Neutron metrology has important applications in areas such as nuclear safeguards, quality assurance, and nuclear power operations. To date, the most common detectors for performing neutron metrology have been 3He detectors. With 3He production in decline, it has become supply-constrained and alternatives are being sought as potential replacements. Liquid organic scintillation detectors are an option, and in particular the relatively recent development of EJ-309 liquid scintillant is a forerunner for the replacement of 3He. This thesis is a study of the appropriateness of small arrays of organic liquid scintillation detectors for the characterisation of 235U, 238U, and 240Pu using total-neutron-counting and coincidence counting during active and passive assessments. Constraints of the equipment and methods are also reported. To do this, five studies have been carried out with a number of cubic EJ-309 detectors; comprising a combination of experimental investigations and MCNP simulations. They have assessed: optimal detector geometries; the use of a neutron shielding cube for measurements of forensic-style samples; an investigation into the applicability of the detectors for total-neutron-counting during the active assay of a broad-range of 235U enrichments; the measurement of total-neutron-count of spontaneous fission neutrons from 238U and a proof-of-concept of a plutonium-contaminated material drum monitor using coincidence counting. The neutron shielding cube and broad-range of 235U experiments suggest that the EJ-309 detectors are suitable for measuring small samples of 235U actively using total-neutron-count. The investigations into measuring the ultra-low-level emission of spontaneous fission neutrons from 238U, and the assessment of 1 mg of PuO2/PuF4 in a 200 litre drum, are evidence of the system's ability to measure particularly small neutron fluxes, in total-neutron-counting-mode and coincidence-mode. The detectors performed well in all investigations when the length of time of assay was chosen appropriately. In most tests, the EJ-309 detectors outperform comparable 3He detector-based systems, due to their ability to detect fast neutrons directly. The lack of efficiency of the detectors below 0.5 MeV does discount them for thermal neutron detection.


Landslide, one of the most disastrous natural hazards, causes damage to infrastructure worldwide and local communities. Pacitan, Indonesia is one city with high susceptibility to landslides occurrence. The conditions of landslide occurrence are assumed to be the same in the future. This study's objective is to produce a landslide susceptibility map by using machine learning methods based on topographical factors including elevation, slope, aspect, profile curvature, plan curvature, Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), distance to the river, and geological map as independent variables, whereas the landslide inventory map derived from Sentinel-2A and Landsat 7 were used as the dependent variables in the model construction. This study's datasets were constructed in three different compositions where each composition was treated as input in Random Forest, Decision Tree, and Logistic regression model. The first dataset was composed of a 70:30 ratio for training and testing sample points, the second dataset with a 60:40 ratio, and the third with a 50:50 ratio. The performance of each model using each dataset composition was analyzed using various accuracy assessments. This study also considered each topographical factor's effect on model performance by excluding several factors in model construction. From the results, random forest with the first dataset appeared to give the best performance for mapping landslide susceptibility area, shown by the highest Area Under Curve (AUC) value, Coefficient Correlation (CC), and Cohen's Kappa of 0.96, 0.92 (92%) and 0.84, respectively. Elevation and geological maps were considered as essential variables shown by significant drops in model accuracy assessment when these two factors were separately excluded, while profile curvature was the least essential variable based on the insignificant drop in the model accuracy assessment result.


Heterogenous multicore architectures are becoming ubiquitous in high-end smartphones. In this paper, we present a study of two modern heterogeneous multicoure architectures based on real measurements. One architecture implements the well-established ARM big. LITTLE 2-cluster approach while the second one takes a leap forward and extends the concept to 3 clusters. In concrete, we analyze the performance of those platforms running parallel workloads. Furthermore, we study the energy and power consumption of the 3-cluster architecture and the effects of high clock frequency on SoC temperature.


Aim and Objectives
The overall aim of this work was to explore the current organisation of general medical services in Scotland, and by doing so, to create evidence which would identify a more effective and acceptable organisational model for the future delivery of primary care (general medical services) within the Scottish context. There were three research objectives: to improve understanding of the views of the public in relation to the organisation of general practice (general medical services) within the wider context of primary care within Scotland; to improve understanding of the views of professionals working within primary care in relation to the organisation of primary care; and to identify and refine models of primary care, and then to test these models of primary care against the status quo with primary care staff and with representatives of the public.

Methods
Mixed methods were used to answer the research questions. These included group-work with members of the public in order to identify their priorities for the future of primary care; and semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of primary care staff which combined members of the core practice team with Community Health Partnership and Health Board managers. Two alternative models for the provision of primary care general medical services were identified by combining the findings from the public and primary care staff with the literature. The two alternative models were then explored by public representatives and primary care staff using mixed methods which combined scoring of the models with deliberative discussion.
Results
Work with the public identified a number of specific priorities. The most important priorities included: quality of care; access to care; and holism. A number of other issues such as a desire for involvement in their own care and the importance of access were also identified. Equity was also acknowledged as being important. There was general agreement between the public and primary care staff in terms of priorities, although staff were resistant to an increased role for the public in overseeing the organisation of practices. Staff and the public agreed on the high levels of variability in general medical practice and the public were concerned about low levels of holism. Staff and managers described an emerging sense of confusion about the roles of general practice. Practice staff had very negative views of Community Health Partnerships and Health Boards in terms of governance, and there was a lack of leadership and direction across primary care. There was evidence of low levels of trust between practice staff and CHP/Board managers. Skillmix was seen as desirable, though some saw it as a means to cost reduction. The independence of practices within the NHS was overwhelmingly supported by staff, who felt that this was preferable to the difficulties encountered in the directly employed and managed system. Practice ownership and the issue of profit was contested with a number of staff being uncomfortable with the idea, but there was a recognition that removing this driver might have negative consequences. There was ambivalence about the move to a wider model of health and the impact of integration with other sectors which was seen negatively by practice staff.
Two alternative models were identified: a local contract model and a social enterprise model. These were tested by public representatives and primary care staff against the status quo. The public scored the local contract more highly on the domains of patient influence on service organisation, and on patient and carer involvement in their care. The public representatives scored the social enterprise model significantly more highly than the local contract model and the status quo. The primary care group did not score the novel models significantly higher than the status quo. The staff group were concerned about proposals to increase the involvement of the public in the organisation of services.

Conclusions
The work builds on that of others who have identified the public's priorities for primary care. It suggests that holism, patient influence in service organisation and equity are important priorities. The work with primary care staff confirms work by others relating to difficulties with the governance of primary care. Alternative independent models of provision were advanced which might address some of the current difficulties in general medical services. The author proposes that user involvement should form an important part of primary care governance, bringing together conflicting perspectives of CHP/Board managers and practice staff. The public's main role in governance is to mediate between the positions taken by health professionals and managers, creating a shared perspective which is acceptable to the public. Furthermore, the concept of conditional trust and the emergence of new forms of professionalism which foster interdisciplinary working are proposed as potential solutions to the current impasse.


Identification of tidal channels fairways is key for predicting behavior of areas at higher risk to water breakthrough or otherwise have a significant impact on the development and monitoring of reservoir performance. However, tidal channels in carbonates are not often easily characterized using conventional seismic attributes. It is important to decipher the complexity of the carbonate tidal channel architecture with integrated multisource data and a variety of approaches.
 In this paper, petrological characteristics and petrographic analysis is conducted on well logs and validated carefully using core data. Then, the second step is to compare the carbonate channel systems with modern analogue in Bahama tidal flat and outcrop scales in Wadi Mi'Aidin (Northern Oman). Thereafter, the supervised probabilistic neural network (PNN) and linear regression method were undertaken to detect an additional channel distribution.
 The relationship of high porosity with low acoustic impedance appeared mostly in the channel facies which reflects good reservoir quality grainstone channels. Outside these channels, the rock is heavily mud filled by peritidal carbonates and characterized by a high acoustic impedance anomaly with low quality of porosity distribution. The new observation of PNN porosity volume revealed a lateral distribution of the Mishrif carbonate tidal channels in terms of paleocurrent direction and the connectivity. Additionally, the prior information from core data and the geological knowledge indicate a good consistency with classified lithology. These observations implied that Mishrif channels consist of a wide range of lithology and porotype fluctuations due to the impact of depositional environment.
 The work enables us to provide a new insight into the distribution of channel bodies, and petrophysical properties with quantification of their influence on dynamic reservoir behavior of the main producing reservoir. This work will not only provide an important guidance to the development and production of this case study, however also deliver an integrated work path for the similar geological and sedimentary environment in the nearby oil fields of Southern Iraq.


Over the past 250 years of momentous change and dramatic upheaval, China has proved itself to be a Restless Empire. Tracing China's course from the eighteenth-century Qing Dynasty to today's People's Republic, Restless Empire shows how the country's worldview has evolved. It explains how Chinese attitudes have been determined by both receptiveness and resistance to outside influence and presents the preoccupations that have set its foreign-relations agenda. Within two decades China is likely to depose the United States as the world's largest economy. By then the country expects to have eradicated poverty among its population of more than one and a half billion, and established itself as the world's technological powerhouse. Meanwhile, some - especially its neighbours - are afraid that China will strengthen its military might in order to bend others to its will. A new form of Chinese nationalism is rising. Many Chinese are angry about perceived past injustices and fear a loss of identity to commercial forces and foreign influences. So, will China's attraction to world society dwindle, or will China continue to engage? Will it attempt to recreate a Sino-centric international order in Eastern Asia, or pursue a more harmonious diplomatic route? And can it overcome its lack of democracy and transparency, or are these characteristics hard-wired into the Chinese system? Whatever the case, we ignore China's international history at our peril. Restless Empire is a magisterial and indispensible history of the most important state in world affairs today. It is the winner of the 2013 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.


SUMMARY

A data assimilation approach is demonstrated whereby seismic inversion is both automated and enhanced using a comprehensive numerical sedimentary basin simulator to study the physics and chemistry of sedimentary basin processes in response to geothermal gradient in much greater detail than previously attempted. The approach not only reduces costs by integrating the basin analysis and seismic inversion activities to understand the sedimentary basin evolution with respect to geodynamic parameters—but the technique also has the potential for serving as a geoinfomatics platform for understanding various physical and chemical processes operating at different scales within a sedimentary basin.

Tectonic history has a first-order effect on the physical and chemical processes that govern the evolution of sedimentary basins. We demonstrate how such tectonic parameters may be estimated by minimizing the difference between observed seismic reflection data and synthetic ones constructed from the output of a reaction, transport, mechanical (RTM) basin model. We demonstrate the method by reconstructing the geothermal gradient. As thermal history strongly affects the rate of RTM processes operating in a sedimentary basin, variations in geothermal gradient history alter the present-day fluid pressure, effective stress, porosity, fracture statistics and hydrocarbon distribution. All these properties, in turn, affect the mechanical wave velocity and sediment density profiles for a sedimentary basin. The present-day state of the sedimentary basin is imaged by reflection seismology data to a high degree of resolution, but it does not give any indication of the processes that contributed to the evolution of the basin or causes for heterogeneities within the basin that are being imaged. Using texture and fluid properties predicted by our Basin RTM simulator, we generate synthetic seismograms. Linear correlation using power spectra as an error measure and an efficient quadratic optimization technique are found to be most effective in determining the optimal value of the tectonic parameters. Preliminary 1-D studies indicate that one can determine the geothermal gradient even in the presence of observation and numerical uncertainties. The algorithm succeeds even when the synthetic data has detailed information only in a limited depth interval and has a different dominant frequency in the synthetic and observed seismograms. The methodology presented here even works when the basin input data contains only 75 per cent of the stratigraphic layering information compared with the actual basin in a limited depth interval.


Ricoeur distinguishes between two forms of hermeneutics: a hermeneutics of faith which aims to restore meaning to a text and a hermeneutics of suspicion which attempts to decode meanings that are disguised. In this paper, his distinction is applied to interpretive stances in narrative research. From the point of view of a hermeneutics of faith, the interpretive effort is to examine the various messages inherent in an interview text, giving "voice" in various ways to the participant(s), while the researcher working from the vantage point of the hermeneutics of suspicion problematizes the participants' narrative and "decodes" meaning beyond the text. Examples are offered of narrative research from each point of view and the implications of working from each stance are explored. Each interpretive position also effects both reflexivity and ethics, and these matters are also discussed. Finally, the implications and possiblities of combining these interpretive positions are considered. (Hermeneutics, Ricoeur, Narrative Analysis, Interpretive Stance, Reflexivity)


Including and augmenting the exhibition catalogue on Dan Flavin's art (see opposite page), this remarkable book features a complete catalogue of over 750 of the artist's light works. Presenting all of Flavin's lights together for the first time, this is the only publication to document the artist's entire career. Flavin's art has not been widely reproduced, and this definitive volume includes hundreds of images--featuring exquisite new photography--of well-known pieces as well as many rarely seen and unknown works. Each light work is illustrated by a beautiful color reproduction and/or a graphic diagram. Comprehensive information on each work, including title, date, medium, dimensions, edition, exhibition history, bibliography, and a brief discussion, reveals new insights into the artist's working methods and provides an invaluable resource for students, scholars, dealers, and collectors.


The exhaled breath analysis is a procedure of measuring several types of gases that aim to identify various diseases in the human body. The purpose of this study is to analyze the gases contained in the exhaled breath in order to recognize healthy and asthma subjects with varying severity. An electronic nose consisting of seven gas sensors equipped with the Support Vector Machine classification method is used to analyze the gases to determine the patient's condition. Non-linear binary classification is used to identify healthy and asthma subjects, whereas the multiclass classification is applied to recognize the subjects of asthma with different severity. The result of this study showed that the system provided a low accuracy to distinguish the subjects of asthma with varying severity. This system can only differentiate between partially controlled and uncontrolled asthma subjects with good accuracy. However, this system can provide high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy to distinguish between healthy and asthma subjects. The use of five gas sensors in the electronic nose system has the best accuracy in the classification results of 89.5%. The gases of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, volatile organic compounds, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide contained in the exhaled breath are the dominant indications as biomarkers of asthma.The performance of electronic nose was highly dependent on the ability of sensor array to analyze gas type in the sample. Therefore, in further study we will employ the sensors having higher sensitivity to detect lower concentration of the marker gases.


Governing boards are a critical asset for every public and nonprofit organization. Scholars have found that effective boards are associated with organizations that tend to perform better than those with ineffective boards, in the public and nonprofit sectors. The attention these boards receive because of their crucial missions demands the need for high-quality training and development activities to give them the best chance at high performance. In this study, we examined the extent to which school boards in Minnesota—both traditional public and nonprofit charter—engage in developmental activities, and we looked at differences between these board types in how they prioritize board development activities. Our findings indicate a number of significant differences between public and nonprofit boards in terms of the extent to which they engage in board development activities, the reasons for engaging in those development activities, and how these boards prioritize development activities. Subscribe to JNEL


Philanthropy is a vibrant resource for aging research, teaching, and service provision today. Funders who are committed to philanthropy to benefit older people are strong advocates, and substantial progress has been made toward greater diversification of funding interests and creativity in aging funding initiatives. And, while the amount of grant money specifically targeting older adults remains a relatively small proportion of all foundation funding, older adults do benefit from many broader funding initiatives aimed at the more general population. This article describes the work of the philanthropic affinity organization Grantmakers in Aging, provides a brief overview of the current state of foundation funding in aging, highlights the work of the largest funder of grants in aging and of a major funder of innovative projects in other areas of particular benefit to older people, and describes resources for identifying potential sources of funding for aging projects. GRANTMAKERS IN AGING Grantmakers in Aging (GIA) and its current programs reflect the breadth and depth of funding interests in aging today. The organization was established following a 1982 meeting on aging issues organized by Trudy Cross, a consultant on aging for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, at the National Council on Foundations meeting in Detroit (Grantmakers in Aging [GIA], 2006a). GIA has since developed into an organization with international members and a wide variety of programs presented throughout the year. GIA is dedicated to promoting and strengthening grant making in an aging society. GIA programs include an annual national conference, issue discussions, a regional issues forum, a mentoring program offered as a membership benefit, the John Feather Diversity Award program, and the EngAGEment Initiative (GIA, 2006b). GIA develops new initiatives as needed. For example, the organization's Hurricane Fund for the Elderly is a public-private partnership with the Administration on Aging that was launched in the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. The project is a vehicle for directing funds and other resources to nonprofit organizations reestablishing services for older adults in the Gulf region. The initial grant recipients, July 2006, were six agencies serving older adults in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi that received a total of $544,000. Providing an example of collaboration among philanthropic and other organizations under the GIA rubric, funders include the Atlantic Philanthropies (New York), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (New Jersey), the Retirement Research Foundation (Illinois), and the AARP Foundation (D.C.), in partnership with the UJA-Federation (United Jewish Appeal) of New York, the Southeastern Council of Foundations, and others. GIA continues to solicit funding partners to meet the large number of requests for assistance (GIA, 2006c). GIA projects reflect a commitment to understanding the diversity of experiences in aging and a recognition of innovative programs addressing issues related to diversity and aging. Recipients of the John Feather Diversity Award established in 2002 are individuals and organizations embracing diversity in all levels of their work in aging. The 2003 recipient was the American Society on Aging's New Ventures in Leadership Program, the 2004 recipient was Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues, and in 2005 Connie Bremner, director of the Eagle Shield Senior Center on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana received the award. In 2006, Meyling Eliesh-Danesh, manager of Latino Services at the Alzheimer's Association in Los Angeles, was the award winner (GIA, 2006c). With generous support from Atlantic Philanthropies, a pilot outreach program called engAGEment was established recently to introduce needs of older adults to grant makers and find ways to involve grant makers in funding of aging projects. CURRENT STATE OF FOUNDATION FUNDING m AGING Foundations awarding grants in aging include those that make awards to recipients throughout the United States, internationally, regionally, or in designated communities. …


This paper presents some observation results of the attachment test of a wind turbine blade as described in the upgrade of the IEC-61400-24. The optical observations were performed by means of high-speed video and UV-sensitive photo camera. This study investigates the effects on the leaders emerging from the blade comparing three different air-terminals: discrete receptors, discrete receptors with diverter strips and metallic tip. In the first two types, salt mist pollution was applied to the blade. For non polluted tips positive leaders appeared from receptors towards the ground avoiding the blade surface. When the blade was polluted additional leaders emerged moving horizontally. Moreover, in this situation the leader progressed on the blade surface. Pollution also produced the inception of more leaders when the blade was equipped with discrete receptors and diverter strips.


The aim of research was to develop research-based learning models to increase students' entrepreneurial interest in State University of Padang. It was begun by doing the related surveys for current situation of entrepreneurial teachingdid not provide yetthe knowledge and students' entrepreneurial expectations. For that reason need a research-based learning to empower student's strategy in the field of real business as well as to improve students' self-evaluation in enhancing their ability to take the business opportunity as the manifestation of the entrepreneurship course. This research used research and development method with Triangulation Mixed Method Design. Updating of the models was done by doing the curriculum assessment with specialists and practitioners. The collection of the data used questionnaires, interviews, documentary studies, training and mentoring as well as Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Quantitative data were analyzed by using an experimental model by using independent t-test. The experimental results on the three classes showed that research-based learning models can give positive impact to students' entrepreneurial interest and this model had qualified and allowable to be used as teaching materials for entrepreneurship courses at the Education Faculty of State University of Padang.The developed model was expected become a feasible choice by entrepreneurshiplecturers to the implementation of entrepreneurship course for university students at faculty of Education in State University of Padang.


This paper presents evidence of the extent to which omitting the value of pension benefits has undermined the accuracy of existing estimates of executive pay, its variability, and its sensitivity to performance.We study the pension arrangements of CEOs of S&P 500 companies that (1) are now serving and are near the retirement age; or (2) left their positions during 2003 and the first half of 2004. Roughly two-thirds of these CEO have a pension plan (or similar retirement arrangement), and our findings with respect to these CEOs are as follows: · The executives' pension plans had a median actuarial value of $15 million. · The ratio of the executives' pension value to the executives' total compensation (including both equity and non-equity pay) during their service as CEO had a median value of 34%. · Including pension values increased the median percentage of the executives' total compensation composed of salary-like payments during and after their service as CEO from 15% to 39%. In addition, the pension benefits in our sample varied considerably with respect to both their magnitude and their relationship to the executives' overall compensation. Our findings indicate that the standard omission of pension plan values by researchers and the media leads to: · Significant underestimation of the magnitude of executive compensation; · Severe distortions in comparisons among executive pay packages; and · Significant overestimation of the extent to which executive pay is linked to performance. Our analysis demonstrates that the SEC new disclosure rules, which require companies to make executive pensions transparent in ways supported by this paper, can be expected to reveal large amounts of performance-insensitive compensation via executive pensions.


Introduction: Utilizing traditional educational methods does not meet today's educational needs; Modern educational systems are enabled with new methods of teaching that enrich the teaching- learning process. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of instruction based generative learning design model on nursing student's Physiology learning. Methods: In this study, the pretest-posttest design with a control group was used. 30 nursing students from the statistical population of nursing students of Malayer were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to two classes of 15 participants. The experimental group was instructional with generative learning model and the control group with a conventional method (book). The instrument used in this study was a learning test (pretest and posttest with 89% reliability and content validity approved by experts). The covariance (Ancova) test and SPSS software were used to analyze the collected data. Results: Findings showed that the instructional based generative design model increases learning in the subject of Physiology. Conclusion: The results showed that generative learning designed increases students' learning the subject of Physiology; the designers and implementers involved in medical education training are recommended to use this model.


Corrective rape is a form of sexual punishment by men towards lesbians in order to cure them of their sexual orientation. Black African lesbians are victims of corrective rape, particularly those in townships who are seen to challenge patriarchal gender norms. Therefore, discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sex and sexual orientation is called into play. The impact of discrimination is rendered more serious and their vulnerability increased by the fact that the victims are also seen as a threat to patriarchy and hetero-normativity which demarcate women's bodies as male property. The article focuses on how South Africa balances its constitutional mandate in relation to black African lesbians affected by corrective rape. The article argues that it is necessary to define corrective rape as a hate crime and not merely a crime of rape for victims of corrective rape to be adequately protected.


Code clone detection is an important problem for software maintenance and evolution. Many approaches consider either structure or identifiers, but none of the existing detection techniques model both sources of information. These techniques also depend on generic, handcrafted features to represent code fragments. We introduce learning-based detection techniques where everything for representing terms and fragments in source code is mined from the repository. Our code analysis supports a framework, which relies on deep learning, for automatically linking patterns mined at the lexical level with patterns mined at the syntactic level. We evaluated our novel learning-based approach for code clone detection with respect to feasibility from the point of view of software maintainers. We sampled and manually evaluated 398 file- and 480 method-level pairs across eight real-world Java systems; 93% of the file- and method-level samples were evaluated to be true positives. Among the true positives, we found pairs mapping to all four clone types. We compared our approach to a traditional structure-oriented technique and found that our learning-based approach detected clones that were either undetected or suboptimally reported by the prominent tool Deckard. Our results affirm that our learning-based approach is suitable for clone detection and a tenable technique for researchers.


BACKGROUND
In the light of sub-optimal uptake of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination, we investigated the factors that influence the intentions of mothers to vaccinate.

METHOD
A cross-sectional survey of 300 mothers in Birmingham with children approaching a routine MMR vaccination was conducted using a postal questionnaire to measure: intention to vaccinate, psychological variables, knowledge of the vaccine, and socioeconomic status. The vaccination status of the children was obtained from South Birmingham Child Health Surveillance Unit.

RESULTS
The response rate was 59%. Fewer mothers approaching the second MMR vaccination (Group 2) intended to take their children for this vaccination than Group 1 (mothers approaching the first MMR vaccination) (Mann-Whitney U = 2180, P < 0.0001). Group 2 expressed more negative beliefs about the outcome of having the MMR vaccine ('vaccine outcome beliefs') (Mann-Whitney U = 2155, P < 0.0001), were more likely to believe it was 'unsafe' (chi 2 = 9.114, P = 0.004) and that it rarely protected (chi 2 = 6.882, P = 0.014) than Group 1. The commonest side-effect cited was general malaise, but 29.8% cited autism. The most trusted source of information was the general practitioner but the most common source of information on side-effects was television (34.6%). Multiple linear regression revealed that, in Group 1, only 'vaccine outcome beliefs' significantly predicted intention (77.1% of the variance). In Group 2 'vaccine outcome beliefs', attitude to the MMR vaccine, and prior MMR status all predicted intention (93% of the variance).

CONCLUSION
A major reason for the low uptake of the MMR vaccination is that it is not perceived to be important for children's health, particularly the second dose. Health education from GPs is likely to have a considerable impact.


Abstract Purpose: Previous studies with intermittent interleukin-2 (IL-2) therapy using intermediate and high levels of IL-2 have demonstrated significant increases in the CD4 + T cell count in HIV-infected patients. Intermittent regimens are amenable to outpatient use, but severe adverse events are frequently experienced with intermediate- and high-dose levels of IL-2. Therefore in this study, the effect of daily, subcutaneous low-dose IL-2 therapy on safety and immunological endpoints was investigated to determine whether immunological benefit could be achieved without toxicity in HIV-infected patients also receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Method: A total of 115 patients were enrolled in the trial. Fifty-six asymptomatic HIV-infected patients who had CD4 + T cell counts less than 300 cells/μL at screening and a stable HIV viral load received low-dose IL-2 (1.2 million IU [MIU]/m 2 beginning dose) once daily in conjunction with HAART (IL-2 group). Fifty-nine patients received HAART alone (control group). Results: A dramatic effect of IL-2 on the natural killer (NK) cell population was observed with mean increases of 156 cells/μL in the IL-2 group compared to 19.93 cells/μL in the control group (p < .001). Additionally, IL-2-treated patients experienced a statistically significant increase in the mean percentage of CD4 + T cells (3.52% increase) when compared to control patients (1.33% increase) (p < .001). The expanded CD4 + T cell population was primarily of the naive phenotype, with mean increases of 4.53% for the IL-2 group and 0.31% for the control group (p < .001 for between-group difference). In addition, a higher proportion of IL-2-treated patients (67%) compared to control patients (33%) achieved increases of greater than 50% in the CD4+ T cell count (p = .08). Adverse events of grade 3 or grade 4 toxicity were infrequent in the current study and were substantially lower by comparison to those in studies of intermittent dose IL-2 therapy. Also, negligible changes in the HIV viral load from baseline to final measurement were observed in both groups. A trend toward a reduced number of modifications of antiretroviral therapy was apparent in the IL-2 group when compared to control patients. Conclusion: Daily, low-dose subcutaneous IL-2 therapy in conjunction with HAART is safe and well tolerated and is effective in expanding lymphocyte cell types including NK cells and naive T cells in individuals who have <300 CD4+ T cells.


Moderation is unconventionally regarded as a means of conducting meetings or group activities in a non-controlling manner. It aims at making use of group knowledge by involving group members in the decision-making process and by focusing them on the purpose of the meeting. Moderation requires a specific basic attitude of the moderator and certain techniques. The present paper aims at analyzing the role of the chair in workplace meetings from a different perspective, namely that of a moderator. Moderation techniques are strategic tools used by the chairperson to reach the objectives of the meeting in a very efficient manner, which takes into consideration both power and politeness (Holmes and Stubbe 2003). In this study, I approach the different communicative roles adopted by the chairs in professional meetings, with an emphasis on the strategies associated with the role of the moderator, in contrast with that of an authoritative controller. The variation of roles and the strategic choices made by the speakers account for the complexities of workplace context.


Evidence suggests that major events, like war or natural disasters, affect risk preferences. This paper shows that similar effects can also be caused by public policies. Using the case of a large titling program in Peru, we find that this policy reduced risk aversion. The effects are sizeable and seem to be driven by the reduction in background risk associated with improved security of tenure. Our results highlight the potential of public policies to affect human behavior not only by shaping the economic environment, but also by changing individual preferences.


Background Apathy and depression are extremely common features of Huntington's disease (HD) identifiable years before motor-based clinical onset. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms subserving their clinical expression. Objectives Given the importance of defining early biomarkers of disease progression and to clarify the pathophysiological substrates of these features, we performed 18-FDG PET/CT in a sample of n = 11 pre-manifested (preHD) individuals with/without affective symptoms. Methods Based on the PBA-s, participants were grouped as with significant affective symptoms (PBA-s apathy and/or depression score ≥2; PreHD-Af) and without affective symptoms (PreHD-nAf). Motor, functional and cognitive assessments were performed. PET/CT was done 50 min after 18-FDG injection. T-test comparisons between groups and regression analysis separating apathy and depression scores were done using standard SPM8 techniques. Results No differences were found between groups comparing for mean CAG length=42.4 ± 3.8, age=42.5 ± 12.1, education =13.8 ± 3.8, UHDRS-motor=1.64 ± 1.6, TFC=12.9 ± 0.3, cognition=101 ± 14.3 or disease burden=296.7 ± 127. Group analysis showed no significant differences in caudate nuclei, but significant hypometabolism in areas of the prefrontal (PFC) and temporal cortex involved in emotional resonance, emotion comprehension, and social interaction. PreHD-Af patients exhibited hypometabolism in the right posterior fronto-median cortex (p-FMC; BA8), right frontopolar PFC (BA10), and right inferior temporal gyrus (BA20) (uncorrected p < 0.004). Apathy scores significantly correlated with hypometabolism in the dorsolateral PFC (right-BA46), right frontopolar PFC, and left posterior insula (BA13), while depressive scores related to hypometabolism in the right medial PFC (BA 9), right occipitotemporal cortex (BA37), bilateral temporal pole (BA38), and bilateral associative parietal cortex (BA40) (uncorrected p < 0.005). Discussion PreHD patients already exhibit a pattern of hypometabolism involving areas that play a major role in the processing of inner emotions and socially relevant signals. Apathy appeared related to PFC structures subserving emotion control and comprehension, while depressive symptoms extended to parieto-temporal regions linked to emotional processing.


Heterozygous mutations in KMT2B are associated with an early-onset, progressive and often complex dystonia (DYT28). Key characteristics of typical disease include focal motor features at disease presentation, evolving through a caudocranial pattern into generalized dystonia, with prominent oromandibular, laryngeal and cervical involvement. Although KMT2B-related disease is emerging as one of the most common causes of early-onset genetic dystonia, much remains to be understood about the full spectrum of the disease. We describe a cohort of 53 patients with KMT2B mutations, with detailed delineation of their clinical phenotype and molecular genetic features. We report new disease presentations, including atypical patterns of dystonia evolution and a subgroup of patients with a non-dystonic neurodevelopmental phenotype. In addition to the previously reported systemic features, our study has identified co-morbidities, including the risk of status dystonicus, intrauterine growth retardation, and endocrinopathies. Analysis of this study cohort (n = 53) in tandem with published cases (n = 80) revealed that patients with chromosomal deletions and protein truncating variants had a significantly higher burden of systemic disease (with earlier onset of dystonia) than those with missense variants. Eighteen individuals had detailed longitudinal data available after insertion of deep brain stimulation for medically refractory dystonia. Median age at deep brain stimulation was 11.5 years (range: 4.5-37.0 years). Follow-up after deep brain stimulation ranged from 0.25 to 22 years. Significant improvement of motor function and disability (as assessed by the Burke Fahn Marsden's Dystonia Rating Scales, BFMDRS-M and BFMDRS-D) was evident at 6 months, 1 year and last follow-up (motor, P = 0.001, P = 0.004, and P = 0.012; disability, P = 0.009, P = 0.002 and P = 0.012). At 1 year post-deep brain stimulation, >50% of subjects showed BFMDRS-M and BFMDRS-D improvements of >30%. In the long-term deep brain stimulation cohort (deep brain stimulation inserted for >5 years, n = 8), improvement of >30% was maintained in 5/8 and 3/8 subjects for the BFMDRS-M and BFMDRS-D, respectively. The greatest BFMDRS-M improvements were observed for trunk (53.2%) and cervical (50.5%) dystonia, with less clinical impact on laryngeal dystonia. Improvements in gait dystonia decreased from 20.9% at 1 year to 16.2% at last assessment; no patient maintained a fully independent gait. Reduction of BFMDRS-D was maintained for swallowing (52.9%). Five patients developed mild parkinsonism following deep brain stimulation. KMT2B-related disease comprises an expanding continuum from infancy to adulthood, with early evidence of genotype-phenotype correlations. Except for laryngeal dysphonia, deep brain stimulation provides a significant improvement in quality of life and function with sustained clinical benefit depending on symptoms distribution.


In most situations, especially those requiring short term ventilation, discontinuing mechanical ventilation is not too challenging. This process, however, becomes more difficult when dealing with very premature and extremely low birth weight babies as well as those recovering from major respiratory failure, who required prolonged ventilatory support. The process of discontinuing mechanical ventilation in such babies has become a major clinical challenge and constitutes a large proportion of the workload in most neonatal intensive care units.

Baby MM was born by normal vaginal delivery at 25 weeks' gestation with a birth weight of 890 g. Mother had received two doses of antenatal steroid. Her membranes had ruptured four days before delivery. The baby's condition at birth was satisfactory but he was immediately intubated and given prophylactic surfactant. However, he did develop respiratory failure due to hyaline membrane disease and required mechanical ventilation. On day 2, he was commenced on total parenteral nutrition (TPN) and enteral feeds were slowly introduced. On day 7, he developed features of necrotising enterocolitis for which he received conservative treatment for seven days. On day 18, he was noted to have signs of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) which was treated with a course of indomethacin. Despite this, he needed an increased level of ventilatory support to maintain adequate gas exchange. A repeat echocardiography revealed persistence of a haemodynamically significant PDA which needed surgical ligation on day 26. The immediate postoperative course was complicated with development of pulmonary hypertension which responded quickly to inhaled nitric oxide treatment. However, he remained ventilator dependent and by day 28 was showing signs of chronic lung disease. For this, he was commenced on a 10 day course of dexamethasone (a total dose of 712 μg/kg over 10 days; DART (dexamethasone: a randomized trial), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) regimen1). On day 34, …


Delaware is home to the majority of the 94.9 percent of M&A transactions over $100 million that are challenged in shareholder class action litigation. These cases usually result in settlements that provide shareholders with only disclosure in exchange for a broad release of future claims that encompasses unknown and federal security claims. The Delaware Court of Chancery must review and approve these settlements under Rule 23(e), which has been interpreted as creating a fiduciary duty for the Court to protect the interests of absent shareholders. Nevertheless, Delaware has a history of routinely approving disclosure-only settlements with laxity. Recently, members of the Court have begun discussing the issues with this process, and in some cases have begun rejecting settlements that were previously likely to be approved. This active discussion, combined with the discretion given to the individual members of the Court to make their own business judgment, has resulted in each developing their own method of reviewing disclosure-only settlements and applying their fiduciary duty.This Note reviews recent decisions of each member of the Court in order to understand their individual method of reviewing settlements and how they apply their duty to shareholders in this process, after developing a backdrop of the prototypical M&A case and the rules that define the Court's role. It then identifies the interest group theory as a potential explanation for the external factors that may influence the Court's diverging methodologies. This Note concludes that in order to create a more consistent standard that fully applies the Court's fiduciary duty to shareholders, the Court of Chancery should adopt a new materiality standard based on the merits of the case at filing, and limit approval to settlements that have releases that are proportional to the relief provided to shareholders.


Sex trafficking, often referred, as "modem day slavery" is one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises on the Internet. Sex trafficking occurs when a victim, typically a female, is traded for the purpose of commercial sex. Fueled by global economic conditions and increased international mobility, the trading of human beings is expanding rapidly. Classified advertisements on the Internet and social media websites have help aid in the advancement of the industry because traffickers are hidden behind the shield of anonymity and protection known as the web. Victims are sold numerous times to multiple buyers on a daily basis. Sex trafficking is a complex criminal activity involving many specialized roles such as a recruiter, victim, trafficker and buyer. This paper will examine the role Internet plays in this degrading sex-slave trade industry and what can be done to identify and help those being traded. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department English Language and Literature First Advisor Regina Luttrell Second Advisor Jamie Ward


Fullerene dimerization has been linked to short circuit current (Jsc) losses in organic solar cells comprised of certain polymer–fullerene systems. We investigate several polymer–fullerene systems, which present Jsc loss to varying degrees, in order to determine under which conditions dimerization occurs. By reintroducing dimers into fresh devices, we confirm that the photo-induced dimers are indeed the origin of the Jsc loss. We find that both film morphology and electrical bias affect the photodimerization process and thus the associated loss of Jsc. In plain fullerene films, a higher degree of crystallinity can inhibit the dimerization reaction, as observed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) measurements. In blend films, the amount of dimerization depends on the degree of mixing between polymer and fullerene. For highly mixed systems with very amorphous polymers, no dimerization is observed. In solar cells with pure polymer and fullerene domains, we tune the fullerene morphology from amorphous to crystalline by thermal annealing. Similar to neat fullerene films, we observe improved light stability for devices with crystalline fullerene domains. Changing the operating conditions of the investigated solar cells from Voc to Jsc also significantly reduces the amount of dimerization-related Jsc loss; HPLC analysis of the active layer shows that more dimers are formed if the cell is held at Voc instead of Jsc. The effect of bias on dimerization, as well as a clear correlation between PL quenching and reduced dimerization upon addition of small amounts of an amorphous polymer into PC60BM films, suggests a reaction mechanism via excitons.


We present the catalog of optical and infrared counterparts of the Chandra COSMOS-Legacy Survey, a 4.6 Ms Chandra program on the 2.2 deg2 of the COSMOS field, combination of 56 new overlapping observations obtained in Cycle 14 with the previous C-COSMOS survey. In this Paper we report the i, K, and 3.6 μm identifications of the 2273 X-ray point sources detected in the new Cycle 14 observations. We use the likelihood ratio technique to derive the association of optical/infrared (IR) counterparts for 97% of the X-ray sources. We also update the information for the 1743 sources detected in C-COSMOS, using new K and 3.6 μm information not available when the C-COSMOS analysis was performed. The final catalog contains 4016 X-ray sources, 97% of which have an optical/IR counterpart and a photometric redshift, while ≃54% of the sources have a spectroscopic redshift. The full catalog, including spectroscopic and photometric redshifts and optical and X-ray properties described here in detail, is available online. We study several X-ray to optical (X/O) properties: with our large statistics we put better constraints on the X/O flux ratio locus, finding a shift toward faint optical magnitudes in both soft and hard X-ray band. We confirm the existence of a correlation between X/O and the the 2–10 keV luminosity for Type 2 sources. We extend to low luminosities the analysis of the correlation between the fraction of obscured AGNs and the hard band luminosity, finding a different behavior between the optically and X-ray classified obscured fraction.


The aim of this study was to measure the effects of video self-modelling on three children with dog fears aged between 7 and 13 years old. The study also aimed to teach these three children appropriate dog safety techniques and dog body language identification skills which they could use in everyday life. All three participants were recruited through school newsletters. The three participants attended two meetings with the researcher to discuss their dog fears and what they wanted to achieve from taking part in the study. Videos of each participant were then created to depict the participants being within the same environment as a dog while acting calm and displaying coping skills. Participants were also given hypothetical scenarios of where they may encounter a dog and were asked to rate their fear level. A book was created to teach the participants how to read a dog's body language and how to behave around dogs. Participants viewed their videos and read their books for two weeks. They then went back to the same setting of the video with a real life dog and were asked to rate their fear levels for the same hypothetical scenarios. Results showed an overall decrease in reported fear levels in two of the three participants, with the third participants showing variable fear levels. It can be concluded that the video along with the book had positive effects on the participants' fear levels and knowledge about dog behaviour. One major limitation of this study is whether the video or the book alone or a combination of both was responsible for the participants' results and behaviour changes.


UK higher education has seen unprecedented fluctuations, particularly within the last decade. Policy developments and government strategies are dramatically altering the sector and irreversibly changing the student-university relationship. Of particular note, a consumerist ethos has become the prevalent mind-set amongst the student body and, consequently, students have developed clear expectations about what they want from their university experience. In order to begin to explore these perceptions and needs, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of first year undergraduate students from across three programmes of study at the University of Central Lancashire: Business Administration, Business and Management, and Business Studies. The structure and content of the interview questions were derived from the results of an earlier focus group meeting held with students from a local 'feeder institution' who were studying Business and who were considering entering university in 2017-2018 (although not necessarily UCLan). The findings from these interviews, along with those from a set of follow up meetings, are in line with the results of other, earlier studies described within the literature which suggest that students enter university with a specific set of expectations, that are, in many cases, unfulfilled. However, the empirical research presented here makes a distinctive contribution to the field in several respects: first, that psychological contract theory is employed as a useful lens through which to investigate the student-university relationship; second, the behavioural responses to dissatisfaction are examined using the Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect (EVLN) framework as a mechanism for exploring these reactions; and third, previous studies employing the EVLN framework in the context of higher education have all taken place overseas and largely used quantitative methods of investigation. Therefore, this research is distinctive in that it takes place in a UK setting and employs qualitative methods. The use of qualitative methods has added to our understanding of the student experience by highlighting some of the underlying causes of dissatisfaction and the ways in which students might respond to the breach of perceived promises. The EVLN framework has demonstrated its value as a conceptual tool in exploring students' reactions and reveals that the expectation-reality mismatch can lead to feelings of entrapment and hopelessness amongst the student body. The outcomes uncovered in this thesis have real-world implications for management practice, not only at UCLan, but for other universities that may be facing similar issues.


Language maps provide illustrations of linguistic and cultural diversity and distribution, appearing in outlets ranging from textbooks and news articles to websites and wall maps. They are valuable visual aids that accompany discussions of our cultural climate. Despite the prevalent use of language maps as educational tools, little recent research addresses the difficult task of map construction for this fluid cultural characteristic. The display and analysis capabilities of current geographic information systems (GIS) provide a new opportunity for revisiting and challenging the issues of language mapping. In an effort to renew language mapping research and explore the potential of GIS, this dissertation is composed of three studies that collectively present a progressive work on language mapping. The first study summarizes the language mapping literature, addressing the difficulties and limitations of assigning language to space before describing contemporary language mapping projects as well as future research possibilities with current technology. In an effort to identify common language mapping practices, the second study is a map survey documenting the cartographic characteristics of existing language maps. The survey not only consistently categorizes language map symbology, it also captures unique strategies observed for handling locations with linguistic plurality as well as representing language data uncertainty. A new typology of language map symbology is compiled based on the map survey results. Finally, the third study specifically addresses two gaps in the language mapping literature: the issue of visualizing linguistic diversity and the scarcity of GIS applications in language mapping research. The study uses census data for the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Statistical Area to explore visualization possibilities for representing the linguistic diversity. After recreating mapping strategies already in use for showing linguistic diversity, the study applies an existing statistic (a linguistic diversity index) as a new mapping variable to generate a new visualization type: a linguistic diversity surface. The overall goal of this dissertation is to provide the impetus for continued language mapping research and contribute to the understanding and creation of language maps in education, research, politics, and other venues.


OBJECTIVE: To examine national time trends of resective surgery for the treatment of medically refractory epilepsy before and after Class I evidence demonstrating its efficacy and subsequent practice guidelines recommending early surgical evaluation. METHODS: We performed a population-based cohort study with time trends of patients admitted to US hospitals for medically refractory focal epilepsy between 1990 and 2008 who did or did not undergo lobectomy, as reported in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. RESULTS: Weighted data revealed 112,026 hospitalizations for medically refractory focal epilepsy and 6,653 resective surgeries (lobectomies and partial lobectomies) from 1990 to 2008. A trend of increasing hospitalizations over time was not accompanied by an increase in surgeries, producing an overall trend of decreasing surgery rates (F = 13.6, p < 0.01). Factors associated with this trend included a decrease in epilepsy hospitalizations at the highest-volume epilepsy centers, and increased hospitalizations to lower-volume hospitals that were found to be less likely to perform surgery. White patients were more likely to have surgery than racial minorities (relative risk [RR], 1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10–1.17), and privately insured individuals were more likely to receive lobectomy than those with Medicaid or Medicare (RR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.25–1.30). CONCLUSION: Despite Class I evidence and subsequent practice guidelines, the utilization of lobectomy has not increased from 1990 to 2008. Surgery continues to be heavily underutilized as a treatment for epilepsy, with significant disparities by race and insurance coverage. Patients who are medically refractory after failing 2 antiepileptic medications should be referred to a comprehensive epilepsy center for surgical evaluation.


One thing nearly all epistemologists agree upon is that Gettier cases are decisive counterexamples to the tripartite analysis of knowledge; whatever else is true of knowledge, it is not merely belief that is both justified and true. They now agree that knowledge is not justified true belief because this is consistent with there being too much luck present in the cases, and that knowledge excludes such luck. This is to endorse what has become known as the 'anti-luck platitude'. But what if generations of philosophers have been mistaken about this, blinded at least partially by a deeply entrenched professional bias? There has been another, albeit minority, response to Gettier: to deny that the cases are counterexamples at all. Stephen Hetherington, a principal and vocal proponent of this view, advances what he calls the 'Knowing Luckily Proposal'. If Hetherington is correct, this would call for a major re-evaluation and re-orientation of post-Gettier analytic epistemology, since much of it assumes the anti-luck platitude both in elucidating the concept of knowledge, and in the application of such accounts to central philosophical problems. It is therefore imperative that the Knowing Luckily Proposal be considered and evaluated in detail. In this paper I critically assess the Knowing Luckily Proposal. I argue that while it draws our attention to certain important features of knowledge, ultimately it fails, and the anti-luck platitude emerges unscathed. Whatever else is true of knowledge, therefore, it is non-lucky true belief. For a proposition to count as knowledge, we cannot arrive at its truth accidentally or for the wrong reason.


The current IEEE 802.11 medium access control standard is being deployed in coffee shops, in airports and even across major cities. The terminals accessing these wi-fi access points do not belong to the same entity, as in corporate networks, but are usually individually owned and operated. Entities sharing these network resources have no incentive in following protocol rules other than to optimize their overall utility, usually a function of throughput and delay. We briefly discuss shortfalls of the current IEEE 802.11 standard in environments where terminals are competing for a common bandwidth resource, and then we introduce a new MAC protocol designed with the above considerations. Thus the new Incentive Compatible MAC (ICMAC) protocol is more suited for these open environments, without compromising the overall network performance.


The contribution of Rhizosolenia mats to silica cycling in the central North Pacific and the coupling of mat silicon metabolism and their vertical migration was examined in areas to the west of the Hawaiian Islands (23–28°N and 159–175°W) in 1995 and to the east of Hawaii along 31°N (160–127°W) in 1996. The biogenic silica content of Rhizosolenia mats sampled in 1995 averaged 1.82 ± 1.87 (SD) µmol Si mat−1. Larger mats that averaged 4.56 ± 3.54 (SD) µmol Si mat−1 were observed in 1996. Kinetic experiments indicated that substrate limitation of mat silica production was widespread across the study region, with ambient [Si(OH)4] restricting silica production to 33% of maximum potential rates. Three lines of evidence indicate that silicon metabolism is not tightly coupled to the migration of mats to and from the nutricline. In 1996, mats in surface waters could double their Si content in 0.55 d on average without migrating to the nutricline to obtain Si. However, average doubling times (9.8 d) in 1996 were of the same order as a migration cycle, necessitating significant Si uptake at depth. Si uptake rates did not differ significantly between ascending and descending mats, suggesting that mats ascending from the nutricline had not fulfilled their Si uptake requirements. Finally, small internal pools of Si in ascending mats indicated that if significant amounts of Si were taken up at depth, they were not stored for use in the surface waters. The biomass and silica production rates of mats collected using SCUBA in the upper 20 m were extrapolated to 150 m by using abundances determined using a video plankton recorder (VPR). The results suggest that mats account for about 3% of the standing stock of biogenic silica and 26% of silica production in the upper 150 m. The daily silica production by Rhizosolenia mats (317 µmol Si m−2 d−1) is 50–76% of the total silica production in the Sargasso Sea. This high rate of silica production combined with the wide geographic distribution of mats throughout several mid‐ocean gyres suggests that mats may contribute significantly to global silica production.


Relations between China and Turkey are quiescent. In a globalising Asia-Pacific, however, they are unlikely to remain so. High economic interdependence in the presence of the rise of Asian and Eurasian powers suggest that China and Turkey as multi-regional states have a common interest in regional cooperation. It is within this context that bilateral relations are likely to develop. China's rapid rise means that its impact will not be confined to Pacific Asia. Increasingly, with the quest for energy security, China is setting its diplomatic compass westward to Eurasia and the Middle East. Thus, the regional setting for bilateral relations provides the key to the future of Sino-Turkish relations.


INTRODUCTION AND AIMS
In spite of the major focus on risky, single-occasion drinking by young people in Australia, little is known about the specific circumstances of risky drinking occasions. This study examines drinking behaviours and drinking contexts for the most recent risky, single-occasion drinking episode in a representative sample of young risky drinkers in Victoria, Australia.

DESIGN AND METHODS
A representative sample of 802 young risky drinkers was recruited across metropolitan Melbourne and surveyed about their drinking and related behaviours. Specific questions focused on participants' most recent high-risk (>10 Australian standard drinks for males, >7 Australian standard drinks for females) drinking occasion in terms of self-reported amount drunk, alcohol expenditure (including buying rounds) and drinking partners for up to 10 different drinking settings.

RESULTS
Participants reported drinking a mean of 13 Australian standard drinks on their last episode of risky, single-occasion drinking; for half of the participants, this occurred less than 20 days prior to being surveyed. The majority (62%) of risky single occasion drinking sessions commenced at private homes in the company of close friends (81%). Around 40% of the sample reported going to one (42%) or two (37%) drinking locations, and only 5% reported going to more than three drinking locations.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Contrary to public portrayals, a significant amount of risky drinking by young people occurs in private settings. These contexts are rarely mentioned except in relation to underage drinking. Further work is needed to understand how these drinking behaviours and contexts link to harm.


Law school faculty and deans have been claiming for over 100 years that law schools teach students to "think like lawyers." The Socratic method of instruction using case law text books have been the accepted law school pedagogy in the core bar examination subject matter courses to teach students the "think like a lawyer" skills. However, there has been little or no empirical evidence to test whether attending law school improves students' ability to "think like a lawyer." This paper reports two studies conducted at ABA accredited law schools which examined whether taking more of the "think like a lawyer" bar courses improved students' ability to pass state bar examinations. The findings of both studies indicate that taking more of the "think like a lawyer" bar courses do not improve the bar passage rate for first, second or fourth quartile law students or for students who ranked in the bottom ten percent of their law school class after controlling for incoming Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores and undergraduate grade point averages (UGPA). Taking more bar course resulted in a small improvement in bar examination passage for third quartile graduates but the effect was small (ή² = .014). The author concludes that law schools do not teach students to "think like a lawyer." Instead, students with pre-existing "think like a lawyer" skills self-select to attend law schools. Law schools also pre-select law students with high "think like a lawyer" skills using index scores which combine LSAT scores and UGPA.


The work presented herein focuses on the study of novel metallodrugs and their interaction with various possible targets and off-targets in the form of biomolecules such as peptides, proteins, DNA, and small molecules via the use of ultra-high resolution Fourier Transform-Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry.

Beyond traditional platinum(II) metallodrug such as cisplatin and oxaliplatin, new designs of metallodrugs are being conceived to attack and kill cancerous cells via new mechanisms of action in an effort to exceed the potency, selectivity, and effectiveness of metallodrug treatments. These new metallodrugs range from various activation strategies, to specific target binding, and even catalysis of cell-disrupting processes. As a result these novel drugs can have a wide array of effects on various biomolecule species the may encounter in the body.

It is the aim of this thesis to show that mass spectrometry, specifically FT-ICR Mass Spectrometry, is uniquely suited to studying the wide array of metal-based drugs, their biomolecule targets/off-targets, and the numerous reaction products produced from their interactions. Though the study of metallodrug-modified biomolecules via mass spectrometry was shown to be challenging in many cases, mass spectrometry is currently the only analytical technique viable for studying the complex systems involved to a useful level of detail. The majority of the thesis focuses on study of isolated biomolecules interacting with novel metallodrugs and the MS and tandem-MS based study of the resulting observable components.

A great range of metallodrugs and biomolecule interactions were observed. A photoactivated platinum(IV) metallodrug (trans, trans, trans[Pt(py)2(OH)2(N3)2]) was shown to produce a variety of platinum(II) based modifications to the peptides studied when activated with blue (463nm) visible light, with the ligand configurations varying depending on whether a histidine amino acid residue was present, allowing retention of both pyridine ligands, or not, allowing release of any of the bound ligands. Tandem MS studies using electron based dissociations showed the primary preference of binding to be at the Histidine residues, and when not available the complexes could bind to lysing functional groups, distinctly different behaviour to previously studied Pt(II) complexes. Oxidation of peptide species was also found to be a significant product of these reactions. Tandem MS studies located the oxidation sites to methionine and tryptophan residues, the latter of which provided insights into the oxidation mechanism. The oxidation process was found to be due to a hydroxyl radical process, not a singlet oxygen mechanism. UV/vis and EPR measurements were also undertaken and supported the results found.
Studies into the interaction of a potent osmium(III) compound with isolated DNA strands showed that the metallodrug could bind to both guanine and cytosine sites along the biomolecule. Analysis of these species via CAD MS/MS proved challenging due to damage and eventual dissociation of the metal complex modifications. Whereas electron detachment dissociation enabled the elucidation of the two distinct binding locations. CAD MS/MS was found to be useful for studying hydrogen bonded/pi-stacking stabilised structures.

Further investigations into DNA MS and MS/MS lead to the study of the platinum(IV) compound interactions with DNA stands, showing a vastly improved rate of reaction for the compound when compared to the previous peptide reactions. In addition uniform retention of pyridine ligands and no oxidation was observed, providing further evidence of the biomolecule playing a key role in the activation process of the Pt(IV) drugs. MS/MS studies of platinated DNA resulted in similar findings to the osmium-based metallodrugs. Experiments with native MS of DNA showed that observation and interrogation of duplex-DNA strands is possible, even with DNA strands which are not stabilised easily in ammonium acetate solutions, and without annealing. MS, MS/MS, and MS3 was achieved on duplex DNA strands using large concentrations of ammonium acetate and potassium chloride solutions, along with extremely carefully tuned MS source and transfer parameters.

The effects of metals on tandem-MS techniques was uniquely apparent during the study of functionalised Iridium-based metallodrug modified peptides. The iridium complexes were shown to effectively quench many electrons used during ECD MS/MS. Though the species were still able to be studied using optimised ECD and CAD MS/MS parameters.

The reactivity of metal centres was also shown to affect their own bound ligands, as observed herein with rhodium(II) compounds. The rhodium piano-stool complexes were shown to vastly accelerate and enable room temperature activation of C-H bonds within arene ligands towards hydrogen-deuterium exchange experiments, with some compounds achieving full exchange of available groups within just 1 hour. The process was studied using FT-ICR MS to track the exchange process and observe sequential exchange for 10 different rhodium compounds. An iridium analogue was also studied, which was ineffective, displaying the Rh metal centre's unique chemistry for this reaction.

A novel method for the enhancement of the electrospray ionisation process was conceived and developed in order to achieve improvement of analyte charging, so-called "supercharging". Using a combination of standard electrospray ionisation and atmospheric chemical ionisation, CH5 +"superacid" ions were introduced into the ESI plume and enabled solution-additive free supercharging of analytes under a variety of conditions. The achievement of higher charge states/enhancement of charge is of uniform benefit to biomolecule characterisation and could help reduce the need for solution phase additives which can disrupt many chemical processes and biomolecule structure.

The final section of the thesis is concerned with the escalation of metallodrug-biomolecule interaction from isolated biomolecule up to full-cell proteomes via FT-ICR MS. The great array of challenges faced in previous studies is addressed and strategies for accurate and reliable studies of large metallodrug-modified systems are outlined and tested. Two major strategies are proposed, one based on liquid-chromatography mass spectrometry with modified data processing techniques. The other using a niche MS/MS technique known as two-dimensional mass spectrometry, which would enable whole proteome characterisation without chromatographic separation. Preliminary result using both approaches and future outlook are presented.


This article interogates what it means for anthropologists as "social critics" to be engaged in documenting efforts that not only have explanatory power but connect that power to praxis. The key here is to recognize how delimiting innocence and guilt in the context of war is clearly a political act that is not without problems. It involves identifying our public spheres and determining what has happened to those publics within which we speak. I suggest we first rethink what it means for ethnography to serve a public domain within which we speak. This involves rethinking what it means for ethnography to serve a public domain as a mechanism of engagement with all types of subjects—victims, warlords, negotiators, intermediaries, child soldiers, and even so‐called terrorists. In this regard, I suggest that return to the intentions at the core of the anthropological code of ethics, codes that guide our commitment to our informant publics. By locating the limits of our code of ethics we can rectify the ways that the history of anthropological engagement in the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries has been preoccupied with documenting "local" peoples as the "authentic" voices to be protected and understood while it has excluded other interlocutors. By rethinking the ethics of research we can use the tools of our discipline in principled forms of engagement with a range of publics.


The system of scholarly communication is a complex environment made up of various stakeholders including not only researchers, librarians, and publishers, but also academic administrators. This paper examines conditions each group faces while also noting barriers preventing movement toward open access. To further analyze interrelationships and interdependencies among groups, a discussion is presented using French & Raven's bases of power to describe how members of each stakeholder group exert some degree of power upon all other groups while at the same time being influenced, either directly or indirectly, by external forces. A better understanding of the many existing interactions and dependencies can help those who work within this system navigate ongoing changes while more successfully positioning their organizations for the future.


Recently, Neural Topic Models (NTMs) inspired by variational autoencoders have obtained increasingly research interest due to their promising results on text analysis. However, it is usually hard for existing NTMs to achieve good document representation and coherent/diverse topics at the same time. Moreover, they often degrade their performance severely on short documents. The requirement of reparameterisation could also comprise their training quality and model flexibility. To address these shortcomings, we present a new neural topic model via the theory of optimal transport (OT). Specifically, we propose to learn the topic distribution of a document by directly minimising its OT distance to the document's word distributions. Importantly, the cost matrix of the OT distance models the weights between topics and words, which is constructed by the distances between topics and words in an embedding space. Our proposed model can be trained efficiently with a differentiable loss. Extensive experiments show that our framework significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art NTMs on discovering more coherent and diverse topics and deriving better document representations for both regular and short texts.


BACKGROUND
Localized-type tenosynovial giant cell tumor (TGCT) is a rare, neoplastic disease with only limited data supporting treatment protocols. We describe treatment protocols and evaluate their oncological outcome, complications, and functional results in a large multicenter cohort of patients. A secondary study aim was to identify factors associated with local recurrence after surgical treatment.

METHODS
Patients with histologically proven localized TGCT of a large joint were included if they had been treated between 1990 and 2017 in 1 of 31 tertiary sarcoma centers. Of 941 patients with localized TGCT, 62% were female. The median age at initial treatment was 39 years, and the median duration of follow-up was 34 months. Sixty-seven percent of the tumors affected the knee, and the primary treatment at the tertiary center was 1-stage open resection in 73% of the patients. Proposed factors for predicting a first local recurrence after treatment in the tertiary center were tested in a univariate analysis, and those that demonstrated significance were subsequently included in a multivariate analysis.

RESULTS
The localized TGCT recurred in 12% of all cases, with local-recurrence-free rates at 3, 5, and 10 years of 88%, 83%, and 79%, respectively. The strongest factor for predicting recurrent disease was a prior recurrence (p < 0.001). Surgical treatment decreased pain and swelling in 71% and 85% of the patients, respectively, and such treatment was associated with complications in 4% of the patients. Univariate and multivariate analyses of the patients who had not undergone therapy previously yielded positive associations between local recurrence and a tumor size of ≥5 cm versus <5 cm (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.50; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.32 to 4.74; p = 0.005). Arthroscopy (versus open surgery) was significantly associated with tumor recurrence in the univariate analysis (p = 0.04) but not in the multivariate analysis (p = 0.056).

CONCLUSIONS
Factors associated with recurrence after resection of localized-type TGCT were larger tumor size and initial treatment with arthroscopy. Relatively low complication rates and good functional outcomes warrant an open approach with complete resection when possible to reduce recurrence rates in high-risk patients.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


Abstract Information systems (IS) integration is a critical challenge for value-creating mergers and acquisitions. Appropriate design and implementation of IS integration is typically a precondition for enabling a majority of the anticipated business benefits of a combined organization. Often, IS integration projects are subject to deficiencies (e.g., loss of the target firm's business capabilities with expedited integration) that limit value creation. Drawing on a configurational perspective, we reanalyze 37 published case studies of problematic IS integrations and identify the potential deficiencies and how they are produced. Our findings reveal nine causal configurations that together explain deficiency as a consequence of multiple paths of interconnected mechanisms and contextual conditions that drive their actualization. Finally, based on a post hoc analysis of 25 cases where no negative outcomes are reported, we discuss approaches for managing IS integration to avoid realizing the actualization of deficiencies.


This work addresses the Huawei/3DLife Grand Challenge, presenting a novel method for the analysis of dance movements. The approach focuses on the decomposition of the dance movements into elementary motions. Placing this problem into a probabilistic framework, we propose to exploit Gaussian processes to accurately model the different components of the decomposition. The preliminary results, presented in this paper, are very promising. In particular, two applications are considered, illustrating the relevance of the proposed approach, namely the correction of tracking errors and the smoothing of some movements of the teacher to help toward the dance learning.


Testing of digital VLSI circuits entails many challenges as a consequence of rapid growth of semiconductor manufacturing technology and the unprecedented levels of design complexity and the gigahertz range of operating frequencies. These challenges include keeping the average and peak power dissipation and test application time within acceptable limits. This dissertation proposes techniques to addresses these challenges during test. The first proposed technique, called bit-swapping LFSR (BS-LFSR), uses new observations concerning the output sequence of an LFSR to design a low-transition test-patterngenerator (TPG) for test-per-clock built-in self-test (BIST) to achieve reduction in the overall switching activity in the circuit-under-test (CUT). The obtained results show up to 28% power reduction for the proposed design, and up-to 63% when it is combined with another established technique. The proposed BS-LFSR is then extended for use in test-per-scantest vectors show up to 60%reduction in average power consumption. The BS-LFSR is then extended further to act as a multi-degree smoother for test patterns generated by conventional LFSRs before applying them to the CUT. Experimental results show up to 55% reduction in average power. Another technique that aims to reduce peak power in scan-based BIST is presented. The new technique uses a two-phase scan-chain ordering algorithm to reduce average and peak power in scan and capture cycles. Experimental results show up to 65% and 55% reduction in average and peak power, respectively. Finally, a technique that aims to significantly increase the fault coverage in test-Per scan BIST, while keeping the testapplication time short, is proposed. The results obtained show a significant improvement in fault coverage and test application time compared with other techniques.


Yanadis are one of the under privileged scheduled tribes mainly lives in coastal part of Andhra Pradesh state which are living in isolation and are treated as lowest social group and placed just above the scheduled castes in social hierarchy in the Potti SriRamulu Nellore districts. Nellore district has the highest population of Yanadi in the state. Like any other tribe in the country Yanadi also depend on herbs, barks and roots for curative procedures and maintenance of health. Enhancing the sustainable use and conservation of indigenous knowledge of useful and medicinal plants may benefit and improve the living standards of poor people.  The aim of this study is to document the ethno medicinal plants used for oral diseases using a specific questionnaire form the traditional healers, elderly people and residents of Gonepalli village of Nellore district. Information on 3 trees, 7 different herbs along with alum and camphor is documented along with the details of the parts of the plants used. This study concludes that this documentation will help to preserve the rich herbal treasure of our tribal population as well as help the pharmacists to derive the active compounds and incorporate them in modern medicine in future.


This study reports six HR-HPV types' infection prevalence discriminated by species and multiple infection in unvaccinated Colombian female adolescents, as well as some factors modulating the risk of infection. HPV DNA for six high-risk viral types was identified in cervical samples taken from 2,134 12–19 year-old females using conventional generic and type-specific PCR. Binomial logistical regression analysis was used for modelling HR-HPV infection and multiple infection risk. The interaction between variables in a stepwise model was also included in such analysis. Viral DNA was detected in 48.97% of the females; 28.52% of them had multiple infections, HPV-16 being the most frequently occurring type (37.44%). Cytological abnormality prevalence was 15.61%. Being over 16 years-old (1.66: 1.01–2.71 95%CI), white ethnicity (4.40: 1.16–16.73 95%CI), having had 3 or more sexual partners (1.77: 1.11–2.81 95%CI) and prior sexually-transmitted infections (STI) (1.65: 1.17–2.32 95%CI) were associated with a greater risk of HPV infection. Having given birth was related to a higher risk of infection by A7 species and antecedent of abortion to less risk of coinfection. Where the females in this study came from also influenced the risk of infection by A7 species as female adolescents from the Andean region had a lower risk of infection (0.42: 0.18–0.99 95%CI). The presence of factors related to risky sexual behaviour in the study population indicated that public health services should pay special attention to female adolescents to modify the risk of infection by high-risk HPV types and decrease their impact on this age group.


Background: The BRAFV600E mutation is common in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Lymph node metastasis (LNM) may be associated with poor prognosis. However, the LNM mechanism remains unclear. Objectives: Our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of the BRAFV600E mutation in primary tumors and accompanying LNM at the time of diagnosis. Methods: This retrospective study included 51 PTC patients (40 women, 11 men; mean age 40.0 ± 16.5 years; range 6-81) who underwent total thyroidectomy accompanied by a lateral neck dissection due to preoperatively detected LNM. Real-time PCR was used for the detection of the BRAFV600E mutation in specimens from primary thyroid tumors and metastatic lymph node tumors. Results: The prevalence of the BRAFV600E mutation was 64.7% (n = 33) in primary tumors and 47.1% (n = 24) in metastatic lymph nodes. Of 33 patients with BRAFV600E-positive primary tumors, 18 (54.5%) had BRAFV600E-positive metastatic lymph nodes. Of 18 patients with BRAFV600E-negative primary tumors, 6 (33.3%) had BRAFV600E-positive metastatic lymph nodes. The presence of the BRAFV600E mutation in the primary tumor did not affect the tumor size, but the diameter of metastatic lymph nodes significantly increased (by nearly 3 mm) with the presence of BRAFV600E in LNM (p = 0.01). Conclusions: In our study, the BRAFV600E mutation did not show a one-to-one correspondence. This indicates that the presence of BRAFV600E in the primary tumor is not clonal and addresses the role of intratumor heterogeneity in PTC tumorigenesis. This supports the theses that mutations occur in the later stages of tumorigenesis, might be subclonal, and develop de novo, or that some other factors may be involved in the development of metastasis.


Adaptability is one of the most important challenges in modern distributed systems. It may be defined as the ease with which a software application satisfies the different system constraints and the requirements of users and other applications. Adaptability is needed because distributed systems are inherently open, heterogeneous, and dynamic environments integrating a wide range of platforms, operating systems and applications from a number of different sources. We propose to use mobile proxies to provide adaptability in distributed applications integrated using the CORBA technology. Downloading stubs and skeletons at runtime allows the adaptation of either client or server interfaces as well as the protocol linking the two.


For the last 10 years, Indonesian economy suffers from a triple setback. First, it experiences a slowing-down in economic growth. Second, the rate of poverty reduction is also slowed down, and third, there has been no improvement in the inter-regional economic disparity. In 2011, Indonesian government set a new strategy by launching a master plan for the acceleration and expansion of economic development (MP3EI) in response to these challenges. The strategy divides Indonesia into 6 economic corridors with two aims: (1) to accelerate investment in each corridor focusing on sectors with high comparative advantage; (2) to accelerate infrastructure investment in each corridor. Using a multi-sectors and multi-regions computable general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy, this paper evaluates the extent to which these strategies can reduce Indonesia's inter-regional disparity. The result of the analysis suggests that the direction of the MP3EI strategy is in line with its mission to reduce regional disparity as it can accelerate the growth of regions outside Java and Sumatera, particularly eastern regions (Maluku and Papua). However, it can be made more progressive by broadening the sectoral base of the investment target. The current strategy relies on sectors with high comparative advantage particularly capital-intensive resource-based sectors. A broad-based sectoral approach can generate more employment particularly in the least-developed regions and ensuring more progressive acceleration in the poverty reduction.


Methane activation and direct oxidation to methanol on graphene (GP) and boron nitride sheet (BN) embedded Fe and FeO have been carefully studied by means of dispersion corrected DFT (PBE-D2). The strong orbital interactions between methane and the Fe active center through σ-donation and π-backdonation were found to facilitate the C–H bond dissociation. In the Fe-BN system, the π-backdonation is more dominant than that in the Fe-GP resulting in the facile C–H bond breaking with a lower energy barrier of 10.0 kcal mol−1, compared to that of 20.2 kcal mol−1. As a result, the methane C–H bond cleavage is kinetically and thermodynamically favorable on the Fe-BN system. For methane oxidation to methanol on FeO-BN compared to FeO-GP (results from RSC Adv., 2014, 4, 12572), the results reveal that the oxygen-center radical can activate the C–H bond in methane through a homolytic cleavage mechanism with reaction barriers of 20.9 kcal mol−1 and 17.5 kcal mol−1 for FeO-BN and FeO-GP, respectively. These barriers are comparable with reports on effective enzymatic systems. For methanol formation through the combination of methyl- and hydroxyl-grafted Fe-BN intermediate, the product derived from the C–H bond cleavage, required a very large energy barrier of 44.9 kcal mol−1, whereas in the Fe-GP system, the barrier was only 16.4 kcal mol−1 owing to its intermediate being less energetically stable. As a result, the conversion of methane to methanol over FeO-BN would be impeded by the incorrect stability of the intermediate. Overall, the supports play a significant role in the catalytic activity of Fe and FeO active sites for methane C–H bond cleavage and direct oxidation to methanol. This implies that the activity of the catalyst could be suitably designed by the selection of appropriate supports.


A wide range of polymer samples based upon polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) have been subject to gamma irradiation, and the subsequent effects analysed using a variety of techniques. The preparation of a series of blends and block copolymers of PDMS containing small amounts of polystyrene (PS) is described, and their characterisation by spectroscopic and thermal analytical methods is discussed.A PD11S gum gave a G(X) value of 2.8 which is in good agreement with other reported values. Thermal analysis revealed a shift of 20°C. in the glass transition temperature, and disappearance of the exotherm band, upon onset of gelation. Within the sol component of a cross-linked sample, a complex range of reactions are evident which are related to the absorbed dose. It was found with PS-PDMS blends, upon absorption of low doses of radiation, that the amount of gel produced is very much lower than that observed with PDMS. A substantial degree of radiation protection was observed with a 3% W/w PS blend, which required a gelation dose of almost five times that of homopolymer PDMS. A selected number of block copolymers were irradiated and the gelation dose was again found to be far greater than would be expected of PDMS of similar relative molecular mass. Morphological studies allowed calculation of the size of the PS average domain size which increased with % w/w PS in the blend or copolymer. It is proposed that the radiation protection observed with polymers containing PS is related to the PS average domain size. The large surface area/volume ratio found with a 3% w/w PS blend would facilitate a considerable degree of miscibility of PS with PDMS, thereby decreasing the susceptibility of PDMS to cross-link formation.


The aim with this study is to examine how career possibilities in the man's and the woman's occupations – in the country as a whole, as well as in the region where the couple resides – affect heterosexual couples' regional mobility. The context is Sweden –a country with a strong dual earner norm combined with a very sex segregated labor market. In the analyses we perform logistic regressions on Swedish register data, 1998–2007. We study how four dimensions of career possibilities affect couples' geographical mobility and are interested in if their effect varies by gender. The dimensions are geographical wage differences, current career, occupational level and wage compression in occupations. In summary, our findings indicate that male and female career opportunities affect the couple in different ways when one moves beyond focusing on the level of their occupations. In particular the effect from wage compression in occupations seems to be dependent on gender, with a clear effect for men and no effect for women. Even when including measures of career opportunities within professions, there exist some non-egalitarian patterns in whose career couples adjust to. It hence seems as if couples adapt somewhat more to the man's career possibilities than the woman's, even when we adjust for the underlying gender differences in career possi-bilities.


The 2007–09 financial crisis reached a critical stage in March 2008. Amid falling house prices and downgrades of mortgage-related securities, financial markets became severely disrupted. The Federal Reserve—the US central bank—became increasingly concerned about the inability of the 20 primary dealers, including the five largest US investment banks, to fund themselves in short-term funding markets, such as the repurchase agreement market, then estimated at $10 trillion. In response, the Fed created several emergency lending facilities to restore market liquidity that required the Fed to invoke Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. The Term Securities Lending Facility authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend to primary dealers up to $200 billion of highly liquid US Treasuries against collateral that was particularly illiquid at the time. Eligible collateral initially included triple-A private-label mortgage-backed securities but was later broadened. In July 2008, an additional $50 billion was allocated for a TSLF Options Program. The TSLF operated between March 27, 2008, and February 1, 2010. Usage peaked at $236 billion in October 2008. Overall, 18 of the 20 primary dealers participated and the Fed collected $781 million in fees.