Background: Cardiovascular disease is responsible for over 17.1 million deaths annually worldwide. Secondary prevention plays a key role in reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease. The cardiac rehabilitation programme is an effective intervention that supports lifestyle behaviour change after acute myocardial infarction. Self-efficacy and regular physical activity are particularly important for improving of patients' health outcomes. No studies have measured both cardiac self-efficacy and physical activity levels after acute myocardial infarction during the early recovery phase. Aims: To translate and cross-cultural adapt of a cardiac self-efficacy questionnaire into Arabic. To use this questionnaire to assess the changes in self-reported self-efficacy levels at baseline, after two weeks (T1) and after six weeks (T2), to assess changes in physical activity levels and patterns at T1 and T2, and to determine whether there is a relationship between self-efficacy and physical activity among patients with acute myocardial infarction in the early recovery phase. Study design: A descriptive study with a repeated measures design. Methods: Phase one: the study used a process recommended by the World Health Organisation, to produce an Arabic version of the cardiac self-efficacy questionnaire. Phase two: the study measured self-efficacy by an Arabic version of the self-reported cardiac self-efficacy questionnaire and administered at baseline, T1 and T2. Physical activity was objectively measured by body-worn activity monitor (activPAL3™) for 24 hours a day for a full seven consecutive days at T1 and T2. Sample and Setting: The study recruited a convenience sample of 100 patients from a single cardiac centre in Amman, Jordan, between February and December 2015. Participants did not have access to cardiac rehabilitation. Results: The study showed successful translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the cardiac self-efficacy questionnaire into Arabic. In addition, the findings showed that the Arabic version of the cardiac self-efficacy questionnaire is a valid and reliable version with Cronbach's alpha of 84.6% and Intraclass Correlation Coefficient of 92.9%. Self-reported cardiac self-efficacy scores improved significantly between baseline and T1, and between T1 and T2 across all subscales (p Conclusion: The cardiac self-efficacy questionnaire is suitable for administration to patients with coronary heart disease. Study participants had greater amounts of sedentary time than levels reported in healthy populations in the UK or the USA. The step count was below that recommended in guidelines. The health care system in Jordan needs to develop cardiac rehabilitation programmes for patients recovering from myocardial infarction to promote physical activity levels and thereby reduce sedentary time. In addition, this study showed that the increase in self-efficacy levels did not influence physical activity levels. There is a need to further investigation to understand the mechanisms that influence physical activity levels among patients with acute myocardial infarction in the early recovery phase such as socio-cultural context.


Azadirachta indica is commonly referred to as Neem and is a member of the mahogany family, Meliaceae. Azadirachta indica has enormous therapeutic benefits and can show antibacterial activity, antiviral activity, anti-inflammatory activity, antioxidant effect and anticarcinogenic activity. Hence, it is recognized as a tree for solving global health problems. In the present study, subcellular localization prediction reveals that FDS of Azadirachta indica is a cytoplasmic protein. We predicted the 3D structure of the protein using homology modeling as 3D structure prediction methodology. The 3D structure of FDS was determined using SwissModel. Quality assessment of the model indicated that the model is reliable. Furthermore, it was discovered that FDS is involved in biological processes; metabolic process, cellular process, cellular metabolic process, primary metabolic process and the biochemical function of the protein is involved in transferase activity and metal ion binding


The U.S. labor force participation rate has declined sharply since 2007—far faster than can be explained by demographic shifts in the population. This brief analyzes the re-entry probability for individuals who exit the labor force as well as the financial demographic, and employment characteristics of these individuals. The vast majority of individuals under 45 years of age re-enter the labor market within four years of exiting; however, the re-entry rate drops substantially for 50–54 year-olds and 55–59 year-olds. Those individuals who exit the labor market appear more marginally attached to the labor force, and they have less financial resources to sustain themselves during long periods of being out of work. There is also some evidence that intra-household labor market substitution occurs when the household head exits the labor market first/first exits the labor market.


Experts predict that the use of smart contracts and other applications of blockchain technology can potentially revolutionize the manner in which we do business. Blockchain promises trust, transparency, improved access to shared information and records, as well as operational efficiency and cost savings. Thus, it is no surprise that companies and entrepreneurs are now developing blockchain solutions for an array of markets, ranging from real estate to health care. But, can this new technology revolutionize tax administration? Our current tax administration system suffers from a large tax gap, high compliance and administrative costs, and many inefficiencies. Blockchain's core attributes may present a solution to these shortcomings.

This Article considers the underexplored role of blockchain in the tax space and concludes that blockchain has tremendous potential to revolutionize tax administration. In particular, implementing a blockchain-based platform for tax administration would present significant opportunities to digitalize and automate certain tax processes, minimize government information constraints, increase the transparency and trustworthiness of tax-related data, and reduce costs, data redundancies, and other inefficiencies involved in the tax administration process. However, many challenges and limitations must first be overcome to achieve these revolutionary goals. Thus, this Article also sets forth several normative steps for policymakers to undertake in supporting the development of blockchain and helping it to realize its full potential in the tax space. Taking an active role in exploring and understanding blockchain's benefits, limitations and implications will place the government in the best position to harness the advantages of blockchain and modernize our system of tax administration.


This paper begins with a statement of considerable relevance to the topic from the founding document of UN-Habitat. Foundational terms and concepts are then defined, essential for comparing classical economics with the neoclassical brand and highly relevant to understanding the relationship of land and poverty. The concept of socializing land rent is traced to ancient times including the Vedic period, Biblical Leviticus and Talmudic writings, and China from 4000 years ago. Statements from the Physiocrats, Adam Smith and Karl Marx show the similarity of their perspectives concerning rent socialization as do those of many Nobel Prize winning economists. The Law of Rent is described and then Henry George's understanding of the importance of socializing rent to secure a fair distribution of wealth. The sufficiency of rent as the taxable capacity of land for funding infrastructure and other public goods and services is set forth in both theory and with a number of examples in practice. Lastly, presented is a holistic integrated tax shift model for fully socializing rent while untaxing production that is being used as the basis for legislative tax reform proposals for the state of Vermont in the United States. Several charts and graphs are included.


In species of many taxa, males alter their investment in ejaculates depending on perceived levels of male–male competition and female mating history/age. Males of the tettigoniid Acanthoplus discoidalis produce a large sperm ampulla and associated spermatophylax, resulting in a long refractory period for males. Female A. discoidalis mate once before laying eggs, and then mate and lay eggs in a random order. The males, therefore, only have a high confidence of paternity when mating with virgins. Male A. discoidalis were studied to determine if they alter their investment in sperm count, spermatophylax mass and water content of spermatophylaces when mating with virgin and non-virgin females. No difference in investment in any spermatophore characteristics between virgins and non-virgins was found, but males do reject non-virgins more often, preferring to transfer spermatophores to virgin females. Males seem to prefer females of a lower mass, where higher mass may reflect increasing female age (and hence likelihood of previous matings) through advanced development of eggs. Outright rejection, rather than changes in spermatophore investment may be because of constraints in tailoring large spermatophores that develop over relatively long periods of time between matings.


Abstract. Northern high-latitude carbon sources and sinks, including those resulting from degrading permafrost, are thought to be sensitive to the rapidly warming climate. Because the near-surface atmosphere integrates surface fluxes over large ( ∼  500–1000 km) scales, atmospheric monitoring of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) mole fractions in the daytime mixed layer is a promising method for detecting change in the carbon cycle throughout boreal Alaska. Here we use CO2 and CH4 measurements from a NOAA tower 17 km north of Fairbanks, AK, established as part of NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE), to investigate regional fluxes of CO2 and CH4 for 2012–2014. CARVE was designed to use aircraft and surface observations to better understand and quantify the sensitivity of Alaskan carbon fluxes to climate variability. We use high-resolution meteorological fields from the Polar Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model (hereafter, WRF-STILT), along with the Polar Vegetation Photosynthesis and Respiration Model (PolarVPRM), to investigate fluxes of CO2 in boreal Alaska using the tower observations, which are sensitive to large areas of central Alaska. We show that simulated PolarVPRM–WRF-STILT CO2 mole fractions show remarkably good agreement with tower observations, suggesting that the WRF-STILT model represents the meteorology of the region quite well, and that the PolarVPRM flux magnitudes and spatial distribution are generally consistent with CO2 mole fractions observed at the CARVE tower. One exception to this good agreement is that during the fall of all 3 years, PolarVPRM cannot reproduce the observed CO2 respiration. Using the WRF-STILT model, we find that average CH4 fluxes in boreal Alaska are somewhat lower than flux estimates by Chang et al. (2014) over all of Alaska for May–September 2012; we also find that enhancements appear to persist during some wintertime periods, augmenting those observed during the summer and fall. The possibility of significant fall and winter CO2 and CH4 fluxes underscores the need for year-round in situ observations to quantify changes in boreal Alaskan annual carbon balance.


Lubricants have a very wide application in all aspects of life, including industry and automotive sectors. The main purpose of a lubricant is to keep the moving/sliding surfaces apart, so that friction and consequent destruction of material is minimized. Lubricants can be solid, semi-solid, liquid, or gas. The research method in this study composed of data collecting through library method, the theory structures consist of explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of lubricant as well as the working conditions on the given case study. The working conditions of the case study are used as the parameters to the feasibility of lubricants on case study, the parameters are the ability to receive the load, the ability to survive at a speed of 700-3000 rpm, the ability to be circulated, the ability to do the filtering, and the ability to do the cooling. Based on the results obtained from literature study, found that the good ability to receive a load owned by lubricants semi-solid and liquid, the ability to survive at a speed of 700-3000 rpm only owned by liquid lubricant, the ability to be circulated owned by liquid lubricants and gas, the ability to do filtering owned liquid lubricant and gas, and the ability to perform cooling owned by liquid lubricant and gas. Based on the results of the final analysis, the best lubricant that suitable for the case study is liquid lubricant.


This article analyzes the success factors for external engagement aimed at fostering peace in conflict-affected states. It focuses on a set of three factors that have been under-researched so far: the strategic prioritization between stability and democracy, the degree of coordination, and the mode of interaction. We compare international engagement in six countries—Burundi, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Senegal, and Timor-Leste. These countries all struggled with violent conflict and experienced a democratic transition in the period 2000–2014. We use an innovative approach to assess the impact of external engagement by analyzing twenty critical junctures in the domestic political processes of these countries mainly linked to elections, constitution-writing processes, and peace agreements, as well as disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. Based on over 300 interviews, we find that prioritizing stability over democratization is problematic, good international coordination has positive effects, and preferring cooperative forms of interaction over coercion is mostly but not always useful. In discussing these general features of international support, this article contributes to the broader discussion of factors that explain the impact external actors can have on transformative political processes after conflict.


lion years) climate history is poorly known from direct evidence, owing to its remoteness, an extensive sea ice apron, and an ice sheet cover over the region for the past 34 million years. Consequently, knowledge about the role of Antarctica's ice sheets in global sea level and climate has relied heavily upon interpretations of oxygen isotope records from deep-sea cores. Whereas these isotopic records have revolutionized our understanding of climate-ice-ocean interactions, questions still remain about the specific role of Antarctic ice sheets in global climate. Such questions can be addressed from geological records at the marine margin of the ice sheets, recovered by drilling from floating ice platforms [e.g., Davey et al., 2001; Harwood et al., 2006; Barrett, 2007]. During the austral summer of 2006–2007, a new Antarctic geological drilling program (ANDRILL) successfully recovered a 1285meter-long record of climate and ice sheet variability spanning the past 13 million years from beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf (Figure 1). The cores contain sedimentary rocks deposited by the ice sheets grounded in the sea, and they provide the best direct evidence to date of past Antarctic ice sheet and climate fluctuations for this period of Earth's history. The new geological evidence is being used to provide direct physical calibration for deep-sea isotope records, low-latitude continental margin sea level records, and numerical climate and ice sheet models, especially for times of past global warmth. Such analogs are becoming increasingly important because of the difficulties in predicting the dynamic response of ice sheets to global warming [Vaughan and Athern, 2007]. In this article we summarize the initial results of the ANDRILL program's first drilling project from the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) site [Naish et al., 2007a, 2007b], with an emphasis on the potential of the record for improving our knowledge of Antarctica's influence on, and response to, global climate change.


This paper developes Runge-Kutta $P^K$-based central discontinuous Galerkin (CDG) methods with WENO limiter to the one- and two-dimensional special relativistic hydrodynamical (RHD) equations, $K=1,2,3$. Different from the non-central DG methods, the \CDG{} have to find two approximate solutions defined on mutually dual meshes. For each mesh, the CDG approximate solutions on its dual mesh are used to calculate the flux values in the cell and on the cell boundary so that the approximate solutions on mutually dual meshes are coupled with each other, and the use of numerical flux may be avoided. The WENO limiter is adaptively implemented via two steps: the "troubled" cells are first identified by using a modified TVB minmod function, and then the WENO technique is used to locally reconstruct new polynomials of degree $(2K+1)$ replacing the CDG solutions inside the "troubled' cells by the cell average values of the CDG solutions in the neighboring cells as well as the original cell averages of the "troubled" cells. Because the WENO limiter is only employed for finite "troubled" cells, the computational cost can be as little as possible. The accuracy of the CDG without the numerical dissipation is analyzed and calculation of the flux integrals over the cells is also addressed. Several test problems in one and two dimensions are solved by using our \CDG{} with WENO limiter. The computations demonstrate that our methods are stable, accurate, and robust in solving complex RHD problems.


Websites with hyper-partisan, left or right-leaning focus offer content that is typically biased towards the expectations of their target audience. Such content often polarizes users, who are repeatedly primed to specific (extreme) content, usually reflecting hard party lines on political and socio-economic topics. Though this polarization has been extensively studied with respect to content, it is still unknown how it associates with the online tracking experienced by browsing users, especially when they exhibit certain demographic characteristics. For example, it is unclear how such websites enable the ad-ecosystem to track users based on their gender or age. In this paper, we take a first step to shed light and measure such potential differences in tracking imposed on users when visiting specific party-line's websites. For this, we design and deploy a methodology to systematically probe such websites and measure differences in user tracking. This methodology allows us to create user personas with specific attributes like gender and age and automate their browsing behavior in a consistent and repeatable manner. Thus, we systematically study how personas are being tracked by these websites and their third parties, especially if they exhibit particular demographic properties. Overall, we test 9 personas on 556 hyper-partisan websites and find that right-leaning websites tend to track users more intensely than left-leaning, depending on user demographics, using both cookies and cookie synchronization methods and leading to more costly delivered ads.


Amsterdam in the 1690s - a boom town with Europe's biggest stock exchange and traders who will stop at nothing to get even richer. Lienzo, a Portugese Jew, stumbles across a new commodity - coffee - which, if he plays his cards right, will make him the richest man in Holland. But others stand in his way - rival traders who do all in their power to confuse the exchange and scupper his plans, his brother who is jealous of his financial wizardry and even his brother's beautiful wife who both tempts and spurns him in equal measure.


Recently, the general public and the media have paid much attention to an increasing polarization on welfare issues. As Everett Carll Ladd's (1995) survey illustrates in Figure 1, three quarters of the general population agreed on the role of government in welfare in 1988. However, this consensus had disintegrated into a near polar split by 1994. Because the U.S. House of Representatives is supposedly most responsive to popular opinion, the research here uses the House to investigate possible determinants of this trend. I postulate that not only divided government and the decline of the conservative coalition, but also the "Contract With America" have contributed to the development of party unity--and its mirror opposite, party polarization--on welfare issues. I intend to demonstrate three points: (1) the New Deal "conservative coalition" has not declined, (2) that the unity of both parties has increased after the "Contract With America," and (3) that the Democrats remain consistently more unified than the Republicans despite the perception that Republicans are more unified as a result of their"Contract With America." This article is available in Res Publica Journal of Undergraduate Research: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/respublica/vol1/iss1/7


In this paper we introduce unique publicly available dense an isotropic BRDF data measurements. We use this dense data as a reference for performance evaluation of the proposed BRDF sparse angular sampling and interpolation approach. The method is based on sampling of BRDF subspaces at fixed elevations by means of several adaptively-represented, uniformly distributed, perpendicular slices. Although this proposed method requires only a sparse sampling of material, the interpolation provides a very accurate reconstruction, visually and computationally comparable to densely measured reference. Due to the simple slices measurement and method's robustness it allows for a highly accurate acquisition of BRDFs. This in comparison with standard uniform angular sampling, is considerably faster yet uses far less samples.


We present a model for semantic role labeling that effectively captures the linguistic intuition that a semantic argument frame is a joint structure, with strong dependencies among the arguments. We show how to incorporate these strong dependencies in a statistical joint model with a rich set of features over multiple argument phrases. The proposed model substantially outperforms a similar state-of-the-art local model that does not include dependencies among different arguments. We evaluate the gains from incorporating this joint information on the Propbank corpus, when using correct syntactic parse trees as input, and when using automatically derived parse trees. The gains amount to 24.1% error reduction on all arguments and 36.8% on core arguments for gold-standard parse trees on Propbank. For automatic parse trees, the error reductions are 8.3% and 10.3% on all and core arguments, respectively. We also present results on the CoNLL 2005 shared task data set. Additionally, we explore considering multiple syntactic analyses to cope with parser noise and uncertainty.


Rapid expansion of welfare state model and persistent processes of housing sector commodification are corroding the stable social security net and transforming the structure of housing sector at the same time. The growing private rent sector becomes a desirable option for those households which struggle to acquire housing in private housing sector. Lithuanian private rent sector is a peculiar case because the rent segment is poorly regulated and the practice of informal rent is widely spread. Even the general official framework of Lithuanian housing policy considers private rent sector an economic activity, but not the residential one – the rent is legally treated as just a contract between the renter and the tenant. The study aims at showcasing the situation of Lithuanian youth (18–35 yr.) who rent housing units privately, and their attitudes towards private rent sector. The analysis presents the differences in socio-demographic features and value orientations among young tenants and home-owners. The article describes several profiles of young tenants: they usually live in more compact housing units and are more likely to be single or cohabitate with a partner and without any children. Important feature of Lithuanian private rent sector is a quite short residential period, and the fact that the majority of young tenants have not declared or registered rented housing unit as their primary place of residency. Young tenants are more anxious about their liability to the renter, but not about their rights as the tenants. More than one quarter of young tenants participate in informal housing rent sector, only about half of young tenants have legal contracts with renters. All these features of the private sector allow concluding about the rent sector's ambivalence or existence of various levels of residential security for young tenants.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.17.3.21958


YUCEL, D. OZVEREN and A. E. ANLARSAL, 2010. Determination of selection criteria with path coefficient analysis in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) breeding. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 42-48 This research was carried out to determine selection criteria by using correlation and path coefficient analysis in 22 genotypes of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under Mediterranean conditions. In investigated characters, positive and significant relationships were found statistically among seed yield and harvest index and seed number. The path coefficients analysis based on seed yield, as a dependent variable, revealed that harvest index had the greatest direct effect on seed yield (0.4206) with the ratio of 56.04 %. Both correlation and path analyses indicated that harvest index was the major direct contributor to seed yield. The present study suggests that selection for high seed yield should be based on selecting high harvest index plants in chickpea.


Self-concept, generally includes an overview of all aspects of individual personality based on the views, perceptions, thoughts, feelings and beliefs of individuals against itself which also gave birth to the award
and acceptance of herself. One of the psychological factors that contribute to the achievement motivation is the concept of self. Achievement motivation is one of the factors that encourage individuals to perform desired activities. In the process of work, achievement needs to move and direct actions, supports the behavior and selecting individual actions oriented to success. Achievement motivation is the potential of individuals who become the main foundation of the coaching process, personality development, and the abilities he had. Most of this capability, which determines one's success. The importance of understanding and confidence in ability is one of the capital for the employees to be more able to develop the existing potential. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between self-concept and achievement motivation in employees, the hypothesis of this research is no relationship between self-concept and achievement motivation in employees. The variables of this research is the concept of self as independent variables and achievement motivation as the dependent variable. The population of this study are all staff employees of PT. Otsuka Indonesia. Technique of taking the sample using purposive sampling. The sample is a staff employee who has status as a permanent employee of 60 people. Data obtained from the spread of the scale, the scale of self-concept and achievement motivation scale. Test the validity of the instrument using the product moment formula that correlated with the whole part, test the validity of the self-concept scale validity index 0.2074 to 0.8251 and test the validity of the scale of achievement motivation and the validity index from 0.2252 to 0.7348. Instrument reliability test using Cronbach alpha formula with rtabel 0.2070 then it can be said reliably. The data analysis using product moment correlation. Results obtained from this study indicate that there is a very significant positive relationship between self-concept and achievement motivation in employees with (r = 0.552, p = 0.000) mean to people who have high self-concept was found also to have high achievement motivation Also vice versa, while the effective contribution of self-concept on achievement motivation of 30.5% and the remaining 69.5% contribution from other factors not examined.


Research has been extremely involved in improving in the art criticism area. These improvements are reflected in scientific articles. This article purposed to investigate the 214 articles in art criticism to explore their main characteristics. These articles published in the Web of Science database of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) from the period of 1980 till 20 December 2013. Types of articles were article and review which is included in the study. The three top cited (more than 10 times citations) articles in art criticism were published in 1993 and 1999. The 214 articles mean citation rate was 0.87 (SD 2.38) times. Among the various fields, art (58.87%), arts humanities other topics (28.03%), both art and arts humanities other topics (5.14%), both art and education and educational research (2.33%), both art and history (1.40%), art, arts humanities other topics and literature (1.40%), both art and cultural studies (0.93%), both art and philosophy (0.93%), both art and literature (0.46%), and both arts humanities other topics and cultural studies (0.46%) were the most popular fields of research. The results showed that researches were done in the United States had highest citation which was written in English language.


In this paper we assess the multipath propagation effects of a short-range wireless device operating at 2.4 GHz in an indoor office environment. The investigations are carried out using FEM simulations and measurement trials for NLOS and LOS propagation scenarios. The FEM simulations will also be used for assessing the influence on propagation when doors are opened or closed. Finally, we investigate a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) antenna receive diversity system utilizing different combining techniques to improve the performance over a fading radio channel in a NLOS propagation environment. Simulation results show that a substantial diversity gain would be achieved by using this system.


The present study explores some physical and chemical parameters in the epilithic diatoms in the water samples obtained from two stations in Koçan Falls, Erzincan from March to November 2014. Over the course of the study, 19 taxa of epilithic diatoms were recorded. Diatom genera which had the highest number of species in the study period were Cymbella (4 species), Navicula (4 species), and Cyclotella (3 species), while the most significant diatoms in terms of prevalence and the size of their populations were found to be Cyclotella spp., Gomphonema spp., Navicula spp., and Nitzschia spp. Over the course of the study, diatoms exhibited the highest level of growth in spring and summer, when there was more light and temperatures were higher. Considering the presence of diatoms within epilithic algae communities in all seasons, it appears that diatoms are cosmopolitan and can be among the algae that are commonly found at all types of substrata. The data obtained from the epilithic diatoms of Koçan Falls were analyzed according to Shannon-Weaver Diversity Index and Sorensen Similarity Index.


Studies suggest that primary extranodal follicular lymphoma (FL) is not infrequent but it remains poorly characterized with variable histologic, molecular, and clinical outcome findings. We compared 27 extranodal FL to 44 nodal FL using morphologic, immunohistochemical, and molecular genetic techniques and evaluated the clinical outcome of these 2 similarly staged groups. Eight cases of primary cutaneous follicle center lymphoma were also studied. In comparison to nodal FL, a greater number of extranodal FL contained a diffuse growth pattern (P=0.004) and lacked CD10 expression (P=0.014). Fifty-four percent of extranodal and 42% of nodal FL cases showed evidence of t(14;18), with minor breakpoints (icr, 3'BCL2, 5'mcr) more commonly found in extranodal cases (P=0.003). Outcome data showed no significant differences in overall survival (P=0.565) and progression-free survival (P=0.627) among extranodal, nodal, and primary cutaneous follicle center lymphoma cases. Analysis of all cases by t(14;18) status indicate that the translocation-negative group is characterized by a diffuse growth pattern (P=0.043) and lower BCL2 expression (P=0.018). The t(14;18)-positive group showed significantly better overall survival (P=0.019) and disease-specific survival (P=0.006) in comparison with the t(14;18)-negative group. In low stage FL, the status of t(14;18) seems to be more predictive of outcome than origin from an extranodal versus nodal site.


In this chapter I explore evaluation in DVD blurbs (the text on the back of DVD box sets for TV series), which promote television series to potential buyers. The approach taken to the analysis of evaluation is corpus linguistics, and this chapter reports on findings from a pilot study examining the blurbs for 50 contemporary American television series. A combination of frequency analysis and concordancing is used to examine the use of evaluation in these discourse types in terms of frequency, dispersion and functionality. The findings suggest that the discourse type of the DVD blurb is linguistically restricted – although not in terms of specific lexico-grammatical items, but rather in terms of pragmatic functions, and that it has much in common with both traditional advertising and book blurbs.


Oncologists often attenuate the doses of chemotherapy drugs in published standard regimens to avoid toxicity. The impact on survival of this practice in patients with extensive stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is uncertain. We have compared the outcome of 85 patients treated with a program of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and vincristine to a group of 37 patients treated with conventional regimens of higher dose intensity. The two groups of patients were shown to be equivalent in terms of staging evaluation, response and survival criteria, and pretreatment prognostic factors. The latter was confirmed by applying a published prognostic algorithm. Complete response rates (38% vs 14%) were significantly better with the higher intensity regimens (p = .003). The median survival (39 vs 26 weeks), 1 year survival (32% vs 12%), and overall survival (p = .002) were superior with the full-dose intensity protocols. Myelotoxicity was also greater with the contemporary treatments. Cox proportional hazards analysis, correcting for pretreatment prognostic variables, confirmed the improved survival with conventional doses of therapy (p = .0055). These results support the concept that full-dose intensity chemotherapy provides survival benefit in patients with extensive stage SCLC.


We describe the effort of the Microsoft Translator team to develop a Haitian Creole statistical machine translation engine from scratch in a matter of days. Haitian Creole presents a number of difficulties for devleoping an SMT system, principal among these is the lack of significant amounts of parallel training data and an inconsistent orthography, both of which lead to data sparseness. We demonstrate, however, that it is possible to build a translation engine of reasonable quality over very little data by engaging with the native language community and reducing data sparseness in creative ways. As such, we show that MT as a technology and as a service can be deployed rapidly in crisis situations.


Blastocystis is an enteric protist and one of the most frequently reported parasitic infections in humans and a variety of animal hosts worldwide. The genus Blastocystis consists of numerous genetically distinct groups, referred to as subtypes (STs). Some STs are highly host specific, while others display moderate or low host specificity. Therefore, the aims of this study were to determine the prevalence amongst various animal hosts (captive, free-ranging and wild), genetic diversity and zoonotic potential of Blastocystis. As polyparasitism is considered to be the norm in wildlife, the final aim of this study was to develop a molecular-based diagnostic method for the simultaneous detection of Blastocystis, Cryptosporidium sp. and Giardia duodenalis in Australian native fauna.

These aims were achieved by sampling captive animals and their keepers from the Perth Zoo. Also, animal samples were obtained from other zoos in Australia and Europe. Samples from free-ranging and wild non-human primates (NHPs) and Australian native fauna were also included in this study. All samples were screened for Blastocystis using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), followed by phylogenetic analyses to characterise these isolates in order to determine the genetic diversity and zoonotic potential of isolates within the Blastocystis genus.

 Blastocystis was detected in 13 species of animals from the Perth Zoo. It was also detected in NHPs from Belgian zoos. All wild and free-ranging NHP and Australian wildlife populations also harboured Blastocystis. This study describes the first reports of Blastocystis in the elephant, giraffe, Javan lutung, quokka, southern hairy nosed wombat and western grey kangaroo.

Similarly, 12 Blastocystis STs, including six novel STs (STs 11 – 13 and 18 – 20), were identified in humans and animal hosts sampled as part of this study. Blastocystis STs 1, 2, 18 and 19 were identified in captive NHPs. However, STs 2, 8 and 20 were identified in wild NHPs. Australian native animals at the Perth Zoo harboured STs 1, 12 and 13, whereas free-ranging animals from Karakamia Sanctuary (KS) and wild animals from the Upper Warren Region (UWR) harboured STs 1 – 4 and 7. Captive elephants and giraffes from Australian and European zoos harboured STs 11 and 12, respectively.

 Higher prevalence of Blastocystis amongst zoo keepers and sequence homology of isolates from zoo keepers and animals at the Perth Zoo provide evidence of the zoonotic potential of Blastocystis. High prevalence amongst zoo keepers may be due to close contact between the animals and the zoo keepers, and other tasks carried out by the zoo keepers, such as cleaning of enclosures. Similarly, some Blastocystis isolates from Australian wildlife were also homologous to human isolates, and it seems that these hosts are natural hosts for the zoonotic ST 4.

Other parasites, such as strongyle nematodes and coccidia were detected using microscopy. Various species of Australian wildlife are known to harbour these and other parasites, including zoonotic parasites, such as Cryptosporidium sp. and Giardia duodenalis. As polyparasitism is considered to be the norm in wildlife, a multiplex PCR (mPCR) was developed to detect Blastocystis, Cryptosporidium and Giardia simultaneously from Australian wildlife. This mPCR was evaluated against other diagnostic methods routinely used for the detection of these parasites, such as microscopy and nested PCRs. The multiplex PCR showed comparative and/or greater sensitivity and specificity to routinely utilised nested PCRs. The major advantages of the multiplex PCR are that it is less labour intensive and is cost effective in comparison to the nested PCRs used to amplify each parasite.

In conclusion, the host range and genetic diversity of Blastocystis is much greater than previously anticipated. Some STs and/or subgroups of STs appear to be highly host specific, while others display moderate or low host specificity. Also, some STs which have a broad host range may be zoonotic. This study also provides further insight into polyparasitism amongst Australian wildlife.


The fundamental particle is the neutrino. To date, it has not been divided. It is the Zero Point Energy particle (ZPE) and is everywhere. Neutrinos can form electrons, can form quarks, which form protons and neutrons. Coordinated flows of neutrinos create the force of gravity and electromagnetism. T. T. Brown found that by placing a highly charged wire around a disc that the disc would move in the direction of the positive pole. Larger discs and higher voltages produced higher disc velocity. Tests conducted in a vacuum showed that the disc velocity was not produced by ionized air molecules. This means that there is a source of propulsion available for space ships that does not require rocket fuel. Time has existed forever so there was no beginning. Once there was a space that extended to infinity and was filled with neutrinos at a fixed temperature and density. These neutrinos formed hydrogen clouds which formed stars which led to the universe as it is known today, steady and infinite.


The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of family socio¬economic and family relations toward adolescent's positive behaviors. The study was conducted in 2001-2003 at four technical high schools and one senior high school in Bogor City. The samples used in this study were 667 students (540 males and 127 females). The sampling method applied was simple random sampling among second graders. The study finds out that male students tended to have higher family economic pressures than female students. The proportion of female students who had vegetables intake consumption more than once a day was higher than male students; The proportion of female students who had intake consumption of protein, tea, coffee, and snacks was higher than male students; however the proportion of male students who smoke and drank alcohol was higher than female students. In general, it could be known that female students tended to have higher positive behaviors and better parenting practices by parents (warmth and support by both fathers and mothers) than male students; and there was no significant differences in parents and child relations between male and female students. Positive behaviors of students were directly affected by the higher quality of parents and child relations (for male students was affected by the quality of father-son relations, and for female students was affected by the quality of mother-doughter relations). Finally, positive behaviors of students were indirectly affected by warmth and support parenting practices done by father and mother. Then, the gender relations within family could produce the outcome of child positive behaviors. Based on these findings, it is suggested that parents (father and moyher) must optimize their functions of child socialization and parenting practices based on warmth and support toward their child so that their child's psycho-social developments could be achieved optimally


Physics and engineering aspects of a system for electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) at the magnetic mirror device Gas Dynamic Trap (GDT, Budker Institute, Novosibirsk) are presented. This system based on two 450 kW/54.5 GHz gyrotrons is aimed at increasing the electron temperature up to the range 250-350 eV for improved energy confinement of hot ions. The basic physical issue of the GDT magnetic field topology is that conventional ECRH geometries are not accessible. The proposed solution is based on a peculiar effect of radiation trapping in inhomogeneous magnetized plasma. Under specific conditions, oblique launch of gyrotron radiation results in generation of right-hand-polarized (R) electromagnetic waves propagating with high N∥ in the vicinity of the cyclotron resonance layer, which leads to effective single-pass absorption of the injected microwave power. In the present paper, we investigate numerically an optimized ECRH scenario based on the proposed mechanism of wave propagation and discuss the design of the ECRH system, which is currently under construction at the Budker Institute.


Abstract : A number of organizations are successfully applying the Spiral Development Model (SDM) and finding it valuable in addressing such challenges as rapid development, COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) software integration, new technologies, and product line management. However, other organizations have experienced difficulties with spiral development due to over-relaxed controls, underestimated risks, existing sequential development policies, inflexible financing mechanisms, ingrained cultures, and confusion about what spiral development is and how to apply it. To attack these problems, a workshop was held February 9-11, 2000, at the University of Southern California under the sponsorship of its Center for Software Engineering (CSE) and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University. Work groups at the workshop recommended specific actions aimed at building and spreading a culture for the SDM community. These can be described as defining, improving, promoting, and studying SDM, educating about SDM, adapting to SDM, and enhancing teamwork. This report summarizes the workshop and presents its recommendations.


The globalization of food systems has led to the increased circulation of food risks across national boundaries. While there is a rich literature on the domestic risk politics of food safety in China, much less attention has been given to the external dimension of China's food safety issues and how these interplay with relations in the international arena. This article examines the visceral politics of food and risk in China–Taiwan relations. Drawing on the scandal of the export of tainted milk products from China to Taiwan in 2008 and the ongoing food safety debates surrounding the implementation of the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, we argue that perceptions of and responses to food risks cannot be considered in isolation from the political, economic and social context of cross-strait relations where different state, societal and media actors interact in the construction of risks. Rather than being a purely technical matter of safety assessment, the identification, representation and management of food risks are shown to be a social process that is contested at all times.


Volume effects are a fundamental determinant of structural failure. A material exhibits a volume effect if its failure properties are dependent on the specimen volume. Many brittle ceramics exhibit volume effects due to loading a structure in the presence of "critical" flaws. The number of flaws, their locations, and the effect of stress field within the stressed volume play a role in determining the structure's failure properties. Since real materials are imperfect, structures composed of large volumes of material have higher probabilities of containing a flaw than do small volumes. Consequently, large material volumes tend to fail at lower stresses compared to smaller volumes when tested under similar conditions. Volume effects documented in brittle ceramic and composite structures have been proposed to affect the mechanical properties of bone. We hypothesized that for cortical bone material, (1) small volumes have greater yield strengths than large volumes and (2) that compared to microstructural features, specimen volume was able to account for comparable amounts of variability in yield strength. In this investigation, waisted rectangular, equine third metacarpal diaphyseal specimens (n = 24) with nominal cross sections of 3 × 4 mm and gage lengths of either 10.5, 21, or 42 mm, were tested monotonically in tension to determine the effect of specimen volume on their yield strength. Yield strength was greatest in the smallest volume group compared to the largest volume group. Within each group of specimens the logarithm of yield strength was positively correlated with the cumulative failure probability, indicating that the data follow the two-parameter Weibull distribution. Additionally, log yield strength was negatively correlated with log volume, supporting the hypothesis that small stressed volumes of cortical bone possess greater yield strength than similarly tested large stressed volumes.


Received: December 2015, Accepted: February 2016 Background: Chemical contaminants present in the work environments include gases, vapors, and solid and liquid suspended particles. The number of factories producing chemicals has increased significantly. Each year, new products are introduced into the market. Consequently, the number of employees at risk of exposure to these materials is increased. Hazardous chemicals are used in the petrochemical industry that is one of the major industries in the country's economic development. Therefore, the aim of this study was a semi-quantitative risk assessment of health exposure to hazardous chemical agents in a petrochemical plant. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive analytical study for assessing the sanitary risks of hazardous chemical factors in the work environment through a risk assessment method provided by the Occupational Health Department of Singapore. Thus, initially, occupational tasks and processes were determined. Subsequently, all hazardous chemical factors were detected, and then, the degree of risk, the degree of exposure, and risk rating were determined. Results: In total, 24 tasks were examined and risk assessment was performed for 19 hazardous chemical substances in this study. Among these materials, benzene and xylene had the highest risks and were used in various occupations. In this study, mean and standard deviation of age and experience of participants were 30.28 ± 7.87 and 5.98 ± 5.66, respectively. Moreover, 25.3% of participants in this study were single and 74.7% were married. Conclusions: It can be concluded that 81% of chemicals used in this industry are rated at moderate and high risk. In order to control the identified risks, this study recommended programs and control measures based on the hierarchy of elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and use of personal protective equipment.


A grid of 32 across-axis and five axis-parallel multichannel seismic (MCS) reflection profiles were acquired at an axial volcanic ridge (AVR) segment at 57° 45'N, 32° 35'W on the slow-spreading Reykjanes Ridge, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, to determine the along-axis variation and geometry of the axial magmatic system and to investigate the relationship between magma chamber structure, the along-axis continuity and segmentation of melt supply to the crust, the development of faulting and the thickness of oceanic layer 2A.

Seismic reflection profiles acquired at mid-ocean ridges are prone to being swamped by high amplitude seabed scattered noise which can either mask or be mistaken for intracrustal reflection events. In this paper, we present the results of two approaches to this problem which simulate seabed scatter and which can either be used to remove or simply predict events within processed MCS profiles.

The 37 MCS profiles show clear intracrustal seismic events which are related to the structure of oceanic layer 2, to the axial magmatic system and to the faults which dismember each AVR as it ages through its tectono-magmatic life cycle and which form the median valley walls. The layer 2A event can be mapped around the entirety of the survey area between 0.1 and 0.5 s two-way traveltime below the seabed, being thickest at AVR centres, and thinning both off-axis and along-axis towards AVR tips. Both AVR-parallel and ridge-parallel trends are observed, with the pattern of on-axis layer 2A thickness variation preserved beneath relict AVRs which are rafted off-axis largely intact.

Each active AVR is underlain by a mid-crustal melt lens reflection extending almost along its entire length. Similar reflection events are observed beneath the offset basins between adjacent AVRs. These are interpreted as new AVRs at the start of their life cycle, developing centrally within the median valley. The east–west spacings of relict AVRs and offset basins is ∼5–7 km, corresponding to a life span of the order of 0.5–0.7 Myr, during which AVRs appear to undergo multiple 20–60 Kyr tectono-magmatic cycles.


Abstract The present opinion deals with the re‐evaluation of the safety of food‐grade carrageenan (E 407) and processes Eucheuma seaweed (E 407a) used as food additives. Because of the structural similarities, the Panel concluded that processed Eucheuma seaweed can be included in the evaluation of food‐grade carrageenan. Poligeenan (average molecular weight 10–20 kDa) has not been authorised as a food additive and is not used in any food applications. In its evaluation of carrageenan (E 407) and processed Eucheuma seaweed (E 407a), the Panel noted that the ADME database was sufficient to conclude that carrageenan was not absorbed intact; in a subchronic toxicity study performed with carrageenan almost complying with the EU specification for E 407 in rats, the no‐observed‐adverse‐effect level (NOAEL) was 3,400–3,900 mg/kg body weight (bw) per day, the highest dose tested; no adverse effects have been detected in chronic toxicity studies with carrageenan in rats up to 7,500 mg/kg bw per day, the highest dose tested; there was no concern with respect to the carcinogenicity of carrageenan; carrageenan and processed Eucheuma seaweed did not raise a concern with respect to genotoxicity; the NOAEL of sodium and calcium carrageenan for prenatal developmental dietary toxicity studies were the highest dose tested; the safety of processed Eucheuma seaweed was sufficiently covered by the toxicological evaluation of carrageenan; data were adequate for a refined exposure assessment for 41 out of 79 food categories. However, the Panel noted uncertainties as regards the chemistry, the exposure assessment and biological and toxicological data. Overall, taking into account the lack of adequate data to address these uncertainties, the Panel concluded that the existing group acceptable daily intake (ADI) for carrageenan (E 407) and processed Eucheuma seaweed (E 407a) of 75 mg/kg bw per day should be considered temporary, while the database should be improved within 5 years after publication of this opinion.


On the basis of a series of definitions (Findak, 1995; Klavora, 2008; Momirovic, 1969; Mrakovic, 1971, 1992, 1997), Kinesiology as a science "studies the effectiveness of human movements, the controlled process of exercise, its principles and its consequences on human body in the broadest sense" (Prskalo & Sporis, 2016, p. 12), and strives to realize its futuristic role in securing the future of humankind, especially with reference to its most sensitive and vulnerable members. This role is realized through all its applied areas and branches, and especially through kinesiology education, which is the only one that, in the course of every individual's compulsory education, includes the entire population within the compulsory school subject Physical and Health Education. Apart from the already consensually accepted values of physical and health education: biological, economic, health, cultural and pedagogical (Findak, 1999), the same author (2014) highlighted the importance of changing the name Physical and Health Education to Kinesiology Education, which would reflect the attitudes of the fundamental science and profession; however, this change has not happened yet. In addition to the values realized through the school subject, whose name should be Kinesiology Education because of its scientific foundations, the value of kinesiology education has been confirmed in accomplishing a series of anthropological and educational tasks, and has even become the basis of different virtues including religion (Prskalo, 2017), which may be defined as a subjective mental state, a certain lifestyle and consistency in faith (Enciklopedijski teoloski rjecnik, 2009). Prskalo (2018) points out that the issues of sustainable development contained in the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations with goals attainable by 2015 and the ones applicable today (Državni zavod za statistiku et al., 2006; Pavic-Rogosic, 2016), such as world without poverty and hunger, health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable energy from clean sources, dignified work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reducing inequality, sustainable cities and communities, responsible spending and production, climate protection, preservation of life on Earth, peace, justice and strong institutions, and consolidation of global partnership for sustainable development, are not exclusively related to one scientific area or discipline. On the contrary, these issues belong to the field of kinesiology and all its applied fields. Key words: kinesiology, Kinesiology Education, sustainable development, students.


In this paper, image compression utilizing visual redundancy is investigated. Inspired by recent advancements in image inpainting techniques, we propose an image compression framework towards visual quality rather than pixel-wise fidelity. In this framework, an original image is analyzed at the encoder side so that portions of the image are intentionally and automatically skipped. Instead, some information is extracted from these skipped regions and delivered to the decoder as assistant information in the compressed fashion. The delivered assistant information plays a key role in the proposed framework because it guides image inpainting to accurately restore these regions at the decoder side. Moreover, to fully take advantage of the assistant information, a compression-oriented edge-based inpainting algorithm is proposed for image restoration, integrating pixel-wise structure propagation and patch-wise texture synthesis. We also construct a practical system to verify the effectiveness of the compression approach in which edge map serves as assistant information and the edge extraction and region removal approaches are developed accordingly. Evaluations have been made in comparison with baseline JPEG and standard MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 intra-picture coding. Experimental results show that our system achieves up to 44% and 33% bits-savings, respectively, at similar visual quality levels. Our proposed framework is a promising exploration towards future image and video compression.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study is to determine fetal dose during four different stages of pregnancy for both pulmonary CT angiogram and abdominal and pelvic CT examination on 4-, 16-, and 64-MDCT scanners measured in an anthropomorphic phantom simulating a pregnant patient.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Pulmonary angiograms and abdominal and pelvic studies were performed on a phantom on 4-, 16-, and 64-MDCT scanners. Fetal positioning and mean fetal depth were determined using data from ultrasound examinations of a large cohort of patients. Scans were performed for early pregnancy and for 10, 18, and 36 weeks. Gestational age, fetal dose, and entrance skin exposure were measured.

RESULTS
When constant parameters were used for pulmonary CT angiograms, the fetal radiation dose was not significantly associated with gestational age. For abdominal examinations, the 64-MDCT scanner imparted a 20% higher dose during the third trimester than did the other scanners. When scanning parameters were kept constant between machines, gestational age and fetal dose were not significantly different. However, when the manufacturer-recommended protocols for pregnant patients were used, the dose was significantly higher in the third trimester on the 64-MDCT scanner.

CONCLUSION
The 64-MDCT scanner is the most dose-efficient machine when the fetus is outside the direct scan volume, as in the case of pulmonary angiograms. For abdominal examinations, the 64-MDCT scanner imparted the highest fetal dose. This finding is attributable to the increased tube current used to penetrate the larger amount of soft tissue in late pregnancy. Abdominal shielding may reduce fetal dose without affecting diagnostic ability.


Summary Genome-scale metabolic networks have been reconstructed for hundreds of organisms over the last two decades, with wide-ranging applications, including the identification of drug targets. Constraint-based approaches such as flux balance analysis have been effectively used to predict single and combinatorial drug targets in a variety of metabolic networks. We have previously developed Fast-SL, an efficient algorithm to rapidly enumerate all possible synthetic lethals from metabolic networks. Here, we introduce CASTLE, an online standalone database, which contains synthetic lethals predicted from the metabolic networks of over 130 organisms. These targets include single, double or triple lethal set of genes and reactions, and have been predicted using the Fast-SL algorithm. The workflow used for building CASTLE can be easily applied to other pathogenic models and used to identify novel therapeutic targets. Availability CASTLE is available at https://ramanlab.github.io/CASTLE/ Contact email@example.com


The systematic management of records is an important activity for ?information businesses? such as museums and galleries, but is not always recognized as a core function. Record keeping activities are often concentrated on small groups of records, and staff charged with managing them may have limited experience in the field.

 Records Management for Museums and Galleries offers a comprehensive overview of records management work within the heritage sector and draws on over a decade of experience in applying fundamental principles and practices to the specific circumstances of museums. It introduces readers to the institutional culture, functions, and records common to museums, and examines the legislative and regulatory environments affecting record-keeping practices. The book is comprised of eight chapters, including: a history of records keeping in the UK museum and gallery sector; the basics of records management; making a business case for records management; requirements of legislation for records management; how to conduct a records survey; strategy and action planning; how to develop a file plan, retention schedule and records management programme; and a guide to useful additional resources.

 Gives practical and tested solutions to real world issues

 Fills a gap in the literature as a handbook in this important sector

 Provides an overview of the sector as a whole


PURPOSE
To retrospectively evaluate the appearance of lesions of osseous and soft-tissue structures of the glenohumeral joint on magnetic resonance (MR) images after first-time traumatic posterior shoulder dislocation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was institutional review board approved and HIPAA compliant, as appropriate, for the four institutions at which the involved patients were treated. Informed patient consent was obtained, were applicable. Thirty-six male patients (age range, 15-80 years; mean age, 40.2 years) with clinically documented first-time traumatic posterior shoulder dislocation were examined with MR arthrography (18 patients) or conventional shoulder MR imaging (18 patients). Causes of posterior shoulder dislocation were electric shock in one patient, seizure in one patient, and trauma in 34 patients. Hill-Sachs lesions, rotator cuff tears, biceps tendon abnormalities, posterior labrocapsular complex lesions, humeral head translation, and osseous glenoid version angle were evaluated. Spearman rank correlation and Student t test analyses were performed.

RESULTS
In 31 (86%) of the 36 patients, a reverse Hill-Sachs lesion was found. Eleven (31%) patients had a reverse osseous Bankart lesion. Twelve full-thickness rotator cuff tears were seen in seven (19%) patients: four supraspinatus tendon, three infraspinatus tendon, and five subscapularis tendon tears. Six (17%) patients had biceps tendon abnormalities. Posterior labrocapsular complex tears were identified in 21 (58%) patients: 10 (48%) with posterior labral sleeve avulsions and 11 (52%) with reverse Bankart lesions. Twenty-seven (75%) patients had a retroverted scaphoglenoid angle (mean, 4.5 degrees ). The mean humeral translation distance relative to the osseous glenoid fossa was -4.8 mm; in 33 (92%) patients, this distance was translated posteriorly.

CONCLUSION
The MR appearance of traumatic posterior shoulder dislocation was characterized by reverse Hill-Sachs lesions in 86% of patients and posterocaudal labrocapsular lesions in nearly 60% of patients. Full-thickness rotator cuff tears were seen in approximately 20% of patients.


INTRODUCTION

The conventional approach in the U.K. has been to value all travel time changes at a constant
rate regardless of their size or direction. This 'constant unit value' approach was supported
by the 1980-86 UK DoT Value of Time Study (MVA/ITS/TSU, 1987). However, there has
always remained a vocal body of opinion critical of this approach (see Welch and Williams,
1997, for references and discussion). Some of the main objections have been the following:

i. small amounts of time are less useful than large amounts;

ii. small time savings (or losses) might not be noticed by travellers and any that are not
noticed cannot be valued by those affected and so should not be valued by society;

iii. small time savings are said to often account for a large proportion of scheme benefits,
so that small errors in measurement might mean that the scheme is really of no benefit
to anyone;

iv. allowing small time savings to have 'full' value is said to inflate the measured total of
benefits and so lead to schemes (often road schemes) being wrongly found to have
sufficient net benefit to justify implementation;

v. time savings are less highly valued than are time losses, according to surveys, and so
should have a lower unit value when evaluating schemes.

Both aspects relate to the possible non-constancy of the value of time for a given journey
made for a given purpose (clearly, it is much less controversial, and indeed standard practice,
to allow for variation by purpose and traveller type).

The practical difficulties are twofold. On the one hand, it is difficult to overcome the lay
reaction that small time savings have little or no value, as well as the feeling that losses are
more important than gains. On the other hand, if these points have any empirical relevance,
they cause major problems for the cost-benefit calculus, as losses and gains will not cancel
out, and time savings cannot be directly aggregated.

Although they do not recommend that values differentiated by size and sign should be used
for appraisal, the HCG/Accent (1999) Report (AHCG) notes that [p 259]

"For any level of variation around the original journey time, gains (savings) are valued
less than losses. For non-work related journeys, a time savings of five minutes has
negligible value."

A recent paper by Gunn (2001) notes that corroborative results are available from a reanalysis
of the 1988 Dutch value of Time study.

For reasons which will be carefully rehearsed in this paper, we do not believe that the
conclusion on the differences between gains and losses is safe. This is based on an extensive re-analysis of the AHCG data. We have found it harder to reach a conclusion on the issue of small time savings, we agree with AHCG that their data undoubtedly implies a lower valuation: we have some concerns, nonetheless, as to the interpretation which should be placed on this.


A giant mass-transport complex was recently discovered in the eastern Arabian Sea, exceeding in volume all but one other known complex on passive margins worldwide. The complex, named the Nataraja Slide, was drilled by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 355 in two locations where it is ∼300 m (Site U1456) and ∼200 m thick (Site U1457). The top of this mass-transport complex is defined by the presence of both reworked microfossil assemblages and deformation structures, such as folding and faulting. The deposit consists of two main phases of mass wasting, each consisting of smaller pulses, with generally fining-upward cycles, all emplaced just prior to 10.8 Ma based on biostratigraphy. The base of the deposit at each site is composed largely of matrix-supported carbonate breccia that is interpreted as the product of debris-flows. In the first phase, these breccias alternate with well-sorted calcarenites deposited from a high-energy current, coherent limestone blocks that are derived directly from the Indian continental margin, and a few clastic mudstone beds. In the second phase, at the top of the deposit, muddy turbidites dominate and become increasingly more siliciclastic. At Site U1456, where both phases are seen, a 20-m section of hemipelagic mudstone is present, overlain by a ∼40-m-thick section of calcarenite and slumped interbedded mud and siltstone. Bulk sediment geochemistry, heavy-mineral analysis, clay mineralogy, isotope geochemistry, and detrital zircon U-Pb ages constrain the provenance of the clastic, muddy material to being reworked, Indus-derived sediment, with input from western Indian rivers (e.g., Narmada and Tapti rivers), and some material from the Deccan Traps. The carbonate blocks found within the breccias are shallow-water limestones from the outer western Indian continental shelf, which was oversteepened from enhanced clastic sediment delivery during the mid-Miocene. The final emplacement of the material was likely related to seismicity as there are modern intraplate earthquakes close to the source of the slide. Although we hypothesize that this area is at low risk for future mass wasting events, it should be noted that other oversteepened continental margins around the world could be at risk for mass failure as large as the Nataraja Slide.


Mathematical reasoning involves comprehending mathematical information and concepts in a logical way and forming conclusions and generalizations based on this comprehension. Computer-based learning has been incorporated into classrooms across the country, and specific aspects of technology need to be studied to determine how programs are influencing student reasoning and learning. This article explores how one aspect of computer-based learning, electronic support tools (ESTs), influences students' mathematical reasoning over the course of an online supplemental mathematics program, the Math Learning Companion (MLC). Students in Grades 3, 4, and 5 (N = 31) from two private schools participated in MLC, and their reasoning was assessed before and after participating in the program. EST use was measured by using frequency counts for each tool. Results describe students' tool use and reflect an overall change in their reasoning over the course of the intervention, indicating that students use ESTs as needed to individualize the learning program. Students specifically used ESTs as needed to improve their mathematical reasoning, their correctness of response, and their mathematical explanations of their answers over the course of the intervention.


Analog audio needs a separate physical circuit for each channel. Each microphone in a studio or on a stage, for example, must have its own circuit back to the mixer. Routing of the signals is inflexible. Digital audio is frequently wired in a similar way to analog. Although several channels can share a single physical circuit (e.g., up to 64 with AES 10), thus reducing the number of cores needed in a cable. Routing of signals is still inflexible and any change to the equipment in a location is liable to require new cabling. Networks allow much more flexibility. Any piece of equipment plugged into the network is able to communicate with any other. However, installers of audio networks need to be aware of a number of issues that affect audio signals but are not important for data networks and are not addressed by current IT networking technologies such as IP. This white paper examines these issues and provides guidance to installers and users that can help them build successful networked systems.


Jane Addams was a prolific and elegant writer. Her twelve books consist largely of published essays, but to appreciate her life work one must also read her previously uncollected speeches and editorials. This artfully compiled collection begins with Addams's youthful Junior Class Oration on women as "Breadgivers," features thoughtful examinations of topics as diverse as "Tolstoy and Gandhi" and "The Public School and the Immigrant Child," and even includes popular essays on "The Subtle Problems of Charity," from The Atlantic Monthly, and "Need a Woman Over Fifty Feel Old?" from Ladies' Home Journal. Along with the writings themselves, Elshtain's insightful commentary offers powerful evidence of Addams's remarkable ability to frame social problems in an ethical context, her unwillingness to succumb to ideological dogma, her political courage, and her lifelong devotion to civic and moral life.


In June 2015 the Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel issued a 1,200 page manual providing unified guidance on the law governing armed conflict. Unfortunately, despite such positive attributes as an unequivocal condemnation of torture, it is badly flawed. Sporadic criticism, notably media outrage over its treatment of the press, led DoD to issue a slightly revised 2016 version, mostly making cosmetic changes to language about reporters.This article provides the first comprehensive critique, noting the manual's uncertain hierarchical status or legal effect given its express disclaimer to not "necessarily reflect...the views of the U.S. Government as a whole." Stylistically, it is twice the length it should be, suffering from unnecessary repetition and internal inconsistencies. The manual's substantive shortcomings are more significant than its literary vices, including basic errors in international law and idiosyncratic views that are outdated, unsupported by credible authority, or even counter to larger U.S. interests. Its treatment of proportionality, for example, endeavors to shift the greater burden for avoiding civilian casualties from the attacker to the defender. It makes a poorly supported claim of a U.S. right to use expanding bullets despite widespread recognition as a war crime. And it fails to enumerate which provisions of, the First and Second Additional Geneva Protocols of 1977 (AP I and II) – are binding on U.S. forces even though that was the original impetus for developing a joint U.S. manual.The article concludes that the volume should be officially withdrawn until it can be brought up to an appropriate professional standard, or replaced with a manual more faithfully serving the law, U.S. military forces, and America's true national interests.


Pregnant and breastfeeding women have been rendered therapeutic orphans as they have been historically excluded from clinical trials. Labelling for most approved drugs does not provide information about safety and efficacy during pregnancy. This lack of data is mainly due to ethico-legal challenges that have remained entrenched in the post-diethylstilbestrol and thalidomide era, and that have led to pregnancy being viewed in the clinical trial setting primarily through a pharmacovigilance lens. Policy considerations that encourage and/or require the inclusion of pregnant or lactating women in clinical trials may address the current lack of available information. However, there are additional pragmatic strategies, such the employment of pharmacometric tools and the introduction of innovative clinical trial designs, which could improve knowledge about the safety and efficacy of medication use during pregnancy and lactation. This paper provides a broad overview of the pharmacoepidemiology of drugs used during pregnancy and lactation, and offers recommendations for regulators and researchers in academia and industry to increase the available pharmacokinetic and -dynamic understanding of medication use in pregnancy.


This thesis provides a design and development of a software architecture and programming framework that enables domain-oriented scientific investigations to be more easily developed and productively applied. The key research concept is the representation and automation of scientific studies by capturing common methods for experimentation, analysis and evaluation used in simulation science. Such methods include parameter studies, optimization, uncertainty analysis, and sensitivity analysis. While the framework provides a generic way to conduct investigation on an arbitrary simulation, its intended use is to be extended to develop a domain computational environment. The framework hides the access to distributed system resources and the multithreaded execution. A prototype of such a framework called ODESSI (Open Domain-oriented Environment for Simulation-based Scientific Investigation, pronounced odyssey) is developed and evaluated on realistic problems in human neuroscience and computational chemistry domains.
ODESSI was inspired by our domain problems encountered in the computational modeling of human head electromagnetic for conductivity analysis and source localization. In this thesis we provide tools and methods to solve state of the art problems in head modeling. In particular, we developed an efficient and robust HPC solver for the forward problem and a generic robust HPC solver for bEIT (bounded Electrical Impedance Tomography) inverse problem to estimate the head tissue conductivities. Also we formulated a method to include skull inhomogeneity and other skull variation in the head model based on information obtained from experimental studies.
ODESSI as a framework is used to demonstrate the research ideas in this neuroscience domain and the domain investigations results are discussed in this thesis. ODESSI supports both the processing of investigation activities as well as manage its evolving record of information, results, and provenance.


Over the past two decades, international trade has become a privileged engine of growth for much of the developing world. With the global economy evolving continuously and rapidly, countries must pay close attention to their positioning on the map of global trade and production. Within this framework, countries must also become aware of how they fare relative to competitors and to their past export performance. Of particular importance is the extent to which their performance is driven by exporter own supply-side capacity as opposed to external or compositional factors, including product and geographical specialization and how these trends compare across countries. This paper describes a new initiative that uses quarterly data for 2005q1-2013q1 to compute comparable indicators of export performance for 228 countries and territories. The database, the Export Competitiveness Database, reveals interesting patterns in trade performance. Export performance, stripped of compositional effects, was strongest for countries from the Asia and Pacific region, on average. Moreover, such performance was almost entirely driven by exporting country specific factors, with changes reflecting growth in volume rather than price developments. All emerging and developing regions have, on average, improved export performance. The indicators in the database trace the legacy of supply-side capacity and the overall export performance of the double-dip recession in the euro area. An illustrative set of results suggests that the paper's measure of competitiveness correlates to a country's nominal and real effective exchange rate, factors that are commonly perceived as important determinants of competitiveness.


We present a scalable Bayesian framework for low-rank decomposition of multiway tensor data with missing observations. The key issue of pre-specifying the rank of the decomposition is sidestepped in a principled manner using a multiplicative gamma process prior. Both continuous and binary data can be analyzed under the framework, in a coherent way using fully conjugate Bayesian analysis. In particular, the analysis in the non-conjugate binary case is facilitated via the use of the Polya-Gamma sampling strategy which elicits closed-form Gibbs sampling updates. The resulting samplers are efficient and enable us to apply our framework to large-scale problems, with time-complexity that is linear in the number of observed entries in the tensor. This is especially attractive in analyzing very large but sparsely observed tensors with very few known entries. Moreover, our method admits easy extension to the supervised setting where entities in one or more tensor modes have labels. Our method outperforms several state-of-the-art tensor decomposition methods on various synthetic and benchmark real-world datasets.


In this paper, we propose a class of lattice structures with macroscopic Poisson's ratio arbitrarily close to the stability limit −1. We tested experimentally the effective Poisson's ratio of the microstructured medium; the uniaxial test was performed on a thermoplastic lattice produced with a three-dimensional printing technology. A theoretical analysis of the effective properties was performed, and the expression of the macroscopic constitutive properties is given in full analytical form as a function of the constitutive properties of the elements of the lattice and on the geometry of the microstructure. The analysis was performed on three microgeometries leading to an isotropic behaviour for the cases of three- and sixfold symmetries and to a cubic behaviour for the case of fourfold symmetry.


Patient pain can be detected highly reliably from facial expressions using a set of facial muscle-based action units (AUs) defined by the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). A key characteristic of facial expression of pain is the simultaneous occurrence of pain-related AU combinations, whose automated detection would be highly beneficial for efficient and practical pain monitoring. Existing general
Automated Facial Expression Recognition (AFER) systems prove inadequate when applied specifically for detecting pain as they either focus on detecting individual pain-related AUs but not on combinations or they seek to bypass AU detection by training a binary pain classifier directly on pain intensity data but are limited by lack of enough labeled data for satisfactory training. Our research is inspired by the clinical demand for automated pain evaluation in end-of-life patient care.

The proposed system decouples pain detection into two consecutive tasks: the pain expression descriptor that detects AUs in a joint manner at the frame level, and sequence-level pain detection from low-dimensional frame-level AU predictions. As our major contribution of this research, the proposed system decouples the pain detection problem into two consecutive tasks: FACS based pain expression related AU predictions at the frame level, and pain detection at sequence-level from low-dimensional frame-level AU predictions. The two sub-tasks are handled by an AFER system and an APD system, which are trained independently. The architecture of two independent machine learning networks not only improves data utilization from existing different pain-oriented video datasets, but also improving data fusion newly acquired data in the future, which addresses the most challenge problem arising from the data insufficiency.

The decoupled architecture is also features for its flexibility in customization. The AFER system is realized with three types of configurations, including one conventional CVML system and two types of deep learning architectures. The automated pain detection is modeled as a weakly supervised problem, and the APD system is realized by two multiple instance learning frameworks (MIL and MCIL). AU
combination are encoded from single AU scores by two novel data structures (Compact and Clustered), and the multiple instance learning frameworks that are trained with low-dimensional features based on the pain-related AU combinations. In particular, We followed an end-to-front research strategy to develop the decoupled pain detection system in three research phases, and our ultimate goal is to establish a robust and generic automated pain analysis system for clinical applications.

Experimental results on the UNBC-McMaster Shoulder Pain Expression dataset show that the deep learning-based multi-label AFER system outperforms state-of-the-art AFER system that are based on classical machine learning (ML) techniques. Further tests with the Wilkie video dataset of lung caner patients suggest the proposed decoupled framework has strong promise for effective pain monitoring in clinical settings, where segment-level patients' self-report pain is the only available ground truth.


The late Maastrichtian to early Danian at Mishor Rotem, Israel, was examined based on geochemistry, bulk rock and clay mineralogies, biostratigraphy and lithology. This section contains four red clay layers of suspect impact or volcanic origin interbedded in chalk and marly chalks. PGE anomalies indicate that only the K/T boundary red layer has an Ir dominated PGE anomaly indicative of an impact source. The late Maastrichtian red clays have Pd dominated PGE anomalies which coincide with increased trace elements of terrigenous and volcanogenic origins. Deccan or Syrian-Turkey arc volcanism is the likely source of volcanism in these clay layers. Glauconite, goethite and translucent amber spherules are present in the clay layers, but the Si-rich spherules reported by Rosenfeld et al. [l989] could not be confirmed. The absence of Cheto smectite indicates that no altered impact glass has been present. The red layers represent condensed sedimentation on topographic highs during sea level highstands. In the Negev area, during the late Maastrichtian, the climate ranged from seasonally wet to more arid conditions during zones CF3 and CF2, with more humid wet conditions in the latest Maastrichtian zone CF1 and in the early Danian, probably linked to greenhouse conditions. Planktic foraminifera experienced relatively high stress conditions during this time as indicated by the low species richness and low abundance of globotruncanids. Times of intensified stress are indicated by the disaster opportunist Guembelitria blooms, which can be correlated to central Egypt and also to Indian Ocean localities associated with mantle plume volcanism. Marine plankton thus support the mineralogical and geochemical observations of volcanic influx and reveal the detrimental biotic effects of intense volcanism.


This paper describes the experiences of using the Airbus A380 as a platform for teaching design in a second year B.Sc. Product Design course. The study uses observation and student experience to assess the success of the exercise, and seeks to inform the current debate on "Problem Based Learning" in design tuition. The emphasis is on the way the project-aims, timeliness and real-world relevance and its extended period of study, long enough to explore and integrate alternative ideas, rather than its size, has contributed to a successful learning exercise that has engaged full student commitment over the one year duration of the project.


This study was conducted to evaluate the difference between woody species diversity, structure and similarity in natural
forests and adjacent coffee farms in Yayo district, southwestern Ethiopia. Vegetation data were collected from both land
use systems using transects walk lines. The Shannon, Simpson's, similarity and importance values index were analyzed
using SPSS version 20 software. The result revealed 64 woody species belongs to 31 families from both land uses.
Moraceae had the most diverse family having each 5 and 8 species in coffee farms and natural forests respectively. The
species richness was higher in natural forests (54) than coffee farms (38). Coffea arabica (42.85%) and Celtis africana
(21.14%) those frequently occurred had the highest importance value indices in coffee farms and natural forests
respectively. Of total species recorded, 28 (43.75%) are common, 26 (40.63%) and 10 (15.62%) were unique to natural
forests and coffee farms respectively. The highest number of woody plants per hectare were distributed in diameter at
breast height 5-10cm having 1250 ha−1
(64.10%) in natural forests and 471 ha−1
(72.33 %) in coffee farms. The total
basal areas were 364.44 and 669.84 m2
ha−1
in coffee farms and natural forests respectively. The result indicated that
planting coffee in natural forests with intensified management system causes significant differences on the overall
woody species diversity i.e. the structure, composition and regeneration rates of the forest. Therefore, it is
recommended to plant coffees in home garden and open lands with planting multipurpose shade trees rather than
cultivating it in natural forests.


A novel family of S,N-heteroheptacenes SN7a–d with a variable thiophene–pyrrole ratio and a heteroring fusion sequence is presented. All SN7-derivatives can be synthesized in efficient multi-step synthetic routes with good overall yields. The crucial cyclization step to the stable and soluble fused systems is achieved by multiple Pd-catalyzed Buchwald–Hartwig aminations or C–S coupling reaction in high yields. The comparison of the optoelectronic properties provides interesting structure–property relationships and gives valuable insights into the role of nitrogen atoms within the series of thiophene–pyrrole containing S,N-heteroheptacenes. Remarkable differences in emission behaviour and noticeable correlations of the oxidation potentials of the S,N-heteroheptacenes offer helpful information for the construction of other heteroacenes. Additionally, UV-Vis-NIR absorption spectra of the corresponding radical cations generated by chemical oxidation were monitored and compared.


We exploit a novel feature of management cash flow forecasts (MCFFs) to investigate how managers' discretion over forecast precision, clarity, and verifiability affects the bias, quality, and stock price effects of such forecasts. Many MCFFs are issued with an equivocal definition of the cash flow number being forecasted. We refer to such forecasts as "Soft-Talk" MCFFs and predict, due to their lower precision and clarity, potential for bias, and low ex-post verifiability, that they will have lower disclosure quality and lower credibility with investors when compared to "GAAP-Based" MCFFs. "GAAP-Based" MCFFs are those whose cash flow definition is associated with a GAAP cash flow measure (e.g., OCF or NCF), one that can be derived from GAAP cash flow measures (e.g., free cash flow, FCF), or one where management explicitly discloses the definition of cash flow. We find that "Soft-Talk" MCFFs are optimistically biased and that managers' decision to issue "Soft-Talk" MCFFs is related to economic factors including litigation risk, actual cash flow performance, industry concentration, and the issuance of prior cash flow forecasts. As predicted, "Soft-Talk" MCFFs have lower disclosure quality than "GAAP-Based" MCFFs. Finally, while MCFFs in general affect stock prices, consistent with the low precision and clarity, and potential for optimistic bias in "Soft-Talk" MCFFs, they have no effect on stock prices. Our findings document how and why managers' discretion over forecast precision, clarity, and verifiability affects the bias, quality, and stock price effects of such forecasts.


Presently, there are no effective, widely applicable therapies for ischemic stroke. There is strong clinical evidence for the neuroprotective benefits of hypothermia, and surface-cooling methods have been utilized for decades in the treatment of cerebral ischemia during cardiac arrest, but complications with hypothermia induction have hindered its clinical acceptance in ischemic stroke therapy. Recently, the microcatheter-based local endovascular infusion (LEVI) of cold saline directly to the infarct site has been proposed as a solution to the drawbacks of surface cooling. The safety and efficacy of LEVI in rat models have been established, and implementation in larger animals has been simi- larly encouraging. A recent pilot study even established the safety of LEVI in humans. This review seeks to outline the major research on LEVI, discusses the mechanisms that mediate its superior neuroprotection over surface and systemic cooling, and identifies areas that warrant further investigation. While LEVI features improvements on surface cooling, its core mechanisms of neuroprotection are still largely shared with therapeutic hypothermia in general. As such, the mechanisms of hypothermia-based neuroprotection are discussed as well.


The effect of vinyl wrapping on the quality and chilling susceptibility of small-grade okra (Abelmoschus esculentus [L.] Moench.) was studied with the aim of improving storage. Pods that were stored in the air at 2–10°C rapidly dehydrated and quality decreased within two to four days. At 2°C, chilling injury was observed after four days. Pods enclosed in vinyl stored satisfactorily for ten days at 2–10°C, but on transfer to 22°C for three days deteriorated. During storage, colour intensity and firmness decreased, while a progressive increase in respiration (initially high at 2°C) indicated incipient chilling before the visual appearance of symptoms. Whereas pods were most susceptible to chilling at 2°C, the quality of those stored at 8–10°C was reduced due to fungal growth particularly during shelf life. Therefore, for best quality retention small-grade okra should be packaged and stored at 6°C.


Environmental sustainability issues and the costs of new power generation and transmission have increased the interest in evolving current power grid to new technologies. The Smart Grid is a promising technology, since it allows a distributed computing approach with potentials for self-diagnosing/-healing, reliable multi-user communication and fast hard real-time control. However, the missing standardization associated with heterogeneity of legacy systems and wide-area service demands, makes very challenging to adopt Smart Grid in a cost-effective way. By considering this, we propose the Session-Oriented Communication System (SOCSys) to overcome the above issues by enhancing Smart Grid with truly reliable and robust capabilities over heterogeneous environments. SOCSys achieves this goal by orchestrating session-control with innovative network-centric facilities operating over a wireless mesh Information Network compliant with IEEE 802.11e/s standard. The simulation results show that SOCSys improved network performance in terms of bandwidth utilization and minimization of delay, while consuming low network resources. Graphical analyses showed that SOCSys supported multimedia sessions with excellent quality, where it outperforms the experiments with regular settings.


Shallit and Wang studied deterministic automatic complexity of words.  They showed that the automatic Hausdorff dimension $I(\mathbf t)$ of the infinite Thue word satisfies $1/3\le I(\mathbf t)\le 1/2$.   We improve that result by showing that $I(\mathbf t)= 1/2$.  We prove that the nondeterministic automatic complexity $A_N(x)$ of a word $x$ of length $n$ is bounded by $b(n):=\lfloor n/2\rfloor + 1$.  This enables us to define the complexity deficiency $D(x)=b(n)-A_N(x)$.  If $x$ is square-free then $D(x)=0$. If $x$ is almost square-free in the sense of Fraenkel and Simpson, or if $x$ is a overlap-free binary word such as the infinite Thue--Morse word, then $D(x)\le 1$.  On the other hand, there is no constant upper bound on $D$ for overlap-free words over a ternary alphabet, nor for cube-free words over a binary alphabet. The decision problem whether $D(x)\ge d$ for given $x$, $d$ belongs to $\mathrm{NP}\cap \mathrm{E}$.


The brain is probably the most complex system of the human body, composed of numerous neural units interconnected at dierent scales. This highly structured architecture provides the ability to communicate, synthesize information and perform the analytical tasks of human beings. Its development starts during the transition between the embryonic and fetal periods, from a simple tubular to a highly complex folded structure. It is globally organized as early as birth. This developing process is highly vulnerable to antenatal adverse conditions. Indeed, extreme prematurity and intra uterine growth restriction are major risk factors for long-term morbidities, including developmental ailments such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation and a wide spectrum of learning disabilities and behavior disorders. In this context, the characterization of the brain's normative wiring pattern is crucial for our understanding of its architecture and workings, as the origin of many neurological and neurobehavioral disorders is found in early structural brain development. Diusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) allows the in vivo assessment of biological tissues at the microstructural level. It has emerged as a powerful tool to study brain connectivity and analyse the underlying substrate of the human brain, comprising its structurally integrated and functionally specialized architecture. dMRI has been widely used in adult studies. Nevertheless, due to technical constraints, this mapping at earlier stages of development has not yet been accomplished. Yet, this time period is of extreme importance to comprehend the structural and functional integrity of the brain. This thesis is motivated by this shortfall, and intends to fill the gap between the clinical and neuroscience demands and the methodological developments needed to fulfill them. In our work, we comprehensibly study the brain structural connectivity of children born extremely prematurely and/or with additional prenatal restriction at school-age. We provide evidence that brain systems that mature early in development are the most vulnerable to antenatal insults. Interestingly, the alterations highlighted in these systems correlate with the neurobehavioral and cognitive impairments seen in these children at school-age. The overall brain organization appear also altered after preterm birth and prenatal restriction. Indeed, these children show dierent brain network modular topology, with a reduction in the overall network capacity. What remains unclear is whether the alterations seen at school age are already present at birth and, if yes, to what extent. In this thesis we set the technical basis to enable the connectome analysis as early as at birth. This task is challenging when dealing with neonatal data. Indeed, most of the assumptions used in adult data processing methods do not hold, due to the inverted image contrast and other MRI artefacts such as motion, partial volume and intensity inhomogeneities. Here, we propose a novel technique for surface reconstruction, and provide a fully-automatic procedure to delineate the newborn cortical surface, opening the way to establish the newborn connectome.