Aims The aims of this study were to: Assess the drug related information provided to parents/carers of children prescribed an antibiotic during their in-patient stay and as part of the discharge process from Birmingham Children's Hospital. Determine the compliance of a tertiary paediatric centre with the 'Patients, Carers and the Public' domain of the Antimicrobial Self Assessment Toolkit (ASAT).1 Methods A qualitative investigation of 30 parents/carers of in-patients was undertaken during January and February 2012. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire on the ward with telephone follow-up after discharge. The questions were based upon recommendations of the ASAT. The themes included in the questionnaire were knowledge that an antibiotic had been prescribed, indication for use, duration of therapy, knowledge of adverse effects, where to seek advice and whether any information provided met parent/carer expectations. Participant responses were transcribed verbatim and analysed using content analysis. Results Thirty patients consented for a ward based interview with twenty (66.7%) consenting to telephone follow-up. Twenty-five (83.3%) parents/carers had been advised that their child had been prescribed an antibiotic as an in-patient. Six (24%) of these had been informed about the adverse effects associated with treatment. During the discharge process 19/20 (95%) parents/carers were informed that their child had been prescribed an antibiotic. Five (25%) had been informed about adverse effects. Eighteen parents/carers (90%) were advised of the course length. Eleven (55%) patients were informed where to seek further advice on their antimicrobial therapy. Parents/carers suggested a number of areas where they required further information. These included the rationale for antibiotic therapy (n=1), changes made to therapy during treatment (n=1), the long term safety of therapy (n=1), the risk of tolerance/reduced effectiveness (n=2) and assurances of eradication of infection/risk of recurrence (n=5). One parent suggested that a patient information leaflet be provided whilst an in-patient. Conclusions This study demonstrates that a national antimicrobial stewardship quality indicator may be used to assess the provision of information to parents/carers in the paediatric setting. Further work is needed to improve the provision of information on adverse effects and where advice may be sought should these occur following discharge from hospital. Parents/carers required more information about treatment decisions, expressed concerns about the safety of therapy and required assurances of treatment success. Addressing these concerns would further reinforce the importance of prudent antibiotic use among parents/carers and patients. Patient/carer expectations may differ depending on the reason for admission and social/educational background. These were not formally evaluated in this study. The results of this study will inform the development of interventions to improve information provision both at ward level and discharge. The use of written information to supplement verbal counselling is currently being considered.


Seamlessly updating software in running systems has recently gained momentum. Dynamically updating the software of real-time embedded systems, however, still poses numerous challenges: such systems must meet hard deadlines, cope with limited resources, and adhere to high safety standards.
 This paper presents a solution for updating component-based cyclic embedded systems without violating real-time constraints. In particular, it investigates how to identify points in time at which updates can be performed and how to transfer the state of a component to a new version of the same component. We also present experimental results to validate the proposed solution.


This article charts the development of, and connections created through, the Vancouver-based Talking Stick Festival to inform how performance- making and gathering over shared interests can maintain artistic relationships and nurture respectful intercultural relations. We demonstrate this through genealogically connecting the Talking Stick Festival to the 1997 Festival of the Dreaming in Sydney Australia linking this theoretically to Indigenous ideas of transformational love, "grounded normativity" and kin relations that cross earthly boundaries. We examine the strategic ways that the annual festival builds networks of communication, including movement around territories, and the valuing of flexibility to honour accountability. And, of immense value to the rebuilding of broken kinship networks is the love and support for emergent artists as well as staff and volunteers who are mentored in the ever-expanding and continuous building of relations. We write explicitly from our own positions and discuss how we, the co-authors of this piece, have ourselves been transformed through interactions with the festival as a way to show how this kind of relationship building can create a shared future. We conclude that the organizers of the Talking Stick Festival create spaces that centre Indigenous resurgence through personal experiences of transformation and kinstellatory relations of co-resistance.


The Pacific to Indian Ocean transport within the passageways of the Indonesian seas (ITF) varies on interannual and longer time scales associated with ENSO, the Asian monsoons and interannual climate variability of the Indian Ocean. Although direct current measurements of the ITF are of limited duration, none long enough to properly describe greater than annual variability of the ITF, observations indicate that the bulk of the ITF passes through Makassar Strait. The repeat expendable bathythermograph (XBT) IX1 section begun in 1983 provides the longest time series of the full ITF introduced into the Indian Ocean between northwest Australia and Java. We find that the surface to 600 dbar Makassar Strait transport, as measured by current meter moorings from December 1996 to July 1998, correlates at r = 0.77 ± 0.14 with the geostrophic transport constructed from IX1 XBT data for that time interval, with a 98 day lag.


Affective relationship commitment has in several studies been identified as a crucial factor in the longevity of business relationships. In this article, it is argued that affective commitment should be researched on the individual level rather than the organizational level and that relevant psychological processes need to be incorporated into theory in order to increase understanding regarding the dynamics of this aspect of relationship commitment. The psychological contract, a construct derived from organizational psychology, is tested as an antecedent to affective commitment in relationships between buyers and sellers in the market for industrial supplies in Sweden. The findings indicate that the relational orientation of the psychological contract, as well as the evaluation of the same, has explanatory value when related to affective commitment in business-to-business relationships.


The errors associated with measuring the number of militia and patriot groups may cast doubt on conclusions drawn from prior studies of the spatial variation of these movements. Most studies of militias have been qualitative investigations of a single group, state, or region. A growing number of studies, however, have used quantitative techniques to assess the hypothesis that the number of militia groups by state covaries with structural and cultural forces. We outline a number of concerns with the validity of the counts, conducted by the Anti‐Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, used by these studies. We re‐estimate models from previous studies using the four alternative measures of these groups employed in prior studies. We find that many inferences drawn for identical theoretical models differ based upon the measure used. These discrepancies apply not simply to tangential control variables but to indicators of key theoretical constructs. In other words, the decision as to whether or not a particular theoretical framework receives empirical support often depends upon which measure of the dependent variable is used. This suggests that the inconsistent findings in prior research may be due to measurement error and makes it difficult to assess the validity of the conclusions drawn from these studies. It is important to be aware of these weaknesses since scholars studying political crimes and related phenomena often use information from similar sources, making this specific example relevant to a more general area of research.


Recent decades of economic and industrial development have accelerated the demand for and use of construction aggregates in Taiwan. Material Flows Analysis (MFA), the most common analysis tool of the scientific field of industrial ecology, was employed in this study. The study calculated, within a decade period, the deposits, domestic production, demand, import, export, per capita and per unit area demand, Total construction Aggregates Requirements (TAR) Intensity of Use (IU) and Efficiency of Use (EU). This paper shows the amount of waste concrete in construction works. From the analysis, we established two system dynamic models: the Supply and Demand Model (SDM) and the Recycle and Filled soil site capacity Model (RFM) to simulate and forecast the use of construction aggregates. The results showed that land aggregates will gradually replace riverbed aggregates as main sources for the construction industry. The capacity of construction wastes will be overloaded in the year 2007. The findings can provide a reliable reference for the Taiwanese government in its decision-making processes concerning the national dematerialisation and waste concrete recycling policy of construction aggregates.


Serious Games and Virtual Reality (VR) are being considered at present as an alternative to traditional rehabilitation therapies. In this paper, the ongoing development of a framework focused on rehabilitation and assessment of the upper limb motor function based on serious games as a source of entertainment for physiotherapy patients is described. A set of OpenSource Serious Games for rehabilitation has been developed, using the last version of Microsoft1® Kinect™ as low cost monitoring sensor and the software Unity. These Serious Games captures 3D human body data and it stored them in the patient database to facilitate a later clinical analysis to the therapist. Also, a VR-based system for the automated assessment of motor function based on Fugl-Meyer Assessment Test (FMA) is addressed. The proposed system attempts to be an useful therapeutic tool for tele-rehabilitation in order to reduce the number of patients, time spent and cost to hospitals.


In this classic work, originally published in 1932, Hook set out to demonstrate to the radical and conservative philosophers and activists of the 1920s and 1930s that Marx was a systematic thinker who developed a sound set of philosophical principles. His major argument is that Marx was undogmatic in his approach to philosophy and a critical thinker who assimilated and synthesized a variety of ideas. Hook explains how Marx engaged both Hegel and the young Hegelians in order to develop the notion of the dialectic with Marx's take on historical materialism. The individual chapters engage the reader through the debates and discussions between Marx and young Hegelians such as Moses Hess, who influenced Marx in the study of social and economic problems; Feuerbach, who influenced Marx's view of religion; Bruno Bauer (antiliberalism); Arnold Ruge (philosophy as politics); and Max Stirner (ideals as illusions).


Computer-based optimization of water distribution networks is not yet standard engineering practice. The major reason for this is the inability of most optimization techniques to deal with the difficulties encountered when optimizing complex, real-life networks. In this paper an 'exhaustive enumeration' technique for the optimization of pipe networks is presented. The flexibility of the technique and how it deals with realistic constraints in pipe network design are discussed. One of the features of the technique is that it can be used to produce not only a single optimum solution, but also a list of other non-inferior, or Pareto, optimal solutions. The concept of Pareto optimality, and its use as a powerlul planning tool, is explained by means of an example. A tank sizing technique can also easily be incorporated into the optimization procedure, and the same example is used to illustrate that the tank sizing, and pipe sizing problems are interrelated, owing to the trade-off that exists between pipe cost and storage cost.


Purpose
Local foods from the perspective of tourism play a significant role to attract tourists. Surprisingly, empirical evidence on food tourism is quite scarce. The purpose of this paper is to develop and investigate a conceptual framework on tourist satisfaction, loyalty and word of mouth (WOM) to select local foods in Pakistan.

Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a quantitative approach while convenience (non-probability) sampling is used to collect a sample of 286 final responses using a survey-based questionnaire. The study employed exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to stabilize the factor structure. The conceptual model is then tested under the assumptions of structural equation modeling.

Findings
The findings indicate that food quality, perceived environmental quality, perceived value and service quality has a significant impact on the tourist's satisfaction. However, interpersonal interaction quality shows an insignificant influence on satisfaction. Moreover, satisfaction has a significant impact on loyalty while loyalty further shows a significant effect on tourist WOM. Overall, the authors found satisfaction and loyalty are the major contributors to the hypothesized model.

Practical implications
The conceptual framework and study findings will support practitioners and researchers to understand the factors that influence a tourist's selection of local foods. Additionally, the study provides a useful policy to gain long-term economic benefits for the tourism sector in Pakistan.

Originality/value
To the authors' best knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore WOM behavior in tourism research focusing on the critical role of satisfaction and loyalty. The authors are certain that the findings will contribute significantly to the existing body of knowledge.


This book addresses possible applications of computer simulation to theory building in management and organizational theory. The key hypothesis is that modelling and computer simulation provide an environment to develop, test and articulate theoretical propositions. In general, computer simulation provides an experimental environment where researchers are able to play with symbolic representations of phenomena by modifying the models structure and activating or deactivating models parameters. This environment allows to both generating hypotheses to ex post explain observed phenomena or to ex ante generate distributions of unrealized events thereby envisioning areas for further empirical investigations. Under a methodological perspective, the volume investigates logics and techniques to design a research strategy grounded on computer simulation. In particular, the articles in the book concentrate on two different techniques, and philosophies, to set up a simulation study: System Dynamics, which is grounded on differential equations and feedback theory, and agent-based modeling. The book describes how computer simulation helps to look into research issues typical to strategic management and organizational theory. In this respect, such themes as firms diversification strategies, competitive strategy, rivalry and the impact of role dynamics on organizational performances are explored through the lenses of computer simulation models.


Thirty years ago, John Langbein published The Nonprobate Revolution and the Future of Succession. The article celebrated testators' newfound ability to avoid the expense and delay of the probate-court system by holding assets in a variety of nonprobate devices, such as retirement and bank accounts with beneficiary designations and revocable trusts. Although Langbein highlighted problems the revolution might generate, he predicted they would be resolved. Since then, significant problems have indeed developed. First, wills law doctrines designed to effectuate intent of testators have not been universally extended to nonprobate transfers. Second, the fragmentation of the wealth transmission process has created co-ordination problems that did not exist when almost all of a decedent's assets passed through the decedent's probate estate. This has increased the opportunities for attorney error. Even when attorneys get it right, rogue clients can easily undermine a carefully constructed estate plan, and the law does not always allow courts to correct these errors. Third, the nonprobate system increases the potential for wrongful takers to dissipate assets before rightful beneficiaries have an opportunity to make claims to those assets. As we explain, neither lawyers, financial institutions nor the legal system have successfully resolved these issues. We advance several proposals that might ameliorate the costs of the nonprobate system, such as conferring broader power on estate executors to coordinate nonprobate assets, and a voluntary registration system that would reduce the risk of inadvertent conflicts among wealth transmission documents.


Flooding regimes, ground-water interac tions, and tree distribution patterns were determined in seasonally flooded sinkhole wetlands at Arnold Engineering Development Center near Manchester, Tennessee.The wetlands are ecologi cally significant becausethey support coastal-plain plants and animals far from their typical ranges. Surface-water stage, ground-water levels, rainfall, and streamflow were monitored at or near five wetland sites. Sinking Pond, Willow Oak Swamp, and Westall Swamp are compound sinks with depths greater than 2.5 meters, visible inter nal drains, and complex bottom topography domi nated by coalesced sinkholes and connecting channels. Tupelo Swamp and Goose Pond are karst pans with depths less than 1.5 meters, flat bottoms, and without visible internal drains. Stage rose and fell abruptly in the compound sinks. Maximum water depths ranged from 2.6 meters in Westall Swamp to 3.5 meters in Sinking Pond. Water levels in wells adjacent to Sinking Pond and Westall Swamp rose and fell abruptly, correspond ing closely to surface-water stage throughout peri ods of high water. The two karst pans filled and drained more gradually, but remained flooded longer than the compound sinks. The maximum recorded water depths were 1.1 meters in Tupelo Swamp and 0.7 meter in Goose Pond. Water levels in nearby wells remained lower than the stage in the pans throughout the study period. Tree species were identified and the elevations and diameters of individual trees were measured along 10 transects. Two transects crossed Sinking Pond, two crossed Tupelo Swamp, and one crossed Willow Oak Swamp. The remaining five transects crossed intermittent drainageways that carry flow into or out of Sinking Pond. Transects through ponds had fewer trees but more basal area per unit area of land surface than did transects through channels. Water tupelo (Nyssa aquaticu L.) dominated the interior of Tupelo Swamp and had minimal overlap in terms of elevation and flooding duration with other wetland trees that were confined to the ponds periphery. Overcup oak (Quercus Zyrutu Walt.) dominated the interior of Sinking Pond. Overlap between overcup oak and other wetland trees in terms of elevation and flooding frequency was minimal across the deeper Sinking Pond transect but was substantial across the shallow transect. Willow oak (Quercus phellos L.) domi nated the interior of Willow Oak Swamp and had a relation to other wetland trees similar to that of overcup oak in the shallow Sinking Pond transect. Transects across broad swales had a relatively large degree of vertical zonation among wetland and upland tree species. Along transects through well defined channels, elevation distributions of wetland and some upland tree species were grouped near each other and near the distribution of land-surface elevations.


Despite many of years of mapping effort, only a small fraction of the world ocean's seafloor has been sampled for depth, greatly limiting our ability to explore and understand critical ocean and seafloor processes. Recognizing this poor state of our knowledge of ocean depths and the critical role such knowledge plays in understanding and maintaining our planet, GEBCO and the Nippon Foundation have joined forces to establish the Nippon Foundation GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, an international effort with the objective of facilitating the complete mapping of the world ocean by 2030. The Seabed 2030 Project will establish globally distributed regional data assembly and coordination centers (RDACCs) that will identify existing data from their assigned regions that are not currently in publicly available databases and seek to make these data available. They will develop protocols for data collection (including resolution goals) and common software and other tools to assemble and attribute appropriate metadata as they assimilate regional grids using standardized techniques. A Global Data Assembly and Coordination Center (GDACC) will integrate the regional grids into a global grid and distribute to users world-wide. The GDACC will also act as the central focal point for the coordination of common data standards and processing tools as well as the outreach coordinator for Seabed 2030 efforts. The GDACC and RDACCs will collaborate with existing data centers and bathymetric compilation efforts. Finally, the Nippon Foundation GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project will encourage and help coordinate and track new survey efforts and facilitate the development of new and innovative technologies that can increase the efficiency of seafloor mapping and thus make the ambitious goals of Seabed 2030 more likely to be achieved.


Kernel methods aim for the detection of stable patterns robustly and efficiently from a finite data sample by embedding data items into a space of higher dimensionality where data points have linear relations. Strings kernels apply this methodology to find relationships between string objects by checking for the number of shared substrings and using this measure as a similarity score. Due to the low number of studies conducted in the area of code comparison and Input/Output (I/O) access pattern recognition using string kernels, the goal of this thesis is to propose a suitable, general representation, as well as the corresponding strategies of comparison based on kernel methods, such that they can be used successfully to determine a reliable similarity measure among a collection of programs. Therefore, we propose different conversion strategies from these original sources to a weighted string representation; the defined representation is a collection of tokens whose weights allow the modulation of the contribution of each token in the calculation of the overall similarity. The resulting strings are compared with a new family of kernel functions, which correspond to the major contribution of this thesis: the kastx spectrum kernel family. In order to create a similarity measure among two strings, these kernels are based on the longest common substrings; the idea behind this approach is to give more relevance to the largest common pieces of code rather than to small and disperse code instructions. The size of the valid matching substrings is controlled by the cut weight, a parameter given by the user, that specifies the minimum weight that those substrings should have. We tested our methodology in two scenarios: i) pattern recognition in I/O traces, and ii) comparison of intermediate representations of a compiler. In the first scenario, the clustering analysis showed that the proposed kernels managed to conform clusters that reflected the similarity of patterns taken from two popular I/O benchmarks. For the second scenario, a set of C functions was organized in four different classes, according to their purpose; clustering analysis here also showed a cluster organization that reflected the affinity among functions of the same class. These new kernels obtained similar, and in some cases, better results when compared to the blended spectrum kernel [SC04], a string kernel with widespread use in cheminformatics problems. The provided kernels will enrich the spectra of available string kernel functions on the literature and might be used in the future in similarity studies, not only in the field of computer science, but also in other areas like cheminformatics, bioinformatics or natural language processing.


We describe a set of fast, tractable methods for characterizing neural responses to high-dimensional sensory stimuli using a model we refer to as the generalized quadratic model (GQM). The GQM consists of a low-rank quadratic function followed by a point nonlinearity and exponential-family noise. The quadratic function characterizes the neuron's stimulus selectivity in terms of a set linear receptive fields followed by a quadratic combination rule, and the invertible nonlinearity maps this output to the desired response range. Special cases of the GQM include the 2nd-order Volterra model [1, 2] and the elliptical Linear-Nonlinear-Poisson model [3]. Here we show that for "canonical form" GQMs, spectral decomposition of the first two response-weighted moments yields approximate maximum-likelihood estimators via a quantity called the expected log-likelihood. The resulting theory generalizes moment-based estimators such as the spike-triggered co-variance, and, in the Gaussian noise case, provides closed-form estimators under a large class of non-Gaussian stimulus distributions. We show that these estimators are fast and provide highly accurate estimates with far lower computational cost than full maximum likelihood. Moreover, the GQM provides a natural framework for combining multi-dimensional stimulus sensitivity and spike-history dependencies within a single model. We show applications to both analog and spiking data using intracellular recordings of V1 membrane potential and extracellular recordings of retinal spike trains.


It is proposed that the prefix "retro" can serve as an irreverent, but timely buzzword for the development of new technology to meet human needs. Society has carried out experiments at a very large scale for the last century or so to meet our collective needs though the use of fossil-based fuels and synthetic materials. Those experiments have seemed successful in the short term, feeding more of us and supplying a lot of us with rising standards of living. But the experiments often have failed us in terms of sustainability. A health crisis, global warming, and resource depletion are urgent problems caused by careless use of fossil fuels and related synthetic organic chemicals. The prefix "retro," as in "retrotechology," signals a disciplined return to a reliance on nature-based products, as well as a respect for the beauty, but also the fragile character of our natural environment.


A number of contaminants including agrochemicals (fertilizers, pesticides), heavy metals, trace elements, and pathogenic microbes along with pharmaceuticals and hormones used in animal production move through the soil and are responsible for degradation of groundwater quality. Therefore, it is essential to sample soil solution for better understanding of movement and environmental fate of various contaminants in soils. We review different soil solution extraction samplers. The soil solution samplers discussed here are: drainage lysimeter or soil column, pan lysimeter, resin bags or membranes, wick lysimeters, suction cup, and suction plate. We have reviewed 304 journal articles representing a wide array of scientific disciplines. A brief history of soil solution monitoring and terminology used for describing various soil solution samplers is also provided. This review classifies literature on the basis of type of soil solution extraction samplers, soil type, land use–land cover (LULC), and analytes measured. Recommendation criteria are provided for selecting appropriate soil solution extraction samplers based on spatial and temporal variation, cost, soil type, amount of disturbance caused during installation of soil solution samplers, and monitoring of leachates involving different cations, anions, carbon, pH, EC, colloids, pesticides, and microbes. Use of advanced techniques with lysimeters for monitoring soil moisture content, soil water potential and flux is also discussed in this review.


Concerns over limited medical equipment and resources, particularly in intensive care units (ICUs), have raised the issue of medical futility. Medical futility draws a contrast between physician's authority and patients' autonomy and it is one of the major issues of end-of-life ethical decision-making. The aim of this study was to review medical futility and its challenges. In this systematized review study, a comprehensive search of the existing literature was performed using an internet search with broad keywords to access related articles in both Persian and English databases. Finally, 89 articles were selected and surveyed. Medical futility is a complex, ambiguous, subjective, situation-specific, value-laden, and goal-dependent concept which is almost always surrounded by some degrees of uncertainty; hence, there is no objective and valid criterion for its determination. This concept is affected by many different factors such as physicians' and patients' value systems, medical goals, and sociocultural and religious context, and individuals' emotions and personal characteristics. It is difficult to achieve a clear consensus over the concept of medical futility; hence, it should be defined and determined at an individual level and based on the unique condition of each patient.


Multi-channel speech enhancement with ad-hoc sensors has been a challenging task. Speech model guided beamforming algorithms are able to recover natural sounding speech, but the speech models tend to be oversimplified or the inference would otherwise be too complicated. On the other hand, deep learning based enhancement approaches are able to learn complicated speech distributions and perform efficient inference, but they are unable to deal with variable number of input channels. Also, deep learning approaches introduce a lot of errors, particularly in the presence of unseen noise types and settings. We have therefore proposed an enhancement framework called DEEPBEAM, which combines the two complementary classes of algorithms. DEEPBEAM introduces a beamforming filter to produce natural sounding speech, but the filter coefficients are determined with the help of a monaural speech enhancement neural network. Experiments on synthetic and real-world data show that Deepbeam is able to produce clean, dry and natural sounding speech, and is robust against unseen noise.


The objective of this article is to describe and discuss the most important changes within the Swedish media system and their consequences on media performance and news journalism. Furthermore, the article compares media development in Sweden with the Baltic-Nordic region in general and discusses the possibility for small media markets to develop and combine national distinctive features with emerging global market trends. The main conclusion is that there remains no typical, single Nordic market, but rather different variations of mixtures of democratic corporativist national structures and more global liberal influences. Furthermore, this integration process is driven more by media institutional factors such as public service ideals and professional norms, than by proactive governmental policies.


Nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel has better efficacy and practically eliminates the risk of hypersensitivity reactions associated with solvent-based paclitaxel. We studied weekly nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine combination in an open-label one-stage, phase II trial in patients with previously untreated metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Nab-paclitaxel (125 mg/m(2)) and gemcitabine (1000 mg/m(2)) were administered on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day cycle until disease progression. Fifty patients were enrolled. Forty (80%) had visceral organ involvement and 30 (60%) had >or= 3 sites of metastases. Four (8%) and 21 (42%) patients had complete and partial responses by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) criteria. Median duration of response was 6.9 months [95% confidence interval (CI) 5.7, not reached], median progression-free survival (PFS) 7.9 months (95% CI 5.4-10 months), and median overall survival (OS) was not reached. PFS and OS at 6 months were 60% (95% CI 48% to 76%) and 92% (95% CI 85% to 100%), respectively. Therapy was well tolerated. Neutropenia was commonest toxicity (42% and 12% grades 3 and 4 neutropenia). Only one patient developed febrile neutropenia. Significant activity and favorable toxicity profile provides a basis for considering this regimen for further evaluation in phase III trials or in combination with biologic agents.


Internal friction in polycrystalline( Nix Zn,., ) Fe204( where x =0.2, 0.6 and 0.8) films has been measured using one crystal composite oscillator method. The internal friction was recorded at three different frequencies i.e, 60, 100 and 160 KHz in the temperature range of 80 to 600 K. The films used are prepared by rf-sputtering method on quartz plate substate. X-ray analysis was carried out on the as prepared and annealed films to check the crystallization. MH curves at room temperature are observed using a VSM up to a magnetic field of 20 kOe. It was found that the results of X-ray Waction and saturation magnetization are consistent each other. It was also found that the values of initial permeability in the frequency range of 1 MHz600 MHz are better than those of bulk materials. In all samples under investigation the internal friction with temperature three peaks at 580 , 510 and 280 K . The observed peaks and other results are compared with magnetic properties and available domain theories.


PURPOSE
Methylation of the GSTP1 gene promoter region is the most common epigenetic change in prostate cancer. The quantitative GSTP1 methylation assay, a recently developed methylation specific and polymerase chain reaction based technique, allows the accurate discrimination of benign prostate tissue and prostate cancer even in small, formalin fixed prostate needle biopsies. In this study we investigated whether GSTP1 methylation correlated with Gleason grade and tumor volume in prostate biopsies. We also compared quantitative GSTP1 methylation with the histological diagnosis in each biopsy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Formalin fixed, paraffin embedded prostate needle cores (25 mu) were used for the GSTP1 methylation study. After excluding 98 prostate needle cores (47%) with insufficiently extracted DNA 109 biopsies from 40 patients with prostate cancer of various Gleason grades and tumor volume, and benign prostate tissue were tested for GSTP1 methylation using quantitative fluorogenic real-time methylation specific polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS
A total of 13 benign and 96 cancer biopsy parts were included in this study. GSTP1 methylation was positive (GSTP1-to-ACTB ratio 5 or greater) in 83 of 96 cancer parts (86.5%). All 13 benign parts (100%) were negative for GSTP1 methylation with a methylation level of 0 in 12 and 1 in 1. The sensitivity and specificity of quantitative GSTP1 methylation assay were 86.5% and 100%, respectively. Quantitative GSTP1 methylation correlated with Gleason grade, demonstrating higher GSTP1 methylation in higher Gleason grade tumors (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.377, p < 0.0001). Likewise, GSTP1 methylation also correlated with the cancer percent per biopsy (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.567, p < 0.0001). A multiple linear regression model predicted the greater contribution of cancer percent than Gleason grade to quantitative GSTP1 methylation levels.

CONCLUSIONS
We confirmed that the quantitative GSTP1 methylation assay reliably discriminates benign and malignant prostate tissues, thus, augmenting the routine histological evaluation of prostate needle biopsies. In addition, quantitative GSTP1 methylation also correlated with prostate cancer Gleason grade and cancer volume, suggesting that quantitative GSTP1 methylation may be of prognostic significance.


Bureaucratic agencies occupy a politically perilous position in the American federal government. As agents of both Congress and the president, agencies are responsible to principals who often perceive political incentives to manage them in ways that appear to undermine agencies' policy missions. In this paper, I study how presidents' administrative strategies affect public confidence in bureaucratic agencies. Survey experiments embedded on a national sample of Americans provide evidence that the loss of expertise significantly reduces public confidence in bureaucracy. These patterns are consistent across several agencies, but are relatively stronger among political Independents and weakest among Republicans. Moreover, I find no evidence that other potential mechanisms of presidential control of bureaucracy, including changes in capacity or its ideological composition, affect public confidence. The results provide new evidence about how information and expertise affect Americans' attitudes toward the federal bureaucracy and shape the incentives for criticism and oversight from political elites.


Introduction: This study aims at analyzing factor structure of Short Form Healthy Survey (SF-36), Persian Version, for both normal people and patients with chronic diseases. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 585 patients with chronic diseases and 642 over 18-years old normal people were selected using simple casual sampling method. When the survey was completed by the participants, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to determine the survey's validity and reliability. T-test also was used to compare the average score of the survey's domains in both groups. Results: For the group of patients with the chronic diseases, the highest mean belonged to the social functioning domain's score (43.11±18.48). In contrast, for the normal people's group, vitality found the highest mean score (50.83±9.95). T-test results showed that the mean difference in all domains except the role limitations because of social impediments for both normal people and patients was significant. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for all eight domains of the survey for the normal people varied from 0.68 to 0.90, which it indicated an acceptable reliability for the survey; whereas the coefficient for the eight domains of the survey for patients varied from 0.66 to 0.91. CFA results using goodness-of-fit indicators showed that the 8-factor structure, suggested by the developer, is not verified for the patients group and the CFA results in the normal people's group showed that the 8-factor model has an acceptable fitness for the data. Conclusion: CFA is an effective method to analyze structure of different domains of SF36 in various groups. For this reason, researchers need to be wary when they use the survey and also they need to check initially its reliability and validity in different subgroups.


The shadow war between Israel and Iran has been raging for more than three decades, ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 ushered in a fundamentalist regime whose sworn enemies have consistently included, first and foremost, Israel and the United States. Israel, especially, has borne the brunt of attacks from Iran's two most powerful proxies - Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran's nuclear ambitions raise the stakes immeasurably. Israel vs. Iran evaluates the threat to Israel's security posed by a nuclear Iran, including competing perceptions of the threat, and analyzes Israel's military and diplomatic options. Drawing on in-depth research and invaluable access to the Israeli defense establishment, including interviews with key decision makers, Israeli military correspondent Yaakov Katz and Israeli military historian Yoaz Hendel describe behind-the-scenes Israeli strategic military deliberations and intelligence analysis since the Second Lebanon War of 2006. The authors focus on pivotal military events in this shadow war with Iran, including the Syrian reactor bombing and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, as well as assassinations of key Hezbollah operatives, Iranian nuclear scientists, and Syrian officials. Assassinations, computer viruses, and Western sanctions might not be enough to stop Iran, the authors argue. They outline the choice Israel faces: launch a military strike, which could lead to an all-out regional war, or tacitly accept a nuclear Iran, which would lead to a new balance of power in the Middle East. In 2012 Israel appears closer than ever to making a decision.


The Cantarell complex, 80 km northwest of Ciudad del Carmen in the Campeche Sound of the Gulf of Mexico, consists of a broad NW-SE trending, faulted anticline. The oil field, categorized as a super giant, has five blocks bounded by faults (Figure 1). Figure 1.
Blocks of the Cantarell complex. Note the NS-trending normal faults, on the broad NW-SE anticline, that may resemble wrench tectonics.

The stratigraphic column for this area of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) indicates stacking of shelfal Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic carbonates and clastics, overlying an extended salt layer of Jurassic age.

Based on reserves, the complex is the eighth largest oil field in the world. Cumulative production exceeds 10 billion barrels of oil. Current production exceeds 2 million b/d.

This article describes the results of a 2003 reinterpretation of the 3D OBC seismic cube acquired in 1997.

There has been much debate regarding the structural style of this area. An earlier attempt to explain the coexistence of compression and extensional features postulated a strike-slip transpressional model. In accordance with that hypothesis, faults should be very high angle, therefore involving the oceanic basement. We question this view because it doesn't fit the plate tectonic kinematics of the Gulf …


Abstract. A large oxygenated organic uptake to aerosols was observed when exposing ambient urban air to inorganic acidic and non-acidic sulfate seed aerosol. For non-acidic seed aerosol the uptake was attributed to the direct dissolution of primary vehicle exhaust gases into the aqueous aerosol fraction, and was correlated to the initial seed sulphate mass. The uptake of primary oxygenated organic gases to aerosols in this study represents a significant amount of organic aerosol (OA) that may be considered primary when compared to that reported for primary organic aerosol (POA), but is considerably more oxygenated (O : C ~ 0.3) than traditional POA. Consequently, a fraction of measured ambient oxygenated OA, which correlates with secondary sulphate, may in fact be of a primary, rather than secondary source. These results represent a new source of oxygenated OA on neutral aerosol and imply that the uptake of primary organic gases will occur in the ambient atmosphere, under dilute conditions, and in the presence of pre-existing SO 4 aerosols which contain water. Conversely, under acidic seed aerosol conditions, oligomer formation was observed with the uptake of organics being enhanced by a factor of three or more compared to neutral aerosols, and in less than 2 min, representing an additional source of SOA to the atmosphere. This resulted in a trajectory in Van Krevelen space towards higher O : C (slope ~ −1.5), despite a lack of continual gas-phase oxidation in this closed system. The results demonstrate that high molecular weight species will form on acidic aerosols at the ambient level and mixture of organic gases, but are otherwise unaffected by subsequent aerosol neutralization, and that aerosol acidity will affect the organic O : C via aerosol-phase reactions. These two processes, forming oxygenated POA under neutral conditions and SOA under acidic conditions can contribute to the total ambient OA mass and the evolution of ambient aerosol O : C ratios. This may be important for properly representing organic aerosol O : C ratios in air quality and climate models.


[1] A cloud-resolving model (CRM) is used to simulate the multiple-layer mixed-phase stratiform (MPS) clouds that occurred during a three-and-a-half day subperiod of the Department of Energy-Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program's Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M-PACE) and to examine physical processes responsible for multilayer production and evolution. The CRM with a two-moment cloud microphysics is initialized with concurrent meteorological, aerosol, and ice nucleus measurements and is driven by time-varying large-scale advective tendencies of temperature and moisture and surface sensible and latent heat fluxes. The CRM reproduces the dominant occurrences of the single- and double-layer MPS clouds as revealed by the M-PACE observations although the simulated first cloud layer is lower and the second cloud layer is thicker compared to observations. The aircraft measurements suggest that the CRM qualitatively captures the major characteristics in the vertical distribution and interperiod variation of liquid water content (LWC), droplet number concentration, total ice water content (IWC), and ice crystal number concentration (nis). However, the magnitude of LWC is overestimated and those of IWC and nis are underestimated. In particular, the simulated nis is one order of magnitude smaller than the observed. Sensitivity experiments suggest that both the surface fluxes and large-scale advection control the formation of the lower cloud layer while the large-scale advection initiates the formation of the upper cloud layer but the maintenance of multilayer structures relies on the longwave (LW) radiative effect. The LW cooling near cloud top produces a more saturated environment and a stronger dynamical circulation while cloud base radiative warming of the upper layer creates the stability gap between the two cloud layers. Both cloud layers are sensitive to ice-forming nuclei number concentration since ice-phase microphysics provides a strong sink of cloud liquid water mass.


Context-aware systems use data collected at runtime to recognize certain predefined situations and trigger adaptations. This can be implemented using ontology-based data access (OBDA), which augments classical query answering in databases by adopting the open-world assumption and including domain knowledge provided by an ontology. We investigate temporalized OBDA w.r.t. ontologies formulated in EL, a description logic that allows for efficient reasoning and is successfully used in practice. We consider a recently proposed temporalized query language that combines conjunctive queries with the operators of propositional linear temporal logic (LTL), and study both data and combined complexity of query entailment in this setting. We also analyze the satisfiability problem in the similar formalism EL-LTL.


While smartphones have enriched our lives with diverse applications and functionalities, the user experience still often involves manual cumbersome inputs. To purchase a bottle of water for instance, a user must locate an e-commerce app, type the keyword for a search, select the right item from the list, and finally place an order. This process could be greatly simplified if the smartphone identifies the object of interest and automatically executes the user preferred actions for the object. We present Knocker that identifies the object when a user simply knocks on an object with a smartphone. The basic principle of Knocker is leveraging a unique set of responses generated from the knock. Knocker takes a multimodal sensing approach that utilizes microphones, accelerometers, and gyroscopes to capture the knock responses, and exploits machine learning to accurately identify objects. We also present 15 applications enabled by Knocker that showcase the novel interaction method between users and objects. Knocker uses only the built-in smartphone sensors and thus is fully deployable without specialized hardware or tags on either the objects or the smartphone. Our experiments with 23 objects show that Knocker achieves an accuracy of 98% in a controlled lab and 83% in the wild.


Effects of biological activated carbon (BAC), biological aerated filter (BAF), alum coagulation and Moringa oleifera coagulation were investigated to remove iron and arsenic contaminants from drinking water. At an initial dose of 5 mg/L, the removal efficiency for arsenic and iron was 63% and 58% respectively using alum, and 47% and 41% respectively using Moringa oleifera. The removal of both contaminants increased with the increase in coagulant dose and decrease in pH. Biological processes were more effective in removing these contaminants than coagulation. Compared to BAF, BAC gave greater removal of both arsenic and iron, removing 85% and 74%, respectively. Longer contact time for both processes could reduce the greater concentration of arsenic and iron contaminants. The addition of coagulation (at 5 mg/L dosage) and a biological process (with 15 or 60 min contact time) could significantly increase removal efficiency, and the maximum removal was observed for the combination of alum and BAC treatment (60 min contact time), with 100% and 98.56% for arsenic and iron respectively. The reduction efficiency of arsenic and iron reduced with the increase in the concentration of dissolved organics in the feedwater due to the adsorption competition between organic molecules and heavy metals.


We report results of an extensive world-wide observing campaign devoted to the recently discovered dwarf nova SDSS J162520.29+120308.7 (SDSS J1625). The data were obtained during the July 2010 eruption of the star and in August and September 2010 when the object was in quiescence. During the July 2010 superoutburst, SDSS J1625 clearly displayed superhumps with a mean period of Psh = 0.095942(17) days (138.16 ± 0.02 min) and a maximum amplitude reaching almost 0.4 mag. The superhump period was not stable, decreasing very rapidly at a rate of Ṗ = −1.63(14) × 10−3 at the beginning of the superoutburst and increasing at a rate of Ṗ = 2.81(20) × 10−4 in the middle phase. At the end of the superoutburst, it stabilized around the value of Psh = 0.09531(5) day. During the first twelve hours of the superoutburst, a low-amplitude double wave modulation was observed whose properties are almost identical to early superhumps observed in WZ Sge stars. The period of early superhumps, the period of modulations observed temporarily in quiescence, and the period derived from radial velocity variations are the same within measurement errors, allowing us to estimate the most probable orbital period of the binary to be Porb = 0.09111(15) days (131.20 ± 0.22 min). This value clearly indicates that SDSS J1625 is another dwarf nova in the period gap. Knowledge of the orbital and superhump periods allows us to estimate the mass ratio of the system to be q ≈ 0.25. This high value poses serious problems for both the thermal and tidal instability (TTI) model describing the behaviour of dwarf novae and for some models explaining the origin of early superhumps.


Purpose - The authors are interested in building descriptive – real life – models of successful investors' investment reasoning and decision-making. Models designed to be useful for trying to replicate and evolve their reasoning and decision-making. The purpose of this paper, a case study, is to take the substantial material – on innovating the investing tools – published in four books (2006/2012, 2010, 2011, 2015) by a US stock investor named Kenneth Fisher (CEO of Fisher Investments, Woodside, California) and sketch Fisher's investment innovating reasoning model. Design/methodology/approach - To sketch Fisher's investment innovating reasoning model, the authors used the Radical constructivist theory of knowledge, a framework for analyzing human action and reasoning called Symbolic interactionism and a qualitative analytic technique called Conceptual analysis. The authors have done qualitative research applied to the study of investment decision-making of a single professional investor. Findings - In the paper, the authors analyzed and described the heuristics used by Fisher to build subsequent generations of investing tools (called by Fisher "Capital Markets Technology") to try to make better forecasts to beat the stock market. The authors were interested in studying the evolutive dimensions of the tools to make forecasts of a successful investor: the "how to build it" and "how to evolve it" dimension. Originality/value - The paper offers an account of Kenneth Fisher's framework to reason the innovation of investing tools. The authors believe that this paper could be of interest to professional money managers and to all those who are involved in the study and development of the tools of investing. This work is also an example of the use of the Radical constructivist theory of knowledge, the Symbolic interactionist framework and the Conceptual analysis to build descriptive models of investment reasoning of individual investors, models designed to enable the reproduction/approximation of the conceptual operations of the investor.


Question: How does competition between quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) and white fir (Abies concolor) affect growth and spatial pattern of each species? Location: The northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Methods: In paired plots in mixed aspen- (n 5 3) or white fir-dominated (n 5 2) stands, we mapped trees and saplings and recorded DBH, height, species, and condition and took increment cores. We tallied seedlings by species. Tree ring widths were used as a measure of basal area change over the last decade, and canopy openness was identified using hemispherical photographs. Linear mixed models were used to relate neighborhood indices of competition, stand, and tree-level variables to diameter increment. Spatial patterns of stems were identified using the Neighborhood Density Function. Results: White fir radial growth was higher in aspenthan white fir-dominated plots. Individual-level variables were more important for white fir than for aspen growth, while variables representing competitive neighborhood were important only for aspen. The forest canopy was more open in aspen- than white fir-dominated stands, but ample aspen seedlings were observed in all stands. Canopy stems of aspen and white fir were randomly distributed, but saplings and small trees were clumped. Aspen saplings were repelled by canopy aspen stems. Conclusions: Variation in canopy openness explained more stand–stand variation in white fir than aspen growth, but high light levels were correlated with recruitment of aspen seedlings to the sapling class. Radial growth of aspen was predicted by indices of neighborhood competition but not radial growth of white fir, indicating that spacing and stem arrangement was more important for aspen than white fir growth. Fire suppression has removed a major disturbance mechanism that promoted aspen persistence and reduced competition from encroaching conifers, and current forests favor species that regenerate best by advance regeneration (white fir).


The atmospheric response to an idealized decline in Arctic sea ice is investigated in a novel fully coupled climatemodel experiment. In this experimenttwo ensembles of single-year model integrations are performed starting on 1 April, the approximate start of the ice melt season. By perturbing the initial conditions of sea ice thickness (SIT), declines in both sea ice concentration and SIT, which result in sea ice distributions that are similar to the recent sea ice minima of 2007 and 2012, are induced. In the ice loss regions there are strong (;3K) local increasesin sea surface temperature (SST);additionally,there are remoteincreases in SST in the central North Pacific and subpolar gyre in the North Atlantic. Over the central Arctic there are increases in surface air temperature (SAT) of;8K due to increases in ocean‐atmosphere heatfluxes. There are increases in SAT over continental North America that are in good agreement with recent changes as seen by reanalysis data. It is estimated that up to two-thirds of the observed increase in SAT in this region could be related to Arctic sea ice loss. In early summer there is a significant but weak atmospheric circulation response that projects onto the summer North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). In early summer and early autumn there is an equatorward shift of the eddy-driven jet over the North Atlantic as a result of a reduction in the meridional temperature gradients. In winter there is no projection onto a particular phase of the NAO.


Saajanaho, Milla Personal goals in old age – relationships with resources in life, exercise activity, and life-space mobility. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2016, 97 p. (Studies in Sport, Physical Education, and Health ISSN 0356-1070; 234) ISBN 978-951-39-6524-2 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-6525-9 (PDF) Finnish summary. Diss. Participation in activities according to one's personal goals is a central component of active aging. This study explored what kinds of personal goals older people have, how these goals change over the years, and how they relate to resources in life. The cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of personal goals with exercise activity and life-space mobility were also examined. The thesis forms part of two larger studies: Life-Space Mobility in Old Age (LISPE) and the Finnish Twin Study on Aging (FITSA). Data on 824 men and women from the LISPE study (mean age 80.1 y), and 308 women from the FITSA study (mean age 71.2 y) were analyzed. Personal goals were obtained with a revised version of the Personal Project Analysis. Measures of life resources, mobility limitation and physical activity were self-reported. Lifespace mobility was assessed with the University of Alabama at Birmingham Study of Aging Life-Space Assessment. Health maintenance goals were the most commonly reported and they correlated with good health resources. In contrast, recovery goals were more often reported by people with poor health and functioning. Good health resources were associated with goal setting related to other people, leisure-time activities and physical activities. Activity goals were often abandoned with aging, at least partly due to mobility decline. Exercise-related goals correlated with higher exercise activity both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Lifespace mobility was higher among those with goals related to activeness in daily life, mental health, and exercise when compared to those not reporting such goals. Over the two-year follow-up, goals related to maintaining functioning predicted higher life-space mobility – an indicator of community participation. Poor health and functioning may prevent older people from engaging in active goals in their lives. However, goal engagement may also promote active aging and participation, even in the face of decline in health and functioning. Therefore, older people should be encouraged to actively strive for personal goals in their lives.


Troubleshooting Software-Defined Networks requires a structured approach to detect mistranslations between high-level intent (policy) and low-level forwarding behavior, and a flexible on-demand packet tracing tool is highly desirable on the data plane. In this paper, we introduce a Layer 2 path tracing utility named PathletTracer. PathletTracer offers an interface for users to specify multiple Layer 2 paths to inspect. Based on the Layer 2 paths of interests, PathletTracer then accounts paths with identifiable IDs, and installs a set of flow table entries into switches to imprint path IDs on the packets going through. PathletTracer re-uses some fields in packet headers such as the ToS octet for recording path IDs. To efficiently carry imprints using limited bits, PathletTracer uses an encoding algorithm motivated by the calling context encoding scheme in the software engineering domain. With k bits for encoding, PathletTracer is able to trace more than 2k paths simultaneously.


This paper presents a methodology for optimisation of vehicle drivetrain configuration and their design with respect to multiple parameters. Some preliminary results from such optimisations are presented. Multi-objective optimisation algorithms have been developed to improve on earlier work on "environomic" optimisation, in which costs and environmental parameters are optimised using an agglomerated objective function. The vehicle component models are based on a combination of experimental data and theory, and in some cases neural net approximations of complicated subsystems have been used to replace slow theoretical models. The components developed at LENI have been incorporated into the vehicle simulation system ADVISOR and the system has been optimised with respect to component sizes, as well as three configurations (one conventional and two hybrid drivetrains) for such diverse objectives as emissions, costs and performance.


Updated analysis confirms sustained poor prognosis of COVID-19 in patients with lymphoma in Latin America: A cohort of 160 patients from GELL.

                     Introduction: Ongoing SARS-COV-2 pandemic has impacted the management of cancer patients worldwide. Several reports have demonstrated inferior outcomes of patients with hematological malignancies, including higher rates of intensive care unit admission, need for mechanical ventilation and death. The impact of COVID-19 is profound in resource-restricted countries, including Latin America. Most cohorts reported have not included patients from Latin America, and there is paucity of data of the outcome of cancer patients with COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries. Grupo de Estudio De Linfoproliferativos En Latino-America (GELL )is a collaborative network of hematological centers in 13 countries in Latin America. We report updated outcomes of lymphoma patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in Latin America.

                     Methods: We conducted a retrospective study including patients with a diagnosis of lymphoma and COVID-19 infection. Patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma were excluded from the analysis We defined active disease as follow: (1) patients with detectable disease either prior to initiating therapy or upon relapse, and/or (2) patients undergoing active cancer treatment. The primary outcome was overall survival at 100 days. Survival curves were estimated using the Kaplan Meier method. Uni and multivariable analysis were carried out with Cox model.

                     Results: A total of 160 patients were available for analysis. Median age was 60 years old. Hypertension was the most common comorbidity (33%). Most patients had aggressive lymphomas (62%), including 43% of patients with diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Follicular lymphomas were observed in 13% of patients and Hodgkin lymphoma in 12.5% of patients. With a median follow-up of 37 days, the 100-day OS was 64% (95CI 56-74%, fig. 1). In univariate analysis, age (HR 1.03, p=0.0025), hypertension (HR 2.01, p=0.017), >1 number of prior lines (HR 2.78, p=0.011), patients currently on treatment (HR 1.83, p=0.043), ferritin >2000 ng/mL (HR 4.74 p=0.00047) were associated with inferior OS. In multivariate analysis, age (HR 1.03, p=0.0026) and patients currently on treatment (HR 1.82, p=0.04) had inferior OS. There was a trend towards inferior outcomes in patients receiving monoclonal antibodies in univariate analysis (HR 1.82, p=0.081) but not in multivariable analysis (HR=1.29, p=0.48). Use of steroids was not statistically related to mortality (HR 1.79, p=0.074). Finally, contrary to other cohorts, no improvement in OS was observed in patients diagnosed later on the pandemic (fig. 2).

                     Conclusion: In this large cohort of Latin American patients with lymphoma malignancies, our updated analysis showed a maintained dismal prognosis with COVID-19 infection. With a median follow up of 37 days, the 100-day OS was 64%. Older age and ongoing active cancer treatment were significantly associated with mortality. The use of monoclonal antibodies and systemic corticosteroids were not statistically associated to poor survival. Current efforts are focused on improving immunization in the Latin American population. There is an unmet need for improving survival in patients with hematologic malignancies and COVID-19 infection.

                           Figure 1

                  Disclosures

                     Perini:
                     Janssen: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Takeda: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; Astra Zeneca: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau; MSD: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Otero:
                     ASTRA ZENECA: Current Employment. Abello:
                     Dr Reddy's: Research Funding; Amgen: Honoraria; Janssen: Honoraria. Castillo:
                     Abbvie: Consultancy, Research Funding; BeiGene: Consultancy, Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Consultancy, Research Funding; Janssen: Consultancy; Roche: Consultancy; TG Therapeutics: Research Funding.


The Alaska pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) fishery in the Eastern Bering Sea (EBS) is a major contributor to domestic and global fish production. However, regulations governing groundgear construction (trawl components that contact the seafloor) have limited opportunities to experiment with new gear designs aimed at minimizing potential effects on the seafloor and Essential Fish Habitat (EFH). In this thesis, alternative trawl footropes designed to fish just above the seafloor were tested. The designs varied by weight and rope materials, and were evaluated based on reduced seafloor contact, impacts to structure forming invertebrates, and effective height above the seafloor. Video and sonar data were used to compare seafloor contact and sea whip (Halipteris willemoesi) condition between impacted areas and adjacent unaffected control areas. The designs successfully reduced direct seafloor contact by 95-97% of the nominal contact. A susceptibility analysis showed 2.4 16.1% more downed sea whips in impacted areas than in control areas. The contact and susceptibility impacts were greater with footropes comprised of heavy rope materials than more buoyant materials. Bottom contact sensors were used to determine the height of the footrope above the seafloor, and 117 mean measurements of height above the seafloor were obtained. For the footrope components, 75% were raised more than 10.2 cm (4 in) above the seafloor, enough height to avoid most benthic features. While work is still required to determine the implications of these modifications for target species catch and bycatch, these results indicate a potential for substantial reductions of benthic interactions with trawl gear.


The aim of this work is to study the pricing problem for derivatives depending on two stocks driven by a bidimensional Levy process. The main idea is to apply Girsanov's Theorem for Levy processes, in order to reduce the posed problem to the pricing of a one Levy driven stock in an auxiliary market, baptized as ``dual market''. In this way, we extend the results obtained by Gerber and Shiu (1996) for two dimensional Brownian motion. Also we examine an existing relation between prices of put and call options, of both the European and the American type. This relation, based on a change of numeraire corresponding to a change of the probability measure through Girsanov's Theorem, is called Put-call duality. It includes as a particular case, the relation known as put-call symmetry. Necessary and sufficient conditions for put-call symmetry to hold are obtained, in terms of the triplet of predictable characteristic of the Levy process


BACKGROUND
It is generally accepted that the primary cause of periodontitis is bacterial infection of long duration. In addition, there are several risk factors that may increase the probability and severity of periodontitis. For example, an increased breakdown of alveolar bone has been observed in smokers compared to never-smokers. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between cigarette smoking and periodontal health, in particular, furcation involvement in molar teeth.

METHODS
One hundred twenty (120) adult regular dental patients, presenting with at least 20 teeth each, third molars excluded, were evaluated. Sixty of the subjects consumed an average (+/- SD) of 16.8 +/- 3.8 cigarettes daily and had smoked for 21.4 +/- 5.7 years. The remaining subjects presented a negative history of smoking. Periodontal conditions for the molar teeth were recorded at the first and second mandibular molar buccal furcation area.

RESULTS
Oral hygiene standards and dental care habits did not differ notably between smokers and never-smokers. Smokers exhibited significantly fewer molar teeth than never-smokers (2.2 +/- 1.1 versus 3.0 +/- 0.8; P<0.01). Also, smokers exhibited significantly advanced gingival recession, probing depth, clinical attachment loss, furcation involvement, and tooth mobility compared to never-smokers (P<0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that long-term cigarette smoking significantly worsens periodontal health including degree and incidence of furcation involvement in molar teeth.


It is shown that the fiber and grating-pair pulse-compression technique is limited by higher-order terms in the response of the grating-pair compressor and that these terms also limit the usefulness of the compressor for canceling the effects of group-velocity dispersion on the propagation of ultrashort optical pulses. Numerical evaluations of these limits are in good agreement with the minimum experimentally observed compressed pulse width of 8 fsec. Approaches for achieving shorter pulses are discussed.


An increasingly aging population will add to the number of individuals suffering from amyloid. Protein Misfolding Diseases provides a systematic overview of the current and emerging therapies for these types of protein misfolding diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Mad Cow. The book emphasizes therapeutics in an amyloid disease context to help students, faculty, scientific researchers, and doctors working with protein misfolding diseases bridge the gap between basic science and pharmaceutical applications to protein misfolding disease.


The thesis, "Ambassadors, Explorers, and Allies: a Study of African-European Diplomatic Relationships, 1400-1600," examines the often overlooked close ties between parts of Africa and Europe in this era. While many in and outside the field of African history, associate early African-European contact with the beginnings of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, exploitation and early colonialism, in fact, initial relations were more complicated and often based on alliances and cooperation, not opposition. Using published collections of Portuguese documents and archival resources from Lisbon, Portugal, this thesis argues that the development of close elite African-European ties was initially beneficial to the kingdoms of the Fante, Benin, Kongo, and Ethiopia. Early relationships adhered to African protocols for trade and diplomatic exchanges. Tracing the development these ties, examining the dynamic of elite African visitors traveling to Portugal and Rome, and finally situating these interactions in the greater context of the era through an analysis of other AfricanEuropean contacts, this thesis highlights the unique and overlooked aspects of fifteenth through seventeenthcentury African-European relationships.


Some graph invariants can be computed by summing certain values, called edge-contributions over all edges of graphs. In this note we use edge-contributions to study relationships among three graph invariants, also known as topological indices in mathematical chemistry: Wiener index, Szeged index and recently introduced revised Szeged index. We also use the quotient between the Wiener index and the revised Szeged index to study tree-likeness of graphs.


In The Cinema of Catherine Breillat, Belot offers a detailed analysis of Breillat's films by looking at the representation of women as sexual beings. These women's search of identity echoes that of Breillat's in establishing a personal or intimate cinema.


The SEPIC based inverter with reduced amount of switches has been proposed as an innovative inverter design to reduced cost and complexity.The four switch three phase (FSTP) SEPIC based inverter have less switching losses of the DC-AC conversion system. FSTP inverter operates at half the DC input voltages, so the output line voltage cannot exceed this value. The proposes a design for the FSTP overcome this problems and produced pure sinusoidal without need of filter in output side. The proposed topology produce output line voltage which can be extended up to full value of the DC line voltage. The Fuzzy control is used with proposed topology to ensure the robustness of the system. Fuzzy logic allows, solving difficult simulated problems with many inputs and output variables. The parameters, component ratings, and the operation of the proposed SEPIC inverter is described in this paper. Experiment and simulation shows the effectiveness of the proposed inverter.


The caller preferences specification for the Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) allows a caller to express preferences that the call be
routed to a User Agent (UA) with particular capabilities. Similarly, a
specification exists to allow a UA to indicate its capabilities in a
registration. Amongst those capabilities are the type of media streams
the agent supports, described as top-level MIME types. The
'application' MIME type is used to describe a broad range of
stream types, and provides insufficient granularity as a capability.
This specification allows a UA to indicate which application sub-types
the agent supports.


This article explores activist women's changing subjectivities and how they sought to challenge the political and spatial order of gender relations in Milan from the late 1960s onwards. Feminist subjectivities have been shaped through the collective practice of consciousness-raising. The relational context of the narratives they established became important as a means of defining their political subjectivity and helped them to make sense of their identity in transformation. Drawing on Adriana Cavarero's Arendtian definition of the political, this article argues that feminist political subjectivity is shaped relationally through mutual self-exposure in the public sphere. In this way, exposure to others becomes a constitutive act contributing to an ongoing version of subjectivity. It is also, at the same time, the material condition for social and political life to take place. Contemporary versions of spatial practices such as separatism and consciousness-raising, it is argued, have the potential to inscribe women's role in Milan in an innovative way, especially when compared with the traditional modes of political representation.


The percent polarization of light reflected from a rough surface has been calculated using a two-dimensional, two-layer, dielectric model and the geometrical-optics approximation. The choice of this model was prompted by a desire to investigate the dependence of the percent polarization upon internal scattering and re-emission of light which has penetrated the top surface. The parameters of the model are the indices of refraction of the two layers, and the distribution of slopes of the top surface of the upper layer. Polarization curves that are qualitatively similar to lunar and laboratory-sample signatures (i.e., the percent polarization is negative at small phase angles and positive at larger phase angles) can be obtained with this model. The curves are very sensitive to changes of the distribution of slopes or the index of refraction of the upper layer, but not, for the cases considered, to changes of the index of refraction of the lower layer. For the range of parameters considered in this paper, a variation of the index of refraction of the upper layer produces a change of the albedo; the sign of the change is opposite to that of the change of the percent polarization at high phase angles (~90°). However, a variation of the structure (distribution of slopes) of the top surface produces changes of the albedo and percent polarization of the same sign.


Tackling problems from the least complicated to the most, Resource Allocation in Uplink OFDMA Wireless Systems provides readers with a comprehensive look at resource allocation and scheduling techniques (for both single and multi-cell deployments) in uplink OFDMA wireless networksrelying on convex optimization and game theory to thoroughly analyze performance.Inside, readers will find topics and discussions on: Formulating and solving the uplink ergodic sum-rate maximization problem Proposing suboptimal algorithms that achieve a close performance to the optimal case at a considerably reduced complexity and lead to fairness when the appropriate utility is used Investigating the performance and extensions of the proposed suboptimal algorithms in a distributed base station scenario Studying distributed resource allocation where users take part in the scheduling process, and considering scenarios with and without user collaboration Formulating the sum-rate maximization problem in a multi-cell scenario, and proposing efficient centralized and distributed algorithms for intercell interference mitigation Discussing the applicability of the proposed techniques to state-of-the-art wireless technologies, LTE and WiMAX, and proposing relevant extensionsAlong with schematics and figures featuring simulation results, Resource Allocation in Uplink OFDMA Wireless Systems is a valuable book for?wireless communications and cellular systems professionals and students.


Purpose: This work targets assessing the estimation of intracameral bevacizumab infusion in treatment of rubeosis iridis in neovascular glaucoma.
Patients and strategies: A planned report was done on 30 eyes of 30 patients with rubeosis iridis. Intracameral infusion of bevacizumab was infused for all patients. Iris flourescein angiography and specular microscopy were performed to all patients preoperatively and postoperatively. Patients were followed up at five days, one month, a quarter of a year, and a half year spans following the system.
Results: Iris fluorescein angiography demonstrated neovascularization relapse just in the early development. Notwithstanding, specular microscopy indicated practically stable endothelial trustworthiness aside from a couple of cases.
Conclusion: The utilization of intracameral bevacizumab for rubeosis iridis still needs more preliminaries to build up long haul security and viability in retinal ischemia and neovascular glaucoma.


In this work six engineering and physical science laboratory experiments were developed to enhance the learning experience for students. This was achieved by instrumenting and creating virtual instruments for these experiments. The use of virtual instrumentation is directly compared with traditional laboratory teaching techniques and pedagogical principles from which both methods have developed from are discussed. Previous work utilising Computer Based Learning (CBL) in similar projects relating to this work have been used to evaluate some of the benefits of virtual instrumentation, especially those relating to increased student interest, memory retention, understanding and ultimately performance in laboratory reports. The virtual experiments discussed in this study are redesigned versions of traditional style experiments and hence a direct comparison of newer CBL techniques to traditional style laboratories was undertaken. There was no change in concepts being between the two versions of the experiments; the only difference was in the methodology of presentation. The effectiveness of these CBL techniques was assessed by looking at the performance of students using virtual instrumentation against that of other students from the same class undertaking the traditional mode of the experiments. All students were assessed by report submission, multiple choice questions relating to their experiment and questionnaires. The results of this study were also compared to other related studies within the field of CBL.


Il contributo e pubblicato con il permesso della Brigham Young University Law Review - dove e apparso nel vol. n. 2 del 2010 (Tribute to Professor Michael Goldsmith), alle pp. 101-148) - e dell‖Autrice, che ringraziamo sentitamente. SUMMARY: 1. Introduction - 2. History of and Motivations for the OIC Defamation of Religions Resolutions - 2.a - The OIC Exerts a Concerted Effort to Protect Islam - 2.b - Terrorist Attacks and Danish Cartoons Raise the Stakes - 3. Defamation of Religions: A Permissible Restraint on Freedom of Speech and Expression? - 3.a - History, Basic Elements, and Contemporary Usage of Defamation - 3.b - Interaction Between Defamation of Religions and the Basic Human Rights Enumerated in Major International Instruments - 4. The Evolution of a Resolution - 4.a. 1999-2000: Beginnings - 4.b. 2001: A Pre-9/11 World - 4.c. 2002: Reactions to the Violent Backlash Against Muslims - 4.d. 2003-2004: Fluctuations in Support - 4.e. 2005: Intensification of a Campaign - 4.f. 2006-2007: The Move to the General Assembly - 4.g. 2008: Decreasing Margins of Support - 4.h. 2009: Current Resolution and Recommendations for Application - 5. Consequences of Accepting the Resolutions and Subsequent Enactment of Statutes Designed to Prevent Defamation of Religions - 5.a. Human Rights Committee - 5.b. The European Court of Human Rights - 5.c. Blasphemy, Incitement, and Hate Speech Laws and Their Enforcement - 5.d. Possible Future Statutes and Enforcement Under Defamation of Religions Theory - 6. Alternatives to Defamation of Religions in the U.N. Resolutions - 7. Conclusion.


Research on graphene has revealed its remarkable electro-optic properties, which promise to satisfy the needs of future electro-optic modulators. However, its ultrasmall thickness, compared with operating light wavelength, downplays its role in an optoelectronic device. The key to achieve efficient electro-optic modulation based on graphene is to enhance its interaction with light. To this end, some novel waveguides and platforms will be employed to enhance the interaction. Herein, we present our recent exploration of graphene electro-optic modulators based on graphene sandwiched in dielectric or plasmonic waveguides. With a suitable gate voltage, the dielectric constant of graphene can be tuned to be very small due to the effect of intraband electronic transition, resulting in "graphene-slot waveguides" and greatly enhanced absorption modes. Up to 3 dB modulation depth can be achieved within 800 nm long silicon waveguides, or 120 nm long plasmonic waveguides based on three-dimensional numerical simulations. They have the advantages of nanoscale footprints, small insertion loss, low power consumption, and potentially ultrahigh speed, as well as being CMOS-compatible.


Network‐bound systems such as water and energy systems are increasingly confronted with environmental problems that cannot be solved without changing their modes of provision. More than any other flow provided through a network‐bound system, the waste water flow comes very close to intimate personal and social life, complicating the introduction of environmental innovations in this sector. Using the concepts of trust and identity, questions concerning changing consumer roles in two cases of Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse Systems in the Netherlands are addressed. In both cases the building of trust within provider networks and between consumers and providers, as well as the possibility for consumers and providers to identify themselves with the aims of the project were key factors determining the success or failure of environmental innovations in waste water flows.


Malinowski's classic accounts of Trobriand sociality have left anthropology with many lasting conundrums. This two-part article examines two such puzzles revolving around contradictory reports over the agencies involved in magical chants (megwa). On the one hand, consistent with his pragmatic and functionalist theories of language and culture, Malinowski claimed that, although ancestral baloma and other spirits are typically invoked in most spells, those incantations' efficaciousness derived instead from the power of the enunciated words. On the other, as part of his evidence in support of Islanders' "ignorance of physiological paternity," he conceded that spells intended to produce pregnancy in village women were instead expressly aimed at eliciting appropriate ritual actions from baloma spirits as agents of conception and birth. On the basis of ethnographic data recently gathered at Omarakana village interpreted through specific adaptations of the "New Melanesian Ethnography" and Tambiah's earlier "participation" theory of ritual practice, I argue that for Trobrianders the magical power of words is the power of spirits, and vice versa. This insight has important implications for classic and contemporary debates over the nature of "magic," controversies over paternity and so-called "virgin birth," theories of personhood and agency, and the character of dala "matrilineage" relations.


The Irish Institute of Technology (hereinafter referred to as IoT) sector is poised to undergo a period of transformation, consolidation and system reconfiguration, to be brought about through a series of institutional mergers, collaborations and alliances. This research focuses on the Irish higher education (hereinafter referred to as HE) landscape, and in particular, on the journey of three groups of IoTs (hereinafter referred to as Alliances) as they plan to merge and subsequently apply to be re-designated as technological universities (hereinafter referred to as TUs). This research provides a contemporaneous account of how the Irish IoTs are organising themselves for merger and examines the substantial challenges which lie therein. By examining and comparing three Alliances which are undergoing a similar process but with varying degrees of success, this research explores the key factors which facilitate on one hand, and/or inhibit on the other, merger negotiations and the merger process in HE, both at a system and institutional level. This knowledge will be useful to policy makers and other higher education institutions (hereinafter referred to as HEIs), particularly in Ireland's IoT sector, which is likely to experience a wave of mergers over the coming decade. It also contributes to the relatively scant body of literature on the nature of and the factors impacting upon the merger process in higher education, and of mergers in the Irish HE context. A qualitative study, employing a multiple case study approach, was adopted. Based upon a thematic analysis of data gathered from the three cases, this research identifies and categorises the key factors that are perceived to facilitate on the one hand, or inhibit on the other, the merger process in HE, both at a system and institutional level. A framework consisting of political, strategic, operational, emotive, historic and cultural factors is proposed, examined and discussed, and recommendations for both institutional and system level actors are provided. In addition, this research proposes a micro-political model which details the various phases through which HE mergers proceed, and argues that it is the macro and micro-political and emotive factors, rather than strategic or operational factors, which have the most powerful influence on the merger process.


This study concerns the nature of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and the role of nitric oxide (NO) in the rat gastrointestinal tract. The major objectives were (i) to characterise NOS isoforms in the gastric glandular mucosa, (ii) to localise NOS isoforms in the rat gastric glandular mucosa, (iii) to investigate the role of NO in carbachol-stimulated gastric mucus secretion, (iv) to investigate the nature of NOS and small intestine. Immunoblotting was performed using polyclonal antisera raised against two peptides found in the rat brain NOS sequence and commercial monoclonal antibodies directed against neuronal and endothelial isoforms of NOS. A160kDa band was detected in brain and gastric mucosal samples with antibodies and antisera directed against neuronal NOS sequences, and a 140kDa band was detected in gastric mucosal samples using an anti-endothelial NOS antibody. An intense 160kDa neuronal NOS band was detected in a high-density fraction of gastric mucosal cells separated on a Percoll gradient. Detection of neuronal NOS by a carboxyl-terminal antiserum in samples of brain, but not of gastric mucosa, could be blocked by the peptide (20g/ml) against which the antibody was raised. After affinity purification, recognition of gastric mucosal NOS was blocked by peptide. Particulate neuronal NOS was found in the brain by immunoblotting while 94% of gastric mucosal enzyme was soluble. Gastric mucosal endothelial NOS was 95% particulate. 95% of NOS activity in the gastric mucosa was due to neuronal NOS. Paraformaldehyde- and acetone-fixed gastric mucosal sections were subject to immunocytochemistry using the above antibodies. Neuronal NOS was localised to the surface mucosal epithelial cells while endothelial NOS was associated with microvessels at the base of the mucosa and to larger vessels in the submucosa. Intragastric administration of carbachol or 16, 16-dimethyl prostaglandin E2 increased the thickness of the rat gastric mucus layer. The NOS inhibitor NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester dose-dependently, and selectively, prevented the stimulatory effect of carbachol. Ca2+-independent NOS activity in rat ileal, jejunal and colonic muscle was increased after LPS induction. Ca2+-dependent activity was not affected. Distribution of inducible NOS protein paralleled Ca2+ -independent activity. LPS treatment did not affect the content of neuronal NOS in colonic muscle.


"Falsehood is in itself bad and reprehensible," states Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, "while the truth is a fine and praiseworthy thing." (55) He does not say why. There seem to be important reasons to respect and value the truth. We need some amount of truthful knowledge of the world to move around and perform our tasks (though we mostly achieve these goals with a mixture of truth, error, ignorance, emotional drive, and automatism, in varying proportions). We should respect the truth as the quest of everyone's mind. (56) And we should value it for its concordance with the state and course of the universe, its "beauty," as Einstein would have it. But assuming that we sometimes know the truth, should we always tell it? Instances in which we shouldn't come to mind as soon as this question is posed. It may be a morally laudable and heroic act not to reveal the truth, as when a captive of the Gestapo refused under torture to name the members of an underground organization. Priests, lawyers, and doctors must not divulge what they have learned in the confessional or office. It is a bad employee who informs competitors of his firm's trade secrets. We do not approach a person to tell him we don't like his looks. Thus, we do not tell the truth if by doing so we would damage values which we place higher than veracity. In the language of W. D. Ross's philosophy, telling the truth may be our "prima facie duty," but not necessarily our "duty proper." (57) Should We Tell The Patient That He Is Dying? (58) The word Truth stands in the center of your emblem. But there is something more important than Truth: It is Life. (59) Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz In the 1960-1970s the traditional doctor/patient relationship and method of informing patients about their medical condition came under assault. Philosophers, theologians, some patients, and the courts rose against medical deceit and asserted the patients' right to be correctly and fully informed of their diagnosis, prognosis, treatment alternatives, and/or imminent death. A doctor owed his patient the truth, they said, because, in the spirit of Kantian ethics, he should respect the patient as an autonomous rational being, (60) and provide him with truthful information needed to make rational decisions. The fiduciary relationship required that the patients' trust be rewarded with truthful information. (61) Patients were entitled to knowing the truth not so much because it concerned their own bodies, but because it concerned their own lives. (62) Not doctors, but patients and the courts should determine the extent of information patients received. (63) Dying persons needed to know the truth in order to settle family and money matters. (64) Informing the patient of his imminent death would induce him to renounce expensive treatments, thereby limiting the costs of health care and helping the national economy. (65) There have been, and still are, strong arguments in favor of the traditional way of giving information, though it follows the principle of beneficence rather than autonomy Informing patients is part of medical practice and is, therefore, subject to the rule of doing no harm. Not only the tissues of a patient's body, but also his psyche, should be handled with care. Diagnoses are fallible and prognoses notoriously unreliable, thus, part of the information given to patients is bound to prove untrue: one more reason to restrain it. And the traditional medical rule of never taking away hope is based on the knowledge of wishes and reactions of patients who are gravely ill, i.e., the very group concerned. Some people know they are dying. When a patient does not know that, that is, still believes he will live, I won't tell him he will soon die. For one thing, doctors can seldom predict that with certainty. But, most importantly, why should I kill his spirit while he is living? Why should I inflict such pain? I am a doctor and everything I do must be aimed at relieving suffering. …


Health Trainers were introduced by the Department of Health in 2006 to help tackle health inequalities by offering one-to-one support to individuals who want to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Health trainers are people recruited from local communities with a good understanding of local issues who are trained to offer support and motivation on five priority areas: reducing obesity, improving sexual health, encouraging sensible drinking, reducing smoking and improving mental health. West Sussex Primary Care Trust (WSPCT) commissioned voluntary sector organisations (VSOs) to deliver the West Sussex health trainer service. This is the report of the independent evaluation undertaken by researchers at the Social Science Policy and Research Centre at the University of Brighton between April 2008 and September 2009.


Electronic mail (e-mail) is an under-utilised resource of information and knowledge. It could be an important part of the larger so-called organisational memory (OM)—if it were not so disorganised and fragmented. The OM contains the knowledge of the organisation's employees, written records, and data. This thesis is about organising and managing information in, and about, e-mail so as to make it retrievable and usable for task management purposes. The approach is user-centred and based on a conceptual model for task management. The model is designed to handle tasks that occur in the communications in an open distributed system, such as Internet e-mail. Both structured and unstructured tasks can be supported. Furthermore, the model includes management of desktop source information, which comprises the different electronically available sources in a user's computer environment. The information from these is used in the model to sort information and thereby handle tasks and related information. Tasks are managed as conversations, that is, exchanges of messages. We present a language called Formal Language for Conversations (FLC), based on speech act theory, which is used to organise messages and relevant information for tasks. FLC provides the container for task-related information, as well as the context for managing tasks. The use of FLC is exemplified in two scenarios: scheduling a meeting and making conference arrangements. We describe a prototype based on the conceptual model. The prototype explicitly refines and supports the notion of threads, which are employed so as to give tasks a context. It integrates the use of FLC into the traditional threading mechanism of e-mail, in addition to matching on text in the body. An agent architecture is also described, which is used to harmonise the information in the heterogeneous desktop sources. Finally, human-readable filtering rules created by a machine learning algorithm are employed in the prototype. The prototype is evaluated with regard to its thread-matching capability, as well as the creation of usable and readable filtering rules. Both are deemed satisfactory.


Silver nanoparticles cause toxicity in exposed organisms and are an environmental health concern. The mechanisms of silver nanoparticle toxicity, however, remain unclear. We examined the effects of exposure to silver in nano-, bulk-, and ionic forms on zebrafish embryos (Danio rerio) using a Next Generation Sequencing approach in an Illumina platform (High-Throughput SuperSAGE). Significant alterations in gene expression were found for all treatments and many of the gene pathways affected, most notably those associated with oxidative phosphorylation and protein synthesis, overlapped strongly between the three treatments indicating similar mechanisms of toxicity for the three forms of silver studied. Changes in oxidative phosphorylation indicated a down-regulation of this pathway at 24 h of exposure, but with a recovery at 48 h. This finding was consistent with a dose-dependent decrease in oxygen consumption at 24 h, but not at 48 h, following exposure to silver ions. Overall, our data provide support for the hypothesis that the toxicity caused by silver nanoparticles is principally associated with bioavailable silver ions in exposed zebrafish embryos. These findings are important in the evaluation of the risk that silver particles may pose to exposed vertebrate organisms.