: Caregiving stress and burden are universal phenomena among family caregivers of people with dementia. Family caregivers who adopted adaptive management strategies in dementia care could alleviate their own distress and the progression of neuropsychiatric symptoms in people with dementia. An understanding about the management strategies used by these caregivers in caring for their relatives with dementia would be crucial to family services in dementia care. This study aimed to validate a Chinese version of Dementia Management Strategies Scale (DMSS) in family caregivers of Hong Kong Chinese people with dementia. Face and content validity, semantic equivalence, and test–retest reliability of the translated Chinese version of 34-item DMSS were examined. A random sample of 211 family caregivers and their relatives with dementia were then recruited to identify the factor structure of the Chinese version by exploratory factor analysis followed by varimax rotation and assess its internal consistency. Reproductibility and responsiveness of the scale to changes in neuropsychiatric symptoms were also examined over a 6-month interval. Results indicated that the Chinese version of DMSS indicated very satisfactory content validity, semantic equivalence with the original English version, and test–retest reliability. Factor analysis showed that 32 items of the Chinese version had substantial loadings on one of the three identified factors ("Criticism toward older relative", "Showing encouragement", and "Active management strategies"), explaining 72.4% of the total variance. The three-factor Chinese version also indicated good internal consistency of its three subscales (Cronbach's α= 0.86–0.90) and satisfactory reproducibility over 6 months (intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.85–0.89). Furthermore, the Chinese version demonstrated moderate effect sizes for detecting changes in symptom severity of dementia (Cohen's d = 0.50–0.60). This study provides evidence on the sound psychometric properties of the Chinese version of DMSS to measure the levels of management strategies in family caregivers of people with dementia.


Rats were trained to discriminate an injection of cocaine, 5.0 mg/kg, from an injection of saline, using a two-lever choice paradigm: one lever was correct after cocaine injection, the other lever was correct after a saline injection. After training, cocaine and methamphetamine were generalized to the cocaine lever, but phenethylamine (PEA) was only partially generalized. Cocaine was injected every 8 hrs, 20.0 mg/kg, and the discriminability of 5.0 mg/kg was tested every other day. Redetermination of the cocaine generalization curve after 6 days of chronic administration showed a shift to the right, from an ED50 of 4.1 mg/kg in the pre-chronic condition to 10.0 mg/kg. Tolerance did not develop to the behavioral effects of cocaine, measured by time to the first reinforcement and response rate. There was cross-tolerance to methamphetamine; however, no evidence for cross-tolerance to PEA was obtained. Following the acquisition of tolerance, chronic administration of cocaine was terminated, and the discriminability of 5.0 mg/kg was tested every other day for loss of tolerance. After 8 days the ED50 returned to 5.0 mg/kg.


South African healthcare practitioners who compile reports on claimants on behalf of others, for example insurers, often face a dilemma when claimants request access to their reports. A search of the literature revealed limited guidance for such healthcare practitioners that accurately reflects practice issues, and takes cognisance of the Promotion to Access to Information and Protection of Personal Information Acts (PAIA and POPIA). Since private practices are exempt from producing PAIA manuals, practitioners are not expected to be familiar with access to information processes beyond the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) guidelines. Based on a comparative analysis of the POPIA, PAIA and HPCSA guidelines, this article makes recommendations to practitioners and the HPCSA. Practitioners who have once-off engagements with claimants (without a prior therapeutic relationship) to establish claimants' eligibility for contractual benefits should refer claimants' access requests to the instructing party. As a statutory regulator, the HPCSA should align its guidelines with other legislation and incorporate the provisions of POPIA and PAIA to better guide and protect practitioners.


Spain possesses some of the most important examples of gypsum karst in Europe, in terms of the extent and variety of the gypsiferous outcrops. These are divided into gypsum belonging to the Triassic, Palaeogene and Neogene epochs, each of which displays different lithological and structural aspects. Some of Spain's most significant gypsum karsts, from the speleological stand-point, are described, and these share a common characteristic of all supporting the development of large caves. Reference is made to the geomorphology, hydrogeology and hydrochemistry of the gypsum karsts of Sorbas, Vallada and Gobantes-Meliones, which provide significant examples of intrastratal karst, speleogenesis by saline groundwater mixing and the influence of carbonate strata, respectively. Finally, brief geomorphological and speleogenetic descriptions of the more significant gypsum caves in Spain are given, together with a list of the longest and deepest gypsum caves in Spain.


The Mediterranean-rim countries hold around 400 million people and 135 million of them live on the coast. A steady migration towards coastal areas, specifically in the south and east of the Mediterranean, is causing pressure on the coastal environment and, more importantly, on its biodiversity. In this second Mediterranean regional assessment, all the reptile and amphibian species existing within the region of study have been evaluated for their global conservation status. This assessment aims to assist in regional planning and to help identify internationally important sites for biodiversity. Like the first in the series, it also hopes to encourage development of a network of regional experts to enable future assessments and the continued updating of the baseline dataset.


The possibility of using MS paint, the drawing accessory of MS window, as a simple 'weave and colour pattern' designing software to prepare simulations of shot, stripe, cross over and check fabrics with required weave and colour pattern has been explored in the study. Usefulness of different menu and tools of MS paint has been observed with another perspective. The steps involved in preparing different styles of warp and weft colour patterns in required number of ends and picks per repeat respectively has been studied. Preparation of simple weaves, viz. plain, twill, sateen and its derivatives has also been done. The procedures involved in overlapping/merging the required colour pattern with desired weave have been recorded systematically. It is observed that without making any additional programming, the existing menu and tools of MS paint are directly useful to design a repeat of any weave with any colour pattern and then repeat it into required number of times to get the colour simulation of desired fabric. It is noted that MS paint could be used as simple designing software by the beginners in textile designing who intend to design 'weave and colour pattern' for the decentralized handloom and powerloom textile units at any place using any computer operated by MS window.


This essay builds on post-colonial theory and black literary theory to pose a pair of questions. If the reading of Western literature can be enriched by examining the great canonical texts through the lens of race, can a similar enrichment obtain from using a similar reading practice to read the law? Stanley Fish has argued that we each belong to interpretive communities, and that members of these communities are guided in their readings of texts by a common consciousness, which produces interpretive "strategies [that] exist prior to the act of reading and therefore determine the shape of what is read." If this is true, what does it mean for the study of law to have a community of black readers? This essay engages these questions and attempts to describe a reading practice of reading black. To illustrate the reading practice, the essay examines two cases that do not appear to be engaged in race work at all, The Queen v. Dudley & Stephens, and Muller v. Oregon. The essay demonstrates that far from diminishing these opinions - these grand narratives, these master texts - reading black reveals other layers, other meanings, and in the process deepens and widens our understanding not only of the holdings of these opinions, but also the how and why of them.


Idioms are set of words whose meanings are not easy to understand or guess from the literal usual meaning of those words. The present study is an attempt to show the relationship between Idiomatic Knowledge and Second Language Proficiency of undergraduate students of English in some Kurdistan Region/ Iraq universities. The study has been carried out at English Departments of seven randomly selected Kurdistan universities using a quantitative method to highlight the level of the students in understanding idioms and the challenges or the difficulties they face in using them. Two tests have been adopted to get the data from the departments concerned after getting official permissions. Definitions by different linguists and dictionaries with classifications of idioms are provided. Then, some detected problems have been displayed and analyzed such as avoidance, competence and culture. Finally, the study has come up with some important conclusions and suggestions among which the existence and the nature of the relation between Idiomatic Knowledge and Second Language Proficiency.


Author(s): Bolinger, Mark; Seel, Joachim; Robson, Dana | Abstract: The utility-scale solar sector has led the overall U.S. solar market in terms of installed capacity since 2012. In 2018, the utility-scale sector accounted for nearly 60% of all new solar capacity, and is expected to maintain its market-leading position for at least another six years. More than three-quarters of all states, representing all regions of the country, are now home to one or more utility-scale solar projects. This report—the seventh in an ongoing annual series—provides in-depth data-driven analysis of the utility-scale solar project fleet in the United States. Drawing on empirical project-level data from a wide range of sources, this report analyzes technology trends, installed project prices, operating costs, capacity factors, power purchase agreement ("PPA") prices, the levelized cost of solar energy (LCOE), and the market value of solar. The report also includes data and observations about completed or recently announced solar+storage projects. Given its current preeminence in the market, utility-scale PV also dominates much of this report, though data from CPV and CSP projects are also presented where appropriate. Highlights from this year's edition include: Installation and Technology Trends: The use of solar trackers (all single-axis, east-west tracking) dominated 2018 installations with nearly 70% of all new capacity. After declining for five consecutive years—a reflection of the geographic shift in the market from the high-insolation Southwest to other less-sunny regions—the median long-term average insolation at newly built project sites stabilized in 2018. New fixed-tilt projects are now seen predominantly in less-sunny regions, while tracking projects are increasingly pushing into these same regions. Meanwhile, the median inverter loading ratio ("ILR")—i.e., the ratio of a project's DC module array nameplate rating to its AC inverter nameplate rating—has grown steadily since 2014, to 1.33 in 2018 for both tracking and fixed-tilt projects, allowing the inverters to operate closer to (or at) full capacity for more of the day. In 2018, seven utility-scale PV+battery projects came online. Installed Prices: Median installed PV project prices have steadily fallen by nearly 70% since 2010, to $1.6/WAC (or $1.2/WDC) for projects completed in 2018. The lowest 20th percentile of projects were priced at or below $1.3/WAC, with the lowest-priced projects around $1.0/WAC. Those 2018 projects that use single-axis trackers exhibited no upfront cost premium (and even slightly lower prices) on average, compared to fixed-tilt installations. Overall price dispersion across the entire sample has decreased steadily every year since 2013. Operation and Maintenance ("OaM") Costs: PV OaM costs were in the neighborhood of $19/kWAC-year, or $11/MWh, in 2018. These numbers include only those costs incurred to directly operate and maintain the generating plant. Capacity Factors: The cumulative net AC capacity factors of individual projects range widely, from 12.1% to 34.8%, with a sample median of 25.2%. This project-level variation is based on a number of factors, including the strength of the solar resource at the project site, whether the array is mounted at a fixed tilt or on a tracking mechanism, the ILR, degradation, and curtailment. Changes in at least the first three of these factors drove mean capacity factors higher from 2010-vintage to 2013-vintage projects. Among more-recent project vintages, however, mean capacity factors have remained stagnant or even declined, as a build-out of lower-resource sites has offset an increase in the prevalence of tracking (while the ILR has changed little). PPA Prices and LCOE: Driven by lower installed project prices and, at least through 2013, improving capacity factors, levelized PPA prices for utility-scale PV have fallen dramatically over time, by $10/MWh per year in most years since 2013. Most recent PPAs in our sample—including many outside of California and the Southwest—are priced below $40/MWh levelized (in real 2018 dollars), with many priced below $30/MWh and a few even priced below $20/MWh. Despite these low PPA prices, solar continues to face stiff competition from both wind and natural gas. Excluding the benefit of the 30% ITC, the median LCOE among operational PV projects in our sample stood at $53.8/MWh in 2018, and has followed PPA prices lower over time, suggesting a relatively competitive market for PPAs. Solar's Wholesale Market Value: Falling PPA prices have been matched to some degree by a decline in the wholesale market value of solar (energy + capacity) within higher-penetration solar markets like California. Due to an abundance of solar energy pushing down mid-day wholesale power prices, solar generation in California earned just 79% of the average energy and capacity price within CAISO's wholesale market in 2018 (down from 146% back in 2012). In five of the six other ISO markets analyzed, however, solar still provides above-average value. In CAISO, falling solar PPA prices have largely kept pace with solar's declining market value over time, thereby maintaining solar's competitiveness. In all other ISOs, solar offers higher value yet similar or even lower PPA prices than in California. Solar+Storage: Adding battery storage is one way to increase the value of solar. Data from 37 completed or announced PV hybrid projects (with storage duration ranging from 2-5 hours) suggests that sizing of the battery capacity relative to the PV capacity varies widely, depending on the application and specific situation. Moreover, the size of the incremental PPA price adder for 4-hour storage varies linearly with this ratio, ranging from ~$5/MWh for batteries sized at 25% of PV capacity up to $15/MWh for batteries sized at 75% of PV capacity. There are a variety of ways in which storage is compensated within these PPAs, some of which are rather creative. As PV plus battery storage becomes more cost-effective, many developers are now regularly offering it as an upgrade to standalone PV. At the end of 2018, there were at least 284 GW of utility-scale solar power capacity within the interconnection queues across the nation, 55 GW of which are paired with storage. The growth within these queues is widely distributed across all regions of the country, and is most pronounced in the up-and-coming Midwest region, which accounts for 26% of the 133 GW added to queues in 2018, followed by the Southwest (21%), Southeast and Northeast (each with 15%), California (10%), Texas (9%), and the Northwest (5%). Though not all of these projects will ultimately be built as planned, the ongoing influx and widening geographic distribution of solar projects within these queues is as clear of a sign as any that the utility-scale market is maturing and expanding outside of its traditional high-insolation comfort zones.


This paper opens with a critical analysis of a paradox in contemporary educational research in and about Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC): the assumption that national boundaries coincide with those of a distinct and homogeneous culture, which consistently renders a rather homogenous set of educational phenomena, and collides against a more widely accepted discourse – culture transcends geographical frontiers and is ever evolving in character. It is claimed that this paradox is due to the fact that a thin conception of CHC competes neck-and-neck with a thick conception of it. This paper also addresses the possibility of an ad hoc education research methodology in and about CHC and its compliance issues regarding the mainstream Western research dynamics and philosophy of science. Confucian elements relevant to CHC research rationale are discussed to argue that: first, research is inextricably a moral act insofar as free actors are involved in it; second, most sui generis methodological problems attached to CHC occur in the sphere of ethics; and, third, a research methodology that takes into account phenomenographic variation could be the best suited to ease emic–etic tensions inherent to CHC-based research.


Transmission over fading broadcast and interference channels in the presence of quality of service (QoS) constraints is studied. Effective capacity, which provides the maximum constant arrival rate that a given service process can support while satisfying statistical QoS constraints, is employed as the performance metric. In the broadcast scenario, the effective capacity region achieved with superposition coding and successive interference cancellation is identified and is shown to be convex. Subsequently, optimal power control policies that achieve the boundary points of the effective capacity region are investigated, and an algorithm for the numerical computation of the optimal power adaptation schemes for the two-user case is provided. In the interference channel model, achievable throughput regions are determined for three different strategies, namely treating interference as noise, time division with power control and simultaneous decoding. It is demonstrated that as in Gaussian interference channels, simultaneous decoding expectedly performs better (i.e., supports higher arrival rates) when interfering links are strong, and treating interference as noise leads to improved performance when the interfering cross links are weak while time-division strategy should be preferred in between. When the QoS constraints become more stringent, it is observed that the sum-rates achieved by different schemes all diminish and approach each other, and time division with power control interestingly starts outperforming others over a wider range of cross-link strengths.


A preliminary annotated checklist of the Chrysomelidae of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico is presented based on literature records and the examination of approximately 16,000 chrysomelid specimens. Seven subfamilies and 218 described species have been identified. Ninty-one species are recognized from the Baja California peninsula for the first time. Twenty-nine species are listed as endemic. An additional 128 morphospecies have been identified as undescribed or not yet associated with described species of mainland Mexico or the United States. Adult host plant associations have been identified for approximately 120 species or 35% of the leaf beetle fauna of the region. Each of the 218 described species is associated with the eight plant communities as outlined by Wiggins (1980). Two dominant subfamilies comprise 76% of the leaf beetle fauna: Galerucinae, 87 species (40%) and Cryptocephalinae, 78 species (36%). The following new combinations are proposed: Neolema californica (Heinze, 1927), transferred from Lema Fabricius, 1798; Pseudoluperus histrio (Horn, 1895), transferred from Keitheatus Wilcox, 1965, and Diachus peninsularis (Schaeffer, 1906), transferred from Triachus J. L. LeConte, 1880. Lema peninsulae Crotch, 1873, is removed from synonymy with L. balteata J. L. LeConte, 1884 and reinstated as a valid species. A replacement name is proposed: Longitarsus bajaensis Andrews and Gilbert for Longitarsus bicolor Horn, 1894.


George Alexander Grant is an unknown elder in the field of American landscape photography. Just as they did the work of his contemporaries Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, and others, millions of people viewed Grant's photographs; unlike those contemporaries, few even knew Grant's name. Landscapes for the People shares his story through his remarkable images and a compelling biography profiling patience, perseverance, dedication, and an unsurpassed love of the natural and historic places that Americans chose to preserve. A Pennsylvania native, Grant was introduced to the parks during the summer of 1922 and resolved to make parks work and photography his life. Seven years later, he received his dream job and spent the next quarter century visiting the four corners of the country to produce images in more than one hundred national parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, and other locations. He was there to visually document the dramatic expansion of the National Park Service during the New Deal, including the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Grant's images are the work of a master craftsman. His practiced eye for composition and exposure and his patience to capture subjects in their finest light are comparable to those of his more widely known contemporaries. Nearly fifty years after his death, and in concert with the 2016 centennial of the National Park Service, it is fitting that George Grant's photography be introduced to a newgeneration of Americans.


Multivariate Pattern (MVP) classification can map different cognitive states to the brain tasks. One of the main challenges in MVP analysis is validating the generated results across subjects. However, analyzing multi-subject fMRI data requires accurate functional alignments between neuronal activities of different subjects, which can rapidly increase the performance and robustness of the final results. Hyperalignment (HA) is one of the most effective functional alignment methods, which can be mathematically formulated by the Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) methods. Since HA mostly uses the unsupervised CCA techniques, its solution may not be optimized for MVP analysis. By incorporating the idea of Local Discriminant Analysis (LDA) into CCA, this paper proposes Local Discriminant Hyperalignment (LDHA) as a novel supervised HA method, which can provide better functional alignment for MVP analysis. Indeed, the locality is defined based on the stimuli categories in the train-set, where the correlation between all stimuli in the same category will be maximized and the correlation between distinct categories of stimuli approaches to near zero. Experimental studies on multi-subject MVP analysis confirm that the LDHA method achieves superior performance to other state-of-the-art HA algorithms.


Regeneration of Pinus jeffreyi in the Sierra Nevada is often limited on sites dominated by Wyethia mollis . Allelopathic chemicals and competition for soil moisture have been suggested as possible mechanisms for limiting regeneration. We tested the hypothesis that soil chemical and microbial properties from sites in different stages of succession influence seedling growth of Pinus jeffreyi . Soil was collected from an early-seral site dominated by Wyethia mollis , a mid-seral site dominated by the shrubs Arctostaphylos patula, Ceanothus prostratus, C. velutinus , and Purshia tridentata , and a late-seral site dominated by mature Pinus . These sites were compared for nutrient content, Pinus seedling growth capacity, and microbial population size. Soil (0-33 cm) from the early-seral site had the lowest C, microbial biomass, and fungal and bacterial populations. There were no consistent trends in soil nutrient content among sites. The early-seral site had the lowest soil Ca and Mg contents but also had a lower C/N ratio and more than twofold greater P content than either the mid- or late-seral site. Pinus seedling growth and foliar nutrient concentrations were compared at 3 harvest dates (220, 314, and 417 days after germination) in a greenhouse bioassay. The treatment design was a 3 × 2 factorial with soil from each of the 3 sites either with or without Pinus seedlings. Pots without seedlings were used as controls to assess the effects of seedlings on microbial biomass. Seedling growth in the early-seral soil was initially suppressed in comparison to growth in the mid-seral soil, but by the final harvest total seedling weight was similar between these 2 treatments. The most obvious treatment effect was a reduction in growth for seedlings planted in lateseral soil, probably due to a nutrient imbalance in the soil. Seedlings grown in late-seral soil had Fe and Al levels that were nearly twice those of seedlings grown in early- and mid-seral soils. Microbial biomass followed a temporal pattern similar to that found for seedling growth. Differences in microbial biomass between the early- and mid-seral soils, although initially large, were not detected by the final harvest. We interpret these results to indicate that allelopathy or soil nutrient deficiencies resulting from the presence of Wyethia are unlikely to be responsible for limited growth of Pinus seedlings in Wyethia -dominated stands.


Kenaf is one of the several fibre crops that have been identified as potential source of natural long fibres. The only economical way to use this plant is to extract the long fibres from the bast and used it for fibre reinforced plastic composites to replace glass fibre which are known to be environmental unfriendly. Once the basts have been separated from the stem, the inner, soft and woody section – also known as kenaf core (KC) – can be used for other applications such as biochemicals, due to high amount of holocellulose content and low lignin content. Some of the chemicals that can be derived from KC include polyols, carboxymethyl cellulose, and cellulose esters.
This study was carried out to produce polyurethane (PU) adhesive from liquefied kenaf core (LKC) polyols by reacting it with toluene-2,4-diisocyanate TDI). The liquefaction of KC powder was conducted in the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 1000 and sulfuric acid as a catalyst. The optimum reaction condition (i.e., temperature and time) for producing polyol from KC was determined based on the percentage of reaction residues. Lower reaction residues indicate more KC powder being liquefied in the solvent system. The extent of liquefaction in various mixtures of PEG 1000 and glycerol was also analysed. It was found that the percent residue of KC decrease with an increase of liquefaction temperature up to 180°C and time of up to 90 minutes. When the liquefaction reaction was maintained for 120 minutes, the amount of residue, however, increased quite significantly. This increment can be associated with the formation of recondensation of the LKC components as by-product of the reaction. The percent residue of unliquefied KC was found to be relatively lower when the glycerol:PEG ratio was increased from 1:17 to 3:15 suggesting a more complete liquefaction of KC has taken place. At glycerol:PEG ratio of 5:13, however, the amount of residue was slightly increased suggesting recondensation of the lignin during liquefaction process. Hence, it is important to liquefy the KC before the recondensation point was reached.
The PU adhesive was successfully synthesized using polyols from LKC. The LKC polyurethane (LKCPU) adhesive has a molecular weight (MW) of 2,666, viscosity of 5,370 cps, and solids content of 86.9%. In gluing study, the shear strength of the bonded rubberwood with LKCPU adhesive shows an average of 2.9 MPa. No wood failure was observed on the sheared specimens, showing that the adhesive strength is weaker than wood. The thick LKCPU mixture was relatively difficult to be spreaded onto the wood surface so much so reduced the penetration into the wood. Thus, coupled with the uneven pressure during clamping caused the adhesive to fail upon loading. The formation of air bubbles through liberation of carbon dioxide during curing process resulted in weak cohesive strength of the adhesive as can obviously seen on the sheared specimens. Nonetheless, based on the properties of the LKCPU produced in this work, it has great potential as wood laminating adhesive particularly for edge-gluing


There is a significant need for research and development into paediatric medicines. The absence of suitable medicines or critical safety and efficacy information, poses significant risks to a particularly vulnerable patient population. The paediatric population is made up of a wide range of individuals of substantially varied physical size, weight and stage of physiological development. Some commonly used excipients may be unsuitable for use in children; and some dosage forms may be undesirable to the paediatric population. There is a need for a dosage form platform that is designed to meet the needs of the paediatric patient. The dosage form should offer dose flexibility, dose accuracy, afford acceptable taste of undesirable tasting drug substances and be suitable for administration to all paediatric sub groups. To ensure affordability and thus enhance access to medicines for children in developing countries or emerging markets, the dosage form should be simple to manufacture without the need for specialised equipment.
Spray-drying was investigated to co-process a functional polymer, hypromellose, with a model drug substance, paracetamol, to enhance the functionality of the polymer and to taste mask the paracetamol. Though hypromellose was successfully spray-dried it was not possible to spray-dry hypromellose with paracetamol. The viscosity of aqueous solutions of hypromellose played a key role in determining the grade and concentration of hypromellose that could be successfully spray-dried. Temperature was used to reduce viscosity of hypromellose solutions but careful temperature control is required to avoid reaching the gelation temperature of the hypromellose.
The effect of temperature on aqueous hydroxyl propylcellulose (HPC) solutions showed that heating causes a reduction in solubility of HPC in water which results in its precipitation and the formation of liquid crystals. Consequently, the aqueous HPC solutions appear 'cloudy' and their viscosity decreases. The temperature at which these changes occur is referred to as the 'cloud-point'. The effect of temperature on aqueous HPC solutions containing drug is dependent on the properties of the drug. Paracetamol decreased the temperatures of dehydration and onset of precipitation and ranitidine hydrochloride increased the temperatures of dehydration and precipitation. This is probably associated with a salting in effect.
HPC was used to form films which disintegrate in <30 seconds but are able to retard dissolution rate of paracetamol. HPC may be used to form films which meet the pharmacopoeial content uniformity criteria typically applied to oral dosage forms. HPC films have application for administering drugs to paediatric or geriatric patients by disintegrating in the mouth and so overcoming swallowing difficulties; potentially providing taste masking and aiding absorption across the oral cavity.
HPC films offer significant benefits to the paediatric population. The manufacturing process is simple and transportation is easy as secondary packs are likely to be less bulky than currently used for tablets. The films may also be suitable for administering combinations of drugs in the same dosage form by layering or by combining the drugs at the HPC solution stage. For these reasons the HPC films may have particular application for diseases in the developing world and meet many requirements associated with WHO and other global regulatory guidelines.


A Few Good Men is a study and translationn of The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugrapariprccha), one of most influential Mahayana sutras on the bodhisattva path, but also one of the most neglected texts in Western treatments of Buddhism. To achieve a better understanding of the universe of ideas, activities, and institutional structures within which early self-proclaimed bodhisattvas lived, the author first considers the Ugra as a literary document, employing new methodological tools to examine the genre to which it belongs, the age of its extant versions, and their relationships to one another. She goes on to challenge the dominant notions that the Mahayana emerged as a "reform" of earlier Buddhism and offered lay people an "easier option." A Few Good Men will be compelling reading for scholars and practitioners alike and others interested in the history of Indian Buddhism and the formation of Mahayana.


THEME ARTICLE New trends in community college teaching/learning call for faculty to significantly revise the primary activities in which they engage. Previously, the primary job of the teacher was to choose the material to be presented, to organize that material, and then to present it in an interesting way such that the learner was compelled to learn. Teaching/learning centered on the teacher. Now, learners have become the center of the teaching/learning enterprise and the role of the teacher in the community college is to diagnose student learning needs and develop learning activities that will enable individual students to learn. Different students within a class may have different learning needs and require differing "prescriptions" for learning. Often termed active learning, the job of the teacher becomes far more active as well. As coach, mentor, the teacher acknowledges student learning and develops activities that build on the learning already acquired. As part of this activity, students are often brought together as a community whereby they may share learning and learning activities. Such a learning community requires students to be teachers and allows teachers to be learners. The result of active learning, is the potential for longer retention of material learned. New technology is an indisputable trend in learning. Whether used as learning support or as delivery system, the computer and the access it provides to the Internet, provides an unprecedented expansion of teaching/ learning opportunities. Students and teachers have access to information beyond any one library or any one person's knowledge. Furthermore, adults are painfully aware that every child and young adult is adept at finding and using this new information delivery tool and expects to use this tool in their formal learning. At a minimum, the new technology provides an opportunity for ease in communication between student and teacher, student and student, and at its best use greatly enhances learning opportunities at the time learners are ready to learn. Students, with their teacher/coaches may more readily find learning opportunities to meet their prescribed learning needs. The role of the teacher here is far more than Internet traffic director. With the plethora of information available, students need to be taught how to evaluate and choose among available information sources and how those sources can fit with formal classroom learning. The new technology also provides exciting learning support. Students may literally or virtually work in the field on actual problems, analyze data, test hypothesis, and apply new ideas and information. Teachers no longer have to hope students will see relationships between theory learned in the classroom and application in work. …


Land Information Systems (LIS) have been primarily developed to serve the needs of countries that use a 'western' style land market where individual land rights are the norm. However many countries that have a large proportion of lands held under customary land tenures where communally held land rights are common, are also wishing to establish LIS. For these countries LIS is a tool to facilitate the management and administration of their land resources, preserve their customs and traditions and promote the development of a market economy. In order to be effective, the LIS introduced into these countries will need to incorporate customary land tenure data. This paper considers the implications of incorporating such customary land tenure data into a LIS. Firstly the attributes of western land tenures that are currently used in Land Information Systems are reviewed; then drawing examples from Fiji, the paper examines some of the attributes of customary tenure that could be entered into a LIS. This is followed by a discussion of some of the major issues associated with including customary tenure data in a LIS.


Weighted orbital integrals are distributions on reductive groups over local fields appearing both in the local and global trace formulas. There are associated invariant distributions, which play the same role in the invariant trace formulas. In the case of real groups, the Fourier transforms of these distributions satisfy a system of differential equations. As a step towards determining those Fourier transforms, we show that this system is holonomic and has a simple singularity at infinity. We deduce that any solution has a series expansion and is a linear combination of certain canonical solutions. For some groups of small rank, we solve the recursion formula for the coefficients explicitly.


In order to offer backward and forward secrecy for multicast applications (i.e., a new member cannot decrypt the multicast data sent before its joining and a former member cannot decrypt the data sent after its leaving), the data encryption key has to be changed whenever a user joins or leaves the system. Such a change has to be made known to all the current users. The bandwidth used for such re-key messaging can be high when the user pool is large. We propose a distributed servers approach to minimize the overall system bandwidth (and complexity) by splitting the user pool into multiple groups each served by a (logical) server. After presenting an analytic model for the system based on a hierarchical key tree, we show that there is an optimal number of servers to achieve minimum system bandwidth. As the underlying user traffic fluctuates, we propose a simple dynamic scheme with low overhead where a physical server adaptively splits and merges its traffic into multiple groups each served by a logical server so as to minimize its total bandwidth. Our results show that a distributed servers approach is able to substantially reduce the total bandwidth required as compared with the traditional single-server approach, especially for those applications with a large user pool, short holding time, and relatively low bandwidth of a data stream, as in the Internet stock quote applications.


India has nearly 104 million elderly. Elderly in India is a person who is of age 60 years or above. Aging is an important stage in human life wherein there are physical, psychological, cognitive, social and emotional changes. Depression among the elderly is a more common problem then people might think. However, it must be emphasized that depression is not a part of normal aging. Death is very near in old age, hence a logical belief is that death anxiety is more among the aged in comparison to the youngsters. Death anxiety is defined as the thoughts, fears, and emotions about that final event of living that one experiences under more normal conditions of life. An elderly person's quality of life is defined, first and foremost, by the respect they have for themselves, something over which they have power, and secondly, by the respect, the outside world shows them. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the elderly with age ranging from 60 to 75 years. Using convenience sampling 240 elderly were selected. Geriatric Depression scale, Templer's Death anxiety scale and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) were administered to the sample. Data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation. Results revealed as death anxiety increases depression also increases. A significant negative correlation was found between depression and quality of life indicating that as depression increased quality of life decreased. Improving quality of life in the elderly by using various strategies also helps the elderly keep away from depression.


Background More accurate coronary heart disease (CHD) prediction, specifically in middle-aged men, is needed to reduce the burden of disease more effectively. We hypothesised that a multilocus genetic risk score could refine CHD prediction beyond classic risk scores and obtain more precise risk estimates using a prospective cohort design. Methods Using data from nine prospective European cohorts, including 26,221 men, we selected in a case-cohort setting 4,818 healthy men at baseline, and used Cox proportional hazards models to examine associations between CHD and risk scores based on genetic variants representing 13 genomic regions. Over follow-up (range: 5–18 years), 1,736 incident CHD events occurred. Genetic risk scores were validated in men with at least 10 years of follow-up (632 cases, 1361 non-cases). Genetic risk score 1 (GRS1) combined 11 SNPs and two haplotypes, with effect estimates from previous genome-wide association studies. GRS2 combined 11 SNPs plus 4 SNPs from the haplotypes with coefficients estimated from these prospective cohorts using 10-fold cross-validation. Scores were added to a model adjusted for classic risk factors comprising the Framingham risk score and 10-year risks were derived. Results Both scores improved net reclassification (NRI) over the Framingham score (7.5%, p = 0.017 for GRS1, 6.5%, p = 0.044 for GRS2) but GRS2 also improved discrimination (c-index improvement 1.11%, p = 0.048). Subgroup analysis on men aged 50–59 (436 cases, 603 non-cases) improved net reclassification for GRS1 (13.8%) and GRS2 (12.5%). Net reclassification improvement remained significant for both scores when family history of CHD was added to the baseline model for this male subgroup improving prediction of early onset CHD events. Conclusions Genetic risk scores add precision to risk estimates for CHD and improve prediction beyond classic risk factors, particularly for middle aged men.


With the recent advances in sensing, actuating and communication tecnologies and in theory for control and navigation; mobile robotic platforms are seen more promising than ever. This is so for many fields ranging from search and rescue in earthquake sites to military applications. Autonomous or teleoperated land vehicles make a major class of these mobile platforms. Legged robots, with their potential virtues in obstacle avoidance and cross-country capabilities stand out for applications on rugged terrain. In the nature, there are a lot of examples where four-legged anatomy embraces both speed and climbing characteristics. This thesis is on the locomotion reference generation of quadruped robots. Reference generation plays a vital role for the success of the locomotion controller. It involves the timing of the steps and the selection of various spatial parameters. The generated references should be suitable to be followed. They should not be over-demanding to cause the robot fall by loosing its balance. Nature tells that the pattern of the steps, that is, the gait, also changes with the speed of locomotion. A well-planned reference generation algorithm should take gait transitions into account. Central Pattern Generators (CPG) are biologically-inspired tools for legged-robot locomotion reference generation. They represent one of the main stream quadruped robot locomotion synthesis approaches, along with Zero Moment Point (ZMP) based techniques and trial–and–error methods. CPGs stand out with their natural convenience for gait transitions. This is so because of the stable limit cycle behavior inhertent in their structure. However, the parameter selection and tuning of this type of reference generators is difficult. Often, trial–and–error iterations are employed to obtain suitable parameters. The background of complicated dynamics and difficulties in reference generation makes automatic tuning of CPGs an interesting area of research. A natural command for a legged robot is the speed of its locomotion. When considered from kinematics point of view, there is no unique set of walking parameters which yield a given desired speed. However, some of the solutions can be more suitable for a stable walk, whereas others may lead to instability and cause robot to fall. This thesis proposes a quadruped gait tuning method based on evolutionary methods. A velocity command is given as the input to the system. A CPG based reference generation method is employed. 3D full-dynamics locomotion simulations with a 16-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) quadruped robot model are performed to assess the fitness of artificial populations. The fitness is measured by three different cost functions. The first cost function measures the amount of support the simulated quadruped receives from torsional virtual springs and dampers opposing the changes in body orientation, whereas the second one is a measure of energy efficiency in the locomotion. The third cost function is a combination of the firs two. Tuning results with the three cost functions are obtained and compared. Cross-over and mutation mechanisms generate new populations. Simulation results verify the merits of the proposed reference generation and tuning method.


The objective of the current study was to evaluate the effect of a debriefing call on nutrient intake estimates using two 3-d food diaries among women participating in the Women's Health and Interview Study (WISH) Diet Validation Study. Subjects were 207 women with complete data and six 24-h recalls (24-HR) by telephone over 8 mo followed by two 3-d food diaries during the next 4 mo. Nutrient intake was assessed using the food diaries before and after a debriefing session by telephone. The purpose of the debriefing call was to obtain more detailed information on the types and amounts of fat in the diet. However, due to the ubiquitous nature of fat in the diet, the debriefing involved providing more specific detail on many aspects of the diet. There was a significant difference in macronutrient and micronutrient intake estimates after the debriefing. Estimates of protein, carbohydrate, and fiber intake were significantly higher and total fat, monounsaturated fat, saturated fat, vitamin A, vitamin C, alpha-tocopherol, folic acid, and calcium intake were significantly lower after the debriefing (P < 0.05). The limits of agreement between the food diaries before and after the debriefing were especially large for total fat intake, which could be under- or overestimated by approximately 15 g/d. The debriefing call improved attenuation coefficients associated with measurement error for vitamin C, folic acid, iron, alpha tocopherol, vitamin A, and calcium estimates. A hypothetical relative risk (RR) = 2.0 could be attenuated to 1.16 for folic acid intake assessed without a debriefing but to only 1.61 with a debriefing. Depending on the nutrients of interest, the inclusion of a debriefing can reduce the potential attenuation of RR in studies evaluating diet disease associations.


ABSTRACT Background : Nutrition extension is one of the approach efforts to increase knowledge in order to gain good behavior. Through this extension, we expected mother of under five years child would understood and comprehended as well as had a willing and could implement what she was advised, so that she could took care of under five years child with underweight nutrition to become better nutrition. Purpose: To study about the changing of knowledge and attitude of mother with undernourished of under-five years child after got intervention of extension for 3 months of between two groups got leaflet and didn't get leaflet. Methods: This applied research applied quasi experiment research design. Population is mother having undernourished of under five years child and mother age ranges from 18-45 years, totally 176 samples. Group of treatment got extension package for 3 months and given leaflet to be studied in house. Group of control was participated extension package for 3 months, but they weren't given leaflet, and leaflet was given after this research completed. Results : After followed extension package during 3 months, samples showed improvement for mother's knowledge as 11.4% in group of treatment and 10.4% in group of control. Statististically by using Chi quadrate test, there were a significance difference (p=0.00) for mother's knowledge before and after research in both group of research. There is a changing for mother's attitude in group of treatment as 28.1% and 16.1% in group of control. By using chi square test we found significance difference (p=0,021) on mother's attitude in group of treatment before and after extension for 3 month, while in group of control there was no significance difference ( p=0.187). Conclusions : Leaflet is one of the supporting facilities which applicable to change knowledge and attitude of mother. There is no difference of mother's motivation in participating this research. The role of husband and parents were big enough in two groups of research in the treatment of nutrition undernourished child, especially in parenting and decision making in child recovery from sickness. Recommendation : This research need to be continued to study about extension impact to on mother's behavior while taking care child. Extension for husbands needs to be done to involve them in child parenting and treatment process to quicken the improvement of nutrition of under-five years child. [Penel Gizi Makan 2009, 32(2): 119-128] Key word : Leaflet, extension, undernourished, knowledge, attitude.


This thesis explores the predicament of the woman Pop artist, focussing on British
Pop Art and taking as its case study Pauline Boty (1938-66). It considers why so few
women artists were involved with the movement, the nature of the contribution they
might make and the reasons for their subsequent marginalisation and exclusion from
the histories. It then pursues the art historical and theoretical implications of the
resulting findings. To achieve these ends a considerable body of completely new
empirical evidence is presented.
A detailed statistical and discursive analysis of contemporary records (for example
convocation lists and other documents from the Royal College of Art and Young
Contemporaries exhibition catalogues) exposes the deep gender bias of the institutional
and discursive field in which British Pop operated. The very difficult predicament of
the woman artist (statistically more extreme than had been anticipated) is revealed:
difficulties to which mainstream histories of Pop have remained oblivious.
Pauline Boty's life and work , on which nothing had been published, are interrogated
through a very wide range of primary evidence : numerous interviews with friends,
colleagues, lovers, family members and others, private letters and photographs, media
material and other documentation. With the help of an Arts Council grant her oeuvre,
much of which had been dispersed and/or lost, was re-assembled, archived and
exhibited and is, collectively, available for the first time in these pages. Through this
evidence the experience and expression of a female subjectivity within the genre of
Pop is brought to light. Boty's discursive absence over the last thirty years and recent
re-appearance as an object of discourse are then observed and analysed.

Relatively recent discursive shifts have made it possible to 'see' the work of the
woman Pop artist in a way that had previously been difficult if not impossible. The
cumulative findings of this thesis, informed by postmodern and feminist theory, led
to a questioning of feminist and mainstream narratives. The thesis arrives at proposals
for a revisionist view of both the Pop Art Movement and of feminist practice.


In the United States of America, pharmacists play a pivotal role in antimicrobial stewardship; training from postgraduate residency may hone knowledge and skills gained from didactic pharmacy education. Specifically, the first year of postgraduate training, the learner may become an "everyday steward in training" and may go on to complete a second year in infectious diseases. However, there are a limited number of second year infectious diseases programs. The current demand for pharmacist to participate in and or lead stewardship is disproportionate to available specialized training. The first year of post-graduate training has to be setup to ensure appropriate preparation, so newly trained pharmacist may help meet the demand. Currently, no clear standards exist for training in the first year. The purpose of this study is to survey the nature of stewardship training performed by first year residents from the perspective of residency program directors and preceptors. A 13-question online survey was distributed to examine resident exposure to antimicrobial stewardship activities. Survey data from targeted residency directors and preceptors were analyzed. A third of the programs required it as a mandatory rotation. Resident's stewardship activities ranged from program to program; there was not consensus of the training activities.


Flood control defenses such as levees, dams, reservoirs, and weirs are used to prevent rivers from bursting their banks. Among these defenses, the construction of large-scale dams has recently become an important topic of discussion in countries around the world. It is important to construct large dams to secure water for drinking, irrigation, electricity, and industrial use. However, leaders and well-informed persons in many fields have argued that the development of large-scale dams destroys the natural environment, forces residents of entire villages to leave their homes, and consumes too much time and money. In Japan, large-scale dams were initially constructed mainly to supply electric power, but the purpose of dams has now shifted to water supply or flood defense. Whether large-scale dams are necessary is now a source of contention throughout the world, with several advanced nations calling for the removal of dams. The present paper, taking as an example a small-scale reservoir for flood control in a small river in Funabashi City, Japan, makes the following main conclusions: small-scale reservoirs were used as a measure of flood control in many parts of Japan in the past; terraced paddy fields as well as small-scale reservoirs play an active role in flood control measures in place of large dams; flood control measures are reinforced by connecting small-scale reservoirs; small-scale reservoirs spare the environment from destruction caused by the construction of large dams; and small-scale reservoirs can be utilized as recreation sites for fishing, swimming, and walking.


The transmission of Christianity among Indigenous people without the involvement of European or Euro-North American missionaries has been well documented in the North American ethnographic and historical records. In the North American West, the convergence of Christianity and Indigenous religious practices is manifest in the Indigenous prophet traditions in the early nineteenth century. Although these prophet traditions predate direct contact with Euro-North Americans, much scholarship has maintained that their growth and development is explained not by Indigenous or Christian religiosity but by more fundamental material or psychological phenomena, most oft en connecting the prophet tradition to the indirect eff ects of colonial invasion. Following the oral narratives on Bini, the Witsuwit'en prophet, collected by Marius Barbeau in the 1920s, I suggest that the prophet tradition is not only a response to colonial pressures but also serves as a powerful idiom for articulating religious change and thus is a fundamentally local means of religious transformation.


According to the halo effect, person perceptions are globally biased by specific traits or characteristics. Attractive people are attributed positive traits like prosociality, health, and dominance. However, due to a strong focus on facial stimuli it remains unclear whether this effect can also be found for bodies. Furthermore, most studies involved observers from individualistic cultures. This preregistered study explored the consistency of halo effects for men's faces and bodies for observers from individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Facial photos and 3D body scans of 165 German men were judged separately for attractiveness, prosociality, health, and dominance by 123 German and 100 Japanese observers. Results were mostly consistent between both observer groups and revealed strong attractiveness halo effects for faces and bodies, and a dominance halo effect for bodies, but not faces. Further predictions of the one ornament hypothesis were supported. This study provides new insights on halo effects as consistent cognitive biases in person perception for faces and bodies for observers with different cultural backgrounds.


This essay discusses trends in new banking history scholarship. It does so by conducting bibliometric content analysis of the entire literature involving the history of banks, bankers and banking published in all major academic journals since the year 2000. It places this recent scholarship in its historiographical context, and speculates on the future of the field.


Operating systems and applications rely on random number generators (RNGs) for a number of important tasks, most notably cryptographic key generation. The impact of flawed random number generation practices has been studied extensively in the past [2, 5]. In this paper, we examine the implications of an RNG bug in FreeBSD that was fixed by Subversion commit r278907 [3]. In particular, our analysis seeks to discover uses of weak random numbers that either enable an attacker to discover the internal state of the RNG or use such knowledge to predict security-relevant values.


lection rules have been regulated in Law no. 7 of 2017 where this rule contains imperative norms. The imperative norm talks about the rules that prohibit the practice of money politics during the electoral process. A rule is made to implement the function of controlling behavior in social and political life, when the rules are violated, the perpetrator will face legal proceedings and receive appropriate sanctions. Money politics and elections in Indonesia are commonplace for all people and are even considered to be cultured and inseparable. This research was made with the aim of reviewing imperative norms in the implementation of ineffective elections in preventing money politics practices. This study uses a qualitative research approach with triangulation technique analysis. From this study the authors found that the power of normative law in election activities in Indonesia is still relatively weak and a number of political practices continue to occur so that they can tarnish the democratic process.


This present paper concerns recent migrations from the Portuguese mainland and from the island of Madeira to the English and French speaking territory of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. On-going research is being carried out with a group of students from the Jersey community and studying at the University of Southampton. Through a series of informal discussions and class participation exercises, a detailed evaluation of both behavioural and attitudinal evidence pertaining to these languages in context is carried out. Moreover, the students own observations about their home community's sociolinguistic network and notions of identity afford a valuable insight into the hierarchical and attitudinal factors which determine the interpersonal communication strategies employed on a day-to-day basis. To this end, tentative conclusions are made regarding the ethnolinguistic vitality of the younger members of this particular community.


Many plants engage ants in defensive mutualisms by offering extrafloral nectar (EFN). Identifying sources of variation in EFN quantity (amount) and quality (composition) is important because they can affect ant visitation and identity and hence effectiveness of plant defence. I investigated plant size and reproductive state (vegetative or flowering) as sources of variation in EFN quantity and quality. I focused on Opuntia imbricata and two ant partners, Crematogaster opuntiae and Liometopum apiculatum. I tested the influence of plant size and nectary type (vegetative vs. reproductive structure) on the probability and rate of EFN secretion, concentrations of total carbohydrates (CH) and amino acids (AAs), and relative abundances of constituent CH and AAs. I also examined how traits of individual nectaries scaled up to influence total plant‐level rewards. Parallel observations documented associations between plant demographic state and ant visitation and species identity. EFN quantity and quality were generally greater for larger, reproductive plants. At the scale of individual nectaries, probability of EFN secretion was positively size‐dependent and greater for nectaries on reproductive vs. vegetative structures. Rate of EFN secretion, carbohydrate and amino acid concentrations, and the relative abundance of disaccharide vs. monosaccharide sugars were greater for reproductive nectaries but were unaffected by plant size. Nectary‐level traits scaled up to influence rewards at the whole‐plant level in ways that corresponded to ant visitation: the probability of ant occupancy increased with plant size and reproduction, as did the likelihood of being tended by the superior guard, L. apiculatum. Variability in EFN traits may contribute to changes in ant occupancy and identity across plant sizes and reproductive states. Synthesis. This study provides a thorough examination of how plant investment in biotic defence varies over the life cycle. Explicit consideration of plant demography may enhance understanding of ant–plant mutualisms. Populations of long‐lived plants are demographically heterogeneous, spanning sizes and reproductive states. The rewards offered to animal mutualists can track demographic heterogeneity with consequences for plant defence and the dynamics of multispecies mutualisms.


Perceptions of interviewer characteristics signify the validity and reliability of selection procedures. Personality characteristics of the interviewer such as personableness, skills and competency, questioning manner and job information may be perceived differently in different situations. This study examined the perceived and preferred interviewer characteristics based on Perceived Interviewer Characteristics Scale by Ahmad Marzuki (2000). In addition, it included the preferred interviewer characteristics scales modified from the original scales. A total of 140 participants were selected as samples. Results indicated that the actual 4 scales except for 'questioning manner' characteristic were correlated to the preferred interviewer characteristics. Results also shown that there were significant differences between what the applicants perceived and what the applicants preferred in three interviewer characteristics namely personableness, skills and competency and job information in general, as well as based on those who were offered and not offered the job.


Glaucophane and related schists are present as tectonic fragments in ophiolitic suture zones and as discrete lithotectonic belts along the accreted Mesozoic/Tertiary Californian margin. Occurrences include parts of the Klamath Mountains, the western Sierran Foothills, the Coast Ranges, faulted marginal segments of the Mojave Desert, the Transverse Ranges, and the southern California borderland. These high-pressure, low-temperature blueschist assemblages reflect the thermal regime of subduction-zone environments. Considerable underflow accompanied drifting and the assembly of far-traveled tectonostratigraphic terranes, as documented by sea-floor magnetic anomaly patterns and age relationships of the oceanic crust-capped lithosphere: the eastern limbs of paleo-Pacific plates (especially the Farallon-Cocos), have been extensively or completely overridden by the westward-encroaching North American plate—7000 km since Early Cretaceous time and nearly 10 000 km since Jurassic time. Subduction is attested to by remnant high-pressure mineral assemblages scattered throughout California; by construction of related, roughly contemporaneous calc-alkaline volcanic-plutonic belts and forearc basin deposits; and by the stranding of ophiolitic complexes. Although substantial northward drift transported exotic oceanic and continental materials to the growing Californian crust and caused extensive dislocation of the post-Paleozoic continental margin, much of the plate motion evidently involved a large component of convergence and eastward underflow. Terrane shuffling has complicated the picture, but the dominant mechanism of continental growth at the Californian margin during Mesozoic and Paleogene time was subduction.


Objective To assess whether FUT2 (secretor) genotype affects disease severity and airway infection in patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis. Participants Induced sputum samples were obtained from 112 adult patients with high-resolution CT scan-proven bronchiectasis and at least two exacerbations in the previous year, as part of an unrelated randomised control trial. Outcome measures Presence of null FUT2 polymorphisms were determined by gene sequencing and verified by endobronchial biopsy histochemical staining. Outcome measures were FEV1% predicted, exacerbation frequency, and bacterial, fungal and viral components of the microbiota (measured by culture independent approaches). Results Patients were grouped by FUT2 loss-of-function genotype; categorised as non-secretors (n=27, sese), heterozygous secretors (n=54, Sese) or homozygous secretors (n=31, SeSe). FEV1% was significantly lower in SeSe patients compared with sese patients (mean 61.6 (SD 20.0) vs 74.5 (18.0); p=0.023). Exacerbation frequency was significantly higher in SeSe (mean count 5.77) compared with sese (4.07; p=0.004) and Sese (4.63; p=0.026) genotypes. The time until first exacerbation was significantly shorter in SeSe compared with Sese (HR=0.571 (95% CI 0.343 to 0.950); p=0.031), with a similar trend for sese patients (HR=0.577 (0.311 to 1.07); p=0.081). sese had a significantly reduced frequency of Pseudomonas aeruginosa-dominated airway infection (8.7%) compared with Sese (31%; p=0.042) and SeSe (36%; p=0.035). In contrast, fungal, viral and non-dominant bacterial components of the microbiome were not significantly different between FUT2 genotypes. Conclusions FUT2 genotype in patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis was significantly associated with disease outcomes, with homozygous secretors exhibiting lower lung function, higher exacerbation number and a higher frequency of P. aeruginosa-dominated infection. Trial registration number ACTRN12609000578202 (anzctr.org.au); Pre-results.


This paper analyzes the results of a unique 2000 study of a representative sample of Canadian academics (n=3,318) in order to provide the first empirical assessment of Burawoy's intellectual types: professional, critical, policy, and public intellectuals. After determining the distribution of academic types in the Canadian professoriate as a whole, the paper demonstrates that academic types fall along a left-right continuum, different fields of study contain different distributions of academic types, and public, policy, and critical academics tend to have different socio-demographic and economic characteristics than professional academics. The picture that emerges from the analysis is of a professoriate whose contours substantiate the broad outlines of Burawoy's typology.


Central to current controversies concerning the tectonic origin of the late Archaean Bulawayan Supergroup in the Zimbabwe craton is the nature of the basal Upper Bulawayan Manjeri-type lithostratigraphic unit (exclusively sedimentary or at least partly tectonic?) in the north and west parts of the craton and its structural relationship (conformable or unconformable?) to the underlying Lower Bulawayan felsic Koodoovale-type lithostratigraphic unit. A ca 265m-thick composite stratigraphic drill-section at the Hunters Road nickel deposit in central Zimbabwe provides critical new information on the Koodoovale–Manjeri contact zone in the west part of the craton. Largely pristine, with often well preserved primary mineralogy and textures, the lithologies in this section comprise felsic (rhyolitic to rhyodacitic) lavas and volcaniclastic rocks of the Koodoovale unit and volcaniclastic rocks and mixed facies iron formations of the Manjeri unit. No significant layer-parallel shearing occurs either within or at the upper and lower contacts of the Manjeri unit. The volcaniclastic rocks of both units are lithologically very similar and predominantly made up of non-welded, angular to subangular, cognate lithic and crystal fragments of limited compositional range and pumiceous glass shards in cyclically repeated, sharply separate, normal size-graded units from a few centimetres to many metres thick. Coarse- and fine-grained lithofacies can be distinguished, the fine lithofacies containing chert and oxide laminae and dominating the lower Manjeri unit. These rocks are interpreted as resedimented syn-eruptive volcaniclastic deposits formed during shallow water pyroclastic eruptions and transported and laid down in proximal and moderately deep water distal marine environments by mass flow and suspension sedimentation processes. At Hunters Road, the Manjeri unit is evidently exclusively sedimentary (non-tectonic) in origin and the Koodoovale–Manjeri contact essentially gradational and conformable with no depositional break. Contrary to some previous views, the volcaniclastic and chemical sedimentary Manjeri unit in the north and west represents not a basal Upper Bulawayan thrust zone but the terminal exhalative phase of Koodoovale felsic volcanism and the basinal facies of craton-wide Manjeri sedimentation. Thus, Koodoovale felsic volcanism was part of, and not separate from, the Bulawayan tectonomagmatic event as a whole.


Alcohol consumption is known to have an impact on various aspects of individual's life. This paper is based on the idea that the alcohol consumption is very likely to influence on subjective well-being. Using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of HSE (RLMS-HSE) in this paper the links between alcohol consumption and subjective well-being is examined. RLMS-HSE data shows that a significant number of individuals consumed alcohol in the last month in Russia, the proportion of men drinkers is extremely high, and is around 60-70%. Two sources of endogeneity are discussed in the paper: individual characteristics, such as one's value system and traits of character; and the existing environment, for example, a negative macroeconomic situation. Empirical estimates are obtained using probit adapted OLS approach. Results suggest that reasonable consumption of alcohol improves the level of life satisfaction. However, alcohol abuse produces negative effects on life satisfaction. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p98


The innovation allows critical, high-bandwidth submarine communications at speed and depth. This reported innovation is a subsurface optical communications buoy, with active neutral buoyancy and streamlined flow surface veins for depth control. This novel subsurface positioning for the towed communications buoy enables substantial reduction in water-absorption and increased optical transmission by eliminating the intervening water absorption and dispersion, as well as by reducing or eliminating the beam spread and the pulse spreading that is associated with submarine-launched optical beams.


Aim: The Predictable Results and Experience in Diabetes through Intensification and Control to Target: An International Variability Evaluation (PREDICTIVE) Study is a large, multi-centre, observational study assessing the safety and efficacy of insulin detemir in everyday clinical practice. Methods: This subgroup analysis of the German cohort of PREDICTIVE evaluates over 3 months, patients with type 2 diabetes who were transferred to insulin detemir oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs) from an OAD-only regimen (n 1⁄4 1321), NPH insulin OADs (n 1⁄4 251) or insulin glargine OADs (n 1⁄4 260). Results: Among all groups, 3 months after starting treatment with insulin detemir, total, daytime and nocturnal hypoglycaemic events/patient were reduced by 84, 80 and 90%, respectively, from baseline. No major hypoglycaemic events were reported during treatment with insulin detemir. HbAlc was significantly reduced from baseline in each of the subgroups ( 1.29, 0.60 and 0.59% for patients previously taking OADs only, NPH insulin OADs and insulin glargine OADs respectively; p < 0.0001), as was fasting blood glucose (FBG) ( 58.1, 29.1 and 24.6 mg/dl; p < 0.0001) and FBG variability 8.2 mg/dl, 5.7 mg/dl; p < 0.0001 and 5.1 mg/dl; p 1⁄4 0.0008). All subgroups combined lost an average of 0.9 kg of body weight (p < 0.0001) during the study. Total daily basal insulin dose increased slightly from baseline for those patients on a prior insulin regimen, and in this study 79% of patients used insulin detemir once daily. Conclusions: These data confirm the short-term safety and efficacy of insulin detemir OADs in a real-world scenario and support the findings of randomized controlled clinical trials with insulin detemir, including its limited effects on body weight.


PURPOSE
Fludarabine and cyclophosphamide (FC), which are active in treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), are synergistic with the monoclonal antibody rituximab in vitro in lymphoma cell lines. A chemoimmunotherapy program consisting of fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab (FCR) was developed with the goal of increasing the complete remission (CR) rate in previously untreated CLL patients to >/= 50%.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We conducted a single-arm study of FCR as initial therapy in 224 patients with progressive or advanced CLL. Flow cytometry was used to measure residual disease. Results and safety were compared with a previous regimen using FC.

RESULTS
The median age was 58 years; 75 patients (33%) had Rai stage III to IV disease. The CR rate was 70% (95% CI, 63% to 76%), the nodular partial remission rate was 10%, and the partial remission rate was 15%, for an overall response rate of 95% (95% CI, 92% to 98%). Two thirds of patients evaluated with flow cytometry had less than 1% CD5- and CD19-coexpressing cells in bone marrow after therapy. Grade 3 to 4 neutropenia occurred during 52% of courses; major and minor infections were seen in 2.6% and 10% of courses, respectively. One third of the 224 patients had >/= one episode of infection, and 10% had a fever of unknown origin.

CONCLUSION
FCR produced a high CR rate in previously untreated CLL. Most patients had no detectable disease on flow cytometry at the end of therapy. Time to treatment failure analysis showed that 69% of patients were projected to be failure free at 4 years (95% CI, 57% to 81%).


Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a series of positive, negative or cognitive symptoms but with also the particularity of exhibiting a high rate of co‐morbid use of drugs of abuse. While more than 80% of schizophrenics are smokers, the second most consumed drug is alcohol, with dramatic consequences on frequency and intensity of psychotic episodes and on life expectancy. Here we investigated the impact of light alcohol intake during adolescence on the subsequent occurrence of alcohol addiction‐like behavior in neonatal ventral hippocampal lesion (NVHL) rats, a neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia. Our findings demonstrated an increased liability to addictive behaviors in adult NVHL rats after voluntary alcohol intake during adolescence. NVHL rats displayed several signs of alcohol use disorder such as a loss of control over alcohol intake and high motivation to consume alcohol, associated with a higher resistance to extinction. In addition, once NVHL rats relapsed, they maintained higher drinking levels than controls. We finally showed that the anti‐addictive drug naltrexone is efficient in reducing excessive alcohol intake in NVHL rats. Our results are in accordance with epidemiological studies underlying the particular vulnerability to alcohol addiction after adolescent exposure to alcohol and highlight the fact that schizophrenic subjects may be particularly at risk even after light alcohol consumption. Based on these results, it seems particularly relevant to prevent early onset of alcohol use in at‐risk subjects and thus to reduce the incidence of co‐morbid alcohol abuse in psychotic patients.


The ambition of this article is threefold. First, it is to offer a realist reading of Aristotle's regime theory as it is laid out mostly in Books IV–VI of his Politics. The author argues that Aristotle's regime theory has three fundamentally realist claims about the workings of politics: first, the search for a perfect regime is not the only legitimate subject of political theory; second, every regime is built on a delicate balance of a particular understanding of political justice, a variety of sociological factors and the institutional design and political virtues of its politicians; third, there are almost as many different regimes as polities, and although they can be grouped into major regime types, there are many sub-types and mixed and transitory regimes. Second, the article argues that modern democratic theories have an unacceptable 'moralistic bias' from a realist point of view. Third, that a neo-Aristotelian regime theory can offer an attractive realist alternative to the predominant contemporary understandings of political regimes.


Modern information technology is increasingly used in healthcare with the goal to improve and enhance medical services and to reduce costs. In this context, the outsourcing of computation and storage resources to general IT providers (cloud computing) has become very appealing. E-health clouds offer new possibilities, such as easy and ubiquitous access to medical data, and opportunities for new business models. However, they also bear new risks and raise challenges with respect to security and privacy aspects.
 In this paper, we point out several shortcomings of current e-health solutions and standards, particularly they do not address the client platform security, which is a crucial aspect for the overall security of e-health systems. To fill this gap, we present a security architecture for establishing privacy domains in e-health infrastructures. Our solution provides client platform security and appropriately combines this with network security concepts. Moreover, we discuss further open problems and research challenges on security, privacy and usability of e-health cloud systems.


The thesis discusses three morphosyntactic changes in Danish, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish and English, namely the loss of morphological case, loss of V-to-I movement and the loss of stylistic fronting. The changes are observed on the basis of Icelandic which has kept all three characteristics. The hypothesis is that even though the loss of morphological case causes the loss of DAT-NOM constructions (i.e. sentences with a dative subject and a nominative object), these constructions are not 'normalized' (made into NOM-ACC) in one step, but rather through a systematic process which consists of two different changes. Old English had and Icelandic still has sentences with a dative subject and nominative object, in Old and Middle Danish, Middle English and Faroese, these constructions have changed to sentences with a dative subject and an accusative object and in Present Day English, Danish, etc. they have gone one step further and changed to sentences with a nominative subject and an accusative object. The synchronic part of the discussion about the DAT-NOM construction attempts to explain how the finite verb can show agreement with the nominative object, why non-nominative subjects must be animate and furthermore, why nominative objects can only be third person. The other construction that is discussed is stylistic fronting. Firstly it is shown that stylistic fronting was possible in Old and Middle Danish, and that the loss of stylistic fronting first took place after the loss of V-to-I movement. The synchronic analysis of stylistic fronting is that stylistic fronting is driven by an abstract focus feature and that it is movement into an articulated CP domain. This makes it possible to explain why stylistic fronting can have a semantic effect and why there is a difference in the possibility of stylistic fronting in clauses without a phonetically realized subject and clauses with a weak subject pronoun. If it is further assumed that the articulated CP domain depends on the presence of V-to-I movement, it is possible to establish a connection between the loss of stylistic fronting and the loss of V-to-I movement. The two theoretical frameworks used in the thesis are Optimality Theory and the Minimalist Program. (Less)


A positive relationship between FDI and economic growth under two economic conditions has been estimated: a sufficient level of human capital and well-developed financial markets, respectively. However, these two conditions can be fundamentally different catalysts for FDI to promote economic growth in the perspective of growth accounting. Using data from 69 countries over 1970–1989, we find that FDI promotes productivity growth only when the host country reaches a threshold level of human capital; and FDI promotes capital growth only when a certain level of financial development is achieved. (JEL F21)


This paper reports the effect of different storage temperatures (5, 15, 20 and 25 deg C) on the flavour of cv. Valencia Late Frost oranges stored for up to one month (following a pre-experimental two month storage period at 5 deg C). Samples were instrumentally analysed every week for titratable acidity, soluble solid content, maturity index, and ethanol and acetaldehyde contents. In addition, four sensory attributes were assessed by 20 taste panellists (this work formed part of their training): acidity, maturity index, off-flavours and orange-like flavour. Principal components analysis was performed to determine the correlation structure of the sensorial data. This showed that the presence of off-flavours reduced the orange-like flavour perceived, but affected neither the acidity nor the maturity index. Acidity correlated negatively with the sensorially-perceived maturity index. The higher temperatures reduced the orange-like flavour and increased the presence of off-flavours over storage; this had a negative impact on the sensorial quality of the fruit. These effects were statistically significant, though more accurate results may have been obtained had the panellists received more training.


Large-aperture class A lasers emit stationary patterns (square vortex lattices) close to the laser threshold. We show that in class B lasers the emitted patterns are in general nonstationary. The nonstationarity of the vortex lattices is related to the self-induced motion of class B laser vortices. The vortices can oscillate, can remaining spatially separated, or can annihilate and nucleate periodically, depending on the parameters of the class B laser. In the regime of chaotic motion of the vortices, class B lasers display low-dimensional deterministic chaos of transverse modes, unlike class A lasers, for which the turbulence is of the hydrodynamic type.


This 2005 research report on the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) created under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was commissioned as part of the CEC ten-year review. In light of public concerns over the environmental and social impact of trade agreements, this report examines how a key institution brings a measure of democratic dialogue to the trilateral trade agreement. Drawn from public records, stakeholder interviews, and case studies, the report assesses JPAC's efficacy as a point of public entry and means of influence on the CEC's agenda as well as the environmental agendas of NAFTA Parties. Researchers found that JPAC provided a transparent, open, and substantive forum for public debate over trade and environment issues, and articulated public concerns to the NAFTA Parties. JPAC has been particularly effective in pursuing issues where cooperation advances issues of mutual interest, and while its effectiveness on more controversial issues has been mixed, it has at least provided a barometer of public concern. JPAC has experienced challenges and frustrations, and the report details these. In many ways, for example, JPAC's relations with environmental officials from Canada, Mexico and the US have evolved into a highly formalized, even ossified discourse. JPAC can become mired in technical details, and the challenge of fulfilling a dual role of public watchdog and strategic partner has led some to criticize JPAC's occasionally antagonistic approach to Council even as others challenge its willingness to collaborate and compromise. The report concludes that - despite this inherent tension - JPAC has been a useful public monitor, a sounding board for trade and environment issues, and a structured public point of entry to the CEC. It is a unique approach to public participation in trade accords, and warrants further study as a model.


The post-natal heart retains a remarkable adaptive capacity, which matches growth of the myocardium to increased physical demands. The beneficial form of myocardial growth is referred to as physiologic hypertrophy, and derives from a compensatory response to conditions that require increased blood volumes such as pregnancy and chronic exercise training. Despite the clear benefits associated with this form of adaptation, the molecular mechanism(s) that initiate or sustain such cardiac remodeling remain obscure. As such, identification of factors that promote physiologic hypertrophy will be of considerable interest to both cardiac biologists and clinicians. Here, we have begun to explore the role of the cytokine, cardiotrophin 1 (CT-1) as a central mediator of physiologic hypertrophy. We demonstrate that primary cardiomyocytes treated with recombinant human CT-1 protein engage a physiologic growth response, adding sarcomeres in series, a cellular/molecular change that is fully reversible with the removal of CT-1. This physiologic hypertrophy response to CT-1 is dominant, as CT-1 administration overrides the pathologic hypertrophy associated with agonists such as phenylephrine. In vivo delivery of human CT-1 protein leads to a rapid (14 days) alteration in the structure of the rat heart, with volume and wall dimension increases characteristic of exercise adaptation, changes that are fully reversible upon cessation of CT-1 treatment. In addition, CT-1 administration mitigates right heart failure in a model of pulmonary arterial hypertension, and sustains cardiac function in the post infarct rat heart. Finally, gene expression analysis revealed that CT-1 treatment leads to up-regulation of angiogenic factors within cardiomyocytes, suggesting that this cytokine engages a paracrine signaling mechanism to ensure that myocardial growth is matched by a robust angiogenesis.


Understory light regimes have a major impact on seedling growth and patterns of forest regeneration. Many researchers have reported understory light regimes for relatively small areas, and then extrapolated their results to the landscape level with little knowledge of landscape-level heterogeneity. We used hemispherical photography to characterize understory light regimes at both the watershed and landscape scales within the Fushan Experimental Forest in northeastern Taiwan. We established 20 transects, 7 of which were located in Experimental Watershed #1 and the other 13 were scattered across an area of 150 ha at the Fushan Experimental Forest. Understory light was not normally distributed across the Fushan Experimental Forest, with some microsites having yew high light levels due to typhoon-induced canopy damage. Median understory light levels exceeded 15% of the incident sunlight at both the watershed and landscape scales. These light levels are much higher than those reported for many mature tropical and temperate forests in other parts of the world, where understory light levels of <5% of incident sunlight are common. Aspect, rather than spatial scale, had the largest impact on undercanopy light. In forests with rough topography, utilizing transects that run from the ridge to the valley is more likely to adequately characterize spatial heterogeneity than plots or a few longer transects.


The endless proliferation of human knowledge within sub-disciplines represents not so much a tree structure of knowledge from which we can stand back and admire some organic unity as the tentacles of an octopus dragging us down into anguished division. The anguish is genuine and has been expressed since the Enlightenment by many types of thinker. This paper argues however that the anguish does not in fact arise from the nature of human knowledge but from the mistaken belief in the possibility of its unification. The desire for the unitive has been erroneously transplanted from its proper context – the mystical – to the domain of knowledge, as the latter – particularly under the rubric of "science" – has become the only culturally legitimised stance towards the world. Conventional scholarship, while busy creating sub-branches and sub-sub-branches on which the leaves of new knowledge sprout with vigour and abandon, is powerless to avoid this feeling of anguish. It feels compromised in the thwarted longing for a lost sense unity. "Outsider scholarship" – of the type practiced by Koestler, Schumacher and Pirsig – is often preoccupied with just this question, but is free to propose various taxonomies of knowledge, often of an unfashionably hierarchical kind, that cut across conventional boundaries and which provide a basis for an uncompromised relationship with knowledge. This paper starts with a brief consideration of outsider scholarship, including its anachronistic characteristics, and then turns to Pirsig's meditation on the technologies behind the word-processor, which lead to an "isthmus theory of knowledge domains." It then considers Steven Jay Gould's non-overlapping magisteria, and the hint from Ken Wilber about epistemological pluralism. These are then used to show why E. O. Wilson's consilience is misguided: it represents the final triumph of logical positivism – a takeover bid for the humanities by the sciences – but couched in terms apparently irresistible to fashionable thought.


Traumatic injury to the mammalian spinal cord activates B cells, which culminates in the synthesis of autoantibodies. The functional significance of this immune response is unclear. Here, we show that locomotor recovery was improved and lesion pathology was reduced after spinal cord injury (SCI) in mice lacking B cells. After SCI, antibody-secreting B cells and Igs were present in the cerebrospinal fluid and/or injured spinal cord of WT mice but not mice lacking B cells. In mice with normal B cell function, large deposits of antibody and complement component 1q (C1q) accumulated at sites of axon pathology and demyelination. Antibodies produced after SCI caused pathology, in part by activating intraspinal complement and cells bearing Fc receptors. These data indicate that B cells, through the production of antibodies, affect pathology in SCI. One or more components of this pathologic immune response could be considered as novel therapeutic targets for minimizing tissue injury and/or promoting repair after SCI.


The non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse is an excellent animal model of autoimmune diabetes associated with insulitis. The progression of insulitis causes the destruction of pancreatic beta cells, resulting in the development of hyperglycemia. Although it has been well documented that T cells are required for the development of insulitis and diabetes in NOD mice, the importance of B cells remains unclear. To clarify the role of B cells in the pathogenesis of NOD mice, we therefore generated B cell-deficient NOD (B-NOD) mice. Surprisingly, none (of 13) of the B-NOD mice developed diabetes by 40 weeks of age, while the control littermates with B cells (B+NOD) suffered from a high proportion (43 of 49) of diabetes. The insulin reactivity of B+NOD mice was significantly impaired, while the B-NOD mice showed a good insulin response, thus suggesting the pancreatic beta cell function to be well preserved in B-NOD mice. Although B-NOD mice did develop insulitis, the extent of insulitis was significantly suppressed. These data thus provide the direct evidence that B cells are essential for the progression of insulitis and the development of diabetes in NOD mice.


In this study, the effect of Shi-He-Powder (SHP) on remitting weaning stress of piglet was observation. Each of four treatment groups' piglets were respectively feed by basal diet (control group), and the basal diet add into1 fold SHP (1SHP group), 0.5 fold SHP (0.5SHP group), and 2 fold SHP (2SHP group). The behavior change, feed intake, weight gain and blood routine were observed, the expression of Inflammatory factors were detected by ELISA and RT-PCR, and HE staining was used to observe histology of the liver and jejunum. The result shows that the weaned stress will cause diarrhea and other adverse effects to the piglets. But comparing control group, SHP treatment can relieved diarrhea, significantly increased daily gain (P < 0.05), and decreased feed conversion ratio (P < 0.05); the tissue morphology of liver and the top of jejunum villi were more complete than control group. The SHP treatment can decreased the expression of IL-1β, IL-6, iNOS and PGE2, but have no significant different with TNF-α. This study demonstrate that weaning stress can cause diarrhea and other adverse effects, and SHP can effectively relieve these phenomenon, and increased daily gain, decreased feed conversion ratio. The mechanism of SHP may is that SHP can play a role in against body inflammatory reaction and protect liver and intestinal from stress injure, ultimately promote digestive absorption and dynamiting to piglet.


Disaster and emergency events are common occurrences and the skills necessary to respond to these incidents appear to fall within the scope of practice of occupational therapy (OT). This survey explored the format, methods and content, and frequency with which U.S. home health occupational therapists address two topics: emergency preparedness and personal evacuation planning with clients and caregivers, as well as their views of its place within the scope of OT practice. From 250 mailed recipients, 88 usable questionnaires were received for an adjusted response rate of 38.3%. Of the respondents, 85.2% were found to address either or both of these two topics with their clients, though the majority only did so with up to a quarter of their clients. The majority of respondents, 53.4%, addressed emergency preparedness by discussing medical alert programs and 79.5% addressed personal evacuation planning through the reduction of home hazards. Statistically significant relationships were found between the presence of other medical professionals for collaboration and both the percentage of clients who receive interventions addressing emergency preparedness (x 2 (4, N = 80) = 35.517, p < .001) and personal evacuation planning (x 2 (4, N = 80) = 26.867, p < .001). Common reasons for not addressing emergency preparedness were that it was not considered a priority or that there were policy limitations on their practice. Still respondents considered emergency preparedness to fall within the scope of OT. As OT literature has focused upon disaster recovery, these responses indicate a need for increased research regarding OT and pre-disaster roles.


An association between left atrial spontaneous echocardiographic contrast (LASEC) and thromboembolic events has been recognized. However, the appearance of LASEC and the assessment of its intensity are gain dependent. To evaluate the relation between LASEC intensity and coagulation activity, 11 patients with mitral stenosis underwent transesophageal echocardiography with quantitative integrated backscatter assessment of LASEC. Right and left atrial blood samples were evaluated for concentrations of coagulation markers, including intact fibrinogen, fibrinopeptide A, D-dimer, prothrombin fragment 1+2, and thrombin-antithrombin III complex. The patients were found to have significantly higher mean left atrial concentrations compared with right atrial concentrations of thrombin-antithrombin III (28.46 +/- 21.05 versus 3.21 +/- 7.16 ng/mL, respectively; P =.001) and fibrinopeptide A (32.78 +/- 17.54 versus 7.42 +/- 8.27 nmol/L, respectively; P <.001). Intact fibrinogen levels were similar in both atria, and a strong, direct correlation existed between left and right atrial intact fibrinogen levels (r = 0.78, P =.005). Quantitative integrated backscatter of LASEC correlated directly with left atrial fibrinogen level (r = 0.78, P =.013) but not with markers of thrombin generation (thrombin-antithrombin III) or activity (fibrinopeptide A). Our results confirm that patients with mitral stenosis have evidence of a regional hypercoagulable state in the left atrium. However, the intensity of LASEC assessed by quantitative integrated backscatter correlates with both right and left atrial intact fibrinogen level, a systemic marker of coagulation.