The present study was an attempt to integrate diverse research on leisure motives and present a unifying understanding of processes that underlie television viewing, internet use, and retail shopping. The uses and gratifications paradigm provided theoretical explanations. Two consistent strategies of leisure consumption---instrumental (or cognitive) and ritualized (or affective)---were suggested. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate any direct, indirect, or non-recursive effects of leisure consumption strategies on consumption, satisfaction, addiction, and affinity across the three contexts. Gender, self-esteem, need for cognition, alienation, and aggressiveness were also included in the models. Mediating effects of television genres, internet activities, and shopping types on the general consumption process were assessed in additional analyses.
664 undergraduate students filled out an online questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed on all scales. Affinity scale was the only one to show poor construct validity and was excluded from the study. CFA's supported presence of the two consistent leisure strategies. The instrumental strategy included learning, dreaming, socializing, and cognitive processing dimensions. The ritualized strategy included entertainment, pass time, and affective processing dimensions.
Consistent findings. Both satisfaction and addiction predicted general leisure consumption. The ritualized strategy increased leisure satisfaction and the instrumental strategy increased leisure addiction. Female gender increased use of the ritualized strategy, whereas alienation decreased it. Need for cognition and aggressiveness increased use of the instrumental strategy, whereas self-esteem decreased it. Overall, high self-esteem served as a buffer against addiction and increased satisfaction. Aggressiveness increased leisure behaviors, either through addictions or direct use.
Contextual differences. The ritualized strategy increased internet use and shopping addiction, though to a lesser degree than the instrumental strategy. Alienation increased use of the instrumental television strategy, whereas need for cognition decreased television satisfaction. Television addiction positively predicted satisfaction. Female gender increased shopping satisfaction and shopping behavior and decreased television viewing. Finally, non-recursive relationships between the two strategies were tested. Positive non-recursive effects were supported in the context of shopping. The ritualized strategy had a positive effect on the instrumental strategy in the context of television, whereas the opposite was true in the context of internet use.
Theoretical and social implications are discussed.


This presentation comes from the Performance Reporting for Investment Managers: Applying the AIMR Performance Presentation Standards conference held in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 5, 1990 and in Los Angeles, California, on March 19, 1991.


In this paper, we address the fundamental problem of chemical interdiffusion in binary alloys for the case where vacancies at non-equilibrium concentrations may be generated during the interdiffusion process. We take a very general phenomenological approach to interdiffusion but develop it in a new way. Both high vacancy and low vacancy concentrations are dealt with. For the commonly encountered small vacancy concentration case our strategy centres on directing the information about the driving force associated with the non-equilibrium vacancies (which is effectively not measurable) onto the velocity of inert marker(s) in the diffusion zone. Assuming access to independent knowledge of the two tracer diffusivities we derive expressions for the transport coefficient (for the case of non-equilibrium vacancies) using an analysis along Boltzmann–Matano lines. Using the random alloy model we show that in principle it is possible to measure the relative concentration of non-equilibrium vacancies produced during interdiffusion.


One of the most important objectives for transportation engineers is to understand pavement surface properties and their positive and negative effects on the user. This can improve the design of the infrastructure, adequacy of tools, and consistency of methodologies that are essential for transportation practitioners regarding macrotexture characterization. Important pavement surface characteristics, or tirepavement interactions, such as friction, tire-pavement noise, splash and spray, and rolling resistance, are significantly influenced by pavement macrotexture. This dissertation compares static and dynamic macrotexture measurements and proposes and enhanced method to quantify the macrotexture. Dynamic measurements performed with vehicle-mounted lasers have the advantage of measuring macrotexture at traffic speed. One drawback of these laser devices is the presence of "spikes" in the collected data, which impact the texture measurements. The dissertation proposes two robust and innovative methods to overcome this limitation. The first method is a data-driven adaptive method that detects and removes the spikes from high-speed laser texture measurements. The method first calculates the discrete wavelet transform of the texture measurements. It then detects (at all levels) and removes the spikes from the obtained wavelet coefficients (or differences). Finally, it calculates the inverse discrete wavelet transform with the processed wavelet coefficients (without outliers) to obtain the Mean Profile Depth (MPD) from the measurements with the spikes removed. The method was validated by comparing the results with MPD measurements obtained with a Circular Texture Meter (CTMeter) that was chosen as the control device. Although this first method was able to successfully remove the spikes, it has the drawback that it depends on manual modeling of the distribution of the wavelet coefficients to correctly define an appropriate threshold. The next step of this dissertation proposes an enhanced to the spike removal methodology for macrotexture measurements taken with high-speed laser devices. This denoising methodology uses an algorithm that defines the distribution of texture measurements by using the family of Generalized Gaussian Distributions (GGD), along with the False Discovery Rate (FDR) method that controls the proportion of wrongly identified spikes among all identified spikes. The FDR control allows for an adaptive threshold selection that differentiates between valid measurements and spikes. The validation of the method showed that the MPD results obtained with denoised dynamic measurements are comparable to MPD results from the control devices. This second method is included as a crucial step in the last stage of this dissertation as explained following. The last part of the dissertation presents an enhanced macrotexture characterization index based on the Effective Area for Water Evacuation (EAWE), which: (1) Estimates the potential of the pavement to drain water and (2) Correlates better with two pavement surface properties affected by macrotexture (friction and noise) that the current MPD method. The proposed index is defined by a three-step process that: (1) removes the spikes, assuring the reliability of the texture profile data, (2) finds the enveloping profile that is necessary to delimit the area between the tire and the pavement when contact occurs, and (3) computes the EAWE. Comparisons of current (MPD) and proposed (EAWE) macrotexture characterization indices showed that the MPD overestimates the ability of the pavement for draining the surface water under a tire.


The idea of acclimatising the English salmon (Salmo salar)
in Tasmanian waters was entertained by some of the colonists
at a very early period in our history. In the year 1844, as
recorded in Vol. 1, p. 28 1, of the " Proceedings of the Royal
Society of Tasmania," the late Captain Frederick Chalmers, of
Brighton, in Tasmania, applied to Dr. Mackenzie, of Kinillan-by-
Dingwall, Ross-shire, Scotland, for salmon fry to bring to
Tasmania. The fry were not supplied, but the correspondence
is interesting, and shows how little was then known of the
subject when Dr. Mackenzie suggested that artificially
impregnated ova deposited in a basket of fine gravel and
plunged in a tank would require no more attention until it
was landed in Tasmania, where it could be put into a pail and
carried to any stream and there deposited.
P. S. Seager was
Secretary to the Fisheries Board of Tasmania.


Introduction Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) is a toxin associated with community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) worldwide and also occurs in community-associated methicillin-susceptible S aureus (CA-MSSA) strains. The aims of the study were to determine the prevalence of PVL in community-onset S aureus skin and soft-tissue infections (SSTIs) and to analyse the influence of methicillin resistance and PVL presence on the clinical characteristics of these infections. Patients and methods We prospectively enrolled all children with S aureus community-onset SSTIs attending the emergency department of a tertiary hospital between 2007 and 2009. Results A total of 142 S aureus SSTIs were identified, 46 (32%) were PVL positive. The proportion of subjects in each group was: 89 (63%) PVL-MSSA, 33 (23%) PVL+MSSA, 13 (9%) PVL+MRSA and 7 (5%) PVL-MRSA. PVL+infections were more frequently abscesses (63% vs 39%, p<0.01), and more often required incision and drainage (p<0.01) and hospital admission (46% vs 26%, p=0.02). MRSA infections were also more frequently associated with abscesses but in a multivariable analysis only PVL remained independently related (OR 2.33; 95% CI 1.10 to 4.90). Conclusions Our study found a high prevalence of PVL presence in community-onset S aureus SSTIs in children in Spain. This toxin is associated with more abscess formation, regardless of methicillin resistance.


Establishing a vector spherical harmonic expansion of the electromagnetic field propagating inside an arbitrary anisotropic medium, we extend Mie theory to the diffraction by an anisotropic sphere, with or without losses. The particular case of a uniaxial material leads to a simpler analysis. This work opens the way to the construction of a differential theory of diffraction by a three-dimensional object with arbitrary shape, filled by an arbitrary anisotropic material.


Purpose
The increasing awareness of stress as an issue in the construction industry, and the increased realisation of the more effective approach of preventing stress as opposed to treating mental health, has placed a great responsibility on industries that rely heavily on the performance of their workforce. In line with this, this paper aims to investigate the causes of stress and the best strategies for improving professional resilience and stress management proficiency in the construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach
Using exploratory sequential mixed method research design, the top factors that cause stress, mitigate stress and build resilience are identified and discussed.

Findings
The findings show thematic similarities in the causes of stress, by displaying a reoccurring theme relating to the quality and lack of information, as well as poor communication among the construction professionals. This implies that poor collaboration and "over-the-wall syndrome" of the construction industry does not only contribute to defective output and reworks, it also has significant impacts on the health and well-being of the professionals. Recommendations are made on how to mitigate stress in the industry, by addressing its root-causes and implementing the identified mitigation strategies. This includes a realistic approach to budgeting and project duration, as well as improved communication and collaboration.

Originality/value
Finding of this study could help in mitigating stress and mental health concerns that are currently plaguing the construction industry.


Subsidising research networks has become a popular instrument in technology policies, driven mainly by expected positive spillovers. In particular, the stimulation of R&D co-operation between scientific institutions and industry is considered as most promising. In the context of policy evaluation we analyse if public R&D funding is suitable for influencing firms' collaborative behaviour in the intended way and where applicable, if a lasting change results. The empirical analysis is based on German CIS data and a supplemental telephone survey. Using a nearest-neighbour matching approach we find that R&D funding is indeed a particularly valuable tool for the linking of science into industry R&D partnerships. However, we also show in a bivariate probit analysis that newly initiated R&D co-operations with science are less likely to be continued after funding has ended compared to already existing co-operations. Therefore, the behavioural change induced by public funding is not necessarily longlived.


Background The Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) is increasingly used for both on- and off-label purposes for treatment of intracranial aneurysms. The device gradually slows flow of blood into the aneurysm, but the high metal coverage of PED promotes endothelialization of the device. Occasionally, this leads to in-stent stenosis that is clinically well tolerated. We present a multi-institutional Pipeline series that includes three cases of gradual asymptomatic occlusion within the PED and parent vessel. Methods Institutional databases at each participating center were searched for patients treated with the PED. Patients with at least 50% stenosis or occlusion were selected and all relevant clinical and radiographic data were reviewed. Results A total of 326 cases performed by five neurointerventionalists across four institutions were reviewed. Among these there were three cases of complete occlusion and two cases of stenosis of more than 50%, for an occlusion rate of 0.9%. All patients were clinically asymptomatic. Conclusions A gradual tourniquet-like occlusion can occur following placement of the PED, leading to vessel occlusion. This has been clinically well tolerated by patients in our series due to the formation of pial collaterals as the stenosis progresses, likely due to ischemic preconditioning. Small parent vessel, pre-existing stenosis, fusiform pathology, overlapping devices, and suboptimal antiplatelet therapy seem to be predisposing factors. Further experience and follow-up will allow us to characterize the risk factors and optimize post-procedural therapy for these patients.


Rectangular electrical pulses are the primary stimulus waveform used in retinal prosthetics as well as many other neural stimulation applications. Unfortunately, the utility of pulsatile stimuli is limited by the inability to avoid the activation of passing axons, which can result in the distortion of the spatial patterns of elicited neural activity. Because avoiding axons would likely improve clinical outcomes, the examination of alternate stimulus waveforms is warranted. Here, we studied the response of rabbit retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) to sinusoidal electrical stimulation applied at frequencies of 5, 10, 25, and 100 Hz. Targeted RGCs were restricted to 4 common types: OFF-Brisk Transient, OFF-Sustained, ON-Brisk Transient, and ON-Sustained. Interestingly, response patterns varied between different types; the most notable difference was the relatively weak response of ON-Sustained cells to low frequencies. Calculation of total spike counts per trial revealed that lower frequencies are more charge efficient than high frequencies. Finally, experiments utilizing synaptic blockers revealed that 5 and 10 Hz activate photoreceptors while 25 and 100 Hz activate RGCs. Taken together, our results suggest that while sinusoidal electrical stimulation may provide a useful research tool, its clinical utility may be limited.


Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE), a propulsion system, includes detonation of fuel to produce thrust more efficiently than current engine systems by enlargement of its mechanical simplicity and thermodynamic efficiency. The concept of PDE is old but has a great impact on efficiency of detonation engines. At present due to the behavior of unsteadiness this type of engine's design optimizations are not completed and this leads one to improvise nozzle geometry with the nozzle implementation via qualitative numerical predictions. This paper summarizes the computational behavior of Pulse Detonation Engine attached with the divergent nozzle, with the working medium of kerosene and oxygen mixture. Two different tubes are meshed for four separate angles. In addition, the effects of a transient detonation process and performance of the engine was computationally predicted using a two dimensional grid in a viscous domain and evaluated from subsonic to supersonic operation. Grid independence study is performed to eliminate/reduce the influence of the number of grids/grid size on the computational results. Pressure variation with the several time intervals are pictured for all test cases. Obtain result of this computational investigation provides that as the nozzle length is increased the responsible impulse is also increased. Overall, to find the quality amount of thrust, high divergence angle at the end of the tube are favored.


Employer monitoring of electronic mail constitutes an emerging area of the law that is clearly unsettled at this point in time. This iBrief demonstrates that the privacy rights of non public-sector employees are relatively unprotected by the federal and state constitutions, broad judicial interpretations of enacted privacy legislation favor legitimate employer-monitoring practices, and many of the elements of common law claims are difficult for employees to prove.


Hierarchical penalization is a generic framework for incorporating prior information in the fitting of statistical models, when the explicative variables are organized in a hierarchical structure. The penalizer is a convex functional that performs soft selection at the group level, and shrinks variables within each group. This favors solutions with few leading terms in the final combination. The framework, originally derived for taking prior knowledge into account, is shown to be useful in linear regression, when several parameters are used to model the influence of one feature, or in kernel regression, for learning multiple kernels.


The project was a feasibility study into the usefulness of a collaborative consideration of observational material in an early years special education provision. Children were referred, often for only two terms before returning to their mainstream schools where there was an expectation that the concerns would have been improved or resolved. A Child Psychotherapist observed the classes from behind a screen. These were filmed and then written up later in the tradition of Tavistock young child observation. This material was discussed with the teachers in an exploratory session and then a month later there was a review of this process to see if it had been helpful to the teacher's thinking about the children. The whole process was repeated to allow for some learning from the first phase to be carried forward.

A secondary aim of the study was to explore the aspects of the teacher-pupil relationship that promote learning. This study encompasses the use of observation and video along with consultation in schools to assist work with teachers in early years settings. The themes drawn from the data revealed a passive and active interaction between conscious and unconscious processes as they occurred in the classroom as well as in the discussion of the observations. These themes describe the progression of learning as it was observed.

There emerged a preference among the teachers for the filmed material which yielded a rich data set. It highlighted the importance of the relationship between teacher and child and the extent of the non-verbal nature of this communication. The written observations worked as a foil to the acceptability of video and provoked discussion in post observation sessions. Whilst technically and ethically demanding the use of video here revealed an increasing desire and orientation toward visual media and its application in work with vulnerable children.


Broadly speaking, academic tourism research comes in two main shapes - why and how to. Both traditions seem unable to ever meet and their trajectory reminds of scissors agape. Tourism research, it is argued in this book, finds itself in a serious scissors crisis. Accordingly, the text reflects on how the crisis came about and looks at its effect on the real world. It explores how, within the limited realm of tourism behavior, the scissors crisis mirrors the post-romantic elan that since the 1960s has engulfed most social sciences in a blietzkrieg that was as harmful in its rejection of a modern market economy as it was shallow in theoretical views. From this point on, the book maintains a number of contrarian views that run against the grain of conventional academic wisdom. It highlights how the post-romantic worldview (mis)construes the global tourist system. In conclusion, the book favors a complete about turn in hypotheses and analytical tools to gap the yawning scissor crisis and to make tourism research more accountable to developments in the real world.


The measurement errors of GPS measurements are largely due to the atmosphere, and the unpredictable part of these errors are due to the unpredictable (random) atmospheric phenomena, i.e., to turbulence. Turbulence-generated measurement errors should correspond to the smoothness parameter (cid:23) = 5 = 6 in the Mat(cid:19)ern covariance model. Because of this, we expected the empirical values of this smoothness parameter to be close to 5 = 6. When we estimated (cid:23) based on measurement results, we indeed got values close to 5/6, but interestingly, all our estimates were actually close to 1 (and slightly larger than 1). In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this empirical phenomenon. This explanation is based on the fact that in the sensors, the quantity of interest is usually transformed into a current, and in electric circuits, current is a smooth function of time.


A technique to evaluate the root-knot nematode resistance of grape seedlings was developed. Seedlings of rootstock crosses and nematode-susceptible Vitis vinifera cvs. Colombard and Carignane were inoculated with Meloidogyne incognita juveniles. Reproduction of nematodes on individual plants was measured by counting the number of egg masses stained with eosin and the number of eggs present. Egg mass counts were highly correlated with egg counts. Resistant and susceptible cultivars could be clearly distinguished by the number of egg masses produced on vegetatively propagated cuttings. It is concluded that egg mass counting can substitute for the more laborious and time-consuming methods of counting nematode eggs or juveniles in the evaluation of root-knot nematode resistance in Vitis.


This paper analyses the relationship between the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the human right to health. The paper shows that the TRIPS agreement is in conflict with the human right to health as contained in human rights treaties such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The paper also discusses the limitations of the flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement in safeguarding the human right to health. The WTO member countries have taken steps in order to mitigate the adverse impact that the TRIPS agreement may have on human right to health. However, the paper discusses the limitations of these measures and shows that notwithstanding their limited significance, these measures may not be adequately effective in enabling countries to promote, protect and fulfill the human right to health.


Introduction Left untreated, sexually transmitted and genital infections (henceforth STIs) in pregnancy can lead to serious adverse outcomes for mother and child. Papua New Guinea (PNG) has among the highest prevalence of curable STIs including syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis and bacterial vaginosis, and high neonatal mortality rates. Diagnosis and treatment of these STIs in PNG rely on syndromic management. Advances in STI diagnostics through point-of-care (PoC) testing using GeneXpert technology hold promise for resource-constrained countries such as PNG. This paper describes the planned economic evaluation of a cluster-randomised cross-over trial comparing antenatal PoC testing and immediate treatment of curable STIs with standard antenatal care in two provinces in PNG. Methods and analysis Cost-effectiveness of the PoC intervention compared with standard antenatal care will be assessed prospectively over the trial period (2017–2021) from societal and provider perspectives. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios will be calculated for the primary health outcome, a composite measure of the proportion of either preterm birth and/or low birth weight; for life years saved; for disability-adjusted life years averted; and for non-health benefits (financial risk protection and improved health equity). Scenario analyses will be conducted to identify scale-up options, and budget impact analysis will be undertaken to understand short-term financial impacts of intervention adoption on the national budget. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analysis will be conducted to account for uncertainty in key model inputs. Ethics and dissemination This study has ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board of the PNG Institute of Medical Research; the Medical Research Advisory Committee of the PNG National Department of Health; the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of New South Wales; and the Research Ethics Committee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Findings will be disseminated through national stakeholder meetings, conferences, peer-reviewed publications and policy briefs. Trial registration number ISRCTN37134032.


Introduction Throughout its 13 years of operation, the Southwestern College Education Center at San Ysidro (SCEC, SY) has served as a gateway to higher education for the residents of the most southerly areas of the District. Today, student enrollment is more than 2,000, which requires that the existing facility operate at 160 percent of capacity. More than 130 course offerings are now available at the seven-classroom facility along with administrative and student support services. The campus along the border was dedicated on November 10, 1988. The educational center was dedicated to the 21 victims who were shot by a sole gunman at a McDonalds fast food facility. This later became known as the San Ysidro massacre. In 1988 the Southwestern Community College District (SCCD) dedicated the facility along with a memorial structure that comprises 21 hexagonal pillars, in memory of the 21 victims. When the center was established in 1988, 300 students enrolled in 33 courses. The local community's demand for accessible and affordable higher education continued to increase and after only two years of operation, the center outgrew its present facility, which was designed to serve less than 1,000. Expansion of Southwestern College presence onto the new and developing Otay Mesa was the next step. Plans that have created. Project Synergy is a collaborative effort between the Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD), San Diego State University (SDSU), South County businesses and industry, and Southwestern College (SWC). Plans are also underway to include Centro de Ensenanza Tecnica y Superior (CETYS Universidad), a university from Mexico, to truly take advantage of the unique cross-border partnerships, which dominate this region's economic development. These linkages will create integrated, seamless educational and work experience for students. Southwestern Community College District (SCCD), San Diego State University (SDSU), and Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD) are working together to design a full-service education complex in Otay Mesa. While maintaining the existing San Ysidro site, the College is proceeding with Master Planning the entire site, and planning the initial phase of this project. Phase One would include 40,000 square feet of classroom building with approximately 1,600 parking spaces. This would serve approximately 3,500 students (head count) by its anticipated completion in the first quarter of 2003. The Otay Mesa Education Center will grow to accommodate approximately 10,000 students by the year 2010. The curriculum strands proposed include Computer Science/Technology, Border Issues, Teacher Education, Business Administration (International), and Criminal Justice/Social Work. Students would be able to receive bachelor's and master's degrees from San Diego State University and certificates and associate degrees from Southwestern College. Southwestern College is targeting degree programs in Manufacturing Engineering, Biotechnology, Biopharmaceuticals, and Computer Sciences. Need Project Synergy began as a result of the enrollment demands at all three educational institutions, i.e., SUHSD, SCCD, and SDSU. Each of the institutions projected that enrollment capacity was at about 90%. The Southern Region of San Diego is presently the fastest growing area in the state of California. The SUHSD has reported enrollment increases of 1,100 students per year for the next 10 years based on the number of students enrolled in grades K-8. SWC annually enrolls approximately 55% of all high school graduates from SUHSD. More specifically, enrollment projections indicate that the number of full time equivalent students (FTES) will increase by 12,107 in year 2010. Hence, the enrollment in year 2000 of 13,479 FTES will increase to 25,586 FTES by year 2010. These figures were reviewed and approved by the California Department of Finance (DOF) and the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC), and the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). …


This paper demonstrates that, in the context of U.S. housing data, rents and ex ante user costs diverge markedly—in both growth rates and levels—for extended periods of time, a seeming failure of arbitrage and a puzzle from the perspective of standard capital theory. The tremendous volatility of even appropriately-smoothed ex ante annual user cost measures implies that such measures are unsuitable for inclusion in official price statistics. The divergence holds not only at the aggregate level, but at the metropolitan-market level as well, and is robust across different house price and rent measures. But transactions costs matter: the large persistent divergences did not imply the presence of unexploited profit opportunities. In particular, even though detached housing is readily moved between owner and renter markets, and the detached-unit rental market is surprisingly thick, transactions costs would have prevented risk-neutral investors from earning expected profits by buying a property to rent out for a year, and would have prevented risk-neutral homeowners from earning expected profits by selling their homes and becoming renters for a year. Finally, computing implied appreciation as a residual yields a house price forecast with huge errors; but either longer-horizon or no-real-capital-gains forecasts— which turn out to have similar forecast errors—imply a far less divergent user cost measure which might ultimately be useful for official price statistics. Some conjectures are offered.


When work is done on some materials systems, their internal geometric states are altered in such a way that they have the potential to "give back" work when the face is removed and the system returns to its original configuration. This stored energy is called strain energy. Strain energy density (strain energy per unit volume) is a function of the Young's modulus of elasticity and Poisson's ratio and the nine strain (or stress) components; but it is independent of the coordinate system. Material properties are input into the Chevron N-layer computer program to calculate the strain components. Having calculated the strain energy density at a point, another quantity called "work strain" can be defined as the value of the strain corresponding to an uniaxial stress situation leading to the same strain energy density at the point. It can be used as the "effective" strain and is related to any single component of strain. Thus, pavement design systems based upon a single component of strain may be easily converted to a strain energy density basis. Configurations with loads distributed equally between the axles of an axle group were evaluated and damage factor relationships are reviewed. However, inspections of tandem axle suspensions on semitrailer trucks have shown that most tandem groups do not distribute the load equally to the axles. A theoretical investigation was made using pavement structures identical too those tested at the AASHO Road Test. The 1976 W-6 Table for Kentucky was used to obtain actual weight data. Preliminary analyses of tandem groups for 3S2 vehicles revealed a 40-percent increase in EAL over that calculated EAL assuming the total load on each tandem group had been uniformly distributed to the axles. (FHWA)


This thesis explores the role of complex psychological trauma (CPT) and violence within male adult offenders. It aims to investigate the impact of CPT in better understanding the trauma-violence relationship. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the topic of CPT and violence. Chapter 2 is a systematic review that investigates the prevalence of CPT in violent males and reviews the existing evidence for the trauma-violence relationship. This review provides some evidence for the trauma-violence relationship, finding that CPT correlated with violent outcomes. Physical neglect correctly classified violent offenders by offence status, whilst physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse were also found to be associated with violent offending. The findings regarding CPT predicting violent offending were mixed, whilst a higher percentage of studies supported the trauma- violence notion, a minority number of studies did not. The evidence for CPT predicting violent behaviour in custody was more consistently shown across studies assessing this outcome. The role of mediating and moderating factors in the trauma-violence relationship were also investigated, finding that psychopathy, age, substance misuse, genetic factors, and positive criminal thinking styles and attitudes accounted for some variances. Following this review, Chapter 3 includes a Thematic Analysis (TA) investigating forensic nursing staff's perceptions of the impact of CPT on forensic male offenders with a diagnosis of personality disorder, particularly with regards to violent behaviour whilst detained in a mental health high-secure hospital. Nursing staff's experiences of managing patient distress and violence were also explored. The findings illustrate that nursing staff believed patient distress and violent behaviour were associated with CPT experiences, suggesting that the impact of CPT on attachment, biological, cognitive and affective aspects of functioning during development, served to account for the difficulties that patients faced in adulthood and increased the likelihood of violence. On-going prevention strategies were found to be most important and more effective than short-term risk management steps. The management of patient distress in the context of the therapeutic relationship was illustrated as a significant component for promoting recovery and successfully managing challenging behaviours. Aspects of the secure environment that imitated abuse experiences were also perceived to significantly contribute to the occurrence of violent behaviour. Change with regards to transitioning and progressing through the system was identified to evoke trauma-related fears of moving on. The fear of moving on and its association with trauma experiences was explored in a single case study of a male violent offender with personality disorder, which is presented in Chapter 4. This chapter aimed to identify and outline the offender's fears about transitioning from a high-secure hospital to a medium-secure unit (MSU), and understanding the factors that contributed to and maintained the client's fears. The client's fears were found to relate to previous-trauma related experiences, although interpersonal violence and trauma experiences in the prison environment were found to be a deep rooted aspect of the client's concerns about moving on. Whilst the client feared being vulnerable to abuse, threat and further 'persecution', the fear of being unable to manage his behaviour (e.g. aggression) in response to this and cope with such potential experiences outside of the high-secure environment and subsequent consequences of not being able to cope (arrest and transfer to prison), was perceived to be a more frightening prospect. Upon exploring fears of moving on, the client's existing cognitive-behavioural relapse prevention (RP) plan was reviewed in assisting the client to revisit skills and coping strategies that can be used to prepare and avoid high-risk situations. This work contributed to understanding the ways to best support the client in making a successful transition to a MSU. Key considerations and recommendations are made at the end of the chapter with regards to the case. Following this, Chapter 5 outlines a critique of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999), which was used in Chapter 4 as it provides a measure of coping with stressful, distressing or painful situations. The CISS is examined with regards to its purpose, reliability and validity in terms of its research uses. Chapter 6 provides a discussion of the thesis findings, outlining the implications of the research and providing recommendations for future research.


Background: The 3-meter Timed Up and Go test (TUG) is a reliable quantitative test for assessment of gait and balance. We aimed to establish an optimal threshold of TUG at the tap test for predicting outcomes 12 months after shunt surgery in patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH). Methods: The TUG was measured in a total of 151 patients with possible iNPH before and after a tap test and 12 months after shunt surgery. Among them, 81 patients underwent ventriculoperitoneal shunt implantation (SINPHONI) and 70 underwent lumboperitoneal shunt implantation (SINPHONI-2). The areas under the curve (AUCs), sensitivities, and specificities for predicting shunt effectiveness were assessed. Results: The simple differences of time on TUG at the tap test were significantly more accurate for predicting shunt effectiveness than percent improvement of time. The highest AUC for the synchronized moving cutoff point of TUG time was 0.81 (sensitivity 81.0%; specificity 81.6%) at the threshold of 5 seconds in the SINPHONI-2. For predicting improvements of ≥10 seconds 12 months after lumboperitoneal shunt implantation, the AUC was 0.90, and the sensitivity and specificity at the threshold of 5.6 seconds were 83.3% and 81.0%. Only for patients with a <5-second improvement at the tap test, ventriculoperitoneal shunt implantation conveyed significantly better improvements in TUG time 12 months after surgery than lumboperitoneal shunt implantation. Conclusions: An improvement of 5 seconds was a useful threshold of TUG time at the tap test for predicting a ≥10-second improvement 12 months after shunt surgery, rather than the percent improvement of TUG time.


The statistics of disease clustering is of interest to epidemiologists. In order to detect spatial clustering of disease in all the regions of China, we adopted a likelihood ratio based method which utilizes Monte Carlo simulation and spatial exploring to analyze the real time updating data stored in database. However, large number of random tests for Monte Carlo simulation and large scale of the data set had made the speed of analysis too slow to detect and monitor potential public health hazards. Therefore, we explored to adopt graphics processing unit (GPU) and compute unified device architecture (CUDA) to accelerate the spatial exploring and analyzing process. The algorithm has been implemented efficiently on GPU and the access pattern to memory has been optimized to exploit the computing power of GPU. As a result, the GPU based spatial exploring and likelihood ratio test program performed more than forty times faster then the CPU implementation. The Monte Carlo simulation on GPU performed around thirty times faster than the counter part on CPU. By using GPU and CUDA, the usage of our application is changed from verification after the event to early warning.


Since 1984, Newsweek has been renowned for its vivid, in-depth special election coverage of the ordeal of running for the presidency. A year before the election, Newsweek assigns reporters to get inside the campaigns of the Republican and Democratic candidates. Newsweek promises not to publish any information until after the votes are cast, and in exchange, the reporters receive remarkable access. They travel with the candidates, are there at crucial turning points and confidential meetings, and uncover stories not covered in day-to-day reporting. In this book, a compelling narrative by Evan Thomas, Newsweek shares the inside stories from one of the most exciting elections in recent history, illuminating the personalities and events that influenced the outcome, and taking stock of the key players and key issues for the new administration. This will be an absorbing read for anyone interested in American politics.


Intratumor heterogeneity for susceptibility to cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL)-mediated lysis represents a major obstacle to cancer adoptive immunotherapy. To overcome the heterogeneity observed in terms of susceptibility of target cells to cell-mediated lysis, in this study we used two purified bispecific monoclonal antibodies (bsmAbs) that recognize molecules expressed by cytotoxic effector cells (CD3 and IgG Fc receptorial molecules), as well as one high molecular weight melanoma-associated antigen (HMW-MAA). The ability of these reagents to enhance or induce a relevant in vitro cytotoxic activity by a CTL clone (CTL 49) isolated from PBL of a melanoma patient was tested on a large panel of autologous and allogeneic melanoma cell lines and clones. Functional studies revealed that the CTL 49 clone lysed all the HMW-MAA+ tumor lines in the presence of bsmAbs and that these reagents affected the target lysis in a cooperative fashion. The effectiveness of bsmAbs in overcoming the heterogeneous susceptibility of human melanoma cells to cell-mediated lysis may find practical implications in cancer adoptive immunotherapy.


BACKGROUND
Onychomycosis is a chronic fungal nail infection caused predominantly by dermatophytes, and less commonly by non-dermatophyte molds (NDMs) and Candida species. Onychomycosis treatment includes oral and topical antifungals, the efficacy of which is evaluated through randomized, double-blinded, controlled trials (RCTs) for USA FDA approval. The primary efficacy measure is complete cure (complete mycological and clinical cure). The secondary measures are clinical cure (usually {less than or equal to}10 % involvement of target nail) and mycological cure (negative microscopy and culture). Some lasers are FDA-approved for the mild temporary increase in clear nail; however, some practitioners attempt to use lasers to treat and cure onychomycosis.

METHODS
A systematic review of the literature was performed in July 2020 to evaluate the efficacy rates demonstrated by RCTs of laser monotherapy for dermatophyte onychomycosis of the great toenail.

RESULTS
RCTs assessing the efficacy of laser monotherapy for dermatophyte toenail onychomycosis are limited. Many studies measured cure rates via nails instead of patients, and performed only microscopy or culture, not both. Only one included study reported mycological cure rate in patients as negative light microscopy and culture (0%). The combined clinical cure rates in short- and long-pulsed laser studies were (13.0-16.7% and 25.9%, respectively). There was no study that reported the complete cure rate, however, one did report treatment success (mycological cure (negative microscopy and culture) and {less than or equal to}10% clinical involvement) in nails as 16.7%.

CONCLUSIONS
The effectiveness of lasers as a therapeutic intervention for dermatophyte toenail onychomycosis is limited based on complete, mycological, and clinical cure rates. However, it may be possible to use different treatment parameters or lasers with a different wavelength to increase the efficacy. Lasers could be a potential management option for older patients and onychomycosis patients with coexisting conditions such as diabetes, liver and/or kidney diseases for whom systemic antifungal agents are contraindicated or have failed.


In this paper, we introduce DICOD, a convolutional sparse coding algorithm which builds shift invariant representations for long signals. This algorithm is designed to run in a distributed setting, with local message passing, making it communication efficient. It is based on coordinate descent and uses locally greedy updates which accelerate the resolution compared to greedy coordinate selection. We prove the convergence of this algorithm and highlight its computational speed-up which is super-linear in the number of cores used. We also provide empirical evidence for the acceleration properties of our algorithm compared to state-of-the-art methods.


One of the most complicated and ambiguous tendencies in contemporary western societies is the phenomenon referred to as the turn to religion.In philosophy, one of the most original thinkers critically questioning this turnis Jean-Luc Nancy. Re-treating Religion is the first volume to analyze his long-term project The Deconstruction of Christianity,especially his major statement of it in Dis-Enclosure.Nancy conceives monotheistic religion and secularization not as opposite worldviews that succeed each other in time but rather as springing from the same history. This history consists in a paradoxical tendency to contest one's own foundations-whether God, truth, origin, humanity, or rationality-as well as to found itself on the void of this contestation. Nancy calls this unique combination of self-contestation and self-foundation the self-deconstructionof the Western world.The book includes discussion with Nancy himself, who contributes a substantial Preambleand a concluding dialogue with the volume editors. The contributions follow Nancy in tracing the complexities of Western culture back to the persistent legacy of monotheism, in order to illuminate the tensions and uncertainties we face in the twenty-first century.


A university campus is comprised of Schools and Faculties attended by students whose primary intention is to learn and ultimately graduate with their desired qualification.  From the moment students apply to a university and thereafter gain acceptance and attend the campus they create a unique digital footprint of themselves within the university IT systems. Students' digital footprints are a source of data that is of interest to groups including teachers, analysts, administrators and policy makers in the education, sociology, and pedagogy domains. Learning analytics can offer tools to mine such data producing actionable knowledge for purposes of improving student retention, curriculum enhancement, student progress and feedback, and administrative evolution.  In this paper, we summarise three ongoing Learning Analytics projects from an Irish university, demonstrating the potential that exists to enhance Higher Education pedagogical approaches.   First year students often struggle with making the transition into University as they adapt to life and study at a Higher Education Institution. The research projects in the area of Learning Analytics at our institution focus on: improving test performance using analytics from a general-purpose VLE like Moodle, identifying studying groups and the performance peer effect using on-campus geolocation data, and detecting lower-performing or at-risk students on programming modules.


Forced harmonic oscillations of seven configurations consisting of horizontal side by side plate elements are performed experimentally and numerically. The configurations are oscillated in vertical direction and represent generalized mudmats of subsea structures. The tests are performed for Keulegan-Carpenter (KC) numbers relevant for force estimation during lifting operations. Hydrodynamic added mass and damping coefficients are presented. The coefficients are found to be amplitude dependent for all configurations tested. The interaction effects between the plates increase with increasing amplitude and decreasing distance between the plates. For oscillation amplitudes small compared with the gap between the plates, the plates behave approximately like individual plates. A study of the relation between the damping force and the added mass force for the tested structures illustrates the importance of applying representative damping coefficients in numerical analysis of marine operations.
 Numerical results are obtained using a potential flow solver (BEM) and a viscous flow solver (CFD). Low-KC added mass coefficients predicted with the BEM are in accordance with the experiments. There is acceptable agreement between the CFD and the experiments. Best agreement is obtained for small KC numbers. For increasing KC numbers, the differences are, in general, larger. This is possibly due to the CFD being based on two-dimensional laminar flow.


The transmission-line matrix (TLM) method is shown to be an effective technique for calculating the propagation of electromagnetic waves in dielectric arrays exhibiting photonic band gaps. The simulator is particularly valuable for modeling processes whose parameters of interest are intrinsically in the time domain. To illustrate the capabilities of the technique for such temporal problems, the tunneling of electromagnetic pulses through the forbidden gap of a two-dimensional dielectric array is simulated. As researchers have recently measured in one-dimensional systems, pulses tunnel with a group velocity that exceeds the speed of light in vacuum. The TLM simulations show directly that for this superluminal tunneling process the group velocity continues to be a valid descriptor of the peak of the pulse. Furthermore, the results show that once sufficient periodicity exists to create a forbidden gap the tunneling time is constant independent of the thickness of the photonic crystal through which tunneling occurs.


In 2014, 12 European countries are operating Intellectual Property (IP) Box regimes that provide substantially reduced rates of corporate tax for income derived from important forms of intellectual property. We describe the key features of the policies and incorporate them into forward-looking measures of the cost of capital and the effective average tax rate. We show that the treatment of expenses relating to IP income is particularly important in determining the effective tax burden. A key finding is that regimes that allow expenses to be deducted at the ordinary corporate income tax rate, as opposed to the lower IP Box tax rate, may result in negative effective average tax rates and can thereby provide a subsidy to unprofitable projects. We discuss the ways in which IP Boxes are likely to affect firms' decisions and relate this to possible policy aims. While some regimes attempt to link the tax benefit to real activities, others have designed a policy targeted at the income streams associated with intellectual property. A key concern is the role that IP Boxes may play in increased tax competition between European countries.


Consumption contexts have been shown to play a significant role in how young people use illicit party drugs such as MDMA, methamphetamines, cocaine, and psychedelics. Current research approaches tend to deploy macro-structural, social or cultural explanations for the role of context in drug use, which have difficulty accounting for the specific and diverse drug use practices evident in particular times and spaces. To address this, in this research I developed a novel research approach to trace how drug use unfolds during particular events or occasions at music festivals and licensed venues in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing conceptual and methodological sensitivities from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) within an ethnographic methodology, I explored how social, spatial, material and temporal aspects of consumption contexts mediated young people's drug use events. Data were generated through in-depth interviews with young people aged 18-23 years; participant-written diaries and diary-interviews; and participant observation at music festivals and licensed venues. I used these data to generate an innovative way of empirically examining the role of contexts based on the notion of events and event analysis. In this thesis, I discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by doing ANT-inspired social research, and present my empirical findings in four publications reproduced in Chapters 4–7. In the first of these publications, I argue that examining drug use events provides a way forward for tracing the role of contexts in young people's party drug use practices, presenting a case study of MDMA use by a young man. In the second publication, I demonstrate how the socio-spatial relations of campsites at multiple-day music festivals are involved in generating drug knowledge, norms, access, exchange, harm and harm reduction practices at festivals. Thirdly, in a book chapter co-authored with Jakob Demant, I investigate how police interventions using drug-detection (sniffer) dogs at music festival entrances impact young people's drug use at festivals. In the final publication, co-author Cameron Duff and I explore how posthumanist approaches to social research, such as ANT, can contribute to alternative articulations of human subjectivity. We propose that framing subjectivity in terms of 'tendencies' and 'trajectories' should facilitate empirical and conceptual investigation of the role of the human subject in drug use events. Throughout the thesis I contend that it is necessary to explore the ways in which spaces are made to have particular effects by a collection of varied actors and forces. By way of conclusion, the final chapter considers the implications of my empirical and theoretical findings for the design of innovative research programs and practical interventions to prevent event-related harms arising from young people's party drug use.


Understanding the response and acceleration/deceleration rate of driving populations to a yellow phase is essential for estimating the dynamic distribution of intersection dilemma zones. The paper presents a video-based method for measuring driver responses during a yellow phase, including their speed evolution profile, acceleration/deceleration rate, and the approximate reaction time. Such information is critical for understanding the spatial distribution of dynamic dilemma zones and the design of strategies to improve intersection safety. This paper details the key components of the proposed system and the systematic procedures for both field operations and data extraction. The results of a rigorous validation with an advanced experimental vehicle provided by Nissan are also reported in this paper.


Three new species of ostracodes are reported from the dinosaur-bearing Escucha Formation at Ariño in Eastern Spain (Iberian Range): Rosacythere denticulata sp. nov., Theriosynoecum escuchaensis sp. nov. and Theriosynoecum arinnoensis sp. nov. Associated charophyta include Clavator harrisii harrisii and Clavator harrisii zavialensis indicating a Lower Albian age, therefore extending the stratigraphic range of the genus Theriosynoecum into the Albian in southern Europe. The environment of deposition for the dinosaur bonebed is interpreted as permanent lacustrine given the association of limnic ostracodes and charophytes.


Model legislation can be proposed by anyone, from large organizations with layers of process (like the Uniform Law Commission and the American Law Institute) to individuals. Awareness of model laws is important for drafters and also for advocates, as they try to influence legislation or to interpret it once it has been enacted. In this article, I discuss the sources of model laws in both senses of "source" - the drafters and the research tools.I begin with the Uniform Law Commission, the American Law Institute, and the American Bar Association: organizations that are familiar to many legal researchers. But I also discuss less familiar sources of model laws. For example, I had never heard of the Specialty Equipment Market Association, but twenty-two states have adopted its model law for registration of custom cars and hot rods. That group has only a few model laws in a very narrow field. In contrast, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group of conservative legislators and business leaders, has proposed hundreds of laws - often with success - on dozens of topics. Few people need to know about registration of custom cars and hot rods, but ALEC's work affects so many areas of the law that it deserves more attention from lawyers and other legal researchers.


Abstract How complexity of food webs relates to stability has been a subject of many studies. Often, unweighted connectance is used to express complexity. Unweighted connectance is measured as the proportion of realized links in the network. Weighted connectance, on the other hand, takes link weights (fluxes or feeding rates) into account and captures the shape of the flux distribution. Here, we used weighted connectance to revisit the relation between complexity and stability. We used 15 real soil food webs and determined the feeding rates and the interaction strength matrices. We calculated both versions of connectance, and related these structural properties to food web stability. We also determined the skewness of both flux and interaction strength distributions with the Gini coefficient. We found no relation between unweighted connectance and food web stability, but weighted connectance was positively correlated with stability. This finding challenges the notion that complexity may constrain stability, and supports the 'complexity begets stability' notion. The positive correlation between weighted connectance and stability implies that the more evenly flux rates were distributed over links, the more stable the webs were. This was confirmed by the Gini coefficients of both fluxes and interaction strengths. However, the most even distributions of this dataset still were strongly skewed towards small fluxes or weak interaction strengths. Thus, incorporating these distribution with many weak links via weighted instead of unweighted food web measures can shed new light on classical theories


This paper analyzes the dynamic and static balancing of non-homogenous cluster architectures, simultaneously analyzing the theoretical parallel Speedup as well as the Speedup experimentally obtained. Three interconnected clusters have been used in which the machines within each cluster have homogeneous processors although different among clusters. Thus, the set can be seen as a 25-processor heterogeneous cluster or as a multi-cluster scheme with subsets of homogeneous processors. A classical application (Parallel N-Queens) with a parallel solution algorithm, where processing predominates upon communication, has been chosen so as to go deep in the load balancing aspects (dynamic or static) without distortion of results caused by communication overhead. At the same time, three forms of load distribution in the processors (Direct Static, Predictive Static and Dynamic by Demand) have been studied, analyzing in each case parallel Speedup and load unbalancing regarding problem size and the processors used.


Background: A number of sexual and social risk factors for bacterial vaginosis (BV) have been identified. However, many previous studies have used small numbers of patients, or highly selected or convenience samples, or poorly defined populations. This study aims to clarify potential sexual and non-sexual risk factors for BV. Methods: Women attending the Sydney Sexual Health Centre with BV, between March 1991 and July 1999, were included. Controls were randomly selected women without BV. Information on the demographics, clinical findings, and sexual and non-sexual risk behaviours were extracted from the clinic database and analysed using SPSS and SAS. A logistic regression model was used to establish which associations with BV persisted. Results: 890 women with BV and 890 controls were studied. Factors that were independently associated with BV were ⩾3 male sexual partners in the past 12 months (OR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.19 to 2.04), at least one female sexual partner in the past 12 months (OR = 2.1, p = 0.003), a past pregnancy (OR = 1.5, p<0.0006), and smoking. In contrast, women with BV were significantly less likely to have used hormonal contraception (OR = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.51 to 0.81) or to have used condoms consistently (OR = 0.5, 95% CI: 0.31 to 0.71) than controls. Conclusion: Our findings may be important for planning a preventive strategy for BV by discouraging smoking and increasing condom use and hormonal contraception among women.


Magnetic communication is receiving significant interest in RF-challenging environments. Particularly in underwater environments and underground wireless sensor networks, magnetic communication is an emerging research area. In this paper, a new approach for magnetic underwater communication is presented and evaluated. In this approach, the receiver coil of a conventional magnetic induction communication system is replaced by a high-sensitive low-noise wideband magnetic field sensor. This concept enables a good detection sensitivity and, under certain conditions, an extended communication range. Most magnetic field sensors are small compared to equivalent search coils and offer a high bandwidth. Hence, they can be assembled in order to provide multiple-input multiple-output processing. Based on suitable channel modeling, trade-offs between system parameters are analyzed and the channel capacity is derived. Analytical results are supported by a prototype implementation. Potential application scenarios are studied, where emphasis is on mobile applications.


Background Metformin is widely used against diabetes type II mellitus. Its most severe adverse effect is lactic acidosis. Although rare, the risk of its development can be increased by kidney failure (KF). Purpose To report on pharmaceutical interventions (PIs) for preventing metformin-associated lactic acidosis (MALA) in diabetics admitted to hospital with KF and to evaluate their degree of acceptance. Material and methods This prospective study (October 2013–March 2014) included all metformin-treated patients admitted. Creatinine clearance (CrCl) was estimated with the Cockcroft-Gault equation. PIs were: PI-1, stop-order for metformin when CrCl < 30 mL/min or CrCl = 30–45 mL/min associated with other MALA risk factors (MALA-RFs); PI-2, 50% reduction in maximum dose (2.550 mg/day) when CrCl = 30–45 mL/min with no other MALA-RF; PI-3, request for new renal function analysis when CrCl is unknown. MALA-RFs considered: kidney, liver, heart and respiratory failure, infection, alcoholism, surgery, iodine contrast. Variables recorded: sex, age, hospital department, daily dose, serum creatinine, CrCl, MALA-RFs, PI performed. Results During the study period, 234 metformin-treated patients were admitted (61.5% males), most frequently to the Cardiology Department (33.3%); mean (standard deviation) age was 71.3 (12.4) yrs; mean dose was 1,552.8 (560.7) mg/day. CrCl < 30 mL/min was recorded in 5.6% of patients, CrCl = 30–45 mL/min in 14.1%, and CrCl was unknown in 1.7%. PIs were performed in 44 patients (52.3% females, 61.4% ≥80 yrs). MALA-RFs: heart failure (34.1%), infection (34.1%), liver failure (22.7%), respiratory failure (18.2%) and surgery (4.5%). PIs performed: 38 PI-1 (34.2% when CrCl <30 mL/min), 2 PI-2 and 4 PI-3. Acceptance was 64.8% overall, 66.7% for PI-1 (91.7% when CrCl < 30 mL/min) and 66.7% for PI-3. No PI-2s were accepted. Conclusion A small proportion of these patients had KF. A large majority of these required PI, most frequently PI-1. The degree of satisfaction was high and was especially elevated for PI-1 when CrCl was <30 mL/min. References and/or acknowledgements AEMPS No conflict of interest.


This book chapter examines exhibits sent for display within the Crystal Palace from Belfast and Dublin: sculpture, furniture and textiles. Whilst studies of the Great Exhibition abound, most are based on interpretations of its overall effect with far less attention paid to its material culture. Here, Purbrick reads the detail of catalogue entries and exhibition guides that describe the Irish exhibits. While these objects made of plaster, wood or linen and defined as artistic or industrial represented divergent versions of nineteenth century Irish national identity, Ireland's status as a region was reproduced through the Great Exhibition's spatial order. Thus, Purbrick reflects upon one of the contradictions of colonialism: to be regarded as a nation but awarded the status of a region. A Visiting Fellowship at Yale Center for British Art enabled her to carry out the research for this article, an extension of her long-standing interest in the culture of industry in the Crystal Palace.


Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) modifies adaptive immunity, in part by determining the character of inflammatory responses in the tissue microenvironment. Small molecule inhibitors of IDO are being developed to treat cancer, chronic infections and other diseases, so the systemic effects of IDO disruption on inflammatory phenomena may influence the design and conduct of early phase clinical investigations of this new class of therapeutic agents. Here, we report cardiac and gastrointestinal phenotypes observed in IDO deficient mice that warrant consideration in planned assessments of the safety risks involved in clinical development of IDO inhibitors. Calcification of the cardiac endometrium proximal to the right ventricle was a sexually dimorphic strain-specific phenotype with ~30% penetrance in BALB/c mice lacking IDO. Administration of complete Freund's adjuvant containing Toll-like receptor ligands known to induce IDO caused acute pancreatitis in IDO deficient mice, with implications for the design of planned combination studies of IDO inhibitors with cancer vaccines. In an established model of hyperlipidemia, IDO deficiency caused a dramatic elevation in levels of serum triglycerides. In the large intestine, IDO loss only slightly increased sensitivity to induction of acute colitis, but it markedly elevated tumor incidence, multiplicity and staging during inflammatory colon carcinogenesis. Together, our findings suggest potential cardiac and gastrointestinal risks of IDO inhibitors that should be monitored in patients as this new class of drugs enter early clinical development.


Gene therapy is a therapeutic strategy that aims to employ nucleic acids as drugs for the transient or permanent treatment of inherited or acquired pathologies. Based on the type of vector employed for the gene transfer, gene therapy can be classified as viral gene therapy and nonviral gene therapy. Nonviral gene therapy is less efficient but safer than viral gene therapy. Hydrodynamic naked DNA transfer has shown great translational potential, achieving therapeutic levels of a human protein in the murine model. The translational process of the procedure has already been performed. Different radiologic and surgical approaches permitted pressurizing the liver in vivo by excluding its vascularization partially or totally. These approaches mediated a tissue rate of human alpha-1-antitrypsin protein translation (100–1000 copies per cell) close to those obtained with the mouse gold standard model in a safe mode that could be translated to human settings.


Identification and tracking of individuals or groups perpetrating latent or emergent behaviors are significant in home-land security, cyber security, behavioral health, and consumer analytics. Graphs provide an effective formal mechanism to capture the relationships among individuals of interest as well as their behavior patterns. Graph databases, developed recently, serve as convenient data stores for such complex graphs and allow efficient retrievals via high-level libraries and the ability to implement custom queries. We introduce PINGS (Procedures for Investigative Graph Search) a graph database library of procedures for investigative search. We develop an inexact graph pattern matching technique and scoring mechanism within the database as custom procedures to identify latent behavioral patterns of individuals. It addresses, among other things, sub-graph isomorphism, an NP-hard problem, via an investigative search in graph databases. We demonstrate the capability of detecting such individuals and groups meeting query criteria using two data sets, a synthetically generated radicalization dataset and a publicly available crime dataset.


Predicting delayed outcomes is an important problem in recommender systems (e.g., if customers will finish reading an ebook). We formalize the problem as an adversarial, delayed online learning problem and consider how a proxy for the delayed outcome (e.g., if customers read a third of the book in 24 hours) can help minimize regret, even though the proxy is not available when making a prediction. Motivated by our regret analysis, we propose two neural network architectures: Factored Forecaster (FF) which is ideal if the proxy is informative of the outcome in hindsight, and Residual Factored Forecaster (RFF) that is robust to a non-informative proxy. Experiments on two real-world datasets for predicting human behavior show that RFF outperforms both FF and a direct forecaster that does not make use of the proxy. Our results suggest that exploiting proxies by factorization is a promising way to mitigate the impact of long delays in human-behavior prediction tasks.


Software-defined networks (SDNs) come with great promises regarding flexible operation of networks. A key component within SDN-switches is the flow table which holds the rules that determine how data streams are handled. The flow table, however, is a scarce resource with a rather limited rule capacity. To soften this well-known hassle, we propose a novel delegation mechanism for OpenFlow-based SDNs called Port Based Capacity Extension (PBCE). PBCE provides the possibility to delegate flows from a switch with many flow table entries to another less loaded neighboring switch without breaking control plane transparency, i.e., without interfering with existing SDN applications. To do so, PBCE uses flow rule aggregation based on ingress ports and a small number of special rules for both switches. In this paper, we present the PBCE delegation middleware along with a prototypical implementation and first promising performance results that demonstrate the feasibility of the approach.


Biorefining of lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels and chemicals can help replace fossil resources and decrease anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This thesis is focused on the effects of mixing on the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated biomass. Two different types of biomass were studied: softwood (Norway spruce and Scots pine), and the energy grass giant reed. Before enzymatic hydrolysis, the biomass was pretreated by either steam or sulfite pretreatment. The first part of the work concerns the connection between particle morphology and rheology of pretreated biomass, how such properties change during the course of enzymatic hydrolysis, and how the changes are influenced by reactor mixing. The second part examines the effects of mixing in stirred tank reactors on the enzymatic hydrolysis of different pretreated materials, and also attempts to explain the mechanisms behind the observed phenomena.The particle size reduction during enzymatic hydrolysis of steam pretreated spruce was primarily driven by reactor agitation. In the case of steam pretreated giant reed the particle size was mainly reduced by enzymatic hydrolysis. The rapid reduction in particle size of giant reed coincided with a rapid liquefaction. For steam pretreated softwood, the viscosity in fact increased at the beginning of enzymatic hydrolysis, followed by a gradual decrease during the remainder of the hydrolysis. This interesting phenomenon was in part linked to the type of pretreatment used on the softwood biomass. In contrast to steam pretreated softwood, the viscosity of sulfite pretreated spruce decreased rapidly during enzymatic hydrolysis. Efficient viscosity reduction in sulfite pretreated spruce was also achieved with very low doses of pure endoglucanase enzymes (0.1 mg protein per g glucan) without significant glucose release.The effect of mixing on the enzymatic hydrolysis was in part determined by the viscosity of the pretreated biomass. For steam pretreated spruce at low solid loading, decreasing the agitation rate had little effect on the the enzymatic hydrolysis. However, if the viscosity was increased by the addition of a thickening agent, the effect of agitation was much larger. For a substrate that underwent rapid initial viscosity reduction, such as steam pretreated giant reed, the enzymatic hydrolysis was almost independent of agitation rate. Another important factor determining the effect of mixing on the enzymatic hydrolysis was the level of product inhibition. If the glucose and cellobiose concentrations were high, as during high solid hydrolysis of steam pretreated spruce, low agitation rate had a large negative effect on the enzymatic hydrolysis. However, if the product concentration was kept low, as during SSF, the effect of agitation was much weaker. Overall, the results indicate that the decrease in hydrolysis rate occurred due to increased local product inhibition, caused by mass transfer limitations in the stagnant zones, formed in the reactor volume when under low intensity mixing. The rate of enzymatic hydrolysis appeared to be determined by flow regime, i.e. Reynolds number, rather than specific mixing power input. This implies that the negative effects of low agitation rate will be less of a problem in larger reactors. (Less)


Buis Beton (Precast concrete pipe) revetment is a common coastal structure to protect the shoreline from erosion. However, it is common that this type of structure face high wave run up. A continuous wave run up on the slope of the structure may reduce the life service of Buis Beton revetment. The objective of this research is to create scientific based guidance to design an efficient Buis Beton revetment against wave run up. A physical modelling test is conducted to understand the relationship between wave run up and Buis Beton revetment. The test scenario is based on the slope of the structure (θ), structure height (L), buis beton diameter (φ), incoming wave height (Hi) and wave period (T). The physical modelling is conducted in 2D wave flume with laboratory scale of 1:10 with regular wave simulation. Wave run up is observed using a video camera which is later processed digitally to acquire the wave run up data. This research shows that the relative wave run up has a reciprocal functional relationship with the Iribarren Number parameter. In general, wave run up height on Buis Beton revetment is less than or equal to 2.64 the wave height, Hm0.Keywords: Revetment, buis beton, wave run-up, physical modelling


Abstract. Using a method of discrete Fourier transform with varying starting point and length of time window and the long time series provided by millennium Earth System Model simulations, we get good fits to power laws between two characteristic oscillatory timescales of the model climate: multidecadal (50–80 yr) and El Nino (3–6 yr) timescales. For global mean temperature, we fit β ~ 0.35 in a relation S(f) ~ f−β in a simulation without external climate forcing and β over 0.7 in a simulation with external forcing included. We also fit a power law with β ~ 8 to the narrow frequency range between El Nino frequencies and the Nyquist frequency. Regional variability in best-fit β is explored and the impact of choosing the frequency range on the result is illustrated. When all resolved frequencies are used, land areas seem to have lower βs than ocean areas on average, but when fits are restricted to frequencies below 1/(6 yr), this difference disappears, while regional differences still remain. Results compare well with measurements both for global mean temperature and for the Central England temperature record.


The larvae of Colophon neti Barnard and ProsopocOilU5 natalensis Parry are described and compared. These are the first lucanid larvae recorded from South Africa. Some Colophon larval characters are similar to those in primitive (non-lucanine) genera and do not support the currently accepted, but tenuous, hypothesis of relationship to the Lucaninae based on adult characters. Other larval (and adult) characters prevent the inclusion of the genus in any of the recognized primitive subfamilies. Prosopocoilus natalensis is also compared with the Australian species P. bison (Olivier).


Optical sidebands have been generated with relative frequency tens to hundreds of GHz by using optical sidebands that are generated in a cascade process in high-quality optical resonators with Kerr nonlinearity, such as whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators. For this purpose, the WGM resonator needs to be optically pumped at two frequencies matching its resonances. These two optical components can be one or several free spectral ranges (FSRs), equal to approximately 12 GHz, in this example, apart from each other, and can be easily derived from a monochromatic pump with an ordinary EOM (electro-optic modulation) operating at half the FSR frequency. With sufficient nonlinearity, an optical cascade process will convert the two pump frequencies into a comb-like structure extending many FSRs around the carrier frequency. This has a demonstratively efficient frequency conversion of this type with only a few milliwatt optical pump power. The concept of using Kerr nonlinearity in a resonator for non-degenerate wave mixing has been discussed before, but it was a common belief that this was a weak process requiring very high peak powers to be observable. It was not thought possible for this approach to compete with electro-optical modulators in CW applications, especially those at lower optical powers. By using the high-Q WGM resonators, the effective Kerr nonlinearity can be made so high that, using even weak seeding bands available from a conventional EOM, one can effectively multiply the optical sidebands, extending them into an otherwise inaccessible frequency range.


A formal portrait of two men. The man on the left, identified on the back as Willie Wedell, is sitting on a stool. The man on the right, identified as John Anizan, is standing with his right hand resting on the other man's left shoulder. Both men are dressed in two-piece dark suits with white dress shirts and bowties. Their jackets are open. John Anizan wears a pocket watch clipped to his jacket lapel and a pen or pencil in his jacket pocket. On the back of the postcard is written: "Dear Sister This Picture was taken when I come from worke Dont I look bored I got fired last night and put Back to work again Wel BYBY Wm. J. Wedell." The postcard is stamped "Savannah Photo Co. 24 E. Broughton Savannah Ga." It is addressed to Mrs. A. Pike Texas City Texas. The card is postmark stamped: "May 28 1913 5 - PM Savannah Ga." Written in ink over the back of the postcard are " X John Anizan brother of Tony" and "X Willie Wedell."


A multiple scattering perturbation theory for electron densities, originally discussed by N. H. March and A. M. Murray, is derived in a new way. The new derivation does not depend on special choices for the origin of the energy scale. Therefore, it clarifies the point that the result of the perturbation calculation, the electron density, should be independent of the energy origin chosen for the purposes of the calculation even though the individual terms of the series do depend on that choice. This point is not evident in the previous derivations. Appreciation of this point permits adoption of an origin of the energy scale which varies with position without any change in form of the perturbation expansion. This extends the original theory beyond the significant limitation that the zero-order result is the uniform density of the free-electron gas. In particular, the energy origin can be chosen so that the zero-order contribution reproduces any physical model electron density. The theory then gives successive corrections and allows investigation of the usefulness of physical models by an analysis of the low-order corrections. These ideas permit a compact new derivation of the Thomas–Fermi theory, a derivation which also produces explicit formulae for corrections of all orders. An especially useful choice for the energy origin yields the optimized Thomas–Fermi theory as the zero-order contribution. Therefore, new results of this development are explicit formulae for the corrections to that simple theory.


ABSTRACT Objectives Leftward deviation on a horizontal line bisection test (pseudoneglect) might be induced by right hemispheric dominance for mediating spatial or global attention, or a hemispheric asymmetry in the ability to spatially disengage attention. With aging, this leftward bias is reduced, likely due to the aging-related deterioration of right hemisphere mediated functions (right hemi-aging) or hemispheric asymmetry reduction in old adults (HAROLD). Methods Forty-seven healthy adults divided into younger and older groups performed a modified Posner spatial-attentional task. Results Overall, younger individuals responded faster to left than right-sided imperative stimuli. In contrast, older participants did not reveal a right-left asymmetry to imperative stimuli. The younger group also revealed a strong inverse relationship between the reaction time to right valid cues and the leftward attentional bias while performing the line bisection task (pseudoneglect). Conclusions Our results provide support for both the right hemisphere spatial-attentional dominance hypothesis of pseudoneglect and the right hemi-aging hypotheses.


This chapter explains why the state and sovereignty are relevant to the study of politics. It first provides an empirical typology of the state, ranging from the minimalist night-watchman state, approximated to by nineteenth-century capitalist regimes at one end of the spectrum, to the totalitarian state of the twentieth century at the other. It then examines the distribution of power in the state by focusing on three major theories of the state: pluralism, elitism, Marxism, as well as New Right theory. The chapter seeks to demonstrate that the theories of the state identified can also be critiqued normatively, so that pluralism, for instance, can be challenged for its divisive character, as exemplified by identity politics. It then goes on to review different views about what the role of the state ought to be, from the minimalist state recommended by adherents of classical liberalism, to the pursuit of distinctive social objectives as recommended, in particular, by proponents of communitarianism. Finally, it discusses empirical and normative challenges to the state and asks whether the state's days are numbered.


Accommodating China's rise in a way that ensures the future stability and prosperity of the world economy and polity is probably the most important task facing the world community in the first half of the 21st century. Where the last three decades of the 20th century witnessed a China rising on to the global economic stage, the first three decades of the 21st century are almost certain to bring with them the completion of that rise, not only in economic, but also political and geopolitical terms. China's integration into the global economy has brought one-fifth of the global population into the world trading system, which has increased global market potential and integration to an unprecedented level. The increased scale and depth of international specialisation propelled by an enlarged world market has offered new opportunities to boost world production, trade and consumption; with the potential for increasing the welfare of all the countries involved. However, China's integration into the global economy has forced a worldwide reallocation of economic activities. This has increased various kinds of friction in China's trading and political relations with others, as well as generating several globally significant externalities. Finding ways to accommodate China's rise in a way that ensures the future stability and prosperity of the world economy and polity is probably the most important task facing the world community in the first half of the 21st century. The book delves into these issues to reflect upon the wide range of opportunities and challenges that have emerged in the context of a rising China. Image: Sarmu / flickr


Asthma is the most common chronic illness of the child, a frequent cause of hospitalization and morbidity in pediatrics. Symptomatology control is the therapeutic target, and the practitioner has to adapt the treatment recommendations to each case, with its own clinical and evolutionary particularities. Omalizumab is a humanized anti-human immunoglobulin E (human IgG) recombinant monoclonal antibody used in the treatment of asthma in children over 12 years of age. The authors exemplify the benefit of omalizumab in the management of asthma by presenting a clinical case.


We present a horizon-based value iteration algorithm called Reverse Value Iteration (RVI). Empirical results on a variety of domains, both synthetic and real, show RVI often yields speedups of several orders of magnitude. RVI does this by ordering backups by horizons, with preference given to closer horizons, thereby avoiding many unnecessary and incorrect backups. We also compare to related work, including prioritized and partitioned value iteration approaches, and show that our technique performs favorably. The techniques presented in RVI are complementary and can be used in conjunction with previous techniques. We prove that RVI converges and often has better (but never worse) complexity than standard value iteration. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical treatment of such an approach to value iteration.


Notions relating to computational systems exhibiting creative behaviours have been explored since the very early days of computer science, and the field of Computational Creativity research has formed in the last dozen years to scientifically explore the potential of such systems. We describe this field via a working definition; a brief history of seminal work; an exploration of the main issues, technologies and ideas; and a look towards future directions. As a society, we are jealous of our creativity: creative people and their contributions to cultural progression are highly valued. Moreover, creative behaviour in people draws on a full set of intelligent abilities, so simulating such behaviour represents a serious technical challenge for Artificial Intelligence research. As such, we believe it is fair to characterise Computational Creativity as a frontier for AI research beyond all others—maybe, even, the final frontier.


Examining enterprise-level union influence in post-socialist countries, the authors hypothesize that calculative human resource management (HRM) is more strongly associated with low levels of union influence than collaborative HRM. Using the United Kingdom as a benchmark, they find that in the countries under study, calculative HRM is indeed more damaging to union influence than collaborative, although to a much lesser extent than in the United Kingdom. They also find that union influence corresponds to enterprise union density and is most apparent when the business cycle is unfavorable; they explain their findings by reference to East European members' continued attachment to unionism for nonbargaining reasons.


Objective Arterial hypertension (HTN) is a risk factor for subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). We aimed to assess the impact of premorbid HTN on the severity of initial bleeding and the risk of aneurysm rebleeding after SAH. Design Retrospective analysis of a prospective cohort study of all SAH patients admitted to Columbia University Medical Center between 1996 and 2012. Results We enrolled 1312 consecutive patients with SAH; 643 (49%) had premorbid HTN. Patients with premorbid HTN presented more frequently as Hunt–Hess Grade IV or V (36% vs 25%, p<0.001) and World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) Grade 4 or 5 (42.6% vs 28.2%, p<0.001), with larger amounts of subarachnoid (Hijdra Sum Score 17 vs 14, p<0.001) and intraventricular blood (median IVH sum score 2 vs 1, p<0.001), and more often with intracerebral haemorrhage (20% vs 13%, p=0.002). In multivariate analysis, patients with premorbid HTN had a higher risk of in-hospital aneurysm rebleeding (11.8% vs 5.5%, adjusted OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.74, p=0.04) after adjusting for age, admission, Hunt–Hess grade, size and site of the ruptured aneurysm. Conclusions Premorbid HTN is associated with increased severity of the initial bleeding event and represents a significant risk factor for aneurysm rebleeding. Given that aneurysm rebleeding is a potentially fatal—but preventable—complication, these findings are of clinical relevance.


As the climate changes, many long-term studies have shown that the timing of bird migration is shifting, increasing the need for reliable measures of migratory phenology. Ideally, daily counts of birds at a site are used to calculate the mean arrival date (MAD) but, as this approach is not always possible and is very labour-intensive, simpler metrics such as first arrival date (FAD) have commonly been used. Here, we examine the relationship between FAD and MAD in 28 summer migrant bird species over a 42-year period (1970–2011) at Portland Bird Observatory, UK. Although significant correlations between FAD and MAD were detected, relationships were weak, particularly in long-distance migrants. We suggest that FAD, although a simple and straightforward measure, is not particularly robust as a proxy for overall migratory phenology at a population level.


INTRODUCTION Scholars from various disciplines have devoted extensive attention to issues related to gender and Islam in diverse regions of the world from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. In contrast, relatively less attention has been paid to gender and to Islam in nations in Eurasia and Central Asia that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. (1) This article expands my previous research on social historical and contemporary issues pertaining to gender in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, as it focuses on social and ideological change related to Azerbaijani women and Islam. Azerbaijan is situated between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, and various social and ideological changes have altered women's roles and women's identity in Azerbaijani society from the Czarist period of the 1800s and early 1900s, through the Soviet period of 1920-1991, and into the period of independence from 1991 to present. Azerbaijan is a unique and timely setting in which to conduct my research so as to develop a deeper understanding of the interaction of religion with other cultural and sociopolitical elements. Indeed, throughout Azerbaijan's history, religious influences have persevered as central threads within the fabric of Azerbaijani culture, as Islam has been interwoven with other cultural elements, including those of patriarchy. Yet, Azerbaijan, with a population now exceeding nine million, has been--and continues to be--both a Muslim and a secular nation. RESEARCH FOCUS AND METHODS The present research explores this blend of secularism and Islam in post-Soviet Azerbaijan and is guided by several broad questions. First, what is the role of Islam in the everyday lives of Azerbaijani women? Second, how do Azerbaijani women view the resurgence of Islam in present-day Azerbaijan? Third, is Islam relevant in shaping Azerbaijani women's identity in post-Soviet Azerbaijan? As in my prior research in Azerbaijan, in-depth, open-ended discussions and dialogues with women were conducted in the capital city of Baku and in surrounding areas. Qualitative interdisciplinary humanistic methodologies were used to address my research questions, and research focused on interpretive analysis with a comparative historical emphasis. Therefore, rather than using formal surveys or questionnaires, in-depth, open-ended discussions and dialogues with women, individually and in small groups, were conducted. These discussions, which took place in Azeri, were digitally recorded and subsequently translated them into English. This project occurred during a three-month period in 2010 with follow-up contacts with key individuals and organizations in Azerbaijan in 2011. As such, this project is one component of my broader research agenda on gender issues, which has included various extended periods of fieldwork in Azerbaijan during the past nine years. Through the use of referrals and quota sampling, dialogues were engaged in and narratives compiled with a diversity of women by age, marital status, education, occupation, and region. Although the nature of methods and data preclude generalizing findings to all Azerbaijani women, these dialogues and narratives do provide a much deeper and richer understanding of the processes and the dynamics of gender and Islam in Azerbaijan. And in this article, the words of Azerbaijani women are incorporated to illustrate specific points of analysis. These dialogues provide Azerbaijani women a "voice" and a mechanism to reflect on and to discuss their own personal experiences, their perspectives on Islam, and the role of religion in their everyday lives. In the following, the historical context for my research, from the 1800s to independence in 1991, is provided first. Next, gender, secularism, and the resurgence of Islam in the post-Soviet era are explored within the context of Azerbaijan as an independent secular state. Then, elaborate factors that have contributed to the resurfacing of Islam from the private realm to the public realm within Azerbaijan are examined. …


Just as the automobile radically changed people's lives at the beginning of the 20th century, so too has the revolution in online services (including blogging, podcasting, videogaming, shopping, and social networking) and cell-phone use changed our lives at the turn of the 21st century. In addition, many other services, activities, and devices-including the Palm Pilot, the BlackBerry, the iPod, digital cameras, and cell cameras-have been made possible by the combination of these two technologies. Whereas the automobile allowed people for the first time to work in cities and live comfortably in the suburbs, extending the long commute beyond the limits previously circumscribed by public transportation, the Internet and cell phone allow us to interact with others from around the world-or a few hundred miles-from where we work or live, giving rise to the telecommuting phenomenon and allowing us to stay in touch with friends and families in the new virtual environment. As Hanson demonstrates in her new book, these technologies enable us to work and play 24/7, anytime, anywhere. What does this mean for us as individuals and for society as a whole? What are the social implications of this technological revolution that we have witnessed in the short span of about 20 years? Do people of different generations use these technologies in the same ways, or do they adopt them to support their communication habits formed at different times of their lives? How does the illusion of control provided by these technologies affect the way we think about what is meaningful in our lives? Hanson examines the wide-ranging impact of this change. How do individuals posting their viewpoints on the Internet affect democracy? Is it possible to ever completely prevent identity theft over the Internet? How permanent is information stored on the Internet or on a hard drive? Do cell phones change the way people think about privacy or the way they communicate with others? Does email? Do videogames teach new social principles? Do cell phones and the Internet change traditional communication behaviors and attitudes? Hanson discusses these crucial issues and explores to what extent individuals do have control, and she assesses how social and governmental services are responding to (or running from) the problems posed by these new technologies.


Leonardo is the greatest, most multi-faceted and most mysterious of all Renaissance artists, but extraordinarily, considering his enormous reputation, this is the first full-length biography in English for several decades. Prize-winning author Charles Nicholl has immersed himself for five years in all the manuscripts, paintings and artefacts to produce an intimate portrait' of Leonardo. He uses these contemporary materials - his notebooks and sketchbooks, eye witnesses and early biographies, etc - as a way into the mental tone and physical texture of his life and has made myriad small discoveries about him and his work and his circle of associates. Among much else, the book identifies what Nicholl argues is an unknown portrait of the artist hanging in a church near Lodi in northern Italy. It also contains new material on his eccentric assistant Tomasso Masini, on his homosexual affairs in Florence, and on his curious relationship with a female model and/or prostitute from Cremona. A masterpiece of modern biography.