The Article analyzes both the meaning and the constitutionality of Child Care Development Block Grant's church-and-state-related provisions in light of existing Supreme Court Establishment Clause jurisprudence. The CCDBG's church-and-state-related provisions represent a legislative effort to perform the type of Establishment Clause line drawing that the Supreme Court has traditionally undertaken and continues to undertake in cases involving aid to religious institutions. The congressional debate and the public controversy it engendered over line drawing between permissible and impermissible aid to religiously affiliated child care, and the resolution reached in the CCDBG, all achieve an important constitutional aim. They reflect and reinforce a public ideal expressed in the Court's existing jurisprudence, the ideal that religious liberty is safeguarded by the separation of the public sphere of government and the private sphere of religion. However imprecise the exercise, and wherever the line is drawn, the very act of drawing a line, of determining when aid is permissible, upholds the Establishment Clause ideal. The enactment of the CCDBG demonstrates that the line-drawing exercise is a feasible and useful task. With the statute's grant and contract aid provisions, Congress has constructed a scheme that allows substantial aid to religiously affiliated child care while drawing a workable line between prohibited aid that advances religion and permissible aid that does not. The Article argues that under existing Establishment Clause doctrines, the CCDBG measures allowing financial assistance to be paid by states to religiously affiliated nonsectarian child care programs are constitutional, whereas the requirement that the program's vouchers be redeemable for sectarian services is probably not. While the Court may very well modify and develop current Establishment Clause jurisprudence in ways that will allow the use of vouchers for religious programs, the Article maintains that such action by the Court would undermine the traditional Establishment Clause ideal of separation between church and state. The questions addressed in the Article regarding the CCDBG's church-and-state provisions are urgent ones. Federal and state agencies implementing the CCDBG must analyze the statute in light of current Establishment Clause mandates, just as Congress struggled to do in the process of its enactment. State and federal courts will have to do the same in any challenges to the statute. Furthermore, even if federal constitutional doctrines are reworked and relaxed, federal and state policymakers, as well as state courts interpreting state constitutional provisions, will have to decide whether to follow or to depart from federal Establishment Clause doctrine.


Mosses are traditionally used as ornamental plants, especially in Japan, USA, England (moss gardens) and Germany, French (green roofs). In shadow areas (where the members of Poaceae usually cannot grow well), mosses are potentially use as "grass". The stocks of moss colonies maintain optimal microclimate and decrease desiccation of soils (like mulch). Additionally, mosses are evergreen, attractive all year, during winter. In our study, 18 moss species were propagated by fragments (as mixture, with the use of 16 species) and transplantation of carpets (with Brachythecium rivulare and Calliergonella cuspidata) in Szentendre. The aim was to find the most durable species and the best way of propagation. In an outdoor, irrigated garden, propagation by fragments was effective (with 63% coveration) and higher values (93% and 76%) were obtained in the cases of non-irrigated stocks of Amblystegium serpens (in trays) and moss carpets. In vertical structures (moss picture-frames with the use of mixtures), protonema of 2 species (Hypnum cupressiforme and Eurhynchium hyans) covered 24 and 33% of the 0.5 x 0.5 m sized area.


Nowadays, remote sensing technology is being used as an essential tool for monitoring and detecting oil spills to take precautions and to prevent the damages to the marine environment. As an important branch of remote sensing, satellite based synthetic aperture radar imagery (SAR) is the most effective way to accomplish these tasks. Since a marine surface with oil spill seems as a dark object because of much lower backscattered energy, the main problem is to recognize and differentiate the dark objects of oil spills from others to be formed by oceanographic and atmospheric conditions. In this study, Radarsat-1 images covering Lebanese coasts were employed for oil spill detection. For this purpose, a powerful classifier, Artificial Neural Network Multilayer Perceptron (ANN MLP) was used. As the original contribution of the paper, the network was trained by a novel heuristic optimization algorithm known as Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) method besides the conventional Backpropagation (BP) and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) learning algorithms. A comparison and evaluation of different network training algorithms regarding reliability of detection and robustness show that for this problem best result is achieved with the Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (ABC).


An infection-for patients whose immune systems have been compromised by cancer or due its treatment-can have devastating consequences, often leading to long-term illness or even death. Prevention of infection, then, takes on a profound role, significantly reducing morbidity and mortality in this patient population. Putting Evidence Into Practice: Improving Oncology Patient Outcomes-Prevention of Infection Resource provides you with information on interventions known to prevent infections in patients with cancer. Updated and revised from the material first introduced in the 2006 ONS Putting Evidence into Practice (PEP) resource and an article published in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, this publication presents the latest information on prevention of infection, and incorporates evidence in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as well as evidence in pediatric patients with cancer. You'll also find information on the prevention of febrile neutropenia, one of the most concerning complications of cancer therapy. Like the other stand-alone PEP resources, this resource details the problem as well as the incidence and examines issues surrounding survivorship and late effects, assessment, and interventions. In addition, you can find a case study on prevention of infection.


Primary motor cortex has been studied for more than a century, yet a consensus on its functional contribution to movement control is still out of reach. In particular, there remains controversy as to the level of control produced by motor cortex ("low-level" movement dynamics vs. "high-level" movement kinematics) and the role of sensory feedback. In this review, we present different perspectives on the two following questions: What does activity in motor cortex reflect? and How do planned motor commands interact with incoming sensory feedback during movement? The four authors each present their independent views on how they think the primary motor cortex (M1) controls movement. At the end, we present a dialogue in which the authors synthesize their views and suggest possibilities for moving the field forward. While there is not yet a consensus on the role of M1 or sensory feedback in the control of upper limb movements, such dialogues are essential to take us closer to one.


We describe a technique for studying scattering from subwavelength features. A simple scatterometer was developed to measure the scattering from the single-submicrometer, subwavelength features generated with a focused ion beam system. A model that can describe diffraction from subwavelength features with arbitrary profiles is also presented and shown to agree quite well with the experimental measurements. The model is used to demonstrate ways in which the aspect ratios of subwavelength ridges and trenches can be obtained from scattering data and how ridges can be distinguished from trenches over a wide range of aspect ratios. We show that some earlier results of studies on distinguishing pits from particles do not extend to low-aspect-ratio features.


This paper looks at the recent trends of rising inequality in developing Asia, asks why inequality matters, examines the driving forces of rising inequality, and proposes policy options for tackling high and rising inequality. Technological change, globalization, and market-oriented reform have driven Asia's rapid growth, but have also had significant distributional consequences. These factors have favored owners of capital over labor, skilled over unskilled workers, and urban and coastal areas over rural and inland regions. Furthermore, unequal access to opportunity, caused by institutional weaknesses and social exclusion, has compounded the impacts of these forces. All these combined have led to a falling share of labor income in national income, increasing premiums on human capital, and growing spatial disparity—all contributing to rising inequality. The three drivers of rising inequality cannot and should not be blocked, because they are the same forces that drive productivity and income growth. This paper outlines a number of policy options for Asian policy makers to consider in addressing rising inequality. These options, aiming to equalize opportunities and, thereby, reduce inequality, include efficient fiscal measures that reduce inequality in human capital, policies that work toward increasing the number and quality of jobs, interventions that narrow spatial disparity, and reforms that strengthen governance, level the playing field, and eliminate social exclusion.


Background:Every year 3000-4000 children in Sweden loses a parent due to accident and illness which means that every day nine children suffer from losing one of the most important person in their life. Cancer is expected to increase from 14 million to 22 million over the next two decades, in the future it will become increasingly common for nurses to meet a child whose parent has cancer. Aim: The aim of this study was to illuminate children's experiences of having a parent diagnosed with cancer. Method: A literature-based study based on eight articles from the databases Cinahl and ProQuest was chosen, read, reviewed and analyzed according to Friberg's analyzing model. Results: Five themes with 11 sub-themes emerged; "Feeling need of support", "The world turns upside down", "Cancer is equal to death", "Changed outlook on life" and "Putting words into feelings". According to young people's perspective the crisis resulted in a positive way of life. Conclusion: Children's anxiety and fear is the greatest when the parent get the diagnosis and future forecast. It is important to provide a safe support since the children's world is turned upside down.


The use of logratio analysis in limnological studies has proved to be effective for solving the problems of the constrained nature of compositional data. The method offers a graphical tool, the relative variation biplot, to explore relative changes of the ions. However, recent methodological developments have shown that the results can be perturbed by low-valued ions with high variances and proposed downweighting their influences as in correspondence analysis. Additional to all properties of the unweighted version, this weighted logratio analysis extends the previous work and has the advantage of the principle of distributional equivalence .

As a motivating application, we chose a karstic lake with dominating ions calcium and sulphate causing other ions to be present relatively in low absolute levels. Besides, one of the collected compositional samples was suspected to be unusual which, in part, contributes to high relative variances. This paper is therefore concerned with the choice of the best method for the analysis of such extremely saline water systems by comparing performances of both unweighted and weighted logratio analyses.

We concluded that introducing weights captured more features of ionic relationships with almost all compositional variability explained. We observed that the ratio of calcium to sulphate, ammonium or phosphorus (to a lesser extent) was particularly valuable in understanding the natural chemical process of the lake. A constant log-contrast model based on calcium, ammonium, nitrate and total soluble phosphorus appeared as an equilibrium equation.


Achieving shared, common, or mutual understandings among geographically dispersed workers is a central concern in the distributed work literature. Nonetheless, little is known yet about the socio-cognitive acts and communication processes involved with synchronizing and cocreating understandings in such settings. Building on a case study of a geographically distributed information systems development project at one of India's largest offshore vendors, we postulate that knowledge and experience asymmetries, and requirements and task characteristics (such as complexity, instability, ambiguity, and novelty) prompt onsite and offshore team members to engage in acts of sensegiving, sensedemanding, and sensebreaking. This allows them to make sense of their tasks and their environment, and it increases the likelihood that congruent and actionable understandings emerge. Furthermore, it assists them in cocreating novel understandings, especially when acts of sensegiving and sensedemanding are complemented with instances of sensebreaking. Our results contribute to the literature by explaining how distributed team members mitigate problems of understanding, transfer preexisting understandings, and cocreate novel understandings. Acts of sensegiving, sensedemanding, and sensebreaking allow distributed team members to jointly explore and generate value, thereby amplifying the performance of distributed workers.


This thesis designs a multipurpose navigation unit. The unit is equipped with a GPS which is the primary navigation sensor, when the GPS satellites are available. If the GPS satellites becomes unavailable, a inertial system with aid sensors is used for navigation. A unit that collects data from a GPS, gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers and a barometer has been developed in a project leading to this thesis. The software development was not completed. The software responsible for communicating between the ADIS16405 sensor, which contains three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and three magnetometers, and the microcontroller was completed in this thesis. The software responsible for communicating between the barometer and the microcontoller was optimized in order to prevent timing errors. The menu system has been extended and sensor data is now saved in different files. Navigation equations has been found and is augmented with noise states. The augmented equation is used as the process equation in the Unscented Kalman filter. The augmented noise states is an approximation of flicker noise from the gyros. It was found that a first order Gauss-Markov process was the noise process which gave a change of covariance over time that was most similar the flicker noise of the tested noise processes. A filter for the gyroscope output is designed. This filter is intended to remove flicker noise from the gyroscope measurements. Measurements equations for the magnetometer and barometer is also found. All sensors have been calibrated and the error model coefficients has been estimated. The gyroscopes and accelerometers have less noise than specified in their datasheet. Because the lack of a calibration equipment the magnetometer has not been calibrated accurately. The inertial system has been simulated by Monte Carlo simulations to quantify the error sources. The gyroscope noise is the main error source, and noise from the sensors that provide data to the initial attitude calculation is the second largest error source. The standard deviation of the position error is approximately 65 m after 60 seconds when the system is stationary. This is found by using Monte Carlo simulations. It would be interesting to find how much this error could be reduced by using a better gyroscope. We assumed that the better gyroscope had on tenth of the noise compared to the estimated noise values from the real gyroscope. This reduced the standard deviation of the error to approximately 13 m after 60 seconds. Simulations show that the standard deviation of the position error could be reduced from 65 m after 60 seconds to approximately 20 m after 60 seconds by using magnetometers and barometer in addition to the inertial sensors. The real world tests have a very large position deviation. It is likely that this is caused by unmodeled effects, like magnetic disturbance. The Unscented Kalman filter also contributes to the error by not propagating the mean of the process equation correctly.


We present a novel approach to conserve power in networked mobile devices. Our approach exploits communication within a pervasive smart space as an opportunity to save power as opposed to the classic view of communication as a drain on resources. We outsource intensive computations to the network whenever a pervasive connection to the Internet exists and when it pays off to do so. At compile-time our approach generates two versions of the program being compiled, a client version and a server version, each containing the necessary code to handle the run-time decision of executing code locally on the mobile device or remotely to the server based on power efficiency. We utilize a technique from real-time systems to help the compiler generate highly accurate code by calculating the number of loop iterations for each candidate section of code. This approach has the advantage of analyzing applications at a finer granularity than other similar methodologies. This is because the candidate code sections are CPU blocks represented mostly by loops. Our experimental results performed on Intel's XScale architecture and the Wi-Fi wireless technology show significant savings in power consumption by the mobile device


Fire regimes are ultimately controlled by wildland fuel dynamics over space and time; spatial distributions of fuel influence the size, spread, and intensity of individual fires, while the temporal distribution of fuel deposition influences fire's frequency and controls fire size. These "shifting fuel mosaics" are both a cause and a consequence of fire regimes. This paper synthesizes results from two major fuel dynamics studies that described the spatial and temporal variability of canopy and surface wildland fuel characteristics found in US northern Rocky Mountain forests. Eight major surface fuel components—four downed dead woody fuel size classes (1, 10, 100, 1000 h), duff, litter, shrub, and herb—and three canopy fuel characteristics—loading, bulk density and cover—were studied. Properties of these fuel types were sampled on nested plots located within sampling grids to describe their variability across spatiotemporal scales. Important findings were that fuel component loadings were highly variable (two to three times the mean), and this variability increased with the size of fuel particles. The spatial variability of loadings also varied by spatial scale with fine fuels (duff, litter, 1 h, 10 h) varying at scales of 1 to 5 m; coarse fuels at 10 to 150 m, and canopy fuels at 100 to 600 m. Fine fuels are more uniformly distributed over both time and space and decayed quickly, while large fuels are rare on the landscape but have a high residence time.


Catalytic processes that employ Ru catalysts in supercritical water have been shown to be capable of converting organics, such as wood waste, into synthetic natural gas (CH4) with high efficiencies at relatively moderate temperatures of around 400 °C. However, the exact roles of the catalyst and the descriptors that would enable the search for other catalysts with high conversions have not been determined. In the current work, we use electronic structure calculations coupled with batch experiments to understand the interaction of methane (CH4) and water (H2O) with a common catalyst material, ruthenium, to understand the final steps of the methanation reaction. The calculations predict that when CH4 and H2O react with the Ru surface, the species will undergo rapid scrambling; interchanging most of the hydrogens with the surface before escaping as CH4 and H2O once again. We conducted experiments using CH4 as a feedstock in supercritical D2O (deuterated water) in the presence of a commercially available carbon‐supported Ru catalyst, and found this mechanism to be confirmed: nearly all reacted CH4 was converted to the fully substituted CD4 or the 3/4‐substituted CHD3 isotopomers, with less significant production of the 1/4‐ or 1/2‐substituted species CH3D and CH2D2. The experiment was repeated with an in‐house impregnated RuO2‐on‐carbon catalyst, with similar results. Although other criteria such as the ability to cleave CC and CO bonds and resistance to poisoning will also prove important, this study suggests that a characteristic of an effective catalyst for supercritical water gasification to methane is its ability to promote rapid equilibria through scrambling mechanisms.


Most fields of technology-driven research and innovation are highly male-dominated across the Western world. However, in the Nordic countries, recognised as the most gender equal in the world, this gender segregation appears as a paradox. With Norway as an example, the present article explores the paradox that appears to be entangled with the yet unsolved question of why women are still a minority in information and communication technology (ICT) disciplines. The analysis draws examples from five studies of girls and women in contexts of ICT training, education, and work to analyse the fabric of the paradox through the 'free choice' argument, 'affluent nations' argument, and 'nation vs. individual women' argument. The analysis suggests that the paradox, by putting the nation's gender equality ideal against atomized individuals' choices, contributes to obscuring the situation regarding the underrepresentation of women in ICT.


Social recommender systems capitalise on product reviews to generate recommendations that are both guided by experiential knowledge and are explained by user opinions centred on important product aspects. Therefore, having an effective aspect extraction algorithm is crucial. Previous work has shown that dependency relation approaches perform well in this task. However, they can also lead to erroneous extractions. This paper proposes an effective aspect extraction approach that combines strengths of both dependency relations and frequent noun approaches. Further, we demonstrate how aspect-level sentiment analysis can be used to enrich product representations and thereby positively impact recommendation effectiveness. We empirically evaluate our proposed approach with the objective to recommend products that are 'better' than a given query product. A computational measure of 'better' is used in our experiments with five real-world datasets. Results show that our proposed approach achieves significantly better results than the existing state-of-the-art dependency-based methods in recommendation tasks.


We present a design to generate structurally propagation invariant light beams carrying non-integer orbital angular momentum (OAM) using Hermite-Laguerre-Gaussian (HLG) modes. Different from previous techniques, the symmetry axes of our beams are fixed when varying the OAM; this simplifies the calibration technique for beam positional measurement using a quadrant detector. We have also demonstrated analytically and experimentally that both the OAM value and the HLG mode orientation play an important role in the quadrant detector response. The assumption that a quadrant detector is most sensitive at the beam center does not always hold for anisotropic beam profiles, such as HLG beams.


Background Possible associations of parasite infection with cancer risk have recently attracted much attention. Published studies concerning the association between Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection and leukemia risk have generated inconsistent results. In the present study, we aimed to address this topic by conducting a quantitative meta-analysis. Material/Methods Relevant publications were searched in electronic databases and eligible studies were rigorously screened and selected. Essential information was extracted and the data were pooled. Subgroup analysis on source of controls and detection target was also performed. Results A total of 6 studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected. The overall data show that T. gondii infection might have an association with increased leukemia risk (OR=3.05; 95%CI=1.83–5.08). Similar results were shown in the subgroups regarding source of controls and detection target. Conclusions Our results suggest that T. gondii infection might be a risk factor for leukemia, providing new insight into the etiology of leukemia. Future studies with large sample sizes in different geographic areas are needed to confirm this conclusion.


Vecsey, Christopher. Following 9111: Religion Coverage in the New York Times. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2011. 477 pp. $34.95. Coverage touching on religion in the New York Times has increased exponentially since 9/11, showing up in every news section, in several stories on the front page in the same day, and even in full-page layouts inside. And the author is in a position to know; he clipped, read, analyzed, and filed more than 1 5,000 stories from the Times between 1970 and 2001 and tens of thousands of stories since. Vecsey comes from family of journalists. He has been clipping stories from the New York Times for decades and has file cabinets full of the paper's coverage. In 1976, his older brother, George, until then a sports reporter for the newspaper, took an extended assignment reporting religion for the paper; in that same year, Christopher got his first teaching job and his brother's assignment triggered a particular interest in the paper's religion coverage. He is now a professor of humanities at Colgate University. His clippings matter because they provided the basis of this book, but they also matter because he has used them in classes at Colgate, and those classes have helped to assess and analyze the paper's coverage. Vecsey concludes Times' reportage and commentary on religion in the world after 9/11 offers a multi-perspectival, even cubist, set of visions of "a first draft of history." Given its complex character, he suggests the paper's coverage is more true to the complex realities of the world than any single interpretive reduction. He finds that the Times is not an institution that constrains or controls coverage but rather one that allows and even encourages multiple knowledges, disciplines, ideologies, and multiple conventions to find expression on its pages. Not only do individual articles seek multiple viewpoints, but op-ed pieces routinely contradict one another. There may be a balance built on the paper's own, and die readership's conventional, worldview, which is reasonable since it is published in New York, but nonetheless he finds a constant reaching toward other perspectives. In the fall of 200 1 , Vecsey and a political science colleague were teaching a freshman seminar, "Religion in these Times," which aimed at assessing the depth, scope, and slant of religion in the newspaper. Two weeks into the course, the catastrophic 9/11 attacks permanently changed the paper's religious coverage. Since that semester, he has taught various different classes about politics and religion, using Times' coverage as a text. …


A model of the Einstein–Bohr recoiling slit experiment is formulated in a fully quantum theoretical setting. In this model, the state and dynamics of a movable wall that has two slits in it, as well as the state of a particle incoming to the two slits, are described by quantum mechanics. Using this model, we analyzed complementarity between exhibiting an interference pattern and distinguishing the particle path. Comparing the Kennard–Robertson type and the Ozawa-type uncertainty relations, we conclude that the uncertainty relation involved in the double-slit experiment is not the Ozawa-type uncertainty relation but the Kennard-type uncertainty relation of the position and the momentum of the double-slit wall. A possible experiment to test the complementarity relation is suggested. It is also argued that various phenomena which occur at the interface of a quantum system and a classical system, including distinguishability, interference, decoherence, quantum eraser, and weak value, can be understood as aspects of entanglement. Quanta 2015; 4: 1–9.


Social media platforms contain a great wealth of information which provides opportunities for us to explore hidden patterns or unknown correlations, and understand people's satisfaction with what they are discussing. As one showcase, in this paper, we present a system, TwiInsight which explores the insight of Twitter data. Different from other Twitter analysis systems, TwiInsight automatically extracts the popular topics under different categories (e.g., healthcare, food, technology, sports and transport) discussed in Twitter via topic modeling and also identifies the correlated topics across different categories. Additionally, it also discovers the people's opinions on the tweets and topics via the sentiment analysis. The system also employs an intuitive and informative visualization to show the uncovered insight. Furthermore, we also develop and compare six most popular algorithms - three for sentiment analysis and three for topic modeling.


Introducion To assess the prognostic and discriminative accuracy of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) for prediction of inhospital mortality in emergency department (ED) patients with suspected infection. Methods Prospective observational derivation study in ED patients with suspected infection. Prognostic performance of hs-cTnT (divided in four quartiles because of non-linearity) for prediction of inhospital mortality was assessed using multivariable logistic regression, correcting for predisposition, infection, response and organ failure (PIRO) score as a measure of illness severity and quality of ED treatment as quantified by the number of 'Surviving Sepsis Campaign' goals achieved. Discriminative power of hs-cTnT was assessed by receiver operator characteristics with area under the curve (AUC) analysis. Results Hs-cTnT (median (IQR) was 57 (25–90) ng/L (n=23) in non-survivors, significantly higher than the 15 (7–28) ng/L in survivors (n=269, p<0.001). Additionally, the lowest quartile of hs-cTnT was a perfect predictor of survival because zero death occurred. Therefore, the second quartile was used as a reference category in the multivariable logistic regression analysis showing that hs-cTnT was an independent predictor of inhospital mortality: Corrected ORs were 2.2 (95% CI 0.4 to 12.1) and 5.8 (1.2 to 27.3) for the 3rd and 4th quartile compared with the 2nd hs-cTnT quartile. The AUCs of hs-TnT was 0.81 (0.74 to 0.88), similar to the AUC of 0.78 (0.68 to 0.87) of the PIRO score (p>0.05). Overall negative predictive value of hs-cTnT was 99%. Conclusions In ED patients with suspected infection, the routinely used biomarker hs-cTnT is an independent predictor of inhospital mortality with excellent discriminative performance. Future studies should focus on the additional value of hs-cTnT to existing risk stratification tools.


This study aimed to identify the top performing and the bottom performing family farm businesses based upon business performance, and then compare and contrast the perceptions and attitudes towards acquiring management skills and attributes that lead to improved business performance. Using extensive interviews data were obtained from 200 family farm businesses from New South Wales and Victoria covering a range of enterprises. The key findings were, firstly, that for all farmers the maintaining of a stable family relationship was of paramount importance in the running of the farm business. Secondly, that the Top 20% of farmers had high levels of self-efficacy and thus possessed the capability and the competence to perform tasks successfully. High performers also were more committed to the creation of long-term wealth and viewed business skills as a higher priority for training. Low performers were more highly committed to the farm's environmental health, placed a greater emphasis on production and sustainability for training and were more likely to give a lower priority to business issues. Both groups agreed that formal training that involved practical farmers with education skills providing them with tailor-made modules were best suited to their personal learning needs. The consistently high priority of family and business issues suggests that the opportunity exists to integrate the training of attitudes and skills with family, sustainable business practices and community issues. The study was funded by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.


In an effort to understand the effects of prosthetic foot stiffness on amputee gait and mobility, it is useful to produce prototype prosthetic feet that differ in stiffness. While many commercial prosthetic feet are made out of carbon fiber, the manufacturing process is ill-suited to design experimentation as it is expensive, time consuming and requires tooling modifications to produce design changes. In order to facilitate a study of the effects of coronal plane prosthetic foot stiffness on amputee maneuvering gait, we are manufacturing custom prosthetic feet using a form of additive manufacturing, selective laser sintering (SLS), that was developed at the University of Texas at Austin [1]. We have previously used SLS technology to create functional transtibial prosthetic sockets, ankle-foot orthoses, and prosthetic foot prototypes [2-5]. To manufacture prosthetic feet with different stiffnesses, we first measured the stiffness profile of a commercially available carbon fiber prosthetic foot on an Instron 3345 (Norwood, MA) in two configurations where the foot was loaded to 114 kg in foot flat at 0° eversion and toe-only at 5° eversion positions. A computer aided design model of an SLS prosthetic foot was developed and adjusted to match the stiffness profile of the carbon fiber foot. Finite element analysis (SolidWorks Corp.; Waltham, MA) was then used to verify that the desired stiffness level was achieved. This process was repeated to create three prosthetic feet with altered coronal plane stiffness profiles (25% greater, 50% greater, and 25% less) while sagittal stiffness was held constant. The prototype feet were fabricated using selective laser sintering in a Vanguard HiQ/HS SLS Machine (3D Systems Corp.; Rock Hill, SC). Finally, the feet were mechanically tested in the same configurations as the carbon fiber foot to confirm that they had the desired stiffness profiles. Prototype feet closely matched the sagittal stiffness of the chosen prosthetic foot while coronal plane stiffnesses were approximately the same, 30% greater and 30% less than the carbon fiber foot. Future work will be to use these feet to observe the influence of coronal plane stiffness on amputee gait.


The height $H(n)$ of $n$, introduced by Pillai in 1929, is the smallest positive integer $i$ such that the $i$th iterate of Euler's totient function at $n$ is $1$. H. N. Shapiro (1943) studied the structure of the set of all numbers at a height. We provide a formula for the height function thereby extending a result of Shapiro. We list steps to generate numbers of any height which turns out to be a useful way to think of this construct. In particular, we extend some results of Shapiro regarding the largest odd numbers at a height. We present some theoretical and computational evidence to show that $H$ and its relatives are closely related to the important functions of number theory, namely $\pi(n)$ and the $n$th prime $p_n$. We conjecture formulas for $\pi(n)$ and $p_n$ in terms of the height function.


Salmincola californiensis (Dana, 1853) (Subclass Copepoda: Family Lernaeopodidae) is known to parasitize salmonids of the genus Oncorhynchus including Oncorhynchus mykiss (rainbow trout), Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (chinook salmon), and Oncorhynchus kisutch (coho salmon). These 3 salmonids have been introduced to the Great Lakes intermittently since the mid-1800s. As we demonstrate here, the introduction of these salmonids to the Great Lakes was followed, at some point, by the introduction of their parasitic gill copepod, S. californiensis. Given anecdotal accounts of S. californiensis in introduced salmonids in Lake Ontario since 2012, we chose to conduct a survey to formally document the occurrence of this introduced species. Our survey took place during spring, summer, and fall of 2018 and during spring of 2019 at the south-eastern side of Lake Ontario. Prevalence of S. californiensis was 69, with a mean intensity of 2.7 in 61 rainbow trout examined in 2018. In 2019, prevalence of S. californiensis was 71, with a mean intensity of 3.6 in 59 rainbow trout examined. The prevalence of S. californiensis was 39, with a mean intensity of 1.6 in 223 chinook salmon examined in 2018. No specimens of S. californiensis were found in the 100 coho salmon examined in 2018. The prevalence of S. californiensis in rainbow trout is of great concern considering that it is double that found in rainbow trout in the native range (69 [in 2018] and 71 [in 2019] vs. 35). This is the first formal documentation of the invasion of S. californiensis in Lake Ontario. Future fisheries management decisions in Lake Ontario and its tributaries should take into account these data.


Despite major advances in treating valvular heart disease, the in-hospital mortality (15–20%) and 1-year mortality (≃40%) for infective endocarditis (IE) has not improved even with modern antibiotics and surgical therapy. Further, stroke (17%), embolisation other than stroke (23%), heart failure (HF) (32%) and other complications remain common; therefore, all precautions to help prevent IE should be employed where indicated. In underdeveloped countries, IE is most often associated with rheumatic heart disease. In developed countries, IE is increasingly associated with prosthetic valves and intracardiac devices, with the risk of IE being 50 times higher in patients with a prosthetic valve compared with the general population. Other populations that are at higher risk of IE who might benefit from specific precautions or improved systems of care to prevent infection are intravenous drug users, the elderly and those with diabetes mellitus or with other forms of immunosuppression.

While the need to prevent bacteraemia in these high-risk populations is universally accepted, the efficacy of antibiotic prophylaxis when bacteraemia is likely to occur has been controversial over the years. Most of this controversy stems from the dogma of historical prophylaxis management, the knowledge that endocarditis has very high morbidity/mortality rates, as well as the misperception that antibiotic prophylaxis is harmless. The new AHA/ACC guidelines1 reflect the scarce evidence base for IE prophylaxis. There has been a paucity of data to support historically aggressive prophylaxis measures as evidenced by a Cochrane Review2 concluding that there was no evidence for benefit using penicillin to prevent endocarditis, as well as other data indicating lack of benefit from prophylaxis in non-dental procedures such as endoscopy/cystoscopy. Guidelines from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and from the Working Party of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy harmonise with the new AHA/ACC recommendations and have been in place for …


We explored the interactions between the photosynthetic dinoflagellate Azadinium cf. poporum isolated from Korean waters and potential predators, including engulfment feeders, a pallium feeder, peduncle feeders, and filter feeders. We measured the growth and/or ingestion rates of Oxyrrhis marina, Strobilidium sp., and Acartia spp. on A. cf. poporum as a function of prey concentrations. We also calculated grazing coefficients by using field data on abundance of Strobilidium sp.-sized naked ciliates co-occurring with A. cf. poporum and laboratory data on ingestion rates obtained in this study. Most of the tested organisms were able to feed on A. cf. poporum, but only O. marina, Strobilidium sp., and Acartia spp. showed sustained growth and/or ingestion on A. cf. poporum. Thus, some heterotrophic dinoflagellates using engulfment and filter feeders, such as ciliates and copepods, are likely to be optimal predators, while peduncle-feeding heterotrophic dinoflagellates are unlikely to efficiently feed due to the handling of the theca. The predators had low ratios of maximum growth rate to maximum ingestion rate on A. cf. poporum, as well as low gross growth efficiencies. Therefore, A. cf. poporum appears to be a low-quality prey for the predators tested. Grazing coefficients ranged between 0.052 and 0.446 d−1, suggesting that Strobilidium sp.-sized naked ciliates may sometimes have a high impact on A. cf. poporum populations, leading to the removal of up to 36% of the population in 1 d. However, the low quality of the prey and predator selectivity in a more complex microbial community may reduce this impact.


Few domestic issues in Great Britain during the First World War proved more politically sensitive or more difficult to resolve than the question of how to deal with the generally perceived threat posed by enemy alien residents. At the beginning of the war they numbered more than 70,000, excluding British-born women who had acquired enemy nationality through marriage, and children under the age of 14. Ultimately over 32,000 enemy alien men, mostly of military age, were interned, more than 20,000 men, women and children repatriated, and the remainder allowed to remain at liberty but subject to numerous restrictions. The latter group consisted mainly of women, children, elderly men or men who, although technically enemy aliens, were members of races, such as the Poles, Czechs and Alsatians, deemed friendly to the allied cause. This thesis is concerned with the origins, development and implementation of the policies of wartime governments in relation to enemy aliens, taking account of the aims of the decision makers, the factors which influenced them, and the principle results of their actions. The historic precedents and pre-war contingency planning of aliens controls to be introduced in the event of war are briefly considered and an assessment is made of the emergency legislation, most notably the Aliens Restriction Act, introduced in the early days of the war and subsequently extended and strengthened. The study traces the fluctuations of internment and repatriation policy and the operation of the internment camp system. Also examined are the key measures affecting those enemy subjects who retained their freedom; the way in which the property and business interests of enemy aliens were dealt with; the attempts by the authorities to find work of 'national importance' for enemy subjects or, in some cases, to place them in military service, usually with a non-combatant labour unit; wartime naturalisation policy; the operation of port controls and the work of the Aliens Branch of the Home Office.


Plagioclinal slopes in cuesta escarpments are oblique to bedding dips and widely distributed in the moutainous area of south-western China and the failure patterns are conventionally assumed to be rock fall or slab collapse, rather than rock slide. The catastrophe of the Jiweishan rockslide on 5th June 2009, illustrates a unique mechanism of plagioclinal slope failure, where the slope failure moves in the direction of apparent dip and is confined by four planes. Geological analysis concluded that the Jiweishan rockslide was a result of the weak-interlayer-controlled geological structure, underground mining and karst. Modelling tests reproduced the instant failure of key blocks in the apparent dip direction followed by block glide, and suggested that weakening of the slip surface and the discrete structure contributed to slope failure. Numerical simulation indicated that rear blocks acted on relatively stable key blocks during long-term gravitational creep on the weak interlayer. In addition, strength reduction due to karst on boundaries was a key factor in the rockslide occurrence. Ultimately, a three-dimensional limit equilibrium method of stability analysis for apparent dip slide was proposed and validation of modelling tests was conducted.


The estimation of nonlinear functions can be challenging when the number of independent variables is high. This difficulty may, in certain cases, be reduced by first projecting the independent variables on a lower dimensional subspace before estimating the nonlinearity. In this paper, a statistical nonparametric dimension reduction method called sliced inverse regression is presented and a consistency analysis for dynamically dependent variables is given. The straightforward system identification application is the estimation of the number of linear subsystems in a Wiener class system and their corresponding impulse response.


Objective: To report a case of probable neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) of unknown origin. Case Summary: A 32-year-old Caucasian man was found unconscious by emergency services. On presentation to the emergency department, he had a temperature of 107.5°F (41.9°C) and a Glasgow Coma Scale rating of 3 (range = 3-15). Fluids were administered and cooling blankets applied. He was admitted to the intensive care unit. Supportive measures decreased his temperature to 101.7°F (38.7°C). Arterial blood gas, comprehensive metabolic panel, complete blood count, and cardiac risk panel results were within normal limits; urinalysis and urine and serum drug screens were negative. He had been discharged on the following medications: benztropine, citalopram, chlorpromazine, divalproex, haloperidol, and hydroxyzine. Based on the medication discharge list and clinical presentation, the Naranjo Adverse Drug Reaction Probability Scale was applied. The criteria scoring indicated a probable relationship (8 of 12) between the medications prescribed and symptoms consistent with NMS. Discussion: NMS has been reported with antipsychotics (APs) and other medications with dopaminergic activity. The etiology is poorly understood. Risk factors (ie, recent initiation or dose increase of an AP, dehydration, or genetic susceptibility) may increase the potential. The differentiation between the diagnosis of NMS and other factors, such as serotonin syndrome or hyperthermia, includes laboratory and clinical presentation characteristics. The potential contributions of anticholinergic agents, psychiatric comorbidities, and other risk factors were identified for this patient. Conclusions: We report the case of a patient found unresponsive and comatose. A variety of assessment measures were used to identify potential causes. Based on evaluations, clinical presentation, the medication list, and criteria for an adverse drug event, a diagnosis of NMS was given. Health care providers may not be fully aware of the potential severity for this medication-related effect in patients with multiple risk factors.


Numerous programmes have been implemented to improve the quality of French higher education but the paucity of learning-focused objectives has resulted in contradictory initiatives. Expanding pedagogical development activities for professors, as emphasised by various reports, is a remedy worth exploring as only approximately 15 out of 150 higher education institutions currently have a teaching development centre. Professorial support for these initiatives is growing. A recent survey of professors found 91 per cent in favour of teaching development activities, with young instructors the most in favour and the most diverse in their teaching development requests (Demougeot-Lebel and Perret, 2011). In response, new teaching development units are emerging. The nascent pedagogical support structures raise issues of how to foster both the development of these centres and of their often inexperienced academic developers. Two promising initiatives are the national network of academic development centres and an academic developers' community of practice in the Rhone-Alps region


The article discusses consumption as a social process that is a part of social provisioning and is in an evolutionary interplay with other social processes. The discussion is grounded in, but is not limited to the contributions of Thorstein Veblen. The first section delineates social provisioning as a framework for consumption inquiry. This section emphasizes that social provisioning is a part of collective life process embedded in culture and nature, and that it is comprised by two general sets of activities – those motivated by money and those that are not motivated by making money. The second section delineates features of capitalism as a system, so that it provides a social context for consumption inquiry. The third section formulates a categorization of social processes, one of which is the consumption process. Further, the section delineates the meaning and components of the concepts: social activities, institutions, and habits of life and thought. The fourth section applies these concepts to consumption social process in the specific context of capitalism. The section discusses consumption activities; institutions and systems of provision; and habits of life and thought – illustrating with examples obtained from various disciplines. The section introduces "gated consumption" as an example of a habit of life and thought. It is argued that the formulated analysis transcends the cultural-material dualism. Finally, the article draws implications of the offered analysis, concluding that the category of "consumers" is of little use to heterodox economics.


ABSTRACT We describe a partial skeleton of a large-sized owl from Wasatchian strata of the Willwood Formation (Wyoming, U.S.A.). The holotype of Primoptynx poliotauros, gen. et sp. nov., includes all major postcranial bones and is one of the most substantial Paleogene records of the Strigiformes. The fossil shows that owls exhibited a considerable morphological diversity in the early Eocene of North America and occupied disparate ecological niches. As in the protostrigid taxon Minerva from the late early to early middle Eocene of North America, but unlike in extant owls, the ungual phalanges of the hallux and the second toe of the new species are distinctly larger than those of the other toes. Primoptynx poliotauros gen. et sp. nov., however, does not exhibit the derived tibiotarsus morphology of the Protostrigidae. Even though the new species may well be a stem group representative of protostrigid owls, current data do not allow an unambiguous phylogenetic placement. Concerning the size of the ungual phalanges, the feet of P. poliotauros correspond to those of extant hawks and allies (Accipitridae). We therefore hypothesize that it used its feet to dispatch prey items in a hawk-like manner, whereas extant owls kill prey with their beak. Primoptynx and protostrigid owls were possibly specialized in foraging on prey items that required an accipitrid-like killing strategy, such as larger-sized or more defensive mammals. The extinction of these peculiar owls may have been related to the radiation of accipitrid diurnal birds of prey, which appear to have diversified in the late Eocene and early Oligocene.


Structure has been observed in the stellar outflows of hot, luminous OB stars through
the temporal spectral analysis of UV data: the absorption troughs of wind-accelerated P-Cygni profiles of certain UV 'super-ions', particularly the Pv λλ 1118, 1128 doublet, have revealed the presence of additional absorption components which have been observed to
migrate through the wind. Similar P-Cygni profiles have also been observed in the the UV
spectra of Central Stars of Planetary Nebulae (CSPNs), but detailed temporal analysis of
CSPN outflows has been frustrated due to a lack of substantial time-series data. However,
the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite has provided high-resolution
time-series data for CSPNs, and therefore the nature of the time-variance of UV P-Cygni
profiles can be investigated. To this end FUSE spectroscopic data has been obtained,
and certain key UV resonance lines, as found in the stellar wind, have been subjected
to various time-series analysis tools including Time Variance Spectra (TVS) and Fourier-based periodicity analysis.
Also, optical time-series data of young CSPNs has been obtained via the ESO High-Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph, and therefore similar
temporal analysis has been carried out into the possible appearance of time-varying structure of Helium lines found in the deep photospheric regions of the atmosphere with the
aim of detecting the presence of modulated structure at the base of the stellar wind – with
the aim of discovering a causal mechanism for the higher wind-related phenomena.
The presence of such structure in the stellar outflows of CSPNs (and likewise, OB
stars) suggests that non-LTE stellar atmosphere analysis techniques – such as the Sobolev
with Exact Integration (SEI) method used within this thesis – which assume a spherically
smooth wind may provide inaccurate levels of mass loss from the stellar atmosphere; also, the possible non-smooth nature of the wind is considered from the viewpoint of possessing a more porous 'clumped' material which would also have an affect upon mass loss
determinations, a key factor in the understanding of the latter stages of stellar evolution.


The current state of the art of wind power forecasting in the 0- to 6-hour time frame has levels of uncertainty that are adding increased costs and risk on the U.S. electrical grid. It is widely recognized within the electrical grid community that improvements to these forecasts could greatly reduce the costs and risks associated with integrating higher penetrations of wind energy. The U.S. Department of Energy has sponsored a research campaign in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and private industry to foster improvements in wind power forecasting. The research campaign involves a three-pronged approach: 1) a 1-year field measurement campaign within two regions; 2) enhancement of NOAA's experimental 3-km High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model by assimilating the data from the field campaign; and 3) evaluation of the economic and reliability benefits of improved forecasts to grid operators. This paper and presentation provides an overview of the regions selected, instrumentation deployed, data quality and control, assimilation of data into HRRR, and preliminary results of HRRR performance analysis.


In this thesis, we analyse the monetary policy in the Eurozone since the origin of the euro. The aim of the thesis is to assess whether, and to what extent, the common monetary policy of the Eurozone has contributed to stabilization of business cycles within the various economies. By utilizing alternative versions of the Taylor rule, we have calculated several Taylor-rates for each of the member states in the Eurozone, which in turn are compared to the actual interest rate path from the European Central Bank (ECB). Deviation between the Taylorrates and the actual policy rate is used to analyse the suitability of the common monetary policy for each member country. The thesis also discusses the notion of the Eurozone constituting a good approximation to an optimum currency area by comparing the deviations between the Taylor-rates and the policy rate with developments in other macro-variables. A key variable that has implications for our results was the neutral real rate of interest. When assuming a constant neutral rate, we find that in the first decade of the euro the policy rate set by the ECB was much closer to the suggested rates of the core-countries than for the peripheral-countries. The Taylor rule suggests that the monetary policy was too accommodative for the peripheral-countries during this period. In the period after the financial crisis it seems that the monetary policy was too strict for the peripheral-countries, whilst being too accommodative for the core-countries. Estimations of the neutral real rate using the Laubach-Williams model show that an assumed value of the neutral real rate equal to 2% was a fairly good assumption for the corecountries, such as Germany, France, Belgium, Netherland and Austria. However, in the peripheral-countries the fluctuations of the neutral real rate have been far greater over the entire period. This adds to the notion that the perceived stability of the Eurozone during some time intervals has mainly been a feature of the core countries. We also calculate Taylor-rates using country-specific estimates of the neutral real rate. The main features of the country-specific Taylor-rates remain unchanged when compared to the Taylor-rates which assumed a common constant neutral real rate.


We generalize and test the recent "ab initio" self-consistent (AISC) time-independent semiclassical laser theory. This self-consistent formalism generates all the stationary lasing properties in the multimode regime (frequencies, thresholds, internal and external fields, output power and emission pattern) from simple inputs: the dielectric function of the passive cavity, the atomic transition frequency, and the transverse relaxation time of the lasing transition.We find that the theory gives excellent quantitative agreement with full time-dependent simulations of the Maxwell-Bloch equations after it has been generalized to drop the slowly-varying envelope approximation. The theory is infinite order in the non-linear hole-burning interaction; the widely used third order approximation is shown to fail badly.


The study explored features of an educational doctoral program that enhances doctoral student success. Doctoral student success is defined broadly to include not only completion and retention rates, but also the ability of the program to produce effective scholars in the field. The study utilized a mixed-method approach, incorporating quantitative and qualitative data from both alumni and current doctoral students. A total of 113 students participated in the survey and another 20 students participated in two parallel focus group discussions. A factor analysis of the 31-itemsurvey identified six dimensions representing different aspects of the doctoral program with an internal consistency measure of reliability ranging from 0.76 to 0.97. Quantitative and qualitative findings converged in highlighting the importance of Program Support/Program Structure, Advisor Support/Faculty Mentorship, and Research Engagement/Formation of Scholars on doctoral students' success. These features incorporate effective socialization activities within the program. The study recommends that doctoral programs incorporate research engagement and effective mentorship activities into the program's structure for sustainable scholarship.


Blind channel estimation is critical for digital signal processing (DSP) compensation of optical fiber communications links. The overall channel consists of deterministic distortions such as chromatic dispersion, as well as random and time varying distortions including polarization mode dispersion and timing jitter. It is critical to obtain robust acquisition and tracking methods for estimating these distortions effects, which, in turn, can be compensated by means of DSP such as Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation (MLSE). Here, a novel blind estimation algorithm is developed, accompanied by inclusive mathematical modeling, and followed by extensive set of real time experiments that verify quantitatively its performance and convergence. The developed blind channel estimation is used as the basis of an MLSE receiver. The entire scheme is fully implemented in a 65 nm CMOS Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). Experimental measurements and results are presented, including Bit Error Rate (BER) measurements, which demonstrate the successful data recovery by the MLSE ASIC under various channel conditions and distances.


Manifold spoors of human presence can be found in the Central Sahara - from prehistoric remains to contemporary tracks of men or animals. These objects constitute timescapes where locals - the Teda - are "tracking in time." The article describes how such timescapes are constituted and how tracking takes places here. Following the Liebenberg-Carruthers-debate, the author asks whether or not "tracking in time" can be considered as science and links the results to a wider discussion about new (local) approaches to African anthropology, history, and archaeology.


He may live in Madrid but he continues to make front-page headlines. This is David Beckham's own story of his career to date, for Manchester United, Real Madrid and England, and of his childhood, family and private life. Featuring David's first full account of a turbulent year in Spain, on and off the field, and England's fortunes in Euro 2004. This is Beckham's fascinating life story in his own words. His rise through the ranks at the biggest club side in the world. His complex relationship with United boss Alex Ferguson. The England story, from being vilified by the nation before returning as the prodigal son to eventually captaining his country. His acrimonious falling-out with his manager and departure from Old Trafford in June 2003. And starting a new chapter of his life on foreign soil in the glare of the world's press. Now from Beckham himself, we gain a vivid and eye-opening insight into the family man behind the famous footballer, the international model and fashion leader. He describes how he first met and then married ex-Spice girl Victoria Adams, and the upbringing of their two children Brooklyn and Romeo. How his family's every step is monitored by a posse of newshounds and paparazzi. Also, the influence of his parents, growing up as a shy youngster in the family home, and how their subsequent split affected him. Intimate and soul-searching, this is the real David Beckham like we have never seen before. NEW FOR THIS PAPERBACK EDITION: - Beckham's first season with Real Madrid from within the dressing room, with key stories on the likes of Figo, Roberto Carlos and Zidane. - His exclusive reaction to the sensational allegations about his private life; their effect on his relationship with Victoria and a reappraisal of their living arrangements. - England and Euro 2004: the players' threatened strike in support of Rio Ferdinand; Eriksson as England boss; and all the behind the scenes stories leading up to and including the Finals in Portugal. - One year down the line, does Beckham have any regrets about leaving Manchester United? And is there any truth in the rumours that he is unsettled in Madrid?


Oltipraz and related dithiolethiones constitute an important class of chemopreventive agents that enhance the expression of carcinogen detoxication and antioxidant genes. Dose-response studies were undertaken to characterize the cancer chemopreventive activities of several dithiolethiones that are at least as active as oltipraz as inducers. Inhibition of formation of pre-neoplastic lesions and formation of DNA adducts in livers of rats exposed to aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) was monitored. In the tumorigenesis experiment, the dithiolethiones were orally gavaged 3 days/week for 3 successive weeks and at four doses ranging from 0.03 to 0.3 mmol/kg body wt. AFB1 was gavaged beginning 1 week after the start of the dithiolethiones and for two successive weeks. The burden of AFB1-induced putative pre-neoplastic lesions (glutathione S-transferase-placental isoform positive foci) was quantified by light microscopy. Reduction in AFB-DNA adduct burden was assessed 24 h following the first dose of AFB1. Both the parent 1,2-dithiole-3-thione (D3T) and its 5-tert-butyl derivative were more potent inhibitors than oltipraz against these endpoints, while two of the seven tested analogs were slightly less inhibitory. D3T, the most potent dithiolethione of this series, was examined by microarray analysis for induction of hepatic genes at an intermediate chemopreventive dose (0.1 mmol/kg). Transcript levels of eight genes, including two known to detoxify aflatoxin, namely, glutathione S-transferase A5 (GSTA5) and AFB1 aldehyde reductase (AFAR) were elevated. Western analysis indicated that induction of hepatic GSTA5 and AFAR were directly related to the dose of D3T. At the highest dose of D3T (0.3 mmol/kg), protein levels of GSTA5 and AFAR were induced by 7- and 27-fold, respectively. While efficacy in humans has yet to be tested, D3T is clearly more potent than oltipraz and serves as a useful molecular probe for determining the key events associated with protection by this class of agents.


Objective: The rise in the occurrence of childhood obesity during the last decades in many populations indicates an important role of environmental exposures, which may operate very early in life. We aimed to examine the association between bereavement during the first 6 years of life, as a stress indicator, and subsequent risk of overweight in school-aged children. Methods: We followed 46,401 singletons born in Denmark who underwent annual health examinations at 7–13 years of age in school of Copenhagen. A total of 492 children experienced bereavement by death of a parent during the first 6 years of life. We compared BMI levels, changes in BMI, and the prevalence of overweight at 7–13 years of age between bereaved and non-bereaved children. Results: Between bereaved children and non-bereaved children, there were no differences in average BMI levels at any age or changes in BMI at 7–13 years of age. Bereavement during the first 6 years of life was not associated with an increased risk of overweight at 7–13 years of age. Conclusion: This study did not support that stress induced by bereavement during the first 6 years of life has significant influence on overweight in later childhood.


Adverse weather conditions regularly lead to severe congestion and large travel time delays on road networks all over the world. Different climate scenarios indicate that in the future adverse weather conditions are likely to become more frequent, last longer and will be more extreme. Although climate mitigation measures are being taken, it remains important to investigate how adverse weather events will affect the performance of the road network in the future. The main objective of this paper is to give an overview of how the impact of adverse weather conditions and adaptation measures on road network performance can be quantified. A literature review has been performed to show what is empirically known about the impact of adverse weather conditions on the road network performance. Furthermore, available methods to quantify the impact of adverse weather conditions and adaptation measures on the road network performance for future situations are reviewed. As an example, a case study for the municipality of Rotterdam has been carried out that shows how a combination of models can be used to analyse which links in the road network are most vulnerable for increasingly severe local weather related disturbances. The results of the case study allow local authorities to decide whether or not they need to take adaptation measures.


Learning representations of algorithms is an emerging area of machine learning, seeking to bridge concepts from neural networks with classical algorithms. Several important works have investigated whether neural networks can effectively reason like algorithms, typically by learning to execute them. The common trend in the area, however, is to generate targeted kinds of algorithmic data to evaluate specific hypotheses, making results hard to transfer across publications, and increasing the barrier of entry. To consolidate progress and work towards unified evaluation, we propose the CLRS Algorithmic Reasoning Benchmark, covering classical algorithms from the Introduction to Algorithms textbook. Our benchmark spans a variety of algorithmic reasoning procedures, including sorting, searching, dynamic programming, graph algorithms, string algorithms and geometric algorithms. We perform extensive experiments to demonstrate how several popular algorithmic reasoning baselines perform on these tasks, and consequently, highlight links to several open challenges. Our library is readily available at https://github.com/deepmind/clrs.


While Obergefell v. Hodges represents a tremendous victory, Justice Kennedy's adulation for the dignity of marriage risks undermining the dignity of the individual, whether in marriage or not. Of course, the U.S. approach to constitutional rights is primarily based on individual (as opposed to collective) rights, even while certain rights have associational dimensions (such as the freedom to associate). Throughout the opinion, Kennedy elides the individual and the married couple. As feminists going back at least as far as Elizabeth Cady Stanton have recognized, self-sovereignty, individual autonomy, and independence have been particularly important for women's empowerment. Yet, feminism also benefits from drawing on relational autonomy theory, which recognizes that individual autonomy is shaped through a wide variety of relationships. Kennedy's opinion can be strengthened if we flip it and view it from a relational autonomy perspective, to better analyze the import of marriage as a vehicle for mediating our relationships with each other and the state. Indeed, marriage itself is akin to a form of governance that could be disaggregated to better understand (1) how individual autonomy, choice, and equality (between individual partners) can be enhanced, and (2) how we might think more expansively about an affirmative role for government in supporting individual autonomy within and beyond the traditional married, nuclear family.


This work offers new insights into the determinants of service offshoring across countries and across service industries. Combining different data sources over the 2006-2009 period, I find that certain country characteristics affect offshoring costs for all services, while the effects of other characteristics depend on the coordination requirements of the respective service industry. The results from a zero-inflated Poisson pseudomaximum likelihood estimation indicate that the effects of a membership in NAFTA, and a common colonial past on service offshoring patterns depend on the task content of the services. These results are robust to the control for unobservable country-level heterogeneity. The quality of legal institutions, a common legal origin, geographic distance, and time zone differences influence offshoring patterns identically across all service industries.


Human carbonic anhydrase II (CAII) possesses a binding site for an acidic motif (D887ADD) within the carboxyl-terminal region (Ct) of the human erythrocyte chloride/bicarbonate anion exchanger, AE1. In this study, the amino acid sequence comprising this AE1 binding site was localized to the first 17 residues of CAII, which form a basic patch on the surface of the protein. Truncation of the amino terminal of CAII by five residues resulted in a 3-fold reduction in the apparent affinity of the interaction with a GST fusion protein of the Ct of AE1 (GST-Ct) measured by a sensitive microtiter plate binding assay. Further amino-terminal truncation of CAII by 17 or 24 residues caused a loss of binding. The homologous isoform CAI does not bind AE1, despite having 60% sequence identity to CAII. One major difference between the two CA isoforms, within the amino-terminal region, is a high content of histidine residues in CAII (His3, -4, -10, -15, -17) not found in CAI. Mutation of pairs of these histidines (and one lysine) in CAII to the analogous residues in CAI (H3P/H4D or K9D/H10K or H15Q/H17S), or combinations of these various double mutants, did not greatly affect binding between GST-Ct and the mutant CAII. However, when all six of the targeted CAII residues were mutated to the corresponding sequence in CAI, binding of GST-Ct was lost. These results indicate that the AE1 binding site is located within the first 17 residues of CAII, and that the interaction is mediated by electrostatic interactions involving histidine and/or lysine residues. Further specificity for the interaction of AE1 and CAII is provided by a conserved leucine residue (L886) in AE1 that, when mutated to alanine, resulted in loss of GST-Ct binding to immobilized CAII. The binding of the basic amino-terminal region of CAII to an acidic Ct in AE1 provides a structural basis for linking bicarbonate transport across the cell membrane to intracellular bicarbonate metabolism.


Although sustainable tourism that contributes to biodiversity protection seems to be important anywhere in the planet, ecotourism is rarely examined as a rural development opportunity outside the context of 'mega-diverse' countries, i.e. those 12 countries1 that between them harbour 60–70% of the total biodiversity of the planet. Collecting data from 20 sites around Scotland, this study considered the potential of ecotourism development in this country through a market segmentation study based on the environmental values of potential ecotourists. With the assistance of the New Ecological Paradigm (Dunlap et al., 2000) four segments with a range of anthropocentric and ecocentric values were identified. Results indicate that demand for ecotourism is not confined to ecocentric segments and that biodiversity protection is prioritised by all segments as the most salient ecotourism attribute, although each segment attaches a different intensity to its importance. The study identifies visitor interest for a Scottish ecotourism experience that emphasises biodiversity conservation and low use of exhaustible resources, while providing facilities for wildlife watching, hill walking and relaxing. Although segment attitudes towards ecotourism do not differ significantly, environmental values can be used to segment potential ecotourists as they allow the formation of visitor groups with different trip characteristics.


Soybeans grown by the ton in Argentina's expansive farmland represent a substantial part of that nation's export market. Herds of cattle bred and fed in the vast pampas make the country famous for its high-quality beef. But for President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, such agriculture is the source of large sums of government revenue. While many countries like the United States subsidize their respective agricultural industries, Argentina imposes steep export taxes. The Kirchner government taxes soybeans at a rate of 35 percent, often leaving farmers to make a net profit of only a few cents on the dollar. Such policies force Argentine agricultural groups and their supporters into frequent confrontations with the Kirchners and their allies. As farmers suffer from the current economic conditions and the historic droughts of early 2009, the two sides are once again facing off in a political battle. The unprecedented situation may result in the concessions for which the farmers have long waited, but it also may hold Kirchner's political fate and the government's fiscal stability in the balance. The two sides fought a similar battle in the summer of 2008, and set the tone for the relationship between the then six-month President Kirchner and the farmers. Kirchner, with the support of her husband, had planned to raise tax rates as high as 50 percent to finance ambitious public works projects. But the proposal divided the country and members of the Argentine Congress. Rural residents and upper-middle class urbanites alike took to the street to protest the Kirchners, banging pots, pans, and kitchenware in signature Argentine expression of civil discontent. When it finally came to a vote in the Congress, it was Kirchner's Vice-President, Julio Cabos, who cast the deciding vote against her. Today the world economic downturn is exacerbating the farmers' already difficult situation. Commodity prices are down significantly worldwide, with the price of soybeans down over 40 percent from July 2008 prices in early 2009. In the span of a few months, nearly six years of price increases were undone to the detriment of Argentine farmers and of the government, which depends on tax revenue from those commodity sales. And as it looks increasingly likely that Argentina will fail to pay off its growing debts, the agricultural troubles are planting the seeds of disaster. It is not just the government coffers that have dried up. Exacerbating the problem are the record droughts--the country's worst in more than 70 years--that plagued Argentina in early 2009. With severe lack of water, farmers helplessly watched their crops yellow, wither, and die in the typically fertile pampas farmland. …


Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) are adaptable generalist predators whose diet includes commercial fish species such as cod. Consumption by the seals may reduce the size of some fish stocks or have an adverse effect on stock recovery programmes, especially because predation may trap sparse prey populations in a "predator pit". To assess the likely impact of such effects, it is important to know how consumption and consequent predation mortality respond to the changing availability of prey. We present a model of grey seal consumption as a function of the availability of multiple prey types [a Multi-Species Functional Response (MSFR)]. We fit this MSFR to data on seal diet and prey availability (based on the overlap between the distributions of predators and prey). Bayesian methodology was employed to account for uncertainties in both dependent and independent variables, improve estimation convergence by the use of informative priors, and allow the estimation of missing data on prey availability. Both hyperbolic (Type 2) and sigmoidal (Type 3) functional response models were fitted to the data and the Type 3 model was clearly favoured during model selection, supporting the conclusion that seal–prey encounter rates change with prey abundance (sometimes referred to as "switching"). This suggests that some prey species may be vulnerable to predator pit effects. The fitted model reproduced contrasts in diet observed between different regions/years and, importantly, added information to the prior distributions of prey abundance in areas where the availability of some prey species (such as sandeels) was not known. This suggests that the diet of predators such as seals could provide information about the abundance and distribution of prey in areas that are not covered by fisheries and research surveys.


To my brother and mother, Todor and Veselina Mikov for always loving and standing by me. Abstract This thesis investigates on clinical applicability of a novel sensing technology in the areas of postural steadiness and stroke assessment. The mechanically simple Distributive Tactile Sensing approach is applied to extract motion information from flexible surfaces to identify parameters and disorders of human movement in real time. The thesis reports on the design, implementation and testing of smart platform devices which are developed for discrimination applications through the use of linear and non-linear data interpretation techniques and neural networks for pattern recognition. In the thesis mathematical models of elastic plates, based on finite element and finite difference methods, are developed and described. The models are used to identify constructive parameters of sensing devices by investigating sensitivity and accuracy of Distributive Tactile Sensing surfaces. Two experimental devices have been constructed for the investigation. These are a sensing floor platform for standing applications and a sensing chair for sitting applications. Using a linear approach, the sensing floor platform is developed to detect centre of pressure, an important parameter widely used in the assessment of postural steadiness. It is demonstrated that the locus of centre of pressure can be determined with an average deviation of 1.05mm from that of a commercialised force platform in a balance application test conducted with five healthy volunteers. This amounts to 0.4% of the sensor range. The sensing chair used neural networks for pattern recognition, to identify the level of motor impairment in people with stroke through performing functional reaching task while sitting. The clinical studies with six real stroke survivors have shown the robustness of the sensing technique to deal with a range of possible motion in the reaching task investigated. ii The work of this thesis demonstrates that the novel Distributive Tactile Sensing approach is suited to clinical and home applications as screening and rehabilitation systems. Mechanical simplicity is a merit of the approach and has potential to lead to versatile low-cost units.


Statin use has been advocated to prevent atheromatous complications in lupus patients and may be widely prescribed for these patients in future. Statin-induced lupus has also been described, though the risk is not confirmed. The goal of this study was to detect a safety signal regarding statin-induced lupus. We conducted a case/non-case study in the French PharmacoVigilance Database from January 2000 until December 2010. Cases were drug-induced lupus reports. Non-cases were all reports of other adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Exposure to statins at the time of ADR was screened in each report. Among 235,147 ADR reports, 232 were drug-induced lupus. Exposure to statins was present in 17 (7.3%) cases and in 10,601 (4.7%) non-cases. Reporting odds ratio (ROR) for statin exposure associated with lupus erythematosus was 1.67 (95% confidence interval 1.02–2.74). The ROR was > 1 for each statin but fluvastatin. This pharmacoepidemiological study suggests a link between statin exposure and lupus induction. The benefit-to-risk ratio of statin therapy in lupus patients should be evaluated through randomized controlled trials.


Candid Science IV: Conversations with Famous Physicists contains 36 interviews with well-known physicists, including 20 Nobel laureates, Templeton Prize winners, Wolf Prize winners, and other luminaries. Physics has been one of the determining fields of science in the past 100 years, playing a conspicuous role not only in science but also in world politics and economics. These in-depth conversations provide a glimpse into the greatest achievements of physics during the past few decades, featuring stories of the discoveries, and showing the human drama behind them. The greatest physicists are brought into close human proximity as if readers were having a conversation with them. The interviewees span a wide range of scientists, from such early giants as Eugene Wigner and Mark Oliphant to members of the youngest generation such as the 2001 Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle. The list includes famous personalities of our time, such as Steven Weinberg, Leon Lederman, Norman Ramsey, Edward Teller, John Wheeler, John Polkinghorne, and Freeman Dyson.


Abstract Collaborative archaeology is a growing field within the discipline, albeit one that is rarely analyzed. Although collaborative approaches are varied and diverse, we argue that they can all share a single methodological framework. Moreover, we suggest that collaborative archaeology projects can be evaluated to determine the variety among projects and to identify the elements of engaged research. We provide two case studies emphasizing project evaluation: (1) inter-project evaluation of community-engagement in British Columbia archaeology and (2) intra-project evaluation of co-management archaeology projects in Western Australia. The two case studies highlight that project evaluation is possible and that a single framework can be applied to many different types of projects. Collaborative archaeology requires analysis and evaluation to determine what facilitates engagement to further the discipline and to create better connections between archaeologists and community members. The discussed case studies illustrate two shared methods for accomplishing this. The paper argues that collaborative approaches are necessary for advancing archaeological practice.


BACKGROUND
Obsessive-compulsive behaviours are common and disabling in autistic-spectrum disorders (ASD) but little is known about how they compare with those experienced by people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

AIM
To make such a comparison.

METHOD
A group of adults with high-functioning ASD (n=40) were administered the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale and Symptom Checklist and their symptoms compared with a gender-matched group of adults with a primary diagnosis of OCD (n=45). OCD symptoms were carefully distinguished from stereotypic behaviours and interests usually displayed by those with ASD.

RESULTS
The two groups had similar frequencies of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, with only somatic obsessions and repeating rituals being more common in the OCD group. The OCD group had higher obsessive-compulsive symptom severity ratings but up to 50% of the ASD group reported at least moderate levels of interference from their symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS
Obsessions and compulsions are both common in adults with high-functioning ASD and are associated with significant levels of distress.


Although micro companies overpower the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment, generalizations are often with medium size companies, and therefore, there are many unknowns, especially when it comes to its buying behavior. Conformist studies and industry practices assume SMEs to be "normative" or "conservative" buyers; however, this hypothesis is untested. This article aims to scrutinize the reality, and proposes a unified model that rejects pre-containerization in buying behavior typologies, as well as selectiveness in terms of audience type, whether it is corporate, SME, or consumer. While replacing researchers' perceptions with the audience's, the model yields actual knowledge that can lead to audience's beliefs in lieu of the opposite, which is used to mislead stakeholders. The study shows that SMEs also buy like individuals and spend in a similar way to consumers', including not only "normative" and "conservative" but also "negligent" and "impulse" zones. From the research-implications perspective, future studies by behaviorists can explore why SMEs purchase in this way. Marketers may benefit from the finding that SMEs buy like individuals. In addition, SMEs may want to be conscious of their purchasing habits, and—utilizing the newly introduced "risk score" frontier—policymakers should assess the consequences of these habits at the macro level.


Objective N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antibody (NMDAR-Ab) encephalitis is a well-recognised clinico-immunological syndrome that presents with neuropsychiatric symptoms cognitive decline, movement disorder and seizures. This study reports the clinical features, management and neurological outcomes of paediatric NMDAR-Ab-mediated neurological disease in the UK. Design A prospective surveillance study. Children with NMDAR-Ab-mediated neurological diseases were voluntarily reported to the British Neurological Surveillance Unit (BPNSU) from November 2010 to December 2011. Initial and follow-up questionnaires were sent out to physicians. Results Thirty-one children fulfilled the criteria for the study. Eight presented during the study period giving an incidence of 0.85 per million children per year (95% CI 0.64 to 1.06); 23 cases were historical. Behavioural change and neuropsychiatric features were present in 90% of patients, and seizures and movement disorders both in 67%. Typical NMDAR-Ab encephalitis was reported in 24 children and partial phenotype without encephalopathy in seven, including predominantly psychiatric (four) and movement disorder (three). All patients received steroids, 22 (71%) received intravenous immunoglobulin, 9 (29%) received plasma exchange,and 10 (32%) received second-line immunotherapy. Of the 23 patients who were diagnosed early, 18 (78%) made a full recovery compared with only 1 of 8 (13%) of the late diagnosed patients (p=0.002, Fisher's exact test). Seven patients relapsed, with four needing additional second-line immunotherapy. Conclusions Paediatric NMDAR-Ab-mediated neurological disease appears to be similar to adult NMDAR-Ab encephalitis, but some presented with a partial phenotype. Early treatment was associated with a quick and often full recovery.


STUDY OBJECTIVE
To determine the appropriate chemotherapy regimen for inoperable, chemotherapy-naïve non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in elderly patients.

SETTING
National teaching hospital in Taiwan.

DESIGN
We retrospectively analyzed data from our clinical trials for a total of 270 patients and compared them with the data from other studies, addressing the elderly in particular or providing subgroup information on age, to analyze the feasibility of current chemotherapy options for elderly patients and possible alternative approaches.

RESULTS
The response rates and median survival times of fit elderly patients with NSCLC who were receiving appropriate new anticancer drugs for chemotherapy, including single-agent or combination treatment, were no worse than those of younger patients, and the response rates may have been even higher in the elderly patients, while survival time was slightly poorer in this group. The risk of adverse side effects, such as myelosuppression and peripheral neuropathy, may be higher in elderly patients, who also visit the hospital more frequently. Some items on the lung cancer symptom scale for elderly patients were rated as being slightly worse than those for younger patients after chemotherapy.

CONCLUSION
Advanced age alone should not preclude chemotherapy. New single-agent drugs, and non-platinum-based or platinum-based doublets, can all be considered as appropriate treatment for selected fit elderly patients with advanced NSCLC.


Several researchers and practitioners have claimed that economic value added (EVA) is superior to traditional accounting measures in driving shareholder value. Other researchers have refuted these claims by supplying data in support of traditional accounting indicators such as earnings per share (EPS), dividends per share (DPS), return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). This study endeavoured to analyse the results of companies listed on the Securities Exchange, using market value added (MVA) as a proxy for shareholder value.The results suggest stronger relationships between MVA and cash flow from operations. The study also found very little correlation between MVA and EPS, or between MVA and DPS, concluding that the credibility of share valuations based on earnings or dividends must be questioned.


The integrin chain alphaV, expressed in association with beta3, by cells of the megakaryocytic/thrombocytic and endothelial lineages is thought to play an important role in angiogenesis. alphaVbeta3 expression by endothelial cells is not constitutive but induced by various stimuli in avian and human models. Here the developmental pattern of alphaVbeta3 expression was analysed in the chick embryo by immunocytochemistry, using a specific monoclonal antibody. On day 2 of development alphaVbeta3 expression was restricted to rare cells in the blood stream, in the embryo proper and in the yolk sac blood islands. AlphaVbeta3 expression by endothelial cells became detectable on day 3 and was restricted to the dorsal aorta. Interestingly it was absent from the intra-aortic hemopoietic clusters (E3.5) which, as we have showed previously, express the alphaIIbbeta3 integrin and display progenitor potentialities. However the endothelium underlying intra-embryonic hemopoietic clusters expressed this integrin. In contrast E6-7 para-aortic hemopoietic foci contained numerous alphaVbeta3 positive cells. Both alphaVbeta3 and alphaIIbbeta3 were expressed in these latter hemopoietic sites, while alphaVbeta3 was still selectively expressed by the aortic endothelium until E6. Thereafter, at E7 the pulmonary artery also expressed it. Since alphaIIbbeta3 is expressed by avian and murine multilineage hemopoietic progenitors, we then studied the hemopoietic potentialities of alphaVbeta3/alphaIIbeta3 double positive cells from embryonic bone marrow differentiating in vitro in erythro-myeloid conditions. Thrombocytic, erythroid and myeloid progenitor potentialities were found within the cell population expressing both beta3 integrins.