Aim: Our study aimed to quantify sprinter's reaction time and compared it with age-matched controls. Material methods: Database of 30 male sprinters and age-matched controls for reaction time (auditory, visual and whole body reaction time) was compiled. Sprinters included those who had participated in different state and national athletic meets. After compilation of this data, it was statistically analyzed using unpaired T-test. Results: Our study indicated a highly significant (P value < 0.001) relationship in auditory and visual reaction time between athletes and controls. Our study also revealed that athletes reacted and responded quickly than controls. Whole body reaction time for front and back were highly significant (P value <0.001). Reaction time for right side was significant (P value <0.01), whereas whole body reaction time did not differ on left side in these two groups. Conclusion: Considering the findings of this study, the results suggest that sprinters reacting abilities are faster and quicker than controls, which definitely affects sprint performance. The above finding is of great interest for coaches and athletes in sports involving reacting skills.


Based on Philip Yancey's Gold Medallion Book of the Year on the life of Christ, The Jesus I Never Knew is a six-session small group Bible study in which Yancey uses film portraits of Jesus and contrasts them with the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus I Never Knew gives you fresh, uncluttered perspectives on history's central figure-his radical claims, his challenging teachings, and his effect on others ...including you. This remarkable experience will spark discussion, interaction, application, and growth. Together, you'll share life-changing discoveries about God, the Bible, and yourself. Best of all, you'll come face-to-face with the most compelling, creative, challenging, fearless, unpredictable, and ultimately satisfying person anyone can know: Jesus Christ. This Participant Guide is designed for use with the companion The Jesus I Never Knew DVD (sold separately). It's filled with insights, questions for discussion, and applications that will help you discover the Jesus you never knew. Sessions include: 1. The Jesus We Thought We Knew 2. The Teachings of Jesus 3. The Revolutionary Grace of Jesus 4. The Miracles of Jesus 5. The Death of Jesus 6. The Resurrection, Ascension and Ongoing Presence of Jesus


Clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is an evidence-based practice that has demonstrated efficacy for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. While a literature search identifies over 100 EFT papers, none thus far report on its use with business executives. The current study assessed psychological indicators in business owners (N = 39) over 50 years old and whose companies grossed US$9 million or more annually. Participants attended a daylong seminar combining psychoeducation with EFT delivered in small group format using a manualized protocol known as Borrowing Benefits. All members of each group used EFT while witnessing sessions conducted by a certified Clinical EFT practitioner. After treatment, the severity of psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression declined by 34% (p < 0.0008). Pain was reduced by 41%, and cravings for problem food and drink items by 50% (both p < 0.0001). The study focused on EFT's immediate stress-reduction effects and did not include a follow-up assessment. Consistent with the literature on Borrowing Benefits, EFT produced large reductions in stress symptoms when delivered in group format. As businesses seek methods of reducing stress in professional settings, Clinical EFT groups offer a fast and effective technique to improve both the physical and psychological dimensions of employee well-being.


A search for low mass narrow vector resonances decaying into quark-antiquark pairs is presented. The analysis is based on data collected in 2017 with the CMS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 41.1 fb$^{-1}$. The results of this analysis are combined with those of an earlier analysis based on data collected at the same collision energy in 2016, corresponding to 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. Signal candidates will be recoiling against initial state radiation and are identified as energetic, large-radius jets with two pronged substructure. The invariant jet mass spectrum is probed for a potential narrow peaking signal over a smoothly falling background. No evidence for such resonances is observed within the mass range of 50-450 GeV. Upper limits at the 95% confidence level are set on the coupling of narrow resonances to quarks, as a function of the resonance mass. For masses between 50 and 300 GeV these are the most sensitive limits to date. This analysis extends the earlier search to a mass range of 300-450 GeV, which is probed for the first time with jet substructure techniques.


Identifying and delineating P and T wave characteristics are greatly important in interpreting and diagnosing electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. P and T waves with high accuracy are more difficult to delineate because of their various shapes, positions, directions and boundaries. This paper proposes a high-speed approach to delineate P and T waves in a single lead using two high-speed algorithms of high detection accuracy. This approach presents a simple, adaptive and intelligent P and T wave scan method that determines the onset, peak and end time locations within an adaptive period appointed by previous records of the QRS complex. By using a translating (rising to/from falling) interval inside the scan wave, the peak time location of P and T waves and the T wave sign (upward or downward) are determined. Continuously, this time location is considered a reference point for determining the onset and the end time locations based on a series of computed outcomes related to amplitude and slope difference. The new approach is validated by 105 annotated records from the QT database collected from seven different categories of ECG signals. Simulation results show that the average detection rates of sensitivity and positive predictivity are equal to 99.97% and 99.36% for P wave and 99.98% and 99.26% for T wave, respectively. The average time errors computed by the mean and standard deviation for the P wave onset, peak and end time locations are -3.00 ± 2.94, -0.69 ± 4.42 and 0.67 ± 4.56 ms, respectively. The values for T wave are -3.33 ± 4.96, 0.24 ± 5.36 and -0.36 ± 5.68 ms. Results demonstrate the reliability, accuracy and forcefulness of the proposed approach in delineating various categories of P and T waves.


In-situ monitoring of domain reversal in congruent lithium niobate by a digital holographic technique is described. While the ferroelectric polarization is reversed by electric field poling, the two-dimensional distribution of the phase shift, due mainly to the linear electro-optic and piezoelectric effects, is measured and visualized. Digital holography is used to reconstruct both amplitude and phase of the wavefield transmitted by the sample to reveal the phase shift induced by adjacent reversed domains during the poling. The resulting movies of both amplitude and phase maps, for in-situ visualization of domain pattern formation, are shown. The possibility of using the technique as tool for monitoring in real-time the periodic poling of patterned samples is discussed.


Broadway, the main street that runs through Robert Pinsky's hometown of Long Branch, New Jersey, was once like thousands of other main streets in small towns across the country. But for Pinsky, one of America's most admired poets and its former Poet Laureate, this Broadway is the point of departure for a lively journey through the small towns of the American imagination. "Thousands of Broadways" explores the dreams and nightmares of such small towns - their welcoming yet suffocating, warm yet prejudicial character during their heyday, from the early nineteenth century through World War II. The citizens of quintessential small towns know one another extensively and even intimately, but fail to recognize the geniuses and criminal minds in their midst. Bringing the works of such figures as Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Alfred Hitchcock, Thornton Wilder, Willa Cather, and Preston Sturges to bear on this paradox, as well as reflections on his own time growing up in a small town, Pinsky explores how such imperfect knowledge shields communities from the anonymity and alienation of modern life. Along the way, he also considers how small towns can be small-minded - in some cases viciously judgmental and oppressively provincial. Ultimately, Pinsky examines the uneasy regard that creative talents like him often have toward the small towns that either nurtured or thwarted their artistic impulses. Of living in a small town, Sherwood Anderson once wrote that 'the sensation is one never to be forgotten. On all sides are ghosts, not of the dead, but of living people.' Passionate, lyrical, and intensely moving, "Thousands of Broadways" is a rich exploration of this crucial theme in American literature by one of its most distinguished figures.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate cytotoxicity and antiviral activity of recombinant human interferon alfa-2a and recombinant human interferon alfa-B/D hybrid against cytopathic and noncytopathic bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), infectious bovine rhinotracheitis virus (IBRV), and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) in vitro.

SAMPLE POPULATION
Primary bovine testicular cells and Mardin Darby bovine kidney cells.

PROCEDURES
To evaluate cytotoxicity, cells were added to serial dilutions of each interferon. To evaluate antiviral activity of each interferon, interferons were serially diluted 1:10, and tissue culture cells were added; virus was then added at 3 time points. Prevention of viral infection by interferon was defined as failure to induce cytopathologic effect for VSV, IBRV, and cytopathic BVDV and failure to detect virus immunohistochemically for cytopathic and noncytopathic BVDV.

RESULTS
No evidence of cytotoxicity in either cell line was detected after incubation with interferon alfa-2a or interferon alfa-B/D. However, reduced growth rates of tissue culture cells were detected for each interferon when undiluted interferon was tested. Comparable and profound antiviral activities against cytopathic and noncytopathic BVDV were evident for each interferon. Interferon alfa-2a and interferon a-B/D had comparable antiviral activities against VSV. Neither interferon had antiviral activity against IBRV.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The safety and marked in vitro antiviral activity against noncytopathic BVDV, cytopathic BVDV, and VSV suggest that interferons alfa-2a and alfa-B/D may be useful for treatment of natural disease after infection with these viruses.


Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) are two writers whose names invariably seem to appear in critical discussion of romantic literature. Given the direct influence on both Gogol and Hawthorne of writers like Ludwig Tieck, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Washington Irving, and other giants of the late eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century fantastic/romantic school of literature, this should not come as a surprise. What is perhaps surprising is that very few critics have chosen to examine the works of Gogol and Hawthorne in direct comparison with one another, a fact that seems an even more striking oversight given the voluminous amount of criticism produced on both Gogol and Hawthorne in comparison to Hoffmann or Tieck.[1] The close contemporaneity (bordering occasionally on eerie coincidence) of the careers of the two writers makes the oversight even more curious. In an attempt to remedy this critical shortfall, I will examine the short fiction of Hawthorne and Gogol together, comparing the manner in which each author uses symbolic and physical embodiments of evil in his work. These authors consistently present their audiences, either explicitly or implicitly, with demonic figures, and my intention is to illustrate the ways in which the two authors use these devils[2] in their manuscripts to help further their individual literary and moralistic projects. Although both writers create their devils and kindred evil spirits within fairly standard (albeit different) Christian moral and ethical frameworks, there are, especially early in their respective careers, significant differences in the ways in which the evil entities they depict go about their nefarious work. Hawthorne's fiends and devils, rarely presented in corporeal form, generally prove to be a force that corrupts mankind in the realm of the psyche, whereas Gogol's devils initially tend to produce their effects in a way that is physically observable (either through bodily harm or otherwise material manifestations of evil), corresponding to their tangibly substantial presentation. Then, as Gogol's authorial aims become more moralistic, his devils become less physical and more symbolic (often being represented or suggested by animals or even inanimate objects like the famous overcoat of Akaky Akakyevich Bashmachkin), resembling Hawthorne's internal devils. This variance correlates largely with the differences in the religious and cultural background between the two authors. Hawthorne was a member (if a somewhat unwilling one, at times) of the overtly moralistic society of New England, which derived its ethical precepts from seventeenth-century Puritanism and German Calvinist Protestantism, with its doctrine of election, before that. In contrast, Gogol was born and bred into the religious traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, albeit one with some regional variants particular to Ukraine. Coupled with this baseline religion are the idiosyncratic (not to say heretical) additions that Gogol made regarding his relationship to God. These led him, especially in later life, to occasional heights of somewhat hubristic religious ecstasy in which he believed himself to be God's chosen mouthpiece. Both writers' works demonstrate a conflict between personal faith and devotion to the dogma of the religious training they underwent in their younger years. This conflict often manifests itself in their writing in the form of a struggle between a fallible human character and an embodiment of demonic force. My comparison of demonic themes begins by focusing on several representative short works by Hawthorne, most notably the tale "Young Goodman Brown" from the collection Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). I will then use examples from each of the three types of demonic tales that Gogol wrote during his early career to demonstrate the ways in which the influence of the romantics is idiosyncratically adopted and altered by both writers in order to suit their differing authorial intentions. …


Denote the free group on two letters by F2 and the SL(3,C)-representation variety of F2 by R = Hom(F2, SL(3, C)). There is a SL(3,C)-action on the coordinate ring of R, and the geometric points of the subring of invariants is an affine variety X. We determine explicit minimal generators and defining relations for the subring of invariants and show X is a hyper-surface in C9. Our choice of generators exhibit Out(F2) symmetries which allow for a succinct expression of the defining relations. We then show C[X] is a Poisson algebra with respect to a presentation of F2 imposed by a punctured surface. We work out the bracket on all generators when the surface is a thrice punctured sphere, or a trinion. The moduli space of convex real projective structures on a trinion, denoted by P,is a subset of X. Lastly, we determine explicit conditions in terms of C[X] that distinguish this moduli space.


This study explores gender dimensions in the teaching and learning of vocational business education (VBE) in Nigerian senior secondary schools. The focus is on classroom participation of VBE boys and girls in commerce and economics class discussions in the schools. The study sets out to explore the VBE experience of girls, as compared with boys and was surprised to discover that although girls still experience gender inequality, they dominate classroom talk in many instances and have advantages from their role in their mothers' petty trading businesses.

The study is framed by three theories: schools' gender regime, social role and cultural capital theories. Qualitative case study methods of participant observation, semi-structured interviews and reviews of documents were adopted. Data was generated from four mixed sex high schools. Sixteen boys and sixteen girls were interviewed to gain understanding of gender issues in their schooling processes within and outside the classrooms. Four principals, four heads of VBE departments and eight teachers of commerce and economics were also interviewed. Twenty-four whole class observation sessions were conducted with VBE teachers and students in the two school subjects. Thematic analysis of the data undertaken focused predominantly on the ideas about gender that VBE teachers and students brought to their classroom interactions; gender in both informal and formal curriculum and gendered VBE classroom interactions as well as the gendered views about the business labour market.

The study conceives gender as a lived experience that males and females learned and produced through socialisation at home, in school and generally in the wider society. The study found that boys rarely dominate commerce and economics class discussions, especially in urban high schools where girls far outnumbered them. Moreover, it was discovered that school's physical and organisational environment, stereotyped curriculum contents, methods of teaching and teachers' and students' behaviour affected classroom participation in the two subjects. The study challenges simple understandings of gender inequality in schooling as it found that girls acquire cultural capital from domestic tasks and from the petty trading businesses of their mothers which helps to equip them with verbal communication skills, ability to work with teachers and others and interest in business subjects. This enables them to interact freely during their lessons in schools and to participate much more than the boys. Girls also outperformed boys in the two school subjects under study. This challenges research which upholds that boys tend to dominate every lesson. Boys in this study were often reluctant and quite reserved during class discussions; girls took more turns than them in the majority of the lessons. They were regarded by their teachers as highly conscientious. They were praised more by both male and female teachers and received more attention from them.


ABSTRACT The textile industry tries to provide different opportunities to its customers. Because of this, novel technologies in textile finishing and the use of different fibers have great importance for the textile industry. In this respect, the use of casein fiber is of interest to both manufacturers and consumers. In this study, casein-based fabrics were pretreated by means of ozone gas. The fibers themselves are clean but have low whiteness degrees. Therefore, the fabrics were bleached by means of ozone gas but limited increases in whiteness degrees were obtained. After the bleaching process, a natural dye source, namely "onion skins," was used for the coloration of the fabrics. The dried and milled onion skin was directly added to the dyeing bath as a kind of natural dyestuff without undergoing any extraction process beforehand. In this way, it was aimed to show the usability of a vegetable waste and, at the same time, to combine ecologic processing-dyeing with casein finishing. It was observed that with the use of onion skin, the coloration of the casein fiber can be managed easily.


Unit load storage systems are pervasive throughout global supply chains. Significant reductions in their automation costs could have significant economic impact. A new alternative to traditional crane-based automation uses flexible autonomous vehicles in storage and retrieval operations. This technology has not significantly penetrated commercial markets for warehouse automation due to a lack of design tools for evaluating its performance. This precludes direct comparisons of autonomous vehicle technology with crane-based technology in the pre-engineering or "design conceptualization" stage of system development where key technology selection decisions are made. To address this problem, this chapter proposes computationally efficient cycle time models for Autonomous Vehicle Storage and Retrieval System that use scalable computational procedures for large-scale design conceptualization. Simulation based validation studies suggest that the models produce high accuracy. The procedure is demonstrated for over 4,000 scenarios corresponding to enumeration of the design spaces for a range of sample problems.


Viewing zone shape and size perform a key role in creating viewing comfort for the viewer. The horizontal and vertical sizes of viewing zones, formed by a full color transmission type holographic screen with a stereoscopic image projection are investigated. The screens have been recorded as holograms of a narrow stripe shaped object with different width; to extend the vertical size of the viewing zone the holograms were exposed two times with the hologram shifting between exposures. The viewing zone parameters were measured as a function of the stripe width of the object and of the exit pupil size of projection optics for several holographic screens having the size of the 30 $\times$ 40 $\textrm{cm}^2$ .


Bipolar electrochemistry is a phenomenon which is known for a very long time, but has been less popular for a few decades, and some electrochemists even ignore its existence. Recently, it has regained considerable attention, especially in the field of micro- and nanoscience.1,2 The aim of this chapter is to introduce the unspecialized reader to bipolar electrochemistry. First, a general introduction into the concept of bipolar electrochemistry will be given, exploring aspects of bipolar electrodes, such as thermodynamics and kinetics. Then, we will briefly describe historical aspects of bipolar electrochemistry and finally illustrate in detail recent applications with an emphasis on applications in the field of nanoscience.


Anaerobic digestion involves multiple bacterial and archaea species to convert organic matter into volatile fatty acids and finally into methane and carbon dioxide. In this study, the effect of six selected C1 to C4 organic acids on biogas production and microbial growth in anaerobic digestion was evaluated using batch assays. These C1 to C4 compounds included formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, lactic acid, pyruvic acid and butyric acid. Each organic acid was tested as a sole substrate in individual batch experiment at different concentrations range from 250 mg COD/L to 8000 mg COD. The cumulative biogas volume was recorded automatically by a respirometer every ten min. The biogas generation rate was calculated from the cumulative biogas generation curve while the specific microbial growth rate was estimated using Monod and Andrews equations based on the coupled stoichiometric reactions between biogas production and microbial growth. The tested organic acids were divided into two groups based on substrate self-inhibitory characteristics in anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion of acetic acid and propionic acid presented self-inhibition at high acid concentrations while formic acid, lactic acid, pyruvic acid and butyric acid did not inhibit anaerobic digestion at the highest concentrations tested. The microbial growth rates using butyric acid, pyruvic acid and acetic acid were 0.170, 0.167, and 0.396 d -1 , respectively. For comparison, the growth using propionic acid, lactic acid and formic acid was relatively slower with the growth rates of 0.136, 0.133 and 0.133 d -1 , respectively.


Abstract The present study demonstrates for the first time a clear seasonal variability in the abundance of virobenthos that largely followed the variations in bacterial abundance. Following the spring bloom settlement, the benthic metabolic activity intensified and viral and bacterial abundance in the surface sediment increased 4.0- and 2.6-fold while the increase in a deeper anoxic sediment layer (6–10 cm) was 5.0- and 2.5-fold, respectively. The data strongly indicated a relationship between the pelagic–benthic coupling of organic material, the benthic metabolic activity, and the abundance and activity of bacteria and viruses in marine sediments on a seasonal basis. These suggestions were supported by parallel measurements of viral production rates in short-term laboratory incubations of surface and deep sediments: in these, viral production was significantly enhanced by addition of organic carbon and increasing temperature, with maximum values obtained in organic carbon-enriched incubations in July (19.7×106 and 38.4×106 virus-like particles cm−3 h−1 in surface and deep incubations, respectively). However, the relative enhancement was most explicit during periods of low in situ sedimentation. Conservative estimates indicated that viral lysis caused bacterial mortality rates of 2.8–27.4×105 cells cm−3 h−1, corresponding to 2–61% day−1 of bacterial standing stock during incubations (average 12.3±13.9%, n=18). An estimation of virus-generated dissolved organic carbon production using theoretical values of bacterial cell carbon content (20–50 fg cell−1), showed that viral lysates could sustain 2–38% of the measured bacterial respiration. The data suggest that viruses may have considerable impact on benthic microbial mortality and carbon cycling.


It was like no other library: not a musty, mute archive but a bustling center of activity and voice of advocacy. It brought together otherwise combative parties sportsmen, lumbermen, librarians, politicians, even disputing activists as it helped redefine what environmentalism means in America. Denver's Conservation Library was established in 1960 as a repository for environmental and conservation documents. In chronicling its history, Andrew Kirk also traces the cultural history of American environmentalism as viewed through the lens of this unique institution. He tells how this library created by an older generation of technophobic men evolved into a cutting-edge laboratory for alternative technology research run by young women, mirroring tumultuous changes in American culture and social movements over the past four decades. Kirk reveals how the Conservation Library Collection merged with various constituencies vying to shape it for their own purposes, and how it reflected the thinking of influences as diverse as John Muir and Stewart Brand. He introduces key players such as founder Arthur Carhart and administrator Kay Collins, then tells how the CLC was transformed into the Regional Energy/Environment Information Center, suffered cutbacks in the Reagan era that brought on its demise, and lately began a quiet resurgence as the archive it was originally intended to be. "Collecting Nature" shows that the CLC was a microcosm for the environmental movement itself, as well as a clear barometer of its gender and generational shifts. Kirk's eloquent narrative reveals much about the ideological bases and promises of environmentalism, while showing how the movement grew from its conservationist and preservationist roots. In the process, Kirk contributes to the debate over the evolution of environmental thinking, with an eye toward resolving the differences among competing perspectives. Through the story of this unique institution, he shows us how we have come to define conservation, wilderness, and even nature itself."


This chapter explores the investigative errors, prosecutorial misconduct, and flawed police procedures that are often the cause of wrongful convictions in the United States. The authors discuss the difficulty of the criminal investigative process and the inevitable infusion of bias during investigations, giving specific examples of the cognitive and motivational biases that may permeate both investigations and trials. The authors argue that judgment about specific evidence is both shaped by, and itself shapes, judgments of other evidence, which may lead to an escalation of errors during the course of an investigation. In order to reduce these procedural errors, the United States must consider certain reforms, such as removing forensic testing units from police departments, prohibiting the introduction of trial evidence based on invalid or untested forensic methods, and reforming the interrogation process.


The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of B vitamins-fortified foods on primary school children. A controlled trial was conducted in 101 normal primary school children aged 9-11 years. They were randomly assigned to supplemental control group (S-control, n=36), riboflavin supplementation group (+riboflavin 0.625 mg/day, n=32), and B vitamin compound supplementation group (+riboflavin 0.625 mg/day, +thiamin 0.512 mg/day, +nicotinic acid 0.365 mg/day, +folic acid 0.13 mg/day, n=33) based on school classes. Urinary riboflavin excretion and erythrocyte glutathione reductase activity coefficient (EGRAC) along with erythrocyte transketolase activity (ETKA) were used to evaluate B vitamin levels in the children. AYP index, an index reflecting the brain performance ability, was chosen to assess the children's study abilities. Health education was carried out to help children and their parents adopt scientific dietary concepts. The urinary riboflavin excretion was higher in two supplementation groups (435.24 +/- 153.3 microg/g creatinine, 374.6 +/- 144.6 microg/g creatinine) than in S-control group (235.1 +/- 86.2 microg/g creatinine). Average values of EGRAC were lower in two supplementation groups (0.90 +/- 0.11, 0.80 +/- 0.10) than in S-control group (1.08 +/- 0.25). At the same time, the percentage of thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP%) decreased from 63.69 +/- 28.04 to 42.16 +/- 16.31 in B vitamin compound supplementation group. Meanwhile, AYP index increased at the end of the supplementation in two supplementation groups. B vitamins supplementation can significantly increase B vitamin level in children. Biochemical activities of riboflavin and thiamin can improve with the intake of fortified foods. The effect of B vitamin compound supplementation is better than that of single riboflavin supplementation when the effect of riboflavin's biofunction is considered. In addition, micronutrient supplementation appears to assist children's study abilities.


In this Letter we propose a method to enhance the limited depth of field (DOF) in optical imaging systems, through digital holography. The proposed approach is based on the introduction of a cubic phase plate into the diffraction integral, analogous to what occurs in white-light imaging systems. By this approach we show that it is possible to improve the DOF and to recover the extended focus image of a tilted object in a single reconstruction step. Moreover, we demonstrate the possibility of obtaining well-focused biological cells flowing into a tilted microfluidic channel.


Abstract In the past, several empirical firn-densification models have been developed fitted to measured density–depth profiles from Greenland and Antarctica. These models do not specifically deal with refreezing of meltwater in the firn. Ice lenses are usually indirectly taken into account by choosing a suitable value of the surface snow density. In the present study, a simple densification model is developed that specifically accounts for the content of ice lenses in the snowpack. An annual layer is considered to be composed of an ice fraction and a firn fraction. It is assumed that all meltwater formed at the surface in one year will refreeze in the corresponding annual layer, and that no additional melting or refreezing occurs in deeper layers. With this assumption, further densification is solely controlled by compaction of the firn fraction of the annual layer. Comparison of modelled and observed depth–density profiles from Canadian Arctic ice-core sites with large melting–refreezing percentages shows good agreement. The model is also used to estimate the long-term surface elevation change in interior Greenland that will result from temperature-driven changes of density–depth profiles. These surface elevation changes reflect a volume change of the ice sheet with no corresponding change of mass, i.e. a volume change that does not influence global sea level.


Principals and teachers recommend strategies to prepare and motivate students for high-stakes testing. Strategies are based on what they determine to be effective for student success. ********** With the increase of testing in our schools, teachers and principals need to recognize their role and commitment to student performance relative to state-mandated testing. Teachers and principals are responsible to enhance and measure student learning within their classrooms/schools; they are also responsible to prepare and motivate students for high-stakes testing. "The number of students tested annually has skyrocketed as all 50 states have exams in operation, with even more grades--seven in all--required to administer tests" (Foote, 2007, p. 359). Further, testing of students is occurring at a time when schools are being scrutinized by federal and state policy makers based on student scores (Snyder, 2004). Therefore, teachers and principals must examine, develop, and implement strategies to help students obtain educational gains that increase their test scores. Purpose The purpose of this article is to note the various strategies that teachers and principals implement in preparing and motivating students for high-stakes testing. The strategies stated are based on current teachers' and principals' recommendations. Teachers' Recommendations Teachers need to know the complexities of the knowledge and skills their students are expected to learn for the state mandated tests. Dedicated teachers are constantly searching for ways to provide opportunities for their students to practice prior to stepping into the high-stakes-test-taking experience. They begin early (the first day of school) to provide students with practice while incorporating content and concepts into their daily instruction. Other strategies are to: * Synthesize curriculum alignment to standards, employ curriculum mapping, and prepare curriculum benchmarks. * Be aware of the glossary of terms used by your state. Teach those vocabulary terms so students have a knowledge base when taking the test. * Repeat test taking vocabulary and identify vocabulary development exercises. * Point out test prep strategies focusing on test preparation ideas (sharpened pencils, eating habits, sleep, how to read the questions). According to McCabe (2006, p. 5) "verbal persuasion" is very effective. Verbal feedback assists and informs learners of their success. Students have higher feelings of self-efficacy relative to test-taking performance particularly when the feedback is positive, specific, and detailed. Receiving positive statements is just as important to student success as the teacher's content knowledge. Other strategies that make practice important for the high-stakes tests are having students recognize the importance of highlighting, note tags, notebooks (used as study guides), and graphic organizers. Further, teachers suggest that it is wise to use assessment released items for the students to practice. Make certain daily classroom assessments correlate to the state standards. It is wise to implement daily lessons citing the state standard(s) in student friendly language. Rubrics that are teacher-developed must encompass the state standards. They recommend using varied means of assessment. Of particular importance, teachers recognize the need to evaluate their classroom assessments. The results from the assessments drive instruction to deeper levels and assist with concept attainment for students. If your state requires rulers, protractors, etc., explain these artifacts and incorporate usage into regular instruction. Teachers suggest a better quality of these items, as the less expensive ones cause challenges for the students learning to manipulate these tools. In addition, teachers recommend illustrating reading prompts and the scoring guides used by the state. …


Gain-switching of a CW fiber laser is a simple and cost-effective approach to generate pulses using an all-fiber system. We report on the construction of a narrow bandwidth (below 0.1 nm) gain-switched fiber laser and optimize the pulse energy and pulse duration under this constraint. The extracted pulse energy is 20 μJ in a duration of 135 ns at 7 kHz. The bandwidth increases for a higher pump pulse energy and repetition rate, and this sets the limit of the output pulse energy. A single power amplifier is added to raise the peak power to the kW-level and the pulse energy to 230 μJ while keeping the bandwidth below 0.1 nm. This allows frequency doubling in a periodically poled lithium tantalate crystal with a reasonable conversion efficiency.


Background : Attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder, is a common psychological disorder in persons, that continues from childhood into adulthood and leads to problem in various aspects of their life, such as personal, social, professional, and executive function such as working memory. Several studies indicate a close relationship between working memory deficits and attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder. Given the lack of studies on the effectiveness of neurofeedback in improving working memory in adults with ADHD, this study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of neurofeedback in working memory.
Materials and Methods: Research design was experimental with pre-test and post-test and control group and carried out on adults with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder referred to the Atieh clinic in Tehran .After reviewing inclusion and exclusion criteria,16 persons based on purposive sampling were selected in 2 groups of 8 cases as experimental and control groups. The research instruments were the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, Inventory adult attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder of Barkley, vital cns test, auditory and visual integrated test signs. Data analysis, through SPSS software using U Mann-Whitney, was performed. The independent t-test, Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used also for complementary results. The protocol used in this study, was increasing of beta waves on FZ.
Results: The results showed that neurofeedback was led to a significant increase in working memory in experimental group.
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, which is consistent with results of the researches done in this field, neurofeedback increases frontal lobe activity and activation of neural circuits involved in executive function and working memory, and improve executive function and working memory deficits in patients with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder. As a result, given the efficacy of neurofeedback in improving working memory, using this method, is suggested for the same treatment.
Keywords: Neurofeedback, Adult attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Working memory


Context. The Orion molecular cloud is the closest region of high-mass star formation. It is an ideal target for investigating the detailed structure of massive star-forming filaments at high resolution and the relevance of the filament paradigm for the earliest stages of intermediate- to high-mass star formation.
Aims. Within the Orion A molecular cloud, the integral-shaped filament (ISF) is a prominent, degree-long structure of dense gas and dust with clear signs of recent and ongoing high-mass star formation. Our aim is to characterise the structure of this massive filament at moderately high angular resolution (8′′ or ~0.016 pc) in order to measure the intrinsic width of the main filament, down to scales well below 0.1 pc, which has been identified as the characteristic width of filaments.
Methods. We used the ArTéMiS bolometer camera at APEX to map a ~0.6 × 0.2 deg2 region covering OMC-1, OMC-2, and OMC-3 at 350 and 450 μm. We combined these data with Herschel-SPIRE maps to recover extended emission. The combined Herschel-ArTéMiS maps provide details on the distribution of dense cold material, with a high spatial dynamic range, from our 8′′ resolution up to the transverse angular size of the map, ~10–15′. By combining Herschel and ArTéMiS data at 160, 250, 350, and 450 μm, we constructed high-resolution temperature and H2 column density maps. We extracted radial intensity profiles from the column density map in several representative portions of the ISF, which we fitted with Gaussian and Plummer models to derive their intrinsic widths. We also compared the distribution of material traced by ArTéMiS with that seen in the higher-density tracer N2H+(1–0) that was recently observed with the ALMA interferometer.
Results. All the radial profiles that we extracted show a clear deviation from a Gaussian, with evidence for an inner plateau that had not previously been seen clearly using Herschel-only data. We measure intrinsic half-power widths in the range 0.06–0.11 pc. This is significantly larger than the Gaussian widths measured for fibres seen in N2H+, which probably only traces the dense innermost regions of the large-scale filament. These half-power widths are within a factor of two of the value of ~0.1 pc found for a large sample of nearby filaments in various low-mass star-forming regions, which tends to indicate that the physical conditions governing the fragmentation of pre-stellar cores within transcritical or supercritical filaments are the same over a large range of masses per unit length.


Over forty years have passed since the appearance of Ernst Badian's very influential one
might even say canonical -study of Roman Republican imperialism and international relations, "Foreign Clientelae." Although his central thesis has not gone unchallenged, it remains a fixture of Republican scholarship -and this despite a sustained attack nearly two decades ago by Erich Gruen. The purpose of this paper will be to revisit and supplement
Gruen's critique in order to make the case for a new, ,international amicitia' model of Roman international relations, which, I suggest, can better account for Republican imperial and diplomatic behavior than the foreign clientela model.


Objective: The aim of the present study is to perform a systematic review of studies that investigated the prevalence of any kind of mental disorders in high school students in Iran. Method: A broad search was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed, ISI web of Science, PsychINFO, CINAHL, EMBASE, and three Iranian databases, including IranPsych, IranMedex, and Scientific Information Database (SID). To cover studies not published, we did a hand searching of all theses, reports and congresses' abstract booklets which were available in IranPsych. Then, we included the original studies which reported the prevalence of any kind of mental disorders in high school students; data extraction was performed with two researchers for each document. Results: Sixteen studies were finally included, representing 19 estimates of mental disorders in high school students, using diagnostic or screening instruments. The prevalence rate of any mental disorder reported by two studies using diagnostic instruments was equal to 16.6% and 4.34%. The median of prevalence rates of mental disorders reported in studies using screening instruments was 34.4%. There was a significant heterogeneity between the studies. Conclusion: Prevalence rates of mental disorders were reported in a wide range in high school students of Iran. More studies with improved quality are needed in this field. Keywords: Iran, Mental health, Meta-Analysis, Prevalence, Psychiatry, Review, School, Students Iran J Psychiatry 2009; 4: 1-6 Mental disorders are among the most common health problems all over the world. Global burden of disease estimates placed mental illness at the top three causes of years lost due to disability (1). Considering early age of onset and the chronic course of these disorders compared with other highly burdensome diseases such as cardiovascular illnesses, more emphasis on mental health of children and adolescents is needed. Prevention, detection, and treatment of childhood and adolescent mental disorders are important not only to relieve current distress but also to improve adult functioning and to prevent the perpetuation of this disadvantage into the next generation (2). For developing any kind of mental health improvement policy, understanding the prevalence of mental disorders is a crucial step (3). Studies investigating the prevalence of mental disorders in Iran reported a wide range of percentages from 1.9% (4) to 58.8% in adult general population (5). Several factors may contribute to explain these differences such as temporal and geographical characteristics, use of different instruments, small sample sizes or methodological biases. Even two national studies with large sample size differ a lot in their estimations with 10.8% (6) and 21% (7). Lack of a reliable knowledge of the prevalence of mental disorders in Iran is more prominent in the field of child psychiatry. It seems that there is a need for systematic reviews of the literature addressing prevalence of mental disorders in Iran to build a reliable ground for future studies. Like other fields of medical research, reviews should be based on data that are as complete and as rigorous as possible. Meta-analysis is a tool for extracting and synthesizing new data by means of pooling the data and providing a final value. Even the orderly sorting of data using meta-analytic techniques can provide useful insights into the structure of relevant studies (8). Trying to have a clear definition of prevalence, in this study, it is defined as the proportion of individuals who manifest a disorder at a specified time, or during a specified period. There are several ways to find out the proportion of people who are affected by a specific mental disorder. However, in this study we reviewed those studies which investigated the prevalence of any kind of mental disorder, not a particular type. The aim of the present study is to perform a systematic review of studies that have investigated the prevalence of any kind of mental disorders in high school students in Iran. …


Visible watermarking is a widely-used technique for marking and protecting copyrights of many millions of images on the web, yet it suffers from an inherent security flaw—watermarks are typically added in a consistent manner to many images. We show that this consistency allows to automatically estimate the watermark and recover the original images with high accuracy. Specifically, we present a generalized multi-image matting algorithm that takes a watermarked image collection as input and automatically estimates the foreground (watermark), its alpha matte, and the background (original) images. Since such an attack relies on the consistency of watermarks across image collection, we explore and evaluate how it is affected by various types of inconsistencies in the watermark embedding that could potentially be used to make watermarking more secured. We demonstrate the algorithm on stock imagery available on the web, and provide extensive quantitative analysis on synthetic watermarked data. A key takeaway message of this paper is that visible watermarks should be designed to not only be robust against removal from a single image, but to be more resistant to mass-scale removal from image collections as well.


Recent work has shown the important properties of the wind inversion residual or maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) for quality Control (QC) of QuikSCAT Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) observations. Since March 2000, the QuikSCAT near-real-time (NRT) Binary Universal Format Representation (BUFR) product is available. As this product is used for numerical weather prediction (NWP) assimilation purposes, a QC procedure for the BUFR product is needed. We study the behavior of the MLE in order to determine whether the HDF QC procedure is appropriate for BUFR data. A comparison using real HDF and BUFR data reveals that the MLE distributions of HDF and BUFR differ and are actually poorly correlated. One important difference between BUFR and HDF is the amount of signal averaging prior to wind inversion. The averaging reduces the number of observations used in the wind retrieval for the BUFR product as compared to HDF. We show with a simple example that different MLE distributions are indeed expected due to this averaging. We also run a simulation in order to link theory and reality and better understand the behavior of the MLE. Despite the different MLE behavior in BUFR and HDF, the quality of the retrieved winds, as compared with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts winds, is very similar. We develop an MLE-based QC procedure for BUFR, similarly to the one in HDF, and we compare both. The skill of the QC in BUFR is again very similar to the one in HDF, showing that despite the different MLE behavior in both formats, the properties of the MLE as a QC indicator remain very similar.


In the broadest sense this is an article about legal or regulatory uncertainty and the role that private and public insurance can play in managing it. More narrowly, the article is about tax law enforcement and the familiar if ill-defined distinctions between tax evasion, tax avoidance, and abusive tax avoidance. Most specifically, the article is about a new type of tax risk insurance policy, sometimes called tax indemnity insurance (or transactional tax risk insurance) that provides coverage against the risk that the IRS will disallow a taxpayer-insured's tax treatment of a particular transaction. The question is whether this type of insurance coverage increases incentives for illegitimate tax avoidance or, alternatively, provides needed certainty to taxpayers, certainty that the IRS is not able or willing to provide. Should tax insurance be banned? Encouraged? Ignored? To what extent should the government, instead of commercial insurance companies, provide such legal-uncertainty insurance directly either by increasing the use of private rulings or by selling the equivalent of tax indemnity insurance policies? On the question of commercially provided tax indemnity insurance, the article concludes that the appropriate regulatory response is probably (a) to allow the policies to be purchased (and perhaps in some situations to subsidize their purchase) but (b) to compel taxpayers who purchase such policies to disclose this fact to the IRS. Such a response allows the use of tax risk insurance as a supplement to private letter rulings while at the same time minimizing the possibility that the insurance will be sold to cover pure detection risk.


Staphylococcus aureus belongs to the normal flora. Many healthy people are colonized by the bacterium mainly in the nose but also on the skin and on other mucous membranes without showing symptoms. After damage to the skin, the bacterium can enter the wound and cause infections. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) is resistant to b-lactam antibiotics such as penicillin and methicillin. The gene that gives resistance characteristic of MRSA is the mecA-gene. MRSA strains are spread in both hospitals and in the community, and it is important to identify these bacteria with rapid and sensitive methods. In this study, Taq Man RT-qPCR was compared with SYBR Green RT-qPCR (LightCycler480, Roche) to explore which method had the best sensitivity with the least working hours. In addition, Bullet for automated DNA extraction and CAS 1200 ™ for automated pipetting of the samples were evaluated. Twelve patient isolates and 232 patient samples for MRSA screening were included in the study. The results showed that the primers were of major importance for the outcome of the amplification. It was also shown that the Ct-values were clearly lower when the Bullet, CAS 1200 ™ and LightCycler480 were combined compared with manual DNA extraction, manual pipetting and the Rotor-Gene 6000. In future, the former method will be used by the laboratory when screening patient samples for MRSA.


Background: Firearm injury prevention training is lacking in pediatric residency programs. Description: This study aimed to evaluate a web-based curriculum teaching residents how to provide injury prevention anticipatory guidance, emphasizing firearm injury prevention. Ninety-two residents participated and completed pretesting. Residents in the intervention group completed the curriculum, posttesting, and 6-month follow-up testing. Residents in the nonintervention group completed 6-month follow-up testing. Pre- and posttest comparisons between and within each group were made. Evaluation: Baseline knowledge of the participants was high, and no significant change in knowledge was shown in either group. Changes in attitude were noted regarding physician role in providing firearm injury anticipatory guidance in the intervention group, which persisted at 6 months. Participants completing the curriculum showed significant improvement for all self-efficacy questions in the immediate and 6-month follow-up testing. Conclusions: Participants reported changes in attitudes and in confidence in their ability to provide firearm injury prevention counseling after completion of a web-based curriculum.


The climate active trace-gas carbonyl sulfide (OCS) is the most abundant sulfur gas in the atmosphere. A missing source in its atmospheric budget is currently suggested, resulting from an upward revision of the vegetation sink. Tropical oceanic emissions have been proposed to close the resulting gap in the atmospheric budget. We present a bottom-up approach including (i) new observations of OCS in surface waters of the tropical Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and (ii) a further improved global box model to show that direct OCS emissions are unlikely to account for the missing source. The box model suggests an undersaturation of the surface water with respect to OCS integrated over the entire tropical ocean area and, further, global annual direct emissions of OCS well below that suggested by top-down estimates. In addition, we discuss the potential of indirect emission from CS2 and dimethylsulfide (DMS) to account for the gap in the atmospheric budget. This bottom-up estimate of oceanic emissions has implications for using OCS as a proxy for global terrestrial CO2 uptake, which is currently impeded by the inadequate quantification of atmospheric OCS sources and sinks.


Addition of isotopically labeled dissolved forms of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) in streams has revealed that microbes associated with leaf litter can assimilate solutes from the water column. However, whether this assimilation varies among leaf litter species and at different decomposition stages is still largely unknown. Here, we explore differences in the uptake of NH4‐N and acetate from water column among leaf litter of five riparian tree species at five different times of decomposition. To do so, we conducted a 24 h addition of 15N‐NH4 and 13C‐acetate at constant rate to estimate the microbial uptake of these solutes from the water column. We measured microbial cellobiohydrolase activity and decomposition rates (k) associated with each leaf litter type to examine their influence on NH4‐N and acetate uptake. We found that mass specific N‐uptake (μg N mg N−1 d−1) was relatively constant during leaf litter decomposition whereas mass specific C‐uptake (mg C g C−1 d−1) increased over time. Among leaf litter species, cumulative values of N‐uptake during the study period were negatively related to leaf litter k whereas cumulative values of C‐uptake were positively related to k. Our study indicates that leaf litter species and their decomposition stage are important for understanding the reliance of leaf‐associated microbes on dissolved inorganic nitrogen and dissolved organic carbon from the water column.


Silicon nanostructures can be prepared by different methods that considerably change their optical properties depending on experimental conditions. They are also very sensitive to molecular environment and external influences that can be used for multiple applications in different areas. Silicon nanostructures prepared by laser ablation show large perspectives for molecular sensing and biomedical applications. In this paper, an overview of optical properties of silicon nanostructures with focus on nanoparticles prepared by ultrafast laser ablation in liquids is provided. It is shown that they reveal wide prospects for applications in nanobiomedicine and their unique characteristics can be significantly enhanced due to laser-induced metal incorporation. Metal inclusions lead to appearance of plasmonic properties in semiconductor nanomaterials that can be applied for molecule detection using surface enhancing of optical response.


This article examines the conflicting views about whether to consider artwork as a financial asset and suggests a modified museum finance strategy that would not raise stakeholder concerns about selling art in the permanent collection. By encouraging museums to begin a separate investment collection, artworks may ethically be sold to generate operating or other expenses. This strategy brings up issues of governance, accountability, and conflicts of interest, but if done correctly, it could leverage the art market access of museums to create a hedge for other types of endowment assets, while still upholding museum association guidance that works in a museum's permanent collection are never to be sold in order to fund operating expenses.


The paper examines the long-run fluctuations in growth and distribution through the prism of wageand profit-led growth. We argue that the relation between distribution of income and growth changes over time. We propose an endogenous mechanism that leads to fluctuations between wageand profitled periods. Our model is a linear version of Goodwin's predator–prey model, but with a reversal of the roles for predator and prey: the growth rate acts as the predator and the distribution of income as the prey. These fluctuations need to be taken into account when someone estimates empirically the effect of a change in distribution on utilization and growth. We also examine our argument in relation to the double movement of Karl Polanyi, the Kuznets curve, and the theories of long swings proposed by Albert Hirschman and Michal Kalecki.


The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of capital structure for the Greek manufacturing SMEs (1-100 employees). Various theories on the determinants of capital structure of SMEs are discussed and findings of previous empirical studies are examined. This study is based on a panel data set consisted of a random sample of 142 manufacturing SMEs in Greece for the time span 1989-1996. A non-linear regression model was developed with total debt, short-term debt and long-term debt ratios used as dependent variables. Enterprise size, profitability, asset structure, liquidity, average inventory period and accounts receivables collection period are found to have a significant effect on the capital structure of Greek manufacturing SMEs. A number of policy implications are suggested by the findings, which will improve the viability, growth and competitiveness of the manufacturing SME sector in Greece.


Heterogeneities in contact networks have a major effect in determining whether a pathogen can become epidemic or persist at endemic levels. Epidemic models that determine which interventions can successfully prevent an outbreak need to account for social structure and mixing patterns. Contact patterns vary across age and locations (e.g. home, work, and school), and including them as predictors in transmission dynamic models of pathogens that spread socially will improve the models' realism. Data from population-based contact diaries in eight European countries from the POLYMOD study were projected to 144 other countries using a Bayesian hierarchical model that estimated the proclivity of age-and-location-specific contact patterns for the countries, using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. Household level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for nine lower-income countries and socio-demographic factors from several on-line databases for 152 countries were used to quantify similarity of countries to estimate contact patterns in the home, work, school and other locations for countries for which no contact data are available, accounting for demographic structure, household structure where known, and a variety of metrics including workforce participation and school enrolment. Contacts are highly assortative with age across all countries considered, but pronounced regional differences in the age-specific contacts at home were noticeable, with more inter-generational contacts in Asian countries than in other settings. Moreover, there were variations in contact patterns by location, with work-place contacts being least assortative. These variations led to differences in the effect of social distancing measures in an age structured epidemic model. Contacts have an important role in transmission dynamic models that use contact rates to characterize the spread of contact-transmissible diseases. This study provides estimates of mixing patterns for societies for which contact data such as POLYMOD are not yet available.


ABSTRACT Data quality in survey research remains a paramount concern for those studying mass political behavior. Because surveys are conducted in increasingly diverse contexts around the world, ensuring that best practices are followed becomes ever more important to the field of political science. Bringing together insights from surveys conducted in more than 80 countries worldwide, this article highlights common challenges faced in survey research and outlines steps that researchers can take to improve the quality of survey data. Importantly, the article demonstrates that with the investment of the necessary time and resources, it is possible to carry out high-quality survey research even in challenging environments in which survey research is not well established.


In this work, we propose a methodology for classifying occupations based on skill requirements provided in online job adverts. To develop the classification methodology, we apply semi-supervised machine learning techniques to a dataset of 37 million UK online job adverts collected by Burning Glass Technologies. The resulting occupational classification comprises four hierarchical layers: the first three layers relate to skill specialisation and group jobs that require similar types of skills. The fourth layer of the hierarchy is based on the offered salary and indicates skill level. The proposed classification will have the potential to enable measurement of an individual's career progression within the same skill domain, to recommend jobs to individuals based on their skills and to mitigate occupational misclassification issues. While we provide initial results and descriptions of occupational groups in the Burning Glass data, we believe that the main contribution of this work is the methodology for grouping jobs into occupations based on skills.


This PhD thesis consists of five papers dealing with problems in various branches of Diophantine approximation. The results obtained contribute to the theory of twisted, weighted, multiplicative and mixed approximation.

In Paper I a twisted analogue of the classical set of badly approximable linear forms is introduced. We prove that its intersection with any suitably regular fractal set is of maximal Hausdorff dimension. The linear form systems investigated are natural extensions of irrational rotations of the circle. Even in the latter one-dimensional case, the results obtained are new.

The main result of Paper II concerns a weighted version of the classical set of badly approximable pairs. We establish a new characterization of this set in terms of vectors that are well approximable in the twisted sense. This naturally generalizes a classical result of Kurzweil. In Paper II we also study the metrical theory associated with a weighted variant of the set introduced in Paper I. In particular, we provide a sufficient condition for this variant to have full Hausdorff dimension. This result is extended in Paper III to imply the stronger property of 'winning'.

Paper IV addresses various problems associated with the Mixed Littlewood Conjecture. Firstly, we solve a version of the conjecture for the case of one p-adic value and one pseudo-absolute value with bounded ratios. Secondly, we deduce the answer to a related metric question concerning numbers that are well approximable in the mixed multiplicative sense. This provides a mixed analogue to a classical theorem of Gallagher.

In Paper V we develop the metric theory associated with the mixed Schmidt
Conjecture. In particular, a Khintchine-type criterion for the 'size' of the natural set
of mixed well approximable numbers is established. As a consequence we obtain a
combined mixed and weighted version of the classical Jarnik-Besicovich Theorem.


Aspects of international humanitarian law (IHL) and the international law of armed conflict (LOAC) are outdated because they are ill-adapted to new battlefields. Some innovation is needed in them to address thc complexities of the networked insurgencies that we see today. War between states has declined in prev alence and importance relative to armed conflicts across societal groups, both within states and acro ss nat ional borders. Private organisation s are likely to dominate armed conflicts for the foreseeable future, including those in the AsiaPacific and beyond, where Australian expeditiona ry forces are engaged. Often called 'nonstate actors' in the intern ational legal parlance, they typically conduct hostilities through irregular but systematic attacks, including bombings , shootings and psychological operations. Are these armed conflicts to which LOAC even applies? Disciplines International Law | Law Publication Details This article was originally published as Rose, G, Updating international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict for the wars of the 21st Century, Defender, Australian Defence Association, Spring 2007, 21-23. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/lawpapers/40 -------------------------------_......... Updating international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict for the wars of the 21st Century


To order the complete compilation report, use: ADA412911 The component part is provided here to allow users access to individually authored sections of proceedings, annals, symposia, etc. However, the component should be considered within-he context of the overall compilation report and not as a stand-alone technical report.


The plight of abandoned children in ancient culture is a plight that reaches to the depths of practical Christian living. Adoptions in both Semitic and Greco-Roman were conducted in much different ways than we do now. The background and society in which these adoptions took place, particularly in New Testament times is very important to understanding first century families. Closely tied to the subject of adoption is the subject of orphans, since many of those adopted were orphans. In examining the varying approaches to adoption, it becomes apparent that the contrasts between the cultural and familial perspectives of the Semitic culture and the Greco Roman are quite significant. These contrasts are seen rather bluntly in the area of adoption.


The most authoritative guide on cantillation, in a concise paperback edition. Joshua Jacobson's masterpiece-the comprehensive 1000-page guide to cantillation-is now available in this condensed, 300-page, user-friendly paperback edition. It is an ideal instructional guide for adult and young-adult students of Torah, for b'nai mitzvah students, and for cantors, rabbis, and Jewish educators of all denominations. Like the original edition, it includes an explanation of the tradition and a description of the practice of chanting, with all its regional variations and grammatical rules. There is detailed instruction, with musical notation, on chanting of Torah, and shorter instructions for chanting the haftarah, the megillot, and readings for the High Holy Days. More than 85 links to the audio CD throughout make it easy for readers to follow examples in sound as well as in print and is invaluable for those who cannot read music. Charts, helpful hints, pronunciation guide, glossary, and indexes to the book and the CD complete the book. Joshua Jacobson, professor of music and conductor of the acclaimed Boston-based Zamir Chorale, has been Torah chanting since he was 10 years old. That life-long experience, combined with an unquenchable desire to reconnect the art of cantillation with the most convincing and accurate treatment of the ancient text possible, led him to create this indispensable teaching tool. Using Jacobson's highly acclaimed approach, the ancient words come alive in a new, deeply emotional and most accurate way.


Abstract Objective: Disconfirmed client expectations of therapy have been linked with poorer clinical outcomes and higher premature termination of therapy for adult clients, however, research with young people has been lacking. The present study aimed to address this gap by examining the effects of disconfirmed expectations in relation to roles, outcomes, and processes of therapy on young people's clinical outcome, mental health service use, and future help-seeking intentions. Age and gender differences were also examined. Method: Participants included 102 young people aged 12–25 years who completed an initial questionnaire on contact with a youth mental health care service, which was targetted at mild to moderate early presentations of mental health problems, and a follow-up questionnaire 2 months later. Results: Findings showed that young people who experienced negatively disconfirmed expectations related to their role as a client or the processes of therapy had a poorer clinical outcome and attended fewer sessions. Furthermore, young people who had a negative experience of their role as a client or the therapist's role attended fewer sessions and those who had a negative experience of their outcome expectations had a poorer clinical outcome. No age or gender differences were found. Conclusions: The potentially detrimental effect of having a worse therapy experience than expected on outcomes and engagement for young people indicate a need for clinicians to help young consumers to have realistic expectations as well as a positive experience of therapy.


Abstract. In the last years we have witnessed a rapid development of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), especially for image collection. One of the advantages is the possibility to perform high resolution and repeated flights in a cheap way to detect changes over time. Thus, dynamic scenes can be monitored acquiring image blocks in different epochs in a flexible way. Anyway, most of UAVs are not able to provide accurate direct geo-referencing information, so image blocks from different epochs still need to be co-registered to efficiently detect changes. This task is mostly completed using GCPs (Ground Control Points), although this approach is time consuming as manual intervention is needed. This paper aims at investigating new techniques to automate the co-registration of image blocks without the use of GCPs, just relying on an image based co-registration (IBCR) approach. The image alignment is initially performed on a reference (anchor) epoch and the registration of the following (slave) epochs is performed including some (anchor) images from the reference epoch with fixed external orientation parameters. This allows constraining the Bundle Block Adjustment of the slave epoch to be consistent with the reference one. The study involved the use of 10 multi-temporal image block over a large building construction site, and spanning a time frame of 2 years. Different tests have been performed for the reference image choice with a manual approach and then evaluating the reached accuracy. The performed tests on the chosen test site have shown that the accuracy of the proposed methodology provides results comparable to the common GCPs registration approach.


Abstract. Experimental engineering of high-dimensional quantum states is a crucial task for several quantum information protocols. However, a high degree of precision in the characterization of the noisy experimental apparatus is required to apply existing quantum-state engineering protocols. This is often lacking in practical scenarios, affecting the quality of the engineered states. We implement, experimentally, an automated adaptive optimization protocol to engineer photonic orbital angular momentum (OAM) states. The protocol, given a target output state, performs an online estimation of the quality of the currently produced states, relying on output measurement statistics, and determines how to tune the experimental parameters to optimize the state generation. To achieve this, the algorithm does not need to be imbued with a description of the generation apparatus itself. Rather, it operates in a fully black-box scenario, making the scheme applicable in a wide variety of circumstances. The handles controlled by the algorithm are the rotation angles of a series of waveplates and can be used to probabilistically generate arbitrary four-dimensional OAM states. We showcase our scheme on different target states both in classical and quantum regimes and prove its robustness to external perturbations on the control parameters. This approach represents a powerful tool for automated optimizations of noisy experimental tasks for quantum information protocols and technologies.


The advent of the Internet has forever changed the way people interact, communicate, and share information. The World Wide Web allows Internet users to send a letter in a matter of seconds, to instantly find out the latest sports scores and stock prices, or to learn of breaking world news. The Internet even allows people to have realtime conversations with other Internet users anywhere around the world. The Internet has also provided users a medium through which they can engage in any number of illicit acts. One of the more popular illicit acts, engaged in by millions of Internet users, involves trading music files across file sharing networks. Users accomplish this file sharing, or pirating, by copying the music from a compact disc onto their computers and uploading a file of the copied music onto a network created by software such as Kazaa or Napster. An infinite number of other users can then access this network, providing them an instant ability to copy the file of that song to their own computers.


What happens when we imagine the unimaginable? This article compares recent films inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos with that author's original early 20th century pulp horror stories. In Guillermo del Toro's films Pacific Rim and Hellboy, monsters that would have been obscured to protect Lovecraft's readers are now fully revealed for Hollywood audiences. Using the period-appropriate theories of Rudolf Otto on the numinous and Sigmund Freud on the uncanny, that share Lovecraft's troubled history with racist othering, I show how modern adaptations of Lovecraft's work invert central features of the mythos in order to turn tragedies into triumphs. The genres of Science Fiction and Horror have deep commitments to the theme of otherness, but in Lovecraft's works otherness is insurmountable. Today, Hollywood borrows the tropes of Lovecraftian horror but relies on bridging the gap between humanity and its monstrous others to reveal a higher humanity forged through difference and diversity. This suggests that otherness in modern science fiction is a means of reconciliation, a way for the monsters to be defeated rather than the source of terror as they were in Lovecraft's stories.


Two cases of injuries caused by "coin rubbing" (Kuasha) are presented. In one case these injuries were confined to the neck, raising the possibility of strangulation, and in the other to the trunk and limbs, suggesting torture. Coin rubbing is practiced by most South-East Asian cultures, which believe that it relieves the symptoms of headache, fever, and flu. The causation and characteristics of these injuries and their medicolegal importance are discussed. Language: en


Gastric carcinoma is the second most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Recently, we have demonstrated that expressed sequence tag AA552509 was frequently amplified and the most consistently overexpressed target at 17q in gastric cancers. Herein, we report that DARPP-32 (dopamine and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein of M(r) 32,000) is the target gene for overexpression of expressed sequence tag AA552509. In addition, we have identified full-length cDNA of DARPP-32 (GenBank accession number AF464196) with 467 bp of additional untranslated mRNA nucleotides upstream of the previously known translation start site in exon 1. Additionally, we have discovered a novel truncated isoform of DARPP-32 that we named t-DARPP (GenBank accession number AY070271), which is also overexpressed in gastric cancers. Using quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR, Western blots, and staining of tumor tissue arrays, the two DARPP mRNA transcripts and proteins were overexpressed in gastric cancer cells and exhibited abundant protein overexpression in neoplastic but not normal gastric epithelial cells. DARPP-32 is the only known protein that acts as a protein phosphatase 1 inhibitor or a protein kinase A inhibitor. The novel truncated isoform, t-DARPP, lacks the phosphorylation site related to protein phosphatase 1 inhibition but maintains the phosphorylation site with the protein kinase A inhibitory effect. Our results reveal for the first time the presence of these signaling molecules in human cancer and suggest that they may be important for gastric tumorigenesis.


Household speaker identification with few enrollment utterances is an important yet challenging problem, especially when household members share similar voice characteristics and room acoustics. A common embedding space learned from a large number of speakers is not universally applicable for the optimal identification of every speaker in a household. In this work, we first formulate household speaker identification as a few-shot open-set recognition task and then propose a novel embedding adaptation framework to adapt speaker representations from the given universal embedding space to a household-specific embedding space using a set-to-set function, yielding better household speaker identification performance. With our algorithm, Open-set Few-shot Embedding Adaptation with Transformer (openFEAT), we observe that the speaker identification equal error rate (IEER) on simulated households with 2 to 7 hard-to-discriminate speakers is reduced by 23% to 31% relative.


Submicrometer LiCoO2 films were prepared with pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and rf sputtering using stoichiometric targets. The influences of both substrate material and annealing procedure on the polycrystalline microstructure of the LiCoO2 films were investigated. XRD analysis revealed strong preferential orientation: annealed films deposited with PLD had their (00l) planes parallel to the surface, while rf sputtered films had their (110) planes in this orientation. The rf-film also developed the (003) reflection typical of PLD-films, but only after prolonged annealing at 600°C. The degree of preferential orientation is influenced significantly by the annealing procedure and only little by the substrate material and the thickness of the deposited film. Pulsed laser deposition on an rf-sputtered seed layer revealed the PLD-film reflections. Extinction of the otherwise dominating (003) reflection indicated a random cationic distribution in LiCoO2 with an NaCl-type structure.


Based on the increase of smartphone addiction among students, understanding the effects of smartphone addiction on students' health is essential for developing appropriate interventions. This study has been conducted in order to investigate the relationship between smartphone addiction and quality of life among students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). This cross-sectional study has been performed using the stratified sampling method on 320 TUMS students in 2017. The data collection tool includes a demographic questionnaire, the Cellphone over-use Scale (COS), and the World Health Organization's Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). Data have been analyzed through SPSS 18 using the t-test, ANOVA, Pearson' correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regressions. Students' mean age is 24.45±4.46; 45.6% are male. A significant inverse relationship exists between smartphone addiction scores and the quality of life scores for physical, mental, and social aspects (p<0.05). Smartphone addiction scores are significantly higher for females, bachelors, and married students (p<0.05). The smartphone addiction score determines 6% of the variance in quality of life. Alongside addiction, smartphone overuse may negatively influence the physical, mental, and social aspects of students' quality of life.


We identify empirical scaling laws for the cross-entropy loss in four domains: generative image modeling, video modeling, multimodal image$\leftrightarrow$text models, and mathematical problem solving. In all cases autoregressive Transformers smoothly improve in performance as model size and compute budgets increase, following a power-law plus constant scaling law. The optimal model size also depends on the compute budget through a power-law, with exponents that are nearly universal across all data domains.
The cross-entropy loss has an information theoretic interpretation as $S($True$) + D_{\mathrm{KL}}($True$||$Model$)$, and the empirical scaling laws suggest a prediction for both the true data distribution's entropy and the KL divergence between the true and model distributions. With this interpretation, billion-parameter Transformers are nearly perfect models of the YFCC100M image distribution downsampled to an $8\times 8$ resolution, and we can forecast the model size needed to achieve any given reducible loss (ie $D_{\mathrm{KL}}$) in nats/image for other resolutions.
We find a number of additional scaling laws in specific domains: (a) we identify a scaling relation for the mutual information between captions and images in multimodal models, and show how to answer the question "Is a picture worth a thousand words?"; (b) in the case of mathematical problem solving, we identify scaling laws for model performance when extrapolating beyond the training distribution; (c) we finetune generative image models for ImageNet classification and find smooth scaling of the classification loss and error rate, even as the generative loss levels off. Taken together, these results strengthen the case that scaling laws have important implications for neural network performance, including on downstream tasks.


The attachment of the homeless to the city's residual spaces is a result of a lack of choice, but in some instances, it is a preference. This thesis focuses on the latter in addressing the housing needs of those who prefer to live outdoors rather than in the institutionalized environment of emergency shelters, or even permanent housing. It explores the role of architecture in empowering independence, dignity, and security without socially engineering the homeless and changing their lifestyle. This exploration is informed by the works of architects, urban geographers, cultural critics, artists and psychologists, among them the members of the Situationist International, Bernard Tschumi, Donald MacDonald, Michael Benedikt, David Harvey, Neil Smith, and Abraham Maslow. It proposes an alternative scenario whereby those persons preferring to live outdoors may be safely, decently, and innovatively sheltered independently in some of the many residual spaces found on streets and in parks.


Intratracheal instillation of bleomycin (0.08 U) or silica (2 mg) to mice leads, after 15 days, to a patchy pulmonary fibrosis associated with a significant increase of the lung hydroxyproline. Since tumour necrosis factor (TNF) seems to be an important mediator in pulmonary fibrosis, we wondered whether this fibrosis might be prevented by a new TNF-alpha antagonist. Infusion of a 55 kD human recombinant soluble TNF receptor rsTNFR-beta, at a rate of 20 micrograms.day-1, prevented the bleomycin/silica induced increase of lung hydroxyproline content, as measured 15 days after instillation. Infusion of rsTNFR-beta was also effective in the treatment of an established fibrosis, i.e. administered 25 or more days after instillation of bleomycin or silica, since it reduced lung collagen content. Recombinant soluble TNFR-beta had no significant influence on the number of cells, mostly macrophages, recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage. The examination of histological sections indicated that the rsTNFR-beta reduced the proportion of areas of damaged lung and, in silicosis, the formation of nodules with a rich collagen content. This study suggests that rsTNFR-beta might be useful in the therapy of pulmonary fibrosis.


This study analyzed determinants of farm-level climate adaptation measures in Africa using a multinomial choice model fitted to data from a cross-sectional survey of over 8000 farms from 11 African countries. The results indicate that specialized crop cultivation (mono-cropping) is the agricultural practice most vulnerable to climate change in Africa. Warming, especially in summer, poses the highest risk. It encourages irrigation, multiple cropping and integration of livestock. Increased precipitation reduces the probability of irrigation and will benefit most African farms, especially in drier areas. Better access to markets, extension and credit services, technology and farm assets (labor, land and capital) are critical for helping African farmers adapt to climate change. Government policies and investment strategies must support education, markets, credit and information about adaptation to climate change, including technological and institutional methods, particularly for poor farmers in the dry areas of Africa.


It has been noted by many researchers that young bilingual children pass through a stage of early mixing which extends approximately until the age of 2;6 and ends abruptly. Research on bilingual first language acquisition has clearly excluded the possibility to explain mixed utterances as the result of a fused lexical or grammatical system. However, the actual debate on the reasons for early mixing still continues. Two main approaches have dominated the field of language mixing in adults: One assumes that adult's codeswitching is constrained by grammatical principles, suggesting that a third grammar is responsible for the grammaticality of mixed utterances (e.g., the Equivalence Constraint formulated by Poplack (1980), or the Functional Head Constraint formulated by Belazi, Rubin & Toribio (1994) among others). Since child grammar is supposed to be organized differently from adult grammar, the grammatical "ingredients" of the principles which constrain codeswitching are absent in early child language (Köppe & Meisel, 1995). It therefore follows that early mixing in young bilingual children is not to be considered as constrained by any grammatical principles. The other approach argues that codeswitching in adults is not regulated by external grammatical principles, but that the only constraints which govern codeswitching are those required by the two languages involved (MacSwan, 2000). We will show that this assumption holds for child language as well. Our analysis of mixing opens the perspective that child grammar can be considered to be organized in the same way as adult grammar. Furthermore, we will argue that early mixing is related to developing performance abilities, in the present paper to the readiness on the bilingual child's part to speak the language(s).


A major challenge to potential ICN/NDN deployment is the requirement of application support, namely, applications need to be rewritten or modified in order to run on NDN networks and receive the full benefits. Using a proxy to translate between an application-level protocol and NDN offers a viable solution that balances between development cost and architectural benefits. In this paper, we study on the questions of how to facilitate and incentivize the development and deployment of such protocol translation proxies. We propose to enable existing applications to communicate "off the grid", i.e., using only local network connectivity without the global Internet, by translating between conventional clientserver protocols and NDN. This provides deployment incentives by enabling a useful feature with no or minimal changes to existing applications. By giving the experience of a few protocols, we hope to abstract out some common design patterns that can be reused in developing other application-level proxies. This paper reports our work on IMAP/NDN translation for local email access and XMPP/NDN translation for local group chat. Based on this work, we identify and discuss a number of common design issues including application-level framing, namespace design, application protocol semantics, multiparty synchronization, security and privacy, and real-world deployment challenges.


These three educational pathways appear to offer a range of complementary entry routes, targeting different student groups. However, we in the health informatics community need to consider what additional support potential students might receive to ease their passage from learner to a career in health informatics. Our suggestions for the UK, which could be replicated internationally, are: • The BCS should consider improved access to its healthcare specialist groups and conferences for students on recognised courses. • The NHS should systematically develop work experience placements for health informatics students on approved courses. • UKCHIP could consider providing provisional registration for newly-qualified health informaticians while they acquire the necessary experience for full registration. It could approve specific courses for particular levels of registration. • Journals and conferences associated with the major health informatics associations could consider much lower subscriptions for health informatics students. Higher education is developing a professional health informatics community. The time is right for school leavers to have a direct route into this career. Within the next five years larger numbers of school leavers will start to move into health informatics de novo. © 2005 PHCSG, British Computer Society.


In today's competitive world, customers are the core of any business and their loyalty to the brand is a major factor in acquiring competitive advantage of organizations. At the heart of successful marketing communications strategies, brand localization activities in customers' minds are carried out in a way becoming a key component of business strategy. This means that organizations should be aware of the customer decision process in order to spread their message based on Inside-Out approach that is what customers want to hear. In addition to brand communications, one of the main strategies to build brand loyalty and gain competitive advantage is to improve quality of services. Today, service quality has become the great differentiating factor and the most competitive weapon of leading organizations; therefore, brand communication and service quality are very powerful paradigm which brand plays its role as a mechanism to involve the buyer and seller in a sincere long term relationship via them. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of brand communication and service quality in creating brand loyalty through brand trust. This research is in terms of practical and descriptive approach. In the present study, the required information was collected through a questionnaire which is drawn from the study of Zehir et al (2011). Statistical sample of study is Samsung Representatives Company in Mashhad city that are selected through two-stage cluster sampling. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Structural equations are used to examine the research hypotheses; furthermore, LISREL software was used to analyze data. The results indicated that brand communication and service quality variables have a meaningful and positive relationship with creation of brand loyalty; moreover, brand communication and service quality variables affect building brand trust positively. Additionally, the findings showed that brand trust variable play a mediator role in connection with effect of brand communication and service quality on the creation of brand loyalty.


This paper reviews the NTIRE 2020 challenge on real image denoising with focus on the newly introduced dataset, the proposed methods and their results. The challenge is a new version of the previous NTIRE 2019 challenge on real image denoising that was based on the SIDD benchmark. This challenge is based on a newly collected validation and testing image datasets, and hence, named SIDD+. This challenge has two tracks for quantitatively evaluating image denoising performance in (1) the Bayer-pattern rawRGB and (2) the standard RGB (sRGB) color spaces. Each track ~250 registered participants. A total of 22 teams, proposing 24 methods, competed in the final phase of the challenge. The proposed methods by the participating teams represent the current state-of-the-art performance in image denoising targeting real noisy images. The newly collected SIDD+ datasets are publicly available at: https://bit.ly/siddplus_data.


Abstract. As part of the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project (MFSPP) we have implemented a high-resolution (2 km horizontal grid, 30 sigma levels) version of the Princeton Ocean Model for the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea. The domain extends 200 km offshore and includes the continental shelf and slope, and part of the open sea. The model is nested in an intermediate resolution (5.5 km grid) model that covers the entire Levantine, Ionian, and Aegean Sea. The nesting is one way so that velocity, temperature, and salinity along the boundaries are interpolated from the relevant intermediate model variables. An integral constraint is applied so that the net mass flux across the open boundaries is identical to the net flux in the intermediate model. The model is integrated for three perpetual years with surface forcing specified from monthly mean climatological wind stress and heat fluxes. The model is stable and spins up within the first year to produce a repeating seasonal cycle throughout the three-year integration period. While there is some internal variability evident in the results, it is clear that, due to the relatively small domain, the results are strongly influenced by the imposed lateral boundary conditions. The results closely follow the simulation of the intermediate model. The main improvement is in the simulation over the narrow shelf region, which is not adequately resolved by the coarser grid model. Comparisons with direct current measurements over the shelf and slope show reasonable agreement despite the limitations of the climatological forcing. The model correctly simulates the direction and the typical speeds of the flow over the shelf and slope, but has difficulty properly re-producing the seasonal cycle in the speed. Key words. Oceanography: general (continental shelf processes; numerical modelling; ocean prediction)


CLICK HERE TO LAUNCH VIDEO Description: In this seminar, we critically discuss how annual metrics and other methods of daylighting analysis & simulation can help you  understand how daylighting is conceptualized, collaborated on and executed in buildings. This includes why annual metrics are necessary, what the metrics mean in terms of daylight design, what qualities of daylighting the metrics miss, and how blinds affect the score and experience of daylight. We will go beyond reciting formulas to help you define metrics in meaningful terms that you can visualize, understand, and use in your practice.  We will review the new LEED v4 daylight credits, and the differences from LEED v2009. We will discuss the pitfalls of mis-informed projects, and potential problems if you don't do basic daylighting analysis, as well as best practices of daylight modeling. You will learn how to achieve the LEED credits without sacrificing overall good daylight design, and how to use new technology to drive daylight beyond LEED.  This seminar emphasizes the value of using daylighting tools to get the best results, and empowering non-specialists to make informed decisions for integrated design.  Speakers:  Daniel Glaser, Principal  Light Foundry, LLC


Abstract Objective. To study the associations between active choice of primary care provider and healthcare utilization, multimorbidity, age, and sex, comparing data from primary care and all healthcare in a Swedish population. Design. Descriptive cross-sectional study using descriptive analyses including t-test, correlations, and logistic regression modelling in four separate models. Setting and subjects. The population (151 731) and all healthcare in Blekinge in 2007. Main outcome measure. Actively or passively listed in primary care, registered on 31 December 2007. Results. Number of consultations (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.30–1.32), multimorbidity level (OR 1.69, 95% CI 1.67–1.70), age (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.03–1.03), and sex (OR for men 0.67, 95% CI 0.65–0.68) were all associated with registered active listing in primary care. Active listing was more strongly associated with number of consultations and multimorbidity level using primary care data (OR 2.11, 95% CI 2.08–2.15 and OR 2.14, 95% CI 2.11–2.17, respectively) than using data from all healthcare. Number of consultations and multimorbidity level were correlated and had similar associations with active listing in primary care. Modelling number of consultations, multimorbidity level, age, and sex gave four separate models with about 70% explanatory power for active listing in primary care. Combining number of consultations and multimorbidity did not improve the models. Conclusions. Number of consultations and multimorbidity level were associated with active listing in primary care. These factors were also associated with each other differently in primary care than in all healthcare. More complex models including non-health-related individual characteristics and healthcare-related factors are needed to increase explanatory power.