In the context of civil rights law, discrimination refers to unfair or unequal treatment of people based on membership to a category or a minority, without regard to individual merit. Discrimination in credit, mortgage, insurance, labor market, and education has been investigated by researchers in economics and human sciences. With the advent of automatic decision support systems, such as credit scoring systems, the ease of data collection opens several challenges to data analysts for the fight against discrimination. In this article, we introduce the problem of discovering discrimination through data mining in a dataset of historical decision records, taken by humans or by automatic systems. We formalize the processes of direct and indirect discrimination discovery by modelling protected-by-law groups and contexts where discrimination occurs in a classification rule based syntax. Basically, classification rules extracted from the dataset allow for unveiling contexts of unlawful discrimination, where the degree of burden over protected-by-law groups is formalized by an extension of the lift measure of a classification rule. In direct discrimination, the extracted rules can be directly mined in search of discriminatory contexts. In indirect discrimination, the mining process needs some background knowledge as a further input, for example, census data, that combined with the extracted rules might allow for unveiling contexts of discriminatory decisions. A strategy adopted for combining extracted classification rules with background knowledge is called an inference model. In this article, we propose two inference models and provide automatic procedures for their implementation. An empirical assessment of our results is provided on the German credit dataset and on the PKDD Discovery Challenge 1999 financial dataset.


Background Intravaginal rings (IVRs) can deliver antiretroviral (ARV) agents for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), theoretically overcoming adherence concerns associated with frequent dosing. However, topical vaginal ARV drug delivery has not simultaneously led to sufficient rectal drug exposure to likely protect from HIV infection as a result of receptive anal intercourse (RAI). Unprotected RAI has a higher risk of infection per sex act and, for women, also can be associated with vaginal exposure during a single sexual encounter, especially in higher-risk subsets of women. The physiologically inflamed, activated, immune-cell dense colorectal mucosa is increasingly appreciated as the sexual compartment with highly significant risk; this risk is increased in the setting of co-infections. Ex vivo studies have shown that colorectal tissue and rectal fluid concentrations correlated with HIV protection. Given these important results, efforts to document colorectal compartment ARV drug concentration from pod-IVR delivery was assessed to determine if vaginal application could provide protective ARV levels in both compartments. Methodology/Principal findings A crossover clinical trial (N = 6) evaluated 7 d of continuous TDF pod-IVR use, a wash-out phase, followed by 7 d with a TDF-FTC pod-IVR. A subsequent clinical trial (N = 6) consisted of 7 d of continuous TDF-FTC-MVC pod-IVR use. Rectal fluids were collected on Day 7 at IVR removal in all three ARV-exposures (two Phase 1 trials) and drug concentrations quantified by LC-MS/MS. Median rectal fluid concentrations of TFV, the hydrolysis product of the prodrug TDF, were between 0.66 ng mg-1 (TDF pod-IVR group) and 1.11 ng mg-1 (TDF-FTC pod-IVR group), but below the analytical lower limit of quantitation in 5/6 samples in the TDF-FTC-MVC pod-IVR group. Unexpectedly, median FTC (TDF-FTC pod-IVR, 20.3 ng mg-1; TDF-FTC-MVC pod-IVR, 0.18 ng mg-1), and MVC rectal fluid concentrations (0.84 ng mg-1) were quantifiable and higher than their respective in vitro EC50 values in most samples. Due to participant burden in these exploratory trials, rectal fluid was used as a surrogate for rectal tissue, where drug concentrations are expected to be higher. Conclusions/Significance The concentrations of FTC and MVC in rectal fluids obtained in two exploratory clinical trials of IVRs delivering ARV combinations exceeded levels associated with in vitro efficacy in HIV inhibition. Unexpectedly, MVC appeared to depress the distribution of TFV and FTC into the rectal lumen. Here we show that vaginal delivery of ARV combinations may provide adherence and coitally independent dual-compartment protection from HIV infection during both vaginal and receptive anal intercourse.


Fourteen years ago, the discovery of dark energy rocked astronomy. Two teams of astronomers and astrophysicists studied distant stellar explosions called type Ia supernovae to measure how the universe has expanded over its 13.7-billion-year lifetime. They expected that the expansion would be slowing as galaxies pull toward one another with their gravity. To their shock, they found that the expansion is accelerating as if some bizarre "dark energy" is stretching space. The nature of dark energy is now perhaps the most profound mystery in cosmology and astrophysics. And it may remain forever so.


Finding relevant information on the World Wide Web is becoming highly challenging day by day. Web usage mining is used for the extraction of relevant and useful knowledge, such as user behaviour patterns, from web access log records. Web access log records all the requests for individual files that the users have requested from the website. Web usage mining is important for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), as it can ensure customer satisfaction as far as the interaction between the customer and the organization is concerned. Web usage mining is helpful in improving website structure or design as per the user's requirement by analyzing the access log file of a website through a log analyzer tool. The focus of this paper is to enhance the accessibility and usability of a guitar selling web site by analyzing their access log through Deep Log Analyzer tool. The results show that the maximum number of users is from the United States and that they use Opera 9.8 web browser and the Windows XP operating system. Keywords—Web usage mining, log file, web mining, data mining, deep log analyser.


Background: It is well documented that high work stress and low job control is associated with increased risk of shoulder/neck pain while regular physical exercise reduces this risk. However, there is limited knowledge about the combined effect of work stress and physical exercise on risk of chronic pain in shoulders/neck. The first objective of this study was to investigate the role of work stress and physical exercise as individual risk factors for chronic shoulder/neck pain in a large unselected population of women and men. A second objective was to investigate the combined effect of work stress and physical exercise on risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain.Methods: The Nord-Trondelag health study (the HUNT Study) was conducted in 1984-1986 (HUNT 1), with follow-up in 1995-1997 (HUNT 2). All women and men who participated in both surveys were included in the present study. After exclusions, the study population consisted of 12,530 women and 16,896 men for the analysis of work stress and job control on risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain, and 8,057 women and 11,028 men for the analysis including physical exercise. Relative risk (RR) of chronic shoulder/neck pain in HUNT 2 associated with work stress, job control, and physical exercise at baseline (HUNT 1) was estimated by a general lineal model.Results: At follow-up, 4,357 (34,7%) women and 4,470 (26.5%) men reported chronic shoulder/neck pain. Work stress showed a strong dose-response association with risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain (P-trend <.001) for both women and men. Women and men who reported to be exposed to work stress almost all the time had RRs of 1.32 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.11-1.58) and 1.68 (95% CI 1.41-2.00), respectively. The effect of job control on chronic shoulder/neck pain was weak, both among women and men. The different measures of physical exercise (i.e., frequency, duration, and intensity) all showed a moderate inverse dose-response effect on risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain in both women and men (10-20% reduced risk among the most active). The combined analysis showed that individuals who reported high stress levels and who exercised ≥2 sessions per week had a RR of 1.35 (95% CI 1.06-1.72) compared to a RR of 1.64 (95% CI 1.26-2.12) among inactive individuals with similar stress level.Conclusion: This prospective study indicates that women and men who perceive their work situation as stressful have an increased risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain. There was a moderate inverse relation between physical exercise and risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain for both women and men. Regular physical exercise can, to some extent, compensate for the adverse effect of work stress on risk of chronic shoulder/neck pain.


The purpose of this study was to investigate South Korean women entrepreneurs' motivations to start a business, the challenges they faced in business development and key factors that contributed to their career success.,The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 women entrepreneurs to gather qualitative details on their experiences and performed a survey with 125 women Chief Executive Officers who are affiliated with the Korean Venture Business Women's Association.,The authors found necessity-driven push (e.g. economic necessity for family) and opportunity-based pull (e.g. a strong sense of self) motivational factors, challenges (e.g. gender stereotypes) and opportunities (e.g. creating a family-like organizational culture) and key success factors (e.g. personality and loyal employees) for their career success.,There is a strong need to emphasize the import of culture at the national level that would impact women entrepreneurs' careers and business success. A majority of the studies on HRD in small- and medium-sized enterprises shed light on individual owners' perspectives only. Researchers need to take multiple-level (i.e. national, organizational and individual) factors into consideration in research on women's entrepreneurship. Quantitative analysis in this study did not have any statistical significance and there were a few inconsistent findings (e.g. disadvantage as woman Chief Executive Officers) between quantitative and qualitative analysis. Future research is called for to investigate where and why different results occurred by using a mixed-methods research design and inferential statistical analysis for significance.,The increased support at the national level for entrepreneurship education before and after school that has not received sufficient attention in Korea will allow aspiring women to embark on entrepreneurial career paths from early on. At the organizational level, women entrepreneurs' efforts to create a family-like organizational culture can be used as references for aspiring women who want to start and develop a business. At the individual level, HRD practitioners can develop leadership programs to share internal and external success factors so that aspiring women entrepreneurs can develop required individual (e.g. personality attributes) and social competencies (e.g. networking) in business development.,The two unique study findings that reflect the importance of cultural context include: our study showed how women entrepreneurs in Korea transformed the challenges they faced in business development into opportunities that can be used for entrepreneurship education for aspiring women entrepreneurs; and women entrepreneurs in Korea were humble enough to ascribe their career and business success to their loyal employees who have stayed in their companies with commitment, which has not been captured in research on women's entrepreneurship in western contexts.


The article starts from Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital and differentiation between embodied, objectified and institutionalized cultural capital. The main goal of the article is to research the connection between cultural preferences of high-school students and the different forms of cultural capital of their parents. Empirical data was gathered from a survey (N = 868) carried out in 2014 among high-school students in Zadar County (Croatia). Cultural preferences of high-school students were operationalized using three dimensions of cultural consumption: high culture, traditional-popular and rock- -alternative. The results of hierarchical regression analysis confirmed the parental cultural capital to be an important predictor of high-school students' cultural preferences. In particular, our results indicate that the parentally embodied cultural capital is a better predictor than the objectified and institutionalized cultural capital or economic capital. Results point to a visible distinction between two types of cultural consumption: traditional-popular and high culture consumption, which is in line with previous studies. On the other hand, the rock-alternative type of cultural consumption is positively associated with exposure to high culture in a family environment, which indicates a change in the meaning of cultural content.


The analysis of large complex situations poses difficult problems for qualitative reasoning due to the complexity of reasoning from first principles and the proliferation of ambiguities. Abstraction is a promising Bolution to these problems. In this paper, we study a type of abstraction, behavioral aggregation--the process of grouping a set of individual entities that collectively behave as a unit. In particular, we show how to build aggregate models of situations involving dynamic equilibria and how to reason about their behavior. Finally, we demonstrate, through several examples, the benefits of reasoning at the aggregate level: a reduction in the complexity of reasoning and a compact, easily interpretable, description of the behavior.


Abstract. Building detection and footprint extraction are highly demanded for many remote sensing applications. Though most previous works have shown promising results, the automatic extraction of building footprints still remains a nontrivial topic, especially in complex urban areas. Recently developed extensions of the CNN framework made it possible to perform dense pixel-wise classification of input images. Based on these abilities we propose a methodology, which automatically generates a full resolution binary building mask out of a Digital Surface Model (DSM) using a Fully Convolution Network (FCN) architecture. The advantage of using the depth information is that it provides geometrical silhouettes and allows a better separation of buildings from background as well as through its invariance to illumination and color variations. The proposed framework has mainly two steps. Firstly, the FCN is trained on a large set of patches consisting of normalized DSM (nDSM) as inputs and available ground truth building mask as target outputs. Secondly, the generated predictions from FCN are viewed as unary terms for a Fully connected Conditional Random Fields (FCRF), which enables us to create a final binary building mask. A series of experiments demonstrate that our methodology is able to extract accurate building footprints which are close to the buildings original shapes to a high degree. The quantitative and qualitative analysis show the significant improvements of the results in contrast to the multy-layer fully connected network from our previous work.


This study is an application of cultural economic value theory within the context of visual art. Current literature supports an incompatibility between objective, empirical economic research and the subjectivity of artistic expression. While variables affecting the intrinsic value of art are difficult to identify and measure, this study quantified the effect of context information on university students' perceptions of visual art. For this study, 118 randomly assigned University of Arkansas students viewed four identical works of art and answered identical questions designed to measure perceptions of intrinsic value. Despite a hypothesis that context would positively affect participants' reports, when significant this variable actually lowered participants' reported values for every question. Results of this study open the door to further research in cultural economics, integrating empirical methodology into arts programmers' strategies to reach their millennial audiences.


The waste water project using Public Private Partnership (PPP) encompasses a lot of risks. Most of the previous studies show that although forming the PPP is a promising technique, there are still a lot of PPP/ PFI projects which experienced early termination or re-negotiation due to the lack of managing the risks exposed.
Assessment of the risk related to the PPP project needs to be performed in order to evaluate and respond to the risks to manage them adequately. The idea to establish the risk assessment tool for waste water projects using PPP appeared to be a proactive approach in order to achieve the successfiilness to the projects. Therefore, this research is intended to following the aim to form a risk assessment tool. Several objectives for this study have been set up in order to achieve the goal, which identified the related risks to PPP waste water projects; determine the critical risks of PPP waste water projects; determine the mitigation measures; and establish the risk assessment tool for PPP waste water projects. The development of the risk assessment tool resulted from the prospect of the public and private sector views. The risk assessment tool could be valuable for risk management practice for PPP waste water projects in
Malaysia. It could make the assessment of the related risks easier and effective in order to manage the risks well and avoid from any losses to the projects. The research then concludes by recommending the application of the risk assessment tool to be
implemented in the risk management for PPP waste water projects and the tools could also be used by both the public and private sectors.


ABSTRACT Investigation of core and outcrop samples of the Cenomanian Natih-B Member (North Oman) indicates that the different lithofacies present experienced rather different early diagenesis shortly after deposition. Transmitted-light, cathodoluminescence and backscattered scanning-electron microscopy, as well as stable-isotopic, X-ray diffraction and total organic carbon (TOC) analyses were employed to delineate the major controls on the cyclic pattern of early diagenesis and hydrocarbon source potential. The Natih-B intrashelf basinal carbonates are composed of pelagic sediments that exhibit high-frequency cyclicity marked by decimetre-thick lithofacies alternations, mainly between: Lithofacies A compacted, partially bioturbated, skeletal, organic carbon-rich mudstone to wackestone; and Lithofacies B uncompacted, extensively bioturbated, skeletal, sparry-calcite rich wackestone to packstone. Individual units are composed variously of authigenic and biogenic calcite (58.1–97.6%, average 78.5%) and organic carbon (0.3–13.7% TOC, average 3.6%), together with minor quartz, clay, pyrite, dolomite and phosphatic material (fish debris). Lithofacies A contains relatively more organic carbon, clay, pyrite and dolomite than Lithofacies B and constitutes an excellent source rock. Diagenetic textures of Lithofacies A are dominated by compactional deformation of burrow fabrics, faecal pellets and solution seams, in addition to zoned/bright luminescent, non-ferroan sparry and isopachous calcite cement in and around uncompacted foraminifer tests, in an uncemented matrix. In contrast, Lithofacies B does not show any signs of compaction other than microstylolites and is dominated by zoned/dull luminescent, non-ferroan calcite microspar replacement, in addition to pore-filling, predominantly dull-luminescent, non-ferroan, sparry calcite cement. Moreover, Lithofacies B shows evidence of isopachous and meniscus-style cementation, together with geopetal structures and mictritic peloids. Stable-isotopic compositions of both lithofacies were determined from whole-rock samples (δ13C = −0.9 to +0.9‰, average +0.3‰; δ18O = −5.6 to −3.7‰, average −4.8‰) and sparry calcite (both cement and matrix) subsamples (δ13C = −0.6 to +1.2‰, average +0.6‰; δ18O = −5.7 to −3.7‰, average −4.3‰); all results being relative to Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite. These petrographic and isotopic characteristics suggest that the Natih-B abundant calcite cements and replacements were precipitated early, prior to compaction, mainly from 'normal' (open, oxic) seawater at slightly elevated depositional temperatures. Some of the slightly negative δ13C values, however, indicate an addition of isotopically light carbon, probably derived from organic-matter oxidation by organisms living in marine pore waters. Based on evidence of extensive seafloor bioturbation and cementation, and their position within the depositional succession, the tops of Lithofacies B (wackestones to packstones) are interpreted as 'discontinuity surfaces' that cap shallowing-upward, fifth-order cycles, formed as a function of sediment starvation and increased bottom-current activity during relative sea-level stillstand/turnaround. In contrast, Lithofacies A (mudstones to wackestones) is believed to reflect high organic production coupled with high sedimentation rate and rapid burial. These conditions limited total infaunal colonization and extensive calcite precipitation, and preserved organic matter together with some escape burrows and in-place fauna, suggesting episodic sediment influx when more accommodation was available and seafloor diagenesis was minimized during relative sea-level rises. The relatively higher amounts of pyrite and dolomite in Lithofacies A likely indicate organic-matter degradation by bacterial sulphate reduction in anoxic pore waters during shallow burial.


Chickens are a key food source for humans yet their microbiome contains bacteria that can be pathogenic to humans, and indeed potentially to chickens themselves. Campylobacter is present within the chicken gut and is the leading cause of bacterial foodborne gastroenteritis within humans worldwide. Infection can lead to secondary sequelae such as Guillain-Barré syndrome and stunted growth in children from low-resource areas. Despite the global health impact and economic burden of Campylobacter, how and when Campylobacter appears within chickens remains unclear. As such, there has been a motivation to decrease the number of Campylobacter within chickens and thus reduce the risk of infection to humans. The lack of day-to-day microbiome data with replicates, relevant metadata, and a lack of natural infection studies have delayed our understanding of the chicken gut microbiome and Campylobacter. Here, we performed a comprehensive day-to-day microbiome analysis of the chicken cecum from day 3 to 35 (12 replicates each day; n=396) combining metadata such as chicken weight and feed conversion rates to investigate what the driving forces are for the microbial changes within the chicken gut over time, and how this relates to Campylobacter appearance within a natural habitat setting. We found a rapidly increasing microbial diversity up to day 12 with variation observed both in terms of genera and abundance, before a stabilisation of the microbial diversity after day 20. In particular, we identified a shift from competitive to environmental drivers of microbial community from days 12 to 20 creating a window of opportunity whereby Campylobacter appears. Campylobacter was identified at day 16 which was one day after the most substantial changes in metabolic profiles observed. In addition, microbial variation over time is most likely influenced by the diet of the chickens whereby significant shifts in OTU abundances and beta dispersion of samples often corresponded with changes in feed. This study is unique in comparison to the most recent studies as neither sampling was sporadic nor Campylobacter was artificially introduced, thus the experiments were performed in a natural setting. We believe that our findings can be useful for future intervention strategies and can help elucidate the mechanism through which Campylobacter within chickens can be reduced.


Memory scaling is in jeopardy as charge storage and sensing mechanisms become less reliable for prevalent memory technologies, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM). In contrast, phase change memory (PCM) relies on programmable resistances, as well as scalable current and thermal mechanisms. To deploy PCM as a DRAM alternative and to exploit its scalability, PCM must be architected to address relatively long latencies, high energy writes, and finite endurance. We propose architectural enhancements that address these limitations and make PCM competitive with DRAM. A baseline PCM system is 1.6× slower and requires 2.2× more energy than a DRAM system. Buffer reorganizations reduce this delay and energy gap to 1.2× and 1.0×, using narrow rows to mitigate write energy as well as multiple rows to improve locality and write coalescing. Partial writes mitigate limited memory endurance to provide more than 10 years of lifetime. Process scaling will further reduce PCM energy costs and improve endurance.


Introduction: Given the growing rate of accidents and disasters in the world, preparing nurses as the main group responding to these events is crucial; however, a review of literature suggests no comprehensive and theoretical or practical definitions for this concept in nursing, which has been often misunderstood and used as an alternative to other similar concepts. Objective: The present study was conducted to analyze the concept and provide a practical definition for emergency and disaster preparedness in nurses. Materials and Methods: The eight-step Walker and Avant's approach was used to clarify the concept of disaster preparedness in nurses. A total of 40 articles selected on the subject through an extensive review of literature up to 2013 were analyzed and the relevant definitions, applications, attributes, antecedents, consequences and empirical referents were extracted. Results: According to the analysis conducted, the concept attributes include gaining the disaster knowledge and management capability, response planning strategies, response behavior exercises and the evaluation of the knowledge level and the response program content. Improved knowledge and skills, professional accountability, more comprehensive programs and more accurate response behaviors were found to be the outcomes of disaster preparedness in nurses. Conclusion: According to the present study, disaster preparedness in nurses refers to the knowledge, skills, abilities and comprehensive functions required for responding to natural or man-made events and disasters. Nurses' preparedness in disasters refers to a process in which nurses involve to properly prepare and effectively respond to emergencies and disasters. Given the wide range of the concept, further studies are recommended.


Procedural representations of control policies have two advantages when facing the scale-up problem in learning tasks. First they are implicit, with potential for inductive generalization over a very large set of situations. Second they facilitate modularization. In this paper we compare several randomized algorithms for learning modular procedural representations. The main algorithm, called Adaptive Representation through Learning (ARL) is a genetic programming extension that relies on the discovery of subroutines. ARL is suitable for learning hierarchies of subroutines and for constructing policies to complex tasks. ARL was successfully tested on a typical reinforcement learning problem of controlling an agent in a dynamic and nondeterministic environment where the discovered subroutines correspond to agent behaviors.


Background The inhaled corticosteroid fluticasone furoate (FF) in combination with the long-acting β2 agonist vilanterol (VI) is in development for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Objective To assess the safety and tolerability of FF/VI over 52 weeks in patients with asthma. Methods Patients (aged ≥12 years; on inhaled corticosteroid) were randomised (2:2:1) to FF/VI 100/25 µg or FF/VI 200/25 µg once daily in the evening, or fluticasone propionate (FP) 500 µg twice daily. Safety evaluations included adverse events (AEs), non-fasting glucose, potassium, 24-h urinary cortisol excretion, ophthalmic assessments, heart rate and pulse rate. Results On-treatment AEs were similar across groups (FF/VI 66–69%; 73% FP). Oral candidiasis/oropharyngeal candidiasis was more common with FF/VI (6–7%) than FP (3%). Twelve serious AEs were reported; one (worsening hepatitis B on FP) was considered drug related. Statistically significant cortisol suppression was seen with FP compared with both FF/VI groups at Weeks 12 and 28 (ratios [95% CI] to FP ranged from 1.43 [1.11 to 1.84] to 1.67 [1.34 to 2.08]; p≤0.006), but not at Week 52 (ratios to FP were 1.05 [0.83 to 1.33] for FF/VI 100/25 µg and 1.09 [0.87 to 1.38] for FF/VI 200/25 µg). No clinically important changes in non-fasting glucose, potassium, QT interval corrected using Fridericia's formula (QTc[F]) or ophthalmic assessments were reported. Pulse rate (10 min post dose [Tmax], Week 52) was significantly increased with FF/VI versus FP (3.4 bpm, 95% CI 1.3 to 5.6; p=0.002 [FF/VI 100/25 µg]; 3.4 bpm, 95% CI 1.2 to 5.6; p=0.003 [FF/VI 200/25 µg]). Mean heart rate (24-h Holter monitoring) decreased from screening values in all groups (0.2–1.1 bpm FF/VI vs 5 bpm FP; Week 52). Conclusions FF/VI (100/25 µg or 200/25 µg) administered once daily over 52 weeks was well tolerated by patients aged ≥12 years with asthma. The overall safety profile of FF/VI did not reveal any findings of significant clinical concern. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01018186


The oLJ13_N13IC is the name of the minimal icosahedral cluster with 13 particles where "oLJ" states that it is the global minimum for the Lennard Jones potential, and the suffix "N13IC" represents the family of the particle-centered icosahedral lattice. It is well known from the early work M. R. Hoare and P. Pal (1975, Physical cluster mechanics: statistical thermodynamics and nucleation theory for monatomic systems) and J. A. Northby (1987, Structure and binding of Lennard-Jones clusters: 13 ≤ n ≤ 147), and has been found experimentally in xenon clusters (1981, Echt, et al.) and sodium clusters (2005, Haberland, et al.), and is related with so-called magic numbers. It has been considered as a plausible global minimum but not a true global minimum. As far as I know, this is the first formal proof of global optimization of it.Except for the global optimal clusters of 2, 3 and 4 particles that satisfy the classic strong criterion of global optimality, the clusters with more particles are just putative global minimal clusters due to the lack of criteria or techniques that determine their global optimality. The article proofs the global optimality for the oLJ13_N13IC cluster by using a novel discrete combinatorial approach on the Euler characteristic and a linear prediction of the good pair potential of Lennard Jones.


Purpose

Inter-organizational knowledge sharing systems (IOKSS) are crucial for scientific, social and economic development especially in knowledge-intensive sectors. Knowledge sharing processes and systems will not only be challenged by individual and organizational factors but also by social, technical and political inter-organizational factors. This paper aims to investigate the impact of knowledge worker, peer, IOKSS, organization and sector factors on knowledge workers' intention to share knowledge through IOKSS. Knowledge workers are the key stakeholders that enable the survival of IOKSS.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected, through a questionnaire, from knowledge workers in the education and the health sectors.

Findings

This study found that the human factors (related to knowledge workers and their peers) have significant direct impact on intention to share knowledge through IOKSS. Other factors, such as IOKSS system, organization and sector factors showed indirect impacts on knowledge workers' intention to share knowledge through IOKSS. Such investigation can be very valuable for developing countries as technological innovations such as IOKSS can be crucial for training and building human resources, and national knowledge management.

Originality/value

Little is empirically known about the enablers of sharing knowledge in systems that connect organizations in horizontal linkage in a specific sector or industry. The study also adds value to under investigated region.


The paper aimed to measure the biodiversity of Lithuanian family farms using readily available FADN data. The research draws on a sample of 1304 family farms. Farms diversity is expressed by diversity in land use and cropping based on Shannon's equitability and Simpson's diversity indices. The effects of farms' management to biodiversity between farms in terms of specialization, economic size, farming intensity and land area are examined. The biodiversity indices ranged from 0 to 1 (scaled into three intervals), assuming that the closer to 1 were the values of the index the higher was biodiversity of the farm. Lithuanian case analysis suggested that certain measures for strengthening farms biodiversity were necessary as the average values of the biodiversity based on Shannon's equitability (land use and cropping) and Simpson's diversity (land use and cropping) indices fell within the medium biodiversity interval. Lower diversity values of Simpson's diversity in comparison to Shannon's indices values were obtained across analysed farming types and farm classes. This is likely related to Simpson's index sensitivity to the number of land use and cropping elements of farms. Though, the Shannon's equitability index has greater importance to rarer land use or cropping elements. Therefore, for policy purposes both indicators provide valuable insights to enhance and maintain the biodiversity on farms.


Robert Blust in this journal in 1996 drew attention to a process in a number of widely separated Oceanic languages in which the first a of an aCa sequence dissimilates to a higher vowel. In some of these languages the rule is still productive, while others show only historical dissimilation. He briefly presented data from three areas in Vanuatu comprising ten languages. More recent research, however, shows that there are about thirty Vanuatu languages that exhibit this phenomenon, though only four seem to do so as part of their synchronic morphophonemics. While an initial analysis suggests that there are four different types of dissimilatory processes, three of these (accounting for all but three or four of the thirty languages) can be shown to be derivable from a single historical process in which dissimilation applied iteratively from left to right: *a, whether stressed or unstressed, developed the allophone [e] as a result of this, though dissimilation was apparently blocked by intervening or adjacent postvelars, velars, and labiovelars. In languages that reflect the dissimilation, this [e] is now phonemic /e/, /e/, or less frequently /i/. (The fourth type is dependent on stress, but is almost certainly a more recent development in just one small geographical area.) I propose that dissimilation occurred in the ancestor of all languages from Malakula and Ambrym in the north to Aneityum in the south, and that the nondissimilating languages within this region have subsequently reversed the process, allophonic [e] becoming [a]. A brief comparison is made with similar cases in Micronesia, but it seems impossible, on the basis of data available, to suggest any historical connection between the two regions.


Marine data (especially in meteorology) are often grouped geographically using a set of numbered 10° latitude–longitude squares known as Marsden squares, which are usually attributed to William Marsden, Secretary of the Admiralty (and Vice–President of The Royal Society), who supposedly invented them early in the nineteenth century. Available records suggest that this system was in fact probably invented by Robert FitzRoy soon after his appointment as head of the British Meteorological Office in 1854. FitzRoy felt that early English work in marine meteorology was being ignored, notably by the American Matthew Fontaine Maury, who had pioneered the collecting of marine meteorological data from ship's logs. A desire to undo this wrong led FitzRoy to emphasize earlier (though abortive) British projects by A.B. Becher (in 1831) and by Marsden (probably in the 1780s), both of which involved grouping marine data geographically, though only over limited areas. FitzRoy's treatment of this earlier work seems to have created, much later, the belief that Marsden had invented the system of 10° squares. Given both Maury's and FitzRoy's desire to demonstrate priority in this field, it is ironic that the first clear proposal to collect and group data from ship's logs was made by the American (and British) natural philosopher Isaac Greenwood in 1728.


Polyglycolic acid (PGA), a biodegradable polyester with a simple molecular structure, shows an abnormally high melting point of 220 °C which is the highest among biopolyesters. In order to investigate this peculiar physical property and the structure of PGA, its temperature-dependent infrared (IR) spectra and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) were measured. Of note in the IR spectra is that among the many bands, those due to antisymmetric and symmetric CH2 stretching modes and that due to the C–O–C stretching mode show a significantly lower wavenumber shift with temperature increase. These experimental results suggest the existence of weak C–H⋯O (ether) hydrogen bonding along the (110) direction in PGA. WAXD results support this suggestion by an observed noticeable decrease of a unit cell length along the (110) direction. The natural bond orbital (NBO) calculations indicate there is weak intermolecular bonding between the C–H bond of the CH2 group and the oxygen atom of the –C–O–C– linkage. The quantum chemical calculations of the IR spectra were carried out for models of PGA based on the crystalline structure by using a partial optimization in the normal mode. The results can qualitatively explain the observed temperature dependence of the CH2 stretching modes of PGA, which is due to weakening of the C–H⋯O interactions among polymer chains with a temperature increase. All the experimental and theoretical calculation results suggest that there is weak hydrogen bonding between the CH2 group and the ether oxygen atom. This intermolecular interaction may be the cause for the abnormally high melting point of PGA.


This thesis examines how three participant schools reported the achievement of students to parents and the extent to which reporting practices reflected current educative theories and effective partnership. The understanding of parents and teachers of the process of the reporting practices , and how practice promoted or hindered educative partnerships between teachers and parents were examined. Over the past ten years schools, in New Zealand, have spent much time realigning their reporting practices to New Zealand national requirements , and the expectations of their school communities . This research examined what led schools to make their decisions about their reporting practices, comments on the effectiveness of current practices and draws conclusions based on the findings of the research . Evaluative case study was selected as the methodology for this study. The study is located within three school contexts and involves in-depth examination and analysis of teachers' and parents' perceptions about educative theory, partnership and reporting student achievement. The methodology used provided an opportunity to evaluate current practice, provide feedback to each participant school and allowed the cooperative development of recommendations for improving reporting processes. Issues and themes were identified as data were gathered . Exploration of emerging themes occurred throughout the data gathering phase . Data gathering strategies included parent and teacher questionnaires, individual interviews with senior leaders , teachers and parents and document analysis. That data revealed a number of themes in relation to educative theory, reporting and partnership. Initial themes included: important educational outcomes identified by parents and teachers, the purpose of reporting identified by parents and teachers , the type of information parents found helpful , the role of teacher-parent interviews, the desire of parents to be actively involved in their children's' learning , and the frequency and timing of personal contact between parents and teachers . This thesis concludes that each school had not directly linked their practices to educative theory or conditions for effective partnerships with parents . A key purpose identified by both parents and teachers was the support of parents in helping their children achieve, yet this key purpose was omitted from any documentation identifying purposes and, in many cases, from the implementation of reporting processes by teachers. A further conclusion is that the link between educative theories , the relationship of those theories to the reporting process and how effective links could be made to develop effective partnerships between teachers , parents and students is a significant area for future research .


This paper presents a methodology for estimating primary PM emissions in Europe and the costs involved to reduce these emissions from the various sources in the European countries. The framework developed is compatible with existing approaches to estimate emissions and costs for SO2, NOx, NH3 and VOC in the RAINS model.

Emissions of PM are released from a large variety of sources with significant technical and economic differences. The emission characteristic of the sources is also strongly influenced by country-specific conditions. The method applied considers the crucial parameters and allows sectoral and regional variation. The emissions of particulate matter (PM) in the RAINS model are calculated for three different size classes (i) fine fraction (PM2.5), (ii) coarse fraction (PM10 - PM2.5) and (iii) large particles (PM_>10 mu m).

A methodology has been developed to estimate emission control costs of standard technologies under the specific conditions characteristic for the various European countries. Based on the assumption of the general availability of control technologies with equal technical properties and costs, a number of country-specific circumstances (level of technological advancement, installation size distribution, labor costs, etc.) are used to estimate the costs for the actual operation of pollution control equipment.

Based on the developed methodology, a first estimate of the PM emissions in Europe was derived for the years 1990, 1995 and 2010. This estimate must be considered as preliminary, since many of the emission factors need revision and update with additional information. The projections for the year 2010 assume full implementation of the current legislation on emission controls, e.g., the EURO-IV emission standards resulting from the Auto Oil process for mobile sources, and regulations relating to the large combustion plant directive of the European Union. Major reductions in PM emissions occurred between 1990 and 1995, mainly because of the economic restructuring in Eastern Europe where many old coal power stations were retired. Between 1990 and 1995, TSP emissions declined by 41 percent; for 2010 a decline of 58 percent is projected. Emission reductions are most efficient for larger particles; for 2010, PM10 is calculated to decline by 56 percent, and PM2.5 by 48 percent. Consequently, fine fraction (PM2.5) will be relatively more important in the future (38 percent of TSP in 2010) compared to 31 percent of TSP in 1990.

In 1990, combustion in energy industries, small non-industrial combustion sources, production processes and road transport contributed about 20 percent each to total TSP emissions in the EU-15. In the non-EU countries, small sources and power plants were responsible for more than 30 percent each, while road transport contributed only three percent of TSP. In those countries, small sources (domestic coal and wood combustion) are expected to increase their share to 45 percent in 2010, while in the EU-15 mobile sources will become the most important source category for TSP emissions (45 percent).

For PM2.5, mobile sources were the largest contributor in 1990 in the EU-15 countries (31 percent). This share is expected to decline slightly by 2010 (28 percent) due to the strict regulations that were recently introduced. In the non-EU countries, industrial production processes were the largest source of PM2.5 emissions (36 percent), while in 2010 small combustion sources in the domestic sector will dominate (38 percent).

The present implementation (version 1.03) of the RAINS PM module on the Internet (www.iiasa.ac.at/~rains/PM/pm-home.html) provides free access to the input data and results to facilitate interaction with national experts.


Language comprehension engages a cortical network of left frontal and temporal regions [1-6]. Activity in this network is sensitive to linguistic features such as lexical information, syntax and compositional semantics [7-10]. However, this network shows virtually no engagement in non-linguistic tasks [11-14] and is therefore language-selective. In addition, language comprehension engages a second network consisting of frontal, parietal, cingulate, and insular regions [15-18]. Activity in this "Multiple Demand (MD)" network [19] is sensitive to comprehension difficulty, increasing in the presence of e.g. ambiguity [20-26], infrequent words [27-33] and non-local syntactic dependencies [34-40]. However, this network similarly scales its activity with cognitive effort across a wide range of non-linguistic tasks [19, 41] and is therefore domain-general. Given the functional dissociation between the language and MD networks [42, 43], their respective contributions to comprehension are likely distinct, yet such differences remain elusive. Critically, given that each network is sensitive to some linguistic features, prior research has presupposed that both networks track linguistic input closely, and in a manner consistent across individuals. Here, we used fMRI to test this assumption by comparing the BOLD signal time-courses in each network across different individuals listening to the same story [44-46]. Language network activity showed fewer individual differences, indicative of closer input tracking, whereas MD network activity was more idiosyncratic and, moreover, showed lower reliability within an individual across repetitions of a story. These findings constrain cognitive models of language comprehension by suggesting a novel distinction between the processes implemented in the language and MD networks.


Newcastle disease (ND) is a virulent form of poultry disease that has the potential to cause 100% mobidity and mortality. The continuing threat of ND to the poultry industry requires routine testing of vaccinated chickens to determine that they have been adequately immunised by vaccination. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) which use commercially available reagents are presented as alternatives to the procedure for detection of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) antibodies. The nucleocapsid protein has been shown to immunogenic in nature, and play key roles in diagnostic ELISA for detection of antibody. A purified recombinant nucleocapsid protein (NP) of NDV highly expressed in Escherichia coli (E. coli) was used as the coating antigen in an indirect ELISA to detect the presence of NDV antibodies in a cohort of chicken sera. The test was standardised using sera from vaccination study and obtained from Charles River SPAFAS Laboratories, USA. The NPELISA
was standardised at an antigen concentration of 1.5 μg/ml, test serum dilution of 1:200 and conjugate dilution of 1:2000. The cut-off value of the NP-ELISA of 0.238 was
determined by a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. An assay of 315 chicken serum samples against NDV antibodies showed that the NP-ELISA had 92.06% sensitivity
and 93.2% specificity compared to NDV hemagglutination–inhibition (HI) test. This was in good agreement between the two serological methods (κ =0.848). In the serum
neutralization test (SNT), the result shows that there was no correlation observed between HI and SNT. It was observed that the field serum samples found positive or with high titer in the HI test were negative or have low titer for SNT. This suggests that different epitopes on the antigen have been recognized by each of the tests. The result shows that the recombinant NP antigen is recognized by antibodies specific to the other poultry pathogens and the cross reactivity is high for Paramyxovirus-2 (PMV-2) and Paramyxovirus-3 (PMV-3) but low reaction by other poultry pathogen [avian influenza (AI), avian encephalomyelitis (AE), infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), infectious bronchitis (IB), and infectious bursal disease (IBD)]. The titre of ND antibodies can be determined using NPELISA
formula, Log10Titre = 1.0* Log(S/P) + 3.45. This formula was derived after getting the linearity graph between NP-ELISA to commercial ND test kit. This finding indicates the potential application of the E. coli produced NP protein as antigen in indirect ELISA for the detection of NDV antibody. The NP-ELISA was successfully developed and very useful which is more or as efficient as commercial kits, thus the cost of NP-ELISA is cheaper than commercial kits.


The events of 1999 highlight the importance of the need for identity preservation (IP) of products that result from genetic modification. In April of 1999, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and A. E. Staley Co. announced that they would not accept product that was not approved for export to the European Union. By the time the 1999 harvest arrived, decision makers in the grain marketing industry realized the nature of their business had dramatically changed in just one growing season. In particular, they needed to preserve the identity of all grains and oilseeds intended for European and Japanese markets. During the remainder of the 1999 growing season, consumer concern about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) increased. The need for IP represents a substantial challenge for the grain marketing system, since the system has evolved over time to handle large volumes of homogeneous product. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of IP for GMOs on the grain handling system for a typical region in the eastern corn belt.


As maternal deaths have decreased worldwide,
increasing attention has been placed on the study of severe obstetric
complications, such as hemorrhage, eclampsia, and obstructed labor, to identify
where improvements can be made in maternal health. The objective of this study
was to determine pregnancy complications and prenatal care among women aged 15 - 49 in Oguzeli, Turkey, and to provide data for prevention in
the field. This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted between
February and May 2013 in Oguzeli distinct, Turkey. The total women registered
to family doctors in Oguzeli was listed and, 470 women were selected using a stratified and simple random sampling technique. Pregnancy
complications were asked for the last pregnancy of each women. Of the women, 23.9% (n = 109) declared that they experienced pregnancy complications during their
pregnancies. The most frequent problems were anemia (11.1%) hypertension (3.7%)
and diabetes mellitus (2.4%) respectively. Women having chronic diseases before their pregnancy were more likely to have pregnancy complications
compared to healthy women (p = 0.005). The mean number of prenatal care among women having pregnancy
complications was 5.47 ± 3.57, while it was 3.84 ± 3.00 among healthy women (p = 0.000). Women having chronic diseases should be handled carefully and, pregnancy should be
delayed until the chronic disease's remission. Family planning in primary
care is the key measure to archive this. Early diagnosis of hypertension among
young women is highly important for the
women's and infants's health during pregnancy, and for the women's
future heath. During prenatal care, women should be trained about correct
eating habits and activity.


The purpose of the thesis is to contribute to knowledge in tourism studies by linking
fresh concepts from psychology to tourist behaviour studies. The research field is
called positive psychology and stems from organised initiatives by mainstream and
prominent psychologists since the year 2000. The broad aim of positive psychology
is to investigate what makes life worth living and the central preoccupation is with
what human happiness means and how it can be measured.

The thesis is divided into six chapters. Following an introductory chapter on
happiness, a detailed literature review covers key themes of positive psychology,
youth travel, cultural tourism, tourist motivation, tourist satisfaction and
methodological creativity. Each of the themes is divided into smaller sections in
which recent and salient works are discussed. Knowledge gaps related to the overall
theme of tourist happiness are identified in the review of these themes. To close the
gaps, the thesis then addresses three questions:

1) How can a positive psychology approach to understanding human motivation
contribute to a sound theory of tourist motivation?
2) How can flow state methods from positive psychology contribute to a better
understanding of tourist satisfaction?
3) How can the answers to the first two questions contribute to a conceptualisation of
a happy tourist?

Three studies are presented and analysed through a positive psychology lens in
chapters 3, 4 and 5 to broadly address these questions. The studies analyse the
experiences of a group of Australian study-abroad university students in relation to
their travel year in Spain. The first and the last studies were conducted in Sydney
and the second study was conducted in Spain. The first is a motivation study which
consisted of a smaller qualitative investigation and a separate quantitative,
supportive study. Travel motives of the student group were investigated qualitatively
through an analysis of "a perfect day" at a destination. Using personal narrative
essays, travel motives of relationship/belonging, safety/comfort, curiosity/mental
stimulation and self-development were identified through this positive psychology
lens. In the supportive context study, motives of a group of backpackers were
investigated through motivation scales. It was shown that the students' travel motives
are similar to the motives of these other youth travellers. The essay approach thus
eases the measurement of motivation. It is shown that through descriptions of perfect
days similar travel motivations can be uncovered as in a more complex survey. By
simplifying the measurement (employing the simple question which is universal in its
application and is not culture, age nor gender specific) the positive psychology
approach contributes to a sound theory of tourist motivation.

The second study is an analysis through in-depth interviews of the students'
immediate conscious experiences at Spanish cultural heritage sites. The aim of this
study was to identify immediate satisfaction themes from on-site experiences of the
students at these sites. It is shown that the students' immediate satisfaction is
characterised by challenge-skill balance, total concentration, autotelic (intrinsically
rewarding) events, time transformation and the related themes of mindfulness, object
focus, personal experience, calm/tranquility and discovery. It is further demonstrated
that the flow model from positive psychology was useful in uncovering this layer of
satisfaction and that it contributes to the overall picture of tourists' happiness.

The last study is an analysis of the students' memorable experiences in Spain. These
experiences were analysed through personal narrative essays. It was found that the
satisfaction themes of challenge-skills balance and autotelic events featured in the
students' memorable experiences. Evidence of eudaimonia and surprise was also
uncovered. These themes, together with those identified in the motivation and the onsite
study further contribute to the exploratory picture of tourists' happiness.

The sixth and final chapter recaps the contribution of the three studies and presents
a preliminary overview of tourists' happiness. Tourists' happiness through the lens of
positive psychology is a product of the travel motivations for relationships and
belonging, safety and comfort, curiosity and mental stimulation and a motive for
personal development. The tourists' happiness is also about the on-site and
memorable experience themes identified in the satisfaction studies. These tourist
experience themes are all linked to the three dimensions of happiness from positive
psychology: meaning, engagement and positive emotions. It is recommended that
future tourism research relevant to the issue of tourists' happiness and the positive
psychology field should be conducted. Suggested future research studies are: a
challenge-skill balance study, a positive emotions and meaning "study, a positive
psychology study on tourism education and a study of benefits of travel to tourists'
health.


Premium Bonds sold by the UK National Savings and Investments ( NS &I ) agency are the possibly most popular example of lottery bonds. Premium Bonds holders renounce interest payments but instead participate in a lottery which distributes the equivalent of aggregate interest payments among them. While the random mechanism used in the lottery is well-documented the details of how to determine the probability distribution of a single bond holder's lottery prizes seem to be less well-known. We observe that the lottery prizes distribution is a multivariate hypergeometric distribution and discuss how to exactly calculate its probability masses as well as how to approximate the distribution by means of the Panjer recursion and Fourier transforms. We find that there are good reasons to prefer the approximations based on Panjer recursion or Fourier transforms to exact calculation of the lottery prize value distribution.


Purpose: Financial exploitation of elderly people is expected to proliferate over the next decade as the elderly population continues to grow rapidly. This study examined financial exploitation of elderly people compared to other forms of elder maltreatment (physical abuse, neglect, and hybrid, i.e., financial exploitation and physical abuse and/or neglect) that occurred in a domestic setting. Method: Using semi-structured interviews, 71 adult protective services (APS) caseworkers in Virginia and their elder client were interviewed separately about incidents of maltreatment that came to the attention of APS. Elderly participants were on average 76 years of age, 83% Caucasian, 76% female, and 84% were living in their own home. Interviews lasting between one and three hours covered a number of domains such as case characteristics, consequences, risk factors associated with the elderly victims and their perpetrators, the nature of the interactions between them, the APS investigation, the criminal justice response, and outcomes. In addition, data derived from the Adult Services Adult Protective Services (ASAPS) database managed by the Virginia Department of Social Services were used to in logistic regressions. Results: Financial exploitation differed from other forms of elder maltreatment, specifically, physical abuse, neglect by other, and hybrid financial exploitation, across a number of important domains. Furthermore, financial exploitation is underreported, underinvestigated and underprosecuted. However, important differences existed among all four forms of elder abuse. An exploration of the dynamics of elder abuse facilitated a greater understanding of the different forms of elder abuse under investigation. Results further revealed discrepancies between APS caseworkers' and elderly persons' perceptions of the causes of the elder's abuse. Furthermore, when differences did persist to the close of the case, the abuse was significantly less likely to cease. Discussion: These findings indicate the critical need to separate theoretically and practically different types of elder maltreatment. Additionally, critical to increasing our understanding of elder maltreatment is the need to take into consideration perpetrators when examining, predicting, and explaining elder maltreatment and related interventions. An exclusive focus on elderly people will continue to undermine effective interventions. Implications for theory, research, policy, and intervention are discussed.


This report was prepared for the Directors of the Council of Atlantic University Libraries/Conseil des bibliotheques universitaires de l'Atlantique by the CAUL/CBUA Scholarly Communications Committee. This report aims to provide CAUL/CBUA members with an overview of current scholarly communications activities at CAUL/CBUA institutions. Section C of this report (Results of the CAUL-CBUA Scholarly Communications Inventory) presents the overview of the results of our Scholarly Communications Inventory, in which we set out to assess the services and support for scholarly communications currently offered at each CAUL-CBUA institution.
The report is also intended to familiarize CAUL/CBUA members with new trends in scholarly communications and open
access publishing; to provide CAUL/CBUA members with practical information that can help them to implement
and further develop scholarly communications services at their institutions; and to provide sufficient information to allow CAUL/CBUA directors to consider and prioritize
opportunities for collaborative regional Open Access initiatives.


Contrary to what might be expected from the rather pessimistic view of library literature taken in another paper in this issue, the production of this annual review of the literature intended for special librarians becomes progressively more difficult, owing to the growth in the volume of the material from which the selection must be made. The aim of this survey has always been to pick out from the literature generally available in Great Britain in the year in question those items likely to be of practical assistance to library and information workers—particularly those with little experience or training working in small libraries. It therefore lists important reference works and tools which the special librarian ought to know about, even if he doesn't possess them, but omits all articles of purely theoretical interest, and those which describe practice in large libraries, except where they are capable of application in small libraries. Much of the increase in the volume of literature is due to an increase in the number of works of reference, many produced under the encouragement of bodies such as Unesco, but there is also a definite tendency for a closer link between theory and practice in much of the writing on library work. In these circumstances, the selection of a list of a hundred items becomes more than ever a matter of personal judgment, on which no two persons could be expected to agree, but it is hoped that all items included will prove useful, and that all sections of the field are fairly represented.


We introduce a new representation scheme for coalitional games, called coalition-flow networks (CF-NETs), where the formation of effective coalitions in a task-based setting is reduced to the problem of directing flow through a network. We show that our representation is intuitive, fully expressive, and captures certain patterns in a significantly more concise manner compared to the conventional approach. Furthermore, our representation has the flexibility to express various classes of games, such as characteristic function games, coalitional games with overlapping coalitions, and coalitional games with agent types. As such, to the best of our knowledge, CF-NETs is the first representation that allows for switching conveniently and efficiently between overlapping/non-overlapping coalitions, with/without agent types. We demonstrate the efficiency of our scheme on the coalition structure generation problem, where near-optimal solutions for large instances can be found in a matter of seconds.


This thesis aimed to (1) improve our knowledge on existing geochemical methods for detailed reading of the marine archives, and (2) application of the geochemical toolbox to an area that because of its geographical location, its sensitivity to subtle climate-related changes, and the subsequent preservation of relevant paleo-proxies is a perfect area for studies of abrupt climate change: the eastern Mediterranean Sea. XRF core scanning is an often applied geochemical approach to produce paleoenvironmental records from sediments on cm-scales. In this study it is shown that during measurement a water film forms generally under the covering foil of the sediment. The water-film thickness underneath the plastic foil is highly variable, causing significant apparent variability in all elements from Al to Fe, through absorption by the water content. The unverified use of these elements in ratios can thus lead to deviations in the paleoenvironmental interpretation. It is shown how to recognize erroneous element (ratio) variability using Cl intensities, and a method is proposed for correcting XRF core-scan data using conventional analytical data of a few discrete samples. To produce even higher resolution (μm-scale) geochemical records from sediments, a laser ablation (LA) -ICP-MS line-scan method is tested by production of artificial sediments spiked with Al, V, Mo, and Ba in a range of concentrations. The data presented indicates that LA-ICP-MS line-scanning has high potential for reliable quantitative analysis of major to trace elements in (laminated) resin-embedded sediments. A standard protocol is described to produce (semi-)quantitative estimates of geochemical proxies on (tens of) μm-scales in sediments. The geochemical tools are subsequently applied to sediments in and around the Nile delta, which generally are deposited at high sedimentation rates. It is shown that Nile discharge during the early to middle Holocene was dominated by Indian Ocean moisture transport. This is indicated by a similar timing (~9.5 ka) as well as similar solar-induced multi-centennial oscillations in Nile discharge, relative to contemporaneous Indian Ocean-derived monsoon records. These solar signals in Nile discharge also influenced paleo-environmental conditions (i.e. productivity and bottom water redox conditions) during sapropel S1 formation. Moreover, the data in the study reveal that rapid sea-level rise can reduce overturning circulation in the eastern Mediterranean, which likely contributes to sapropel formation. This mechanism acts principally in addition to the primary process of excess-evaporation. Impacts of other controlling factors of Mediterranean overturning (e.g. temperature, net evaporation) are, similar to sea-level rise, expected to be higher at larger rates-of-change. Northern hemisphere cold events were therefore probably important for reduced Mediterranean overturning circulation. That is, because more rapid monsoon enhancement and temperature increase occurs immediately after these events, relative to the change that would have been imposed by insolation alone.


Much academic work concerned with social and cultural processes in Australia takes as its field of inquiry how the lives of Aboriginal Australians have been changed and impacted on by colonisation. Rarely has scholarship attempted to uncover some of the ways Aboriginality and Aboriginal people have become integral in the shaping of the lives of non-Aboriginal Australians.

Ths thesis takes to heart the challenge of subjecting oneself and one's own social and cultural position to the rigours of sociological scrutiny and sets out to examine how crucial Aboriginality and Aboriginal people have been in shaping the lives, identities and economies of non-Aboriginal Australians.

Drawing on the work of Homi Bhabha the thesis argues that ambivalence, whch underlies much of colonial discourse, can have a tremendously disruptive and unsettling effect on the authority, identities and everyday social lives of non-Aboriginal people. The thesis explores something of the diversity of this ambivalence by focusing attention on five groups of people (One Nation Supporters, retired tourists, 'alternative lifestylers', governmental workers and early colonists); two historical moments(early colonial times and the late 1990s); and two regions (the south-west and Kimberley of Western Australia).

The thesis argues that one of the effects of ths ambivalence is that the social worlds of non- Aboriginal Australians are often subjected to challenge and change. In early colonial times many 'settlers' were tom between the will to colonise and economic and cultural reliance on the efforts and knowledge of Aboriginal people. More recently, One Nation supporters attempt to distance themselves from Aboriginal people by constituting them as the barbaric and parasitical other. At the same time, Hansonites indirectly position Aboriginality as central to their own identity and political future. Another group, retired tourists, regularly perpetuate old colonial tropes and publicly express their disdain of Aboriginal people. At the same time, these people yearn for and engage in social practices otherwise associated with Aborigrnal culture. Behind both groups' public attacks on Aborigines as cannibals and the 'Aboriginal Industry' as spongers lies a deep political and cultural reliance on Aboriginality. Romantics and others who aspire to consume and mimic Aboriginal culture are likewise regularly ambivalent and contradictory in their treatment of Aboriginality. It is arguable that many are selfinterested and seek to plunder Aboriginal cultural. However, the very romance that prompts their mimicry can and does act to unsettle the certainty of non-Aboriginal dominance. This prompts people to re-examine their identities and social practices. Ambivalence and complexity is also central to the lives of those involved in the business of Aboriginal governance. On the one hand, these people are clearly implicated in the government and regulation of Aboriginal people. On the other hand, liberal discourse on fairness and equality of opportunity force governmental workers to increase their contact and reliance on Aboriginal people. This often has the effect of provoking changes in non-Aboriginal people's personal and working lives.

The thesis concludes that the engagement of colonial discourse with Aboriginalities inevitably leads to an ambivalence that disables the monolithic dominance of non-Aboriginal Australians. In a range of ways this ambivalence can and does produce conditions whch undermine and transform the cultural lives and identities of non-Aboriginal Australians.


The orthodox view of market definition in antitrust cases is that the same principles of market definition should apply at all stages of an antitrust analysis, and, in particular, that markets should be defined for virtually all purposes by reference to demand-side substitutability. Commentators have struggled to reconcile the Supreme Court's recent decision in Ohio v. American Express Co. --in which the majority combined services to cardholders and services to merchants into a single antitrust market, despite the evident lack of substitutability between them -- with that familiar view. In this short Article, we suggest that this effort at reconciliation may be unnecessary, and perhaps even undesirable. Against the orthodox view, we claim that market definition should be "disaggregated" such that the correct approach to market definition may vary depending on the element of the antitrust analysis for which it is being used. Thus, while market definition based on substitutability is an appealing tool for the assessment of market power, it may not be appropriate for the evaluation of competitive effects in all cases under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The majority opinion in AmEx can (and perhaps should) be understood as an implicit-albeit cryptic-endorsement of a disaggregated approach to market definition.


In this thesis we investigate the role played by fundamental properties of QED in determining the non-perturbative fermion-boson vertex. These key features are gauge invariance and multiplicative renormalisability. We use the Schwinger-Dyson equations as the non- perturbative tool to study the general structure of the fermion-boson vertex in QED. These equations, being an infinite set, have to be truncated if they are to be solved. Such a truncation is made possible by choosing a suitable non-perturbative ansatz for the fermion-boson vertex. This choice must satisfy these key properties of gauge invariance and multiplicative renormalisability. In this thesis we develop the constraints, in the case of massless unquenched QED, that have to be fulfilled to ensure that both the fermion and photon propagators are multiplicatively renormalisable-at least as far as leading and subleading logarithms are concerned. To this end, the Schwinger-Dyson equations are solved perturbatively for the fermion and photon wave-function renormalisations. We then deduce the conditions imposed by multiplicative renormalisability for these renormalisation functions. As a last step we compare the two results coming from the solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equations and multiplicative renormalisability in order to derive the necessary constraints on the vertex function. These constitute the main results of this part of the thesis. In the weak coupling limit the solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equations must agree with perturbation theory. Consequently, we can find additional constraints on the 3- point vertex by perturbative calculation. Hence, the one loop vertex in QED is then calculated in arbitrary covariant gauges as an analytic function of its momenta. The vertex is decomposed into a longitudinal part, that is fully responsible for ensuring the Ward and Ward-Takahashi identities are satisfied, and a transverse part. The transverse part is decomposed into 8 independent components each being separately free of kinematic singularities in any covariant gauge in a basis that modifies that proposed by Ball and Chiu. Analytic expressions for all 11 components of the O(a) vertex are given explicitly in terms of elementary functions and one Spence function. These results greatly simplify in particular kinematic regimes. These are the new results of the second part of this thesis.


Although it is generally acknowledged that fire-induced heterogeneity is important for maintaining diverse species assemblages in northern Australian savannas, scant relevant data are currently available to examine this proposition. The study takes advantage of a singular, detailed, bidecadal fire history assembled annually for Kakadu National Park to explore relationships between fire-induced heterogeneity and other terrain features. Three patch-based heterogeneity indices were calculated from assembled fire-history data for the central 1-ha cell of a 5 × 5 cell (25 ha) window; that is, at a spatial scale relevant to the home ranges of many small- to medium-sized native mammals. Two of these indices were first calculated separately for each year, employing different metrics based on the extent of burning occurring in the 5 × 5 cell array, and then averaged for each of four consecutive five-year periods and over all years. The third index was calculated as the sum of the coefficients of variation for four fire-regime variability parameters determined likewise for five- and 20-year periods. Assembled data illustrate that (1) fire-induced heterogeneity in Kakadu increased in each successive five-year period from 1981, and (2) when modelled with independent terrain coverages, significant relationships were obtained for all three heterogeneity indices with terrain roughness, distance to roads, and distance to drainage lines.


In this thoughtful exploration of a sensitive issue, Tom Horner considers all the references to homosexuality in the Bible--the stories of Sodom and Gibeah, David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, and passages from Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Romans, I Corinthians, and I Timothy. He includes an important discussion of the words and actions of Christ in their biblical and historical context, to determine what conclusions can validly be inferred about Jesus and sexuality. This book contains suggestions for further reading and a complete list of biblical references to homosexuality. Teachers, students, and anyone open to reconsidering homosexuality in the light of the Scriptures will profit from this clearly written work.


Search engines are some of the most popular and profitable intelligent technologies in existence. Recent research, however, has suggested that search engines may be surprisingly dependent on user-created content like Wikipedia articles to address user information needs. In this paper, we perform a rigorous audit of the extent to which Google leverages Wikipedia and other user-generated content to respond to queries. Analyzing results for six types of important queries (e.g. most popular, trending, expensive advertising), we observe that Wikipedia appears in over 80% of results pages for some query types and is by far the most prevalent individual content source across all query types. More generally, our results provide empirical information to inform a nascent but rapidly-growing debate surrounding a highlyconsequential question: Do users provide enough value to intelligent technologies that they should receive more of the economic benefits from intelligent technologies?


In stochastic multi-armed bandits, the reward distribution of each arm is assumed to be stationary. This assumption is often violated in practice (e.g., in recommendation systems), where the reward of an arm may change whenever is selected, i.e., rested bandit setting. In this paper, we consider the non-parametric rotting bandit setting, where rewards can only decrease. We introduce the filtering on expanding window average (FEWA) algorithm that constructs moving averages of increasing windows to identify arms that are more likely to return high rewards when pulled once more. We prove that for an unknown horizon T, and without any knowledge on the decreasing behavior of the K arms, FEWA achieves problem-dependent regret bound of O(log(KT)), and a problem-independent one of O(sqrt(KT)). Our result substantially improves over the algorithm of Levine et al. (2017), which suffers regret O(K^(1/3) T^(2/3). FEWA also matches known bounds for the stochastic bandit setting, thus showing that the rotting bandits are not harder. Finally, we report simulations confirming the theoretical improvements of FEWA.


Soil erosion is a major environmental problem in many parts of Syria generally, and in coast basin in western part particularly. The main objective of this paper is to integrate information from various sources including remote sensing and geographic information system data to accurately quantify and map the spatial distribution of the potential soil erosion risk in Alhusain basin, Tartous, Syria, using geospatial modeling and analysis tools.

The results show that 58% of the study basin has a low loss of soil, 27% moderate loss, 11% high loss, and 4% a very high loss, respectively. Alhusain basin is in the extremely severe level of soil erosion rates with about 15% of land affected by high and very high soil erosion risk. Therefore, the generated soil erosion map represents the effective base to spatial strategies for decisionmakers to avoid soil erosion risks and consequently to soil conservation.


Infertility has become one of the controversial issues recently that are affected by environmental factors. Of the effective factors in this regard is the plants and its derivatives that each of them has variable effects. The plants with the special chemical substance such as phytosterols could be significantly effective. Chehelghoza is one of the Afghan native plants that contain a special phytosterol named beta sitosterol (BS) that have been proved to decrease the fertility. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats from an inbreed colony were selected. Thirty-two male rats were randomly divided into four groups. Rats in groups 1, 2, 3 received 5, 25, and 50 percent Chehelghoza in their daily food, respectively for 14 days. Rats in group 4 (as the control) received their daily food without Chehelghoza for 14 days. The result of our study showed that different doses of Chehelghoza significantly decrease the sperm motility, sperm count, and TG (Triglyceride) plasma levels. We consider that Chehelghoza containing phytosterol can reduce male fertility factors.


The physical and chemical effects of small additions of two different tertiary alkanolamines to portland cement were investigated. The strengths of standard test mortars moist cured for more than 1 day were found to be enhanced in some cases by addition of triisopropanolamine, but not by similar amounts of triethanolamine. Thermogravimetric and X-ray diffractometric data indicate that the increased mortar strengths resulted from an increased degree of hydration of the cement. Calorimetry and aqueous-phase analysis show that the higher alkanolamine, triisopropauo-lamine, remains in solution for a sufficient time to catalyze hydration of C4 AF after all of the free gypsum has been consumed to form calcium sulfoaluminate hydrates, In contrast, the lower alkanolamine, triethanolamine, is mostly adsorbed by the cement within the first hours of hydration. It is hypothesized that the catalytic mechanism involves facilitated transport of ferric ions through the aqueous phase in the form of ferric-alkanolamine complexes.


CEO incentive contracts are commonplace in China but their incidence varies significantly across Chinese cities. We show that city and provincial policy experiments help explain this variance. We examine the role of two policy experiments: the use of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and the rate at which state owned enterprises (SOEs) were privatised. CEO incentive contracts are negatively correlated with foreign ownership and with the introduction of FDI via SEZs. However, the SEZ effect disappears having accounted for the city-level composition of firms and executives. Rapid SOE privatisation is associated with higher city and firm-level adoption of CEO incentive contracts, irrespective of the firm's own current ownership status. The positive effect of privatisation is robust to various estimation techniques and model specifications.


Software houses are now keen to provide secure software as requested by customerspsila desire with respect to security and quality of their products especially related to the software costing estimation in the software development and implementation environment. Therefore, there is a need to identify the potential security risks while estimating the application cost. In this paper, we provide a list of potential security risks throughout the system development life cycle (SDLC). This list provides useful insights for software developers and practitioners in identifying security risks so that it can be encountered as security cost in the application.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the commonly used policy approach to subsidize the private provision of public goods by granting agents deductions with respect to their income or corporate tax burden. Design/methodology/approach - In the framework of a microeconomic representative agent model the commonly used policy approach to subsidize donations by granting agents deductions with respect to their income tax burden is examined. The paper especially considers that most income tax schemes are progressive and deductibility is limited. After pointing to the problems arising from these specific properties of tax-refund schemes the paper turns towards the effects that such a tax-refund scheme has with respect to donations on the one hand and welfare on the other hand. Findings - Findings shows that the effects of the commonly practiced methods of supporting donations depend crucially on the specific properties of the tax scheme and preferences of agents. While Pareto-improvements and even Pareto-efficiency can result from the implementation of such a scheme, it is also conceivable that some agents perceive a utility reduction. Research limitations/implications - The analysis builds on a static approach although taxation also exerts important dynamic effects. These effects have been neglected in the current paper as the interaction of taxation and preferences is already quite complex. However, they should be considered in future research. Practical implications - Owing to the dependency of welfare effects on the tariff structure, income tax reforms as they are planned in many countries might not only induce a reduction in donations, but might as a result also alter the induced welfare effects. Originality/value - The paper shows that the generally applied tax-refund schemes constitute no effective means to induce optimal donation levels. Implications depend crucially on, e.g. deductibility ceilings and progressiveness of tax rates.


An extensive study was carried out to find formal relationships between electronic structure and 5-HT2B receptor binding affinity in a family of 44 N-benzylphenethylamines. These molecules were also docked to a structure of the human 5-HT2B receptor. The QSAR results were able to detect several atoms involved in the binding with HT2B receptor but failed at least in one important case. Docking results show that some molecules experience strong intramolecular π-π interactions producing folded structures. A given moiety of the molecules is able to interact with more than one residue of the receptor. Not always a certain moiety interacts with the same residue. The necessity of finding a more exact relationship between quantum-chemical and docking results needs a revision of the common skeleton concept.


This paper is a report of ongoing research on the computational modeling of beat induction which aims at achieving a better understanding of the perceptual processes involved by ordering and reformulating existing models. One family of rule-based beat induction models is described (Longuet-Higgins and Lee, 1982; Lee, 1985; Longuet-Higgins, 1994), along with the presentation of analysis methods that allow an evaluation of the models in terms of their inand output spaces, abstracting from internal detail. It builds on work described in (Desain and Honing, 1994b). The present paper elaborates these methods and presents the results obtained. It will be shown that they can be used to characterize the differences between these models, a point that was difficult to assess previously. Furthermore, the first results of using the method to improve the existing rule-based models are presented, by describing the most effective version of a specific rule, and the most effective parameter settings.


The ability to map microvascular morphology and hemodynamic parameters, such as blood volume, is desirable for many biomedical studies and will lead to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of angiogenesis and vascular disease. Capillary networks can be delineated in three dimensions with two-photon excited fluorescence microscopy; however, this requires the intravenous infusion of a fluorescent dye into the blood plasma, which often complicates in vivo imaging and only provides an indirect estimate of local haematocrit volume. Moreover, visualising the spatial distribution of capillaries is often insufficient; ideally, one would wish to correlate the proximity of the blood vessels with the surrounding local tissue structure. We present in this study a novel multimodal approach that combines stimulated Raman scattering and two-photon photothermal lensing to provide simultaneous visualisation of cortical microvasular morphology and surrounding cellular structures. We show that volumetric analysis of the nonlinear photothermal contrast of erythrocytes allows a direct quantification of local haematocrit volume rather than relying upon average plasma volume-to-haematocrit ratios. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Etienne Gilson begins his recently translated work, The Metamorphoses of the City of God, with these words, "The contemporary world suffers the pains of childbirth. With enormous turmoil a universal society is being born." These words were uttered in 1952. We, like Gilson, are the witnesses to the process of this childbirth. The major events that we are experiencing are also of "a planetary character." We, too, can recognize that:


In recent years "low load" tribology has received more attention due to the emergence of special devices like MEMS, and new materials such as bioimplants, polymers, and textured surfaces. The tribological characterization of MEMS materials is challenging, because the devices operate at nominal contact pressures of only a few MPa and low wear rates of nm/h. The evaluation of materials with conventional high load tribological tools or with AFM type techniques is not appropriate because the contact pressures or contact geometries are not suitable. Furthermore, even in many conventional applications, the contact pressures and wear rates are more moderate than the ones achieved in conventional tribometers. In this work, the friction and wear behavior of the commonly used industrial coatings titanium nitride (TiN) and diamond-like carbon (DLC) are investigated with normal forces in between Newton (conventional tribology) and nanoNewton (nanotribology). The investigation of friction at such low contact pressures was achieved using a high precision microtribometer MUST® operating in a linearly reciprocating ball-on-flat configuration; a ball-on-disk configuration is also possible. The equipment works on the principle of deflection measurements of a flexible cantilever beam with light optical sensors bearing a force resolution of 0.1 μN. As the applied normal force reduces from mNs to μNs, the effect of surface roughness becomes strikingly apparent in the recorded tangential force. The friction of TiN coating appears to be less sensitive to surface roughness variations and chemical changes of the countermaterial than DLC. The behavior of DLC at low contact pressures is different from the well known low friction behavior of DLC coatings at high contact pressures. The importance of the appropriate tribological tool for evaluating materials at low contact pressures has been illustrated through this study.


Pat Devine, Democracy and Economic Planning: The Political Economy of a Self-Governing Society Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010; 320pp, £20 ISBN: 978-0745634791 Originally published in 1 988 a few years before the crisis in Stalinism, Pat Devines model of a planned economy has been republished with a new preface during the crisis in neo-liberalism. He comprehensively discusses capitalist planning, central planning and market socialism before sketching his own economic vision. Obviously inspired by Marx, Devine s system is at odds with Marx's comments on social planning - it retains money and so the wages-system (if not wage-labour) with 'an incomes policy to render effective the planned allocation of resources according to socially agreed priorities' (p.199). Despite his critique of market socialism, it retains markets, with Devine squaring that particular circle by invoking 'the crucial difference between market exchange and market forces' (p.22). The latter is when changes in 'the pattern of investment' and 'the structure of productive capacity' are driven by 'individual self-interest, not consciously coordinated by them in advance' (p.23). Instead, 'negotiated coordination bodies' would determine major investment decisions rather than individual production units. These 'would not be autarchic, atomistic competitors, although they would compete' (p.208) with 'the purchase and sale of commodities' (p.236) as workplaces offer their output for sale at cost-based prices' (p.24l). Thus a workplace is 'completely autonomous with respect to its day-to-day operation and the use it made of its existing productive capacity', with its 'internal organisation' based on 'self-management', while investment would be 'agreed with its negotiated coordination body' (p.226). Yet it is not easy, in practice, to determine what is and is not major new investment, and at what level negotiation should take place. So while he urges decentralisation, his desire for 'social ownership as a necessary condition for social control and the abolition of exploitation and the anarchy of production' (p.8) may work against it. His well founded desire to be inclusive also has perverse consequences. As well as existing (representative) governmental bodies there would be a 'chamber of interests' (with representatives from unions, consumers, campaigning groups, etc.) as well as planning commissions and negotiation bodies at every level. At the base, a production unit's governing body would reflect its workers, trade unions, community groups, consumer groups, planning commissions and negotiated coordination bodies (p.226). Looking at all the layers and bodies in this model, it is hard not to wonder whether, with all the meetings and negotiation, anyone would have time to do any work or, for that matter, reach a decision! …


An effective Internet cyber threat monitoring system detects cyber threats using network sensors deployed at particular points on the Internet, statistically analyses the time of attack, source of attack, and type of attack, and then visualizes the result of this analysis. Existing systems, however, simply visualize country-by-country statistics of attacks or hourly changes of attacks. Using these systems, it is difficult to understand the source of attack, the diffusion of the attack, or the relation between the target and the source of the attack. This paper described a method for visualizing cyber threats by using 2-dimensional matrix representation of IP addresses. The advantages of this method are that: (I) the logical distance of IP addresses is represented intuitively, (2) Internet address space is visualized economically, (3) macroscopic information (site level) and microscopic information (local level) are visualized simultaneously. By using this visualization framework, propagation of the Welchia worm and the Sasser.D worm are visualized.


BackgroundAdults with intellectual disabilities (ID) develop the metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease morefrequently than individuals without ID. The knowledge about cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescentswith mild/moderate ID is scarce.AimsThe aims were 1) to examine cardiometabolic health among adolescents with ID 2) to study the progressof cardiometabolic risk factors from adolescence to young adulthood among young adults with andwithout ID 3) to evaluate whether a health-promoting program in an upper secondary school for studentswith ID could reduce cardiometabolic risk factors 4) to evaluate whether the plate model pattern, inlayedin a specially designed lunch plate, increases vegetable intake.Material and MethodsSixty-six adolescents with mild/moderate ID, mean age 18.6y recruited from one upper secondary schoolfor students with ID (year 1-4) were investigated in a cross sectional study (Paper I). Controls were 90students without ID, mean age 17.8y, recruited from practical and theoretical programs at schools nearby.In the follow-up study five years later 35% (n=23) of the now young adults with ID and 33% (n =30)from the control group were re-investigated (Paper II). Measures were anthropometrics, blood pressure,DXA, fasting blood samples and a submaximal cardiovascular fitness test. The multifactorial schoolintervention was evaluated on last year students after two years of intervention (n = 11) and comparedwith their base-line data (Paper I) and with last year students in Paper I (Paper III). The special plate withthe plate model inlayed was evaluated in an observational study. The intervention group (n = 27) hadeaten on the special plate during school lunches for at least six months. The control group (n=62) wasrecruited from two other upper secondary schools for students with ID. Food intake was estimated fromvideo recordings and digital photos (Paper IV).ResultsAdolescents with ID had a higher prevalence and severity of cardiometabolic risk factors together withlow cardiovascular fitness compared to the control group. At follow-up as young adults (mean age 24.3)35% were classified as obese and 22% had developed the metabolic syndrome. Those without ID frompractical educational programs also developed cardiometabolic risk factors but they did not reach thesame level as the group with ID. After two years of school intervention cardiometabolic risk factors haddecreased and no one were obese. Evaluation of the special plate showed no difference in vegetableintake between intervention and control group. Eighty-eight percent ate ≥ 37.5% vegetables. Theintervention group chose food with a lower fat content and with more carbohydrates, had less plate wasteand took fewer portions.ConclusionsAlready during adolescence individuals with ID have more cardiometabolic risk factors than thosewithout ID and as young adults individuals with ID in this study has a cardiometabolic health andcardiovascular fitness similar to the Swedish middle-age population. Actions to promote healthy livinghabits during school hours including the use of the special plate were promising. This indicates that it isnot the ID condition itself but the effects ID has on the living conditions that causes the highcardiometabolic risk. Thus, the results in this thesis show that initiatives especially designed forindividuals with ID to promote healthier living habits are required and are likely to be effective.