As the rate at which whole exome and genome sequencing is used in the clinical and research settings increases, the need for a system to share information obtained from these tests increases as well. GeneMatcher is a website platform that 'matches' individuals who are interested in sharing information about the same candidate gene. Using data collected by GeneDx, a clinical diagnostic laboratory, we assessed the outcomes of the matches made between external participants who reached out to GeneDx to discuss findings. Our assessment was made by sorting the outcomes of the discussions about 'matches' into three categories: 'collaboration', 'one-off', and 'not pursuing'. The categorizes define the level of information sharing between the requestor and GeneDx and to what extent the discussions moved forward. This methodology was used for both an eight-month retrospective study, along with a fourweek prospective study. We found that over half of the matches in both studies resulted in discussions occurring between requestors and the GeneDx ordering clinicians who agreed to communicate about their patients. Approximately one fourth of the matches were categorized as collaborations, meaning a level of data sharing occurred which increased the chances of the candidate gene being classified as a disease causing gene. The results of this study support the benefits of data sharing in regard to furthering discussions and knowledge about the clinical effects of variants in candidate gene.


The current work presents a comprehensive checklist of the Omani fish species. The different fish samples have been collected since the establishment of the Department of Marine Science and Fisheries (MSAF) in 1986. The fish samples identified by the MSAF were compared with the most recent published book on the Coastal Fishes of Oman. The number of Omani fishes (from both fresh water and sea water) totalled 1179, distributed in 527 genera, 165 families and 37 orders. Under the Chondrichtyes, the most diverse family was Carcharhinidae with a total of 25 species and 8 genera. The Carcharhinidae species comprised 27% of the total species identified under the Chondriichtyes. The second most diverse family was the dasyatidae with 10 species (11%) and 5 genera. Under the Ostiecthyes, the most diverse three families were the gobiidea with 37 genera and 69 species, the labridae with 26 genera and 63 species, and finally the carangidea with 20 genera and 54 species. The family and English names for the most popular families are provided as well.


A comparison of the treatment of superficial skin infections using intramuscular benzathine penicillin G alone or combined with hexachlorophene scrubbing was conducted in 127 children. Of 72 children treated with benzathine penicillin alone, 94.4 percent had a good result. Of the 55 children receiving hexachlorophene scrubbing in addition to penicillin, 85.5 percent had a good result. The healing rate was higher (93 percent) in those children whose skin cultures grew Group A beta hemolytic streptococci. When staphylococcus aureus was the only pathogen isolated, the healing rate was 86 percent. Regardless of the pathogens isolated, the healing rate was not increased with scrubbing. Since scrubbing with hexachlorophene offered no improvement in the healing rate and since it adds to the expense and discomfort of treatment, it should be eliminated as part of the treatment.


All museums are sex museums. In Sex Museums, Jennifer Tyburczy takes a hard look at the formation of Western sexuality-particularly how categories of sexual normalcy and perversity are formed-and asks what role museums have played in using display as a technique for disciplining sexuality. Most museum exhibits, she argues, assume that white, patriarchal heterosexuality and traditional structures of intimacy, gender, and race represent national sexual culture for their visitors. Sex Museums illuminates the history of such heteronormativity at most museums and proposes alternative approaches for the future of public display projects, while also offering the reader curatorial tactics-what she calls queer curatorship-for exhibiting diverse sexualities in the twenty-first century. Tyburczy shows museums to be sites of culture-war theatrics, where dramatic civic struggles over how sex relates to public space, genealogies of taste and beauty, and performances of sexual identity are staged. Delving into the history of erotic artifacts, she analyzes how museums have historically approached the collection and display of the material culture of sex, which poses complex moral, political, and logistical dilemmas for the Western museum. Sex Museums unpacks the history of the museum and its intersections with the history of sexuality to argue that the Western museum context-from its inception to the present-marks a pivotal site in the construction of modern sexual subjectivity.


This thesis consists of a curatorial essay and project entitled the W(here)Festival, a five day contemporary art festival in Pictou County, Nova Scotia with works by Marlene Creates, Sheilah Wilson, Site Media Inc. (Katherine Knight and David Craig), Susan Sellers, Raina McDonald, Sharon Nowlan, Linda Little and Sheree Fitch. Exploring ideas of place, art and community, makers from a variety of disciplines and experiences led residents in specially designed field trips, projects, presentations as well as discussion, story and song. This festival was a hands-on experience that moved beyond gallery walls exploring new ideas of rural contemporary curatorial and artistic practices through collaboration, place and place-based artwork, as well as definitions of rural identity and community. This essay considers the project's development, the challenges and opportunities of curating "here", and the lasting impact of this project within curatorial practices and the local communities of Pictou County.


We discuss how evidence and theory can be combined to provide insight on the appropriate subsidy level for health products, focusing on the specific case of deworming. Although intestinal worm infections can be treated using safe, low-cost drugs, some have challenged the view that mass school-based deworming should be a policy priority. We review well-identified research which both uses experimental or quasi-experimental methods to demonstrate causal relationships and adequately accounts for epidemiological externalities from deworming treatment, including studies of deworming campaigns in the Southern United States, Kenya, and Uganda. The existing evidence shows consistent positive impacts on school participation in the short run and on academic test scores, employment, and income in the long run, while suggesting that most parents will not pay for deworming treatment that is not fully subsidized. There is also evidence for a fiscal externality through higher future tax revenue, which may exceed the cost of the program. Our analysis suggests that the economic benefits of school-based deworming programs are likely to exceed their costs in places where worm infestations are endemic. This would likely be the case even if the benefits were only a fraction of estimates in the existing literature.


In May 2010, a nationwide excess of infections with the specific monophasic variant Salmonella enterica serotype 4,12:i:- was investigated in France. Subtyping with multilocus variable number of tandem repeats analysis revealed a distinct epidemic strain within this excess. Epidemiological investigations identified a dried pork sausage sold by a particular chain of supermarkets as the likely vehicle of transmission. The suspected batches have been withdrawn and recalled.


Metal surfaces like aluminum and gold turn black in color upon high fluence femto-second laser ablation. The blackening of surface is due to surface roughness and formation of unique micro- and nano- sized surface structures. The surface has a very low reflectance in the UV-VIS and IR spectrum. Full-text article is not available.


The fundamental ethical problem in bankruptcy is that insolvents have promised to pay their debts but can not keep their promise. The Ethics of Bankruptcy examines the morality of bankruptcy. The author compares and contrasts the Humean doctrine of promises as useful conventions with the Kantian view of autonomous agency constituting promissory obligations; he explores ethical concerns raised by forgiveness, utilitarianism and distributive justice and the moral aspects of insolvents' contractual, fiduciary, tortious and criminal liability. Finally, the author assesses recent bankruptcy law reforms. Bankruptcies severly hurt creditors and society. For the insolvents and their families the experience is painful and stigmatising, yet philosophers have paid little attention to the moral aspects of this violent social phenomenon. The Ethics of Bankruptcy is the first comprehensive study that employs the tools of ethics to examine the controversies surrounding insolvency, which makes valuable and sometimes controversial reading in a decade recovering from the Recession.


The article develops a critique of John Deely's ontological realism, specifically in its relevance for the project of global semiotics. Deely, whose theorizations rely heavily on the pre-modern philosophical systems of Thomas Aquinas and the Latin scholastics, has made the most sustained attempt to give philosophical grounding to Charles Peirce's famous intuition that "all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs". The critique develops along two main lines. Firstly, I contend that Deely's account of ontological relations is unsatisfactory, for it assumes the very fact it promises to demonstrate: the identity between patterns of physical events, on one hand, and patterns of thought, on the other. As it is never adequately explained what it means for the former to be identical with the latter, the mediating term – "ontological relation" – remains highly problematic. Secondly, I argue that even if this ontological paradigm is allowed to stand as proposed, it still fails to bridge the gap between the so-called "natural" signs and human-specific, language-based signification; for, as it posits a unity between the stipulable and the non-stipulable sign, the argument falls into a performative contradiction.


Short-term water demand forecasting is a useful tool for water distribution system management. In fact, an accurate prediction of water consumptions of a network or a part of it can support the scheduling of the main devices of the network, such as pumping stations or valves.
In this paper a model for short term water demand forecasting is proposed. The model is structured in order to provide at each hour the water demand forecast for the next 24 hour basing on coefficients estimated according to a short moving window of previously observed data.
More in details, the hourly forecast is performed in two steps: in the first step the average water demand for the next 24 hours (Q24) is forecasted multiplying the average water consumption observed in the last 24 hours by a previously estimated coefficient; in the second step, the water consumption of each of the next 24 hours is forecasted multiplying the forecasted Q24 by hourly coefficients. The coefficients' values (both the one used to forecast the Q24 and those used to forecast the hourly values) are updated at each hour on the basis of the water demands observed in the last n (e.g. n=4) weeks.
The model is applied to a real case study; the analysis of the results, and their comparison with those provided by another short term water demand forecasting model already presented in the scientific literature, highlights that the proposed model provides an accurate and robust forecast, resulting in an efficient tool for real time management of water distribution networks requiring a very small effort for its parameterization.


In a multi-unit market, a seller brings multiple units of a good and tries to sell them to a set of buyers that have monetary endowments. While a Walrasian equilibrium does not always exist in this model, natural relaxations of the concept that retain its desirable fairness properties do exist. We study the dynamics of (Walrasian) envy-free pricing mechanisms in this environment, showing that for any such pricing mechanism, the best response dynamic starting from truth-telling converges to a pure Nash equilibrium with small loss in revenue and welfare. Moreover, we generalize these bounds to capture all the (reasonable) Nash equilibria for a large class of (monotone) pricing mechanisms. We also identify a natural mechanism, which selects the minimum Walrasian envy-free price, in which for n=2 buyers the best response dynamic converges from any starting profile. We conjecture convergence of the mechanism for any number of buyers and provide simulation results to support our conjecture.


We give near-optimal sketching and streaming algorithms for estimating Shannon entropy in the most general streaming model, with arbitrary insertions and deletions. This improves on prior results that obtain suboptimal space bounds in the general model, and near-optimal bounds in the insertion-only model without sketching. Our high-level approach is simple: we give algorithms to estimate Tsallis entropy, and use them to extrapolate an estimate of Shannon entropy. The accuracy of our estimates is proven using approximation theory arguments and extremal properties of Chebyshev polynomials. Our work also yields the best-known and near-optimal additive approximations for entropy, and hence also for conditional entropy and mutual information.


Aim : Hemoglobin A1c is a known independent risk factor for recurrent hospitalizations. However, the influence of hospitalization on glycemic control has not been reported. Our aim was to assess admission effects on Hemoglobin A1c levels as well as short- and long-term mortality risk following hospitalization, according to Hemoglobin A1c levels prior to the index admission. Methods : Medical records of ≥ 65 year old patients with Type II Diabetes Mellitus, hospitalized between 2011 and 2014 in Rabin Medical Center were manually screened. Hemoglobin A1c levels before and after admission, demographic, clinical and biochemical data were recorded. Total follow-up time was up to 6 years. Results : The final cohort included 2,000 participants. The average age was 77 years, and 76% had Diabetes Mellitus for 10 years or more. Comparing Hemoglobin A1c before and after hospitalization has shown a significant reduction in Hemoglobin A1c levels in the groups of patients with Hemoglobin A1c levels between 8-8.9% and >9% (0.38 ± 1.2% and 1.18 ± 1.2%, respectively, P<0.001). Hospitalization rate in patients with Hemoglobin A1c >9% was 20% higher compared to a reference group of patients with Hemoglobin A1c between 6.5-6.9% (4 vs . 3, HR=1.2, p<0.01). Mortality at end of follow-up was greater in patients with Hemoglobin A1c >9% (43%) and <6.5% groups (42%), compared to Hemoglobin A1c 6.5-6.9% (34%), (HR 1.57, 1.36, respectively, p<0.01). Conclusions : This study is the first to address the impact of hospitalization on glycemic control, demonstrating an improvement in glycemic control among patients with poorly controlled Diabetes Mellitus, as reflected by Hemoglobin A1c reductions when pre-admission Hemoglobin A1c was 8% or higher. Mortality among patient with poorly controlled Hemoglobin A1c prior admission was 57% higher than the reference group.


Polyrhythms consisting of two or three dissonant pulse trains have been used to investigate rhythmic interpretation. The dissonant rhythmic lines allow for the study of the emergent nature of rhythmic organization. The empirical outcomes demonstrated that the rhythm perceived was contextual, depending on the timing between elements, pulse train frequency, polyrhythm configuration, element accentuation, and individual preferences. The effect of any factor depended on the values of each other factor. Although polyrhythms can illustrate the interactive nature of rhythm, polyrhythms do not shed light on the traditional views of rhythm concerning grouping and temporal extrapolation. Therefore, polyrhythms provide a good context for studying rhythm as a foreground melody at the expense of providing a poor context for studying rhythm as a background-organizing factor for tonal melody.


Animal models have been relevant to study the molecular mechanisms of cancer and to develop new antitumor agents. Anyway, the huge divergence in mouse and human evolution made difficult the translation of the gained achievements in preclinical mouse based studies. The generation of clinically relevant murine models requires their humanization both concerning the creation of transgenic models and the generation of humanized mice in which to engraft a functional human immune system, and reproduce the physiological effects and molecular mechanisms of growth and metastasization of human tumors. In particular, the availability of genotypically stable immunodepressed mice able to accept tumor injection and allow human tumor growth and metastasization would be important to develop anti-tumor and anti-metastatic strategies. Recently, Rag2-/-;gammac-/- mice, double knockout for genes involved in lymphocyte differentiation, had been developed (CIEA, Central Institute for Experimental Animals, Kawasaki, Japan). Studies of human sarcoma metastasization in Rag2-/-; gammac-/- mice (lacking B, T and NK functionality) revealed their high metastatic efficiency and allowed the expression of human metastatic phenotypes not detectable in the conventionally used nude murine model. In vitro analysis to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in the specific pattern of human sarcomas metastasization revealed the importance of liver-produced growth and motility factors, in particular the insulin-like growth factors (IGFs). The involvement of this growth factor was then demonstrated in vivo through inhibition of IGF signalling pathway. Due to the high growth and metastatic propensity of tumor cells, Rag2-/-;gammac-/- mice were used as model to investigate the metastatic behavior of rhabdomyosarcoma cells engineered to improve the differentiation.
It has been recently shown that this immunodeficient model can be reconstituted with a human immune system through the injection of human cord blood progenitor cells. The work illustrated in this thesis revealed that the injection of different human progenitor cells (CD34+ or CD133+) showed peculiar engraftment and differentiation abilities. Experiments of cell vaccination were performed to investigate the functionality of the engrafted human immune system and the induction of specific human immune responses. Results from such experiments will allow to collect informations about human immune responses activated during cell vaccination and to define the best reconstitution and experimental conditions to create a humanized model in which to study, in a preclinical setting, immunological antitumor strategies.


Introduction. Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a complex medical problem. Therapy involves adequately composed and conducted exercises and cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic pain.
Objective. Evaluation of the significance of the individually designed exercises and cognitive-behavioral therapy application in the treatment of patients with CLBP and their combined effect on pain, functional and psychosocial status.
Method. The study included 130 patients divided into four groups. One group had individually designed strengthening and stretching exercises with a set of stabilization exercises and cognitive-behavioral treatment for chronic pain. The second group had the same exercises without CBT. The third had a standard protocol, without stabilization exercises. The control group had no treatment. Before, after therapy and 3 months later, the patients completed questionnaires: SF-36, ODQ, RDQ, NPRS, HSCL, FABQ, TSK, BDI, BAI, PHQ, WHOQOL-BREF.
Results. After completion of therapy and three months later, all the parameters improved significantly in groups that had the individually designed stabilization exercise program, with better results in the group that had the cognitive-behavioral treatment in addition. The pain was reduced by 2.77±1.31/3.77±1.77 and disability (ODS) decreased by 12.91±8.06/ 14.46±7.97. A significant improvement in symptoms of depression and anxiety, reduction of fear avoidance and kinesiophobia parameters, as well as improvement of the overall quality of life, was evidented.
Conclusion. Individually designed exercises and cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic pain were effective in the treatment of patients with CLBP and should be introduced into everyday clinical practice.


Bayesian planning is a formally elegant approach to learning optimal behaviour under model uncertainty, trading off exploration and exploitation in an ideal way. Unfortunately, planning optimally in the face of uncertainty is notoriously taxing, since the search space is enormous. In this paper we introduce a tractable, sample-based method for approximate Bayes-optimal planning which exploits Monte-Carlo tree search. Our approach avoids expensive applications of Bayes rule within the search tree by sampling models from current beliefs, and furthermore performs this sampling in a lazy manner. This enables it to outperform previous Bayesian model-based reinforcement learning algorithms by a significant margin on several well-known benchmark problems. As we show, our approach can even work in problems with an in finite state space that lie qualitatively out of reach of almost all previous work in Bayesian exploration.


Journal of Futures Studies, February 2009, 13(3): 151 152 Graham Molitors article : Scenarios: Worth the Effort?is a profound examination of scenarios and their use in businesses and organizations. Molitor has discussed in his article various aspects of scenario process from the philosophical level to the practical. Even though Molitor is skeptical about the usefulness of scenarios, I personally think that scenarios are valuable tools for futures thinking in organizations of many kinds. I see that scenarios are our humble way to look at the futures. By using the scenario technique, we admit that we do not know what is happening in the futures (which is so true!). We admit that we have to prepared for various situations when the time passes. In one sentence: scenarios help us to be flexible enough to cope with various situations in the future.


Recordings made on the Norwegian Sighting Survey 1988 and the North Atlantic Sighting Survey 1988 (NASS-89) indicate a divided off shore distribution during summer for harbour porpoises in Norwegian waters, with a southern component in the North Sea area and a northern component from Lofoten and into the Barents Sea. Incidental sightings during the period 1964 1988, and distribution of by-catches in the drift net salmon fishery 1988, support these findings. Estimates of pod size and abundance of harbour porpoise in the North and Barents Seas are given. The abundance estimates were about 82 600 porpoises (c.v. 0.24) for the southern component (the North Sea area) and about 11000 porpoises (c.v. 0.44) for the northern component (LofotenBarents Sea). These estimates were based on NASS-89. Incidentally caught porpoises were used to establish growth curves, age at sexual maturity, and to study the composition of prey species in the stomach content as well as contamination of organochlorines in the blubber. The testicular weight increment was used as an indicator of sexual maturition in males, and the age of first time ovulation was used as age of sexual maturity in females. Using the von Bertalanffy growth model, asymtotic values for body length were 142.3 cm for males and 155.9 cm for females, and asymtotic values for body weight of males and females were 52.7 kg and 49.4 kg, respectively. In a total of23 females, 18 were three years old or younger, and these were all immature. Two out of three were sexually mature at the age of four years, and from the fifth year and onwards all were mature. Although the sample size is too small to be conclusive, these preliminary results indicate that sexual maturity is attained from age three in males, and about one year later in females. Stomachs from 176 porpoises from Kattegat, the northern North Sea and the Barents Sea were examined. A minimum number of 2979 specimen of fish from 27 different species were identified based on otoliths recorded in the stomach contents. Remains of hagfish, squids and polychaetes were recorded in a few stomachs. Geographical variation of species distribution in the stomach content was noted, reflecting geographical variation in availability of prey species. Contamination levels of 16 different organochlorines in blubber of male porpoises from Kattegat were compared with porpoises from the northern North Sea and the Barents Sea. Geographical differences in concentrations were recorded for eight of the compounds.


In this paper, we introduce PeQASO, a perceptual quality assessment framework for streamed videos using optical flow features. This approach is a reduced-reference pixel-based and relies only on the deviation of the optical flow of the corrupted frames. This technique compares an optical flow descriptor from the received frame against the descriptor obtained from the anchor frame. This approach is suitable for videos with complex motion patterns. Our technique does not make any assumptions on the coding conditions, network loss patterns or error concealment techniques. In this paper, we consider both sources of artifacts and distortions in streaming, including compression artifacts. We validate our proposed metric by testing it on a variety of distorted sequences from three proposed and commonly utilized video quality assessment databases. Our results show that our metric estimates the perceptual quality at the sequence level accurately. We report the correlation coefficients with the differential mean opinion scores reported in the database. For compression artifacts, the results show Spearman's and Pearson's correlations of 0.96 and 0.94 for all the tested sequences, respectively. For channel-induced distortion, the results show Spearman's and Pearson's correlations of 0.88 and 0.89, respectively. For all other distortions, the average Spearman's and Pearson's correlations are 0.82 and 0.79, respectively.


Climate change and geomorphic evolution in an Alaskan watershed and implications for salmon production Jennifer Rhiannon Griffiths Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Daniel E. Schindler School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences Freshwater ecosystems are not only the source of a disproportionate number of ecosystem services given their relative area on the planet, but they are also highly sensitive to anthropogenic impacts including climate change. Landscape heterogeneity provides a filter for regional climate forcing in aquatic systems and provides the context in which the biological components of ecosystems will interact with climate change. I used the Chignik watershed, Alaska as a case study in which to explore the response of juvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) growth and body condition to differences across habitats and variation in climate. Furthermore, I investigated the interaction of climate change and geomorphic evolution and its effects on juvenile sockeye salmon habitat and growth. I used genetic tools to assess individual performance of sockeye salmon among connected freshwater habitats. I found that individual performance converged on habitat productivity rather than being determined by genetic origin. I investigated the effects of climate variability on juvenile salmon growth among lake habitats using 40 years of freshwater growth data from scales. Growth showed a coherent response to climate variables affecting growing season duration but opposing responses to growing season temperatures. This indicated that different lake habitats not only filter regional climate differently but that this leads to differences in the biological response. Juvenile sockeye salmon length data over a similar timeframe indicated that temperature had a greater effect on growth than sockeye density. Finally, I assessed the relative importance of air temperature, lake volume and tributary for lake thermal regimes and juvenile sockeye salmon growth. Increases in lake volume had little effect on lake thermal regimes which were highly sensitive to lake temperature. Future increases in air temperature will likely reduce growth of juvenile sockeye although maintaining tributary connectivity is important to reducing the effects of air temperature. Because uncertainty exists in how freshwater ecosystems will respond to climate change preserving networks of heterogeneous habitat may be critical to supporting ecosystem resilience. Intact ecosystems provide an opportunity to evaluate the relative importance of climate, geomorphology and connectivity for salmon populations and inform the management and restoration of impacted landscapes.


The present study examines several personal attributes that distinguish the personal profiles of individuals, from Indonesian and Swedish cultures, according to self-reports of positive and negative effect, stress and energy, self-esteem, hospital anxiety and depression, dispositional optimism and health. Indonesian participants expressed both more PA and more NA than Swedish participants but less stress and a higher energy-stress quotient than the Swedish participants. Additionally, the former expressed a higher level of optimism and self-esteem, but also more depression, and less impulsiveness than the latter. Younger participants expressed less positive affect and more negative affect and impulsiveness than older participants who expressed both more stress and a higher energy stress quotient. Regression analyses indicated that PA was predicted by optimism and health whereas NA was predicted by anxiety and depression and impulsiveness and counter predicted by health. The present findings are discussed according to the notion of emotional regulation according to which individuals differ in their use of emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal and suppression, and these individual differences have implications for affect, well-being, and social relationships.


NCI Placement 360 is a responsive web application designed for National College of Ireland (NCI) students, faculty of NCI and employers who work within NCI to evaluate students during internships. It allows students and managers to enter their monthly reports, enter in skills used throughout their internship, complete final year evaluations and make contact with their contact point from NCI.

The application allows students and employers to enter data into the application, which is then shown in a visual chart dashboard. NCI can then use this data to update curriculums and adequately prepare students upon graduation. This data can be mined directly from the application and visualised using various chart frameworks dynamically.

In order to encourage users to enter skills into the web app, gamification is integrated directly into Placement 360 for students. Elements of gamification include a progress circle showing how many entries they've made towards 100 total entries, badges on their dashboard and a "trophy case" displaying the user's currently collected badges.

Recently, mobile internet traffic overtook desktop traffic. This is a big milestone and when you take just younger demographics into account, this percentage would be even higher.

With this trend in mind, NCI's student offerings were looked at. The online portal, MyNCIStudent, isn't mobile responsive. Unless it's viewed on Internet Explorer, users can't scroll down the page. This is ineffective given that the majority of users of this portal don't use Internet Explorer and a large number of students want to access this system on their smartphones.

If students and employers use Placement 360 to fill in their monthly reports instead of the paper method, it will save time for both parties but above all provide a visual representation in a 360 degree angle. The graphs section allows the School of Computing to stay as up to date as possible in its course content.

When looking at implementation, a responsive web app seemed like the most effective option. After researching Placement 360 as a mobile app, it seemed ineffective due to users having multiple different mobile operating systems, which would require multiple native apps for full coverage. Placement 360 also needs to be available on desktop so a responsive web app was the best option.


This research project examines the application of mineral magnetic techniques to the characterisation of particulates and their sources in the urban highway environment and in stormwater runoff.
A review of previous investigations into sources, levels and pathways of metals through the urban highway environment is presented. The principles upon which the mineral magnetic techniques are based and those parameters employed in this study are described. Previous environmental applications are reviewed.
A representative sampling scheme was established in a small well-defined sub-catchment. Copper, Fe, Pb and Zn concentrations in highway associated sediments increased with proximity to the road centre and seasonal maxima occurred in summer. Heavy metal loadings were dominated
by the sediment loadings. Strong linear relationships between the metals, Cu, Fe, Pb and Zn, and magnetic mineral concentration related parameters, X and IRM3oomT, were observed. Mineral magnetic characterisation achieved complete discrimination between highway associated sediments and roof sediments allowing the derivation of
equations defining the sediment groupings. Variations in metal-magnetic properties of sediments with particle size ,were investigated. Primary source materials and particulates were analysed. Metallic and magnetic mineral parameters indicated that atmospheric and vehicle derived·
particulates were probably the dominant origins of source particulates.
The variation of particulate associated heavy metals in stormwater runoff at the sub-catchment is discussed. Mineral magnetic parameters characterised the majority of stormwater particulates with the roof sediment grouping. The implications of these investigations is discussed.
The study was expanded to encompass the parent c~tchment. The characterisation of source sediments from land use and road types other than that· represented by the sub-catchment was carried out. Stormwater particulates collected at the main catchment'· outfall were found to be
generally characterised with soil and roof sediment groupings.
The further application and use of mineral magnetic parameters in similar research is discussed.


Continuing decrease in the feature size of integrated circuits leads to increases in susceptibility to transient and permanent faults. This paper proposes a fault-tolerant solution for a bufferless network-on-chip, including an on-line fault-diagnosis mechanism to detect both transient and permanent faults, a hybrid automatic repeat request, and forward error correction link-level error control scheme to handle transient faults and a reinforcement-learning-based fault-tolerant deflection routing (FTDR) algorithm to tolerate permanent faults without deadlock and livelock. A hierarchical-routing-table-based algorithm (FTDR-H) is also presented to reduce the area overhead of the FTDR router. Synthesized results show that, compared with the FTDR router, the FTDR-H router can reduce the area by 27% in an 88 network. Simulation results demonstrate that under synthetic workloads, in the presence of permanent link faults, the throughput of an 8 8 network with FTDR and FTDR-H algorithms are 14% and 23% higher on average than that with the fault-on-neighbor (FoN) aware deflection routing algorithm and the cost-based deflection routing algorithm, respectively. Under real application workloads, the FTDR-H algorithm achieves 20% less hop counts on average than that of the FoN algorithm. For transient faults, the performance of the FTDR router can achieve graceful degradation even at a high fault rate. We also implement the fault-tolerant deflection router which can achieve 400 MHz in TSMC 65-nm technology.


While the business benefits of digital asset management are well-documented, the benefits and importance of digital preservation are not. Digital preservation is a sustained commitment to maintenance activities which require a system of plans, policies, and implementation workflows. Coordination across departments is helpful for digital asset management, but it is mandatory for digital preservation. The Montana Digital Preservation Working Group (DPWG) operated under a five-point plan for collaboration between organizations. The plan consisted of cultivating shared knowledge, assessing the current digital preservation landscape at each institution, advocating for the value of digital preservation, implementing digital preservation practices, and sustaining the partnership by developing structures for ongoing projects and mutual support. In this article, the fivepoint plan for collaboration used by DPWG is adapted to build alliances in four key areas of an organization: the Project and Process Team, the Management Team, the Executive Team, and the Information Technology Team. By building strategic alliances that support digital preservation advocacy and planning, information managers extend their reach and resources, ultimately leading to more robust preservation of valuable digital assets.


The introduction of segregation laws for municipal streetcars is examined. The economics of private and public segregation is analyzed first, taking note of the particular features of the streetcar industry, followed by a discussion of the contemporary debates on streetcar segregation laws in a number of southern cities. The evidence presented suggests that segregation laws were binding constraints and not simply the codification of customary practice. Furthermore, the streetcar companies were not the initiators of segregation and sometimes actively resisted it. These findings are related to several major interpretations of the origins of segregation.


Abstract Objectives We evaluated the effectiveness of cyclophosphamide for patients with microscopic polyangiitis and granulomatosis with polyangiitis. Methods Patients treated with cyclophosphamide and glucocorticoid (cyclophosphamide group) or glucocorticoid alone (non-cyclophosphamide group) for remission-induction were enrolled from two Japanese nationwide prospective inception cohort studies. The effectiveness and safety outcomes were compared before and after propensity score (PS)- matching. Results Proportion of patients achieving Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score (BVAS)-remission and BVAS-remission plus a daily prednisolone dosage of ≤10 mg (GC-remission) by Month 6 were not significantly different between cyclophosphamide and non-cyclophosphamide groups before (n = 144 and 155) and after (n = 94 for each group) PS-matching. In myeloperoxidase-antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (MPO-ANCA)-positive PS-matched patients, GC-remission by Month 6 was superior in CYC group (n = 82) than in non-CYC group (n = 91) (49 vs. 31%, p = .020). Overall, end-stage renal disease-free and relapse-free survival rates, Vasculitis Damage Index score, and proportions of serious infection were comparable between the two groups both in the unmatched and PS-matched patients. Prednisolone doses at any point after treatment initiation in the PS-matched patients were lower in the cyclophosphamide group than in a non-cyclophosphamide group. Conclusions Concomitant cyclophosphamide use may improve GC-remission by Month 6 in MPO-ANCA-positive patients and could exert glucocorticoid sparing effect.


Abstract Obesity is one of the most common physical health problems among patients with severe and persistent mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. Multifactorial in origin, obesity can be attributed to an unhealthy lifestyle as well as the effects of psychotropic medications such as second-generation antipsychotics. Excess body weight increases the risk for many medical problems, including type 2 diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, osteoarthritis, hypertension, and gallbladder disease. A PubMed search revealed 403 English-language citations to the query "schizophrenia" AND "obesity" and 469 citations to the query "obesity" AND ''antipsychotics." The evidence is that different antipsychotics have different propensities for weight gain, and that children, adolescents, and first-episode patients are at higher risk for weight gain associated with antipsychotic treatment. Monitoring body weight early in treatment will help predict those at high risk for substantial weight gain. Switching antipsychotic medication may or may not be clinically feasible, but can lead to a reduction in body weight. Lifestyle therapies and other nonpharmacological interventions have been shown to be effective in controlled clinical trials, but the evidence base for adjunctive medication strategies such as with orlistat, sibutramine, amantadine, nizatidine, metformin, topiramate, and others, is conflicting. At the very least, a "small-steps approach" to managing weight should be offered to all patients who are overweight or obese.


All the countries in Southern Africa share a similar general law which is a mixture of pre-codal Civil law - the Roman-Dutch version - and Common law - the English version. Since there are no ideological differences between Roman-Dutch law and English law, the mixture is basically one of problem-solving techniques. But the mixed character of the legal systems forming the Southern African Law Association is more involved than this, for within these systems operates indigenous African law which differs not only technically but also ideologically from the imported Western general law. Although indigenous African law is subordinate to the general Western law, socially it forms an important part of the overall Southern African legal fabric. The author stresses the need to include all aspects of the Southern African socialist legal values as part of a comparative legal course in every law school in Africa.


In Vehicle Ad-hoc NETworks (VANET) safety applications, vehicles are required to exchange messages periodically at 1-10 Hz with nearby vehicles (within 300 meters) wirelessly and in plain format. The exchanged message usually contains the state of vehicle such as its current location, speed, and direction, as well as the state of roads such as icy road, closed road, traffic jams, an accident on the road, etc. With such support, the contextual awareness of the drivers about their surrounding environment would be improved. Thus, the road safety would be significantly improved because of a potential accident can be prevented in advance. The security of the exchanged messages is a paramount requirement because an accident, injury, or even loss of life could be a direct consequence of malicious notification. Moreover, eavesdroppers can collect the exchanged messages and track the individual driver's whereabouts by linking subsequent messages for a period of time. Thus, the location privacy of the driver must be properly protected to obtain the public acceptance of these applications. Current standardisations and research efforts have mainly nominated the use of pseudonyms, rather than real-identities, based on Public Key Cryptographic (PKC) to provide an acceptable balance between security and privacy. The public key is excluded from any identification information and used as a pseudonym. This pseudonym must be certified by a trusted authority who can verify it later in the case of a dispute. Moreover, with the amount of information that a vehicle is required to broadcast in these applications, the pseudonym must be changed over time to avoid the long-term linkability of the vehicle via its locations. A simple pseudonym changing scheme is ineffective to prevent tracking the vehicle based on its locations. Thus, III many researchers have been working on designing more effective schemes but very few of them have considered the impact of such schemes on safety applications. Therefore, in this thesis, we aim to design a novel scheme for VANET safety applications that can achieve efficient security and enhance the privacy level without compromising safety. First, the main requirements of these applications were specified, and the state-of-the-art schemes were reviewed. Then, two schemes have been proposed: 1) the Safety-related Privacy Scheme (SRPS) was mainly aimed to reduce the impact of enhancing privacy level on safety, and 2) the Hybrid-based Pseudonym Changing Scheme (HBPCS) was mainly aimed to reduce the impact of security overheads on safety. To evaluate the efficiency of the designed schemes, we implemented these schemes using a combination of four simulators and then compared them quantitatively with the other five selective schemes from the literature (CAPS, PPC, RSP, CSP, and SLOW). The experiment results have shown that the SRPS can achieve the best balance between the three key issues (security, privacy, and safety) but its efficiency decreased in traffic jams, which has been addressed by the HBPCS.


In this paper, we consider the coherent theory of (epistemic) uncertainty of Walley, in which beliefs are represented through sets of probability distributions, and we focus on the problem of modeling prior ignorance about a categorical random variable. In this setting, it is a known result that a state of prior ignorance is not compatible with learning. To overcome this problem, another state of beliefs, called \emph{near-ignorance}, has been proposed. Near-ignorance resembles ignorance very closely, by satisfying some principles that can arguably be regarded as necessary in a state of ignorance, and allows learning to take place. What this paper does, is to provide new and substantial evidence that also near-ignorance cannot be really regarded as a way out of the problem of starting statistical inference in conditions of very weak beliefs. The key to this result is focusing on a setting characterized by a variable of interest that is \emph{latent}. We argue that such a setting is by far the most common case in practice, and we provide, for the case of categorical latent variables (and general \emph{manifest} variables) a condition that, if satisfied, prevents learning to take place under prior near-ignorance. This condition is shown to be easily satisfied even in the most common statistical problems. We regard these results as a strong form of evidence against the possibility to adopt a condition of prior near-ignorance in real statistical problems.


The allegory of the marriage of languages was inspired by Herder's comparison of a language not yet profaned by translations with a virgin. This simile was logically extended to the simile of translation as marriage of languages. The first part of the treatise presents the allegory. The translator wanders through the centuries and goes courting. In the second part the allegory is solved. The third part tries to answer the question of how far the allegory is to be considered as a contribution to the history of translation. The greatest stress is laid upon the open end of the allegory: the modern translations of ancient literature are — in an intentionally exaggerated manner — criticized so as to focus attention on the question of how far a historian of translation should consider his present point of view and interest when writing a history of translation.


How nitric oxide (NO) reacts with free thiols to form S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) in vivo is a question of much debate. The effects of different chelators and added metals ions on NO and O 2 consumption, and S-nitrosocysteine (CysNO) formation in cysteine solutions were studied using amperometric (NO and O 2 electrodes) measurements and UV-vis absorption. The results support a free radical mechanism for CysNO formation that involves Cys · generation by reaction with · NO 2 at higher NO concentrations and with copper ions at lower NO concentrations. The mechanism of recombinant human brain calbindin D 28k (rHCaBP) S-nitrosation by CysNO or S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) was investigated in detail. First, an efficient rHCaBP expression and purification system was set up by subcloning the HCaBP gene into the pET15b vector and expressing the protein in BL21(DE3)pLysS host cells. A protein yield of >30 mg/L culture with >95% purity was obtained. UV-vis and circular dichroism absorption, intrinsic fluorescence and mass spectrometry measurements indicate that rHCaBP is S-nitrosated by CysNO. Of a total of five free cysteine residues 2.6 ± 0.05 and 4.4 ± 0.09 are S-nitrosated in Ca 2+ -loaded and Ca 2+ -free rHCaBP, respectively, as determined by the Saville assay. Intrinsic protein fluorescence was demonstrated to be a sensitive probe of protein S-nitrosation due to efficient Forster energy transfer (R 0 {598} 17 A) between tryptophan donors and RSNO acceptors. Mass spectrometry and UV-vis absorption results support a mechanism for NO transfer from GSNO to rHCaBP that requires trace copper added as either Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (CuZnSOD) or CuSO 4 . CuZnSOD is an efficient catalyst of rHCaBP S-nitrosation via a mechanism involving reduction of its active-site Cu II by a number of the thiols in rHCaBP, giving rise to Cys · radicals. The Cu I ZnSOD formed catalyzes the reductive cleavage of GSNO to release NO, which reacts with the Cys · radical to yield the S-nitrosoprotein. Since exposure of rHCaBP to either CysNO or GSNO also leads to rapid S-thiolation, the mechanism of protein S-glutathiolation was investigated in detail. rHCaBP, human CuZnSOD (HCuZnSOD), rabbit muscle glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were found to be S-glutathiolated in decomposed GSNO solutions. Fresh GSNO, reduced glutathione (GSH) or oxidized glutathione (GSSG) are not efficient S-glutathiolatiog agents for the proteins examined here. Based on analysis by mass spectrometry and UV-vis absorption, GSNO decomposition in the dark at room temperature yields glutathione disulfide S-oxide [GS(O)SG], glutathione disulfide S-dioxide (GSO2SG), and GSSG as products. A hydrolysis pathway yielding GSOH and nitroxyl HNO/NO - as intermediates is proposed based on inhibition of GSNO breakdown by dimedone, and nitroxyl scavenging by metmyoglobin. Cys111, Cys187, Cys149 and Cys34 were tentatively identified as the S-glutathiolation sites in HCuZnSOD, rHCaBP, GAPDH and BSA, respectively


Interview with Hazael R. Olivares, a serviceman in the U. S. Navy during World War II. Olivares dropped out of high school and decided to join the U. S. Navy after hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He took his 16-week basic training course at Great Lakes in Illinois where he learned how to fire various guns and recognize aircraft. After basic training, he was assigned to Algiers, Louisiana where he learned how to weld. Aboard the USS Bordelon (DD-881), he served as a Ship Fitter in the damage control department. After WWII, he remained in the reserves and was called up for duty in Korea. He served aboard the USS Sitkoh Bay (CVE-86). After Korea, he worked as a civilian for the Army Corps of Engineers as an oiler on a dredge. He then served in the Merchant Marines, hauling refined petroleum products from South America to North America. He also discusses going to French Indochina (Vietnam) and traveling up the Saigon River in a merchant vessel.


Everyone everywhere depends increasingly on long-distance food. Since 1961 the tonnage of food shipped between nations has grown fourfold. In the United States, food typically travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to plate-as much as 25 percent farther than in 1980. For some, the long-distance food system offers unparalleled choice. But it often runs roughshod over local cuisines, varieties, and agriculture, while consuming staggering amounts of fuel, generating greenhouse gases, eroding the pleasures of face-to-face interactions, and compromising food security. Fortunately, the long-distance food habit is beginning to weaken under the influence of a young, but surging, local-foods movement. From peanut-butter makers in Zimbabwe to pork producers in Germany and rooftop gardeners in Vancouver, entrepreneurial farmers, start-up food businesses, restaurants, supermarkets, and concerned consumers are propelling a revolution that can help restore rural areas, enrich poor nations, and return fresh, delicious, and wholesome food to cities.


This study assessed levels of agreement in knowledge and opinions about salmon fisheries and ecology of the Copper River, Alaska, in three user groups: the Ahtna, an Alaska Native people indigenous to the upper river; commercial fishers who fish at the mouth of the river; and fishery managers and biologists with jurisdiction over the entire watershed. We anticipated that cultural background, academic training, long-term experience on the water, and spatial focus would be reflected in each group's knowledge and opinions. Cultural consensus analysis showed agreement within each group, similar opinions between commercial fishers and managers and biologists, and distinct Ahtna opinions. Managers and biologists were the most cohesive group; they related to the entire watershed and relied on quantitative information as the basis for fisheries management. Ahtna focused on the upper river and incorporated observed long-term sociocultural, economic, and environmental changes into their opinions about the fisheries. Commercial fishers focused on the lower river and had strong familiarity with scientific principles of fisheries management. The similar views of commercial fishers and managers and biologists may result from the fact that commercial fishers' economic success also depends on their understanding of fisheries management. To respond to socioeconomic and ecological sustainability issues, fisheries management would benefit from recognizing these perspectives and promoting participation of all stakeholder groups and effective communication among them.


Abstract. The use of photogrammetry in 3D heritage documentation has matured over the recent years. In the same time, many types of sensors have also been developed in the field of imaging. While photogrammetry is considered as a low-cost alternative to TLS, several options exist in terms of sensor type with trade-offs between price, ease of use, and quality of resolution. Nevertheless, a proper knowledge on the acquisition and processing is still required to generate acceptable results. This paper aims to compare three photogrammetric sensors, namely a classical DSLR camera, a drone, and a spherical 360° camera in documenting heritage sites. Main comparison points include quality of the bundle adjustment and quality of the dense point cloud. However, an important point of the paper is also to determine whether a sensor at a given cost and effort is enough for documentation purposes. A TLS point cloud data was used as a common reference, as well as control and check points issued from geodetic surveying. In the aftermath of the comparison, several technical suggestions and recommendations were proposed as regards to the use of each sensor.


Context In November 1994, Oregon became the first US state to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) as an option for end-of-life care. Objective This study compares the attitudes and experiences of medical students in Oregon regarding PAS to those of fourth-year medical students in the United States outside Oregon. Design A survey of all students at the Oregon Health Sciences University and fourth-year medical students at 3 non-Oregonian US medical schools. Participants Oregon medical students returned 227 questionnaires (58%), and 113 were returned from control schools (33%). Results A similar percentage of both study groups favored the legalization of PAS (64% vs 66%; P = .74). If the practice were legal, 55% of the total surveyed reported they "might be willing towritealethalprescription,"(50%Oregonstudentsvs60%con-trol; P = .13 and 44% fourth-year Oregon students vs 60% control; P = .04). Among fourth-year students, 20% reported a request by a patient to the student or a preceptor for a lethal prescription in the past year (26% vs 16%; P = .09). Conclusions This study demonstrates support for and willingness by many medical students to participate in PAS. Some medical students reported observation of PAS during their train-ing experience. Fourth-year Oregon students reported signifi-cantly less willingness than other students to provide a patient with a lethal prescription, perhaps indicating hesitancy to include PAS in clinical practice.


5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) has been suggested to be involved in various nucleic acid transactions and cellular processes, including transcriptional regulation, demethylation of 5-methylcytosine and stem cell pluripotency. We have identified an activity that preferentially catalyzes the cleavage of double-stranded 5hmC-modified DNA. Using biochemical methods we purified this activity from mouse liver extracts and demonstrate that the enzyme responsible for the cleavage of 5hmC-modified DNA is Endonuclease G (EndoG). We show that recombinant EndoG preferentially recognizes and cleaves a core sequence when one specific cytosine within that core sequence is hydroxymethylated. Additionally, we provide in vivo evidence that EndoG catalyzes the formation of double-stranded DNA breaks and that this cleavage is dependent upon the core sequence, EndoG and 5hmC. Finally, we demonstrate that the 5hmC modification can promote conservative recombination in an EndoG-dependent manner.


Today, nations of the world are economically interdependent of one another. Nowhere is this linkage of domestic economies more evident than between the United States and Canada. Trade and investment between the two countries is the largest in the world. Many Canadians are aware of the importance of the trade that flows between the two countries. Many Canadian are also aware of the huge presence of American multinational enterprises within Canada. However, few appreciate the extent of investment by Canadian firms in the United States. To understand the importance of Canadian investment in the Untied States, it is essential to understand where Canadian parent companies invest. Or put another way, it is important to know the spatial distribution of Canadian subsidiaries throughout the Untied States. After examining the dispersal of subsidiaries, further questions can follow. The main focus of this thesis is to determine why Canadians invest where they do. Through the use of a discrete choice analysis it was concluded that Canadian investment in the United States was attracted to the larger American market, accessibility to international inputs and markets, a skilled labor force, and regions with a greater and expanding work force. On the other hand, as unionization, distance, and corporate tax rates increased, the probability ofFDI decreased. FDI in the United States was also separated into large investments and small investments. It was concluded that large investments were attracted to labour with higher skills compared to small investments while poverty and average pay were deemed less important. On the other hand, there was a greater attraction by small investments to states with greater populations and shoreline. As distance increased, small investments experienced a greater decrease when compared to large investments


Cycling rates are relatively low in Australia, but cyclists comprise about 1 in 40 traffic crash fatalities and about 1 in 7 serious injuries. While it appears that cyclists are over-represented in traffic injuries relative to their exposure to injury risk, the magnitude of this excess risk in Australia is currently unknown. The relationship between cycling rates and injury rates over time is also unknown, though the subject of considerable speculation. This paper addresses these two issues, drawing on available traffic injury and travel distance data principally for the greater metropolitan areas of Melbourne and Sydney. Acknowledging data limitations and the need to interpret findings with caution, the evidence suggests that based on fatality and serious injury rates per kilometre travelled in Melbourne and Sydney, the relative risk of fatality for cycling compared with driving is between 5 and 19. The relative risk of serious injury for cycling compared with driving in Melbourne is 13 based on police data, and 34 based on hospital data, while the relative risk of all injuries (minor plus serious) is 19 in Sydney based on police data. Cyclist injuries appear to be increasing sharply in Melbourne (109% increase from 2000 to 2008), although the picture is less clear in Sydney due to data limitations. We argue that the evidence suggests that while road safety counter-measures have undoubtedly led to a safer operating environment for vehicle occupants, the (arguably) car-centric nature of many of these measures appears to have done little to improve cyclist safety.


A detailed kinetic study of triple helix formation was performed by surface plasmon resonance. Three systems were investigated involving 15mer pyrimidine oligonucleotides as third strands. Rate constants and activation energies were validated by comparison with thermodynamic values calculated from UV-melting analysis. Replacement of a T.A base pair by a C.G pair at either the 5' or the 3' end of the target sequence allowed us to assess mismatch effects and to delineate the mechanism of triple helix formation. Our data show that the association rate constant is governed by the sequence of base triplets on the 5' side of the triplex (referred to as the 5' side of the target oligopurine strand) and provides evidence that the reaction pathway for triple helix formation in the pyrimidine motif proceeds from the 5' end to the 3' end of the triplex according to the nucleation-zipping model. It seems that this is a general feature for all triple helices formation, probably due to the right-handedness of the DNA double helix that provides a stronger base stacking at the 5' than at the 3' duplex-triplex junction. Understanding the mechanism of triple helix formation is not only of fundamental interest, but may also help in designing better triple helix-forming oligonucleotides for gene targeting and control of gene expression.


The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) is pursuing a Research in Development approach that emphasizes the importance of embedding research in the development context. Reflecting this emphasis the six elements of this approach are a commitment to people and place, participatory action research, gender transformative research, learning and networking, partnerships, and capacity building. It is through the careful pursuit of these six elements that we believe that the program will achieve the development outcomes we aspire to, and do so at scale.


ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) is the most common cause of back and leg pain. We developed a specially designed needle and a minimally invasive interventional procedure to treat LDH. OBJECTIVES: Assess outcomes of procedure and describe our methodology and clinical application. DESIGN: Case series. SETTING: A chronic pain management center. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with LDH underwent fluoroscopically guided interventional interlaminar needling using a specially designed curved round needle. The outcome measures were evaluated three times: before the intervention and at 6 and 12 months after the intervention. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Visual analog scale (VAS) pain score, Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). SAMPLE SIZE: 43 patients. RESULTS: Six months after the intervention, the VAS pain score decreased by 5.1 (2.2) points and the ODI decreased by 30.7% (16.6%) compared to baseline. Twelve months after the intervention, the VAS pain score decreased by 6.2 (1.7) points and the ODI decreased by 36.9% (15.2%) compared to baseline. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that fluoroscopically guided interventional interlaminar needling has clinical significance in managing pain resulting from LDH. LIMITATIONS: This was an exploratory case series study. Additional studies and randomized clinical trials are needed to evaluate the efficacy of the technique compared to other treatments. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None.


The aim of the paper is to identify the different role of the financial funds of R&D investments in
the Italian firms. The dataset used for this study is the Survey of Italian Firms conducted by the
SME Observatory run by the Capitalia Research Division. R&D is defined as a creative activity
implemented to improve knoweledge and its use in new applications. Given its intrisic
characteristics, R&D is usually characterizedby high information opacity that choerently with the
theory of asymmetric information implies more difficulties in finding external financial funds. The
greater riskiness on R&D projects could imply banks to some forms of credit rationing. Signalling
mechanisms like as self-financing could, however, to correct this market imperfection. In this study
we propose a self-selection model in wich the internal (i.e. informed) capital is the way by which
the firms signal to the external borrowers the quality of their investment project. The aim of the
research is to investigate the determinants of R&D investments financial funds. Moreover, we focus
our attention on the estimate of the internal capital compared to the other financial funds.
JEL Classification: D82, G21, G32, E51.


The small and medium-sized enterprises (UKM) of Kerupuk Cipir are the home industries which produce kerupuk cipir. During the making process, there were still many phases which were done manually using a simple work facility. During the dough stirring phase, the workers used a bending work posture (unergonomic) which caused musculoskeletal complaints and various problems toward the workers. Therefore, a research was conducted by applying rapid entire body assesment (REBA) analysis to decrease musculoskeletal complaints and increase productivity. The research was conducted experimentally at UKM Kerupuk Cipir in Binangun Village, Karangpucung District, Cilacap Regency by using the treatment by subject design. There were two treatments given toward the sample: stirring the dough using the former work facility and stirring the dough using the improved work facility through ergonomic approach. The musculoskeletal complaints were measured using Nordic Body Map questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed a decrease on REBA score from 11 on level 4 which was in the category of high risk into score of 4 on level 2 which was in the category of quite high when the handle position is on the upper side, score of 5 when the handle position is on the front side, and score of 7 when the handle position is on the lower side. The workers' complaints of severe pain on 9 body parts and pain on 6 body parts were decreased into mild pain on 7 body parts and no pain on 20 other body parts. Work productivity increased into 89.62%.


This work presents an analysis of the energy structure of carriers enclosed in self-assembled InAs quantum dots. Capacitance-voltage-spectroscopy (CV) with perpendicular magnetic fields is used to identify the energy structure of holes in quantum dots. Applying a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator model, we demonstrate an irregular filling sequence where the d states are occupied with holes before the filling of the p shell is completed. This surprising behavior is explained by a shift in the energy structure in favor of the coulomb repulsion due to the strong interaction in the hole system. We have mapped out the wave functions of electron and hole carriers using CV-spectroscopy with parallel magnetic fields. This allows us to obtain two dimensional plots of the probability densities in k-space for the carriers. The wave functions are interpreted in a quasi particle picture. For the s electrons in quantum dots we obtain Gaussian like probability densities with certain deviations. The wave functions are elongated along [1-10] in direct space. This is caused by a morphological anisotropy of the quantum dots and due to the piezoelectric effect in these structures. The p states show nodal structures with orbitals that are oriented perpendicular to each other. The low energy p states are oriented along [1-10] in direct space. The hole wave functions show an elongation along the perpendicular direction [110] in direct space. This confirms the assumption that the probability distribution is mainly influenced by piezoelectric effects in the strained semiconductor system. Using polarization dependent photoluminescence spectroscopy we demonstrate an energy shift in the interband transitions which indicates an anisotropic confining potential.


The "standing on the shoulders of giants" metaphor is often used to acknowledge the work of others when undertaking research and, in particular, stresses the importance of literature reviews in scientific inquiry. Though the significance of literature reviews has never been in doubt, researchers, especially novice researchers, still struggle with developing effective strategies for reviewing literature. An important reason for this difficulty is the rapidly increasing number of potentially relevant publications—not all of which necessarily add value to a literature review. As such, avoiding standing on the shoulders of dwarfs literature search emerges as a major issue in crafting an effective literature review. In this paper, we discuss challenges of literature searches in the increasingly dynamic context of information systems (IS) research and make recommendations for how to deal with them. We present practical guidelines and a checklist to help researchers with planning and organizing their literature searches.


The influence of viruses on bacterial net growth and respiration was investigated in batch cultures with natural assemblages of marine bacterioplankton, which were manipulated with respect to abundance of natural virioplankton. In 1 set of cultures (-virus), a virus-free water sample (0.02 μm filtered) was inoculated with a bacterioplankton concentrate, and in a parallel set of cultures (control) a virus-containing water sample (0.2 pm filtered) was inoculated with the bacterioplankton concentrate. The 0.02 pm filtration procedure reduced viral abundance by 62 to 92 % in the -virus cultures relative to the parallel control cultures with the natural density of viruses (i.e. the fraction of natural viruses <0.2 μm). This approach allowed us to examine the effects of reduced viral densities on the production of natural assemblages of bacteria and viruses and on the distribution of added 3 H-thymidine into size fractions (the bacterial size fraction, viral size fraction, dissolved size fraction and respired fraction). The results showed significantly higher bacterial net growth and growth efficiency in cultures with a reduced abundance of viruses relative to control cultures with natural viral abundance, and indicated viral regulation of bacterial abundance in the control cultures. We suggest that viral lysis significantly affected the bacterial carbon cycling in the cultures by liberating a fraction of the organic matter already taken up by the bacteria, thus stimulating recycling of bacterial carbon and reducing the net bacterial production. The implications of such regeneration of dissolved organic matter by viral lysis for pelagic carbon cycling and for measurements of bacterial production are discussed.


BACKGROUND
Evidence for environmental causes of asthma is limited, especially among African Americans. To look for systematic differences in early life domestic exposures between inner-city preschool children with and without asthma, we performed a study of home indoor air pollutants and allergens.

METHODS
Children 2-6 years of age were enrolled in a cohort study in East Baltimore, Maryland. From the child's bedroom, air was monitored for 3 days for particulate matter <or= 2.5 and <or= 10 microm in aerodynamic diameter (PM(2.5), PM(10)), nitrogen dioxide, and ozone. Median baseline values were compared for children with (n = 150) and without (n = 150) asthma. Housing characteristics related to indoor air pollution were assessed by caregiver report and home inspection. In addition, indoor allergen levels were measured in settled dust.

RESULTS
Children were 58% male, 91% African American, and 88% with public health insurance. Housing characteristics related to pollutant exposure and bedroom air pollutant concentrations did not differ significantly between asthmatic and control subjects [median: PM(2.5), 28.7 vs. 28.5 microg/m(3); PM(10), 43.6 vs. 41.4 microg/m(3); NO(2), 21.6 vs. 20.9 ppb; O(3), 1.4 vs. 1.8 ppb; all p > 0.05]. Settled dust allergen levels (cat, dust mite, cockroach, dog, and mouse) were also similar in bedrooms of asthmatic and control children.

CONCLUSIONS
Exposures to common home indoor pollutants and allergens are similar for inner-city preschool children with and without asthma. Although these exposures may exacerbate existing asthma, this study does not support a causative role of these factors for risk of developing childhood asthma.


The setting level of an hydraulic machine, specially for low head machines, is decided with respect to the possible alteration of the efficiency due to the cavity development. This alteration can easily be noticed by plotting the evolution of the efficiency η as a function of the Thoma number σ leading to the so-called η – σ cavitation curves. Observation of the cavity extent in the flow passage of the runner allows to associate the drop of efficiency with a particular type of cavity development. However, depending on the type of cavities this drop cannot be very easily explained. Obviously, for a leading edge attached cavity corresponding to high head operating points, the presence of the vapour phase on the blade suction side limits the pressure at the vapour pressure value which causes the flow alteration. In the case of travelling bubble cavitation, corresponding to the outlet cavitation at the nominal head, this limitation of the pressure field due to the presence of the vapour was never characterized. In order to protect the efficiency at the best operating point against the travelling bubbles effects, the IEC norms suggests some measures relating to turbines standards cavitation tests. These measures are based on the systematic control of the test water quality in term of nucleation, which is the main factor of the inception of this type of cavitation. A prediction method of the efficiency drop due to the outlet travelling bubble cavitation is then a necessity from the point of view of the possibility to modify the runner geometry in the first state of the project. The main object of this work is then the understanding of the physical phenomenon acting on the Francis turbine efficiency alteration with a development of travelling bubble cavitation in order to elaborate a prediction method. The first aspect of this thesis work is the characterisation of the bubbles influence with some experiments carried out in the hydraulic machines tests rigs and the high-speed cavitation tunnel. The second part consists in the development of a cavitating pressure field prediction method. The main work is finally intented to analyse the actual standards cavitation tests methods.


This thesis examines the usefulness of voluntary health insurance (VHI) as a lever
for improving health system performance. It posits that VHI may further health
policy goals if it addresses gaps in statutory coverage, if it does not make those who
rely on statutory coverage worse off, and if those who need VHI have access to it.
The thesis presents four studies that analyse markets for VHI in the European Union;
developments in public policy towards VHI, including the implications of the EUlevel regulatory framework for VHI; the impact of VHI on health system
performance; the effects of allowing people to choose between statutory and
voluntary health insurance; and VHI's influence on consumer mobility where
insurers compete to offer statutory benefits. The thesis finds that while VHI is critical
to financial protection in some countries, it does not always address key gaps in
statutory coverage or reach those who need it, and the depth of its coverage has
declined over time, even in heavily regulated markets. VHI has a regressive effect on
equity in health financing, lowers equity in the use of health services and does not
seem to have a positive effect on efficiency, partly because insurers in many
countries lack appropriate incentives. What is more, a failure to align incentives
across VHI and statutory health insurance can undermine the efficiency of public
spending on health. Many of VHI's negative effects can be attributed to poor policy
design. Policy makers can try and ensure VHI contributes to rather than undermines
health system performance through the following mechanisms: better understanding
of VHI's interaction with the health system; stronger policy design, focusing on
aligning incentives in pursuit of health policy goals and ensuring efficiency in the use
of public resources; willingness and capacity to regulate the market to secure
financial and consumer protection; and regular monitoring and evaluation.


The purpose of this report is to identify critical issues for consideration in the development of secondary education policies in Latin America. The document follows a simple and direct logic. First, grand forces affecting the expansion, structure and curriculum of secondary schools in Latin America are briefly described. Next, dilemmas that countries typically face are posed. Finally, critical issues, that is, central policy making problems and aspects that allow international comparisons and country-specific lessons are identified.


The publication of Ann Yearsley's only novel, The Royal Captives in 1795 is an important moment for our current understanding of what it was possible to publish during the political chaos of the 1790s.Yearsley's later career has been largely ignored by critics; her biographer makes only a brief mention of the novel's existence, and few others have engaged with it at all. Yet in 1795, Yearsley burst into novel writing, earning an astonishing £200 from the Robinsons for what would be her only novel. Cheryl Turner has noted that this sum is significant in itself; it was rare for such a sum to paid, particularly for a novel, and few women ever earned this much. It was nearly as much as Frances Burney earned for Cecelia, and was more than Elizabeth Inchbald received for Nature and Art. The first aim of this paper will therefore be to give Yearsley's novel the fullest treatment it has yet received. It will also consider more generally Yearsley's later career, in particular the performance, then publication of her only play Earl Goodwin early in the decade, before placing The Royal Captives in the context of the wider British reaction to events in France. By making use of Yearsley's letters to her friends and patrons in Yorkshire, Eliza Dawson and Wilmer Gossip, in which she relates her thoughts about novel-reading. this paper will seek to create a sense of Yearsley's project as a novelist, and how this engages with national debates. The novel itself will be considered alongside contemporary reviews and more recent critical responses which will provide the context for a reading which aims to demonstrate the fundamental radicalism of The Royal Captives. The paper will then conclude with an assessment of the wider implications of Yearsley's move into novel writing, where it is suggested that a reconsideration of mid-1790s print culture is needed.


Comrades at Odds explores the complicated Cold War relationship between the United States and the newly independent India of Jawaharlal Nehru from a unique perspective-that of culture, broadly defined. In a departure from the usual way of doing diplomatic history, Andrew J. Rotter chose culture as his jumping-off point because, he says, "Like the rest of us, policymakers and diplomats do not shed their values, biases, and assumptions at their office doors. They are creatures of culture, and their attitudes cannot help but shape the policy they make." To define those attitudes, Rotter consults not only government documents and the memoirs of those involved in the events of the day, but also literature, art, and mass media. "An advertisement, a photograph, a cartoon, a film, and a short story," he finds, "tell us in their own ways about relations between nations as surely as a State Department memorandum does." While expanding knowledge about the creation and implementation of democracy, Rotter carries his analysis across the categories of race, class, gender, religion, and culturally infused practices of governance, strategy, and economics. Americans saw Indians as superstitious, unclean, treacherous, lazy, and prevaricating. Indians regarded Americans as arrogant, materialistic, uncouth, profane, and violent. Yet, in spite of these stereotypes, Rotter notes the mutual recognition of profound similarities between the two groups; they were indeed "comrades at odds."


This paper examines the unintended strategic effects of non-linear incentives in public policies. A system of health care subsidies structured in discrete intervals may lead to strategic behaviour. We provide new evidence on this issue, focusing on a case where the strategic actions are taken by healthcare providers (HCPs). We show that HCPs adjust the score of claimants in long-term care needs assessments, giving them the opportunity to access higher levels of care benefits. This adjustment does not bring any pecuniary gain for HCPs. By using a quasi-natural experimental setting –the implementation of Spanish long-term care (LTC)– we show that the distribution of the claimants' needs includes kinks around the thresholds set for the LTC system. These kinks reveal that healthcare providers adopt prosocial behaviour, helping claimants jump to a higher level of benefits without discriminating by health status, residence, or gender. By developing a new non-parametric estimator, we prove that these adjustments lead to a welfare loss. The additional cost per adjusted claimant per annum is approximately 1000 euro on average. We finally propose an alternative continuous system to allocate LTC benefits that could mitigate the prosocial behaviour of healthcare providers.


This paper reports a case study on labour substitution by a small-scale farmer on his farm in the Western Cape Province of South Africa that has been owned by descendants of the same family since the early 1800s. Production techniques used on the farm have moved from labour-intensive to capital-intensive. The first step towards mechanisation was taken early in 1988, when some of the farm workers did not return after their annual holidays and before the harvesting season. One of the decisive reasons for the change in production techniques was a labour strike during the harvesting season in 2000.An analysis of gross income and production costs in 2012/13, based on capitalintensive production, compared to assumed costs if the labour-intensive production techniques of 1984/85 had been retained, shows an annual saving of R95 101 (19,5%) in comparative production costs. Moreover, capital-intensive production protects the farm against the danger of strikes and therefore reduces production risks considerably. This research raises questions about (i) the morality of capital-intensive production; (ii) the full cost of labour, compared to the full cost of capital, when the risks of unreliable labour and of labour strikes are taken into consideration; and (iii) the risk of land expropriation.


OBJECTIVE
Several studies suggest that bone mineral density (BMD) is reduced in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, it is unclear whether this relationship holds in a representative community-based typical RA population. We examined the relationship between BMD and RA in a representative US population-based sample from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III: 1988-1994).

METHODS
We selected subjects over age 60 with RA from NHANES III using previously described methods. Femoral neck BMD (FN-BMD) measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry was compared for the RA (n = 106) and non-RA cohorts (n = 4,277). Multivariable linear regression models included known risk factors for osteoporosis. Further adjusted analyses compared the BMD among subgroups of patients with RA, such as those taking methotrexate (MTX), those with positive rheumatoid factor (RF), and those with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP).

RESULTS
Patients with RA more frequently reported poor health, a history of falling, cognitive impairment, early menopause, a history of chronic obstructive lung disease, higher total calcium intake, and thiazide use than the non-RA subjects (all p < 0.05). Adjusted FN-BMD was similar between the patients with RA (0.71 g/cm2) and non-RA subjects (0.72 g/cm2; p = 0.5). Among patients with RA, reduced BMD tended to be seen with MTX use (0.60 g/cm2, p = 0.07), CRP above 1 mg/dl (0.66 g/cm2, p = 0.09), and positive RF in female patients (0.68 g/cm2, p = 0.056). However, none of these findings reached statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS
Among a US population-based representative sample, FN-BMD was similar in RA and non-RA patients. Several characteristics of patients with RA may be associated with reduced BMD.


Agriculture is critical for human welfare, providing food, employment, income, and assets. In the past, agricultural research and development largely focused on improving production, productivity, and profitability of agricultural enterprises. Nutrition and other benefits of agriculture were not always optimized, while the negative impacts on health, well-being, and the environment were often ignored. This was especially problematic for livestock systems, with especially complex negative and positive impacts on human health and well-being. An important negative effect of agricultural intensification


BACKGROUND
First-line sunitinib is recommended in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), but it is frequently associated with relevant toxicities and subsequent dose reductions. Alternative schedules, such as 2-week-on treatment and 1-week-off (2/1 schedule), might improve tolerability. We evaluated the safety and outcomes of this schedule in a large multicenter analysis.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Retrospective, multicenter analysis of mRCC patients treated with first-line sunitinib on a 2/1 schedule. Data of 249 patients were reviewed: 208 cases who started sunitinib on the 4/2 schedule (full dosage: 188/208, 90.4%) and thereafter switched to the 2/1 schedule for toxicity (group 4/2 → 2/1) and 41 patients who started first-line sunitinib with the 2/1 schedule because of suboptimal clinical conditions (group 2/1). A total of 211 consecutive patients treated with the 4/2 schedule in another institution served as external controls. Safety was the primary end point. Treatment duration (TD), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were also analyzed.

RESULTS
In group 4/2 → 2/1, the overall incidence of grade ≥ 3 toxicities was significantly reduced (from 45.7% to 8.2%, P < 0.001) after the switch to 2/1 schedule. This advantage was maintained also in the 106/188 cases (56.4%) who maintained the full dosage. Fatigue, hypertension, hand-foot syndrome and thrombocytopenia were less frequent. The incidence of grade ≥ 3 adverse events in the negatively selected group 2/1 (only 73.2% starting at full dose) was 26.8%, similar to what observed in the external control group (29.4%). Median TD was 28.2 months in the 4/2 → 2/1 group (total time spent with both schedules), 7.8 months in the 2/1 group and 9.7 months in external controls. Median PFS was 30.2, 10.4 and 9.7 months, respectively. Median OS was not reached, 23.2 and 27.8 months, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
mRCC patients who moved to a modified 2/1 schedule of sunitinib experience an improved safety profile compared with that observed during the initial 4/2 schedule.


Although elephants are recognized as keystone species, the mechanisms of their impacts on biodiversity and community structure are rarely identified. In the Addo Elephant National Park (AENP), South Africa, elephant Loxodonta africana herbivory is apparently responsible for a significant reduction in plant richness, especially among the regionally rare and endemic small succulent shrubs and geophytes (Important Plants). We used faecal analysis to investigate the utilization of Important Plants in elephant diet in the AENP. Ninety plant species were identified in the diet. Only 14 of the 77 (c. 18%) Important Plants previously thought particularly vulnerable to elephant browsing occurred in the diet, while at least 6% of species for which there are data were avoided. This refutes the generally held belief that elephant herbivory is the major driver of decline among Important Plants, and emphasizes the likely contribution of other mechanisms (e.g. knock-on effects, trampling, zoochory, etc.) to this phenomenon. The accurate prediction of impacts caused by elephants in the AENP and elsewhere, therefore requires an understanding of these previously marginalized mechanisms. By demonstrating appropriate cause-and-effect relationships between elephants and ecosystem change, we will be able to move beyond assuming that all the observed changes are due to elephant herbivory.


The first part of the study is undertaken to investigate the need for a motorcycle safety helmet for children. From the field observations and interviews conducted, it was found that the current situation warrants the need for a motorcycle safety helmet for children to be developed. Motorcycle safety helmet, as an injury control device is used to curb the high fatality rate associated with head injuries among motorcycle users. In addition, a field study was conducted to investigate the design parameters of the
helmet. A head size of 570mm in circumference was selected based on the size that fits the maximum number of users and the availability of the test head form sizes. It was found that a lighter helmet is generally preferred from the comfort viewpoint. The second part of the study involves the design of the motorcycle safety helmet for children. A finite element model of the children motorcycle safety helmet for impact test was developed using Hypermesh, a pre-processor. LS-DYNA, a finite element code was used to simulate the impact response of the helmet. The model was validated using an indirect inference approach. The results clearly indicate that the model correlated well with the experimental results from literatures. A simple parametric study was carried out to investigate the effect of varying thicknesses of the Acrynonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) shell and the Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam. It was found
that the typical thicknesses of the shell and foam provide the best compromise between the shock absorbing performance and the design constraints. None of the eight impacts simulated in accordance to the MSI 1996 type test resulted in an acceleration exceeding the permissible level of 300g. From the simulations, the helmet impact deformation mechanisms were discussed. It is recommended that future research to be carried out to further improve the design of the motorcycle safety helmet and to study the possible ventilation systems. In addition, it is suggested that a more stringent form of verification to be undertaken to validate the FE model of the helmet.


The aim of this project is to design a new mechanism for a foot of a humanoid in order to use it as a toy with the possibility of using it also as a prosthesis or an orthopaedic robotic foot. This project has been done in collaboration with the research centre The Cognition & Interaction Lab (COIN) at the School of Humanities and Informatics of the University of Skovde. The mechanism should be able to have human-like movements. First of all, existing humanoid feet have been analysed in a market research in order to obtain an overview of existing mechanisms and how they work.Some interesting ideas have been developed taking into account the goals and the defined user requirements. Some concept evaluation methods have been used to choose the best idea taking into account the opinion of the research centre. This process leads to the final idea of creating a parallel actuator system using three pneumatic cylinders and it is designed in 3D using Pro/Engineer. To create the model, actuators have been chosen from the pneumatic manufacturer Parker. The 3D model was tested in Pro/E mechanism to verify that the cylinders are powerful enough to create the motion of walking.The conclusion is that most of the goals have been achieved. However, the cover of the foot has not been designed yet due to time constraints. For further work it would be interesting creating a plastic prototype too for testing the mechanism before creating the metallic prototype. Moreover it has to be mentioned that the opinion of the research centre has been of a substantial important for the project.


In Europe, in particular, the number of foreigners appointed to top management teams has increased significantly over the past decade. However, the question of why some firms elect to employ foreign nationals on their top management teams remains unclear. This study utilizes a multi-level methodology to test the degree to which employment of a foreigner on the top management team is driven by individual level human capital characteristics versus firm level strategic considerations. Results from empirical tests on a sample of Swiss publicly listed companies suggest that degree of international diversification is positively associated with the likelihood of having a foreign executive, whereas human capital characteristics do not explain the propensity to employ a foreigner on the top management team. Further analyses indicate that nationality diversity at the board level, as well as the international experience of the top management team, are possible predictors of the probability of having a foreigner on the top management team.


This research aims to find" Food Endurance Development Model Based on Banana with Revitalisation Local Wisdom Value Reinforcement" . This model serve the purpose of basis for formulate public policy and education efforts and advocation public in the field of food to push national food endurance. Approach research that used in this qualitative research with qualitative descriptive design. Subject research is bapeda, development, agriculture official, farmer, elite figure, farmer group at regency Lumajang, Malang, and Blitar. Technique sampling that used snowball sampling. Data collecting method that used documentation, indepth interview, observation participatory, and limited discussion. Research data that got to analyzed with qualitative analysis (content analysis, and domain analysis). Based on research result inferential: 1) found banana production profile unity, distribution, consumption, and local wisdom character at regency Lumajang, Malang, and Blitar, 2) local wisdom character can be made principal focus in the effort develop food endurance based on banana, and 3) several important components and strategic of food endurance development model based on banana: a) local wisdom (foodstuff use reinforcement based on local, woman character, society/religion figure character, food self-supporting village, environment friendly agriculture, agriculture multiculture, and planning based on society), b) local government character (wisdom development prima tani, pilot projecting, capitalization, assistance, and tool of productions-distributions-marketing-consumption), and c) and character BPTP, BBMP, DUDI (pilot development projecting, capitalization, assistance, and system reinforcement productions-distributions-marketing-consumption).