laramide tectonomagmatic events in the region, including Eocene–Oligocene volcanism and Basin and Range crustal extension. Dates from three rhyolitic intrusions near Red Mountain are between 48.71 ± 0.18 Ma and 49.42 ± 0.18 Ma, similar to the dates from basal silicic flows of the Virginia City volcanic field (part of the southwest Montana volcanic province), suggesting that the Red Mountain intrusions may have been the sources for some of the early extrusive rocks. Magmatism in the Virginia City volcanic field became generally more mafic with time, and a ∼30-Ma basalt flow near Norris is considered a late, outlying member of the volcanic field. A tuff along the east side of the Madison Valley half graben yielded a early middle Miocene date (16.2 ± 0.19 Ma), suggesting that accelerated crustal extension and associated rapid basin sedimentation probably began in the early Miocene, slightly earlier than previous estimates.


A myriad of policy issues and questions revolve around understanding the bioeconomy. To gain insight, we develop a stochastic and dynamic general equilibrium model and capture the uncertain nature of key variables such as crude oil prices and commodity yields. We also incorporate acreage limitations on key feedstocks such as corn, soybeans, and switchgrass. We make standard assumptions that investors are rational and engage in biofuel production only if returns exceed what they can expect to earn from alternative investments. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandates the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, with significant requirements for cellulosic biofuel and biodiesel production. We calculate the level of tax credits required to stimulate this level of production. Subsidies of nearly $2.50 per gallon to biodiesel and $1.86 per gallon to cellulosic biofuel were required, and long-run equilibrium commodity prices were high, with corn at $4.76 per bushel and soybeans at $13.01 per bushel. High commodity prices are due to intense competition for planted acres among the commodities.


Family therapy has the strongest evidence base for treating adolescent conduct and substance use problems, yet there remain substantial barriers to widespread delivery of this approach in community settings. This study aimed to promote the feasibility of implementing family-based interventions in usual care by empirically distilling the core practice elements of three manualized treatments. The study sampled 302 high-fidelity treatment sessions from 196 cases enrolled in 1 of 3 manualized family therapy models: multidimensional family therapy (102 sessions/56 cases), brief strategic family therapy (100 sessions/94 cases), or functional family therapy (100 sessions/46 cases). Adolescents were 57% male; 41% were African American, 31% White non-Hispanic, 9% Hispanic American, 6% another race/ethnicity, and 13% unknown. The observational fidelity measures of all three models were used to code all 302 sessions. Fidelity ratings were analyzed to derive model-shared treatment techniques via exploratory factor analyses on half the sample; the derived factors were then validated via confirmatory factor analyses supplemented by Bayesian structural equation modeling on the remaining half. Factor analyses distilled 4 clinically coherent practice elements with strong internal consistency: Interactional Change (6 treatment techniques; Cronbach's α = .93), Relational Reframe (7 techniques; α = .79), Adolescent Engagement (4 techniques; α = .68), and Relational Emphasis (4 techniques; α = .67). The 4 empirically derived factors represent the core elements of 3 manualized family therapy models for adolescent behavior problems, setting the foundation of a more sustainable option for delivering evidence-based family interventions in routine practice settings. Public Health Significance: Increasing implementation of high-fidelity family-based interventions would improve the quality of treatment services for adolescent conduct and substance use problems.


Recent microbial genome sequencing efforts have revealed a vast reservoir of mobile genetic elements containing integrases that could be useful genome engineering tools. Large serine recombinases (LSRs), such as Bxb1 and PhiC31, are bacteriophage-encoded integrases that can facilitate the insertion of phage DNA into bacterial genomes. However, only a few LSRs have been previously characterized and they have limited efficiency in human cells. Here, we developed a systematic computational discovery workflow that identifies thousands of new LSRs and their cognate DNA attachment sites by. We validate this approach via experimental characterization of LSRs in human cells, leading to three classes of LSRs distinguished from one another by their efficiency and specificity. We identify landing pad LSRs that efficiently integrate into synthetically installed attachment sites orthogonal to the human genome, human genome-targeting LSRs with computationally predictable pseudosites, and multi-targeting LSRs that can unidirectionally integrate cargos at with similar efficiency and superior specificity to commonly used transposases. LSRs from each category were functionally characterized in human cells, overall achieving up to 7-fold higher plasmid recombination than Bxb1 and genome insertion efficiencies of 40-70% with cargo sizes over 7 kb. Overall, we establish a paradigm for large-scale discovery of microbial recombinases and reconstruction of their target sites directly from microbial sequencing data. This strategy provides a rich resource of over 60 experimentally characterized LSRs that can function in human cells and thousands of additional candidates for large-payload genome editing without exposed DNA double-stranded breaks.


Selenium is an essential micronutrient. Its recommended daily allowance is not attained by a significant proportion of the population in many countries and its intake has been suggested to affect colorectal carcinogenesis. Therefore, microarrays were used to determine how both selenoprotein and global gene expression patterns in the mouse colon were affected by marginal selenium deficiency comparable to variations in human dietary intakes. Two groups of 12 mice each were fed a selenium-deficient (0.086 mg Se/kg) or a selenium-adequate (0.15 mg Se/kg) diet. After 6 wk, plasma selenium level, liver, and colon glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity in the deficient group was 12, 34, and 50%, respectively, of that of the adequate group. Differential gene expression was analysed with mouse 44K whole genome microarrays. Pathway analysis by GenMAPP identified the protein biosynthesis pathway as most significantly affected, followed by inflammation, Delta-Notch and Wnt pathways. Selected gene expression changes were confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR. GPx1 and the selenoproteins W, H, and M, responded significantly to selenium intake making them candidates as biomarkers for selenium status. Thus, feeding a marginal selenium-deficient diet resulted in distinct changes in global gene expression in the mouse colon. Modulation of cancer-related pathways may contribute to the higher susceptibility to colon carcinogenesis in low selenium status.


This paper explores the challenges of introducing computer-based health information systems in the context of the Ethiopian public health care system. Drawing empirical examples from the process of introducing computer-based health information system(HIS) in two regional states (Amhara and Benishangul-Gumuz) of Ethiopia, this paper analyses the socio-technical challenges influencing the transition towards a new computerised system and suggested the importance of developing context-sensitive strategies to tackle different challenges in different contexts. Building on the notions of installed base and cultivation the paper examines the socio-technical issues and factors that influenced the process of developing, customizing, and implementing computerised HIS in different settings. The findings of this paper revealed that contextual differences in terms of access to infrastructural reources, availability of adaquate and qualified manpower, and managerial commitment and support would significantly influence the implementation process. I argue that, such context-senitive challenges need to be dealt through flexible startegies that took in to account the specific context. In this paper, four diffferent flexible strategies: the strategy of gateways, top-down vs bottom-up approaches, flexible essential data sets and clustering have beed identified as being useful in implementing computer-based systems in different settings of the Ethiopian public health care system.


This report updates the 2013 report of the same title. Some text originally published in that report is retained and indicated in gray. In support of the national goals for biofuel use in the United States, numerous technologies have been developed that convert biomass to biofuels. Some of these biomass to biofuel conversion technology pathways are operating at commercial scales, while others are in earlier stages of development. The advancement of a new pathway toward commercialization involves various types of progress, including yield improvements, process engineering, and financial performance. Actions of private investors and public programs can accelerate the demonstration and deployment of new conversion technology pathways. These investors (both private and public) will pursue a range of pilot, demonstration, and pioneer scale biorefinery investments; the most cost-effective set of investments for advancing the maturity of any given biomass to biofuel conversion technology pathway is unknown. In some cases, whether or not the pathway itself will ultimately be technically and financially successful is also unknown. This report presents results from the Biomass Scenario Model--a system dynamics model of the biomass to biofuels system--that estimate effects of investments in biorefineries at different maturity levels and operational scales. The report discusses challengesmore » in estimating effects of such investments and explores the interaction between this deployment investment and a volumetric production incentive. Model results show that investments in demonstration and deployment have a substantial growth impact on the development of the biofuels industry. Results also show that other conditions, such as accompanying incentives, have major impacts on the effectiveness of such investments. Results from the 2013 report are compared to new results. This report does not advocate for or against investments, incentives, or policies, but analyzes simulations of their hypothetical effects.« less


—There are two ways to improve the performance of the algorithm computing, which are general purpose of computation and parallel computation of multi-core CPU. By comparison and analysis, contrast the main difference between them, we reach a conclusion that GPU is suitable for processing large-scale data-parallel load of high-density computing but relatively simple branching logic , however, the CPU is more suitable for processing complex logic computation. Now, the appearance of the CUDA makes GPU architecture more suitable for general purpose of computation. Cryptographic algorithm is typical compute-intensive algorithm, this paper take the modular exponentiation of RSA algorithms for example, through the comparison and analysis of GPU implementation and CPU implementation, the experiment results show: that the GPU implementation can achieve more than 45 times speedup in comparison with multi-core CPU implementation of RSA.