OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effects of oral nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) on C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, with a prespecified focus on the different NSAIDs.

METHODS
We performed a systematic search in Medline via PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBase via OVID, the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science, and other sources. Eligible trials were parallel-group, randomized, placebo-controlled trials of oral NSAID therapy in RA patients for which there were extractable CRP data. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated from the differences in means of CRP levels between groups (active treatment minus placebo) divided by the pooled SDs. For the meta-analysis, a random-effects model was used to estimate the overall change in CRP level, and stratified analysis was used to examine differences among NSAIDs.

RESULTS
We included 19 trials of 10 different NSAIDs. Overall, NSAIDs showed no effect on the CRP level (SMD 0.01 [95% CI -0.03, 0.06], P = 0.62). However, the prespecified stratified analysis indicated varying effects on the CRP level according to the different NSAIDs; lumiracoxib caused a statistically significant and consistent (I(2) = 0%) increase in the CRP level (SMD 0.13 [95% CI 0.01, 0.25], P = 0.037), whereas naproxen caused a statistically significant and consistent (I(2) = 0%) decrease in the CRP level (SMD -0.11 [95% CI -0.20, -0.02], P = 0.022).

CONCLUSION
Overall, NSAIDs have no effect on the CRP level. However, the nonselective NSAID naproxen was associated with a significant decrease in the CRP level, whereas the cyclooxygenase 2-selective NSAID lumiracoxib was associated with a significant increase in the CRP level. This finding is interesting considering the suspected influence of NSAIDs on cardiovascular complications.


Instructional Design development has not yet produced a dedicated comprehensive model concerned with instruction for specialized areas of education where attitude-based behavioral change in social settings is the primary goal. As such, health and lifestyle education is one specialized field which is generally approached by instructional designers using an eclectic selection of conventional education and communication models which may often be unsuitable for the task. The growing importance and complexity of this field has resulted in calls for better structure, organization and strategic thinking. Research suggests that an alternative intervention design paradigm is needed which will help direct needs assessment, suggest strategic design and measure effectiveness of the intervention effort. This thesis describes a theoretically based paradigm and then demonstrates its efficacy through an applied intervention study on alcohol consumption behaviour directed at college students. A large sample of students (N = 506) was surveyed using a multi-dimensional questionnaire designed to provide comparative information for diagnosis, intervention design and evaluation of intervention effort. A smaller group (N = 51) of students was evaluated before, during and after the intervention effort in order to track profile changes. Intervention comprised the classroom presentation of a commercially available educational video-taped lecture on the alcohol industry, advertising effort and health related information and a feedback session where student survey responses were presented in order to foster discussion about peer behaviour and attitudes. Nearly half of the heavy drinkers treated to the intervention effort reduced the amounts of alcohol consumed and two-thirds reduced the number of times they went to high risk social environments where alcohol consumption was likely to occur. Traditional mediated interventions have rarely demonstrated such strong impact and more often focus on more limited success measurements of design styles, knowledge learned and behaviour intention toward healthier behaviour. Overall, results support the belief that the paradigm can guide health and lifestyle education intervention campaigns concerned with alcohol, smoking and other substance abuse cessation, sexually transmitted diseases and eating disorders.


Objective: To examine the effects of Knee Chest upper cervical adjustments on a single patient already being treated with Hydrochlorothiazide for hypertension and to review the literature on hypertension and chiropractic. Clinical Features: The patient was a 25-year-old woman with medically diagnosed hypertension. She also had symptoms of migraine headaches occurring two times per week. A thorough history and examination were performed. Her blood pressure was 134/98 mmHg at initial examination. Diagnosis of an upper cervical subluxation was made and cervical radiographs supported upper cervical misalignments. Paraspinal thermography, supine leg length assessment, postural assessment, and blood pressure were monitored every visit. Intervention and Outcome: The patient received Knee Chest upper cervical care for twelve weeks. By the end of care the patient experienced a significant decrease in blood pressure to 114/80 mmHg. She also experienced a significant decrease in both frequency and severity of migraine headache symptoms. Conclusions: Definite conclusions cannot be drawn from a single case study, but this case does show a decrease in overall blood pressure in a patient diagnosed with, and pharmaceutically managed for, hypertension. This study warrants larger studies with control groups to further understand the benefits of upper cervical specific chiropractic care for the reduction of vertebral subluxation to those suffering from hypertension.


Background Antipsychotic drugs are the most effective treatment for the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia, yet their mechanism of action remains largely unknown. Objectives Earlier studies have shown gene expression changes in rodent brains after treatment with antipsychotic drugs. We aimed to further characterize these changes using whole-genome transcript profiling to explore coregulation of genes after multiple antipsychotic drug treatment studies. Methods This study involved transcript profile analysis after 7-day treatment of inbred C57BL/6 mice with conventional (haloperidol) or atypical (clozapine or olanzapine) antipsychotic drugs. Microarray analysis was undertaken using whole-brain mRNA on Affymetrix 430v2 arrays, with quantitative reverse transcriptase-PCR used to confirm gene expression changes. Western blotting was also used to explore translation of gene dysregulation to protein changes and to explore anatomical specificity of such changes. Main results Thirteen genes showed verified regulation by multiple antipsychotic drugs – three genes significantly upregulated and 10 genes significantly downregulated by treatment. These genes encode proteins that function in various biological processes including neurogenesis, cell adhesion, and four genes are involved in voltage-gated ion channels: neural precursor cell developmentally downregulated gene 4 (Nedd4), Kv channel interacting protein 3 (KChip3), potassium voltage-gated channel, shaker-related subfamily, &agr;1 (Kcna1) encoding Kv1.1 protein and &bgr;1 (Kcnab1) encoding Kv&bgr;1 protein. The translation of these gene expression changes to protein dysregulation for Kv1.1, KCHIP3, and NEDD4 was confirmed by western blot, with regional protein analyses undertaken for Kv1.1 and KCHIP3. Conclusion These results suggest that transcriptional regulation of ion channels, crucial for neurotransmission, may play a role in mediating antipsychotic drug effects.


This paper questions the contribution of social innovation to the capacity of disadvantaged communities to resist the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and its social repercussions. It does so on the basis of a study on the dynamics of urban segregation and social innovation in the context of the crisis in Catalonia (Spain). The study adopts a multi-method approach that combines statistical analysis of urban segregation dynamics in the 2001-2012 period; the mapping of social innovation practices across the region; and a cross-case comparison of six case studies. The paper highlights the structural and metropolitan character of urban segregation in the region, which has been significantly aggravated both by the crisis and the residential transformation that occurred during the years of the housing bubble. It also shows that social innovation practices are distributed very unevenly in spatial terms, being concentrated in middle-income areas with a tradition of social mobilisation. In summary, the paper states the limits of social innovation as a driver for socio-spatial cohesion in cities and stresses the need for stronger (redistributive) public policies.


Beach nourishment projects are common methods for coastal states to protect beaches and property from the natural erosive process. However, while the beneficiaries of beach nourishment tend to be local property owners and recreators, projects are typically funded at the state level. Based on the benefit principle, as local residents receive more of the erosion protection benefits of the nourishment projects, we estimate a value capture tax, designed to levy the financing burden in a manner that approximates the distribution of benefits. The benefits of nourishment projects to coastal property owners are estimated using the results from a spatial-lag hedonic model that controls for viewshed effects.


Aldhelm, born c.640 in Wessex, and becoming abbot of Malmesbury and later bishop of Sherborne, was the first English man of letters; up to 1100, his prose writings were the most widely read of any Latin literature produced in Anglo-Saxon England. His surviving prose works include a long treatise "De Virginitate", and a number of letters; these in particular are an important source of knowledge concerning Anglo-Saxon England. The treatise, a lengthy exhortation on virtue addressed to nuns at Barking Abbey, is a fascinating series of exempla drawn from the prodigious range of Aldhelm's knowledge of patristic literature, and tailored to the expectations of a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon female audience. Because of the extreme difficulty of his Latin, however, Aldhelm's prose works have rarely been read, and have never been adequately appreciated - which this translation seeks to remedy. It is accompanied with an introduction outlining Aldhelm's central importance to Anglo-Saxon literary culture; a critical biography which throws new light on what has previously been assumed about him; and an essay establishing an accurate canon and chronology of his writings.


The Draugen Field is an elongate, low relief, anticline containing mainly multi-Darcy sandstones. Oil initially in-place (STOOIP) is 182 x 10 6 Sm 3 . The 1987 Plan for Development and Operation (PDO) assumed a central cluster of 6 deviated production wells and 3 subsea water injectors at each end of the field. In addition two subsea wells would provide early production. Unsteady state relative permeability data indicate a residual oil saturation of 35%. In the full field simulation model this was increased to 40% to account for small-scale heterogeneity. The model yielded a recovery of some 67 x 10 6 Sm 3 . Modern steady state and centrifuge techniques have since demonstrated a long tail of very low oil relative permeability before reaching a residual oil saturation of some 15%. Fine grid simulations translated this into a gravity segregation process behind the displacement front. Other fine grid models reveal that horizontal wells will yield a slower build up of water cut than vertical wells. The increased productivity of the horizontal wells reduced the required number of platform producers from 6 to 5. Pseudo-relative permeabilities were developed to represent fine grid model performance in a new sophisticated full field model. This model predicted an ultimate recovery of 94 x 10 6 Sm 3 (40% increase). The additional predicted recovery is attributed to a reduction of the effective residual saturation and delayed water production associated with horizontal wells. In October 1993 Draugen started production from one horizontal subsea well, which has since demonstrated a better than expected coning performance. Production from platform wells was initiated in June 1994 with initial well rates up to 8000 Sm 3 per day, confirming the expected high productivity of horizontal wells. Optimization and tuning of facilities has since allowed the peak production rate for the field to be increased from the planned 17 500 Sm 3 per day to a present actual level of 24 600 Sm 3 per day. Further de-bottlenecking is ongoing with the aim of increasing process capacity.


Eight years of independence have brought radical changes into nearly all spheres of social life. The rate of repeated crimes has risen. The number of prisoners has increased. The more crowded prisons is the only "novelty" gained in the years of independence. The article deals with the main directions of recidivism prevention in Lithuania. The first of them is an improvement of punitive politics and punishment execution politics. This reform involves National Crime Prevention programme system. It is closely connected with recidivism prevention. The second precondition of recidivism prevention must be the reformation of prisons according to the European standards. The Prison's purpose is not only to control and punish for offences, but also to help convicted people in preparing to pass the other side of prison gates, that after long years in prison they could integrate into society , adapt to new changes in life. Also the important precondition of recidivism prevention must be an ex – prisoners adaptation in society and further their crime prevention. There is not system of integrating ex – prisoners into society in Lithuania. If these three main directions work together as a united system, recidivism prevention will be more effective.


ZL is a C++-compatible language in which high-level constructs, such as classes, are defined using macros over a C-like core language. This approach is similar in spirit to Scheme and makes many parts of the language easily customizable. For example, since the class construct can be defined using macros, a programmer can have complete control over the memory layout of objects. Using this capability, a programmer can mitigate certain problems in software evolution such as fragile ABIs (Application Binary Interfaces) due to software changes and incompatible ABIs due to compiler changes.
ZL's parser and macro expander is similar to that of Scheme. Unlike Scheme, however, ZL must deal with C's richer syntax. Specifically, support for context-sensitive parsing and multiple syntactic categories (expressions, statements, types, etc.) leads to novel strategies for parsing and macro expansion.
In this dissertation we describe ZL's approach to parsing and macros. We demonstrate how to use ZL to avoid problems with ABI instability through techniques such as fixing the size of class instances and controlling the layout of virtual method dispatch tables. We also demonstrate how to avoid problems with ABI incompatibility by implementing another compiler's ABI.
Future work includes a more complete implementation of C++ and elevating the approach so that it is driven by a declarative ABI specification language.


The economics of knowledge is a rapidly emerging subdiscipline of economics that has never before been given the comprehensive and cohesive treatment found in this book. Dominique Foray analyzes the deep conceptual and structural transformation of our economic activities that has led to a gradual shift to knowledge-intensive activities. This transformation is the result of the collision of a longstanding trend -- the expansion of knowledge-based investments and activities -- with a technological revolution that radically altered the production and transmission of knowledge and information. The book focuses on the dual nature of the economics of knowledge: its emergence as a discipline (which Foray calls "the economics of knowledge") and the historical development of a particular period in the growth and organization of economic activities ("the knowledge-based economy").The book, which alternates between analysis of the economic transformation and examination of the tools and concepts of the discipline, begins by discussing "knowledge" as an economic good and the historical development of the knowledge-based economies. It then develops a conceptual framework for considering the issues raised. Topics considered in the remaining chapters include forms of knowledge production, codification and infusion, incentives and institutions for the efficient production of knowledge (including discussions of private markets and "open" sources), and knowledge management as a new organizational capability. Finally, the book addresses policy concerns suggested by the uneven development of knowledge across different sectors and by the need to find ways of reclaiming the public dimension of knowledge from an essentially privatized knowledge revolution.


Recombinant human interferon-alpha 2C and recombinant human interferon-gamma (5-1000 U/ml) inhibit the proliferation of normal human bone-derived cells and a human osteosarcoma cell line. In the bone-derived cells the inhibitory effect of interferon-gamma was significantly greater than that of interferon-alpha, whereas in the osteosarcoma cell line the inhibitory effects of both interferons were quantitatively similar. Interferon-alpha did not affect the alkaline phosphatase activity of either type of cells. In contrast, interferon-gamma affected the activity of the enzyme in both cell types: in the bone-derived cells the effect of interferon-gamma was stimulatory whereas in the osteosarcoma cells the effect was inhibitory. In both cell types interferon-gamma selectively inhibited the incorporation of radiolabelled proline into type I collagen. In the osteosarcoma cells, the effects of both interferons on collagen synthesis were quantitatively similar. In the bone-derived cells, however, interferon-alpha decreased proline incorporation into collagen and non-collagen proteins to a similar extent and thus did not affect collagen synthesis when expressed as a percentage of total protein synthesis. Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of the radiolabelled proteins of the cell layer synthesised by both cell types in the presence of either interferon demonstrated that this treatment enhanced or induced the synthesis of a total of 21 individual proteins (19 in bone cells, 14 in osteosarcoma), ranging in apparent molecular mass over 14-87 kDa. The set of proteins induced was different in all four combinations of cells and interferon. A tentative identification of several of the proteins was possible based upon estimation of molecular mass, preferential induction by interferon-alpha or interferon-gamma and differential induction in normal and transformed bone-derived cells. The results of this study demonstrate that interferons have complex effects upon the proliferative and biosynthetic activities of human bone-derived cells and demonstrate significant differences between the responses of normal cells and transformed bone-derived cell line. Further investigations will be required in order to determine whether or not these differences are unique to the osteosarcoma cell line or are a characteristic of the effects of interferons on bone-derived cells in general.


Abstract.
 Successfully managing wetlands requires monitoring changes in plant community composition. We used remote sensing techniques to document the replacement of desirable native wetland vegetation with invasive species in response to catastrophic flood disturbance in the 1980s and to evaluate wetland vegetation management between 1998 and 2010. We conducted our study at the Bear River Migrator Bird Refuge wetlands, which are located on the northeastern arm of the Great Salt Lake in northern Utah. We acquired high-resolution airborne multi spectral imagery of the refuge in 1992 and 2010 to quantify changes in vegetation cover over time. We produced classified vegetation maps for the years 1992 and 2010 to calculate vegetation and water cover in management units. Classification results indicate that invasive vegetation is fast replacing native species in areas adjacent to the water deliver canals. We also compared vegetation changes to historical data provided by refuge managers, and these data contained information about the management activities undertaken in the wetland units over the study period. We found that the managers' efforts to control the expansion of invasive species—such as keeping the units full of water throughout the year, adjusting water depth to manage salinity levels and aquatic vegetation, and undertaking burning or mechanical disturbance when needed—were successful in most of the units, although some units were still invaded by undesirable plants. Here we demonstrate how wetland managers can use remote sensing and historical data of vegetation cover to understand which native plant species are most susceptible to replacement by invasive species, how vegetation responds to management actions, and ultimately how managers can promote diverse plant communities with high wildlife value.


What is psychological distance? Why do events sometimes seem "close" yet other times seem "ages away?" We propose a tripartite model of the foundations of psychological distance in which: (a) people use spatial distance as a metaphor for psychological distance; (b) the ecology of subjective experiences that coincide with changes in objective distance define, and hence, influence psychological distance; (c) psychological distance is shaped in the service of people's ultimate goals, or teleological considerations, of successfully navigating through time. This model implies that the subjective experiences that are typically associated with reductions in objective temporal distance should reduce temporal psychological distance–the subjective sense of how close or far away events are. We review evidence indicating that emotional arousal, attention, fluency, and motivational considerations all reduce psychological distance. This model also implies a temporal asymmetry in which people prioritize thinking about the future, which approaches in time, over thinking about the past, which recedes in time. Consequently, the future is psychologically closer than the past, people attend more to the future than to the past, and people feel more emotionally aroused about the future than about the past. These findings help advance understanding of psychological distance as a distinct psychological construct.


In order for payments to qualify as alimony, certain requirements must be met. The payments must be in cash, and pursuant to a divorce, separation or written agreement between the spouses; they must terminate at the death of the recipient; and they must not be designated as something other than alimony in the agreement. In addition, the parties must be living apart when the payments are made. The Tax Court recently issued a ruling that specifically addressed the written-separation-agreement portion of the definition. Ms. Dato married Mr. Nodurft in 1993. Unfortunately, it was not a match made in heaven, as they divorced several years later. Prior to the divorce, however, they had entered into a separation agreement that provided, in part, * They would live separately and apart "for the rest of their natural lives." * Mr. Nodurft would pay Ms. Dato-Nodurft $1,505 per month in spousal support until their divorce became final. * If Mr. Nodurft failed to make these payments in a timely fashion and his wife had to hire an attorney to enforce the agreement, he agreed to pay the attorney fees. * They would file joint returns for any year in which they were still married and eligible to do so under the tax law if it was financially advantageous to do so. The agreement provided for the division of tax obligations and refunds if and when joint returns were filed. The case involved the tax year 2000, during which Ms. Dato-Nodurft filed a separate return claiming single tax status and failed to include in her income $18,608 of payments received under the agreement. The IRS assessed the additional amounts due on the return. Result. For the IRS. Ms. Dato-Nodurft contended that because she and Mr. Nodurft were not legally separated during tax year 2000, the payments were not alimony. Further, she contended the separation agreement was not legally binding and therefore the payments made under it were not alimony. The Tax Court disagreed with both arguments. Of Ms. Dato-Nodurft's first argument, the court said, simply, "We do not agree." What is interesting is that authoritative support for her position exists even though she didn't provide it. Regulations section 1.71-1(b)(2)(i), which defines the written separation agreement, says in part "if the wife is divorced or legally separated subsequent to the written separation agreement, payments made under such agreement continue to fall within the provisions of section 71(a)(2)" In Bogard, 59 TC 97, payments made by a husband to a wife were determined by the Tax Court to be alimony. …


Abstract An inclusion in Miocene Dominican amber is described as Cheilolejeunea lamyi, sp. nov. The fossil resembles the extant Cheilolejeunea rigidula but differs in the partly subacute leaf lobes, often apiculate underleaf lobes, and the slightly more acute lobes of the bracteole. The two other Cheilolejeunea species in Dominican amber, Cheilolejeunea antiqua and C. suzannensis, have entire rather than bifid underleaves.


The thermodynamical analysis presented here follows from the work of Coussy et al., who proposed a thermodynamically consistent model for unsaturated soils that is based on a Bishop‐like effective stress to describe the stress–strain relationship while the water saturation (or the capillary pressure) is involved in a saturation‐induced hardening in addition to the mechanical hardening. We extended this model to include the effect of interfaces in the mechanical behavior and we showed that the Bishop‐like stresses involved in the elastic and plastic responses respectively can take different expressions. The Modified Cam–Clay model used for saturated soils is extended to unsaturated soils through the use of these Bishop‐like stresses. This model is compared to some experimental results reported from the literature.


In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt from this article:

For a century, L.M. Montgomery's novel Anne of Green Gables has dominated Canadian children's literature. In Canada, Anne is instantly recognizable in any medium; two red braids and a straw hat are usually enough to trigger the identification. As a national figure, she has been reincarnated in many different forms. But beyond the red hair, Anne is a character whose fictional life is firmly rooted in a particular space and time. Nineteenth-century Avonlea is the ground to Anne's figure, and she is most clearly seen in this specific context. In this article, I will undertake three related activities. Firstly, I will explore some versions of Anne of Green Gables , drawing on the original novel and a number of contemporary reworkings, investigating the Anne of Green Gables universe in terms of different artistic renderings of time and space (using Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope), and interrogating what happens to that universe as it is commercially expanded and exploited. Secondly, I will draw on a new novel, Christopher Paul Curtis's Elijah of Buxton , a book entirely unconnected to the oeuvre of L.M. Montgomery yet profoundly related to important questions of national story, myth, and core identity. I will re-read Anne of Green Gables in the light of this challenging Canadian narrative, set in the same period, though in a very different social (and narrative) community. Thirdly (and simultaneously), I will introduce an element often missing in critical essays: the personal reader.


This paper analyses the interactions between journalists and the public in Brazilian and French online newsrooms. The study discusses the new modalities of audience participation in journalism. Thus, it aims to understand the possible changes in this relation. The role of national contexts on structuring the practices of journalism and the public is also considered. This comparative and qualitative research is focused on in-depth interviews with 10 journalists from each country and used a common guide. The results reveal resemblances on how journalists enunciate their interactions with public from both countries: their representations are stereotyped and audiences are perceived through a quantitative bias. These findings reinforce other studies that minimize the ability of online newsrooms to integrate the public. From the viewpoint of comparative studies, our hypothesis of a transnational identity of online journalists is strengthened. This hypothesis is mainly based on the circulation of structured discourses related to this practice.


Paul's influence on Christian thought has been powerful and formative. The deuteropauline epistles, attributed to but not written by Paul, were actually authored by early Christians in an attempt to apply Pauline insights to particular challenges not addressed specifically by Paul. According to Lewis Donelson, this rearticulation and reinterpretation of Pauline wisdom served these early communities by linking them more closely to their apostolic roots. It also provided them with a living gospel that had continuing relevance for their particular time and place. Books in the Westminster Bible Companion series assist laity in their study of the Bible as a guide to Christian faith and practice. Each volume explains the biblical book in its original historical context and explores its significance for faithful living today. These books are ideal for individual study and for Bible study classes and groups.


This article provides a tutorial overview of current approaches for monitoring the quality perceived by users of IP-based audiovisual media services. The article addresses both mobile and fixed network services such as mobile TV or Internet Protocol TV (IPTV). It reviews the different quality models that exploit packet- header-, bit stream-, or signal-information for providing audio, video, and audiovisual quality estimates, respectively. It describes how these models can be applied for real-life monitoring, and how they can be adapted to reflect the information available at the given measurement point. An outlook gives insight into emerging trends for near- and mid-term future requirements and solutions.


An innovation is the process of making improvements by introducing new idea in the form of product or service. In recent years, successful societies are shifting their focus towards the realization and acceptance of these new ideas. Plug and Play business software platform is the first step to transform these ideas into reality. The study presented in this thesis introduced that a new business idea contains specific business role and consists of a set of capabilities or needs and any one of them. Plug and play business software platform mainly consists of three major business processes that are required to run this platform those are; business match making process, negotiating process and collaboration process. This study analyzes the process of business match making in detail and introduce an ontology based business match making process which will find new businesses in a hierarchical fashion based on their specific business roles. Match making ontology consists of three processes i.e. information collection process which is used to collect and register information, extraction process which is an optional process to extract set of capabilities and needs if actor/innovator is unable to define its business capabilities and needs in information collection process and finally finding and ranking process which will find a set of potential collaborators and then will rank that set based on ranking parameters collected in information collection process from actor/innovator. This study also presents a technological model which will provide foundation to develop plug and play business software platform. This model identifies business processes of the platform and presents each business process as a separate loosely coupled software module. This model divides the platform into two layers; the upper layer is called PnP layer and consists of PnP Client Service, PnP Community Service, Finding and Ranking Service, Negotiating Service and Collaboration Service; lower layer is called kernel layer and consists of Security management Service, Operational management Services and Communication Service. Finally partially implemented prototype, test data and results will be used to visualize the presented concept.


ABSTRACT Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are increasingly used to evaluate educational interventions in the UK. However, RCTs remain controversial for some elements of the research community. This paper argues that the widespread use of the term 'gold standard' to describe RCTs is problematic, as it implies that other research methods are inferior. The usefulness of RCTs can be greatly enhanced when used in conjunction with implementation-specific measures (e.g. observation tools, attitude/engagement surveys and interviews). The proposal is advanced through case studies of two evaluations. One relates to the development of science subject leader skills and expertise at primary school level and the other to co-operative learning of primary maths. Both evaluations randomised schools to the intervention or the business-as-usual control, and compared impact using subject knowledge tests. Integral to each study was a process evaluation which looked at evidence from classroom practice along with feedback from the teachers and pupils themselves. We contend that this enabled much more holistic and richly interpretative pieces of research. The paper concludes that privilege for particular paradigms should be set aside when designing effective evaluations of educational interventions, and that it is insufficient to ask 'what works?' without also asking 'why?', 'where?' and 'how?'.


Vasyl Schevchuk, Yuriy Satalkin, Georgiy Bilyavsky, Vasyl Navrotsky, and Oleksandr Mazurkevich. Preserving the Dnipro River: Harmony, History and Rehabilitation. Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press and the International Development Research Centre, 2005. 1 16 pp. Maps. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. $25, paper.In this compact yet ambitious volume, the authors - who include a former Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine (Schevchuk) - propose a multi-vectored, interdisciplinary approach to understanding and addressing the ecological devastation of sites such as the Dnipro River, an important waterway that courses through Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. In this very readable text, the authors variously view the Dnipro and its problems through the lenses of philosophy, ethnohistory, archaeology, ecology, spirituality, and ethics. Such an approach makes the book especially suitable for readers interested in theoretical, philosophical, and spiritual bases of humans' interactions with the environment.Schevchuk et al. take as their starting point a critique of the much-touted (and, they argue, failed) strategy of sustainable development. Sustainable development, they assert, ignores the "indispensable harmony between the development of humankind and environment" (p. 2), a harmony the authors privilege as crucial for environmental recovery. Drawing on the works of ancient Greek philosophers, several Russian and Ukrainian intellectuals - Moiseyev, Vernadsky, Gumilyov, Kysel'ov and Kanak, Danilov-Danilyan and Losev, Marchuk, and Rerikh - and even Albert Gore, Jr., the authors develop a theory of "noospherogenesis." Noospherogenesis is defined as "harmonious development," or "harmony between nature's strategy and humankind's strategy" via "the unity of ecological and spiritual regeneration" (p. 7). Arguments for noospherogenesis and "environmental enlightenment" are bolstered by outlining the history of the "Great Slavic Dnipro River" (in Chapter 3, "Thousands of Years of Podniprovya") and the ecological insults to which the river has been subjected (Chapter 2, "Sombre Thoughts on a Journey Down the Dnipro"), as well as exploring various philosophical approaches to the "harmony of human vital forces" (Chapter 3).In their privileging of spirituality as the basis of a "new system of values" vis-a-vis the environment (p. 87), the authors' stance is explicitly anti-communist, anti-capitalist, antimaterialist, and anti-technology. Their approach, which is based on a rather idealistic vision of the Slavic (and especially Ukrainian) past, is highly philosophical and quite abstract. We must question the viability of environmental programs based on ideals such as ecospirituality, especially in post-socialist, previously atheistic (officially, at least) states such as Ukraine. Unfortunately, the practical applications of the authors' theoretical contributions are not adequately discussed. For example, Schevchuk and colleagues do not propose strategies for generating this new eco-spiritual consciousness of noospherogenesis through means such as elementary school curricula, media campaigns, community organizations, and so on. …


Effective defect detection is still a hot issue when it comes to software
quality assurance. Static source code analysis plays thereby an important role,
since it offers the possibility for automated defect detection in early stages
of the development. As detecting defects can be seen as a classification
problem, machine learning is recently investigated to be used for this purpose.
This study presents a new model for automated defect detection by means of
machine learn- ers based on static Java code features. The model comprises the
extraction of necessary features as well as the application of suitable
classifiers to them. It is realized by a prototype for the feature extraction
and a study on the prototype's output in order to identify the most suitable
classifiers. Finally, the overall approach is evaluated in a using an open
source project. The suitability study and the evaluation show, that several
classifiers are suitable for the model and that the Rotation Forest, Multilayer
Perceptron and the JRip classifier make the approach most effective. They
detect defects with an accuracy higher than 96%. Although the approach
comprises only a prototype, it shows the potential to become an effective
alternative to nowa- days defect detection methods.


Bile leakage is a very dangerous condition after laparoscopic cholecystectomy and may lead to fatal complications and serious care should be taken to diagnose the cause as early as possible because it may be sign of bile duct injury which is a major concern to the surgeons as if it is not diagnosed early, it will lead to dangerous complications such as biliary peritonitis, hepatic failure and even death. Early diagnosis is important to decrease morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to determine the incidence of bile leakage, its types of management and the outcome in patients with gall stone who are submitted to laparoscopic cholecystectomy. This prospective study was done in Basrah Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital in a two-year period from October 2013 to October 2015 on 560 patients, they were 378 females and 182 males. All of them have symptomatic gall stones and underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy. All converted cases to open cholecystectomy were excluded. From the total number of 560 patients, nine patients developed bile leak in early post-operative period, 6 of them have drains and the other three have no drain and they were presented with signs and symptoms of intra-abdominal collection. The causes of leak were: common bile duct (CBD) injury in 2 cases, accessory duct in 3 patients, leak from the gall bladder bed in 3 cases and one case iatrogenic from intra-hepatic drain. All the patients were treated conservatively except the two patients with CBD injury who were treated; one with the aid endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) and the other by re-exploration. In conclusion, bile leak is a serious complication after laparoscopic cholecystectomy, although it is not common but it is important to identify the site of leak and should be treated urgently especially by drainage to avoid more severe results which may lead to increased morbidity and mortality


Human activity recognition is one of the key competences for human adaptive technologies. The idea of such technologies is to adapt their services to human users, so being able to recognise what human users are doing is an important step to adapt services suitably. One of the most promising approaches for human activity recognition is the knowledge-driven approach, which has already shown very interesting features and advantages. Knowledge-driven approaches allow using expert domain knowledge to describe activities and environments, providing efficient recognition systems. However, there are also some drawbacks, such as the usage of generic and static activity models, i.e. activities are defined by their generic features - they do not include personal specificities - and once activities have been defined, they do not evolve according to what users do. This dissertation presents an approach to using data-driven techniques to evolve knowledge-based activity models with a user?s behavioural data. The approach includes a novel clustering process where initial incomplete models developed through knowledge engineering are used to detect action clusters which describe activities and aggregate new actions. Based on those action clusters, a learning process is then designed to learn and model varying ways of performing activities in order to acquire complete and specialised activity models. The approach has been tested with real users? inputs, noisy sensors and demanding activity sequences. Results have shown that the 100% of complete and specialised activity models are properly learnt at the expense of learning some false positive models.


Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories unpacks the contentious and contradictory debates on sustainable design, through a collection of critical essays by key theorists, and 'experts', with opposing views. The result is an rich anthology, which reinvigorates the culture of critique that, in previous years, has empowered design with the qualities of social, environmental and economic revolution. Collectively, these impacting texts argue that designers have a new purpose, and a visionary cause to champion: sustainability is an unprecedented opportunity for design to reinvent itself. The research, development and writing of this book was supported by industrial sponsorship (£54,950) and represents a significant collaboration that moves beyond the established disconnect that frequently divides industrial and academic discourses. In addition to commentary and narrative running throughout the book by Chapman (and co-editor, Gant), the book features chapters by leading theorists including Ezio Manzini (Professor of Design at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy), Alastair Fuad-Luke (sustainable design facilitator, lecturer and writer), John Wood (Professor of Design, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK), Stuart Walker (Professor and co-ordinator of Imagination@Lancaster, UK), Kate Fletcher (freelance eco design consultant and leading specialist in sustainable fashion and textiles) and a Foreword by John Thackara (director, Doors of Perception). Citations and acclaim include CNN International, Blueprint and Treehugger.


Summary

Accountability and transparency initiatives have taken democratisation, governance, aid and development circles by storm since the turn of the century. Many actors involved with them – as donors, funders, programme managers, implementers and researchers – are now keen to know more about what these initiatives are achieving.

This paper arises from a review of the impact and effectiveness of transparency and accountability initiatives which gathered and analysed existing evidence, discussed how it could be improved, and evaluated how impact and effectiveness could be enhanced. This paper takes the discussion further, by delving into what lies behind the methodological and evaluative debates currently surrounding governance and accountability work. It illustrates how choices about methods are made in the context of impact assessment designs driven by different objectives and different ideological and epistemological underpinnings. We argue that these differences are articulated as methodological debates, obscuring vital issues underlying accountability work, which are about power and politics, not methodological technicalities.

In line with this argument, there is a need to re-think what impact means in relation to accountability initiatives, and to governance and social change efforts more broadly. This represents a serious challenge to the prevailing impact paradigm, posed by the realities of unaccountable governance, unproven accountability programming and uncertain evidence of impact. A learning approach to evaluation and final impact assessment would give power and politics a central place in monitoring and evaluation systems, continually test and revise assumptions about theories of change and ensure the engagement of marginalised people in assessment processes. Such an approach is essential if donors and policy makers are to develop a reliable evidence base to demonstrate that transparency and accountability work is of real value to poor and vulnerable people.


The term of API Economy is becoming increasingly used to describe the change of vision in how APIs can add value to the organizations. Furthermore, a greater automation of RESTful APIs management can suppose a competitive advantage for the company. New proposals are emerging in order to automatize some API governance tasks and increase the ease of use (e.g. generation of code and documentation). Despite that, the non-functional aspects are often addressed in a highly specific manner or even there not exists any solution for an automatic governance. Nevertheless, these properties are already defined in natural language at the Service Level Agreement (SLA) that both customer and provided have established. In this paper, we carry out a study on the *aaS industry and analyze the current both API modeling and SLA modeling proposals in order to identify the open challenges for an automatic RESTful API governance.


In the second edition of this popular book, the authors added two chapters and converted all programming exercises to Python 3. Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python is written in the same engaging not-for-dummies style as the Litvins' earlier books, but it is aimed at younger students. It offers a unique blend of mathematics and programming, designed to give students in introductory computer science courses an appreciation for the rigorous mathematics relevant to computing, as well as practical skills for writing programs. The vision behind this book is that math and computer science should help each other. A programmer needs to be comfortable with abstractions, and that is precisely what math teaches. Computer science reciprocates by providing models and hands-on exercises that help clarify and illustrate more abstract math. Most importantly, both teach "precision thinking" an important means of solving problems that call for exact solutions. Python was chosen because it is a popular commercial programming language that is well-supported, easy to get started with, and free. Python has many powerful features intended for software professionals, but it also has a convenient subset accessible to beginners. Some students may choose to study AP Computer Science in high school, or major in CS in college. Others may decide to go into math, science, law, art, social sciences, or humanities. Regardless of your goals, Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python will help you gain a better understanding of the computerized world around you.


Ephrins and ephrin receptors are transmembrane proteins that are expressed on neighboring cells. Upon interaction, they stimulate signaling cascades in both the ephrin-expressing and the receptor-expressing cell. The ephrin-B family has a conserved short cytoplasmic domain with several tyrosine residues; however, it lacks any catalytic domain. Cowan and Henkemeyer used a modified yeast two-hybrid screen to identify Grb4 as a protein that interacted with the tyrosine-phosphorylated ephrin-B1 cytoplasmic domain. Grb4 has one SH2 domain (which recognizes phosphotyrosines) and three SH3 domains (which recognize proline-rich regions in target proteins). The interaction between Grb4 and ephrin-B1 was confirmed with glutathione S-transferase pull-down experiments and coimmunoprecipitation experiments and was specific for Grb4 and did not occur with the related protein Nck. Analysis of cells transfected to express ephrin-B1 showed that ephrin-B1 and Grb4 colocalized and that activation of ephrin-B1 led to the loss of stress fibers, the redistribution of paxillin, and an increase in the phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase on a specific tyrosine. Finally, screens to identify binding partners for the SH3 domain of Grb4 identified four candidates: Cbl-associated protein CAP (known to have a role in focal adhesions), axin, Abl-interacting protein-1, dynamin, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K, and the kinase Pak1. Many of these putative partners have roles in regulating the actin cytoskeleton. Confirmation of the relevance of the CAP interaction came from experiments showing that activated ephrin-B1 coimmunoprecipitated with CAP and that CAP redistributed to sites of active ephrin-B1 signaling in transfected cells and in native cells. The cellular and biochemical effects of activated ephrin-B1 were inhibited by coexpression of the SH2 domain of Grb4, confirming a role for Grb4 as an adaptor from the phosphorylated ephrin-B1 cytosolic domain to the signaling pathways that control the cytoskeleton. C. A. Cowan, M. Henkemeyer, The SH2/SH3 adaptor Grb4 transduces B-ephrin signals. Nature 413, 174-179 (2001). [Online Journal]


ABSTRACT This study examines consumers' value co-creation via several shopping channels including a traditional out-of-home shopping channel and "smart" channels where consumers use a computer, a mobile phone, or social media. It focuses on the effect that value co-creation has on consumers' shopping behavior as well as on the perceived contribution of a shopping channel to their well-being, with a focus on individuals who perceive themselves as being socially excluded, particularly by mobility disability. The project was carried out in the United States using an online survey (n = 1,220). Social exclusion has a positive statistically significant effect on respondents' self-connection with all channels; for many socially excluded respondents the shopping channel has an important role in their lives. Self-connection with the channel has a positive effect on value co-creation and there is a positive relationship between value co-creation and the perceived contribution of the channel on well-being. When consumers help other individuals in their decision making they not only create value for the retailer and for other customers but also contribute positively to their own well-being. Importantly, for smart shopping channels where consumers use a computer or a mobile phone, the effects of value co-creation on the perceived contribution of these channels to consumer well-being are stronger for shoppers with a mobility disability than for those without such a disability.


The study which uses the technology communication of Global System for Mobile (GSM) for fabricated weather monitoring system evaluated the reliability, accuracy and efficiency of the system through performance measure of the experimental collected parameters for temperature and humidity and statistically analyzed the data using regression technique with the aid of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), version 17.0. The experimental data were collected for 126 times which comprises of morning, afternoon and evening period sub-divided to 42 observations respectively. The findings revealed that although the formulated models displayed a high level of significant effect but it accuracy in prediction is low for both parameters except for morning and afternoon period where only temperature is accurately validated in predicting the experimental data based on the considered location of the fabricated weather monitoring system. The study therefore concludes that the mechanism accuracy of the fabricated weather monitoring system can be improved upon.


ABSTRACT Stroke is an important clinical problem because of its large contribution to mortality. The main causal and treatable risk factors for stroke include hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and smoking. In addition to these risk factors, recent studies have shown the importance of genetic factors and interactions between multiple genes and environmental factors. Genetic linkage analyses of families and sib-pairs as well as candidate gene association studies have implicated several loci and many candidate genes in predisposition to ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, or subarachnoid hemorrhage. Recent genome-wide association studies identified various loci and genes that confer susceptibility to ischemic stroke or intracranial aneurysm. Such studies may provide insight into the function of implicated genes as well as into the role of genetic factors in the development of ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, or subarachnoid hemorrhage. Table of Contents: Introduction / Genetics ...


The use of composite materials in the fabrication of optical telescope mirrors offers many advantages over conventional methods, including lightweight, portability and the potential for lower manufacturing costs. In the construction of the substrate for these mirrors, sandwich construction offers the advantage of even lower weight and higher stiffness. Generally, an aluminum or Nomex honeycomb core is used in composite applications requiring sandwich construction. However, the use of a composite core offers the potential for increased stiffness and strength, low thermal distortion compatible with that of the facesheets, the absence of galvanic corrosion and the ability to readily modify the core properties. In order to design, analyze and optimize these mirrors, knowledge of the mechanical properties of the core is essential. In this paper, the mechanical properties of a composite triangular cell core (often referred to as isogrid) are determined using finite element analysis of a representative unit cell. The core studied offers many advantages over conventional cores including increased thermal and dimensional stability, as well as low weight. Results are provided for the engineering elastic moduli of cores made of high stiffness composite material as a function of the ply layup and cell size. Finally, in order to illustrate the use of these properties in a typical application, a 1.4-m diameter composite mirror is analyzed using the finite element method, and the resulting stiffness and natural frequencies are presented.


Users are increasingly expected to manage complex privacy settings in their normal online interactions. From shopping to social networks, users make decisions about sharing their personal information with corporations and contacts, frequently with little assistance. Current solutions require consumers to read long documents or go out of their way to manage complex settings buried deep in management interfaces, all of which lead to little or no actual control.
The goal of this work is to help people cope with the shifting privacy landscape. While our work looks at many aspects of how users make decisions regarding their privacy, this dissertation focuses on two specific areas: the current state of web privacy policies and mobile phone application permissions. We explored consumers' current understandings of privacy in these domains, and then used that knowledge to iteratively design and test more comprehensible information displays.
These prototyped information displays should not be seen as final commercially-ready solutions, but as examples of privacy notices that can help users think about, cope with, and make decisions regarding their data privacy. We conclude with a series of design suggestions motivated by our findings.
Keywords: privacy, notice, usability, user interfaces, security, mobile, policy, P3P, HCI, information design.


This paper reports on an approach and experiments to automatically build a cross-lingual multi-word entity resource. Starting from a collection of millions of acronym/expansion pairs for 22 languages where expansion variants were grouped into monolingual clusters, we experiment with several aggregation strategies to link these clusters across languages. Aggregation strategies make use of string similarity distances and translation probabilities and they are based on vector space and graph representations. The accuracy of the approach is evaluated against Wikipedia's redirection and cross-lingual linking tables. The resulting multi-word entity resource contains 64,000 multi-word entities with unique identifiers and their 600,000 multilingual lexical variants. We intend to make this new resource publicly available.


Certificate authorities in public key infrastructures typically require entities to prove possession of the secret key corresponding to the public key they want certified. While this is straightforward for digital signature schemes, the most efficient solution for public key encryption and key encapsulation mechanisms (KEMs) requires an interactive challenge-response protocol, requiring a departure from current issuance processes. In this work we investigate how to non-interactively prove possession of a KEM secret key, specifically for lattice-based KEMs, motivated by the recently proposed KEMTLS protocol which replaces signature-based authentication in TLS 1.3 with KEM-based authentication. Although there are various zero-knowledge (ZK) techniques that can be used to prove possession of a lattice key, they yield large proofs or are inefficient to generate. We propose a technique called verifiable generation, in which a proof of possession is generated at the same time as the key itself is generated. Our technique is inspired by the Picnic signature scheme and uses the multi-party-computation-in-the-head (MPCitH) paradigm; this similarity to a signature scheme allows us to bind attribute data to the proof of possession, as required by certificate issuance protocols. We show how to instantiate this approach for two lattice-based KEMs in Round 3 of the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardization project, Kyber and FrodoKEM, and achieve reasonable proof sizes and performance. Our proofs of possession are faster and an order of magnitude smaller than the previous best MPCitH technique for knowledge of a lattice key, and in size-optimized cases can be comparable to even state-of-the-art direct lattice-based ZK proofs for Kyber. Our approach relies on a new result showing the uniqueness of Kyber and FrodoKEM secret keys, even if the requirement that all secret key components are small is partially relaxed, which may be of independent interest for improving efficiency of zero-knowledge proofs for other lattice-based statements.


The guide is intended to provide transit agency staff with an easy-to-use resource for improving pedestrian safety. The guide includes a variety of approaches to address common pedestrian safety issues that are likely to arise near transit stations, bus stops, and other places where transit (bus or rail) is operated. It provides references to publications, guides and other tools to identify pedestrian safety problems. Descriptions of engineering, education and enforcement programs that have been effectively applied by transit agencies are included as well as background information about pedestrian safety and access to transit.


This paper explores the evolution of export barriers along the firm's internationalization process. Based on a sample of 7,515 European SMEs, we investigate the differences perceived by different groups of firms: companies uninterested in exports, future exporters, pre-exporters, experimental exporters, involved exporters, active exporters, committed exporters and failed exporters. We study both external barriers (i.e. arising from the environment in home and foreign markets) and internal barriers (i.e. related to the company's resource endowment, marketing and strategy). We find statistically significant differences between some of the studied groups, thus supporting the notion that the perception of internationalization barriers changes along the firm's lifecycle.


In the clinical situations in which the restoration of massive hard dental tissues loss is required, it is mandatory to use additional retention systems that can ensure the successful and long-term maintenance of the restoration. In the case of non-vital teeth, endodontic posts are used as additional retention systems. They can be custom cast made (metallic) or prefabricated (prefabricated metal posts or zirconia, ceramic, carbon or glass fibers posts). The use of a certain type of prefabricated endodontic post is the result of a completely and rigorously evaluation of the present clinical case.


The Bibliotheke of Diodoros of Sicily is the most voluminous Greek historiographical text from the pre-Christian era, and contains the only preserved continuous account of Classical Greek history; for many aspects of this history, such as the events in Sicily, the rise of Macedon under Philip II or the history of the Successors, it is our main or only source. It is thus often used as a source by ancient historians, and a great deal of energy has been spent on identifying which sources Diodoros himself used. Interest in Diodoros as an author in his own right, however, is a comparatively recent phenomenon. The contributors to this volume, junior scholars as well as leading international experts, set out to confront the old and new approaches to Diodoros, studying his first century BC context, questions of genre and purpose, his relationship to his predecessors, composition and narrative technique, the role of the gods and myth in the work, the use of speeches, and Diodoros' interest in themes like war, writing, language and politics. In so doing they offer exciting new insights into the Bibliotheke and the development of Greek historiography, which in turn also shed important new light on the old question of Diodoros' value as a source.


The miniaturization of projection technology has enabled a new class of lightweight mobile devices with embedded projectors. Projection engines as small as a postage stamp are currently being embedded in thousands of mobile devices. Mobile projector-based devices differ in very fundamental ways from the display-based devices we commonly use. Mobile projectors can be carried with the user and project imagery into almost any space, projected content is visible to multiple users and supports social interaction, physical objects and surfaces can be augmented with projected content, and embedded projectors can enable new form-factors for mobile displays.
This research investigates the potential of mobile projectors as a new platform for human-computer interaction. I aim to demonstrate that the unique affordances created by the miniaturization of projection technology can inspire new and compelling interaction with single-users, multi-users, the environment, and projector-embedded objects. This research presents a comprehensive survey of mobile projector-based interaction – documenting interaction with historic projection devices; introducing novel interaction techniques, metaphors, and principles for mobile projector-based systems; providing implementation details of functional prototype devices using mobile projectors; presenting technical innovations, such as the development of specialized projectors and custom marker tracking algorithms; and detailing results from preliminary user testing with the prototype systems created. This research forms a systematic investigation of the past, the present, and a possible future for interaction using mobile projectors.


In this time of economic downturn, libraries of all types need to evaluate their services. Health libraries take a particular change because of the global ""Health for all by the year 2000 and beyond"" demands that the effectiveness of library services to patient care be determined. This survey shows that psychiatrists in Nigerian hospitals need adequate and effective health information for their clinical decision-making. Questionnaires were sent out to hospitals. They were to evaluate the impact of health information in the care of their patients.


A series of compounds of 1,5-benzodiazepines and its chloroacetylated derivatives have been synthesized and its physicochemical parameters were evaluated in order to determine the potency of the compounds for good CNS activity. This solvent free reaction mediated by glacial acetic acid was found to be very efficient with high yield. The structures were confirmed on the basis of TLC, IR and 1HNMR and CHN elemental studies. The log P values of two of the compounds shows that compounds have the potential to be CNS active and all other parameters like non-value, non-value, n-violations and number of rotatable bonds also lies in the ranges that are required for blood brain barrier penetration. This synthesis provides a new hope that the free chloro group in this structure can be utilized for further substitution of various heterocyclic rings which possess potent CNS activity.


Abstract. Root litter decomposition is a major component of carbon (C) cycling in grasslands, where it provides energy and nutrients for soil microbes and fauna. This is especially important in grasslands where fire is common and removes aboveground litter accumulation. In this study, we investigated whether fire affects root decomposition and C flow through the belowground food web. In a greenhouse experiment, we applied 13C-enriched big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) root litter to intact tallgrass prairie soil cores collected from annually burned (AB) and infrequently burned (IB) treatments at the Konza Prairie Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site. Incorporation of 13C into microbial phospholipid fatty acids and nematode trophic groups was measured on six occasions during a 180-day decomposition study to determine how C was translocated through the soil food web. Results showed significantly different soil communities between treatments and higher microbial abundance for IB. Root decomposition occurred rapidly and was significantly greater for AB. Microbes and their nematode consumers immediately assimilated root litter C in both treatments. Root litter C was preferentially incorporated in a few groups of microbes and nematodes, but depended on burn treatment: fungi, Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria, and fungivore nematodes for AB and only omnivore nematodes for IB. The overall microbial pool of root-litter-derived C significantly increased over time but was not significantly different between burn treatments. The nematode pool of root-litter-derived C also significantly increased over time, and was significantly higher for the AB treatment at 35 and 90 days after litter addition. In conclusion, the C flow from root litter to microbes to nematodes is not only measurable but also significant, indicating that higher nematode trophic levels are critical components of C flow during root decomposition, which, in turn, is significantly affected by fire. Not only does fire affect the soil community and root decomposition, but the lower microbial abundance, greater root turnover, and the increased incorporation of root litter C by microbes and nematodes for AB suggests that annual burning increases root-litter-derived C flow through the soil food web of the tallgrass prairie.


In recent years libraries enhanced their offer from books to materials like videos, music cassettes and most important CDs and DVDs. These items are quite expensive to buy and therefore have a high demand by the library users. Many libraries also try to offer some kind of social meeting point and incorporate a cafe or an attractive reading room. This all contributes to the positive new image of libraries. The extension of the collection and the increased demand lead to an increased amount of work and requires more staff. However, it is difficult to get additional budget for continuous costs. It is easier to do one-time investments in order to shift the repetitive work away from the desk and to automatic self service stations. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an established technology (since 2001) to take over the repetitive tasks: check out, return of items, sorting and inventory control. RFID-Systems have a maximum effect if there is also a good room planning which supports their function and the frequency of their use (Kern, 2002, 2004; Wampfler, 2003). In this paper two approaches for the allocation of functional units in a library are compared: · the traditional central allocation of the functional units at the counter (used by the staff); · the decentral allocation of functional units, used by the library visitor. After this theoretical view some practical recommendations for the library and the architectural planner are given. These are derived from experiences of RFID installations in over 20 libraries (Bibliotheca RFID Library Systems AG).


We investigate price discovery for internationally traded stocks. For a sample of Canadian stocks cross-listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) and the NYSE, we find that both markets contribute to price discovery. The U.S. share of price discovery ranges from 0.4 percent to 98.1 percent, and averages 36 percent. The U.S. contribution is directly related to the U.S. share of trading and to the ratio of proportions of informative trades on the NYSE and the TSE, and inversely related to the ratio of bid-ask spreads on the NYSE and the TSE. In response to a positive shock to the C$/US$ exchange rate, stock prices on the TSE rise, whereas those on the NYSE decline. The NYSE bears a much greater burden of adjusting to the exchange rate changes.


The influence of temperature, light, solution pH, water stress, salt stress, and burial depth on seed germination and seedling emergence of catchweed bedstraw and the sensitivity of that weed to commonly available herbicides in China were studied in laboratory and greenhouse. Germination occurred at day/night temperatures from 5/0 C to 30/25 C, with optimum germination at 15/10 C. Catchweed bedstraw germinated equally well under a 12-h photoperiod and continuous darkness; however, a 24-h photoperiod inhibited seed germination. Catchweed bedstraw seed is moderately sensitive to osmotic potential and salt stress, with 15 and 3% germination rates at an osmotic potential of −0.5 Mpa and salinity level of 120 mM, respectively. Maximum seed germination was observed in near neutral pH; germination was greater than 80% over a broad pH range from 5 to 8. Seedling emergence of the seeds buried at a depth of 1 cm was higher (74%) than those placed on the soil surface (20%), but declined with burial depth increasing. Few (10%) seedlings emerged when seeds were placed at a depth of 5 cm. Bensulfuron-methyl, and ethametsulfuron-methyl applied PRE and tribenuron-methyl, fluroxypyr, and florasulam applied POST can be used to provide greater than 80% control of catchweed bedstraw. The results of this study have contributed to more complete understanding of the germination and emergence of catchweed bedstraw. Nomenclature: Catchweed bedstraw, Galium aparine L.


We describe an acoustic modeling approach in which all phonetic states share a common Gaussian Mixture Model structure, and the means and mixture weights vary in a subspace of the total parameter space. We call this a Subspace Gaussian Mixture Model (SGMM). Globally shared parameters define the subspace. This style of acoustic model allows for a much more compact representation and gives better results than a conventional modeling approach, particularly with smaller amounts of training data.


Abstract Mining is an integral part of the development of many countries in the Asia‐Pacific region and is associated with adverse environmental and social impacts. The monitoring of mining in remote locations is problematic due to difficulties of access. Satellite remote sensing is able to provide information on landscape transformation in a cost‐effective way around large‐scale mines. The PT Freeport Indonesia mine in Papua (Indonesia) is the world's largest copper‐gold mine and previous studies have documented a range of impacts. A multi‐temporal analysis of Landsat 5 imagery of the Freeport area was undertaken for the years between 1988 and 2004. Anthropogenic land cover changes were quantified by screen digitising polygons from three false colour composite images over this period to determine the area of forested land that had been cleared and the area that had been affected by mine‐derived sediment transported by the Ajkwa River system. The results show that both settlement and sediment had radically altered land cover and together had led to a sixfold increase in the area of ultra‐diverse lowland tropical rainforest cleared in the study area. The study highlights the utility of this method to monitor elements of the impact of large‐scale mining and other extensive forms of resource exploitation such as deforestation in developing countries.


Situated in the central part of the West Pacific rim, the East China Sea is the most important one of the four China Seas. About 1/3 of the coastline, 2/5 of the estuaries and 1/2 of the islands of the country are in the East China Sea. So it is very important to deal with the management and development of these marine resources. Management means to adjust and coordinate the behaviors of different departments concerned in the East China Sea, to organize and join marine resources investigations, planning, protection, and legislation, etc. Development means to obey natural principles, and to construct a multigoal development system, which includes the six major development districts such as port-industrial, fishery and recreational districts, etc..


The thermal properties of rocks in the upper crust of the Qaidam basin are given based on measurements of 98 thermal conductivities and 50 heat production values. Nineteen new measured heat flow data were obtained from thermal conductivity data and systematic steady-state temperature data. This paper contributes 28 calculated heat flow values for the basin for the first time. Examination of 47 heat flow values, ranging from 31.3 to 70.4 mW/m2 with an average value of 52.6±9.6 mW/m2, gives the heat flow distribution character of the basin: high heat flows over 60 mW/m2 are distributed in the western and central parts of the basin. Lower heat flow values are found in the eastern part and north marginal area of the basin, with values less 40 mW/m2. The Qaidam basin heatflow data show a linear relationship between heatflow and heat production, based on thermal structure analysis. The thermal structure of the lithosphere is characterized as having a 'hot crust' but 'cold mantle'. Heat production in the upper crust is a significant source of heat in the basin and contributes up to 56.8% of the surface heat flow. The heat flow province is of great geophysical significance, and the thermal structure of the area gives clues about the regional geodynamics. Study of the Qaidam basin thermal structure shows that the crust has been highly active, particularly during its most recent geological evolution. This corresponds to Himalayan tectonic movements during latest Eocene to Quaternary times in the region of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Since the Qaidam basin is in the northeastern area of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, the heat flow values and the thermal structure of the basin may give some insight into the thermal state of the plateau, and study of thermal regime of the Qaidam basin could in turn provide useful information about the tectonics of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau.


The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance is based on the celebrated Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, and covers styles and movements, buildings, organizations, regions and traditions; it has a particularly strong focus on biographies of actors, playwrights, directors, and designers. New entries cover the people and companies who have come into prominence since the publication of the Encyclopedia. The Companion includes all the most popular and accessible information from the Encyclopedia, concentrating primarily on the personalities involved in producing threatre, as well as overviews of the genres within which they work. It has 2,400 entries presented in a far more compact and portable format. The timeline of historical and cultural events in the world of theatre and performance has been significantly updated, along with the extensive bibliography, and an appendix of useful weblinks has been added, which is supported and accessible through a companion website. The Companion provides an informative and accessible package aimed at both the theatre-going public as at specialists and professionals in the field.


The United States Supreme Court decided in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that Congress may not prohibit spending on political speech by corporations. President Obama and several members of Congress have sharply criticized Citizens United, and Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen have proposed the DISCLOSE Act in response to the ruling. DISCLOSE mandates disclosure of corporate sources of independent spending on speech, putatively in the interest of shareholders and voters. However, it is unlikely that either shareholders or voters would be made better off by this legislation. Shareholders could demand and receive such disclosure without government mandates, given the efficiency of capital markets. The benefits of such disclosure for voters are likely less than assumed, while the costs are paid in chilled speech and in less rational public deliberation. DISCLOSE also prohibits speech by government contractors, TARP recipients, and companies managed by foreign nationals. The case for prohibiting speech by each of these groups seems flawed. In general, DISCLOSE exploits loopholes in Citizens United limits on government control of speech to contravene the spirit of that decision and the letter of the First Amendment.


Bayesian Methods for Inferring Gene Regulatory Networks William Chad Young Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Adrian E. Raftery Department of Statistics The recent explosion in the availability of gene expression data has opened up new possibilities in advancing our understanding of the fundamental processes of life. To keep up with the increasing size of the datasets, new models and inference methods must be developed that can handle tens of thousands of genes efficiently, provide a systematic framework for the integration of multiple data sources, and yield robust, accurate, and compact gene regulatory networks. In this thesis, I develop methods for different types of gene expression data that are able to handle large datasets and produce meaningful inference of relationships between genes. These methods also incorporate information from other data sources in the form of an informative prior when available. These methods are applied to gene expression data from yeast and humans, as well as synthetic benchmark data. I also look at data artifacts present in big data in biology and propose a model-based clustering method for addressing these issues and correcting the data and show how the improved data lead to improved subsequent analysis. Finally, I propose a model for inferring network information from steady-state data. I prove some theoretical results about a constrained version of the model and explore results from applying it to synthetic benchmark data.


Objective To compare caretakers' perceived quality of care (PQC) for under-fives treated for malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea by community health workers (CHWs) and primary health facility workers (PHFWs). Methods Caretaker rated PQC for children aged (2-59) months treated by either CHWs or PHFWs for a bought of malaria, pneumonia or diarrhoea was cross-sectionally compared in quality domains of accessibility, continuity, comprehensiveness, integration, clinical interaction, interpersonal treatment and trust. Child samples were randomly drawn from CHW (419) and clinic (399) records from eight Midwestern Uganda districts. An overall PQC score was predicted through factor analysis. PQC scores were compared for CHWs and PHFWs using Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to specify the association between categorized PQC and service providers for each quality domain. Finally, overall PQC was dichotomized into "high" and "low" based on median score and relative risks (RR) for PQC-service provider association were modeled in a "modified" Poisson regression model. Results Mean (SD) overall PQC was significantly higher for CHWs 0.58 (0 .66) compared to PHFWs -0.58 (0.94), p<0.0001. In "modified" Poisson regression, the proportion of caretakers reporting high PQC was higher for CHWS compared to PHFWs, RR=3.1, 95%CI(2.5-3.8). In multinomial models PQC was significantly higher for CHWs compared to PHFWs in all domains except for continuity. Conclusion PQC was significantly higher for CHWs compared to PHFWs in this resource constrained setting. CHWs should be tapped human resources for universal health coverage while scaling up basic child intervention as PQC might improve intervention utilization.


Cognitive Metaphor Theory involves an assumption that the metaphorical patterns which systematically connect a source domain to a target domain stem from cognitive mapping: understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another. The Inari Saami material collected from several sources does not support this assumption. Instead, this paper offers an alternative explanation for the systematic patterns of metaphors which are revealed through personal fieldwork and related research, based on both culture and cognition, in accordance with the Relevance Theory. When a human adapts to his/her environment, the recurring patterns in this environment form image schemata in his/her mind. Communication is partly based on the activation of these schemata. In conventional Inari Saami metaphors, reindeer and wild animals are repeatedly mentioned to signify somebody's behavior. People have paid much attention to the behavior of those animals, and thus they make vivid schemata. By activating such a schema, a speaker is able to convey an idea with an apt metaphor in a conversational situation. This implies that the listener must have a similar life-experience, i.e., cultural background, in order to interpret the metaphor as intended. The best metaphors are repeated and conventionalized. That is why idioms reveal something intimate about the culture of their speakers: they mirror the everyday human life in those days when people still lived in the harsh natural conditions of the wilderness around Lake Inari.


Nigeria is currently facing the problem of youth incivility and immorality. The need has arisen to seek informal approaches to the inculcation of desirable values and civic consciousness in the young people in view of the apparent failure of the formal school system to inculcate desirable values. This study was about holiday citizenship education programme for 100 Nigerian youth. It was a quasi experimental research involving a pre-test of the youth's level of civic consciousness before exposing them to series of instructions related to desirable values and civic responsibility after which the post-test was given to the subjects. The post-test mean score was found to be greater than that of pre-test, implying that the treatment had significant impact on the youth's civic consciousness. The need to encourage regular leadership and civic education for youth during school vacation was recommended. Nigeria is richly endowed with human resources including the youth who remain very vibrant and full of potentials for maximum contribution to national development. However, one thing that seems to be lacking is the ability of the society to tap and harness these immense potentials for productive and positive results. A lot of lapses have been identified in our schooling process in its lack of capacity to make the desired impact on the social lives of the young people. In recent times too, the homes have been found to be very ineffective in their conventional roles as agent of socialization. Parents have become increasingly indifferent and irresponsible in the proper upbringing of their children, as they seem to keep more time out of home in pursuance of money to the detriment of overseeing the moral and social development of their children. According to Iyamu (2003), the government and parents in Nigeria have not done enough to positively and creatively occupy the minds of the youth to the extent that most of them have derailed and veered off the path of moral decency and dignity (Mokwenye, 1990). Over the years, attention has been on equipping Nigerian youth with the needed values and social attributes that enhance their acceptance, integration and participation in the society (FRN, 1989). Yet, experiences have shown that the youth are finding it increasingly difficult to lead desirable ways of life, particularly in the areas of human relationships, responsibility, respect, obedience and orderliness. Generally, their level of civility has remained low, a phenomenon attributable largely to the lapses of the school and home. Our concern today, therefore, should be to fill the gaps by exposing the youth to appropriate learning experiences and activities that help to raise their civic consciousness and develop appropriate social values and attributes for effective relationships in the society (Grey, 2001). This is part of what citizenship education is about. Concerted efforts have been made by religious groups, organizations as the Boys Scout, Girls Guide, Red Cross and so on to create forums for young people to gain awareness and understanding of certain desirable values and social attributes needed for effective living. The Ministries of Sports, Information and Youth Development have at different times organized holiday programs to occupy the young in creative ways aimed at mobilizing them for useful living Talah (2002) In fact, there is a general apprehension that the youth are at a greater risk while the schools are on vacation. According to Milkey (2000), most Nigerian children during school vocation are like sheep without shepherd. They are often left at home with their parents away for work or businesses. During the school period, the teachers provide some custody for the children. Consequently, the children are at risk while on vocation as they are sometimes exposed to negative influences in the absence of their parents or more matured persons to control or protect them. Ofor (1998) and Johnson (2001) have extolled the value of vacation programmes for young people, be they educational, leadership and religious. …


Amyloid beta 1-42 (Aβ1-42) is a key pathophysiological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Changes in biofluids of Aβ have been associated with AD risk. Herein, a dot-blot sandwich immunoassay was developed for simple detection of the Aβ1-42 using gold nanoparticles as signal label. The results were easily observed by naked eye, and an image processing program provided semi-quantitation. Furthermore, addition of silver enhancer to the assay further improved sensitivity of the measurement. The proposed assay for Aβ1-42 had a linear range of 1–200 μg/ml, with a detection limit of 1 μg/ml and 0.3 μg/ml by naked eye and calculation, respectively. Performance of the developed assay was assessed in analyses of spiked plasma samples. The recoveries of Aβ1-42 were in the range of 112–158%, indicating that the developed assay is practical and reliable. The proposed method provides a low cost and simple assay for Aβ1-42 measurement.


Veld Management in South Africa-Neil Tainton 1999 This text is a synthesis of research in production and management, since the inception of the discipline as an agricultural science in the 1930s. All the ecological regions are covered extensively, but the main emphasis is on the three biomes (grassland, savanna and karoo), which produce the bulk of the forage supporting the domestic livestock, conservation and the game farming industries. The book has an audience beyond the borders of South Africa in the grassland and savanna areas which stretch through southern and central Africa. The text is aimed at students concerned with the management of natural ecosystems, and also livestock producers and game ranchers who rely on the veld to feed their animals. The text throughout emphasizes the interpretation and application of research results to the practical situation. All major aspects of veld production and management are covered in this book. It outlines the physiological and ecological principles on which management is based and which underpin the science. The book presents management options based on these underlying principles before dealing with recommended management procedures in each of the main ecological regions of the country. The contributions to this book collectively represent a component of the expertise available on issues related to veld management in South Africa. They are veld and animal production researchers, conservation managers, and planners working both at a practical level, closely in touch with livestock and game farmers, and at the more theoretical level as teachers at colleges and universities.


Between 2010 and 2014, the research team of Josef Bozek ́s Research Center of Combustion Engines and Automobiles at the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic, has developed innovations in vehicle suspension technology. The research team has designed a unique innovative suspension system that uses a linear electric motor as a controlled actuator. We have undertaken many experiments on energy management in the system. In order to verify various control strategies and to test different ways of energy consumption optimization we designed and constructed a unique one-quarter-car test stand on which we have tested different control strategies In order to realize simulation and practical experiments at the test stand it is necessary to find a proper experimental road disturbance signal to excite the active suspension system The disturbance signal is applied on a one more linear motor that is placed under a wheel of the one-quarter-car model to excite the active suspension system The paper deals with the way and results of experimental verification of vehicle active suspension behavior when robust control is applied and also with energy management strategy that we used in the system. A modified H-infinity controller that enables to set energy management strategy is mentioned in the paper. At the close of the paper some experiments taken on the one quarter-car model and their evaluation is discussed. . Key-Words: Active suspension, one-quarter–car model, robust control, verification, experiments


By the author of The Cambridge Quintet, John L. Castia (TM)s new book continues the tradition of combining science fact with just the right dose of fiction. Part novel, part science a " wholly informative and entertaining. In the fall of 1933 the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, welcomed its first faculty member, Albert Einstein. With this superstar on the roster, the Institute was able to attract many more of the greatest scholars, scientists, and poets from around the world. It was to be an intellectual haven, a place where the most brilliant minds on the planet, sheltered from the outside worlda (TM)s cares and calamities, could study and collaborate and devote their time to the pure and exclusive pursuit of knowledge. For many of them, it was the a /one, true, platonic heaven.a Over the years, key figures at the Institute began to question the limits to what science could tell us about the world, pondering the universal secrets it might unlock. Could science be the ultimate source of truth; or are there intrinsic limits, built into the very fabric of the universe, to what we can learn? In the late 1940a (TM)s and early 1950a (TM)s, this important question was being asked and pondered upon by some of the Institutea (TM)s deepest thinkers. Enter the dramatis personae to illuminate the science and the philosophy of the time. Mathematical logician Kurt Godel was the unacknowledged Grant Exalted Ruler of this platonic estate a " but he was a ruler without a scepter as he awaited the inexplicably indefinite postponement of his promotion to full, tenured professor. Also in residence was his colleague, the Hungarian-American polymath, John van Neumann, developer of game theory, the axiomatic foundations of quantum mechanics, and the digital computer a " stymied by the Institutea (TM)s refusal to sanction his bold proposal to actually build a computer. One of Godela (TM)s closest friends figures large in this story: Albert Einstein, by common consensus the greatest physicist the 20th century had ever known. And, of course, the director the Institute, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, must by necessity be key to any story that focuses in on this time and place. Author Casti elegantly sets the stage and then masterfully directs this impressive cast of charactersa "with able assists by many a /minor-charactera icons like T. S. Eliot, Wolfgang Pauli, Freeman Dyson, and David Bohm, to tell a story of science, history, and ideas. As we watch events unfold (some of which are documented fact while others are creatively imagined fiction), we are witness to the discussions and deliberations of this august groupa | privy to wide-ranging conversations on thinking machines, quantum logic, biology as physics, weather forecasting, the structure of economic systems, the distinction between mathematics and natural science, the structure of the universe, and the powers of the human mind a " all centered around the question of the limits to scientific knowledge. Imaginatively conceived and artfully executed, The One True Platonic Heaven is an accessible and intriguing presentation of some of the deepest scientific and philosophical ideas of the 20th century.


In painting processes, highly viscous and non-Newtonian fluids are often used. An example is the application of PVC materials for seam sealing over the joined edges to close small openings that are difficult to shut with other materials. The parameters of the free jet and the material properties are of great importance for the quality of the sealing.
The work is focused on the seam formation process with the thin jet spraying using ANSYS-Fluent as a CFD program for numerical simulations.
The objective of seam sealing simulations is to develop a model in the most efficient form considering all the relevant application parameters (dose, nozzle design, operating parameters, application geometry) and material properties for process optimization.
Regarding the physical process, the flow has a high viscosity and presents a rheological behaviour under given production conditions. These rheological models for the non-Newtonian behaviour of the coating materials are implemented by the so-called "User-Defined functions" and transport equations. The Volume of Fluid (VOF) method in ANSYS-Fluent is used, in which a two-phase flow with two immiscible fluids (air and PVC) and their interface are simulated. The boundary phase of both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids (Herschel-Bulkley-law and Thixotropic model) are simulated and compared.
Different geometries, in order to represent the automotive bodywork geometry and a round nozzle are generated with the CDF program ANSYS-Workbench. The investigation of the grid sensitivity is studied by the generation of various meshes and refinements with the Adaptation method in ANSYS-Fluent.
The results of all these simulations with different parameters and viscosity models are compared with experimental investigations to validate them in order to find the optimized model, which fits to the thin jet spraying in the seam sealing process. Physical phenomena that may occur during the seam sealing process, like the Buckling effect, and the seam ending have been performed.


Holographic codes grown with perfect tensors on regular hyperbolic tessellations using an inflation rule protect quantum information stored in the bulk from errors on the boundary provided the code rate is less than one. Hyperbolic geometry bounds the holographic code rate and guarantees quantum error correction for codes grown with any inflation rule on all regular hyperbolic tessellations in a class whose size grows exponentially with the rank of the perfect tensors for rank five and higher. For the tile completion inflation rule, holographic triangle codes have code rate more than one but all others perform quantum error correction.