The Aurora kinases regulate multiple aspects of mitotic progression, and their overexpression in diverse tumor types makes them appealing oncology targets. An intensive research effort over the past decade has led to the discovery of chemically distinct families of small molecule Aurora kinase inhibitors, many of which have demonstrated therapeutic potential in model systems. These agents are also important tools to help dissect signaling pathways that are orchestrated by Aurora kinases, and the antiproliferative target of pan-Aurora inhibitors such as VX-680 has been validated using chemical genetic techniques. In many cases the nonspecific nature of Aurora inhibitors toward unrelated kinases is well established, potentially broadening the spectrum of cancers to which these compounds might be applied. However, unambiguously demonstrating the molecular target(s) for clinical kinase inhibitors is an important challenge, one that is absolutely critical for deciphering the molecular basis of compound specificity, resistance, and efficacy. In this paper, we have investigated amino acid requirements for Aurora A sensitivity to the benzazepine-based Aurora inhibitor MLN8054 and the close analogue MLN8237, a second-generation compound that is in phase II clinical trials. A crystallographic analysis facilitated the design and biochemical investigation of a panel of resistant Aurora A mutants, a subset of which were then selected as candidate drug-resistance targets for further evaluation. Using inducible human cell lines, we show that cells expressing near-physiological levels of a functional but partially drug-resistant Aurora A T217D mutant survive in the presence of MLN8054 or MLN8237, authenticating Aurora A as a critical antiproliferative target of these compounds.


It has been recently claimed that human movement is highly predictable. While an upper bound of 93% predictability was shown, this was based upon human movement trajectories of very high spatiotemporal granularity. Recent studies reduced this spatiotemporal granularity down to the level of GPS data, and under a similar methodology results once again suggested a high predictability upper bound (i.e. 90% when movement was quantized down to a spatial resolution approximately the size of a large building). In this work we reconsider the derivation of the upper bound to movement predictability. By considering real-world topological constraints we are able to achieve a tighter upper bound, representing a more refined limit to the predictability of human movement. Our results show that this upper bound is between 11-24% less than previously claimed at a spatial resolution of approx. 100m×100m, with a greater improvement for finer spatial resolutions. This indicates that human mobility is potentially less predictable than previously thought. We provide an in-depth examination of how varying the spatial and temporal quantization affects predictability, and consider the impact of corresponding limits using a large set of real-world GPS traces. Particularly at fine-grained spatial quantizations, where a significant number of practical applications lie, these new (lower) upper limits raise serious questions about the use of location information alone for prediction, contributing more evidence that such prediction must integrate external variables.


Growing population, extensive use (and abuse) of the natural resources, increasing pollutants emissions in the atmosphere: these are a few obstacles (and not the least) one has to face with nowadays to ensure the sustainability of our planet in general, and of the air quality in particular. In the case of air pollution, the processes that govern the transport and the chemical transformation of pollutants are highly complex and non-linear. The use of numerical models for simulating meteorological fields, which in turn will determine the transport of pollutants in the atmosphere, is thus a very appropriate tool to describe and understand the air pollution problematic. This work focuses on the meteorological simulation, using a mesoscale model. The stress is particularly put on the parameterisation of urban induced effects on the meteorological fields above a city. A detailed urban parameterisation scheme has been implemented in a mesoscale model in a previous work. This new scheme takes into account the presence of a city in a more accurate way as the traditional method usually used in mesoscale models. In the first part of this work, the urban module was validated for a one-dimensional off-line simulation within and above a street canyon in the city of Basel/Switzerland. The simulation results were compared with measurements taken within and above the same street canyon during an intensive observation period in the frame of the BUBBLE project (Basel UrBan Boundary Layer Experiment). The comparison with the measurements and with a simulation using the traditional urban parameterisation showed that the detailed urban scheme improved the quality of the simulation of turbulent fluxes and meteorological parameters (wind, temperature) in the urban canopy. Further on, the mesoscale was applied for a three-dimensional simulation over the city of Basel and its surroundings. The results showed that the model is able to reproduce the wind pattern that prevailed during the simulated episode, and that the accuracy of the temperature simulation in the city is improved with the urban module. In the third part of this work, an air quality study was performed over the Mexico City basin. The mesoscale model simulated the meteorological conditions for the chosen episode (1 and 2 March 1997). The results were then passed to TAPOM, a Eulerian photochemical model that calculates the space and time distribution of air pollutants. The simulated concentrations over the basin showed good agreement with the observed values. The validated model could then be used to test some emissions reduction scenarios for Mexico City. The use of the detailed urban parameterisation scheme for meteorological fields and air pollutants concentration simulation improved the quality of the results in almost all the applied situations. Consequently, the full modelling tool presented and validated in this work can be used for air quality modelling studies over cities and their surroundings.


Bazzo, S., Marini, F., & Black, D. (2014). An international campaign to raise awareness of the risks of drinking in pregnancy. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 3 (1), 113-116. doi:10.7895/ijadr.v3i1.175 Prenatal exposure to alcohol is a major cause of birth defects and developmental disorders around the world. Prevention is a complex issue, with one factor being poor understanding of the risks of drinking during pregnancy. Awareness campaigns have emerged as an effective tool to increase knowledge of the risks in a manner which embraces the whole public and avoids creating stigma. Unfortunately many organizations lack the expertise or resources to develop, carry out, and evaluate such campaigns. The EUFASD Alliance, in collaboration with partners in health education from the Local Health Authority of Treviso, Italy, and a creative partner, Fabrica, propose to develop a campaign which can be adapted to countries and cultures around the world. A key goal is empowerment of individuals and local groups to make choices and change behaviors. A network of partners around the world is being developed to carry out the campaign. Most importantly, the effectiveness of the campaign will be evaluated in several key centers around the world.


This thesis explored the relationship between two divergent thinking variables, originality and fluency, and three personality variables, extraversion, neuroticism, and tendency to dissimulate (a Lie Scale). Divergent thinking was measured by adaptations of the Uses Test (c.f. Wilson, Guilford and Christensen, 1953), and the three personality variables were measured by the New Junior Maudsley Inventory (Furneaux and Gibson, 1966). Testing was conducted on three groups of adolescent children, one sample of 44 boys, one of 43 girls, and one of 68 girls.
There were no significant relationships between the divergent thinking variables and extraversion or neuroticism when each of the three samples were examined under untimed conditions of divergent thinking testing. Tendency to dissimulate was significantly and positively related to divergent thinking in the sample of 43 girls. However, when 34 girls from this group were re-tested fourteen months after initial testing, the tendency to dissimulate divergent thinking relationship was not present, and the measures of both tendency to dissimulate and extraversion showed relatively low test-retest reliability coefficients.
It was considered possible that failure to demonstrate divergent thinking-extraversion relationships may have been due to the testing of divergent thinking under untimed conditions, since extraverts show less persistence and greater speed of performance than introverts (Eysenck, 1967). To explore this possibility the group of 68 girls was tested for divergent thinking under timed as well as untimed conditions. In this study no significant divergent thinking-personality relationships were established.
In a critical consideration of the results it was suggested that other research approaches could be more productive in the study of divergent thinking. In particular, divergent thinking might be seen as a skill, as a situation specific behaviour, or as related to the adoption of a role. Experimental study of individual cases was suggested as a possible method for investigating the phenomenon of divergent thinking.


Horror movies have discovered an easy recipe for making people creepy: alter their eyes. Instead of normal eyes, zombies' eyes are vacantly white, vampires' eyes glow with the color of blood, and those possessed by demons are cavernously black. In the Academy Award winning Pan's Labyrinth, director Guillermo del Toro created the creepiest of all creatures by entirely removing its eyes from its face, placing them instead in the palms of its hands. The unease induced by altering eyes may help to explain the uncanny valley, which is the eeriness of robots that are almost—but not quite—human (Mori, 1970). Much research has explored the uncanny valley, including the research reported by MacDorman & Entezari (in press), which focuses on individual differences that might predict the eeriness of humanlike robots. In their paper, they suggest that a full understanding of this phenomenon needs to synthesize individual differences with features of the robot. One theory that links these two concepts is mind perception, which past research highlights as essential to the uncanny valley (Gray & Wegner, 2012). Mind perception is linked to both individual differences—autism—and to features of the robot—the eyes—and can provide a deeper understanding of this arresting phenomenon. In this paper, we present original data that links uncanniness to the eyes through aberrant perceptions of mind.


In this article we propose several pathwise and finite difference based methods for calculating sensitivities of Bermudan options using regression methods and Monte Carlo simulation. These methods rely on conditional probabilistic representations which allow, in combination with a regression approach, for efficient simultaneous computation of sensitivities at many initial positions. Assuming that the price of a Bermudan option can be evaluated sufficiently accurate, we develop a method for constructing deltas based on least squares. We finally propose a testing procedure for assessing the performance of the developed methods.


* Abbreviations:
 IRB — : institutional review board
 PIPP — : premature infant pain profile

One of the most controversial issues in neonatology today is the appropriate treatment of procedural pain in the NICU. Infants in the NICU undergo numerous painful procedures. Policies and practices for the treatment of pain vary from NICU to NICU and from doctor to doctor. Numerous studies have been done to clarify the best methods of relieving pain, but the studies themselves are ethically problematic. What is the gold standard? How should we assess pain? When have we learned enough to consider certain practices as proven? Should proven practices be considered as the standard of care, even if we know that they are not widely used? In this ethics column, we asked experts in pain and palliative care to consider a proposed randomized trial for procedural pain in newborns and to discuss whether an institutional review board should approve the trial. Dr Bellieni is a neonatologist and bioethicist in Sienna, Italy. Dr Taddio is a pharmacologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Dr Linebarger is Medical Director of the Palliative Care Program at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

The following proposal was submitted to an institutional review board (IRB) at a children's hospital to study different interventions for procedural pain in newborns.

### Efficacy of Sucrose and Breast Milk as Analgesia for Procedural Pain in Newborns

#### Background

Numerous studies reveal that both oral sucrose and breast milk can reduce duration of crying in newborns after a heel stick.1 Repeated doses of sucrose during prolonged hospitals stays are associated with developmental problems. To better understand the efficacy of breast milk and sucrose, we want to test them against placebo. We will recruit 150 healthy full-term newborns. They will be randomly assigned into 3 groups of 50 infants:

"Mother's milk group": each newborn will be given 2 mL mother's milk 2 minutes before the procedure by using a syringe with the needle removed. …

Address correspondence to John D. Lantos, MD, Children's Mercy Hospital, 2401 Gillham Rd, Kansas City, MO 64105. E-mail: jlantos{at}cmh.edu


This study explores the use of the first person plural pronoun "we/wij" by government and opposition party members in panel debates from the Flemish talk show De Zevende Dag. Both groups of politicians enter this arena with divergent communicative goals, which has clear implications (i) for the type of propositions in which subclasses of "we/wij"-pronouns are generally involved and (ii) for the politicians' assessment of the status of these propositions. Patterns with regard to these three implications are analyzed by means of a systemic functional approach supported with quantitative data. It is claimed that government and opposition party discussants either employ distinct patterns in accordance with their different aims, or that they use similar ones, albeit with divergent discourse functions. The former scenario turns out to be true in the case of exclusive uses of "we/wij" and the latter in the case of inclusive meanings. In that way, the paper sheds light on subtle differences in how government and opposition party discussants argue and deal with the invisible presence of an overhearing broadcast audience.


ABSTRACT Research has provided insight into ideas, agents and patterns of inequality associated with Islamophobia. Yet, we know less about why anti-Muslim racism is so virulent and persistent today. Focusing on post-unification Germany, we explore the broader function Islamophobia fulfils for society. We draw on a discourse analysis of statements by four public figures, the publicists Monika Maron and Alice Schwarzer, and the politicians Vera Lengsfeld and Beatrix von Storch; two of them are from Germany's former East, and the other two from the former West. We found little evidence of specific regional 'flavours' of anti-Muslim racism, but noted that the speakers' diverging positionality in re-unified Germany shapes their Islamophobic agitation. Our analysis shows how 'old' and 'new' Germans distinctly participate in re-creating western identities as the unmarked norm. Anti-Muslim racism, we argue, plays an important role in everyday discursive acts of nation-building, and assists in justifying multi-layered patterns of stratification. Outward projections onto an 'Other', the 'enemy within', fulfil a key function: the integration of a highly polarized society, at least on the symbolic level. The collective in need of integration, our analysis suggests, may therefore not necessarily be the one that is the main target of such efforts.


ABSTRACT Immigration has played a particularly significant role in shaping settler-colonial societies, including Australia. Successive governments have taken instrumental roles in constructing narratives of Australia's immigration history. Contrary to the images we see today – of capsizing boats and desperate people seeking refuge – the picture of post-Second World War immigration was all sunshine and smiles, hope and opportunity. Throughout the post-war decades the vaunted Australian sense of fairness was tested by those who entered the country without valid entry permits, for example stowaways and ship's deserters or visitors, including students who had overstayed their visas. In this paper, we consider an archaeological assemblage of 327 graffiti made by immigration detainees while they were awaiting deportation from the North Head Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney, New South Wales. These graffiti provide a counter-narrative to the rosy image and official record of late-twentieth-century immigration to Australia.


A major criticism against staggered nominal contracts is that they give rise to the so called "persistency puzzle" - although they generate price inertia, they cannot account for the stylised fact of inflation persistence. It is thus commonly asserted that, in the context of the new Phillips curve (NPC), inflation is a jump variable. We argue that this "persistency puzzle" is highly misleading, relying on the exogeneity of the forcing variable (e.g. output gap, marginal costs, unemployment rate) and the assumption of a zero discount rate. We show that when the discount rate is positive in a general equilibrium setting (in which real variables not only affect inflation, but are also influenced by it), standard wage-price staggering models can generate both substantial inflation persistence and a nonzero inflation-unemployment tradeoff in the long-run. This is due to frictional growth, a phenomenon that captures the interplay of nominal staggering and permanent monetary changes. We also show that the cumulative amount of inflation undershooting is associated with a downward-sloping NPC in the long-run.


Logo recognition is the task of identifying and classifying logos. Logo recognition is a challenging problem as there is no clear definition of a logo and there are huge variations of logos, brands and re-training to cover every variation is impractical. In this paper, we formulate logo recognition as a few-shot object detection problem. The two main components in our pipeline are universal logo detector and few-shot logo recognizer. The universal logo detector is a class-agnostic deep object detector network which tries to learn the characteristics of what makes a logo. It predicts bounding boxes on likely logo regions. These logo regions are then classified by logo recognizer using nearest neighbor search, trained by triplet loss using proxies. We also annotated a first of its kind product logo dataset containing 2000 logos from 295K images collected from Amazon called PL2K. Our pipeline achieves 97% recall with 0.6 mAP on PL2K test dataset and state-of-the-art 0.565 mAP on the publicly available FlickrLogos-32 test set without fine-tuning.


This paper justifies the treatment of ad-hoc online teams as complex systems. Scenarios exist where collaborative asynchronous processes are necessary to solve a particular problem. These processes are both task related and team related. They have been one focus of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), and socio-psychological investigations into team behaviours and outcomes. Difficulties with the predictability of teams arise because they are complex systems. Software support for enabling teams to establish rules can allow for emergence and also capture expertise (patterns) in a given context. This software can act as an educational tool through the active participation of team members and the application of their rules.


This study examined relationships between authentic leadership and safety climate among 463 seafarers sailing on 23 merchant vessels in the international shipping industry. A multiple regression analysis was performed, where authentic leadership made a statistically significant contribution to explaining variance in safety climate, controlling for age, rank on board, and social desirable responding. Adding an interaction between authentic leadership and rank on board (officers vs. crew) to the multiple regression analysis did not add to the amount of explained variance (R2 = .38). Implications for leadership training and safety in shipping are discussed.


In recent decades, sexualisation within advertising has become the forefront of many research papers discussing its use and effects on both men and women. Women who appear is such advertisements are often portrayed as sexual objects which has led to the decreased internalised sexualisation of young women viewing these advertisements. However, with the rise of post feminism many postfeminist women have learnt to embrace their sexuality and use it to their advantage.

This study aims to explore the sexualisation of women in fashion advertisements today from an Irish Female Millennials' perspective. Specific attention has been given to the participants' attitudes in relation to sexualisation particularly in regards to sexual stimuli, purchase intention and body image. Primary research was conducted using the research method of group interviews, participants were chosen in respective of their working class. This made for an interesting study where findings had the possibility to differentiate based on participant's socio economic backgrounds. Overall, it was found that secondary level educated working class participants were quiet passive when it came to the specified topic, whereas third level educated participants were able to discuss the topic of sexualisation at length.


A new basal land plant, Teruelia diezii gen. et sp. nov., is described from the shallow‐water marine deposits of the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian–Pragian) Nogueras Formation of the Iberian Peninsula (north Gondwana palaeocontinent). Teruelia is preserved as a compression fossil and consists of isotomously branched, robust stems terminated in large, fusiform, twisted sporangia. This morphology suggests that Teruelia is very probably equivalent to Aglaophyton, a permineralized early polysporangiophyte known up to now only from the Lower Devonian (early Pragian to ?earliest Emsian) Rhynie Chert in Scotland (Laurussia palaeocontinent), which represents an early terrestrial hot‐spring ecosystem. Accepted phylogenies identify Aglaophyton as sister to vascular plants. Our phylogeny‐based results identify the Aglaophyton/Teruelia biological entity (i.e. Aglaophyton anatomical characters plus Teruelia external morphology) as the most direct vascular plant precursor. It shows that at least one Rhynie Chert type plant had a much wider distribution than previously known and suggests that Aglaophyton was not restricted to hydrothermal environments, unlike other Rhynie Chert plants.


Can U.S. patent law help American businesses compete in global markets? In early 2011, President Barack Obama argued that, to obtain economic prosperity, the United States must "out-innovate . . . the rest of the world," and that patent reform is a "critical dimension[]" of this innovation agenda. Soon thereafter, Congress enacted the most sweeping reforms to U.S. patent law in more than half a century, contending that the changes will "give American inventors and innovators the 21st century patent system they need to compete." Surprisingly, no legal scholar has assessed whether patent reform is capable of making American firms more competitive in global markets. This Article begins to fill this void by examining whether U.S. patent law can provide U.S. innovators with enhanced incentives to invent. The Article argues that traditional approaches to improving U.S. patent law, including the recent patent reform act, likely will do little to help Americans invent more than their foreign rivals. Nevertheless, helping U.S. businesses compete in global markets is vital to our economic prosperity, as we face a crippling recession, declining innovation capacity, and increasing pressure from foreign competition. Accordingly, this Article argues that federal lawmakers should consider nontraditional approaches to U.S. patent law, including using law to foster a culture in the United States that promotes innovation.


PAGE The Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia stood as a remote landscape in the heart of the Tidewater throughout the historical period. Between ca. 1630 and 1860, thousands of Diasporans took advantage of the remoteness of the swamp in various ways and formed a variety of communities. Within these Diasporic communities were Native Americans, maroons, and enslaved canal company workers who joined or formed communities based on individual and specific reasons for choosing to permanently inhabit the swamp. Diasporic communities emerged on islands in the swamp and the relative locations of these landforms had significant impacts on what kinds of communities would form and persist on each landform. As a result of the florescence of these Diasporic communities, a dynamic political-economic world developed and was sustained in the swamp. This Diasporic world is very poorly understood and recognized in traditional historical discussions and narratives. This exposition utilizes a politicaleconomic landscape perspective that emphasizes community structuration, exile, and alienation in order to interpret the archaeological and historical record at several sites that were explored and partially excavated by the author through the Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study (2003-2006). Using research models developed for this project, it will be demonstrated that communities maintained differing levels or degrees of connectedness to the world outside the swamp throughout the ca. 230 years prior to the Civil War. Each type of community left behind unique archaeological signatures that provide much insight into community structuration, exchange systems, subsistence systems, and daily life. It will also be shown that archaeological materials and information can provide knowledge about how exile and alienation were a dialectical aspect of the pre-Civil War political economy of the swamp. Through this comparative historical archaeological study and its political-economic landscape perspective, we will gain new and unique insights into the Diasporic world of the Great Dismal Swamp.


The data presented in this manuscript describes the binding characteristics of [3H]SB 209670, a potent nonpeptide tritium-labeled endothelin (ET) receptor antagonist. The binding of this antagonist to cloned human ETA and ETB receptors was specific, saturable and of high affinity. The apparent dissociation constants were 0.20 and 1.0 nM for ETA and ETB receptors, respectively. The maximum binding was 4.7 and 22.5 pmol/mg protein for ETA and ETB receptors, respectively. Unlike [125]ET-1, the binding of [3H]SB 209670 was reversible. The half-times (T1/2) for dissociation of this ligand from ETA and ETB receptors were approximately 60 and 10 min, respectively. Competition binding studies using [3H]SB 209670 and unlabeled agonists ET-1, ET-3 and S6c indicated that these agonists displayed similar affinities for human ETB receptors, whereas with ETA receptors, ET-1 was approximately 50-fold and 1500-fold more potent than ET-3 and S6c, respectively. Of the peptide antagonists tested, BQ123 (ETA-selective peptide antagonist), displayed Ki values of 40 and > 2300 nM for ETA and ETB, whereas RES701 (ETB-selective antagonist) displayed Ki values of > 1600 and 81 nM for ETA and ETB receptors, respectively. The nonselective peptide antagonist, PD 142893, was approximately 2-fold more potent for ETA compared with ETB receptors. Similar observations were made with nonselective nonpeptide antagonists, Bosentan, (+/-) SB 209670, SB 209670, and (-) SB 209670. All these compounds were 2 to 10 times more potent for ETA than ETB receptors.


: Data visualization can be powerful in enabling us to make sense of complex data. Expressive data representation – where individuals have control over the nature of the output – is hard to incorporate into existing frameworks and techniques for visualization. The power of informal, rough, expressive sketches in working out ideas is well documented. This points to an opportunity to better understand how expressivity can exist in data visualization creation. We explore the expressive potential of Data Painting through a study aimed at improving our understanding of what people need and make use of in creating novel examples of data expression. Participants use exact measures of paint for data-mapping and then explore the expressive possibilities of free-form data representation. Our intentions are to improve our understanding of expressivity in data visualization; to raise questions as to the creation and use of non-traditional data visualizations; and to suggest directions for expressivity in visualization.


Scientific journals can capture a scholar's research career. A researcher's publication data often reflects his/her research interests and their social relations. It is demonstrated that scientist collaboration networks can be constructed based on co-authorship data from journal papers. The problem with such a network is that researchers are limited within their professional social network. This work proposes the idea of constructing a researcher's social network based on data harvested from metadata of scientific publications and personal online profiles. We hypothesize that data, such as, publication keywords, personal interests, the themes of the conferences where papers are published, and co-authors of the papers, either directly or indirectly represent the authors' research interests, and by measuring the similarity between these data we are able to construct a researcher social network. Based on the four types of data mentioned above, social network graphs were plotted, studied and analyzed. These graphs were then evaluated by the researchers themselves by giving ratings. Based on this evaluation, we estimated the weight for each type of data, in order to blend all data together to construct one ideal researcher's social network. Interestingly, our results showed that a graph based on publication's keywords were more representative than the one based on publication's co-authorship. The findings from the evaluation were used to propose a dynamic social network data model.


Constraining global average temperatures to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels will probably require global energy system emissions to be halved by 2050 and complete decarbonization by 2100. In the nationally orientated climate policy framework codified under the Paris Agreement, each nation must decide the scale and method of their emissions reduction contribution while remaining consistent with the global carbon budget. This policy process will require engagement amongst a wide range of stakeholders who have very different visions for the physical implementation of deep decarbonization. The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) has developed a methodology, building on the energy, climate and economics literature, to structure these debates based on the following principles: country-scale analysis to capture specific physical, economic and political circumstances to maximize policy relevance, a long-term perspective to harmonize short-term decisions with the long-term objective and detailed sectoral analysis with transparent representation of emissions drivers through a common accounting framework or 'dashboard'. These principles are operationalized in the creation of deep decarbonization pathways (DDPs), which involve technically detailed, sector-by-sector maps of each country's decarbonization transition, backcasting feasible pathways from 2050 end points. This article shows how the sixteen DDPP country teams, covering 74% of global energy system emissions, used this method to collectively restrain emissions to a level consistent with the 2 °C target while maintaining development aspirations and reflecting national circumstances, mainly through efficiency, decarbonization of energy carriers (e.g. electricity, hydrogen, biofuels and synthetic gas) and switching to these carriers. The cross-cutting analysis of country scenarios reveals important enabling conditions for the transformation, pertaining to technology research and development, investment, trade and global and national policies. Policy relevance In the nation-focused global climate policy framework codified in the Paris Agreement, the purpose of the DDPP and DDPs is to provide a common method by which global and national governments, business, civil society and researchers in each country can communicate, compare and debate differing concrete visions for deep decarbonization in order to underpin the necessary societal and political consensus to design and implement short-term policy packages that are consistent with long-term global decarbonization.


Surgically modifying the genitals of children — female, male, and intersex — has drawn increased scrutiny in recent years. In Western societies, it is illegal to modify the healthy genitals of female children in any way or to any extent in the absence of a strict medical indication. By contrast, modifying the healthy genitals of male children and intersex children is currently permitted. In this journal in 2015, Stephen R. Munzer discussed a controversial German court case from 2012 (and its aftermath) that called into question the legal status of nontherapeutic male circumcision (NTC), particularly as it is carried out in infancy or early childhood. Whether NTC is legal before an age of consent depends partly upon abstract principles relating to the best interpretation of the relevant laws, and partly upon empirical and conceptual questions concerning the degree to which, and ways in which, such circumcision can reasonably be understood as a harm. In this article, we explore some of these latter questions in light of Professor Munzer's analysis, paying special attention to the subjective, personal, and individually and culturally variable dimensions of judgments about benefit versus harm. We also highlight some of the inconsistencies in the current legal treatment of male versus female forms of nontherapeutic childhood genital alteration, and suggest that problematically gendered assumptions about the sexual body may play a role in bringing about and sustaining such inconsistencies.


i»?i»?Regional monetary and financial cooperation in Asia has been discussed for years. To move towards a coordinated exchange rate policy, Ogawa and Shimizu (2005) proposed both an Asian Monetary Unit (AMU), which is a common currency basket computed as a weighted average of the thirteen ASEAN+3 currencies, and AMU Deviation Indicators (AMU DIs), which indicates the deviation of each Asian currency in terms of the AMU compared with the benchmark rate. The AMU and the AMU DIs are considered both as surveillance measures under the Chiang Mai Initiative and as benchmarks for coordinated exchange rate policies among Asian countries. In this paper, the authors show that monitoring the AMU and the AMU DIs plays an important role in the regional surveillance process under the Chiang Mai Initiative. By using daily and monthly data of AMU and AMU DIs for the period from January 2000 to June 2010, which are available from the website of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (RIETI), they examine their usefulness as a surveillance indicator. Our studies of AMU and AMU DIs confirm the following : first, an AMU peg system stabilizes the nominal effective exchange rate (NEER) of each Asian country. Second, the AMU and the AMU DIs could signal overvaluation or undervaluation for each of the Asian currencies. Third, trade imbalances within the region have been growing as the AMU DIs have been widening. Fourth, the AMU DIs could predict huge capital inflows and outflows for each Asian country. The above findings support the usefulness of using the AMU and the AMU DIs as surveillance indicators for monetary cooperation in Asia.


Abstract. Global models of atmospheric mercury generally assume that gas-phase OH and ozone are the main oxidants converting Hg0 to HgII and thus driving mercury deposition to ecosystems. However, thermodynamic considerations argue against the importance of these reactions. We demonstrate here the viability of atomic bromine (Br) as an alternative Hg0 oxidant. We conduct a global 3-D simulation with the GEOS-Chem model assuming gas-phase Br to be the sole Hg0 oxidant (Hg + Br model) and compare to the previous version of the model with OH and ozone as the sole oxidants (Hg + OH/O3 model). We specify global 3-D Br concentration fields based on our best understanding of tropospheric and stratospheric Br chemistry. In both the Hg + Br and Hg + OH/O3 models, we add an aqueous photochemical reduction of HgII in cloud to impose a tropospheric lifetime for mercury of 6.5 months against deposition, as needed to reconcile observed total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentrations with current estimates of anthropogenic emissions. This added reduction would not be necessary in the Hg + Br model if we adjusted the Br oxidation kinetics downward within their range of uncertainty. We find that the Hg + Br and Hg + OH/O3 models are equally capable of reproducing the spatial distribution of TGM and its seasonal cycle at northern mid-latitudes. The Hg + Br model shows a steeper decline of TGM concentrations from the tropics to southern mid-latitudes. Only the Hg + Br model can reproduce the springtime depletion and summer rebound of TGM observed at polar sites; the snowpack component of GEOS-Chem suggests that 40% of HgII deposited to snow in the Arctic is transferred to the ocean and land reservoirs, amounting to a net deposition flux to the Arctic of 60 Mg a−1. Summertime events of depleted Hg0 at Antarctic sites due to subsidence are much better simulated by the Hg + Br model. Model comparisons to observed wet deposition fluxes of mercury in the US and Europe show general consistency. However the Hg + Br model does not capture the summer maximum over the southeast US because of low subtropical Br concentrations while the Hg + OH/O3 model does. Vertical profiles measured from aircraft show a decline of Hg0 above the tropopause that can be captured by both the Hg + Br and Hg + OH/O3 models, except in Arctic spring where the observed decline is much steeper than simulated by either model; we speculate that oxidation by Cl species might be responsible. The Hg + Br and Hg + OH/O3 models yield similar global budgets for the cycling of mercury between the atmosphere and surface reservoirs, but the Hg + Br model results in a much larger fraction of mercury deposited to the Southern Hemisphere oceans.


Energy security is becoming an increasingly important issue in the energy domain. However, from an economic point of view, many questions related to energy security are still unclear: from its definition and the costs associated to insecurity, to the design of policies intended to reduce it. In this paper we first illustrate why the security of energy supply is and will continue to be a major concern in the next few decades. We subsequently attempt, with a review of the limited literature on these matters, to provide an answer to some of the economic concepts associated to this issue and to the application of corrective public policies in the field.


We compare male and female upward labor income mobility in Germany and the United States using the GSOEP-PSID Cross National Equivalent File. Our main interest is to test whether a glass ceiling exists for women. The standard glass ceiling hypothesis highlights the belief that the playing field is level for women and men in the labor market up to a point, after which there is an effective limit on advancement for women. We examine the glass ceiling hypothesis by looking at the dynamics of the income distribution - the movement of women and men through the distribution of income over time. We find that there is considerable evidence in favor of a glass ceiling both in Germany and the United States. In Germany the glass ceiling is evident in higher incomes while in the United States the glass ceiling is evident at all incomes levels.


Background Older adults are increasingly accessing information and communicating using patient-facing portals available through their providers' electronic health record (EHR). Most theories of technology acceptance and use suggest that patients' overall satisfaction with care should be independent of their chosen level of portal engagement. However, achieving expected benefits of portal use depends on demonstrated support from providers to meet these expectations. This is especially true among older adults, who may require more guidance. However, little is known about whether misalignment of expectations around technology-facilitated care is associated with lower perceptions of care quality. Objective The aims of this study were to analyze whether older adults' assessment of primary care quality differs across levels of patient portal engagement and whether perceptions of how well their provider uses the EHR to support care moderates this relationship. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional survey analysis of 158 older adults over the age of 65 (average age 71.4 years) across Michigan using a 13-measure composite of self-assessed health care quality. Portal use was categorized as none, moderate (use of 1-3 functionalities), or extensive (use of 4-7 functionalities). EHR value perception was measured by asking respondents how they felt their doctor's EHR use improved the patient–provider relationship. Results Moderate portal users, compared to those who were extensive users, had lower estimated care quality (–0.214 on 4-point scale; P=.03). Differences between extensive portal users and nonportal users were not significant. Quality perception was only particularly low among moderate portal users with low EHR value perception; those with high EHR value perception rated quality similarly to other portal user groups. Conclusions Older adults who are moderate portal users are the least satisfied with their care, and the most sensitive to perceptions of how well their provider uses the EHR to support the relationship. Encouraging portal use without compromising perceptions of quality requires thinking beyond patient-focused education. Achieving value from use of patient-facing technologies with older adults is contingent upon matched organizational investments that support technology-enabled care delivery. Providers and staff need policies and practices that demonstrate technology adeptness. Older adults may need more tailored signaling and accommodation for technology to be maximally impactful.


Objective To describe the prevalence of microcephaly in infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in eight private hospitals in south-eastern and midwestern Brazil, from 2011 to 2015. Design Observational, cross-sectional study in a cohort of neonates. Setting Eight private NICUs situated in the cities of Rio de Janeiro (RJ), São Paulo (SP) and Federal District of Brasilia (FDB). Patients Neonates up to 7 days of age and >23 weeks of gestational age. Main outcome measures Primary outcomes were the annual prevalence of microcephaly and severe microcephaly, both overall and in subgroups according to gestational age, type of microcephaly (proportional or disproportional) and the NICU's location in RJ, SP or FDB. Results In this cohort of 8275 neonates admitted to eight private NICUs, the overall prevalence of microcephaly was 5.6% (95% CI 5.1% to 6.1%) and severe microcephaly, 1.5% (95% CI 1.2% to 1.7%). There was no annual variation in these overall estimates (p=0.48 and p=0.99, respectively), nor in the studied subgroups. Microcephaly prevalence was higher in extremely premature and term newborns (7.7% and 7.2%; p<0.001, respectively). Disproportional microcephaly was much more common than proportional microcephaly (prevalence 5.0% vs 0.6%; p<0.001). Conclusions The prevalence of microcephaly showed little variation from 2011 to 2015 in these south-eastern and midwestern Brazilian NICUs, suggesting that the impact of the Zika epidemic in neonates that occurred mainly in the north-eastern region in 2015 did not yet affect the infants of those regions during the studied period. These prevalence results can serve as a reference for comparisons with any future Zika outbreaks in the same or similar populations from these regions.


Understanding the world of R programming and analysis has never been easier Most guides to R, whether books or online, focus on R functions and procedures. But now, thanks to Statistical Analysis with R For Dummies, you have access to a trusted, easy-to-follow guide that focuses on the foundational statistical concepts that R addressesas well as step-by-step guidance that shows you exactly how to implement them using R programming. People are becoming more aware of R every day as major institutions are adopting it as a standard. Part of its appeal is that it's a free tool that's taking the place of costly statistical software packages that sometimes take an inordinate amount of time to learn. Plus, R enables a user to carry out complex statistical analyses by simply entering a few commands, making sophisticated analyses available and understandable to a wide audience. Statistical Analysis with R For Dummies enables you to perform these analyses and to fully understand their implications and results. Gets you up to speed on the #1 analytics/data science software tool Demonstrates how to easily find, download, and use cutting-edge community-reviewed methods in statistics and predictive modeling Shows you how R offers intel from leading researchers in data science, free of charge Provides information on using R Studio to work with R Get ready to use R to crunch and analyze your datathe fast and easy way!


Rapeseed has economic and commercial importance, due to the various application in today's world. Considering the high per capita consumption of vegetable oils and the high dependence on imported oils, special attention has been paid by the government to self-sufficiency in the production of oilseeds; therefore, the evaluation of this product is a very important factor and has an impact. In the present study, technical, allocation and economic measures were performed with Slack-Based Measure (SBM), in order to determine the water use efficiency and its environmental performance in the producing provinces of this product. The statistical data of this study were extracted from the Agricultural Jihad Iran in the years 2014-2015. The average economic efficiency, variable in relation to scale in environmental methods was 0.72. Environmental efficiency showed that the consumption of water and fertilizers was higher in some inefficient provinces. It is recommended that new technologies be used to improve the yield of rapeseed to reduce fertilizer and water use. The productivity of farmer's work rapeseed through their participation in extension classes, improving the irrigation practices and using wastewater treatment.


Pattern Theory provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of the modern challenges in signal, data, and pattern analysis in speech recognition, computational linguistics, image analysis and computer vision. Aimed at graduate students in biomedical engineering, mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering with a good background in mathematics and probability, the text include numerous exercises and an extensive bibliography. Additional resources including extended proofs, selected solutions and examples are available on a companion website. The book commences with a short overview of pattern theory and the basics of statistics and estimation theory. Chapters 3-6 discuss the role of representation of patterns via condition structure. Chapters 7 and 8 examine the second central component of pattern theory: groups of geometric transformation applied to the representation of geometric objects. Chapter 9 moves into probabilistic structures in the continuum, studying random processes and random fields indexed over subsets of Rn. Chapters 10 and 11 continue with transformations and patterns indexed over the continuum. Chapters 12-14 extend from the pure representations of shapes to the Bayes estimation of shapes and their parametric representation. Chapters 15 and 16 study the estimation of infinite dimensional shape in the newly emergent field of Computational Anatomy. Finally, Chapters 17 and 18 look at inference, exploring random sampling approaches for estimation of model order and parametric representing of shapes.


OBJECTIVES
The objective of the study was to study the short-term impact of a brief lifestyle intervention based on yoga on some of the biochemical indicators of risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus.

DESIGN
The variables of interest were measured at the beginning (day 1) and end (day 10) of the intervention using a pre-post design.

SETTING
The study is the result of operational research carried out in our Integral Health Clinic (IHC). The IHC is an outpatient facility which conducts 8-day lifestyle modification programs based on yoga for prevention and management of chronic disease. A new course begins every alternate week of the year.

SUBJECTS
The study is based on data collected on 98 subjects (67 male, 31 female), ages 20-74 years, who attended one of our programs. The subjects were a heterogeneous group of patients with hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, and a variety of other illnesses.

INTERVENTION
The intervention consisted of asanas (postures), pranayama (breathing exercises), relaxation techniques, group support, individualized advice, lectures and films on the philosophy of yoga and the place of yoga in daily life, meditation, stress management, nutrition, and knowledge about the illness.

OUTCOME MEASURES
The outcome measures were fasting plasma glucose and serum lipoprotein profile. These variables were determined in fasting blood samples, taken on the first and last day of the course.

RESULTS
Fasting plasma glucose, serum total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, very- LDL cholesterol, the ratio of total cholesterol to high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and total triglycerides were significantly lower, and HDL cholesterol significantly higher, on the last day of the course compared to the first day of the course. The changes were more marked in subjects with hyperglycemia or hypercholesterolemia.

CONCLUSIONS
The observations suggest that a short lifestyle modification and stress management education program leads to favorable metabolic effects within a period of 9 days.


Abstract The topics of gender and entrepreneurship have been of great scholarly interest since the eighties. In this invited editorial, we provide an overview of the evolution of the field of gender and entrepreneurship. Specifically, we consider the evolution of the field by highlighting the importance of context and the need to consider gender in all future research examining' entrepreneurial activity. Drawing on a contextualized approach we provide an overview of the six articles in this curated special issue with the aim of increasing our understanding of women's entrepreneurial activity. Finally, we conclude with some suggestions for future research. We hope this invited editorial will spur deeper research at the intersections between gender and entrepreneurship.


The only character is the spectator. Alain Resnais One of the major developments in literary criticism over the past decade has been a growing concern with the role of the reader in actualizing and creating meaning. The rise of the reader correlates with the decline of the text as a stable, decipherable entity. Whereas the American New Critics, influenced by the Romantic, organicist view of the text, searched for unifying themes and patterns of imagery, meanings embedded in the text, response critics analyze the production of meaning through the act of reading. The New Critical methodology of retrospective close reading spatialized the text; most response criticism emphasizes the dynamic, temporal aspect of the interaction between text and reader. By redefining the critical enterprise as the description of a process, rather than the discovery of a product (meaning), response critics try to evade the major pitfalls of interpretation. Another likely reason for the shift of critical perspective is the increasingly intense and self-conscious reader involvement demanded by the texts themselves. Just as the New Critical approach offered a way of coping with the intricate, self-referential texture of Modernist writing, so response criticism is itself a response to the "ludic" emphasis in much contemporary literature. Epitomized by Nabokov's novels, such works are primarily constituted, not as representations or criticism of life, or as self-contained artifacts, but as elaborate games with their readers. Their challenge is not so much to our ideas about life as to consciousness itself, to the conventions by which we structure and apprehend "reality." Response critics are particularly attracted to such works, not only because they engage their readers so directly, but also because they dramatize the constructive nature of perception. The relationship between response criticism and developments in hermeneutics and contemporary literature is fairly evident; less obvious, but just as important, are its connections with cinematic experience. In this essay, I propose to examine the work of two of the most influential response criticsStanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser- in relation to film. Although neither critic deals directly with film, the conception of literature underlying their methods is strikingly cinematic, while the methods themselves are often explained through film analogy. Their work is another indication of the extent to which our experience of films has altered, often unconsciously, the way we write, read, and think about literature. In turn, the methods of Fish and Iser offer valuable tools to the practical film critic. We need new ways of analyzing film response. The idea is to restore film to the dynamic, experiential context usually ignored or suppressed by formalists, while avoiding the breezy imprecision of impressionist criticism and the narrow dogmatism of much psychoanalytic study. Of course, both methods entail disadvantages of their own; my claim is not that they offer a complete and infallible account of response, but simply that they bring into relief some of its neglected features. Stanley Fish is best known for the model of reading set forth in his essay "Affective Stylistics: Literature in the Reader" (1970).1 Fish's affective method is simply "an analysis of the developing responses of the reader in relation to the words as they succeed one another in time."2 By "response," Fish means a succession of deliberative acts performed by readers of specifiable linguistic and literary "competence" under pressure of the temporal flow. These acts include "the making and revising of assumptions, the rendering and regretting of judgments, the coming to and abandoning of conclusions, the giving and withdrawing of approval, the specifying of causes, the asking of questions, the supplying of answers, the solving of puzzles."3 Although the acts are primarily cognitive, they result in such emotional experiences as surprise, regret, embarrassment, fulfillment, and frustration. …


Background: The intentions of clinicians are widely considered to be relevant to the ethical assessment of their actions. A better understanding of the psychological factors that influence the ascription of intentions in clinical practice is important for improving the self-understanding of clinical decision-making and, ultimately, the ethics of clinical care. Drawing on empirical research on intentionality that has been done in other contexts, this is the first study to test whether the "asymmetric effect" of intention ascription is exhibited by respondents when presented with clinical decision-making scenarios. Objective: To assess how individuals attribute intentions to clinical actors in clinical decision-making scenarios. Methods: A total of 149 first and second year medical students was randomly assigned to two groups (group A, group B). Subjects in each group read two scenarios and submitted anonymous responses to questions regarding each scenario. Results: The asymmetric effect was strongly exhibited by the responses given to scenario 2, but it was not exhibited by the responses given to scenario 1. Conclusion: The present study provided evidence for the view that people's ascription of intentions to others is influenced by their previous evaluative judgement of the conduct in question.


AIM: To understand and evaluate the effect of a change from a Traditional Model Unit
(TMU) to a Household Model Unit (HMU) for people with dementia, using social
engagement and interactive occupation of residents, staff and relatives as outcome
measures, in order to make recommendations for future nursing home development.
Methods: A mixed methods approach was adopted. Residents, staff and relatives were
observed using a snapshot observational method for 11 days pre renovation and 14 days
post renovation. Pre renovation interviews with staff (n=25) and relatives (n=22) were
contrasted with 19 staff and 14 relatives post renovation interviews.
Results: Residents spent more time in the HMU communal living spaces (p≤.001). They
were more independently active (p≤.001), more socially engaged (p≤.001) and more
involved in interactive occupations (p≤.001).
There were significant increases in the time that staff spent in the room (p≤.001), being
socially engaged with residents (p≤.001), and performing their work tasks (p≤.001).
The data set for relatives was smaller and significance was only achieved in an aggregated
grouping engaged and interactive category (p≤.05).
Qualitative interview data was used to elaborate on this quantitative data. The interview
data was condensed into a multi-component typology of HMU features for future
comparison and research.
Conclusion: Adopting an HMU environment created behavioural changes in interactive
occupation and social engagement of residents, staff and relatives utilizing the main sitting
areas. The physical, operation and social environments which created these changes are
described in detail. Recommendations are made for nursing home environments and future
research.


Managers of exploratory projects might face uncertainties over long timeframes at different levels (e.g., project, portfolio, organization, and network). Although literature offers some guidance on how to deal with uncertainties (mainly at the project level), there is a need for more empirical ground and theoretical development of a systemic approach to the management of uncertainties. To fill this gap, this article employs a multiple case approach in two established firms, investigating six exploratory projects. As main contributions, we identified new categories of uncertainties (primitive, structural, and elementary) and aspects related to managing these uncertainties.


This article offers an empirical exploration on the use of character-level convolutional networks (ConvNets) for text classification. We constructed several large-scale datasets to show that character-level convolutional networks could achieve state-of-the-art or competitive results. Comparisons are offered against traditional models such as bag of words, n-grams and their TFIDF variants, and deep learning models such as word-based ConvNets and recurrent neural networks.


Enterprise survival is about maintaining an identity that is separate from other enterprises. We define flexibility as the ability to change without losing identity. The identity of an enterprise can be analyzed as a set of norms and beliefs about these norms held by its stakeholders, such as customers, employees, suppliers, and investors. Business processes and their support systems maintain invariants that are the result of compromises between the often conflicting norms and beliefs of these stakeholders. We formalize these invariants as values in a state space. Identifying a minimum set of invariants provides a basis for defining flexible processes and support systems. We illustrate the use of this framework with production business process support (BPS) systems.


Background: Patients with chronic disease with stable conditions require continuity of treatment accessible through referral services at primary health facilities.1 There was potential for patients to receive different kind of services by health care practitioners. It may also caused drug-related problems.2 Pharmacist had strategic role in the medication management of chronic diseases, to deliver pharmaceutical care.3 Aim: To identify drug related problems of elderly patient who's receiving insulin. Materials and Methods: A logbook of chronic disease treatment in the integrated service station for elderly (Posyandu Lansia) at Indonesia, East Java, Surabaya was assessed with the Medication Therapy Review (MTR) as systematic process of collecting patient information specifically, to identify drug-related issues, developing a priority list of drug-related issues, and making plans to address them. Results: There was many drug therapy problems such as inappropriateness of insulin types selection, drug substitution without information, patient received an excess amount of insulin pen, incorrect insulin storage and needs attention due to insulin stability. Discussion: Evolving role of community pharmacist through MTR service can improve the patient's understanding of the medications, address any concerns of drug therapy problems, empowering patients to perform self-management and patient health conditions especially in elderly patient and patient using specific device.4 Key words : Continuity of care, Drug-related problems, Community pharmacist, MTR.


Phospholipases A2 (PLA2) are a family of enzymes that release fatty acids from phospholipids and play varied and important roles in the biology of all organisms. Secreted phospholipases A2 (sPLA2) are the largest subfamily of PLA2. sPLA2 expression levels have been positively correlated to the severity of multiple inflammatory diseases. Many sPLA2 inhibitors have been developed and tested, however, none have shown to be clinically effective and specific against individual enzymes within this family. In this study we discovered an inhibition phenomenon in a widely used sPLA2 enzymatic assay. The enzymatic rate of reaction of sPLA2 group IIA from Crotalus adamanteus was significantly reduced when negatively charged lipids were added at very low mole fractions. This inhibition phenomenon did not occur if the lipid added was either positively charged or polar but neutral. These results suggest that the standard assay should be re-optimized to prevent this nonspecific inhibition and that the literature may need to be reevaluated.


Abstract Mobile communication technologies can provide citizens access to information that is tailored to their specific circumstances. Such technologies may therefore increase citizens' ability to vote in line with their interests and hold politicians accountable. In a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Uganda (n = 16,083), we investigated whether citizens who receive private, timely, and individualized text messages by mobile phone about public services in their community punished or rewarded incumbents in local elections in line with the information. Respondents claimed to find the messages valuable and there is evidence that they briefly updated their beliefs based on the messages; however, the treatment did not cause increased votes for incumbents where public services were better than expected nor decreased votes where public services were worse than anticipated. The considerable knowledge gaps among citizens identified in this study indicate potential for communication technologies to effectively share civic information. Yet the findings imply that when the attribution of public service outcomes is difficult, even individualized information is unlikely to affect voting behavior.


Importance
The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest global test of health leadership of our generation. There is an urgent need to provide guidance for leaders at all levels during the unprecedented preresolution recovery stage.

Objective
To create an evidence- and expertise-informed framework of leadership imperatives to serve as a resource to guide health and public health leaders during the postemergency stage of the pandemic.

Evidence Review
A literature search in PubMed, MEDLINE, and Embase revealed 10 910 articles published between 2000 and 2021 that included the terms leadership and variations of emergency, crisis, disaster, pandemic, COVID-19, or public health. Using the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence reporting guideline for consensus statement development, this assessment adopted a 6-round modified Delphi approach involving 32 expert coauthors from 17 countries who participated in creating and validating a framework outlining essential leadership imperatives.

Findings
The 10 imperatives in the framework are: (1) acknowledge staff and celebrate successes; (2) provide support for staff well-being; (3) develop a clear understanding of the current local and global context, along with informed projections; (4) prepare for future emergencies (personnel, resources, protocols, contingency plans, coalitions, and training); (5) reassess priorities explicitly and regularly and provide purpose, meaning, and direction; (6) maximize team, organizational, and system performance and discuss enhancements; (7) manage the backlog of paused services and consider improvements while avoiding burnout and moral distress; (8) sustain learning, innovations, and collaborations, and imagine future possibilities; (9) provide regular communication and engender trust; and (10) in consultation with public health and fellow leaders, provide safety information and recommendations to government, other organizations, staff, and the community to improve equitable and integrated care and emergency preparedness systemwide.

Conclusions and Relevance
Leaders who most effectively implement these imperatives are ideally positioned to address urgent needs and inequalities in health systems and to cocreate with their organizations a future that best serves stakeholders and communities.


Zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) adsorbed on the InSb(0 0 1)-c(8 x 2) surface has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Coverages from sub-monolayer to monolayer (ML) have been investigated. The molecules form ordered structures on the reconstructed rows of the surface with the molecular plane parallel to the surface. A change in the electronic structure between the sub-ML and higher coverages has been observed. Moreover, in order to study the influence of annealing on the electronic and geometric structures, the samples have been heated to elevated temperatures (about 640 K). In addition, multi-layer ZnPc films have been characterized by XPS measurements.


We assessed the effect of "healed" childhood renal disease on subsequent pregnancies by following-up a cohort of 224 children initially hospitalized with kidney disease. The pregnancy experience in this cohort was compared to two "control" cohorts comprising 81 female siblings and 191 age-matched female patients hospitalized contemporaneously for respiratory infection. The incidence of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, and pregnancy-associated hypertension was not different among the cohorts; however, the incidence of infants with low birth weights was significantly greater in the renal and respiratory disease groups. Childhood kidney disease followed by impaired renal function (serum creatinine greater than 1.5 mg/dL) was associated with greater maternal and fetal morbidity. Kidney disease in childhood followed by apparent healing and no functional renal impairment does not have an adverse effect on maternal welfare, although the incidence of infants with low birth weight is apparently increased.


The majority of Muslim countries face increasing pressure on their budget, which pushes to more public spending. Eventually, the main victim of this situation will be the welfare of Muslim communities. Despite Islam does not tolerate negligence regarding the importance of State as major player in preserving the welfare of Muslim communities, it offers a third option to support public effort through the institution of Waqf. Indeed, this institution has played a crucial role all along Muslim civilization and it is invited to more innovation to answer to today's challenges. Sukuk-Waqf can be seen as the perfect sustainable financing instrument offered by Islam to help sustain public spending by the people and for the people. This paper will try to examine the concept of Waqf, cash Waqf and Sukuk Waqf is Islam and their evolution during Muslim civilization. Finally, it will go through modern attempts to implement this model that can answer the need for financing to support public effort to preserve the welfare of Muslim citizens.


Since the first reports between the association of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and neoplasia, there has been a dramatic change in the incidence and epidemiology of AIDS-related malignancies. Kaposi sarcoma (KS), non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL), and cervical cancer are classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as AIDS-defining malignancies. However, since the availability of highly active combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), especially protease inhibitors, there has been a steady increase in non- AIDS defining malignancies, such as Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), lung cancer, hepatocellular cancer, anal cancer and others and a decline in AIDS-defining neoplasias. Although the emergence of non-AIDS defining cancers could be a result of longer life expectancy and due to a better control of HIV, toxic habits and co-infection with other viruses such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human papilloma virus (HPV) could play an important role. The interactions of cART and incomplete immune reconstitution could be other factors explaining the increase in non-AIDS defining cancers. These emerging non-AIDS defining malignancies present a new challenge in the care of patients with HIV infection, and require optimal treatment protocols that take into consideration the interaction between cART and systemic chemotherapy. We review the current status of AIDS-related malignancies, its pathophysiology, epidemiology and management with emphasis in the changing patterns of presentation.


There are a number of near-field measurement situations where it is desirable to use a broad band probe to avoid the need to change the probe a number of times during a measurement. But most of the broad band probes do not have low cross polarization patterns over their full operating frequency range and this can cause large uncertainties in the AUT results. Calibration of the probe and the use of probe pattern data to perform probe correction can in principle reduce the uncertainties. This paper reports on a series of measurements that have been performed to demonstrate and quantify the cross polarization levels and associated uncertainties that can be measured with typical log periodic (LP) probes. Two different log periodic antennas were calibrated on a spherical near-field range using open ended waveguides (OEWG) as probes. Since the OEWG has an on-axis cross polarization that is typically at least 50 dB below the main component, and efforts were made to reduce measurement errors, the LP calibration should be very accurate. After the calibration, a series of standard gain horns (SGH) that covered the operating band of the LP probe were then installed on the spherical near-field range in the AUT position and measurements were made using both the LP probes and the OEWG in the probe position. The cross polarization results from measurements using the OEWG probes where then used as the standard to evaluate the results using the LP probes. Principal plane patterns, axial ratio and tilt angles across the full frequency range were compared to establish estimates of uncertainties. Examples of these results over frequency ranges from 300 MHz to 12 GHz will be presented.


A likelihood ratio is proposed for moving target detection in a wideband (WB) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system. WB is defined here as any systems having a large fractional bandwidth, i.e., an ultra wide frequency band combined with a wide antenna beam. The developed method combines time-domain fast backprojection SAR processing methods with moving target detection using space-time processing. The proposed method reduces computational load when sets of relative speeds can be tested using the same clutter-suppressed subaperture beams. The proposed method is tested on narrowband radar data.


We report on a series of analogue modeling experiments that study the oroclinal buckling process as a thick-skinned process involving the entire lithosphere. The results obtained in the experiments suggest that, during oroclinal buckling, extension in the outer arc and significant shortening in the inner arc are produced by tangential longitudinal strain as the main mechanism of deformation. The models also reveal that the mantle lithosphere thickens in different noncylindrical ways depending on the initial lithospheric mantle thickness: from almost recumbent to folding with subvertical axial planes for the thinnest to the thickest mantle lithosphere, respectively. The results provide useful insights into thick-skinned orocline buckling as it is interpreted to have happened in the Iberian-Armorican Arc.


In order to study in the field of the dynamics and continuous variations in the ionosphere, the ionospheric measurement tools such as ionosondes, incoherent scatter radars, satellites, and Global Positioning System (GPS) networks should be used. Total Electron Content (TEC) is a key parameter in the investigation and identification of ionosphere layer. From observations of dual frequency GPS receivers, the ionospheric TEC can be extracted. Global Ionospheric Maps (GIM) are auxiliary Maps for a study on ionosphere layer in around the world. It is necessary to produce the regional TEC map for precise studying of the ionospheric TEC. Bernese software is used to extract TEC by dual frequency GPS receivers. Regional modeling of ionospheric TEC by Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is a significant domain for prediction TEC at both single and double frequency GPS receivers. Five locations in Iran during the period of 2006-2010 were identified and used in the development of an input space and ANN architecture for the TEC modeling. The input space included the day number (seasonal variation), hour (diurnal variation), sunspot number (a measure of the solar activity) and magnetic index (a measure of magnetic activity). Based on the results, the ANN have capability and flexibility to model and to predict TEC. TEC predicted by ANN A (NN TEC) and TEC obtained from the IRI2007 version of the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI TEC) are compared during equinoxes and solstices. Results show that ANN predicts GPS TEC more accurately than the IRI over Iran. The IRI-2007 model is not a suitable method to produce TEC over IRAN.


Chinese poetry is closely associated with the Confucian notion that literature is primarily informative and didactic, serving a social and moral purpose, as reflected in the proverbial saying "shi yan zhi" [poetry expresses intent]. In the early twentieth century, Chinese vernacular poetry emerged as a crucial part of Chinese intellectuals' elaborate efforts to meet the enormous challenge of combining the external imperatives of national salvation with the internal prerequisites of enlightenment. Anti-traditionalism was a principal notion in this genre's formative period. This paper considers the social role of poetry in China. It argues that the quest for emancipation from the traditional ethics of subordination and submissiveness is manifest in modern Chinese poetry, but this genre does not completely depart from tradition.


Losses constitute a significant part of the total cost of ownership of power transformers. Since these losses have an impact on the environment as well, the European Union has issued a regulation with regard to losses in power transformers, as part of the sustainable energy policies of the Ecodesign Directive. Already for many years, commercial power transformer loss measurement (TLM) systems are used by power transformer manufacturers for verification of the loss specifications of their products. With the new commission regulation, it is more than ever important to calibrate these TLM systems to assure and demonstrate an independently verified accuracy in the tests. Two approaches can be used in calibrations of TLM systems: a component and a system calibration approach. The latter has the advantage that all influence factors of the complete TLM system are taken into account in the calibration. Using state of the art reference equipment, in both approaches calibration accuracies can be achieved down to 20 parts in 10 6 in magnitude and 1 m in phase, at least a factor 5 better than typical TLM system specifications.


Demographic changes and existing water use patterns have placed tremendous pressures upon water supplies, particularly in the West. Global climate change will exacerbate pressures on water resources. The gradual warming of the atmosphere is certain to change the distribution and availability of water supplies, with potentially severe consequences for freshwater supplies. While climate change will have a significant impact on water resources through changes in the timing and volume of precipitation, altered evaporation rates, and the like, the precise nature, magnitude, timing, and distribution of such climate-induced changes are unknown. This uncertainty complicates the task of water managers who are already faced with escalating demands. This article argues that climate change, and its projected effects on water use and supply, calls for a fundamental reexamination of water institutions. In particular, this article suggests that market-based institutions are well suited to address the additional pressures on water supplies due to climate change. Many aspects of water markets, including their flexibility, decentralized nature, and ability to create and harness economic incentives, make them particularly well suited to address the uncertain water forecast. A gradual shift toward water marketing and market pricing will improve the management of water supplies, ensure more efficient allocation of available water supplies and encourage cost-effective conservation measures.


It is not immediately apparent why a state would willingly abolish the death penalty and thereby lose a powerful political instrument. The fact that some states abolish capital punishment while others retain it has thus far been explained by systematic differences in the values of politicians or citizens. An explanation of different behavior based on different preferences for such behavior is, however, largely tautological and not of much use to social science. This article proposes and empirically tests a political economy model in which rational politicians are more likely to abolish the death penalty when it is of no political use to them and if the process of abolition serves as a self-commitment in periods of transition. The results of estimating stratified Cox regression models show that the death penalty tends to be abolished particularly during periods of democratization and transitions to peace, but also that independence of the judiciary can encourage abolition. In contrast, military dictatorships are significantly more likely to retain capital punishment, as are countries with a common law legal system and those that are strongly politically influenced by Islam. These findings support the view that the abolition of capital punishment is at least partly motivated by rational political considerations.


This thesis is an inquiry into the nature of the high-level, rhetorical structure of unrestricted natural language texts, computational means to enable its derivation, and two applications (in automatic summarization and natural language generation) that follow from the ability to build such structures automatically.
The thesis proposes a first-order formalization of the high-level, rhetorical structure of text. The formalization assumes that text can be sequenced into elementary units; that discourse relations hold between textual units of various sizes; that some textual units are more important to the writer's purpose than others; and that trees are a good approximation of the abstract structure of text. The formalization also introduces a linguistically motivated compositionality criterion, which is shown to hold for the text structures that are valid.
The thesis proposes, analyzes theoretically, and compares empirically four algorithms for determining the valid text structures of a sequence of units among which some rhetorical relations hold. Two algorithms apply model-theoretic techniques; the other two apply proof-theoretic techniques.
The formalization and the algorithms mentioned so far correspond to the theoretical facet of the thesis. An exploratory corpus analysis of cue phrases provides the means for applying the formalization to unrestricted natural language texts. A set of empirically motivated algorithms were designed in order to determine the elementary textual units of a text, to hypothesize rhetorical relations that hold among these units, and eventually, to derive the discourse structure of that text. The process that finds the discourse structure of unrestricted natural language texts is called rhetorical parsing.
The thesis explores two possible applications of the text theory that it proposes. The first application concerns a discourse-based summarization system, which is shown to significantly outperform both a baseline algorithm and a commercial system. An empirical psycholinguistic experiment not only provides an objective evaluation of the summarization system, but also confirms the adequacy of using the text theory proposed here in order to determine the most important units in a text. The second application concerns a set of text planning algorithms that can be used by natural language generation systems in order to construct text plans in the cases in which the high-level communicative goal is to map an entire knowledge pool into text.


The detection of more than 130 multiple planet systems makes it necessary to interpret a broader range of properties than are shown by our Solar system. This thesis covers aspects linked to the proliferation in recent years of multiple extrasolar planet systems. A narrow observational window, only partially covering the longest orbital period, can lead to solutions representing unrealistic scenarios. The best-fit solution for the three-planet extrasolar system of HD 181433 describes a highly unstable configuration. Taking into account the dynamical stability as an additional observable while interpreting the RV data, I have analysed the phase space in the neighbourhood of the statistical best-fit. The two giant companions are found to be locked in the 5:2 MMR in the stable best-fit model. I have analysed the dynamics of the system HD 181433 by assessing different scenarios that may explain the origin of these eccentric orbits, with particular focus on the innermost body. A scenario is considered in which the system previously contained an additional giant planet that was ejected during a period of dynamical instability among the planets. Also considered is a scenario in which the spin-down of the central star causes the system to pass through secular resonance. In its simplest form this latter scenario fails to produce the system observed. If additional short-period low mass planets are present in the system, I find that mutual scattering can release planet b from the secular resonance, leading to a system with orbital parameters similar to those observed today. Finally, I have studied the evolution of low mass planets interacting with a gas-giant planet embedded in a gaseous disc. The transit timing method allows the detection of non-transiting planets through their gravitational perturbations. I have investigated the detectability of low mass planets neighbouring short-period giants after protoplanetary disc dispersal.


One of the most challenging tasks today in advanced nursing education is to evaluate or assess clinical competence objectively.  Traditional methods of assessment such as written exams do not necessarily correlate well with clinical ability and skill.  Currently, faculty members supervising nurse practitioner students rely on individual preceptors and periodic site visits to evaluate student performance in the clinical setting.  A lack of standardization between mentors, the vast differences in patient encounters, and the tendency of preceptors to give hyper-inflated marks hamper the objectivity of this measure for clinical competence.  Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE) provide a reliable and equitable measure of student performance and clinical proficiency.  Using Benner's Novice to Expert model, faculty members translate both preceptor ratings and OSCE scores into descriptors: each nurse practitioner student is rated as an advanced beginner, competent, proficient, or expert practitioner.  Faculty members at a Midwest University Family Nurse Practitioner program compared preceptor ratings of students with the students' OSCE scores to determine if there was any correlation between the two variables.  A Spearman rho correlation coefficient determined a weak positive correlation between preceptor ratings and OSCE scores. Results suggest that OSCE scores are a reliable measure of student clinical proficiency.  Histograms give visual evidence of preceptor hyper-inflation of ratings.  Findings indicate that OSCEs can be used for objective student measurement of clinical competence when travel to clinical sites is hampered by distance, time, and low client census.


This dissertation consists of a critical component, "Searching for Gills: Fieldwork Meditations" and Scorper, a novel. Each essay in the critical study is devoted to a particular aspect of my novel - literary antecedents that inform style and content, real events that prefigure plots and subplots, personal struggles which darkly and sometimes comically affect tone, places that ground settings; and the individuals, ghosts, and uncanny animals who surface as characters. Part transatlantic literary memoir, part critical discussion, this collection provides a background to the philosophical and psychological roots of my writing, encapsulates my evolving vision of fiction, and contextualizes Scorper.
I begin by describing the backdrop behind The Gravedigger. I connect this novel's Sussex setting, its themes of graves and mortality, and its link to graduate writing workshops - all of which prefigure Scorper. Next, I examine the influence of Austrian author Thomas Bernhard, in particular his method of comedic writing that creates unease. After this essay I guide the reader on a literary survey of the animals and animal characters which inform my sense of the uncanny - a construct underpinning my own animal depictions. In "Searching for Gills" I take a walk from Corsham to Bradford-on-Avon on a hunt for a living descendant of the artist Eric Gill, whose ghost forms a central role in my book; and in my final essay I explore the sometimes uncomfortable connections between my drinking and my writing.
Scorper is a dark comedy about an American copy editor on holiday in Ditchling, East Sussex. The mentally unstable protagonist is on an existential search for meaning, but his psychological health is exacerbated by Ditchling and the cabal of brother/sister alliances within the town. Written in second person narrative voice, the chief themes of the novel are alienation, mental fragility, and transatlantic miscommunication. While the issues examined in my book can be sobering, Scorper is intended as a satirical piece of entertainment.


Littorina littorea (periwinkles) have been harvested by hand picking from the shore since prehistoric times. Harvests are generally unregulated, catches are not linked to particular shores and fisheries statistics are considered to be unreliable. The absence of key data has made it difficult to develop harvesting recommendations. Surveys around Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland were used to investigate the size structure and relationships among densities in different size classes. Three size classes were identified in surveyed L. littorea , with mean shell lengths of 0.81, 1.56 and 2.48 cm. Assuming that the age classes represent year classes, data across different shores suggested that the ratio between densities in successive year classes was not constant. Proportionally fewer individuals were found in the larger, older, size class as the density of the smaller size class on a shore increased. This density-dependent relationship was modelled with a Ricker curve for the year 1 to year 2 and the year 2 to year 3 transitions. The predicted transition rates from Ricker curves were used in a size-structured model to describe L. littorea dynamics. An emergent property of the size-structured model is a decline in mean shell length with overall density of a population. This prediction was supported by the survey data from Strangford Lough and by an independent survey of Irish shores. The size-structured model predicts potential harvests of individuals above 2.06 cm as a function of recruitment rate. Maximum harvest was predicted for a density of 5 year 1 individuals m −2 , leading to 13.8 year 3 individuals m −2 or an estimated annual harvest weight of 67 g m −2 . Modelled estimates of production provide a means to value shores and develop harvest predictions for management purposes.


The clues to a series of remorseless killings go up in smoke--and only Kay Scarpetta can find them in this #1 New York Times bestseller from Patricia Cornwell. "Sears its way into the psyche...Ablaze with Cornwell's finest, scariest writing."--Atlanta Journal Constitution The devastating fire tore through the horse farm, destroying everything it touched. Picking through the wreckage, Dr. Kay Scarpetta uncovers human remains--the work of an audacious and wily killer who uses fire to mask his brutal murders. And when Scarpetta learns that her old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, has escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is somehow involved, the investigation becomes personal. Tragedy strikes close to home. And Scarpetta must match Grethen's every move with one of her own to douse the inferno of evil that threatens everyone around her... Includes an Introduction by the Author


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are largely preventable through risk analysis and modification of practice. Anaesthetic practice plays a limited role in the prevention of HAIs, although laryngoscope use and decontamination is an area of concern. We aimed to assess the level of microbial contamination of re-usable laryngoscope blades at a public hospital in South Africa.

SETTING
The theatre complex of a secondary-level public hospital in Johannesburg.

METHODS
Blades from two different theatres were sampled twice daily, using a standardised technique, over a 2-week period. Samples were quantitatively assessed for microbial contamination, and stratified by area on blade, theatre and time using Fisher's exact test.

RESULTS
A contamination rate of 57.3% (63/110) was found, with high-level contamination accounting for 22.2% of these. Common commensals were the most frequently isolated micro-organisms (79.1%), but important hospital pathogens such as Enterobacter species and Acinetobacter baumannii were isolated from blades with high-level contamination. No significant difference in the level of microbial contamination by area on blade, theatre or time was found (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
A combination of sub-optimal decontamination and improper handling of laryngoscopes after decontamination results in significant microbial contamination of re-usable laryngoscope blades. There is an urgent need to review protocols and policies surrounding the use of these blades.


Surface triangulation is an active area of research due to its wide usage in a range of different computer aided applications, including computer aided design (CAD), manufacture (CAM) and finite element analysis (FEA). Although these applications are used to create, interrogate, manipulate and analyse surfaces, internally they actually approximate the surface geometry using a triangulation and then operate on the triangles, making them triangulation dependant algorithms. However, despite the reliance on the triangulation by the downstream application, there is very little work which has been focused on the inherent affects of the underlying triangulation on the performance or result of the application. Therefore, the impact of the triangulation on the downstream application is still not well known or defined. This thesis investigates triangulation and the downstream effects on the triangulation dependant method of surface flattening. Two novel topics are explored, notably right angle triangulation configurations (RATCs) and axis of minimum principal curvature (AMPC) influenced triangulations, each which was found to have an impact on the triangulation dependant method of surface flattening. Right angle triangles (RATs) are commonly used throughout surface flattening. However, given a set of uniformly sampled points, there are many different ways in which the diagonals can be placed to form a final triangulation consisting of RATs. These different configurations of edges are introduced as RATCs. To investigate the effects of RATCs on surface flattening, three global configurations are proposed; regular, diamond and chevron. In addition, local variations of RATCs are explored by fitting RATCs that best approximated the local Gaussian curvature of the original surface. Also considered is the influence of triangulation developability and its effects on flattening. Developable surfaces should flatten without inducing any area or shape distortion. However, it is shown that the transfer of this developabilty information from the surface to the triangulation can be lost. It is established that skewing the vertices of a triangulation so that no triangle edges followed along the AMPC, causes the flattening to induce distortion. As the shape of a triangulation is defined by its edges, if no edges follow along the AMPC, this means that the triangulation will not inherit this shape characteristic. Therefore, a new method is proposed to triangulate a surface, whilst ensuring that one edge of every triangle follows along the general direction of the AMPC. This thesis also introduces a new efficient and robust parametric trimmed surface triangulation method. Efficiency is gained during trimmed curve tracing by minimising the number of cells processed. Key features are the efficient tracing algorithm and knowledge of orientation of the trimming curves is not required. This approach also minimises the occurrence of degenerate triangles and copes with holes independently of the grid size.


Abstract Using a focused ion beam (FIB) instrument, electron-transparent samples (termed foils) have been cut from the naturally weathered surfaces of perthitic alkali feldspars recovered from soils overlying the Shap granite, northwest England. Characterization of these foils by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has enabled determination of the crystallinity and chemical composition of near-surface regions of the feldspar and an assessment of the influence of intragranular microtextures on the microtopography of grain surfaces and development of etch pits. Damage accompanying implantation of the 30 kV Ga+ ions used for imaging and deposition of protective platinum prior to ion milling creates amorphous layers beneath outer grain surfaces, but can be overcome by coating grains with >85 nm of gold before FIB work. The sidewalls of the foil and feldspar surrounding original voids are also partially amorphized during later stages of ion milling. No evidence was found for the presence of amorphous or crystalline weathering products or amorphous "leached layers" immediately beneath outer grain surfaces. The absence of a leached layer indicates that chemical weathering of feldspar in the Shap soils is stoichiometric, or if non-stoichiometric, either the layer is too thin to resolve by the TEM techniques used (i.e., ≤~2.5 nm) or an insufficient proportion of ions have been leached from near-surface regions so that feldspar crystallinity is maintained. No evidence was found for any difference in the mechanisms of weathering where a microbial filament rests on the feldspar surface. Sub-micrometer-sized steps on the grain surface have formed where subgrains and exsolution lamellae have influenced the propagation of fractures during physical weathering, whereas finer scale corrugations form due to compositional or strain-related differences in dissolution rates of albite platelets and enclosing tweed orthoclase. With progressive weathering, etch pits that initiated at the grain surface extend into grain interiors as etch tubes by exploiting preexisting networks of nanopores that formed during the igneous history of the grain. The combination of FIB and TEM techniques is an especially powerful way of exploring mechanisms of weathering within the "internal zone" beneath outer grain surfaces, but results must be interpreted with caution owing to the ease with which artifacts can be created by the high-energy ion and electron beams used in the preparation and characterization of the foils