Weather influences our daily lives and choices and has an enormous impact on cooperate revenues and earnings. Weather derivatives differ from most derivatives in that the underlying weather cannot be traded and their market is relatively illiquid. The weather derivative market is therefore incomplete. This paper implements a pricing methodology for weather derivatives that can increase the precision of measuring weather risk. We applied continous autoregressive models (CAR) with seasonal variation to model the temperature in Berlin and with that to get explicite nature of non-arbitrage prices for temperature derivatives. We infer the implied market price from Berlin cumulative monthly temperature futures that are traded at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which is an important parameter of the associated equivalent martingale measures used to price and hedge weather future/options in the market. We propose to study the market price of risk, not only as a piecewise constant linear function, but also as a time dependent. In any of the previous cases, we found that the market price of weather risk is different from zero and shows a seasonal structure. With the extract information we price other exotic options, such as cooling/heating degree day temperatures and non standard contract with crazy maturities.


Diet metabolism and immunomodulatory activity are linked to both to each other, allowing mammals to adapt to diverse changes in their intestinal gut surroundings. The obesity as a primary source of disease brings about metabolic dysfunction followed by inflammatory insulin resistance. The metabolites of aloe polymannose moiety, such as a mannooligosaccharide and short chain fatty acids, synergistically modulated insulin sensitivity on tissues with combination of phenolics, such as aloesin, aloe emodin (a metabolite of barbaloin) and salicylate in aloe vera gel. The insulin levels and insulin activity in the central nerve system, such as hippocampus, are reduced in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Restoring insulin levels to normal in the brain may provide therapeutic benefit to elderly subjects with AD and amnestic MCI. The effect of aloe polymannose multinutrients complex (APMC) on cognitive and immune functioning in AD showed the improvements in both clinical and physiological outcomes, though the several limitations of the current investigation were noted. APMC may offer an alternative opinion for persons with AD and amnestic MCI. Present review showed a possible putative efficacy of aloe vera gel metabolites in long-term ingestion to insulin sensitivity.


Eradication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection requires daily administration of combinations of rifampin (RIF), isoniazid [isonicotinylhydrazine (INH)], pyrazinamide, and ethambutol, among other drug therapies. To facilitate and optimize MTB therapeutic selections, a mononuclear phagocyte (MP; monocyte, macrophage, and dendritic cell)‐targeted drug delivery strategy was developed. Long‐acting nanoformulations of RIF and an INH derivative, pentenyl‐INH (INHP), were prepared, and their physicochemical properties were evaluated. This included the evaluation of MP particle uptake and retention, cell viability, and antimicrobial efficacy. Drug levels reached 6 μg/106 cells in human monocyte‐derived macrophages (MDMs) for nanoparticle treatments compared with 0.1 μg/106 cells for native drugs. High RIF and INHP levels were retained in MDM for >15 d following nanoparticle loading. Rapid loss of native drugs was observed in cells and culture fluids within 24 h. Antimicrobial activities were determined against Mycobacterium smegmatis (M. smegmatis). Coadministration of nanoformulated RIF and INHP provided a 6‐fold increase in therapeutic efficacy compared with equivalent concentrations of native drugs. Notably, nanoformulated RIF and INHP were found to be localized in recycling and late MDM endosomal compartments. These were the same compartments that contained the pathogen. Our results demonstrate the potential of antimicrobial nanomedicines to simplify MTB drug regimens.—Edagwa, B. J., Guo, D., Puligujja, P., Chen, H., McMillan, J., Liu, X., Gendelman, H. E., Narayanasamy, P., Long‐acting antituberculous therapeutic nanoparticles target macrophage endosomes. FASEB J. 28, 5071–5082 (2014). www.fasebj.org


Abstract The Rt Hon The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers KG PC, President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Ambition and excellence. Those two words epitomize Qatar. Under the leadership of his Highness the Emir, this small State has set out to make an impact on the world that belies its size. Ambitious was the plan to have an international broadcasting station. Ambitious was the plan to build from scratch a Museum of Islamic Art. Ambitious was the bid – the successful bid to host the World Cup in 2022. Ambitious is the bid to stage the Olympic Games in 2020. Qatar not merely has ambitions, it realizes its ambitions. And when it does so it is not enough to say that the result is 'world class', for Qatar sets out to be a world leader in whatever it puts its hand to. Excellence is the norm. Al Jazeera has established itself as the broadcasting station of choice for many throughout the world. The Doha Museum of Islamic Art is recognized as being second to none. In addition, the scale and standard of development in Doha itself is setting new standards of excellence in the fields of architecture and civil engineering. Thus when Qatar focuses its energies on education and the law, high achievements are expected. I shall have the honour of helping to achieve those expectations when I succeed Lord Woolf as President of Qatar's new and impressive Civil and Commercial Court. The College of Law at Qatar University is already achieving excellence in the field of legal education. So, naturally, all expect great things of this new International Review of Law and I am delighted to have been invited to welcome it by this foreword. The range of the first edition is both international and topical. Those countries that have experienced the turbulence of the Arab Spring are settling new constitutions, and other countries are bent on constitutional reform designed to avoid such turbulence. So an erudite article on constitution-making could not come at a better time. For a country about to embark on a $200 billion construction program, an article on identifying and managing risk in international construction projects is tailor made. Cross-border sales and the corporate opportunity doctrine are two further topics that will be of interest to a wide range of commercial lawyers. All these are weighty articles of obvious contemporary relevance. For those who seek a little light relief, Carol Tan's article on Colonial Cleansing is a delightful and fascinating historical excursion into the efforts of British colonial rule to clean up a holiday resort in the leased territory of Weihaiwei in China. The College of Law's new project is ambitious and this is a splendid start to the excellence that must be its aim.


Modular construction is being touted as one solution to address project delays and cost overruns in the construction industry. Modular construction is a delivery method wherein building components are prefabricated off-site and then transported to the job site for assembly. Thus, prefabrication is a significant element of modular construction that enables work to happen in parallel to accelerate project schedules, enhance safety, and reduce physical work on-site. Timber is becoming a primary material for prefabricating elements since wood is a renewable material, possesses high strength-weight ratio, and sequesters carbon. The use of wood in the form of cross-laminated timber (CLT) introduces new opportunities but also logistical issues in the supply chain from forest to the manufacturing facility to the construction site. Depending on the type of CLT and the level of modularity (i.e., 2D elements or volumetric), major constraints in this process have been identified including (1) fluctuation in the supply of raw wood to manufacturing facilities, (2) limitations in the capacity to create CLT panels, (3) shipping limitations based on allowable loads, and (4) crane availability for assembly of panels on the site. This paper explores the use of simulation models to study the effect of these logistical constraints in modular construction using prefabricated CLT on the total time and hence cost of projects. Specifically, discrete event simulation (DES) will be used to model CLT logistics to identify bottlenecks and provide sensitivity analyses of variables such as lumber supply, travel times, and manufacturing plant capacity on project cost and time. A case study of modular multi-story building construction is examined to showcase the utility of the developed simulation framework. It is expected that simulating modular CLT logistics will enable the identification of optimal strategies towards their successful implementation.


Warehouses play an important value-adding role to provide a competitive edge, support business growth and efficiency throughout their supply chains. This paper explores warehouse operations (i.e. receiving, put away, picking, packing and shipping) and a series of challenges faced in managing warehouse operations in general and the 3PL industry in particular. Especially, the paper analyses the warehouse and logistics operations of an Australian 3PL company. By utilizing a mixed method approach both qualitative and quantitative data was gathered through in-depth interviews, direct observations and warehouse operations records. The collected data were then analyzed using thematic analysis. The data was screened and coded to further develop major themes to identify the problematic areas. This analysis helped to identify issues in operations related to the receiving process, missing, picking and locating items as well as human errors. While multiple approaches could be utilized to improve the operations, there yet remained a major challenge to manage operations within the planned budgetary limits. This research, therefore, provides some solutions/recommendations to improve the case company's warehouse operations through staff empowerment, management process improvement, order dispatch and return process improvement, improvement in record keeping, and recruiting more personnel. These recommendations ensure company's efficiency while balancing its challenges both in operations and budgetary constraints. This study thus provides an evidence to improve the reliability of warehouse operations through systematic process improvement.


In this article we seek to systematically explore and understand crucial aspects of a potential dark side of personalized transactions. Big data and artificial intelligence may enable businesses with access to the data and the required technology to effectively personalize their interactions with consumers in order to exploit informational asymmetries and/or consumer biases in novel ways and on an unprecedented scale. We identify three aspects of the dark side of personalized B2C transactions as particular areas of concern. First, businesses increasingly engage in first-degree price discrimination, siphoning rents from consumers. Second, firms exploit well-known behavioral biases of consumers such as, for example, their inability to correctly assess the long-term effects of complex transactions or their insufficient will-power, in a systematic fashion. And third, businesses use microtargeted ads and recommendations to shape consumers' preferences and steer them into a particular consumption pattern, effectively locking them into a lifestyle determined by their past choices and those of likeminded fellows.
At first sight, siphoning rents, exploiting biases and shaping preferences appear to be relatively distinct phenomena. However, on closer inspection, these phenomena share a common underlying theme: the potential exploitation of consumers or at least an impoverishment of their lives by firms who apply novel and sophisticated technological means to maximize profits. Hence, the dark side of personalized B2C transactions may be characterized as consumers being "brought down by algorithms", losing transaction surplus, engaging in welfare-reducing transactions and increasingly being trapped in a narrower life.
It is unclear whether first-degree price discrimination creates an efficiency problem, but surely it raises concerns of distributive justice. We propose that it should be addressed by a clear and simple warning to the consumer that she is being offered a personalized price and, in addition, a right to indicate that she does not want to participate in a personalized pricing scheme. Similarly, behavioral biases may or may not lead consumers to conclude inefficient transactions. But it appears that they should be given an opportunity to reflect on their choices if these have been induced by firms applying exploitative algorithmic sales techniques. Hence, we propose that consumers should have a right to withdraw from a contract concluded under such conditions. Indeed, in many jurisdictions they already have such a right today. Finally, shaping consumers' preferences by microtargeted ads and recommendations prevents consumers from experimenting and leading a multifaceted life. We should have a right to opt out of the technological steering mechanisms created and utilized by firms that impoverish our lives.


Menard begins with the leading hypotheses (such as that the earth expands) and the supporting evidence for each. He traces the crucial work of the 1960s year by year as researchers debated hypotheses in correspondence and at frequent meetings. Throughout the book Professor Menard considers the implications of his story for the sociology of science and the goals of scientific research.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The aim of this study was to compare the electromyographic (EMG) activity of the femoris rectus, femoris biceps, tibialis anterior and soleus muscles in squatting, associating the trunk in erect position with two angles of knee flexion (40° and 60°) and the trunk at 45° flexion with three angles of knee flexion (40°, 60° and 90°). All associations were performed with and without additional load (10 kg). The sample was composed of 12 healthy individuals with mean age of 21.1 ± 2.5 years and weight of 62.8 ± 7.4 kg. The EMG of the cited muscles was isometrically registered in 10 squatting positions. For statistical analysis, Friedman Two-Way ANOVA and the Newman-Keuls Post-Hoc test were used. The results showed co-activation between the femoris rectus and femoris biceps muscles with the trunk in flexion and at 40° of knee flexion and between the femoris rectus and soleus muscles in the other positions considered (p < 0.05). It was also possible to observe co-activation between tibialis anterior and femoris biceps muscles with knee at 40° and 60° of flexion, with the trunk erect and in flexion and between the tibialis anterior and soleus muscles in the other positions (p < 0.05). Concerning isolated muscular activation, higher knee flexion in squatting was an important factor to greater muscles activation, except for the soleus. Trunk position and the additional load of 10 kg have influenced in the muscular activation of the femoris rectus at 60° of knee flexion, in which the erect trunk provided more activation. The femoris biceps presented greater activation when the knee was in 40° of flexion and the trunk flexioned. The co-activation between the femoris rectus and biceps with the trunk in flexion, and between the femoris rectus and soleus in the other positions, lead to new possibilities of exercises in rehabilitation.


Silicon nitride thin films are of interest in the biomedical engineering field due to their biocompatibility and favorable tribological properties. Evaluation and understanding of the properties of these films under diverse loading and failure conditions is a necessary prerequisite to their use in biomedical devices. Three wafers of silicon nitride-coated silicon were obtained from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and used to create 96 samples. Samples were subjected to nanoindentation testing to evaluate the mechanical properties of the film. Samples were subjected to nanoimpact testing to compare the damage resistance of the film to separate nanoimpact types. Samples were subjected to nanoscratch testing to evaluate the consistency of the critical load of the film. Results showed that there were no significant differences in the mechanical properties of the film across the tested groups. There was a significant difference observed in the rate of damage to the film between pendulum oscillation nanoimpact testing and sample oscillation nanoimpact testing, with the former causing more damage with all experiment variables controlled for. Results showed that the critical load measure for the film was significantly different between different nanoscratch test parameters. The conclusions from this study will support future work for in vitro and in vivo testing of ceramic thin films for biomedical applications.


Art is brought into organizations in the shape of "artistic interventions" in order to achieve a variety of effects: creating new values, initiating learning processes, supporting restructuring processes, or fostering innovation. Several methods and practices have been developed for this purpose, in which art or artistic workshops create spaces promoting precisely these effects. Such learning spaces, experimental spaces and memory spaces pose great potential for personnel and organizational development, in that, e.g., new ideas can be developed and internalized. Based on the idea of spaces created by artistic interventions, this article analyses them from the theoretical perspective of "liminality". This theoretical angle helps to fathom the effects experienced in artistic interventions which are difficult to evaluate. This way, the situation in which employees find themselves in artistic interventions can be framed to better understand processes of change and the opening for exploration of ideas. In addition, liminality is linked to the anthropological view of "rites of passage" (transition rites), which facilitate times of change and mark – or even constitute – transitions.


Stable isotope data are useful for inferring foraging and niche variation in marine taxa but can be difficult to interpret, in part because different foraging patterns may result in sim- ilar isotopic values. Here, we integrate stable isotope analysis (! 13 C and ! 15 N) with behavioral data to investigate the foraging ecology of loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta on a feeding ground in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Large loggerhead turtles showed little among-individual isotopic variance in skin samples, suggesting similar foraging or habitat use patterns over several months or more. Analysis of loggerhead foraging in video data, and comparison with isotopic variance for sympatric green turtles Chelonia mydas, suggest that low isotopic variance among large logger- heads reflects a similar, highly generalized diet within individuals. Higher isotopic variance among smaller turtles may reflect variation in diet, timing of recruitment to neritic habitat or use of food webs varying along other isotopic gradients. Loggerheads showed strong fidelity to the study site over many years, and individuals recaptured frequently showed remarkable affinity for very small geographic areas, often < 5 km 2 . Thus, a substantial proportion of the Shark Bay logger- head population comprises site specialists, with larger adults appearing to be diet generalists. Our results also suggest that among-individual isotopic variation found at some loggerhead nesting locations may reflect the isotopic characteristics of preferred migratory or foraging grounds owing to long-term site fidelity and less likely reflects prey specialization by individuals within specific feeding areas.


Introduction: Infertility is one of the problems faced by many couples in society and one of the treatment methods that are being performed in our country for many years is donation of gametes. Considering the importance of maintaining the physical and mental health standards for donors and the lack of a comprehensive study on the personality characteristics of donors in our country, we decided to help solve these challenges with a research. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, by attending the Royan Institute, after giving necessary explanations to all those who were attending that center to donate egg, the TCI was filled out by those who volunteered. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software. Results: The highest motivations for egg donation were stated to be financial issues (48%). In the study of personality characteristics, there was a significant difference between dimensions of self-transcendence, self-directed, persistence, avoidance of harm, and cooperation between these individuals and control group. There was also a significant difference between the two groups regarding history of attending a psychiatrist, history of drug treatment, and history of psychiatric counseling. Conclusion: In this study, egg donors were more cooperative, more persistent and more self-directed. In terms of innovativeness and reliance on rewards, there was no significant difference with the control group, but in the self-transcendence dimension and avoidance of harm, they obtained fewer score than the control group.


The high-risk business model of large financial conglomerates (frequently called "universal banks") was an important cause of the financial crisis. Universal banks rely on cheap funding from deposits and shadow banking liabilities to finance their speculative activities in the capital markets. By combining deposit-taking and short-term borrowing with underwriting, market making, and trading in securities and derivatives, the universal banking model creates a strong likelihood that serious problems occurring in one sector of the financial industry will spread to other sectors. To prevent such contagion, federal regulators have powerful incentives to bail out universal banks and protect all of their depositors and shadow banking creditors. That is precisely what happened during the financial crisis.Title II of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 seeks to end bailouts by requiring the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to liquidate failed systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) while imposing losses on their shareholders and creditors. Title II's liquidation-only mandate threatens the TBTF subsidy for SIFIs and their Wall Street creditors, and it therefore presents a direct challenge to the universal banking model. To meet that challenge, Wall Street developed its "single point of entry" (SPOE) plan for resolving failed SIFIs.Wall Street's SPOE plan would ensure future bailouts for SIFIs and their favored creditors while imposing the costs of those bailouts on ordinary investors and taxpayers. Under SPOE, only the parent holding company of a failed SIFI would be placed in receivership, and its operating subsidiaries would be maintained as going concerns. Short-term creditors of the holding company and all creditors of the operating subsidiaries would be fully protected. Protected creditors of the failed SIFI would include uninsured depositors and shadow banking creditors with close connections to Wall Street, such as holders of commercial paper and securities repurchase agreements.The financial industry's SPOE plan relies on a two-part funding strategy to guarantee continued protection for Wall Street creditors. First, each SIFI's holding company would issue long-term "bail-in" bonds. The FDIC would convert bail-in bonds into equity when a SIFI fails, thereby imposing losses on bail-in bondholders as well as shareholders. To avoid the risk of contagion, SIFIs would not sell bail-in bonds to other large financial institutions. Instead, SIFIs would sell bail-in bonds to non-systemic investors, including retail mutual funds and pension funds that invest the savings of ordinary individuals. Thus, ordinary investors would be the primary losers when bail-in bonds are converted into equity.Second, if write-offs of bail-in bonds are not sufficient to recapitalize a failed SIFI and its operating subsidiaries, the FDIC would borrow the rest of the needed funds from the Treasury Department through the Orderly Liquidation Fund (OLF). Because the OLF currently has a zero balance, OLF loans would be backstopped by taxpayers. Wall Street's SPOE plan would use OLF loans to ensure full protection for short-term creditors of a failed SIFI's holding company and all creditors of its operating subsidiaries.At the end of the resolution process, a new SIFI would emerge with a minimum of structural changes. Thus, contrary to Title II's liquidation-only mandate, the financial industry's SPOE plan would reorganize failed SIFIs and guarantee bailouts for Wall Street creditors. Society – whether in the form of bail-in bondholders or taxpayers – would be left holding the bag once again.U.S. and foreign regulators have not yet formally adopted SPOE, but it appears very likely that they will do so. Given that reality, policymakers must adopt three major reforms to reduce the TBTF subsidy inherent in SPOE. First, SIFIs should be prohibited from selling bail-in bonds to ordinary individuals, retail mutual funds, or pension funds unless those bonds are expressly designated and marketed as subordinated debt that is junior to the claims of all general creditors. The foregoing prohibition would prevent megabanks from misleading ordinary investors by selling bail-in bonds that are described as "senior" to subordinated debt (and therefore pay lower interest rates) but in fact have complex, high-risk "triggers" for conversion into equity. Ordinary investors do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate the risks of those types of bail-in bonds, and such bonds should be sold only to accredited investors.Second, SIFIs should pay risk-adjusted premiums to prefund the OLF at a level of $300 billion or more. The prefunded OLF should be used to cover the costs of resolving failed megabanks after the FDIC has written off investments by their shareholders, holders of subordinated debt, and accredited holders of bail-in bonds. Prefunding the OLF would help to protect taxpayers from bearing the costs of resolving failed megabanks. In addition, a well-designed, risk-based schedule for OLF premiums would encourage SIFIs to follow more prudent operating strategies and adopt less complex business structures.As part of their OLF premiums, SIFIs should pay fees on their uninsured deposits and shadow banking liabilities. Under SPOE, those deposits and liabilities would receive full protection and would enjoy a status similar to insured deposits. The required fees should be comparable to risk-based deposit insurance premiums and should encourage megabanks to establish more stable, longer-term funding structures.Third, federal regulators should adopt long-delayed incentive compensation rules under Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Act. Those rules should require SIFIs to pay at least half of their total compensation to senior executives and other key employees (including risk managers and traders) in the form of contingent convertible bonds (CoCos). Insiders should be required to hold their CoCos, without any hedging, for several years after their employment ends. CoCos would expose insiders to immediate losses – without any need for clawbacks – if their SIFI fails during their employment or during their post-employment holding period. CoCos would therefore encourage insiders to adopt sustainable, long-term business strategies that are more closely aligned with the interests of long-term creditors, the FDIC, and taxpayers.The foregoing reforms would not eliminate the TBTF subsidy for SIFIs. However, the reforms would compel megabanks and their insiders to internalize at least some of the systemic risks they impose on society. The reforms would also support other initiatives by regulators – including stronger capital and liquidity requirements and living wills – that seek to encourage SIFIs to reduce their size and complexity.


The intention of the Author is to examine all the rules that the Italian legal system imposes on lobbying, in part for the purpose of limiting certain lobbying practices and in part to promote access to public decision-makers by establishing the requirement for transparency and trustworthiness in the relations between the lobbyist and the decision-maker. Lobbying is heavily dependent on the opportunities for the lobbyist to access the public decision-maker. The issue of access, however, viewed in terms of lobbying, relates not to the right to know the content of administrative documents but to the right to provide information to the public decision-maker relating to its legislative or regulatory activity, where this may influence its decisions. The primary source of that power in the political system in Italy is the Constitutional Charter, within the limits that the power is recognised in the Charter. Taking a further look at the system of sources, in the absence of State laws regulating this issue, the only current law that, in regulating access, contains a definition of lobbying is the one issued by the Region of Abruzzo (Law 61 of 22 December 2011, in Bollettino Ufficiale della Regione Abruzzo no. 2 of 12 January 2011). While a review of the sources offers little food for thought on the discipline of lobbying, the review of legal formants is even more meagre.While case-law as a legal formant amounts to just a few sparse judgments of the Constitutional Court, the formant based on jurisprudence consists of only a few monographs on the subject. The essay puts under scrutiny the rules of lobbying in other legal system legal systems and points out that whatever the legal systems may be, they react to the phenomenon of lobbying by pressure groups by treating them as an ineluctable feature of democratic systems. This leads to the issue of representation, in other words the legitimisation – in some cases explicit through written laws or case-law decisions, in other cases cryptic, by recourse to implicit models – of the fact that the sovereign interest of the people may be manifested and may seek satisfaction not only through elected political institutions but also through free associations.And this principle, despite the tortuous paths inevitably taken in any legal system laying down the procedures for and limits of representation of interest groups, is common to all the legal systems considered in the essay. Two legal systems are subject to accurate analysis in the essay: the regulation of lobbying in United States one and within the European Union. This regulation is compared to the Italian one. The Author ends up considering the criticalities of all the legal systems taken into consideration when they address the regulation of lobbying. This is true both of the systems that rely on custom alone and of those that have acted by enacting legislative measures and within which doctrine-based and jurisprudential formants are applied to the issue.It is in fact hard to reconcile the constitutional guarantees as to the exercise of fundamental rights and at the same time to ensure that the political scene is immune to groups aiming to preserve their rent-seeking positions to the detriment of the community.


One potent effect of the cytokine transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) is to arrest growth in certain cell types. Upon activation by its ligand, the TGFβ receptor induces the formation of a heterocomplex of the Smad 2, 3, and 4 proteins in the cytosol. The Smad complex then translocates into the nucleus to activate TGFβ -responsive genes. Luo et al. report that a nuclear protein called Ski binds to and inhibits the Smad complex. Ski itself is a transcription regulator and is implicated in cell growth control. Ski expression repressed TGFβ-induced inhibition of cell growth. Smad-Ski interaction may therefore be one mechanism by which both TGFβ signaling is disabled and the transforming activity of Ski is promoted. Luo, K., Stroschein, S.L., Wang, W., Chen, D., Martens, E., Zhou, S., Zhou, Q. (1999) The Ski oncoprotein interacts with Smad proteins to repress TGFβ?signaling. Genes Dev. 13: 2196-2206. [Abstract] [Full Text]


Seven pre-tenure librarians at the University Library at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) created a peer review of teaching (PROT) group. This article provides an overview of the library literature on PROT and identifies the commonalities and variations found in PROT programs. The development, implementation, and benefits of the PROT program at IUPUI are discussed as well as outcomes pertaining to benefits for the observed, the observer, and for the PROT group as a whole. The authors also found that the implementation of a PROT program can enhance the sense of community among colleagues.


The Enterobacteriaceae encompass a large family of Gram-negative gastrointestinal resident bacteria, including the Salmonella enterica species. Members of this family have persisted for millions of years, although there is diversity in terms of host range and disease phenotype. The core genome shared between all Enterobacteriaceae includes genes essential for colonising the host intestine, whereas the accessory genome that is specific to certain subspecies and serovars reflects the diversity in lifestyle. This is especially well illustrated in S. enterica, which has over 2,000 different serovars with a wide range of lifestyles, comprising generalists and host-adapted serovars. Changes to the genome content drive this diversity and this frequently occurs via horizontal gene transfer, bacteriophage and transposon acquisition, plasmid movement and genome degradation. Many specific examples illustrate these evolutionary adaptations in Salmonella.

Key Concepts

Whole genome sequencing and comparative genomics have revealed a conserved 'core genome' common to enteric bacteria.
Horizontal gene transfer, bacteriophages and plasmid acquisition generates a repertoire of 'accessory genome' features that provides diversification.
Presence of certain Salmonella Pathogenicity Islands (SPIs) differentiates Salmonella from other Enterobacteriaceae and differentiates S. bongori from S. enterica: all Salmonella spp. have SPI-1, implicated in host cell invasion, while only S. enterica has SPI-2, which is required for survival within the host cell.
S. enterica is an old and complex species with over 2000 serovars that differ in terms of host range and disease phenotype.
S. Typhi is an example of a host-adapted serovar that causes severe invasive disease and is restricted to humans.
Host adaptation in S. Typhi is driven by genome degradation, the loss of genes not required for the systemic lifestyle in human hosts and gene acquisition, including the genes encoding the Vi capsule and typhoid toxin.

Keywords:

Salmonella;
genomes;
bacterial evolution;
infectious disease;
comparative genomics;
genetic diversity;
host adaptation


Adobe InDesign CS2 is a powerful, but complicated, page layout technology. Sure, learning how to use the various tools and techniques is important, but what you really need and want to know is how to put those tools and techniques to use to complete projects at work. That's where Adobe InDesign CS2 @ Work: Projects You Can Use on the Job comes into play. The InDesign tools and basics are introduced to you in the first three chapters. After that, you will accomplish a variety of real-world job tasks with detailed instructions that allow for personalization. The projects you will learn to tackle include: Business Collateral Marketing Materials Newspaper/Magazine Ads and Posters Brochures Interactive Reports/Presentations Monthly Newsletters Product Catalogues Order Forms Annual ReportsTips, tricks and notes provide you with the information that you need to carry over what you learn in Adobe InDesign CS2 @ Work: Projects You Can Use on the Job to your job. Put your knowledge and talents to work!i¾ "I'm really impressed with Adobe InDesign @work: Projects You Can Use on the Job. Cate Indiano found just the right balance of easy step-by-step instructions and pertinent background information, including workflow, project management, and production issues. The example layouts and files are well-designed and provide real-world context for the entire book. You won't find any fluff here - just a combination of clear and purposeful text and screenshots."Adam Pratt, Application Engineer, Adobe Systems, Inc."Cate Indiano has produced a thorough, well thought out book. She's an excellent instructor and her focus on making sure her readers learn what they need to know to produce work efficiently in the real world is very evident in this book."Sterling Ledet, Sterling Ledet & Associates


Degrees of Belief artfully weaves together three elements at the very core of engineering: uncertainties in knowledge, inductive reasoning, and individual expertise. Written from a geotechnical and earth sciences perspective, it brings new meaning to these concepts for nearly any field of engineering, science, or technology decision-making. The book begins by examining the tension between theory and practice, showing how this is manifested in the different meanings of probability used in reliability and risk analysis. It emphasizes the cognitive processes used in conceptualizing uncertainty, with techniques and tools for subjective probability assessment. Turning to what this requires, it lends substance to professional judgment by examining its diagnostic, inductive, and interpretive elements. The book also investigates the nature of expertise by bringing to life such towering figures as Roebling, Stevens, and Terzaghi, and their monumental engineering achievements. Masterfully synthesizing a wide variety of sources in a way directly relevant to engineers, the book draws on the history and philosophy of science through the work of Thomas Kuhn and Henri Poincare. It provides a window on current behavioral research that applies it to everyday thinking. This is all richly illustrated by examples from practice, including a gripping reassessment of the 1986 Challenger incident as seen through the eyes of the engineers who experienced it. From philosophical foundations to nuts and bolts, this is a groundbreaking book of serious content and sparkling style sure to engage any engineer or scientist who thinks about what they do and how they do it.


The 19th century is generally considered the time frame in which the disciplines of architecture and engineering irrevocably parted ways. Although the development of civil engineering as an independent discipline had already begun before the industrial revolution, it proceeded rapidly during the period of industrialisation in conjunction with several other influences. Among those were processes of social transformation in Europe, the development of specialised fields of activity in all professions as a function of changed conditions of production, fundamental technology euphoria in the widespread belief in progress, as well as the development and application of new materials. Especially the building material iron and the associated new types of constructions and typologies can be characterised as typical for that phase of industrialisation. A period of experimentation and discovery occurred in the quest for appropriate methods and forms of construction - built objects continuously confronted physical and cultural boundaries. At a time when the engineers increasingly oriented to the physical sciences, the new homogenous, formable building material symbolically represented the promise of new, groundbreaking theories and precise computing methods in the comprehensive monitoring and new definition of the bearing structure. The architectural potential represented by a freely formable iron mass opened up a great number of forms which often oriented to classicism or the Romanesque. Within architecture during the second half of the 19th century the stubborn striving towards old styles in the context of the use of the new material from a straightforward, engineering standpoint lead to an often deplored architectural crisis.


The Heterostraci are a subclass of armored jawless vertebrates that were widespread in marginal marine environments around the Old Red Sandstone continent during the late Silurian to Middle Devonian. Although a number of clades have long been recognized, further analysis has been limited by lack of morphological information beyond that afforded by the armor, thus impeding understanding of early vertebrate evolution. Phylogenetic analysis of several heterostracan clades has been carried out previously and we here show an analysis of the family Cyathaspididae in which we prioritize the feature of a single branchial plate as a defining character of the family and reject a number of taxa previously included in analyses of this taxon. This analysis resolves to a single consensus tree showing that the Cyathaspididae is composed of a series of clades that are congruent with the subfamily groupings erected previously: Tolypelepidinae, Irregulareaspidinae, Poraspidinae, Anglaspidinae, and Boothiaspidinae. A trend can be seen from earlier members of the family with a dorsal shield divided into four epitega or growth areas (Asketaspis, Tolypelepis) to the most derived members (Poraspis, Faberaspis) in which the epitega are lost entirely. In addition, the earliest taxa are shown to have possessed shields composed of scale-like elements, which are lost and replaced by continuous ridges in the more derived members. This result supports the hypothesis that the earliest members of the Heterostraci may also have been scale-covered.


The observation approach is often used as a measurement tool for examining the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) elements in residential areas. However, this method of evaluation, which is merely based on observations are seen to be inadequate. This is due to the fact that CPTED is closely tied to community-based relationships, which is not easily measured through short period observations. This study reports the findings of a pilot study which evalutes CPTED measures based on face-to-face questionnaire survey. The study was conducted in a gated residential areas located at Bukit Jambul in Penang, Malaysia. The results found that the measures of CPTED using Cronbach Alpha (α) index for all components of CPTED were 0.6 and above suggesting that the measures are reliable and valid. The study revealed that CPTED is correlated to Sense of Community but not to Fear of Crime.
Keywords: CPTED, crime, fear of crime, sense of community, gated residential area.
eISSN 2514-751X © 2017 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.


Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDIs) are gaining popularity in cloud computing by allowing companies to deploy their office environments in a virtualized setting instead of relying on physical desktop machines. Consolidating many users into a VDI environment can significantly lower IT management expenses and enables new features such as "available-anywhere" desktops. However, barriers to broad adoption include the slow performance of virtualized I/O, CPU scheduling interference problems, and shared-cache contention. In this paper, we propose a new soft real-time scheduling algorithm that employs flexible priority designations (via utility functions) and automated scheduler class detection (via hypervisor monitoring of user behavior) to provide a higher quality user experience. We have implemented our scheduler within the Xen virtualization platform, and demonstrate that the overheads incurred from co-locating large numbers of virtual machines can be reduced from 66% with existing schedulers to under 2% in our system. We evaluate the benefits and overheads of using a smaller scheduling time quantum in a VDI setting, and show that the average overhead time per scheduler call is on the same order as the existing SEDF and Credit schedulers.


Clinical and immunologic evidence suggests that tuberculous pleuritis provides a model to understand protective immune mechanisms against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We therefore evaluated the pattern of cytokine mRNA expression and cytokine production in pleural fluid and blood of patients with tuberculous pleuritis. RNA was extracted from mononuclear cells, reverse transcribed to cDNA, and amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). After normalization for T-cell cDNA, cDNA from pleural fluid cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) was amplified with cytokine-specific primers. PCR product was quantified by Southern blot. For the Th1 cytokines gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) and interleukin-2 (IL-2), PCR product was greater in pleural fluid than in blood, whereas PCR product for the Th2 cytokine IL-4 was decreased in pleural fluid compared with blood. Concentrations of IFN-gamma were elevated in pleural fluid compared with serum, but IL-2, IL-4, and IL-5 were not detectable. Mean concentrations of IFN-gamma and IL-2 in supernatants of M. tuberculosis-stimulated pleural fluid cells were significantly greater than corresponding concentrations in supernatants of stimulated PBMC. In situ hybridization showed that increased IFN-gamma production by pleural fluid cells was associated with a 20- to 60-fold increase in the frequency of antigen-reactive IFN-gamma-mRNA-expressing cells. Because IL-10 can be produced by T cells and macrophages, pleural fluid cells and PBMC were normalized for beta-actin cDNA content and then amplified by PCR with IL-10-specific primers. IL-10 mRNA was greater in pleural fluid cells than in PBMC and was expressed predominantly by macrophages. IL-10 concentrations were elevated in pleural fluid versus serum. These data provide strong evidence for compartmentalization of Th1 cytokines and IL-10 at the site of disease in humans with a resistant immune response to mycobacterial infection.


Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) have made great achievements for sequential prediction tasks. In practice, the target sequence often follows certain model properties or patterns (e.g., reasonable ranges, consecutive changes, resource constraint, temporal correlations between multiple variables, existence, unusual cases, etc.). However, RNNs cannot guarantee their learned distributions satisfy these properties. It is even more challenging for the prediction of large-scale and complex Cyber-Physical Systems. Failure to produce outcomes that meet these properties will result in inaccurate and even meaningless results. In this paper, we develop a new temporal logic-based learning framework, STLnet, which guides the RNN learning process with auxiliary knowledge of model properties, and produces a more robust model for improved future predictions. Our framework can be applied to general sequential deep learning models, and trained in an endto-end manner with back-propagation. We evaluate the performance of STLnet using large-scale real-world city data. The experimental results show STLnet not only improves the accuracy of predictions, but importantly also guarantees the satisfaction of model properties and increases the robustness of RNNs.


The net benefit of agroforestry trees for small scale farmers in dryland agricultural systems is debatable because while they provide significant direct and indirect services, they also consume considerable amounts of scare water resources. In this study we monitor the stable isotopes of water to improve a water budget of a Sclerocarya birrea tree in a millet field in South Eastern Burkina Faso. Data obtained from air temperature and humidity, surface temperature, solar radiation, and soil moisture sensors attached to a wireless sensor network uniquely configured around the agroforestry tree provided the initial calculation of the local water balance. Isotopic ratios were determined from water extracted from stems and sub canopy soil, and from nearby ground water, precipitation, and surface water that was sampled weekly. A linear mixing model is used to predict when the tree switched between water sources. The results from the linear mixing model coupled with a tree water balance demonstrate the extreme seasonality of the annual cycle of water use by this deciduous species.


We address the process of semi-automatic ontology extension using ontology content and in ontology structure. To evaluate the proposed approach, we have conducted experiments on real data from two domains comparing several measures for ranking correspondence between present ontology concepts and new domain concepts suggested for ontology extension. The best results are achieved by combining content and structure information and giving more weight to ontology content. Importance of using ontology structure in addition to ontology content depends on the data used to extend the ontology. In our experiments the ontology structure turned out to be less important for our financial data than for fisheries & aquaculture data.


Abstract Understanding helium transport and clustering is important for full understanding of fusion material degradation due to neutron irradiation. Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to study the clustering of He in FeCr alloy. The simulations are performed for He fractions from 0.1 to 0.4 in FeCr alloy at temperatures ranging from 300 to 800 K. It is observed that a minimum of five He atoms is required to form a stable cluster at temperatures in the range 700 to 800 K. An He5-(Fe/Cr)2-V2 complex is found to exist at 300 K. At higher temperatures, the cluster displaces the Fe and Cr atoms from their lattice sites, forming an He5-V complex. The constituent element of the displaced material is then found to migrate inside the system, depending upon the conditions prevailing there.


In Catalonia, agroecological cooperativism is part of a set of alternatives that appeared as a response to the current hegemonic food consumption model, controlled by large commercial establishments. It is defined by its promotion of short food supply chains (SFSCs), operates under the values of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) and holds a strong political commitment. This article, on the one hand, studies the setup of agroecological cooperativism understood as the outcome of a network of producers, intermediaries and consumers and, on the other hand, examines the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the development of this consumption model. The data has been obtained through on-site interviews and online research on the 56 consumer groups and cooperatives present in Barcelona. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis have been used to study them. The results prove the salient role that ICT has as a facilitator in the relational network established between the agents that take part in it, thus becoming a key characteristic element of the new agroecological consumer cooperativism.


Background— Little is known as to whether long-term outcomes of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) vary by race/ethnicity. Using the American Heart Association Get With The Guidelines–Stroke registry linked with Medicare claims data set, we examined whether 30-day and 1-year outcomes differed by race/ethnicity among older patients with AIS. Methods and Results— We analyzed 200 900 patients with AIS >65 years of age (170 694 non-Hispanic whites, 85.0%; 20 514 non-Hispanic blacks, 10.2%; 6632 Hispanics, 3.3%; 3060 non-Hispanic Asian Americans, 1.5%) from 926 US centers participating in the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program from April 2003 through December 2008. Compared with whites, other racial and ethnic groups were on average younger and had a higher median score on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale. Whites had higher 30-day unadjusted mortality than other groups (white versus black versus Hispanic versus Asian=15.0% versus 9.9% versus 11.9% versus 11.1%, respectively). Whites also had higher 1-year unadjusted mortality (31.7% versus 28.6% versus 28.1% versus 23.9%, respectively) but lower 1-year unadjusted all-cause rehospitalization (54.7% versus 62.5% versus 60.0% versus 48.6%, respectively). After risk adjustment, Asian American patients with AIS had lower 30-day and 1-year mortality than white, black, and Hispanic patients. Relative to whites, black and Hispanic patients had higher adjusted 1-year all-cause rehospitalization (black: adjusted odds ratio, 1.28 [95% confidence interval, 1.21–1.37]; Hispanic: adjusted odds ratio, 1.22 [95% confidence interval, 1.11–1.35]), whereas Asian patients had lower odds (adjusted odds ratio, 0.83 [95% confidence interval, 0.74–0.94]). Conclusions— Among older Medicare beneficiaries with AIS, there were significant differences in long-term outcomes by race/ethnicity, even after adjustment for stroke severity, other prognostic variables, and hospital characteristics.


This article documents a large set of heretofore unpublished details Collins used in his parser, such that, along with Collins' (1999) thesis, this article contains all information necessary to duplicate Collins' benchmark results. Indeed, these as-yet-unpublished details account for an 11 relative increase in error from an implementation including all details to a clean-room implementation of Collins' model. We also show a cleaner and equally well-performing method for the handling of punctuation and conjunction and reveal certain other probabilistic oddities about Collins' parser. We not only analyze the effect of the unpublished details, but also reanalyze the effect of certain well-known details, revealing that bilexical dependencies are barely used by the model and that head choice is not nearly as important to overall parsing performance as once thought. Finally, we perform experiments that show that the true discriminative power of lexicalization appears to lie in the fact that unlexicalized syntactic structures are generated conditioning on the headword and its part of speech.


In this groundbreaking new book you will learn the secrets of top producing real estate agents and brokers and how they use the Web to market listings and get new clients and listings. You will learn how top agents and brokers are taking their business to the next level by using low cost and highly effective methods on the Internet. Learn how to take advantage of new marketing systems so you can connect with today's Internet savvy real estate consumers. Learn what Internet consumers want most and how easy and affordable it is to provide. This new book will show you how to build, promote, get new clients and sell your listings using the Internet, with minimal costs. Let us arm you with the knowledge you need to make your business a success. Learn how to generate more traffic for your site with hundreds of Internet marketing methods, including many free and low-cost promotions. This new book presents a comprehensive, hands-on, step-by-step guide for increasing Web site traffic by using hundreds of proven tips, tools, and techniques. Learn how to target more customers and optimize your Web site from a marketing perspective. You will learn to target your campaign, use keywords, generate free advertising, search engine strategies, the insider secrets of e-mail marketing, how to build Web communities, co-branding, auto-responders, Google advertising, banner advertising, eBay storefronts, Web design information, search engine registration, directories, and real-world examples of what strategies are succeeding and what strategies are failing.


While the education of civil engineers is presently considered to be at the expected level, the engineering profession consistently points to the lack of integration of technical content in problem solving activities, and the inadequate communication and team-working skills of many graduates. Very often we all come across the students who know the content but can't seem to apply it and the question that comes to mind is how to re-energise the learning experience for both ourselves and our students? Literature consistently points out that any form of group activity will result in a better quality of student learning when compared to traditional delivery methods (Fink, 2003). Students often point to the obvious inconsequence of much of the course material learned in early years to real engineering problems. Once real design projects are encountered in later years, much of this knowledge has been lost; the application is not obvious or it is considered too theoretical for practical applications. The motivation of students to learn and integrate scientific and technological concepts from early on in their academic career is one of the key objectives for the creation of Civil Engineering Design Studios at a number of universities worldwide, as uncovered by the first author during her recent visit to several Universitas 21 (U21) member institutions as a U21 Fellow. This paper presents some of the findings concerning the Design Studios in Civil Engineering education, as revealed during the Fellowship. Paper presented at ConnectED 2007 International Conference on Design Education, July 2007


Five experiments investigated identification and discrimination of faces. Stimuli were blends of two faces generated with a morphing algorithm. Two same-gender and two different-gender pairs of faces were tested. Experiment 1 (identification) estimated the point of indifference along the morphing sequence, and the associated differential threshold. Experiment 2 (discrimination, ABX) demonstrated that novel faces are perceived categorically. Identity was a more important factor than gender in generating the perceptual categories. Experiment 3 and 4 (identification) demonstrated that categories are generated progressively in the course of the experiment and depend on the range of morphs tested in any one condition. Confidence ratings (Experiment 5) showed that the multidimensional space where faces are represented can be collapsed onto a single dimension. Response probabilities and response times for Experiments 1–4 were predicted simultaneously by a counting model postulating that quanta of discriminal information are sampled independently from the stimuli.


Mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI), in most cases, cannot be detected using imaging modalities like CT or MRI. However, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reveals subtle changes in white matter integrity as a result of head trauma and plays an important role in refining diagnosis and management of MTBI. We use DTI to detect the microstructural changes in collegial football players induced by axonal injuries and to monitor their evolution during the recovery process. Three players suffered a MTBI during play or practice and underwent scanning within 24h with follow-ups after one and two weeks. Scalar diffusion indices were derived from diffusion tensors and analyzed using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and voxel-wise t-tests to detect brain regions showing significant group differences between the injured subjects and controls. Both analyses revealed overlapping regions in the corticospinal tract with significant increase in fractional anisotropy and decreases in transverse and mean diffusivity within 24 hours. In voxel-wise t-tests strong indications for recovery were found spatially and temporally. For mean and transverse diffusivity, regions showing significant differences shrunk between the first and the follow-up scans. Although the sample size is small, these findings are remarkably consistent across all subjects and scans.


Authors provide a comparative international perspective of the relationship of privatization and women in the context of the work force. The methodology is a synthesis and critical evaluation of the impact of privatization on women from an international perspective utilizing a comparative analysis of international case studies and survey data from prominent scholars and international agencies and research firms to explain the adverse effects on women of privatization of the work force. Comparative data on women in the work force collected from 1999-2004 in the privatizing economies of Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Bulgaria, the United States, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Includes data collected by the United Nations (ILO) and World Bank. Lessons from the privatization of Social Security in Chile, Sweden, Great Britain and the United States are also provided. The authors' recommend the inclusion of gender variables in designing and implementing policy change for social security and the workforce, in general. Based on the existing survey data and international case studies, recommends strategies to prevent and reduce the adverse impact of privatization on women in the work force and suggests future research on related issues of social security and health care.


In this article I put forth the core argument that Second Language Acquisition (SLA) needs to account for the psychological and emotional dimensions of second language (L2) learning, but that a number of epistemological and methodological difficulties must be surmounted before this new research program can be a reality. To illustrate my arguments, I examine in depth 2 research programs developed by my colleagues and me over the last decade: research on extraversion as a psychological variable investigated within the tradition of individual differences in SLA, and research on the expression of emotion in the L2. Throughout the article, I argue against research isolationism and for more interdisciplinarity in the field of instructed SLA. I contend that research on instructed SLA would benefit from an increased methodological and epistemological diversity and that a focus on affect and emotion among researchers might inspire authors of teaching materials and foreign language teachers to pay increased attention to the communication of emotion and the development of sociocultural competence in a L2.


In recent years, the internationalisation of firm activities has been a significant trend in the agribusiness sector. To a great degree, this development has been fuelled by trade liberalisations and the EU enlargement, but also by the strong economic growth in many transforming and developing economies. Against this background, this paper identifies the strategies and instruments that agribusiness companies currently use when internationalising their business. The paper presents the empirical results of a survey that was undertaken between April and August 2010 with the participation of 113 German agribusiness firms. The majority of respondents expect that the globalisation of agricultural markets will increase remarkably in the future. For developing international business activities, comparatively simple strategies, such as direct and indirect exports, are most widely used. Agribusiness firms face various challenges in international markets, including problems with quality control, corruption, tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, as well as low availability of qualified workers and managers and a lack of legal security. Despite these difficulties and challenges, three-fourths of those interviewed indicated that they had either reached or exceeded the goals set for their international expansion.


There are more than 80 types of human papillomavirus (HPV) and approximately 30 strains are associated with genital infection. Several of the strains can be associated with cervical neoplasia. Evidence is accumulating to show that detection of persistent HPV infection could help detect those at most risk of cervical neoplasia disease progression. This study looked at the diversity of HPV infection and its association with cervical neoplasia. It used 3444 randomly selected samples, which were residual from liquid-based cytology samples. Its aim was to investigate the overall prevalence of HPV, the type specific prevalence and the number with multiple infections. This was then compared with the cytological assessment for neoplasia. Approximately 10% of the samples showed some degree of neoplastic abnormality. HPV was detected in 20% of samples, and 77% of these showed a high-risk type of HPV. Surprisingly, 42% of the positive samples from under-25-year-olds were HPV-positive. The results also showed that with increasing severity of dyskaryosis on cervical sample there was an increasing prevalence of HPV virus. Infection with multiple HPV types were found in 3.4% of negative sample and in 33.3%, 41.8% and 40.4% of samples with borderline, mild or high-grade dyskaryosis, respectively. HPV infection with a single type showed a very similar picture. A second phase of this longitudinal study is in progress and this may influence the addition of HPV testing to the cervical screening programme. The result of current pilot studies looking for HPV in under-25-year-olds may also help with this decision.


Naar aanleiding van: Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, Dichter en boer. Hubert Korneliszoon Poot. Zijn leven, zijn gedichten . Tweede druk, Amsterdam, Bert Bakker, 2010. – 480 pp. ISBN 978 90 351 3341 9. € 34,95. In her recently published anthology of poems by Hubert Korneliszoon Poot (1689-1733), Schenkeveld claims (as she has done at several earlier occasions) that Poot, as a poet, presented something new in Dutch literature, often making his own feelings and experiences the subject of his poems. Without questioning that claim, this article discusses the way Poot's contemporaries (reviewers, laudatory poets, his eighteenth-century biographer) responded to his work. Did they notice a personal tone that hadn't been known in Dutch poetry before? It is argued that there is no evidence at all that they did. Contemporary statements about Poot's poems can be fully described in terms of Horatian, mimetic-pragmatic poetics, 'personal expression' being no issue at all. Indeed, Poot is celebrated as a perfect representative of the great Dutch classical tradition, bringing new poems in the well-tried ways of Hooft and Vondel.


Within the framework of a realistic multiband $p\ensuremath{-}d$ model, we derived an effective Hamiltonian to describe the exchange interaction effects near the spin crossover in magnetic Mott-Hubbard insulators under pressure. It is shown that the single-ion mechanism of spin crossover under the change in the crystal field does not lead to a thermodynamic phase transition; however, at $T=0$ a quantum phase transition appears. It has been found that the cooperativity leads to a modification of the quantum phase transition to a first-order phase transition and the appearance of metastable states of the system. The pressure-temperature phase diagram has been obtained to describe the magnetization and high-spin population near the spin crossover of Mott's insulators with ${d}^{6}$ ions.


There is little doubt that drugs and gangs are national threats in contemporary society and interact to serve as contributing factors to crime on campus. Parents, teachers, and students expect schools to be a safe environment, which correlates with learning, as acts of violence disrupt the learning process, not to mention having a profoundly negative emotional impact on those affected by experiencing or viewing violence. According to a recent report on crime and school safety, students age 12 through 18 are the victims of more than 2.7 million crimes on campus each year, with 28 percent of all public school students report being involved in criminal activities on school property (Neiman, 2011). The primary source of tension specifically related to public schools in contemporary society is the proliferation of criminal activities furthered fused by globalization, as illustrated by the emerging symbolic relationship between drugs, gangs, and guns in America's schools. In the new millennium, criminal organizations have expanded to increase their profit and control, having long-term longevity (embedded), facilitate criminal activities, use violence at every level of their trade, and engage in mass corruption, thereby, degrading the learning environment, the characteristics of pedagogy within schools, and contribute to the ethical and moral decline of children. This article, then, explores the concept of In Loco Parentis as a venue to preserve the sanctity of the educational process, while seeking to address Constitutional issues of the Fourth Amendment as they relate to the security of schools within a global society in the twenty-first century.


After transcription of a gene, the abundance of a protein in a cell can be controlled through various mechanisms operating on the mRNA, including regulation of alternative splicing, polyadenylation, stability and degradation, nuclear export, and accessibility to translation factors. Star-PAP is a noncanonical poly(A) polymerase that has a proline-rich region (PRR), which splits the catalytic domain. Star-PAP functions as part of a larger macromolecular complex. However, in addition to the common proteins found in other polyadenylation complexes, the Star-PAP complex includes phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate 5 kinase Iα (PIPKIα), and Star-PAP activity is stimulated by phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2]. Gonzales et al. showed that the Star-PAP complex isolated from transfected cells also includes protein kinase activity and that Star-PAP is phosphorylated by the associated kinase. The protein kinase activity of the Star-PAP complex was inhibited by the addition of PI(4,5)P2, which led the authors to identify the kinase as casein kinase Iα (CKIα), which is known to be inhibited by PI(4,5)P2. CKIα and Star-PAP colocalized in nuclear speckles, which are a site of pre-mRNA processing, and inhibitors of CKIα blocked Star-PAP phosphorylation in vitro. Star-PAP is responsible for increasing the abundance of many mRNAs based on microarray experiments; however, CKIα and PIPKIα appear to control the targeting of Star-PAP to a subset of mRNAs involved in oxidative stress. Cells in which CKIα or PIPKIα was decreased using siRNA showed a specific decrease in the abundance of a subset of mRNAs processed by Star-PAP, including two that encode enzymes involved in the response to oxidative stress (HO-1 and NQO1), without affecting other transcripts targeted by Star-PAP. Thus, the presence of a lipid kinase and a protein kinase in the Star-PAP complex appears to target Star-PAP to specific mRNA targets and connects nuclear lipid signaling to mRNA processing. M. L. Gonzales, D. L. Mellman, R. A. Anderson, CKIα is associated with and phosphorylates Star-PAP and is also required for expression of select Star-PAP target messenger RNAs. J. Biol. Chem. 283, 12665-12673 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This publication was developed as a primer for youth on the green economy, particularly since there are no youth-friendly publication that explain this issue to youth. This publication enables youth to better familiarize themselves with the green economy and the skills needed for it (e.g. engaging in social innovation and green entrepreneurship).


This thesis investigates the relevance of digital democracy in enhancing citizen
participation in policy making within the Malaysian civil service. A qualitative
research method is applied through an empirical, in-depth interview based, data
collection exercise of a sample of civil servants and commentators on government and
technology in Malaysia. It assesses, from a broad perspective, the possible
contribution of Information Communications Technology (ICT) in strengthening
citizen participation in the democratic processes of government. In these contexts it
offers a perspective on how the legal, political and social interpenetrates. The
literature reviewed covers: the concept of democracy and assumed influences of ICT
on democratic processes; Malaysia's history with a focus on nation building, the civil
service and also its government's ICT agendas; and, laws structuring citizen
participation in government in Malaysia, framed within autopoietic theory. This, as a
metaphor, offers a flexible perspective of law's affect on its environment and vice
versa, and, further illustrates and emphasises the importance of context. The findings
suggest that civil servants agree that there are numerous opportunities for policy
making to benefit from digital democracy practices based on ICT. However there is a
gap between their appreciation of this potential as a concept and their confidence in its
implementation in policy making within the civil service. Civil servants are not ready
to hand over the role of defining the process and content of policy making to citizens.
Civil servants are generally uncertain about the actual value or weight they are willing
to afford to inputs from digital democracy practices and what its influence on policy
making will be. The thesis is significant because it describes, from viewpoints within
the civil service, the role of ICT in enhancing citizen participation in democratic
processes within a context of issues, benefits, enablers and barriers to citizen
participation in policy making. This description is placed against a background of the
history, culture and law which situates Malaysian civil servants' understanding of the
concept of digital democracy and how they frame its relevance to policy making. The
research informs the formulation of policy for the use of digital democracy practices
in Malaysia. More generally, it contributes to the debate over the factors, including
historic democratic practices, which affect the capacity for ICT to enhance
participatory democracy. Through this focus on a South East Asian state and its civil
service, the study explores new dimensions and offers a significant contribution to the
emerging field of digital democracy.


Imaging spectrometers measure electromagnetic energy scattered in their instantaneous field view in hundreds or thousands of spectral channels with higher spectral resolution than multispectral cameras. Imaging spectrometers are therefore often referred to as hyperspectral cameras (HSCs). Higher spectral resolution enables material identification via spectroscopic analysis, which facilitates countless applications that require identifying materials in scenarios unsuitable for classical spectroscopic analysis. Due to low spatial resolution of HSCs, microscopic material mixing, and multiple scattering, spectra measured by HSCs are mixtures of spectra of materials in a scene. Thus, accurate estimation requires unmixing. Pixels are assumed to be mixtures of a few materials, called endmembers. Unmixing involves estimating all or some of: the number of endmembers, their spectral signatures, and their abundances at each pixel. Unmixing is a challenging, ill-posed inverse problem because of model inaccuracies, observation noise, environmental conditions, endmember variability, and data set size. Researchers have devised and investigated many models searching for robust, stable, tractable, and accurate unmixing algorithms. This paper presents an overview of unmixing methods from the time of Keshava and Mustard's unmixing tutorial to the present. Mixing models are first discussed. Signal-subspace, geometrical, statistical, sparsity-based, and spatial-contextual unmixing algorithms are described. Mathematical problems and potential solutions are described. Algorithm characteristics are illustrated experimentally.


The inflation targeting (IT) regime is 17 years old. With practice of IT now in more than 21 countries, there is enough evidence gathered to take stock of the IT experience. In this paper, we analyze the inflation record of IT central banks. We extend the work of Albagli and Schmidt-Hebbel (2004) by looking at a broad range of factors that can influence inflation target deviations and by identifying the empirical determinants of successful monetary policy under IT. We find that part of the cross-country and time variation in inflation deviations from targets can be explained by exchange rate movements, fiscal deficits, and differences in financial sector development. With respect to the components of the IT framework, we find that a higher inflation target and a larger inflation control range are associated with more variable inflation (and output) outcomes. Although the literature tends to suggest that greater central bank transparency is desirable, our findings imply that transparency might be associated with less satisfactory inflation performance. Interestingly, central banks using economic models do a better job of stabilizing inflation around the target and output around trend.


BACKGROUND Early allograft dysfunction (EAD) is considered an important complication in liver transplantation. Serum brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a marker of cardiac dysfunction related to end-stage liver disease. We investigated the intraoperative change in the serum BNP level and its contribution to EAD after living donor liver transplantation (LDLT). MATERIAL AND METHODS The perioperative data of 104 patients who underwent LDLT were retrospectively reviewed and compared between patients with and without EAD. Serum BNPs were obtained at each phase, and potentially significant factors (P<0.1) were measured by univariate analysis. The intraoperative mean serum BNP level was compared with other predictors using the AUC, and was analyzed for its relationship with EAD by multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS A total of 31 patients (29.8%) developed EAD after LDLT. In all phases, the EAD group showed higher serum BNP levels than the non-EAD group. The serum BNP level at each phase was less accurate than the mean serum BNP level for EAD. The intraoperative mean serum BNP level showed higher predictive accuracy than the Child-Pugh-Turcotte, model for end-stage liver disease (MELD), and D-MELD (donor age × recipient MELD) scores (p<0.05 for all). After multivariate adjustment, intraoperative mean serum BNP level ≥100 pg/mL was identified as an independent risk factor for EAD, along with kidney disease and graft ischemic time. CONCLUSIONS During LDLT, the EAD group showed higher serum BNP levels than the non-EAD group. An intraoperative mean serum BNP level ≥100 pg/mL is independently associated with EAD after LDLT.


Introduction: Research in early cancer detection has led to discovery of many immunological tumor markers that contribute considerably to supplement the method of diagnosis. High serum immunoglobulin A (IgA) values in patients with cancer have been used as tumor markers. Aims and Objectives: To evaluate and compare the serum IgA levels in nontreated, treated oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) patients, and control group. Materials and Methods: A total of 60 patients were included in the study. 20 biopsy confirmed oral SCC patients, who have received no medical treatment, 20 oral SCC patients treated with surgery and/or radiotherapy and 20 normal healthy individuals. Venous blood samples were collected from anterior cubital vein and were delivered to the biochemistry laboratory for the estimation of serum IgA level by nephelometry method. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical method employed were the Pearson's Chi-square test and One-way analysis of variance (Welch) followed by Games-Howell post-hoc test. Results: We observed significant difference for serum IgA between study subjects in control, nontreated and treated oral SCC patients (P < 0.001). Serum IgA level in nontreated group was significantly higher than treated group and there was an approximately two-fold increase in serum IgA level in nontreated oral SCC patients when compared to that of the normal healthy individuals. Conclusion: Serum level of IgA might be employed as diagnostic and prognostic indicators in oral cancer.


Adversarial examples that can fool deep neural network (DNN) models in computer vision present a growing threat. The current methods of launching adversarial attacks concentrate on attacking image classifiers by adding noise to digital inputs. The problem of attacking object detection models and adversarial attacks in physical world are rarely touched. Some prior works are proposed to launch physical adversarial attack against object detection models, but limited by certain aspects. In this paper, we propose a novel physical adversarial attack targeting object detection models. Instead of simply printing images, we manufacture real metal objects that could achieve the adversarial effect. In both indoor and outdoor experiments we show our physical adversarial objects can fool widely applied object detection models including SSD, YOLO and Faster R-CNN in various environments. We also test our attack in a variety of commercial platforms for object detection and demonstrate that our attack is still valid on these platforms. Consider the potential defense mechanisms our adversarial objects may encounter, we conduct a series of experiments to evaluate the effect of existing defense methods on our physical attack.


Understanding the drivers of many environmental problems requires enumerating the global supply chain. Multi-region input–output analysis (MRIOA) is a well-established technique for this purpose, but constructing a multi-region input–output table (MRIOT) can be a formidable challenge. We constructed a large MRIOT using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database of harmonised economic, IO, and trade data. We discuss the historical development of the GTAP-MRIO and describe its efficient construction. We provide updated carbon footprint estimates and analyse several issues relevant for MRIO construction and applications. We demonstrate that differences in environmental satellite accounts may be more important than differences in MRIOTs when calculating national carbon footprints. The GTAP-MRIO is a robust global MRIOT and, given its easy availability and implementation, it should allow the widespread application of global MRIOA by a variety of users.


The yearbook on European integration, compiled by the Institute of European Politics in Berlin, has documented the process of European integration in an up-to-date and detailed way since 1980. The result is a unique record of contemporary European history over a 40 year period. The 2020 edition of the yearbook continues this tradition. In approximately 100 contributions related to their main research subjects, the book's authors portray the events of European politics in the period 2019–20 and inform the reader about the work of European institutions, the development of the EU's policy areas, Europe's role in the world and European policy in the EU's member states and candidate countries.


We report on a simple synthesis of ZnO nanowires by calcination of zinc acetate. The effect of calcination temperature and cooling route on the antibacterial and photocatalytic properties is demonstrated by varying the size and surface area of the nanowires. The decrease of the calcination temperature followed by a rapid cooling procedure leads to a smaller size and larger surface area of the nanowires. ZnO nanowires are found to be effective against the growth of E. coli at the microgram level. In addition, the photocatalytic activity of the synthesized ZnO nanowires is demonstrated by the successful degradation of the organic dye methylene blue.


This paper presents the results of computer simulation of active reflectors in a reference listening room which are used to create artificial reflections in a two speaker, stereo listening configuration. This formulates the second phase of experiments in the active listening room project involving the analysis of computer modeling results and loudspeaker selection based on free field response. The aim of this project is to create a truly variable listening condition in a reference listening room by means of active simulation of key acoustic parameters such as the early reflection pattern, early decay time and reverberation time.


This paper addresses the problems of state space decomposition and predicate detection in a distributed computation involving asynchronous messages. We introduce a natural communication dependency which leads to the definition of the communication graph. This abstraction proves to be a useful tool to decompose the state lattice of a distributed computation into simpler structures, known as concurrent intervals. Efficient algorithms have been proposed in the literature to detect special classes of predicates, such as conjunctive predicates and bounded sum predicates. We show that more general classes of predicates can be detected when proper constraints are imposed on the underlying computations. In particular, we introduce a class of predicates, defined as separable predicates, that properly includes the above-mentioned classes. We show that separable predicates can be efficiently detected on distributed computations whose communication graphs satisfy the series-parallel constraint.


Objective- To present a new technique of suturing fresh massive wounds with skin flap in equine regardless of the flap direction and/or location.
Design- Experimental in vivo study and clinical trial.
Animals- Nine healthy donkeys for experimental study and 28 horses with different injuries that varied in shape and location for clinical trial.
Procedures- All injuries were repaired using the new technique. Flap survival length and viability were assessed over three week's period both clinically; through observing skin texture and appearance, hair depilation as well as wound healing; and histologically through skin biopsy at 7, 14 and 21 days after surgery to evaluate the healing process.
Results- Clinical cases showed excellent wound healing in all flaps. Histologically, all flaps showed good healing by day 7, and at 21 days all the underlying space was filled with normal s.c. tissue.
Conclusion and Clinical Relevance- This new technique is a rapid and successful fieldprocedure for the treatment of fresh massive wounds with skin flap in equine without the need of sophisticated equipments yet with good results.


Due to changes in the problem description during the work on this thesis, a more precise title to this thesis would be: "A Comparative Study of The Internet Access Markets in Norway and Sweden Open Access Networks versus Vertical Closed Networks. This thesis conducts a comparative study on the Norwegian and Swedish Internet access market. Access fiber networks in Norway are vertical closed networks, while the majority of Swedish fiber networks are open access networks. Somewhat simplified, a vertical closed network is a network where a single provider has a monopoly on service delivery to end users. An open access network is a network where the network owner opens up for service delivery from other providers. Further, Norway and Sweden are well suited to compare because of their many similarities. The national price level, geography and population density is relatively equal. This thesis has gathered data on coverage, penetration, prices and government support for development of fixed broadband access in Norway and Sweden. By using these figures this thesis is attempting to explain the effects the different business models have on coverage, penetration and prices in Norway and Sweden. Furthermore the goal of the thesis is also to say something about what these two very different models brings compared with each other on a general basis. In summary this thesis' findings are the following: 1. The overlap of HFC and fiber networks, and the high new entry cost in Sweden are significant factors in terms of the lower penetration of the aforementioned access technologies in Sweden compared to Norway; 2. OAN business models causes lower subscription prices and existing entry costs compared with vertical closed network business models; 3. Vertical closed network business models causes a lower new entry cost compared to OAN business models; 4. Vertical closed network business models and limited government intervention secures demand driven fiber rollout; 5. In the fiber market a Swedish end user will, with its far lower monthly subscription price than a Norwegian, quickly equalize the benefit the Norwegian end users achieves with its low new entry cost.


The requirements of a network equivalent to be used in new planning tools are very different from those used in traditional equivalencing procedures. For example, in the classical Ward equivalent, each generator in the external system is broken up into fractions. For newer long-term investment applications that take into account such things as greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations and generator availability, it is computationally impractical to model fractions of generators located at many buses. To overcome this limitation, a modified- Ward equivalencing scheme is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme is applied to the entire Eastern Interconnection (EI) to obtain several backbone equivalents and these equivalents are tested for accuracy under a range of operating conditions. In a companion paper, the application of an equivalent developed by this procedure is used to perform optimal generation investment planning.


In the late twelfth century, Japanese people called the transitional period in which they were living the 'age of warriors'. Feudal clans fought civil wars, and warriors from the Kanto Plain rose up to restore the military regime of their shogun, Yoritomo. The whole of this intermediary period came to represent a gap between two stable societies: the ancient period, dominated by the imperial court in Heian (today's Kyoto), and the modern period, dominated by the Tokugawa bakufu based in Edo (today's Tokyo). In this remarkable portrait of a complex period in the evolution of Japan, Pierre F. Souyri uses a wide variety of sources - ranging from legal and historical texts to artistic and literary examples - to form a magisterial overview of medieval Japanese society. As much at home discussing the implications of the morality and mentality of The Tale of the Heike as he is describing local disputes among minor vassals or the economic implications of the pirate trade, Souyri brilliantly illustrates the interconnected nature of medieval Japanese culture. The Middle Ages was a decisive time in Japan's history because it confirmed the country's national identity. New forms of cultural expression, such as poetry, theatre, garden design, the tea ceremony, flower arranging and illustrated scrolls, conveyed a unique sensibility - sometimes in opposition to the earlier Chinese models followed by the old nobility. The World Turned Upside Down provides an animated account of the religious, intellectual and literary practices of medieval Japan in order to reveal the era's own notable cultural creativity and enormous economic potential.


E-learning is widely acknowledged as a possible methodology to teach information literacy. Nevertheless, studies reveal that information literacy courses as separate credit-bearing courses taught entirely in the form of e-learning, and using methods of active learning, are rare. This study analyzes the performance of a model for an e-learning course in information literacy in which learners with various backgrounds can participate, and where assignments can be completed according to personal information needs. Although the course does not provide face-to-face contact, learner-centred personal guidance is applied, as every student has an instructor — a subject librarian familiar with information sources in her field. The course is based on a constructivist learning approach: active learning techniques are used and critical thinking is developed through reflection and analysis of fellow students' assignments. The preliminary qualitative content analysis of feedback and reflections from graduates indicates that students value knowledge and skills obtained from the course. Moreover, information literacy as a course is considered necessary and guided e-learning is quite suitable for gaining information literacy. We conclude that, in order to be beneficial and valuable for students, information literacy does not necessarily have to be integrated into the teaching process of another subject. However, it should be connected with these studies, enabling students to obtain skills for information searching and learning necessary for successful graduation. At the same time, e-learning as a tool helps to promote information literacy in the academic environment in all segments of the university, integrating it with curricula.


The existing criteria for defining allowable levels of wave agitation in Canadian harbours are outlined in the Guidelines of Harbour Accommodation (Fisheries and Oceans). These criteria were developed based on a previous study which concentrated primarily on recreational harbours. However, it was realized that fishing vessels, when berthed or moored, may be able to tolerate a greater degree of wave agitation than pleasure craft because of the different characteristics and functions of the two types of vessels. Furthermore, fishermen tend to have more liberal tolerance limits to wave agitation than pleasure craft owners, and have more rugged craft. To develop new allowable wave agitation criteria for commercial fishing harbours in Atlantic Canada, a field measurement programme was conducted in selected harbours. The objective was to determine the threshold values at which the wave climate at both the service/offloading area and mooring area creates either dangerous, difficult or unacceptable working conditions. This was determined to be the point at which operations must cease or the vessel had to be removed to a more protected area. Wave measurement gauges were installed at two locations within two study harbours, and a wave rider buoy was used to measure nearshore waves for each harbour site. A procedure was also developed whereby daily field observations were taken and recorded by the harbour master. Particular emphasis was given to the wave climate events which rendered the facilities less than adequate, unsafe or unusable. By correlating the harbour masters field observations with the measured wave data, the threshold values for unacceptable wave agitation were determined, and new wave agitation criteria for fishing harbours recommended.


Part 1 Essential Techniques Guidelines for Immediate Medical Care. Basic Life Support. Airway Care. Advanced Airway Care. Circulation Care: Shock. Circulation Care: Arrhythmias. Pain Relief. Resuscitation in Pregnancy. Neonatal Resuscitation. Paediatric Resuscitation Part 2 Medical Care Acute Myocardial Infarction. Medical Emergencies. Poisoning/Overdosage. Heat Related Injury, Drowning and Dysbarism. Part 3 Trauma Care Head Injuries. Facial Injuries. Chest Injuries. Abdominal and Pelvic Injuries. Skeletal Injuries. Spinal Injuries. Gunshot and Blast Injuries. Impalement and Penetrating Injuries. Amputation/Crush Injuries. Burns Part 4 Pregnancy Care Obstetric Emergencies Part 5 Practical Immediate Care the Accident Scene. Reporting from the Scene. The Emergency Services. Dangerous Chemicals. Major Incidents. Aeromedical Evacuation. Radio Communications. Counselling Disaster and Accident Victims. Organisation of Immediate Care. Equipment Bibliography Index


While publish-subscribe systems have attracted much research interest in the last decade, few established benchmarks have emerged and there has been little characterization of how they are used in practice. This paper examines RSS, a newly emerging, widely used publishsubscribe system for web micronews. Based on a trace study spanning 45 days at a medium-size academic department, and periodic polling of approximately 100,000 RSS feeds, we extract feed and client characteristics for RSS. We find that the popularity of RSS feeds follows a power law distribution. 16% of RSS feeds are updated hourly and 25% do not change at all during our polling period. 64% of all updates involve less than three lines in the XML document. We also find that RSS feed update sizes are proportional to feed size. Overall, an analysis of RSS, the first widely deployed publish-subscribe system, can help inform the design of next generation pub-sub systems.


This research looked at family stress factors and parental behaviour associated with both successful and poor outcomes for children aged 7. Differences in children's outcomes have been shown to emerge early in life and to be linked to both family circumstances, such as social disadvantage, and to parenting behaviours, like parenting style and activities with the child. Both these aspects of a child's environment are important for their early cognitive and emotional development. But it is not clear whether these early differences, and the factors associated with them, persist up to age 7. Previous research has also shown that stressful life events are associated with worse outcomes for children. However, it has not previously been possible to explore whether particular life events are especially detrimental, whether they impact across different sorts of children's outcomes (educational, social etc.), and whether the effects of early childhood events persist into adolescence. This research aimed to identify the family stress factors and parental behaviours that were associated with worse children's outcomes at age 7 and those family factors and parental behaviour that helped children to succeed. It also set out to identify whether stressful life events experienced at different periods of childhood were associated with worse outcomes in adolescence.