The aim of this article is to analyze the tactical behavior of Somali pirates, international naval forces, and the shipping community operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin. To what extent has tactical behavior changed over time and can this process be understood in more theoretical terms? Our theoretical framework centers around some concepts often used in naval doctrine, discussing tactical change in terms of command and control, force, mobility, protection, intelligence, and endurance. We also evaluate this change using two tactical concepts—tactical adaptation and tactical development. The empirical data is based on statistics from the International Criminal Court-International Maritime Bureau and the EU NAVFOR Operation Atalanta, as well as interviews. We conclude that Somali piracy has unquestionably adapted their tactics to circumstances, while naval forces have increased their capacity to capture pirates and shipping to avoid pirates.


Abstract Although the Geneva Conventions have been successively revised since 1864, norms regarding the protection of medical care have been frequently disregarded. Despite current claims of international humanitarian law in crisis, comparing historic levels of violations with contemporary incidents is quantitatively challenging. Reviewing past reactions and justifications used by perpetrators of attacks on medical care can, however, be revealing. Based on a series of emblematic cases, qualitative analysis of perpetrator discourse can contribute to a better understanding of why the protection of medical care in armed conflict continues to be problematic to this day, notably through the rationales given for attacks, which have remained remarkably consistent over time.


The challenges of Personal Information Management (PIM) are proliferating with the ever-increasing availability of systems for digital multimedia information capture. Assimilating such information requires supporting appropriate user-media interaction paradigms as well as developing data models that can represent the true multi-media nature of the information. This paper examines the problem of facilitating user annotations of media in light of the aforementioned context. Annotations, while universally acknowledged to greatly enhance the information content and interaction experience, are often tedious and complex for users to enter. In real-world usage, these problems deter users from annotating media data, which in turn greatly reduces the efficacy of media management systems. In this paper we show how principles from experiential computing and unified multimedia modeling can be used to address many of the challenges that contribute to the complexity of annotating media. The resulting experiential annotation system supports direct user-data interactions using audio, graphical, and text modalities. An integrated annotationpresentation-interaction allows the use of these modalities, potentially in conjunction, to reduce the tedium associated with the annotation process. Additionally, an event-based unified data model and spatio-temporal representation of information are used to retain data context and thus further ameliorate the "annotation bottleneck". User studies are used to determine the efficacy of the proposed approach.


Vernal pools are small isolated wetlands that are covered by shallow water for variable periods in the winter and spring but may be completely dry for most of the summer and fall. Despite their small size, vernal pools are a dominant wetland type throughout New England. These wetlands are hotspots of floral and faunal biodiversity, as their unique hydrology and landscape characteristics allow them to serve as a home and breeding ground for many distinct plant and animal species. Because of their abundance in New England, vernal pools may also be an important long-term regional storehouse for organic carbon. Despite the functional and ecological values of vernal pools, few studies have investigated how variations in hydrology, pool size, geomorphic setting, and surrounding landscape attributes affect soil carbon in these systems and the associated hydric soils that sequester the carbon. Therefore, the primary objectives of this thesis were to i) assess the effect of landscape characteristics on hydrologic and edaphic conditions; ii) investigate the need for additional hydric soil indicators for vernal pool soils; iii) quantify the relationship between vernal pool hydrology and greenhouse gas fluxes; and iv) evaluate processes of carbon cycling throughout vernal pools. Twenty-one vernal pools in southern Rhode Island were selected and their landscape attributes were characterized using spatial tools in GIS. Sixteen of the 21 pools formed in glaciofluvial deposits on outwash plains, kame terraces, and moraines. The rest formed in till or alluvial landscapes. Vernal pool basin areas ranged from 6 to 381 m and mean slopes of the adjacent landscape ranged from 3 to 20%. Slope class was not significantly correlated to basin area (R = 0.03). Four vernal pools were selected for detailed studies of hydrology, soils, and vegetation in the basin, transition, and upland zones. Water table levels were monitored in each hydrologic zone from June 2015 to October 2016. Median water table levels increased in depth from the soil surface with increased distance from the vernal pool basin. Basin zones were consecutively inundated for the longest period of time, followed by transitional zones; upland zones were never inundated. Water table gradients indicated discharge into pool basins for the majority of the year. Vernal pools with steep slopes showed recharge gradients during periods of significant inundation suggesting a relationship between slope class and hydrology. Vernal pool soils classified as Spodosols, Inceptisols, and Histosols. Although all of the basin and transitional zones met the saturation requirements for hydric soils, 25% of the soils did not meet a hydric soil indicator. Both of these soils were Spodosols, suggesting the need for continued evaluation of hydric soils with spodic morphologies. Twenty-one plant species were identified across all study sites. Specifically, basin zones were dominated by obligate wetland plants, while transitional and upland zones consisted primarily of facultative and facultative wetland plants. Analysis allowed for the identification of plant species that accurately reflected the hydrologic nature of each zone, which affirmed the relationship between vegetation and hydrology. Carbon pools and the contributions to the wetland soil carbon cycle, including leaf litter additions, decomposition of coarse woody debris and leaves, and CO2 from respiration, were monitored during the majority of two growing seasons. On average, basin and transitional zone soils possessed the largest soil organic carbon (SOC) pools (11 kg m), while SOC pools in upland zones were substantially less (8 kg m). Leaf litter additions ranged from 40 to 149 g C m depending on the site and hydrologic zone. Leaf litter bags and wooden dowel rods (representing coarse woody debris) were placed at the surface of each zone in order to investigate above-ground decomposition. Dowel rods were also inserted vertically into the soil to 25 cm in 2015 to investigate below-ground decomposition. On average, basin zones experienced the highest leaf litter loss (12 g C m; 18%), while upland zones experienced the lowest loss (6 g C m; 10%). Basin zones also exhibited the highest mean surface dowel loss in 2015 (4%). Losses from 2016 followed similar trends, but lower precipitation experienced by the pools resulted in significantly lower losses. On average, the highest below-ground decomposition occurred in the upland zone (16%). Analysis comparing vernal pool hydrology to organic matter decomposition yielded results that trended toward significance in 2015 for leaf litter (p = 0.06) and ground dowels losses (p = 0.07). Above-ground decomposition decreased as the water table receded further from the soil surface; conversely, below-ground decomposition increased as the water table receded further from the surface. Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes were measured between the months of August and November in 2015, and between May and August in 2016. CO2 flux was significantly correlated with soil temperature (p < 0.001) and hydrologic zone across all study sites (p = 0.03). Flux increased as soil temperature increased and as the depth between the soil surface and the water table increased. Although the partitioning of heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration yielded weak correlations (R < 0.5), analysis suggested that root respiration accounted for < 40% of the total CO2 flux. Mean monthly CO2 fluxes were highest in the transitional zones, ranging from 5 to 22 μmole m min across all zones. CH4 flux was significantly correlated with vernal pool hydrology in all study sites (p < 0.003). Positive emissions ranged from 0.02 to 0.03 μmole m min and only occurred in the basin zones during the months of May and June, when the basins were inundated with surface water. Transitional and upland zones exhibited net CH4 absorption, as did the basin zones during months other than May and June. Nitrous oxide fluxes ranged from -0.009 to 0.008 μmole m min and did not vary significantly with hydrologic zone. Despite their small size and ephemeral nature, their significant contribution to greenhouse gas efflux and removal from the atmosphere warrant future investigations and conservation of vernal pools.


In The Making of a Human Bomb , Nasser Abufarha, a Palestinian anthropologist, explains the cultural logic underlying Palestinian martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) launched against Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–06). In so doing, he sheds much-needed light on how Palestinians have experienced and perceived the broader conflict. During the Intifada, many of the martyrdom operations against Israeli targets were initiated in the West Bank town of Jenin and surrounding villages. Abufarha was born and raised in Jenin. His personal connections to the area enabled him to conduct ethnographic research there during the Intifada, while he was a student at a U.S. university.

Abufarha draws on the life histories of martyrs, interviews he conducted with their families and members of the groups that sponsored their operations, and examinations of Palestinian literature, art, performance, news stories, and political commentaries. He also assesses data—about the bombers, targets, and fatalities caused—from more than two hundred martyrdom operations carried out by Palestinian groups between 2001 and 2004. Some involved the use of explosive belts or the detonation of cars; others entailed armed attacks against Israeli targets (military and civilian) undertaken with the intent of fighting until death. In addition, he scrutinized suicide attacks executed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad between 1994 and 2000. In his analysis of Palestinian political violence, Abufarha takes into account Palestinians' understanding of the history of the conflict with Israel, the effects of containment on Palestinians' everyday lives, the disillusionment created by the Oslo peace process, and reactions to specific forms of Israeli state violence. The Making of a Human Bomb illuminates the Palestinians' perspective on the conflict with Israel and provides a model for ethnographers seeking to make sense of political violence.


Interpreting decision making logic in demonstration videos is key to collaborating with and mimicking humans. To empower machines with this ability, we propose a neural program synthesizer that is able to explicitly synthesize underlying programs from behaviorally diverse and visually complicated demonstration videos. We introduce a summarizer module as part of our model to improve the network's ability to integrate multiple demonstrations varying in behavior. We also employ a multi-task objective to encourage the model to learn meaningful intermediate representations for end-to-end training. We show that our model is able to reliably synthesize underlying programs as well as capture diverse behaviors exhibited in demonstrations. The code is available at https://shaohua0116.github.io/demo2program.


Background ACDs enable individuals to document future treatment preferences. Documented wishes need to be 'clinically meaningful' and able to inform medical treatment plans during acute hospitalisation. Aim To assess preferences indicated on ACDs for content, consistency within the document and concordance with medical orders on the Resuscitation Plan (RP) (hospital POLST form). Methods Retrospective analysis of ACDs completed during facilitated advance care planning in 2011; including assessing consistency between the specific treatment wishes (CPR/Life-Prolonging Treatment (LPT)) and documented outcome preferences, and evaluating concordance of RP orders and ACD requests. Results 153 patients completed ACDs, 88% also appointed a Substitute-Decision-Maker and 90% documented CPR/LPT preferences. Of these 51% chose 'No CPR', 40% chose 'CPR if medically beneficial' and 9% accepted medical advice that 'CPR would be of no benefit'. 48% indicated they didn't want LPT, 50% wanted LPT if doctors anticipated a reasonable outcome and only 2% wanted LPT for as long as possible. 71% identified other undesired treatment(s) (38% ventilation, 37% artificial nutrition, 12% surgery, 10% dialysis). 84% documented their interpretation of unacceptable outcomes (inability to eat—38%, or communicate—43%, impaired cognition 33%, bedbound 33%).CPR and LPT requests were internally consistent in 88% and 85% of cases. A RP was completed during admission in 70 patients; 89% were concordant with ACD requests, 10% limited treatment more and 1% recommended more treatment. Discussion Most patients clearly documented preferences and undesired outcomes that were interpretable into actionable medical orders which were followed. Conclusion Facilitated ACD completion ensures patients' wishes are known and respected.


From the author of `The Music of the Primes' and `Finding Moonshine' comes a short, lively book on five mathematical problems that just refuse be solved - and on how many everyday problems can be solved by maths. Every time we download a song from Itunes, take a flight across the Atlantic or talk on our mobile phones, we are relying on great mathematical inventions. Maths may fail to provide answers to various of its own problems, but it can provide answers to problems that don't seem to be its own - how prime numbers are the key to Real Madrid's success, to secrets on the Internet and to the survival of insects in the forests of North America. In `The Number Mysteries', Marcus du Sautoy explains how to fake a Jackson Pollock; how to work out whether or not the universe has a hole in the middle of it; how to make the world's roundest football. He shows us how to see shapes in four dimensions - and how maths makes you a better gambler. He tells us about the quest to predict the future - from the flight of asteroids to an impending storm, from bending a ball like Beckham to predicting population growth. It's a book to dip in to; a book to challenge and puzzle - and a book that gives us answers.


Background. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended that the head of the bed of mechanically ventilated patients be elevated to between 30° and 45° to decrease the risk of ventilatorassociated pneumonia (VAP) Compliance with this recommendation may be affected by nurses\' knowledge of the recommendation and their accuracy in estimating the backrest elevation.
Objectives. To determine the difference between nurses\' estimation of backrest angle and the actual measured angle; to determine the relationship between nurses\' demographic characteristics and the accuracy of estimation; to determine nurses\' knowledge of why this recommendation has been made.
Methods. A convenience sample of 39 nurses working in the selected ICUs of the study hospital was used. The angles of elevation were preselected in each area. Estimated angles were correlated with measured angles and this was correlated with demographic characteristics.
Results. Forty-two per cent of the nurses were accurate in their estimation of bedrest angle (correlation, 0.6232). Demographic characteristics had little effect on accuracy.
Conclusion. Nurses could benefit from assistance in accurately estimating backrest elevation angle, as well as from education regarding strategies to decrease the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Southern African Journal of Critical Care Vol. 23 (1) 2007: pp. 10-14


If you've ever made a secure purchase with your credit card over the Internet, then you have seen cryptography, or "crypto," in action. From Stephen Levythe author who made "hackers" a household wordcomes this account of a revolution that is already affecting every citizen in the twenty-first century. Crypto tells the inside story of how a group of "crypto rebels"—nerds and visionaries turned freedom fighters—teamed up with corporate interests to beat Big Brother and ensure our privacy on the Internet. Levy's history of one of the most controversial and important topics of the digital age reads like the best futuristic fiction."


" With commentary by Terry Alford, Burrus Carnahan, Joan L. Chaconis, Percy Martin, Betty Ownsbey, Edward Steers Jr., Thomas R. Turner, and Laurie Verge On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. By April 26, eight of the ten people eventually charged as accomplices in Lincoln's murder were in custody. Booth was killed resisting capture and John Surratt was in Canada, his whereabouts unknown to Federal authorities. In the days that followed, President Johnson issued an Executive Order directing that the persons charged with Lincoln's murder stand trial before a military tribunal. During the fifty-day trial, over three hundred and sixty witnesses gave testimony. Benn Pitman, a recognized expert in the art of phonography (an early form of shorthand), was awarded a government contract to produce a true and accurate transcription of the testimony. Working with four assistants, Pitman produced transcripts that served the general public through daily releases to select members of the press as well as to the prosecution and the defense. Pitman was given the right to publish the transcriptions for public sale, and he skillfully winnowed the 4,300 pages of transcription into a single 421-page volume. Copies of the original 1865 edition, as well as subsequent reprints, are exceedingly rare. Here for the first time, leading experts in the field lend their insight in a series of commentaries that complement Pitman's published transcript-included here in its entirety-exposing various perjuries, explaining testimony that has escaped scholarly attention, and clarifying the events surrounding the assassination as never before.


Background: There are different studies done to show the use of preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis in clean surgeries like paediatric herniotomy and paediatric inguinal orchidopexy But, the metaanalyses do not recommend nor discard the use of prophylactic pre-operative antibiotics. This study assessed the difference in the rate of early post-operative wound infection cases in children who received single dose of pre-operative antibiotics and children who did not receive antibiotics after inguinal herniotomy and orchiopexy. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College. Out of 125 patient 60 patients to randomize to case group where 65 patients ascribed to control group. The patients in control group were given a standard regimen of single dose of intravenous antibiotic at the time of induction followed by 3-4 days of oral antibiotic. Case group patients underwent the surgical procedure in similar manner with no antibiotic either at the time of induction or postoperatively. Results:The incidence of surgical site infection in case group was 3.73 % and that in control group was 2.22%. The observed difference in the incidence of surgical site infection was statistically insignificant (P value = 0.7027). The overall infection rate in case and control group was 2.89%. Conclusions: Our experience suggested that there is not statistically difference in proportion of early post operative wound infection in both groups. The risk of surgical site infection in paediatric herniotomies does not increase even if the child's weight is less than his/her expected weight for age.


With the wide-spread of consumer 3D-TV technology, stereoscopic videoconferencing systems are emerging. However, the special glasses participants wear to see 3D can create distracting images. This paper presents a computational framework to reduce undesirable artifacts in the eye regions caused by these 3D glasses. More specifically, we add polarized filters to the stereo camera so that partial images of reflection can be captured. A novel Bayesian model is then developed to describe the imaging process of the eye regions including darkening and reflection, and infer the eye regions based on Classification Expectation-Maximization (EM). The recovered eye regions under the glasses are brighter and with little reflections, leading to a more nature videoconferencing experience. Qualitative evaluations and user studies are conducted to demonstrate the substantial improvement our approach can achieve.


Improving Nature? The Science and Ethics of Genetic Engineering. By Michael J. Reiss and Roger Straugham. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. x + 288 pp. $24.95 (cloth). On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics. By Nancey Murphy and George F. R. Ellis. "Theology and the Sciences" series. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1996. xvi + 268 pp. $20.00 (paper). "Only connect!" Forster's aphorism nicely summarizes these two books' arguments. While they serve very different purposes, each teaches us much about the relations among scientific, theological, and ethical inquiry. Improving Nature? offers a useful introduction to both the science of genetic engineering, and the moral and theological concerns about genetic engineering. Reiss (a biologist and Anglican priest) and Straugham (an ethicist) present a generally solid account of the moral issues (though they offer a sloppy account of the supposed "naturalistic fallacy" [p. 63] and curiously reverse the traditional [and dubious] distinction between "ethics" and "morality" [p. 45-46]), with which they discuss the debates surrounding genetic engineering. They rightly point out that we have always engaged in mild genetic engineering (cross-breeding of plants, etc.) (p. 79), and that contemporary debates about further research are about knowledge and needs; while we do not yet know much about some forms of genetic engineering, it would be as precipitous to forbid research-for we may need it someday (not least to counter the effects of other forms of genetic engineering)-as it would be to unleash it willy-nilly (p. 223). While the authors' arguments are strong, they would be stronger had they more explicitly articulated a counter-view to their own; instead, a subterranean polemic occurs, but the opposing viewpoint's voice is suppressed, and the concerns are reduced to scare-mongering about "interference" with nature (cf. pp. 161-163). Had they interpreted their opponents' anxieties more charitably, they might have seen these anxieties as fundamentally elicited not from ignorance of genetics, but rather from knowledge of human fallibility We now have the power to alter both our world and ourselves massively and irrevocably, and we know of no human achievement that has been secure from misuse, whether intentional or accidental. Our power has so outstripped our understanding that we seem condemned to cause some catastrophe no matter what we do; in this age of technologically enforced voluntarism, worries about genetics are simply one variant, if perhaps the most presently pressing, of this larger problem. Seen in this light, the authors' proposal for caution may seem inadequate, even banal; but, given our situation (inexorable growth in science and technology; and no correlative development of our character or intellect), such platitudes may be the best we can hope for in the way of principled advice. If Improving Nature? discusses one particular issue in moral and theological reflection, On the Moral Nature of the [;niv,erse aims at far larger prey It offers, as its title implies, a synoptic account of the whole universe, a Weltanschauung incorporating all our scientiae, with theology as the keystone. Murphy and Ellis argue two interlocking theses (cf. p.16). Formally, building on Murphy's earlier Theology in an Age of Scientific Reasoning, they argue for the integration of the natural and humnan sciences, combining the insights of the former (climaxing in cosmology) with those of the latter (climaxing in ethics), with theology as the keystone of the synthesis, which offers a coherent and forceful vision of the universe and our place within it. Materially, they articulate one particular construal, centered upon a "kenotic" ("self-emptying") account of' God, best formulated in John Howard Yoder's theology for a self-renunciatory and pacifist social ethic. Formally their argument is absolutely convincing. …


The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of honey bee venom (BV) and royal jelly (RJ) alongside chitosan scaffold (CS) in improving radius bone defect in rats. A total of 60 full thickness radial bone defects with a length of 5 mm were created in 60 male Wistar rats. Six healthy radial bones (3 rats) were also assigned as normal control for biomechanical studies. The defects were left empty (untreated group) or were filled by the autograft (autograft group), CS (CS group), CS alongside the BV solution (CS-BV group), and CS alongside the RJ solution (CS-RJ group). Healing of the bone defects were evaluated clinically and radiologically on days 0, 28, 42 and 56 after operation while the biomechanical testing and histopathological examination were performed on the 56th day after surgery. The autograft was more radiopaque than the untreated and CS groups at the 28th, 42nd and 56th postoperative days (P<0.05). The CS-BV and CS-RJ groups showed significantly higher radiographic outcomes than the untreated and CS groups at the 56th post-operative day (P<0.05). The density of osseous tissue (DOT) and the osteocytes and osteoblasts count of the CS-RJ and CS-BV groups were significantly higher than the CS and autograft groups (P<0.05). The biomechanical results of the CS-RJ group were significantly superior to the autograft, while the biomechanical properties of CS-BV group were not significantly different with the autograft group (P>0.05). The scaffolds in CS group were observable in the surgical site after 56 days. There was no significant difference in radiographs, DOT, cartilage tissue and fibrous tissue, and also biomechanical performances of the CS-BV and CS-RJ groups at the 42nd and 56th day after surgery. The untreated and CS groups showed weakest biomechanical results among all groups. It could be concluded that both treatment strategies in the CS-BV and CS-RJ groups were appropriate and useful in treating critical bone defects.


Performance testing of an algorithm is necessary to ascertain its applicability in real data and to evolve software. Clustering of a data set could be either fuzzy (having vague boundaries among the clusters) or crisp (having welldefined fixed boundaries) in nature. The present work is focused on the performance measure of some similarity-based fuzzy clustering algorithms, where three methods and each method having three different approaches are developed. In the first method, cluster centers are decided based on the minimum of entropy (probability) values of different data points [10]. In the second method, cluster centers are selected based on the maximum of total similarity values of data points and in the third method, a ratio of dissimilarity to similarity is considered to determine the cluster centers. Performances of these methods and approaches are compared on three standard data sets, such as IRIS, WINES, and OLITOS. Experimental results show that entropy-based method is able to generate better quality clusters but at the cost of little more computations. Finally, the best sets of clusters are mapped to 2-D using a self-organizing map (SOM) for visualization.


Heartbeat frequencies and blood pressures were monitored in free-moving Octopus vulgaris . Typical resting frequencies (for animals of 500 g ± at 22° C) were 40-50 beats min−1, with resting pressures measured at the dorsal aorta of 40 cm H2O in systole and 15 cm in diastole, rising to 100 cm or more with a pulse of 50 cm in exercise. Beat frequency changes very little and any increased oxygen demand results mainly in an increase in stroke volume. Temperature affects heartbeat frequency with a Q10 of about 3 over the range 7–27 °C. Systemic heartbeat rate and pulse amplitude also change with the oxygen content of the water, slowing as this decreases and stopping, reversibly (at least for short periods), at about 2.5 parts O2 per million.


BACKGROUND
Accurate estimation of the probability of dying of cancer versus other causes is needed to inform goals of care for cancer patients. Further, prognosis may also influence health-care utilization. This paper describes health service utilization patterns of subgroups of prostate cancer and colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with different relative probabilities of dying of their cancer or other conditions.

METHODS
A retrospective cohort of cancer patients from Kaiser Permanente Colorado were divided into three groups using the predicted probabilities of dying of cancer and other causes calculated by the nomograms in the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Cancer Survival Calculator. Demographic, disease-related characteristics, and health service utilization patterns were described across subgroups.

RESULTS
The cohort consisted of 2092 patients (1102 prostate cancer and 990 CRC). A new diagnosis of cancer increased utilization of cancer-related services with rates as high as 9.1/1000 person-days for prostate cancer and 36.2/1000 person-days for CRC. Little change was observed in the number of primary and other specialty care visits from prediagnosis to 1 and 2 years postdiagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS
We found that although a new diagnosis of cancer increased utilization of cancer-related services for an extended time period, the timing of cancer diagnosis did not appear to affect other types of utilization. Future research should assess the reason for the lack of impact of cancer and unrelated comorbid conditions on utilization and whether desired outcomes of care were achieved.


Background: Family physicians are trained to enable them to staff community health centres and primary care hospitals. Part of this training is teaching them procedural skills for anaesthetics and surgery. Knysna hospital is a training facility for family medicine registrars and this article aims to evaluate if sufficient learning opportunities exist in Knysna hospital's theatre to teach family medicine registrars procedural skills. Methods: A descriptive study was undertaken of the number and type of procedures performed in Knysna hospital theatre for a one year period, and compared with the required skills,as stipulated in the national training outcomes, for the discipline.

 Results: Three thousand seven hundred and forty one procedures were performed during the study period. Anaesthesia was the most common procedure, followed by caesarean section. There were adequate opportunities for teaching most core skills.

 Conclusions: There were sufficient opportunities for a registrar to be taught all the core skills that are exclusive to theatre. Further research is needed to evaluate Knysna hospital as a training facility for all procedural skills.


The detection of copper ion (Cu2+) has become a long-term and arduous task in the field of environmental monitoring and human health. Current methods based on branched polyethylenimine (BPEI) for the detection of Cu2+ more or less suffer from being time-consuming and having a high cost or complex surface modifications. Herein, an ultra-facile and rapid colorimetric method was explored to detect Cu2+ in 100% aqueous solution by a direct format using only BPEI. Cu2+ could be captured by BPEI and form BPEI-Cu2+ complexes, which resulted in a color change from colorless to blue within 5 s, associated with the strong absorption peak at 278 nm. The lower the molecular weight and the concentration of BPEI are, the lower the detection limit is. When the molecular weight and the concentration of BPEI were 600 and 21.5 mg L-1, respectively, the detection limit was calculated to be 1.21 μM, and the linear range was 2 μM to 50 μM. Besides, BPEI also had an excellent selectivity toward Cu2+. This ultra-facile, rapid and inexpensive method offers great potential for various applications in biomedicine, environmental protection, food safety and so on.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


Modern large-scale distributed information systems need to implement specific techniques in order to favor the efficient processing of document access requests. This paper proposes a delivery system that consistently integrates two types of such techniques based on caching: cooperative caching, which promotes the exchange of documents between caches whenever advantageous, and semantic caching, which uses a monitoring of popular topics in order to take decisions on which documents to cache. It also presents the results of the experimental evaluation of this proposal that has been conducted thanks to a simulator of the complete system; these experiments show the potential of the system for effectively reducing access request processing times.


This research aims to analyze the success of proliferation of districts as political economic policy in Indonesia to reduce economic growth disparities among districts in Aceh Province, and factors affecting these. Cross sectional and time series data were employed in this research, in periods 2001–2012, by panel regression analysis model. Data were grouped into Aceh-13 (periods 2001–2012), Aceh-23 (2008–2012), and reintegrated to Aceh-10 (2001–2012). Estimation results showed that convergence of economic growth, both σ ( sigma ) and β ( beta ) convergence existed significantly, in Aceh-13, Aceh-23, and Aceh-10. Population density and direct government expenditures density both affected convergence of economic growth significantly, which each have negative and positive sign consecutively. The number of teachers, as proxy to knowledge spillover and geographic concentration, are not statistically significant. Proliferation of districts occurred in Aceh, from 13 districts/cities to 23 districts/cities have resulted in a decreasing disparities among districts, indicated by lower half-life indexes from 79.19 years in Aceh-13 to 15.23 years in Aceh-23. Speed of convergence increased from 0.88% in Aceh-13 to 4.55% in Aceh-23. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE


Picturing Yiddish: Gender, Identity, and Memory in the Illustrated Yiddish Books of Renaissance Italy, by Diane Wolfthal. Brill Series in Jewish Studies, 36. Leiden: Brill, 2004. 283 pp. $146.00. The purpose of this important study is to question a series of assumptions widespread particularly in the field of art history: "that images of ritual in early Yiddish books are mirrors of reality; that their Christian counterparts are neutral and objective; that illustrations in secular Yiddish books are irrelevant to an understanding of Jewish history; that art history should focus on beautiful images; and that Jews in the past formed a uniform group, who shared the view that rabbis were central and women peripheral to their society" (p. 203). The author attempts to refute these assumptions by means of an analysis of five "profusely illustrated volumes that were created in northern Italy during the sixteenth century" (p. xxv): three books of customs (a manuscript, Paris BN ms. heb. 586, and two printed books, Venice 1593 and 1600) and two secular books-the romance, Pariz un viene (1594), and the collection of fables, the Ki-bukh (1595). Since the vague topics designated by the book's subtitle never become the focus of the study, the only principle that attempts to unify the analysis of these diverse materials is the fact that the books are all illustrated and in Yiddish, which as a principle of cohesion is sometimes too tenuous. The author's strength is in her expert analysis of the images and their interrelation with the surrounding texts and their connections with their original audiences. The volume's most important accomplishment is its reproduction in high-quality photographs of 188 illustrations from the five focal books (about half of which are from the Paris manuscript, which are then systematically described and catalogued, pp. 211-250). The volume concludes with a very useful bibliography (pp. 251-74) and index. There are, however, several problematic assumptions that complicate the analysis, including the author's own unacknowledged "anti-elitist" project, which is manifested in her aggressive challenge to several theses proposed and accepted in the still primarily male-dominated scholarly establishment and in her (inconsistent and contradictory) championing of the work of the non-professional artist of the Paris manuscript. First, she sharply castigates several generations of apparently elitist scholars for their descriptions of the images in the Paris manuscript as "coarse," "comical and shabby," "childish, naive, and caricature-like," "primitive," and "devoid of all artistic worth" (pp. 5, 20), although she then herself consistently echoes those evaluations in her own description of the drawings (pp. 15, 20, 21, 69). Secondly, she assumes that the audience, patrons, and even authors of books of customs such as the ones here analyzed belong to "the middle ranks" or "an intermediate sector of the Jewish community," basing this assumption solely on the fact that these books are not expensively produced (cf. pp. 14-15, 21, 76). It is thus particularly problematic when she designates the scribe/artist of the Paris manuscript as "a member of the middle ranks of Jewish society" (p. 63), since he is obviously educated enough not merely to participate passively in the textual culture of Judaism, but to synthesize a broad range of texts from that learned tradition in order to produce an accessible vernacular digest, illustrated by pertinent images that function, as Wolfthal aptly points out, almost as glosses on the text (pp. …


Formal quality assessment and direct public accountability for quality are hallmarks of what has been called the "third revolution" in health care. Given the prominence of quality assessment and improvement initiatives in medicine, it is starting that there has been near silence on the possibility of applying quality assessment techniques to ethics practices within health care organizations. Quality assessment of ethics might take three forms: evaluating the ethical behavior of health professionals; the ethics policies and mechanisms embraced by the organization; and, as a subset of the latter, the particular competence of ethics committees or consultants advising on contested cases. Thus, patient-consumers choosing a health care organization or plan may first want to know whether they can expect the physicians to be conversant with current thinking about ethics, to respect patients' autonomy by sharing adequate information and supporting patient decision making, to honor patients' wishes to forgo unwanted life-sustaining treatments, and to protect the confidentiality of patient information. Second, they may want to know whether the health care organization or plan has written policies on problems such as assessing patients' decisional capacity, forgoing life-sustaining treatment, honoring patients' advance directives. Third, they may ask whether the organization or plan has a mechanism for obtaining advice on ethically difficult cases, and whether that mechanism (be it a committee, an ethics consultant, or something else) is competent, as well as open and accountable to patients. This article explores the potential of quality assessment, as an instrument of direct public accountability, to transform clinical ethics. Patients' rights and health care professionals' duties have been passionately championed by modern bioethics for the last quarter-century. But patients and consumers themselves have yet to assert real influence over the kind of ethical practices they encounter. Quality assessment has the potential to become a way of their doing so. If quality assessment tools are to be used to assess medical practice and health care organizations, patients have a stake in making sure that those tools assess not just technical medical care, but ethical behavior as well. This article is an argument for including ethics in the accountability revolution. Ethics should be more than rhetoric, however passionately declaimed; it should be behavior that is assessed and promoted. This means using quality assessment techniques to evaluate ethical behavior within health care organizations. The article begins by analyzing the ascendancy of quality assessment as a mechanism of accountability. It then analyzes what role quality might play in assuring public accountability in ethics. The author traces the development of empirical work in ethics to suggest the feasibility of quality assessment. The article then considers pitfalls and limitations, including potential misuse in law of quality assessment data on ethics. Finally, the article shows the potential for quality assessment to perform a kind of technology-forcing function in bioethics. It can force organizations and professionals to make good on the rhetoric of patients' authority to decide, while narrowing the gap between ethics proclamations and clinical practice, and propelling the development of organizational ethics. The assessment and accountability revolution thus has the potential to transform bioethics itself.


The characteristics of service can be somewhat slippery and difficult to pin down, not least of all because any given service can only be seen through the eyes of its recipient. This is emphasised by Peters (1985) who stated that 'customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms.' Furthermore, and as is noted by Deming (1986) compared to a customer's reaction to the quality of manufactured goods a customer's reaction to service quality is immediate. However, service quality, whatever it may be, and however complex a phenomena it might also be, cannot be ignored since service quality can be a key competitive differentiating factor. The SERVQUAL scale or gaps model as it has become known is a common method of measuring service quality. This paper will review the gaps model 25 years on, and make a critical evaluation and assessment of whether the model is still as appropriate in view of the current service environment being dynamic and much changed.


Chapter 1 studies the effects of fighting corruption on public service delivery. While corruption crackdowns have been shown to effectively reduce missing government expenditures, their effects on public service delivery have not been credibly documented. This matters because, if corruption generates incentives for bureaucrats to deliver those services, then deterring it might actually hurt downstream outcomes. The chapter exploits variation from an anti-corruption program in Brazil, designed by the federal government to enforce guidelines on earmarked transfers to municipalities, to study this question. Combining random audits with a differences-in-differences strategy, we find that the anti-corruption program greatly reduced occurrences of over-invoicing and off-the-record payments, and of procurement manipulation within health transfers. However, health indicators, such as hospital beds and immunization coverage, became worse as a result. Evidence from audited amounts suggests that lower corruption came at a high cost: after the program, public spending fell by so much that corruption per dollar spent actually increased. These findings are consistent with those responsible for procurement dramatically reducing purchases after the program, either because they no longer can capture rents, or because they are afraid of being punished for procurement mistakes. Chapters 2 and 3 study the psychology of droughts. Chapter 2 tests whether uncertainty about future rainfall affects farmers' decision-making through cognitive load. Behavioral theories predict that rainfall risk could impose a psychological tax on farmers, leading to material consequences at all times and across all states of nature, even within decisions unrelated to consumption smoothing, and even when negative rainfall shocks do not materialize down the line. Using a novel technology to run lab experiments in the field, we combine recent rainfall shocks and survey experiments to test the effects of rainfall risk on farmers' cognition, and find that it decreases farmers' attention, memory and impulse control, and increases their susceptibility to a variety of behavioral biases. Chapter 3 investigates whether index insurance can shield farmers against the cognitive effects documented in the previous chapter. In theory, insurance could mitigate those effects by alleviating the material consequences of rainfall risk. To test this hypothesis, we randomly assign offers of an index insurance product, and find that it does not affect farmers' cognitive load. These results suggest that farmers' anxiety might be relatively difficult to alleviate.


Fault detection and protection is an important design aspect for any power converter, especially in high-power high-voltage applications, where cost of failure can be high. The three-level dc-dc converter and its varied derivatives are attractive topologies in high-voltage high-power converter applications. The protection method can not only prevent the system failure against unbalanced voltage stresses on the switches, but also provide a remedy for the system as faults occur and save the remaining components. The three-level converter is subject to voltage unbalance in certain abnormal conditions, which can result in switch overvoltage and system failure. The reasons for the unbalanced voltage stresses are fully investigated and categorized. The solutions to each abnormal condition are introduced. In addition to the voltage unbalance, the three-level converters can be protected against multiple faults by the proposed protection method through monitoring the flying capacitor voltage. Phenomena associated with each fault are thoroughly analyzed and summarized. The protection circuit is simple and can be easily implemented, while it can effectively protect the three-level converters and its derivatives, which has been verified by the experiment with a three-level parallel resonant converter.


Heteroatom framework-substituted zeolites are important materials that enable shape- and size-selective catalysis. The efficacy of these materials for desired catalytic reactions depends critically on dispersive interactions between the microporous void of the zeolite and the reactant molecules stabilized within it. Here, we develop a post-synthetic method to synthesize base and transition metal-substituted (Ti, Nb, Ta, and Sn) FAU with ultralow Al contents (Si : Al > 900), which is confirmed using X-ray diffraction, elemental analysis, and N2 volumetric adsorption and 29Si MAS-NMR, DRUV-vis, and IR spectroscopic characterization. Turnover rates for styrene (C8H8) epoxidation within Ti-FAU are 2- and 7-fold greater than in analogous Ti-BEA and Ti–SiO2, respectively; yet, turnover rates of H2O2 decomposition are similar for all three materials. Consequently, Ti-FAU gives greater rates and selectivities for this reaction than common Ti-bearing silicates. The mechanism for epoxidation remains constant for all Ti-silicates examined (i.e., Ti-FAU, Ti-BEA, and Ti–SiO2). Therefore, the improved performance of Ti-FAU reflects differences in activation free energies for epoxidation that show an enthalpic preference in Ti-FAU relative to Ti–SiO2 and an entropic gain relative to Ti-BEA. These results demonstrate the synthesis of M-FAU with ultralow Al contents are useful for catalytic reactions involving bulky reactants that can not occur in smaller pore zeotype materials (Ti-MFI), that exhibit deactivation due to changes in Ti-atom coordination (e.g., Ti–SiO2), and that are prone to losses catalyzed by residual Bronsted acid sites (e.g., epoxidations, oxidations, and isomerization reactions).


Causal inference is central to many areas of artificial intelligence, including complex reasoning, planning, knowledge-base construction, robotics, explanation, and fairness. An active community of researchers develops and enhances algorithms that learn causal models from data, and this work has produced a series of impressive technical advances. However, evaluation techniques for causal modeling algorithms have remained somewhat primitive, limiting what we can learn from experimental studies of algorithm performance, constraining the types of algorithms and model representations that researchers consider, and creating a gap between theory and practice. We argue for more frequent use of evaluation techniques that examine interventional measures rather than structural or observational measures, and that evaluate those measures on empirical data rather than synthetic data. We survey the current practice in evaluation and show that the techniques we recommend are rarely used in practice. We show that such techniques are feasible and that data sets are available to conduct such evaluations. We also show that these techniques produce substantially different results than using structural measures and synthetic data.


In recent years governments have paid increasing attention to weighing the socioeconomic benefits of regulations against their costs. Rules and regulations governing economic activity are typically formulated with a view to their benefits. Their effects on the costs and inefficiencies, in particular the possible chilling effects on competition and innovation, have received limited attention. In this collection, experts from Europe, the United States, and Asia examine a range of issues related to the effect of rules and regulations on competition, and explore the role of key institutions that affect market outcomes. Their contributions argue for using quantitative methods to guide policy and reform rules and regulation, and many of the essays offer methodologies for assessment and recommendations for policy alternatives.Topics covered include the effectiveness of RD the adverse effect of EU climate policy on competitiveness; telecommunication regulation in the developing countries of India, China, and Sri Lanka; the role of banks in fostering small and medium enterprises in Argentina and Chile; the evolution of the U.S. Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System; and developing quantitative screening tools to assess which sectors in the economy might benefit most from regulatory reforms.Contributors Victoria Alexeeva-Talebi, Niels Anger, Dallas Burtraw, Martin Cave, Matthew Corkery, Adriaan Dierx, Sean Ennis, W. Scott Frame, Vivek Ghosal, Ivan Hascic, Ivan Hascic, Fabienne Ilzkovitz, Nick Johnstone, Boris Lokshin, Andreas Lschel, Mara Soledad Martnez Pera, Pradeep S. Mehta, Udai S. Mehta, Malwina Mejer, Siddhartha Mitra, Pierre Mohnen, Karen Palmer, Anthony Paul, Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Sergio L. Schmukler, Augusto de la Torre, Lawrence J. White


A new interpolating method to enhance the resolution of gratings using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) according to the variation of some specified spectral light intensities during the motion of scale grating in a periodic separation is proposed. CMOS image sensor (pixel array 648 × 488) was also introduced as receiving device and its stability was verified experimentally. Many factors in the experiment were analyzed theoretically and contrasted with experiment. The advantages of this novel method were featured by CMOS and the specified spectral variation of the energy distribution was discussed.


We show that the beta process is the de Finetti mixing distribution underlying the Indian buffet process of [2]. This result shows that the beta process plays the role for the Indian buffet process that the Dirichlet process plays for the Chinese restaurant process, a parallel that guides us in deriving analogs for the beta process of the many known extensions of the Dirichlet process. In particular we define Bayesian hierarchies of beta processes and use the connection to the beta process to develop posterior inference algorithms for the Indian buffet process. We also present an application to document classification, exploring a relationship between the hierarchical beta process and smoothed naive Bayes models.


[Excerpt] The scope of information believed to have been compromised by a series of cyber-intrusions at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) continues to grow. OPM recently announced that further investigation of the initial breach affecting 4.2 million current and former federal employees has led officials to conclude that sensitive information on 21.5 million individuals had been stolen from separate OPM databases used in connection with background investigations. In addition to the potential effects on domestic and foreign policy that may result from these breaches, which are discussed here, two recently filed lawsuits raise questions regarding what redress, if any, is due to affected individuals beyond the free credit monitoring that has been offered by OPM. The two suits, filed separately by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) allege a number of legal theories under which the plaintiffs believe recovery may be available, including claims citing the Privacy Act, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), common law negligence, and the Due Process clause of the Constitution. While, procedural obstacles to such suits, such as whether the plaintiffs have suffered a sufficiently concrete injury to have a right to sue, are important and may end up being dispositive, this post focuses instead on the extent to which selected sources of statutory, common, and constitutional law may provide a judicially enforceable remedy for current and former federal employees whose personal information may have been exposed during the breach of a federal information technology system.


The division of America into red states and blue states misleadingly suggests that states are split into two camps, but along most dimensions, like political orientation, states are on a continuum. By historical standards, the number of swing states is not particularly low, and America's cultural divisions are not increasing. But despite the flaws of the red state/blue state framework, it does contain two profound truths. First, the heterogeneity of beliefs and attitudes across the United States is enormous and has always been so. Second, political divisions are becoming increasingly religious and cultural. The rise of religious politics is not without precedent, but rather returns us to the pre-New Deal norm. Religious political divisions are so common because religious groups provide politicians the opportunity to send targeted messages that excite their base.


H. Wittman, D. James, and Z. Mehrabi. 2020. Advancing food sovereignty through farmerdriven digital agroecology. Int. J. Agric. Nat. Resour. 235-248. Agroecology, as a science, practice, and social movement, has been posed as a potential pathway to revitalize global food systems through a shift towards social and ecological justice. Complex and diversified agroecological systems vary widely globally and have been poorly characterized by traditional agronomic assessments that often focus narrowly on income and yield over other socioecological dimensions such as farmer and worker well-being, dietary diversity, environmental impacts and biodiversity conservation. In response, we propose an approach to the digital monitoring and assessment of agroecological practices that acknowledges and respects diverse contexts and improves power dynamics by centering the agency and biocultural knowledge of diverse farmers and communities. We describe a community-university partnership designed to develop a farmer-driven, open-access, and open-source digital tool for agroecological monitoring and certification. The farmer-scientist research team aims to chart a course for researchers to investigate how trade-offs among productive, sociocultural, economic, and/or environmental indicators might be minimized to enhance overall system sustainability across diverse contexts globally while also providing tools of use to agroecological farmers and their organizations, who can then autonomously capture (some of) the benefits of the digital agricultural revolution without ceding data sovereignty.


Electrical interconnections are essential for the integration of electronic functions in a fabric. These interconnects can be dispenser printed on a fabric; however printing directly on a breathable woven fabric surface is challenging due to the high surface variation and porosity defined by the weave. This paper, for the first time, experimentally shows that fabric surface variation leads to inconsistent printed structures which adversely affects the electrical properties of printed conductive tracks. It investigates a solution of overcoming the fabric surface variation in the form of dispenser printing an interface layer between the conductive ink and the fabric surface. Four dielectric inks DuPont 5018, Electra EFV4/4965, Fabinks-UV-IF-1004 and Fabinks-UV-TC0233 are quantitatively evaluated, as interface materials, in terms of surface consistency, thickness consistency, repeatability, flexibility, thermal stability and the electrical characteristics of conductive tracks printed on them. All four of the evaluated interface materials significantly reduced the fabric surface variation by more than 95% and provided a suitable low variation surface for printing subsequent electronic layers. Conductive tracks, dispenser printed on the four interface materials, produced ∼90% lower electrical resistivity compared to tracks printed directly on the fabric and similar resistivity to dispenser printed tracks on Kapton, a traditional printed electronic substrate. An increased focus on low powered electronics especially for wearables requires the electrical interconnections to dissipate minimum power. The innovative interface layer approach allows fabrication of low resistance electrical interconnections on fabric substrates reducing interconnect power dissipation, making this approach highly suitable for smart fabric applications. Reported details of dispenser printing of interface materials can be used for replicating these results on a range of fabric substrates. The paper also reports a novel thermal imaging based method of analysing resistance distribution within a printed conductive track to assess the geometrical consistency of printed electrical interconnections.


This study analyzed the prognostic significance of age in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). Cases diagnosed with ICC between 1988 and 2009 were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database as the primary cohort. The enrolled patients were divided into 2 groups: the elderly group (≥ 65 y of age) and young group (<65 y of age). The 1, 3 and 5-y cancer-specific survival (CSS) rates were obtained. Kaplan-Meier curves were applied and multivariable Cox regression models were built to analyze the risk factors for prognosis. A multifactorial, integrative nomogram for prognostic prediction was formulated by software R. Cases diagnosed in 2010 from the SEER database were enrolled as the validation cohort. In total, 2161 patients were ultimately included in the primary cohort. The 1, 3 and 5-y CSS rates were 34.3%, 12.5% and 6.5% in the elderly group and 49.8%, 21.3% and 11.5% in the young group, respectively. Univariate (P=0.001) and multivariate (P<0.001) analysis revealed a significant difference in CSS between the two groups. Clinical variables including age, pathological grade, primary tumor stage, lymph node invasion and metastasis were integrated to formulate the nomogram for prognostic prediction, and its predictive power was higher than that of conventional TNM staging. The results were confirmed in the validation cohort. In conclusion, aging could provide important prognostic information for ICC patients and further serve as a critical stratification parameter for the choice of treatment.


The United States conducted a massive bombing campaign over Southeast Asia during the Second Indochina War. The joint chiefs of staff attempted to compile comprehensive databases of all US and allied air sorties during the conflict. In this article, we show how we tested the reliability of two of the most commonly used databases and then determined what they tell us about the air war, especially in terms of the tons of ordnance expended. The database indicates tonnage figures similar to those in existing accounts of the bombing of Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia and also contains new evidence of some limited bombing of Thailand. It suggests each target country suffered markedly distinct bombing patterns that were often related inversely to each other. This supports the interpretation that the use of air power was not purely tactical but also driven by the availability of air power.


Interactive virtual experiences are known to be a viable medium to elicit emotional reactions from their users and to provide meaningful experiences. However, establishing meaningful interpersonal connections through interactive experiences can also be difficult, due to the toxic online environments that can stem from anonymity, and a general online hostility towards women or other traditionally under-represented groups. This project aims to create a welcoming online virtual space that gives users the opportunity to establish meaningful interpersonal connections with one another. These connections are facilitated by encouraging users to work together, interact with each other, and talk about themselves while in the virtual space. These connections are made more impactful by utilizing Virtual Reality, which allows for intuitive and immersive communication through gestures and body language. This paper describes the process of creating a welcoming virtual space, specifically focusing on the technical challenges of building a networked virtual reality experience, the design process in promoting positive interaction between users, and the implementation of accessibility features for both the VR experience itself and the social situations it affords.


'Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.' The prophetic words of Galadriel, addressed to Frodo as he prepared to travel from Lothlorien to Mordor to destroy the One Ring, are just as pertinent to J R R Tolkien's own fiction. For decades, hobbits and the other fantastical creatures of Middle-earth have captured the imaginations of a fiercely loyal tribe of readers, all enhanced by the immense success of Peter Jackson's films: first "The Lord of the Rings", and now his new "The Hobbit". But for all Tolkien's global fame and the familiarity of modern culture with Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo and Sam, the sources of the great mythmaker's own myth-making have been neglected. Mark Atherton here explores the chief influences on Tolkien's work: his boyhood in the West Midlands; the landscapes and seascapes which shaped his mythologies; his experiences in World War I; his interest in Scandinavian myth; his friendships, especially with the other Oxford-based Inklings; and the relevance of his themes, especially ecological themes, to the present-day. "There and Back Again" offers a unique guide to the varied inspirations behind Tolkien's life and work, and sheds new light on how a legend is born.


This paper is an attempt to briefly explain the various techniques of gaining power in an organization, and how one would use these powers (or not) when managing organizational behavior. Oftentimes, the leadership of a corporation is in jeopardy when little attention is given to how power is deployed. Moreover, this paper discusses how the leadership process itself can become a monologue when divorced from the mission of the organization, its people and the culture it permeates. It suggests that the unsuccessful corporate leader will remain ineffective, despite advanced degrees, as long as the art and the science of influencing people continue to be taught and studied in a historic vacuum.


The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain is a detailed study of the events surrounding this infamous chapter in Spanish history. Based on hundreds of documents discovered, deciphered, and analyzed during decades of intensive archival research, this work focuses on the practical consequences of the expulsion both for those expelled and those remaining behind. It responds to basic questions such as: What became of property owned by Jewish individuals and communities? What became of outstanding debts between Jews and Christians? How was the edict of expulsion implemented? Who was in charge? How did they operate? What happened to those who converted to Christianity in order to remain in Spain or return to that country? The material summarized and analyzed in this study also sheds light on Jewish life in Spain preceding the expulsion. For example, Jews are shown to have been present in remote villages where they were not hitherto known to have lived, and documents detailing lawsuits between Christians related to debts left behind by Jews reveal much about business and financial relations between Jews and Christians. By focusing on the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in such detail - for example, by naming the magistrates who presided over the confiscation of Jewish communal property - Professor Beinart takes history out of the realm of abstraction and gives it concrete reality.


Physiological and productive responses to recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) injection and calcium soap of fatty acids (CSFA) supplementation were studied in post-weaning male Rahmani lambs. Male lambs (n = 20) of similar initial body weight (27.9 kg) and age (162 d) were divided randomly into four equal groups. The first was fed the injected with 100 mg of rbST biweekly; the third (basal diet and served as control; the second (GH) was CSFA) was supplemented with 50 g/d of CSFA and the fourth (GH + CSFA) was injected with 100 mg of rbST biweekly plus 50 g/d of CSFA. Treatments increased the average daily gain and final body weight. Concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in lambs treated with (GH) and (GH + CSFA) was higher than that of CSFA and control groups. Haematological parameters (RBC, WBC, and haemoglobin concentrations) did not change. Animals injected with rbST had higher serum total protein than other treated groups and controls. Control lambs showed the least serum albumin concentration. Injection of rbST and supplementation of CSFA increased serum glucose in treated lambs compared to controls. Serum urea concentration was not affected by injection of GH, while CSFA supplementation decreased serum urea concentration compared to the control. Serum triglycerides concentration decreased in rbST-injected lambs than other treatment groups. Lambs supplemented with CSFA only or combined with rbST had higher concentration of serum cholesterol than control or rbST-injected lambs. The results of the present study suggest that rbST and CSFA may increase the average daily gain and improve the physiological status of growing lambs.


A Hamiltonian formulation of the relativistic guiding center drifts is extended to anisotropic pressure plasmas. The magnetic coordinates devised by Boozer are adapted to the anisotropic pressure model and retain canonical properties for two-dimensional and three-dimensional toroidal plasma equilibria including finite electrostatic perturbations provided that any electromagnetic perturbation only alters the parallel component of the vector potential. A mapping technique from arbitrary flux coordinates is outlined. A direct evaluation of the relativistic drift velocity recovers the equations of motion derived from the Hamiltonian formalism except for ignorable higher order terms in the evolution of the canonical angular variables and the effective parallel gyroradius.


Online reviews have become a valuable resource for decision making. However, its usefulness brings forth a curse ‒ deceptive opinion spam. In recent years, fake review detection has attracted significant attention. However, most review sites still do not publicly filter fake reviews. Yelp is an exception which has been filtering reviews over the past few years. However, Yelp's algorithm is trade secret. In this work, we attempt to find out what Yelp might be doing by analyzing its filtered reviews. The results will be useful to other review hosting sites in their filtering effort. There are two main approaches to filtering: supervised and unsupervised learning. In terms of features used, there are also roughly two types: linguistic features and behavioral features. In this work, we will take a supervised approach as we can make use of Yelp's filtered reviews for training. Existing approaches based on supervised learning are all based on pseudo fake reviews rather than fake reviews filtered by a commercial Web site. Recently, supervised learning using linguistic n-gram features has been shown to perform extremely well (attaining around 90% accuracy) in detecting crowdsourced fake reviews generated using Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). We put these existing research methods to the test and evaluate performance on the real-life Yelp data. To our surprise, the behavioral features perform very well, but the linguistic features are not as effective. To investigate, a novel information theoretic analysis is proposed to uncover the precise psycholinguistic difference between AMT reviews and Yelp reviews (crowdsourced vs. commercial fake reviews). We find something quite interesting. This analysis and experimental results allow us to postulate that Yelp's filtering is reasonable and its filtering algorithm seems to be correlated with abnormal spamming behaviors.


In order to rapidly detect, monitor and predict changes in milk as it ferments, sensors would need to be designed specifically for milk. To this end, invasive surgical stainless steel probes were investigated and the probe impedances were characterised according to measurements made in various saline concentrations. Based on these findings, specific probes were designed that were robust and easy to use in milk. To measure multiple probe sensors continuously and accurately, an automatic measurement device was designed and manufactured. The device was self-sustaining, portable and calculated and stored all probe impedance data internally, allowing experimental runs to take place in controlled laboratory environments. The probes designed in this thesis were consequently tested in various milk fermentation experiments and it was found that surgical stainless steel probes were effective at detecting and monitoring fermentation changes. The probe impedance changes also lead the pH changes in milk, giving it a predictive element. The probe sensor studies provided enough data so that studies could be done into potential non-invasive sensors. Therefore, capacitive sensors were investigated and a fringe field capacitor was presented as a potential non-invasive milk fermentation sensor.


Abstract Structural iron in smectites correlates with the cell edge length b and increases the refractive index. The cell edge length b is usually obtained from the position of the (060) reflection, but in this work we show that such b values differ from the values obtained from Rietveld fits because contributions from (hkl) reflections shift the position of the (060) reflection. The correlation between Fe and cell edge length b was significant (r2 > 0.99); the relationship is b [Å] = 8.9977(0.0035) + 0.1117(0.0032)×Fetot. Furthermore, we present for the first time measurements of the refractive index n of Fe-bearing smectites, applying a recently published turbidity method (Weidler & Friedrich, 2007). The refractive index correlates both with structural iron (r2 = 0.64) and with b (r2 = 0.94).


In a companion paper (McRobie(2013) arxiv:1304.3918), a simple set of `elemental' estimators was presented for the Generalized Pareto tail parameter. Each elemental estimator: involves only three log-spacings; is absolutely unbiased for all values of the tail parameter; is location- and scale-invariant; and is valid for all sample sizes $N$, even as small as $N= 3$. It was suggested that linear combinations of such elementals could then be used to construct efficient unbiased estimators. In this paper, the analogous mathematical approach is taken to the Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) distribution. The resulting elemental estimators, although not absolutely unbiased, are found to have very small bias, and may thus provide a useful basis for the construction of efficient estimators.


This article outlines the history of several attempts to increase salaries and pensions of members of the German Bundestag in the early 1990s. It shows the unethical tactics used by parliamentarians and the way in which public information was in part consciously designed to mislead. It is argued that Bundestag members tend to form a political cartel when decisions concerning their salaries and pensions are made. Similiar tendencies can be observed in all parliamentary decisions involving party finance, providing support for Katz and Mair's thesis that 'catch‐all' parties are generally being replaced by 'cartel parties'. Having analysed the issues involved, the article calls for greater accountability and responsibility on the part of German politicians when their own personal advantage is at issue.


Background: Little is known about how to design inpatient hospice buildings to maximise the wellbeing of the growing number of patients aged 65yrs or over. Aim: To investigate the impact of a hospice environment on the social wellbeing of older inpatients. Method: Interviews were conducted with10 staff, 2 visitors and 7 older in-patients at a UK hospice with 8 single and one 4-bed rooms, to elicit their views on the building, and 120 hours of non-participant observation, to find how space was used. Field notes and interview transcripts were subject to thematic analysis using NVivo X, using concepts derived from therapeutic landscapes theory. Results: (1) Supervision and independence -The building was constructed around a long blind-ended corridor, with a nurses' station near the entrance. Those who were terminally ill or restless were allocated to single rooms near the nurses' station. Frequent room transfers occurred in response to changing needs, and older patients disliked these. Room doors were kept open during the day, enabling staff to monitor occupants as they walked along the corridor. There were several complaints of loneliness from those in rooms at the end of the corridor, as staff visited less often. (2) Private and public space - Older patients spent most of their time in their rooms, usually seeing visitors at the bedside. Of the available social spaces, the hospice garden was the most visited, and older patients enjoyed contact with nature. They rarely entered the two patient lounges and conservatory, which were often occupied by staff for meetings, family conferences and meal breaks. Conclusions: To maximise older inpatients' social wellbeing, the hospice environment should be designed to balance the need for supervision and independence, and for private and public space. Staff working practices should ensure that the use of the environment is patient-centred.


This article examines the current field of debate and legislation on immigration reform and related due process issues. "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is an expression in the immigration debate and embraces five tenets. First, reform addresses the eleven million people who are living in the United States without documentation and specifically provide them with an incentive to make themselves known to the government, register for some kind of work visa, and if they wish, get on the path to permanent residence. Second, reform embodies what lobbyists in Washington, D.C. call the "future flow," which corresponds to the flow of people who enter the United States based on the labor demands of the United States market and the desire by many to earn a decent living or reunited with a loved one. Third, reform deals with the archaic family and employment immigration quotas in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that have led to unconscionable waiting lines for immigrants who are eligible to apply for legal status based on a family or employer relationship, but who are unable to receive the actual visa because the statutory caps have been met. For example, children and spouses of lawful permanent residents from Mexico must wait for more than seven years before they can be reunited with their family in the United States. Fourth, reform takes on a targeted enforcement plan that operates in tandem with our tradition as a nation of immigrants. Finally, reform imparts a package of safeguards and protections to ensure that immigrants do no displace United States workers who are willing and able to perform a particular job, and that all workers, immigrants and United States born alike, receive equal wages, worker conditions, and bargaining rights.


BACKGROUND
There is a lack of basic knowledge on the part of both clinicians and patients as to the indications for use and safety of herbs used during pregnancy and lactation. This is one article in a series that systematically reviews the evidence for herbs commonly used during pregnancy and lactation.

OBJECTIVES
To systematically review the literature for evidence on the use, safety and pharmacology of cranberry, focusing on issues pertaining to pregnancy and lactation.

METHODS
We searched 7 electronic databases and compiled data according to the grade of evidence found.

RESULTS
There is no direct evidence of safety or harm to the mother or fetus as a result of consuming cranberry during pregnancy. Indirectly, there is good scientific evidence that cranberry may be of minimal risk, where a survey of 400 pregnant women did not uncover any adverse events when cranberry was regularly consumed. In lactation, the safety or harm of cranberry is unknown.

CONCLUSIONS
Women experience urinary tract infections with greater frequency during pregnancy. Given the evidence to support the use of cranberry for urinary tract infections (UTIs) and its safety profile, cranberry supplementation as fruit or fruit juice may be a valuable therapeutic choice in the treatment of UTIs during pregnancy.


An original validation of the vibratory approach of the cavitation erosion monitoring is presented. Cavitation induced vibrations on a given blade of a large hydro turbine are compared to vibrations induced at the lower guide bearing as well as to the pressure fluctuations in the draft tube. Furthermore, pitting tests are carried out to characterize the cavitation aggressiveness. Coherent power spectra of vibration envelopes are used to derive a scaling factor for cavitation aggressiveness. A significant influence of the downstream level variations on the cavitation aggressiveness is carried out. Statistical processing of broadband signals allows a deeper analysis of the interaction between the cavitation flow dynamics and the wicket gates passing.


This article discusses the value of heritage as a component of sustainable development makes an analysis of the different readings
or visions of heritage and the need for a new vision in contemporary society. It also suggests the need to guide the management of the
assets to future scenarios in which social change will generate new perspectives and needs. From the historical evolution of the value of heritage for nation states and their incorporation as cultural goods and services, the article proposes new perspectives that define heritage as Rhizome, widening the prospects of individuals, communities and societies to changes in our relationships between individual practice and heritage. From the economic analysis of the value of heritage, the author presents a vision of heritage as a tourism product and the search value. It also makes a critical look at these models and emphasizes the need to find a balance between the economic role of heritage development and its symbolic value to civil society


The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is a relatively new method for fluid flow simulations, and is recently gaining popularity due to its simple algorithm and parallel scalability. Although the method has been successfully applied to a wide range of flow physics, its capabilities in simulating turbulent flow is still under-validated. Hence, in this project, a 3D LBM program was developed to investigate the validity of the LBM for turbulent flow simulations through large eddy simulations (LES). In achieving this goal, the 3D LBM code was first applied to compute the laminar flow over two tandem cylinders. After validating against literature data, the program was used to study the aerodynamic effects of the early 3D flow structures by comparing between 2D and 3D simulations. It was found that the span-wise instabilities have a profound impact on the lift and drag forces, as well as on the vortex shedding frequency. The LBM code was then modified to allow for a massively parallel execution using graphics processing units (GPU). The GPU enabled program was used to study a benchmark test case involving the flow over a square cylinder in a square channel, to validate its accuracy, as well as measure its performance gains compared to a typical serial implementation. The flow results showed good agreement with literature, and speedups of over 150 times were observed when two GPUs were used in parallel. Turbulent flow simulations were then conducted using LES with the Smagorinsky subgrid model. The methodology was first validated by computing the fully developed turbulent channel flow, and comparing the results against direct numerical simulation results. The results were in good agreement despite the relatively coarse grid. The code was then used to simulate the turbulent flow over a square cylinder confined in a channel. In order to emulate a realistic inflow at the channel inlet, an auxiliary simulation consisting of a fully developed turbulent channel flow was run in conjunction, and its velocity profile was used to enforce the inlet boundary condition for the cylinder flow simulation. Comparison of the results with experimental and numerical results revealed that the presence of the turbulent flow structures at the inlet can significantly influence the resulting flow field around the cylinder.


A static model for a magneto-rheological (MR) damper based on artificial neural networks (ANNs) is proposed, and an intensive and experimental study is presented for designing the ANN structure. The ANN model does not require time delays in the input vector. Besides the electric current signal, only one additional sensor is used to achieve a reliable MR damper structure. The model is experimentally validated with two commercial MR dampers of different characteristics: MR1 damper with continuous actuation and MR2 damper with two levels of actuation. The error to signal ratio (ESR) index is used to measure the model accuracy; for both MR dampers, an average value of 6.03% of total error is obtained from different experiments, which are designed to explore the nonlinearities of the MR phenomenon at different frequencies by including the impact of the electric current fluctuations. The proposed ANN model is compared with other well known parametric models; the qualitative and quantitative comparison among the models highlights the advantages of the ANN for representing a commercial MR damper. The ESR index was reduced by the ANN-based model by up to 29% with respect to the parametric models for the MR1 damper and up to 40% for the MR2 damper. The force–velocity diagram is used to compare the modeling properties of each approach: (1) the Bingham model cannot describe the hysteresis of both MR dampers and the distribution function of the modeled force varies from the experimental data, (2) the algebraic models have complications in representing the nonlinear behavior of the asymmetric damper (MR2) and, (3) the ANN-based MR damper can model the nonlinearities of both MR dampers and presents good scalability; the accuracy of the results supports the use of this model for the validation of semi-active suspension control systems for a vehicle, by using nonlinear simulations.


1 Doing the Right Thing You're about to let a \spider" loose on the Internet. How do you know if it will seek out the information you want, without disrupting the net? You're in charge of writing the scheduling algorithm for a bank of elevators. How do you know when to go up and when to go down? In general, how do you make software do the right thing for its users? How do you even know what the right thing is? Many people see agents and agent-based programming ushering in a new era in computing, particularly in the environment of the internet. The optimists believe that all the protocols for data transfer, encryption, security, and payment will be sorted out in a year or so, and we can then go about writing new and exciting agent-based applications. This article explains why programming agents is not just business-as-usual; rather it requires a new way of looking at problems and their solutions. When you hire a human agent to do something for you, you rarely spell out a detailed plan of action. Instead, you deene the state of the environment that you want to achieve (e.g., you tell a contractor that you want a new front porch with comfortable seating, for under $2000). In more complex and uncertain situations, you specify your preferences rather than stating outright goals, as when you tell a stock broker agent that the more money you make the better, but count capital gains as, say, 30% better than dividend income. Your hired agent then takes actions on your behalf, even negotiates with other agents, all to help you achieve your preferences. We would like our software agents to behave the same way.


PURPOSE
To study the effects of chloride transport and gap junction inhibitors on fluid formation across the porcine ciliary epithelium.

METHODS
A complete annulus of porcine iris-ciliary body preparation was mounted onto a modified Ussing type chamber to measure the fluid flow (FF) rate. The potential difference (PD) across the preparation was monitored simultaneously. The effects of several inhibitors on chloride transport and gap junction were studied. These included 4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'-disulfonic acid (DIDS), 5-(N,N-dimethyl)amiloride hydrochloride (DMA), bumetanide, niflumic acid, and heptanol.

RESULTS
The average baseline FF rate was 2.56 +/- 0.07 microL/h per preparation (n = 33). DIDS (0.1 mM) or DMA (0.1 mM) showed no effect on both FF and PD when added to the blood side of the preparation. Bumetanide (0.1 mM), on the blood side, inhibited the FF by 46% and caused a slight depolarization of PD. Heptanol (3.5 mM) depolarized the PD and reduced FF by 45% and 78% through the blood and aqueous sides, respectively. Niflumic acid (1 mM at the aqueous side) also depolarized the PD and significantly inhibited the FF (62%).

CONCLUSIONS
The effects of the chloride transport inhibitors on fluid formation across the porcine iris-ciliary body were comparable to that in previous chloride transport studies. The results indicated that fluid secretion by the isolated porcine ciliary epithelium is mainly driven by chloride transport. However, there may be other unidentified ion movements that drive residual FF after chloride transport is inhibited.


Telling cow from sheep is effortless for most animals, but requires much engineering for computers. In this thesis, we seek to tease out basic principles that underlie many recent advances in image recognition. First, we recast many methods into a common unsupervised feature extraction framework based on an alternation of coding steps, which encode the input by comparing it with a collection of reference patterns, and pooling steps, which compute an aggregation statistic summarizing the codes within some region of interest of the image. Within that framework, we conduct extensive comparative evaluations of many coding or pooling operators proposed in the literature. Our results demonstrate a robust superiority of sparse coding (which decomposes an input as a linear combination of a few visual words) and max pooling (which summarizes a set of inputs by their maximum value). We also propose macrofeatures, which import into the popular spatial pyramid framework the joint encoding of nearby features commonly practiced in neural networks, and obtain significantly improved image recognition performance. Next, we analyze the statistical properties of max pooling that underlie its better performance, through a simple theoretical model of feature activation. We then present results of experiments that confirm many predictions of the model. Beyond the pooling operator itself, an important parameter is the set of pools over which the summary statistic is computed. We propose locality in feature configuration space as a natural criterion for devising better pools. Finally, we propose ways to make coding faster and more powerful through fast convolutional feedforward architectures, and examine how to incorporate supervision into feature extraction schemes. Overall, our experiments offer insights into what makes current systems work so well, and state-of-the-art results on several image recognition benchmarks.


The idea that clients or users of public services might legitimately have opinions about how they should be delivered is a relatively new one in the United Kingdom, where producers' views have dominated decisions about how things should be done. This tendency can be observed not only in health care, but also in other public services such as education, the provision of social security benefits, policing, and the criminal justice system. Such neglect of users' views is predictable where services are provided (often for excellent reasons) in a non-market context. Compare, for example, the careful way in which private hospitals question their patients on the quality of service they have received with the lack of interest (until recently) in such matters on the part of many National Health Service providers. Clearly there are many aspects of health care, as well as of education and other public services, where the users lack the knowledge to determine the substance of the service they receive. Patients are not always well placed to determine the form of medical intervention which best meets their medical condition. But a variety of other attributes of health care, especially those which deal more with quality of delivery, are susceptible to judgements on the part of customers or users, who in this respect have a good claim to be the experts. Dr. Ryan's paper provides a comprehensive and valuable review of one particularly promising method for eliciting consumers' preferences and of its application to health care, where she has herself made a major contribution. The method in question has been employed by market researchers for a number of years under the name of conjoint analysis. Using conjoint analysis, respondents are asked to make hypothetical judgements or to express preferences between hypothetical alternatives. From this it is possible to look at the relative importance of different aspects of the service. Within the public sector, many of the earliest applications can be found in the area of transport, where the technique is often described as a form of 'stated preference' analysis. Use of conjoint analysis can now also be found in the environmental literature. However, to date it has only had limited use in health care. Conjoint analysis is subject to a number of objections, which are reviewed in more detail in the paper. One objection common to many possible areas of application is that respondents may give answers that do not reflect how they would actually behave if faced with the same decisions. A second objection is that if price is included as an attribute to be traded off, then supporters of free health care may be uncomfortable about the implications of the analysis. In other areas than health, these and other issues have been investigated, with generally favourable conclusions about the value of the information - provided that the studies are properly designed. These advantages led a research group at Brunei University, in a study funded by HM Treasury, to conclude that the stated preference approach had great potential for valuing quality changes throughout the public sector, and should be widely trialled (Cave et al, 1994). The study noted that an attraction of conjoint analysis is that the metric which it employs to value the attributes of health or other services need not be a monetary one. Exercises require respondents to express preferences among alternative bundles of service characteristics, which may or may not include price. The procedure shows the rates at which users trade-off one attribute against another - for example, two separate attributes of quality or an attribute of quality and the quantity supplied. Avoiding the use of price as an attribute has the disadvantage that the results require more elaborate interpretation, but it has advantages as well. For example, many public sector managers operate within fixed cash limits, and since they cannot expand their budgets, willingness to pay data are of little direct interest to them. But information about trade-offs may be directly applicable in decision making. Early indications suggest that conjoint analysis is a very promising approach to eliciting consumers' preferences and I reiterate the Brunei study conclusion that it is 'the one most likely to yield fruitful results in the valuation of quality of delivery in the public services' (Cave et al, 1994). It appears to offer the best method yet available of answering the perennial question - how can we get user valuations of public services where, because of the nature of the services, we may not want users to pay for them? Dr. Ryan's review shows that it is possible to apply conjoint analysis to problems in health care. In health care little is currently known about consumers' preferences. If successfully applied conjoint analysis will provide a way of incorporating users' views into NHS decision making.


The paper examines a recent phenomenon of Brazilian migration to Ireland using social capital as a framework of analysis. The analysis specifically makes use of Portes and Sensenbrenner's typology of social capital sources (1993; Portes, 1998): bounded solidarity, value introjection, reciprocity, and enforceable trust. The paper examines the processes and dynamics inhering within these sources of social capital to account for the differential experiences of family, work, and community life in Ireland. The absence or presence of social capital sources, it is argued, is important in the experience of settlement and adaptation, especially in exacerbating or countering the disadvantages facing migrants. The evidence used is based on recent research from qualitative interviews with Brazilian parents in a small town in the west of Ireland, and residing in Ireland for several years.


Hydroforming of aluminum sheets is very important in the aircraft industry, due to the advantages of less wrinkling and cost effectiveness. Numerous research has been conducted in this field, which deals with the development of methods and tools to control accuracy of the bend and prediction of the springback after the sheet metal has been formed. Rivets are the most commonly used fasteners to fit together the subassemblies of the aircraft. The holes for riveting are punched after any forming operation due to the tensile and compressive deformations along the thickness of the sheet metal, which can affect the dimension and position accuracy of the hole. This incurs more cost and time due to the development of special dies for accurately punched holes. It is necessary to develop a method for predicting variation in the holes, which will increase the cost effectiveness of the process. In this research, sheet metal with pre-drilled holes was evaluated for a bending operation using a hydroforming technique. Sheet metal with a variety of thicknesses, bending radii, and bending angles was evaluated. Variation in the dimensional tolerance was attained using the minimum radial separation method. A dataset of dimensional variation in the holes was developed and used for development of the artificial neural network, which was able to predict the dimensional variation of the hole if an unknown pattern of inputs was provided. This study presents the prediction of the dimensional variation of holes due to sheet metal bending using the hydroforming technique.


While a considerable amount of research has been dedicated to determining the economic value-added of hedge funds, very little has been written on the selection of hedge fund managers. The author addresses some practical issues to consider in establishing a hedge fund investment program. He uses a graphical description of the hedge fund industry compared to the traditional world of long-only investments to describe several types of hedge fund programs, presenting three essential questions to answer when selecting a hedge fund manager. He suggests three possible strategies for including hedge funds in a portfolio. Once the investor has chosesn a strategy, tactical issues such as manager selection become critical.