The success of a solder paste jet printer is based on an uninterrupted flow of fluid, specifically dense fluid suspensions, through a series of ducts inside the printing head. It is well known that the flow of dense suspensions is prone to jamming and sedimentation effects, both of which could entail detrimental failure modes in the printing heads. A thorough understanding of the fluid dynamics of suspensions as they flow through ducts and connections is of utmost importance. The purpose of this study is to propose a novel simulation framework and to show that it captures the main effects such as mass flow and partial jamming in a cylindrical duct test configuration. The granular suspension is a generic solder paste with solder particles
immersed in a flux.

The simulations are performed in the multi-phase flow solver IBOFlow. A two fluid model is used for the granular suspension and the discretization is done an Euler-Euler framework. The averaged momentum equations from Enwald et al. (1996) are solved together with the common continuity equation generating a shared pressure field. Explicit constitutive equations for the interfacial momentum transfer and particle pressure are employed. To capture the shear thinning effects of the non-Newtonian suspensions the standard Carreau rheology model is used.

To study how the fluid flow affects the local volume fraction and partial jamming in the duct, simulations are performed for different applied pressure drops ranging from one to five bars. For both particle pressure models, the resulting mean bulk velocities are compared with experiments with good agreement, and partial jamming is observed. Hence, it is concluded that the proposed framework is suitable to model and simulate the granular suspension in a micro fluid contraction.


Intervention studies indicate that children's childcare experiences can be leveraged to support the development of executive functioning (EF). The role of more normative childcare experiences is less clear. Increasingly, theory and empirical work suggest that individual differences in children's physiological stress systems may be associated with meaningful differences in the way they experience these early environments. Using data from a large population-based sample of predominantly low-income rural families, we tested the degree to which children's childcare experiences--quantity, quality, and type--in the first 3 years of life predicted emerging EF. Moreover, we examined whether these effects varied as a function of children's basal cortisol levels in infancy and toddlerhood--an indicator of hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis stress physiology. Our results showed that higher quality care predicted more effective EF at 48 months, irrespective of quantity or type. This relation did not vary as a function of children's early cortisol levels. Attending greater hours of care per week was also related to EF; however--consistent with theory--the positive association between spending more time in childcare and more positive EF extended only to children with low levels of basal cortisol at 7 or 24 months of age. Attending center-based care was unassociated with EF.


We study model-driven statistical arbitrage strategies in U.S. equities. Trading signals are generated in two ways: using Principal Component Analysis and using sector ETFs. In both cases, we consider the residuals, or idiosyncratic components of stock returns, and model them as a meanreverting process, which leads naturally to "contrarian" trading signals. The main contribution of the paper is the back-testing and comparison of market-neutral PCAand ETFbased strategies over the broad universe of U.S. equities. Back-testing shows that, after accounting for transaction costs, PCA-based strategies have an average annual Sharpe ratio of 1.44 over the period 1997 to 2007, with a much stronger performances prior to 2003: during 2003-2007, the average Sharpe ratio of PCA-based strategies was only 0.9. On the other hand, strategies based on ETFs achieved a Sharpe ratio of 1.1 from 1997 to 2007, but experience a similar degradation of performance after 2002. We introduce a method to take into account daily trading volume information in the signals (using "trading time" as opposed to calendar time), and observe significant improvements in performance in the case of ETF-based signals. ETF strategies which use volume information achieve a Sharpe ratio of 1.51 from 2003 to 2007. The paper also relates the performance of mean-reversion statistical arbitrage strategies with the stock market cycle. In particular, we study in some detail the performance of the strategies during the liquidity crisis of the summer of 2007. We obtain results which are consistent with Khandani and Lo (2007) and validate their "unwinding" theory for the quant fund drawndown of August 2007.


The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has become a major threat to public health. The increased use of antibiotics has selected for the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes between organisms from different species and different genera. There is a large body of evidence that the indigenous microbiota can act as a reservoir of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However little is known about the molecular basis for this in bacteria from the oral cavity. Therefore the aim of this work was to determine the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes in the cultivable oral microbiota. Saliva and plaque samples were taken from each of 60 healthy adults who had not taken any antibiotics during the previous three months. Each sample was plated onto antibiotic-containing media to quantitate and identify antibiotic-resistant strains. All of the individuals harboured bacteria resistant to erythromycin, gentamicin, vancomycin and tetracycline. Only 4 individuals (7%) did not have any cultivable bacteria resistant to amoxycillin. Oral bacteria resistant to gentamicin were the most commonly isolated (constituting 23% of total cultivable oral bacteria) followed by erythromycin (18% of the total viable count), vancomycin (16% of the total viable count), tetracycline (10% of the total viable count) and amoxycillin (4% of the total viable count). Multiply-resistant bacteria were found with 55% of tetracycline-resistant isolates being resistant also to erythromycin and 6% resistant also to both amoxycillin and erythromycin. The most prevalent genes encoding tetracycline and erythromycin resistance were tet(M), tet(W), tet(0), and mef and erm(B) respectively. In some cases, tet(M) and ermB were contained within a Tn/5 5-like conjugative transposon and could be co-tranferred to Enterococcus faecalis. Finally the nature of the genetic support for one of the tet(W) genes, was determined and found to be flanked by two transposases belonging to two different families of insertion sequences (IS30 and IS256). This element was highly unstable in E. coli. This study showed that antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes are present in the oral microbiota and that oral bacteria are likely to play an important role in the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes.


In collaborative filtering recommender systems, users cannot get involved in the choice of their peer group. It leaves users defenseless against various spamming or "shilling" attacks. Other social Web-based systems, however, allow users to self-select trustworthy peers and build a network of trust. We argue that users self-defined networks of trust could be valuable to increase the quality of recommendation in CF systems. To prove the feasibility of this idea we examined how similar are interests of users connected by a self-defined relationship in a social Web system, CiteuLike. Interest similarity was measured by similarity of items and meta-data they share. Our study shows that users connected by a network of trust exhibit significantly higher similarity on items and meta-data than non-connected users. This similarity is highest for directly connected users and decreases with the increase of distance between users.


Background: Cassia obtusifolia is a traditional Chinese medicine used in lowering blood lipids, but the specific compounds and mechanisms responsible for this action are still unknown. Anthraquinones are the primary active components of C. obtusifolia, among which 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone (DHAQ) exhibits strong biological activities. Aim: The effects of DHAQ on blood lipids and the underlying mechanisms were investigated in this study to provide a reliable experimental basis for the development and application of C. obtusifolia. Materials and Methods: Mice were fed with a high-fat diet for the establishment of a hyperlipidemia mouse model. After the establishment of the model, the mice were intragastrically administered with 5 mg/kg DHAQ once daily, continuously for 6 weeks. Then, the mice were weighed; their lipid/body ratios were calculated; their serum levels of triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) were measured. TG and TC contents in the liver tissue samples were measured by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction was performed to detect the levels of 7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) and 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGCR) mRNA, and Western blot analysis was performed to detect the expression levels of HMGCR and CYP7A1 proteins in the liver tissue of mice. Results: Body weights and lipid/body ratios of the hyperlipidemic mice were significantly reduced, and the levels of TG, TC, and LDL-C were significantly reduced in the serum samples. However, the HDL-C content in the serum was significantly increased, and TG and TC contents in the liver tissue were significantly reduced in the DHAQ-treated hyperlipidemic mice. In addition, the expression of CYP7A1 and HMGCR proteins was respectively increased and decreased significantly in the liver tissue of the hyperlipidemic mice. Conclusion: DHAQ revealed a hypolipidemic effect in hyperlipidemia mice fed on a high-fat diet, which may be related to the regulation of cholesterol metabolism in the liver.


The number of skin cancers continues to rise, accounting for approximately 40% of all cancers reported in the United States and approximately 9,500 deaths per year. Studies have shown reactive oxygen species (ROS) type free radicals are linked to skin cancer and aging. Therefore, it is important for us to identify agents that have anti-oxidant properties to protect skin against free radical damage. The purpose of this research is to investigate the anti-oxidant properties of bisabolol, silymarin, and ectoin that are components from chamomile, milk thistle, and halophilic bacteria, respectively. We measured the ability of bisabolol, silymarin, and ectoin to modulate the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced upregulation of ROS free radicals in normal human skin fibroblasts in vitro. Using a flow cytometry-based assay, we demonstrated that varying concentrations of these natural components were able to inhibit upregulation of H2O2-generated free radicals in human skin fibroblasts in vitro. Our results indicate components of chamomile, milk thistle, and halophilic bacteria exhibit anti-oxidant capabilities and warrant further study in clinical trials to characterize their anti-cancer and anti-aging capabilities.


Ring Opening of Sterically Crowded Spirocyclic 2,S-Dihydro-1,3,4-thiadiazoles by Cycloaliphatic Secondary Amines At room temperature, the spirocyclic 2,5-dihydro-1,3,4-thiadiazole 3 reacted with cyclic secondary amines 6 via ring opening to give N-alkylidene-hydrazones of type 7 (Scheme 2). A reaction mechanism via a base-catalyzed transformation of the dihydrothiadiazole ring to the corresponding thiolate 19 and the intermediate thioaldehyde 21 is proposed in Scheme 6. An analogous reaction occurred with the mixture of the dispiro compounds 4/5 and morpholine (6a) or azetidine (6d), leading to a mixture of isomeric dihydrazones 8 and 9 (Scheme 3).The structure of the 'symmetrical' isomer 8a was established by X-ray crystallography. In addition to 8a and 9a, the thiirane 10a (Scheme 3 ) was isolated as a minor product.


Current informed consent practices conform to the informed consent paradigm (ICP). Our intention is finally to promote patient autonomy through the provision of information intended to remove the information (i.e. power) differential between doctor and patient. ICP is fundamentally flawed, since it is impossible to comprehensively and explicitly inform. A fundamental problem is our reliance on the container-conduit metaphor of informing. As a linguistic act, this metaphor conceptualises the process of informing as passive, when in reality informing and consequent sense-making are parts of an individualised, personal and active process. The difficulties of the ICP are discussed, as are possible alternative strategies (reverting to paternalism, retaining the illusion of autonomy, and de-linking informing/consent, or the moral and legal aspects of consent). Alternative models are also discussed (e.g. Manson and O'Neill's notion of informed consent as a transaction). Concluding suggestions include drawing on an ethics of responsibility, incorporating the notion of informed consent as a transaction, debating the issues raised here and promoting the ethical empowerment of practising doctors.


The selection of ICT service providers are among many of the challenges in building networks (intranets and extensions to the Internet) due to the high investment on equipment (CAPEX) and on operational costs (OPEX). This thesis proposes a Multi-Criteria Decision Method based decision support framework via the deployment of the Analytical Hierarchy Process method that can be used to improve selection and evaluation practices. The work deals explicitly with the role of ICT in supporting the corporate mission, and goals, in building the organization value network. It helps also in planning and defining the access to the Internet and strategies for making critical ICT related decisions. A specific study, The Government Electronic Network Project in Mozambique, has been used as a use case for the developed model and for validating the framework. The thesis also covers aspects related to the broader eGovernment process in Mozambique, such as the architecture, the principles, and the associated IT protocols and standards required for the interoperability of the respective eGovernment systems. The framework and recommendations are expected to contribute in assisting organizations to increase the usage and improve the management of IT platforms and services. In addition, they should help in bettering the systematization of the input data in specifying the requirements for the services offered by Internet service providers. The model should bring to the attention of decision-makers many factors that are currently neither considered nor are central to the selection processes. Furthermore, the decision-makers can use the framework in explaining and describing the investment decisions behind ICT projects in the context of the organization value network.


The probability that two random elements commute in a finite group G is the quotient of the number of commuting elements and |G|2. Consider a set S consisting of all subsets of commuting elements of G of size two that are in the form (a,b) where a and b commute and lcm(|a|,|b|)=2. The probability that a group element fixes S is the number of orbits under the group action on S divided by |S|. In this paper, the probability that a group element fixes a set S under regular action is found for metacyclic 2-groups of negative type of nilpotency class two and of class at least three. The results obtained from the sizes of the orbits are then applied to the generalized conjugacy class graph.


In the past decade or so, a small but rapidly growing band of literary scholars, theorists, and critics has been working to integrate literary study with Darwinian social science. --Joseph Carroll, Literary Darwinism Ian McEwan is among the most honored of today's novelists. Three of his novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, a fourth, Amsterdam, won that award, and some of his other works have won yet other prestigious ones--the Whitbread Award by The Child in Time and the Somerset Maugham Award by his story collection First Love, Last Rites. His most recent novel, Saturday (2005), made almost every list of best books of the year and has been a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Of his generation of novelists, he has emerged as among the most consistently productive and critically appreciated. While McEwan's works exhibit rather traditional realist techniques, they bring something new to contemporary fiction in the author's attaching himself to a new Darwinism, that emerging mode of philosophy and interpretation claiming roots in cognitive science associated with brain science, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary social science. Quite overtly, McEwan has allied himself with others who work the same field either as literary scholars and critics or as scientists in disciplines associated with evolutionary biology. For instance, in a Salon interview with Dwight Garner associated with the publication of his seventh novel, Enduring Love (1998), McEwan has said that his own "particular intellectual hero" is the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. Moreover, in McEwan's acknowledgments appended to that novel and intended, apparently, to contextualize it, Wilson's name shows up, along with titles of three of his books--Biophilia, On Human Nature, and The Diversity of Life. It is not surprising, then, given McEwan's critical prestige and his avowed thematic intentions, that he has become the face of the new Darwinism in fiction. If there were any doubt remaining regarding his ideological placement, it will be allayed by McEwan's appearance in a new book called The Literary Animal, in an essay entitled "Literature, Science, and Human Nature." There, McEwan addresses some of the issues the new Darwinism foregrounds in the interface of fields--literature and science--conventionally regarded as offering so radical a dualism. Despite--or because of--McEwan's avowed interests, that novel Enduring Love has become something of a lightning rod for interest, pro and con, in neo- or "Ultra"-Darwinism. For instance, sociologists Paul Higgs and Ian Rees Jones have noted that the "fact that a novel such as Enduring Love can deal with, and to a considerable degree, sympathize with evolutionary psychology demonstrates the impact of what Steven Jay Gould has called 'Ultra-Darwinism.'" From the side of medical sociology, these researchers worry that "evolutionary psychology ultimately reduces the social to the biological in ways that generally preclude further analysis of the complexity of social relations" (27). From the side of literary criticism, however, there are other issues (less important, of course, in the great scheme of things) that may trouble one's sleep about the new Darwinists if not neo-Darwinism itself. One is whether it is a simple matter to incorporate science in literary criticism. Some critics apparently believe that merely claiming to use a scientific method is sufficient to make it so. As Jean Jacques Weber wonders, in a review of cognitive poetics, if "cognitive poeticians rely upon a new terminology rooted in cognitive science, does this confer a scientific character upon their analyses?" (519). The answer is, not necessarily. A writer as prestigious as the novelist A. S. Byatt (perhaps most famous for Possession) may well illustrate the slippage between "applying" science and simply "doing" literary criticism "invoking" science. In a recent critical essay, Byatt links a discussion of Donne to brain science as outlined in a work by Jean-Pierre Changeux entitled L'Homme neuronal. …


Anomalies are unusual and significant changes in a network's traffic levels, which can often span multiple links. Diagnosing anomalies is critical for both network operators and end users. It is a difficult problem because one must extract and interpret anomalous patterns from large amounts of high-dimensional, noisy data.In this paper we propose a general method to diagnose anomalies. This method is based on a separation of the high-dimensional space occupied by a set of network traffic measurements into disjoint subspaces corresponding to normal and anomalous network conditions. We show that this separation can be performed effectively by Principal Component Analysis.Using only simple traffic measurements from links, we study volume anomalies and show that the method can: (1) accurately detect when a volume anomaly is occurring; (2) correctly identify the underlying origin-destination (OD) flow which is the source of the anomaly; and (3) accurately estimate the amount of traffic involved in the anomalous OD flow.We evaluate the method's ability to diagnose (i.e., detect, identify, and quantify) both existing and synthetically injected volume anomalies in real traffic from two backbone networks. Our method consistently diagnoses the largest volume anomalies, and does so with a very low false alarm rate.


Introduction: Non-prescription medication is relatively safe but not risk free and can lead to serious adverse drug events if used without attention to the information printed on the label. Medication literacy includes the ability to read and comprehend medication label. The aim of the study was to describe health literacy focused on the ability to read cold medication label and identify factors that associated with it among patient with hypertension in Sleman District, Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire was developed and validated. In-person interviews include a literacy assessment which was conducted among 109 respondents in five primary health centers in Sleman District, Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia, during September –December 2017. A convenience sampling technique was used. Respondents were asked to read information printed on the cold medication label. The correct information was assessed and categorized. Descriptive statistic and Chi-square test were used in the analysis. Results: Most of the respondents read the name of medicine and indications correctly. More than half of the respondents mispronounced to active ingredients (69.7%). Respondents were not able to read dosage (74.3%), frequency of intake (54.1%), side effects (83.5%), and contraindications (89.0%). There were 85.3% respondents categorized into illiterate. The correct sentence: Education level was associated with the ability to read medication label (P = 0.038). Conclusion: This study found that ability patients on reading medication label need to be improved. Information on medication label majority printed on small font size caused patients inability to read medication label correctly. Key strategies to improve readability of medication labels should be developed.


Despite well-documented evidence of the potential physical impacts of flooding, research has so far neglected to fully investigate the manner by which different aspects of decision making at community level could influence resilience to flooding. This research attempts to investigate this gap in knowledge by exploring ways in which a better understanding of the expectations associated with social responsibility could potentially increase community resilience. There is particular emphasis upon the interrelationships between social responsibility and the decision making process. This paper sets the context for this investigation and proposes a methodology that attempts to not only understand how key community groups perceive their own levels of social responsibility to the community, but also what level of social responsibility they believe the other groups should have. It is argued that community groups may not even be aware that they are failing to meet their expected level of social responsibility. Therefore, the gaps discovered by this methodology between a group's own perception and how they are perceived by others would highlight barriers to community resilience. An argument for research to better understand resilience at the level of the community by exploring the individual and interconnected decision making of householders, small businesses and policy makers, is further elaborated. The arguments presented here will be of interest to community leaders and provide considerations for built environment professionals embarking on the development of resilience measures, with considerations suggested for future research within this field.


The dual-beam (pump, probe) time-resolved Z-scan technique is used to study the thermal changes in refractive index that are due to one- and two-photon absorption in organic solvents. The time resolution enabled us to select a pure thermal signal and to measure absolute variations as small as 10−6 that were due to heating. Gaussian approximation was used for the pump and probe beams to fit experimental and calculated model dependencies.


Research on the Gospel of Thomas in the last quarter of a century has made it clear that the origins of this apocryphal gospel cannot be satisfactorilly explained from a single point of view. The author thus suggests that Thomas be understood as a growing collection of sayings which originated in various places and languages, with some logia being added to the collection after its inception. While this suggestion is by no means new, there have been few extensive attempts to study Thomas from such a presupposition. Due to the need for a control group, only the logia which have rather close parallels to the Synoptic gospels are investigated. Verbal and textual affinities are noted between these logia and the earliest texts of the Gospels (the Coptic versions, the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac version, and other early versions and Christian writings). Various degrees of probable contact between each logion and these texts are assigned. The results of this study give some idea as to the place of origin, the original language, and the approximate date at which certain logia were added to the collection. Those sayings which show a closer affinity to the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac version, or other Syrian writings may be considered as having been added to the sayings collection as it circulated in its earliest form, possibly in a Semitic language. Other logia which show no signs of awareness of a Syrian reading, but which are similar to variants found in the Coptic versions or other Egyptian texts, may well have originated in Egypt and been added to the collection at a later stage. These results, however, must await verification by those who might approach Thomas from related, but different, perspectives.


This Report illustrates the team training system presentation as a web based graphs.The research is done based on the presentation of web information stored in database into the graphicalform. Ice-Faces with SQL database at back end data source is the way to demonstrate the implementationof graph system. By having research and comparisons it is found suitably best the Graph generating systemfor analysis of C3fire records.Several models for graphs are been selected for the illustration of best visualization of the demography andat last one with best demonstration of result is selected.The information which was displayed in tables stored in database is now viewable in the graphical format.The implementation was done by modifying and embedding codes in the previous version and successfullyimplementation is done. The graphs are displayed by the values stored in database and dynamicallyupdated as the values in the database are changed. There are four graphs finally selected and implementedthat shows the data, which are pie, bar, line and cluster bar graphs representing data in best viewableform.


Magnetic reconnection is one of the key processes in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas: it is the opposite of a dynamo. Looking at energy, a dynamo transforms kinetic energy in magnetic energy while reconnection takes magnetic energy and returns it to its kinetic form. Most plasma processes at their core involve first storing magnetic energy accumulated over time and then releasing it suddenly. We focus here on this release. A key concept in analysing reconnection is that of the separatrix, a surface (line in 2D) that separates the fresh unperturbed plasma embedded in magnetic field lines not yet reconnected with the hotter exhaust embedded in reconnected field lines. In kinetic physics, the separatrices become a layer where many key processes develop. We present here new results relative to the processes at the separatrices that regulate the plasma flow, the energization of the species, the electromagnetic fields and the instabilities developing at the separatrices.


Based on documents recently declassified by the Brazilian Truth Commission, this article investigates the economic and diplomatic relations between Brazil and Chile during the last years of Salvador Allende's government and the first days of the Chilean military dictatorship. Despite the common sense notion that the United Stated was the one and only supporter of the Chilean September 11, the Brazilian influence was also instrumental to the overthrowing of Allende and to the confirmation of a military dictatorship in Chile. This article looks at two central figures of this process : the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Roberto Campos, and the Brazilian Ambassador in Santiago, Antonio da Câmara Canto. One of the most influential Brazilian economists, Campos disagreed with the state-based policies that characterized the Brazilian military regime. Instead of nationalization and price control, Campos believed in the strength of the free market and private institutions, a perspective similar to the one implemented by the Chicago Boys in Chile. Câmara Canto's anti-communist ideas were central to his fight against the Allende regime and support to the dictatorship. These two figures are part of a much larger influence that, 40 years after the Chilean coup, begins to be investigated.


This paper is written from the Standpoint of a participant observer and forms an exploratory case study examining the ethical dimension of commercial mediation in the context of its professionalisation. It brings together a series of papers written between April 2001 and June 2002. They are presented here in a revised form and different order as chapters oscillating between the changing context of commercial mediation and a discussion of particular sociological and ethical concepts.
The paper attempts to identify the theoretical territory of the study of professions and professionalisation and the ethical perspectives and moral categories which describe the territory. It addresses the problems encountered in attempts to develop an abstract theory of professions which has generally been polarised between attribute and processual approaches. Issues which emerge include conflicts of professional roles arising from different understandings of what a profession is for, the duty of a profession to serve the public good, the legitimacy of professional authority and the accountability of Professionals. These issues are often expressed as a tension between the ideal of autonomy of a profession and consumer demand for accountability; a tension between the principles of service on which a profession is said to be ethically based and an ethics of responsibility demanded by the market. At the same time, the economic
context in which professions emerge and develop gives rise to ethical considerations about the effects of the dominant economic System and the function of trust as an element of social capital.
The approach in this paper is to take professionalisation as a dynamic and historical concept which involves both an ideological and ethical strategy in the development of an occupational group. It suggests that ethical perception in Professionals could develop more practically by freeing the conceptualisation of professions from making distinctions
in ethical roles between professions and business based on the oppositions of shared and self interest. The relevant emphasis rests not in what Professionals do and how long they take to learn to do it but who Professionals are as persons; that is, the difference between being a professional and being professional. But clearly professional work does not lie in just 'being'. The degree to which a professional is required in commercial mediation is one that the concept of the trusted mediator must account for. Using this concept to develop an ethical framework, the paper finally discusses policy implications regarding the professionalisation of commercial mediation.


Social engineering refers to a number of techniques that are used to exploit human vulnerabilities and manipulate people into breaking normal security procedures. Evidence suggests that this problem is rapidly increasing and cyber criminals are using a magnitude of different avenues to reach their intended victims. This paper presents an assessment of people's vulnerabilities in relation to personal and sensitive data. The experiment used an online web survey which comprised of both direct and non-direct social engineering attack scenarios. In addition the survey measured and assessed the level of risk that social networking users are currently exposing themselves to. The results showed that respondent's security awareness levels had improved on previous studies but significant problems still existed with user's abilities to detect and appropriately respond to social engineering threats.


The present study aimed at developing a scale for diagnosing instructional strategies to be used to determine the instructional strategies applied in the instructional process. In the process of the scale development, first the related literature was reviewed. Following this, field experts were asked for their views, and the instructional activities to be carried out in the instructional process were identified. Afterwards, considering the similar and different features of the instructional activities, they were grouped by associating them with instructional strategies. The draft scale, which made up of a total of 291 items in the beginning, was exposed to a four-phase application process prior to the actual application. At the end of this process, it was transformed into a 70-item scale applied to 614 home teachers and field teachers. For the content validity of the scale, field experts were asked for their views. Data collected were analyzed with the methods of principle components analysis and exploratory factor analysis. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis conducted to determine the construct validity of the scale, the factor load of each item in the scale was found over .30. In order to determine the factors involving the items in the scale, the orthogonal rotation was applied with the Varimax technique to the data collected. The scale included two sub-scales. The rate of the factors in the sub-scale of meeting the total variance was 43% for the sub-scale of focus strategies and 62% for the sub-scale of process strategies. The value obtained by testing the internal consistency for the whole scale was found as α=.964. With respect to the item-whole scale correlational consistency, the items in the scale ranged between.406 and .816. The findings obtained in the process of developing this five-point Likert-type scale demonstrated that the scale could be used successfully in determining the nature of instructional strategies applied in the instructional process.


Context: COVID-19 has a high case fatality rate in high-risk populations and can cause severe morbidity and high healthcare resource use. Nursing home residents are a high-risk population; they live in congregate settings, often with shared rooms, and require hands-on care. Objectives: To assess state responses to the coronavirus pandemic related to nursing homes in the first half of 2020. Methods: An in-depth examination of 12 states' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes through June 2020, using publicly reported information such as government decrees, health department guidance, and news reports. Findings: No state emerged as a model of care. All states faced difficulty with limited availability of testing and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). State-level efforts to increase pay and benefits as a strategy to enable infected staff to quickly physically separate from residents were minimal, and other separation strategies depended on the ability to obtain test results rapidly and on state rules regarding accepting discharged COVID-19 patients into nursing homes. Visitor restrictions to reduce risk were ubiquitous, though based on a slim evidence-base. Limitations: The information used was limited to that which was publicly available. Implications: Overall, the results suggest that the states that handle the ongoing pandemic in nursing homes best will be those that find ways to make sure nursing homes have the resources to follow best practices for testing, PPE, separation, and staffing. Evidence is needed on visitor restrictions and trans mission, as states and their citizens would benefit from finding safe ways to relax visitor restrictions.


Abstract. A hierarchy of approximations of the force balance for the flow of grounded ice exists, ranging from the most sophisticated full Stokes (FS) formulation to the most simplified shallow ice approximation (SIA). Both are implemented in the ice flow model Elmer/Ice, and we compare them by applying the model to the East Antarctic Shirase drainage basin. First, we apply the control inverse method to infer the distribution of basal friction with FS. We then compare FS and SIA by simulating the flow of the drainage basin under present-day conditions and for three scenarios 100 years into the future defined by the SeaRISE (Sea-level Response to Ice Sheet Evolution) project. FS reproduces the observed flow pattern of the drainage basin well, in particular the zone of fast flow near the grounding line, while SIA generally overpredicts the surface velocities. As for the transient scenarios, the ice volume change (relative to the constant-climate control run) of the surface climate experiment is nearly the same for FS and SIA, while for the basal sliding experiment (halved basal friction), the ice volume change is  ∼  30 % larger for SIA than for FS. This confirms findings of earlier studies that, in order to model ice sheet areas containing ice streams and outlet glaciers with high resolution and precision, careful consideration must be given to the choice of a suitable force balance.


This document outlines the evaluations conducted on the 2008 rebuilding plan for Celtic Sea and VIIj herring. Though the plan was evaluated by ICES, that evaluation was never subsequently published, nor does it appear in any ICES report. This document summarises the evaluation carried out by the Marine Institute, for ICES, and presents the independent reviews conducted on its behalf. It also evaluates the subsequent performance of the plan. The ICES advice for 2007, 2008 and 2009 has been that there should be no targeted fishing without a rebuilding plan. In 2008, the CSHMAC presented a rebuilding plan to the European Commission and Council, via the recently established Pelagic Regional Advisory Council (PRAC). The plan was not formally adopted, but the TAC for 2009 was consistent with the plan. Subsequently, in early 2009, the plan was recognised by the European Commission. The plan was developed during a series of iterations, through discussions between industry representatives and scientists, within the CSHMAC. The final plan consisted of a Harvest Control Rule (HCR), a formalised decision rule defining the level of F to be applied in future, given the current position of SSB and F relative to their reference values. The proposal was forwarded to the Pelagic Advisory Council where it was endorsed before being sent for consideration by the European authorities. The European Commission considered the plan to be worthy of being evaluated by ICES. It was adopted for TAC setting for 2009, by the European Council of Ministers and was sent for evaluation by ICES for conformity with the Precautionary Approach to Fisheries Management (PAFM).


This letter presents a combination of searches for Higgs boson pair production using up to 36.1fb − 1 of proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy √ s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The combination is performed using six analyses searching for Higgs boson pairs decaying into the b ¯ bb ¯ b , b ¯ bW + W − , b ¯ b τ + τ − , W + W − W + W − , b ¯ b γγ and W + W − γγ final states. Results are presented for non-resonant and resonant Higgs boson pair production modes. No statistically significant excess in data above the Standard Model predictions is found. The combined observed (expected) limit at 95% confidence level on the non-resonant Higgs boson pair production cross-section is 6 . 9 (10) times the predicted Standard Model cross-section. Limits are also set on the ratio ( κ λ ) of the Higgs boson self-coupling to its Standard Model value. This ratio is constrained at 95% confidence level in observation (expectation) to − 5 . 0 < κ λ < 12 . 0 ( − 5 . 8 < κ λ < 12 . 0). In addition, limits are set on the production of narrow scalar resonances and spin-2 Kaluza–Klein Randall–Sundrum gravitons. Exclusion regions are also provided in the parameter space of the habemus Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and the Electroweak Singlet Model.


Migration often leads to new transnational patterns of consumption, because migrants create new ways in which they, and their families, relate to material objects. The literature on migration and materiality has documented migrants constructing and reconstructing their identities, and creating relationships based on the acquisition of material artifacts. However, little is known about the affective component involved in the construction of migrants' houses, especially when they are unfinished. In this article I provide an ethnographic analysis of the relationship between unfinished houses, migration trajectories, familial obligations, and future aspirations of migrants and their families in Oaxaca, Mexico. Unfinished migrant houses populate the landscape of Oaxacan migrant communities as a reminder of the difficulties of migration. They also give hope to the families of migrants that dream of seeing their children return to a finished house. The house, and the process of building it, is entangled in emotions of presence and absence, success and failure, cruel optimism and hopeful aspirations. I argue that by looking at unfinished houses, and what they represent to migrants and to their families, we can expand our understanding of the relationship between undocumented migration, materiality, and the creation of multiple futures in uncertain contexts. [migration, materiality, houses, kinship, futurity ]


Dexamethasone has well-described effects to induce insulin resistance and increase insulin secretion. Herein, we examined potential contributors to the effect of dexamethasone to increase insulin secretion in rhesus macaques. Six male rhesus macaques received daily injections of either saline or dexamethasone (0.25 mg/kg i.m. for 7 days) in random order with 3 weeks between treatments. At the end of the treatment period, animals were fasted overnight and underwent a feeding study the next day, during which blood samples were taken before and for 60 min after a meal in order to assess islet hormone and incretin secretion. Dexamethasone induced marked increases in fasting plasma insulin, glucagon, leptin, and adiponectin concentrations (P<0.05). Surprisingly, the glycemic response after meal ingestion was decreased twofold during dexamethasone treatment (P<0.05). Dexamethasone-treated animals exhibited a significant increase in both insulin and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) secretion during the feeding study (P<0.05). However, glucagon-like peptide-1 secretion was significantly lower in dexamethasone-treated animals compared with controls (P<0.01). Fasting and meal-stimulated pancreatic polypeptide concentrations (an index of the parasympathetic input to the islet) did not differ between saline and dexamethasone treatments. However, the proinsulin:insulin ratio was decreased throughout the feeding study with dexamethasone treatment suggesting an improvement of β-cell function (P<0.05). In conclusion, the maintenance of euglycemia and reduction of postprandial glycemia with short-term dexamethasone treatment appears to be due to the marked elevations of fasting and meal-stimulated insulin secretion. Furthermore, increases in postprandial GIP secretion with dexamethasone treatment appear to contribute to the effect of dexamethasone treatment to increase insulin secretion.


When communities engage in risk-sharing with asymmetric information, wherein a member of a risk-sharing group is unable to verify the income and shocks experienced by the others, they are unable to achieve full smoothing of income risk (Thomas and Worrall 1990). The frictions that drive the possible negative impacts of hidden income are likely to be mediated by the relationships among a risk-sharing group's members in the social network. Using a laboratory experiment in Karnataka, India, we study the interaction of informal insurance with hidden income, hidden savings, and social networks. Hidden income significantly reduces risk sharing: transfers between partner falls by ~40% on average when income is hidden, though the effect of hidden income is mitigated when player can chose their risk-sharing partners. Among self-selected dyads, there is a strong correlation between social proximity and better risk-sharing. However, social proximity does not improve risk sharing when partners of the same distance are randomly assigned. This suggests that aspects of social networks beyond geodesic proximity matter for risk sharing when information is hidden. Finally, for pairs with low social proximity, removal of commitment on top of hidden income and savings appears to further crowd out interpersonal risk-sharing, while pairs who are closely connected via the networks appear less affected by removal of


The growth in demand for high bandwidth services has stimulated the deployment of Passive Optical Networks (PONs), directly to the home or to the kerb. In many cases, particularly extended reach PONs which may cover distances of 100 km or more [1], there is the need for low cost reach extension technologies. Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOAs) have a key role in this context, particularly because upstream traffic is commonly carried at 1.3 μm. Upstream traffic in a PON (from the Optical Network Unit, ONU to the Optical Line Terminal, OLT) is normally Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) with a wide variation in path loss arising from differences in transmission distances and splitting losses. The bursty nature of this traffic combined with a wide dynamic range of signal strength ( -15 dBm to -28 dBm-the difference between a very close ONU with a small split ratio and a distant ONU with a high split ratio), places severe demands on the burst mode receiver at the OLT. Conventional fibre amplifiers cannot adjust their gain with packet to packet variations due to their response time. Similarly, conventional SOAs suffer loss of linearity if their bias current and hence gain is rapidly reduced. The paper reports on an adjustable gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier (AGC-SOA) designed to maximize the output saturated power while adjusting gain to regulate power differences between packets without loss of linearity. Theoretical modeling predicts that this device is able to modulate gain at nanosecond rates. The analysis is validated experimentally.


I deplore and strongly condemn the terrorist bombing in downtown Jerusalem today. My heartfelt sympathies and those of the American people are with the victims of this terrible tragedy and their families. Nothing is gained through cowardly acts such as this. The deliberate murder of innocent civilians is abhorrent to all, a threat to peace, and inconsistent with the parties' signed agreements to put aside violence. Palestinian Authority Chairman Arafat must condemn this horrific terrorist attack, act now to arrest and bring to justice those responsible, and take immediate, sustained action to prevent future terrorist attacks. I urge the parties to return immediately to the cease-fire commitments they have previously made and to renew effective security cooperation so this kind of terrorism will not happen again. The United States stands ready to assist the parties in this effort, as it has in the past, but the effort must begin with the parties acting to fulfill their obligations under the Tenet work plan. The United States remains committed to implementation in all its elements of the Mitchell Committee Report, which provides a path to return to peace negotiations based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and the Madrid Conference. To get to Mitchell, the parties need to resume effective security cooperation and work together to stop terrorism and violence. I call upon the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Israel to demonstrate foresight and responsibility by choosing the path toward a better future for their people.


The composition of tree species occurring in a forest is important and can be affected by global change drivers such as climate change. To inform assessment and projection of global change impacts at broad extents, we used hierarchical cluster analysis and over 120,000 recent forest inventory plots to empirically define forest tree assemblages across the U.S., and identified the indicator and dominant species associated with each. Cluster typologies in two levels of a hierarchy of forest assemblages, with 29 and 147 groups respectively, were supported by diagnostic criteria. Groups in these two levels of the hierarchy were labeled based on the top indicator species in each, and ranged widely in size. For example, in the 29-cluster typology, the sugar maple-red maple assemblage contained the largest number of plots (30,068), while the butternut-sweet birch and sourwood-scarlet oak assemblages were both smallest (6 plots each). We provide a case-study demonstration of the utility of the typology for informing forest climate change impact assessment. For five assemblages in the 29-cluster typology, we used existing projections of changes in importance value (IV) for the dominant species under one low and one high climate change scenario to assess impacts to the assemblages. Results ranged widely for each scenario by the end of the century, with each showing an average decrease in IV for dominant species in some assemblages, including the balsam fir-quaking aspen assemblage, and an average increase for others, like the green ash-American elm assemblage. Future work should assess adaptive capacity of these forest assemblages and investigate local population- and community-level dynamics in places where dominant species may be impacted. This typology will be ideal for monitoring, assessing, and projecting changes to forest communities within the emerging framework of macrosystems ecology, which emphasizes hierarchies and broad extents.


Bringing together case studies from Kenya, Benin, Cameroon and the Philippines, this volume provides a multidisciplinary overview of the economics of natural resource management in Tropical regions, at household and village level. By comparing a wide array of climatic and economic conditions, it examines the effect of location and access to the market - as well as the importance of national policies - have on soil and water conservation. The book not only analyzes the benefits of soil and water conservation based on econometric studies, but also assesses the costs involved. In doing so it challenges commonly held assumptions about poorer community's ability to finance such measures.


Documenting the patterns and potential associated processes of ancient biotas has always been a central challenge in palaeontology. Over recent decades, intense debate has focused on the organization of dinosaur‐dominated communities, yet no general consensus has been reached on how these communities were organized in a spatial context. Here, we used analytical routines typically applied in metacommunity ecology to provide novel insights into dinosaurian distributions across the latest Cretaceous of North America. To do this, we combined fossil occurrences with functional, phylogenetic and palaeoenvironmental modelling, and adopted the perspective that more reasonable conclusions on palaeoecological reconstructions can be gained from studies that consider the organization of biotas along ecological gradients at multiple spatial scales. Our results showed that dinosaurs were restricted in range to different parts of the Hell Creek Formation, prompting the recognition of discrete and compartmentalized faunal areas during the Maastrichtian at fine‐grained scales, whereas taxa with the broadest ranges included those with narrower distributions when combining data from various geological formations across the Western Interior of North America. Although groups of dinosaurs had coincident range boundaries, their communities responded to multiple ecologically‐important gradients when compensating for differences in sampling effort. Metacommunity structures of both ornithischians and theropods were correlated with climatic barriers and potential trophic relationships between herbivores and carnivores, thereby suggesting that dinosaurian faunas were shaped by physiological constraints, limited food resources abundance, and a combination of bottom‐up and top‐down forces across multiple spatial grains and extents.


Recent research has indicated that L2 learners who carry out collaborative syntactic priming activities with trained interlocutors or their peers subsequently produce target constructions rather than interlanguage forms. However, studies to date have not explored whether certain types of syntactic priming materials are more useful for eliciting such constructions. The current study compares four collaborative syntactic priming activities in terms of their effectiveness at eliciting wh-questions with supplied auxiliary verbs. Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) university students (N = 33) carried out the activities as part of their required integrated skills English class. The learners' interaction was audio-recorded and transcribed, and the transcripts were analyzed in terms of the amount and type of wh-questions produced during each activity. Results indicate that activities with lexical repetition elicited a significantly greater proportion of target wh-questions than activities without the lexical boost. Pedagogical considerations and future research involving the design and implementation of collaborative syntactic priming activities in L2 classrooms are discussed.


Patients' recovery after surgery is one of the most important health processes in planned hospital healthcare and has a direct impact on welfare and welfare systems. Therefore, what nurses do in the immediate postoperative period is of vital importance. This thesis addresses the question of understanding how nurses work in managing post-operative pain by exploring their daily nursing practices and experiences in responding to the patient in pain within a Thai cultural context.The project applied a qualitative methodology where the local culture and its day-to-day practices of pain management were studied by using observations, focus groups, in-depth interviews and a critical incident interview approach with nurses. Informants were recruited at a public hospital in Bangkok in a surgical ward. In all, 100 hours of observations, 39 interviews and 69 descriptions of critical incidents related to nurse's pain management were gathered. The data analysis followed the principles of qualitative research.The findings showed that, although there is a clearly defined approach to pain management, the response system followed by the nurses to address patients' pain is complex and includes much lead time between assessing patients' pain and the nurses responding to the pain. Furthermore, nurses are caught in what is labeled a patient paradigm, where evidence of pain often is double- and triple-checked by scoring and recording signs that are then subject to confirmation by a third party. Underpinning this is a culture of pain management cultivated between the nurses that rests first and foremost on their own experiences and a working/professional culture where nurses offer each other practical help in urgent situations, but seldom discuss event-based strategies together. Nevertheless, when nurses described situations when they were successful in practicing pain management, they considered their own engagement and their availability of time, space and therapeutic options to be important.Keywords: Culture of nursing, Nursing in pain management, Pain assessment, Perception of pain, Pain management, Pain post-operative


The irrelevance-of -motive maxim the longstanding principle that a defendant's motives are irrelevant to criminal liability has come under attack. Critics of this maxim claim that "motives, " under any plausible conception of the term, are in fact relevant in the criminal law. According to these critics, the only way to defend the truth of the irrelevance-of -motive maxim is to render it true by definition, by defining motive as the subcategory of intentions that are irrelevant to criminal liability. This Note defends the irrelevance-of -motive maxim by applying a plausible conception of "motive" that conforms to the historical meaning of the term. With the proper definition in place, the irrelevanceof -motive maxim can be understood as stating a valid principle of criminal law, defied only by the advent of a certain kind of bias crime legislation.


The purpose of this project was to develop a specification for the minimum retroreflectivity of pavement markings in wet nighttime conditions. In order to establish this specification, the performance of four retroreflective pavement marking materials in wet-night conditions was evaluated. The performance of the pavement markings was evaluated by driver participants under simulated rain conditions using a similar protocol to studies that have already been performed at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. The performance of the markings was verified based on the participants' ability to detect the end points of the markings in both rainy and clear conditions. The conclusions from this investigation indicate the following: • The materials developed over recent years show an improved performance over those tested previously. These materials provide adequate performance through improved technology and performance. • The log-linear relationship found previously is functional for the data provided. Two models were developed. The model with no intercept provides a more constrictive boundary at low levels of retroreflectivity. • A retroreflectivity value above 250 mcd/m2/lx provides limited return in terms of detection distance. • A specification limit of 150 mcd/m2/lx will provide adequate visibility for 55 mph in dry conditions and 40 mph in wet conditions using standard dry retroreflectivity measurements, and 1 in/hr measurements for the wet conditions. This value should be the minimum maintained over the life of the marking. • The retroreflectivity specification for a white and a yellow material should be equal. • The rumble stripe showed a significant recovery time improvement over the other tested materials. This study recommends a minimum retroreflectivity of 150 mcd/m2/lx for white and yellow pavement markings in both dry and wet nighttime conditions. This level provides the Virginia Department of Transportation with the basis for establishing a performance-based specification for pavement markings.


I will suggest the need to ground one of the key arguments in David Finkelstein's book, Expression and the Inner, on some general considerations about the irreducibility of intentionality. The determination of linguistic meaning requires the determination of intentional content. I do not deny the relevance of the fact, on which Finkelstein rightly insists, that we do not normally perceive any gap between certain forms of expression and the expressed content. This is a crucial epistemic point: we do not need to interpret certain basic forms of expression. In order to show that intentional content is determined, we must also insist on the fact that our blind epistemic reactions set the limits of what should count as conceivable ways of expressing and perceiving basic intentional contents.


In the Fall of 2008, Lehman Brothers had a $35 trillion derivatives portfolio, representing about 5% of the worldwide derivatives market. It was a party to approximately one million trades, under more than 6,000 ISDA master agreements.Lehman's derivatives were not the direct cause of its failure, but its derivatives, and the growth of the derivatives markets in general, led to the assumption of outsized risks and systemic weaknesses that did facilitate the crisis.In addition to the systemic problems caused by Lehman's derivatives portfolio, derivatives have also been identified as a key source of value loss in the bankruptcy.The singular losses caused to Lehman's bankruptcy estate by Lehman's derivatives portfolio came from the safe harbors and the system of closeout netting the safe harbors support. While the safe harbors have been thoroughly studied and debated in the abstract, a close look at Lehman's experience provides important insights for the future. In particular, the largest part of Lehman's derivatives portfolio shows how financial institutions will again suffer when resolution is attempted in the traditional bankruptcy system. As such, I question the Dodd-Frank Act's professed preference for "normal" bankruptcy process over specialized insolvency regimes like the new "Orderly Liquidation Authority."And the abrupt closeout of Lehman's cleared derivatives portfolio by CME, which Lehman's examiner noted as the source of several obvious losses to the bankruptcy estate, also provides important insights, given Dodd-Frank's strong preference for central clearing going forward.This paper looks at both issues, and suggests that the continuation of the safe harbors "as is" renders chapter 11 nonviable for larger financial institutions, and recent contractual attempts to work around the safe harbors are insufficient to solve the problem, while the increased role of clearinghouses in financial institution failures will force regulators to confront difficult choices. In short, the regulators will have to balance two competing systemic risks: the risk of an unruly resolution of the financial institution, balanced against increased risk to the clearinghouse.


Most psychological studies on the learning of Chinese characters assume that children can easily analyze a character into its semantic and phonetic radicals. Rather than this, the present study explores how 17 Grade One to Three children actually went about reading and writing a number of whole characters unknown to them. The major findings are: First, the children indeed were able to make use of the semantic and phonetic radicals to infer the meaning and sound of an unknown character. Second, a major problem of the children is to erroneously use a component other than the semantic radical to make inferences about the meaning of an unknown character. Third, the children on the basis of the sound of the phonetic radical mistook an unknown character as another character homophonous to the sound. Fourth, the children less often made use of their knowledge about the semantic radicals in the task of writing an unknown character than that of reading.


Lesley E. Daigle* I. Presentation of the Issues There is an increasing awareness among those in the family violence movement of the interrelatedness of women battering and child abuse and neglect.1 Men2 who batter women pose significant risks to the emotional and physical health of children living in the home.3 The children of battered women have been shown in one study to be fifteen times more likely to be abused than children of women who are not domestic violence victims.4 In Travis County, Texas, which includes the greater Austin metropolitan area, prosecutors confirm that domestic violence occurs in families that are under investigation and involved in the court system for child abuse and neglect in significant numbers.5 Travis County's approach to the presence of domestic violence in child abuse litigation is instructional in both positive and negative aspects as a local level response to problems seen throughout the United States. The Travis County Child Protective Services (CPS) system,' like many other child welfare systems in the United States, responds to battered mothers with numerous and often conflicting efforts to address the violence in their homes. In Travis County, legal issues related to domestic violence and child abuse are resolved in different proceedings that are not coordinated in a systematic manner.7 Although the government agency responsible for child abuse investigations, Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS)-or its subdivision, CPS-trains new caseworkers on domestic violence issues, it has no official protocol for investigating or assessing for domestic violence or intervening on behalf of battered women in child abuse cases.s When the parental fitness of a battered woman is at issue, the CPS system focuses on her ability to separate from the batterer,9 often without consideration of the batterer's cooperation or an understanding of the risks that the act of separation poses for women and children.lo Battered mothers lose custody of their children, even though they have not committed a direct act of abuse or neglect, on the grounds that they have failed to protect their children from the same violence they themselves could not successfully escape.ll This article explores the need for a more coordinated community response to family violence that focuses on preserving the relationship between a nonviolent parent and a child. Indeed, assuring "that children will have frequent and continuing contact with parents who have shown the ability to act in the best interest of the child" is the official public policy of the state of Texas.l2 In terms of federal policy, the promotion of family reunification has long been held to be a prerequisite for federal funding of state CPS agencies.13 Children involved in CPS litigation often express that they wish to be reunified with their parents.14 These policy goals of reunification are consistent with that underlying reality. Keeping nonviolent parents and children together avoids the undesirable aspects of out-of-horne care. While they serve an essential function in providing safer, alternative homes for many abused children, foster homes should be considered in the best interest of the child only when used cautiously, due to the emotional stress separation from parents and a lack of permanence can cause children.l5 Foster care and group home facilities are also expensive substitutes for homes with a nonviolent parent,16 and they are not always safe placements for abused children. There have been alarming cases of child abuse and children's exposure to violence in foster homes. 7 In addition, the reunification of children with nonviolent battered mothers serves as a buffer against institutional racism and sexism. Although families involved in the CPS system come from all socioeconomic strata, people who are poor and people of color are overrepresented in the client base.ls Further, scholars challenge the gender bias of a system that holds mothers accountable for their omissions under the doctrine of failure to protect, while many fathers are not held accountable for similar omissions or for failing to be involved in their children's lives on any level. …


Sorghum and finger millet are two important cereal crops for farmers in semi-arid areas in
Eastern Africa. Both crops are traditionally cultivated for home consumption, but in recent
years market demand has increased. This offers new opportunities for smallholders to
commercialize production, which is seen as a pathway for prosperity in the dry lands. The
HOPE project aims to support smallholder commercialization in Eastern Africa.
Understanding consumption patterns for sorghum and finger millet is important for this
objective. The purpose of the consumer survey in Kenya and Tanzania was to provide an
overview of sorghum and finger millet consumption compared to maize and wheat, and to
understand reasons for consumption and non-consumption, in order to help develop
strategies to promote sorghum and finger millet consumption. In Kenya, a total of 454
consumers were interviewed. Two urban centres (Nairobi and Kisii) and two rural locations
(villages nearby selected urban locations), one each in a sorghum and finger millet
production and non-production area were selected for the survey. At each location,
consumers were interviewed at three different market outlets (supermarkets, small retail
shops and open-air markets). In addition, Nairobi was stratified into three different strata
(low, middle and high income) to capture consumption habits of different income areas of the
city. The majority of respondents in Kenya consume sorghum and finger millet on a monthly
basis. However, finger millet is more widely consumed than sorghum. For both crops, the
highest share of consumers is found in rural areas where the crop is grown. In the case of
sorghum, rural areas in non-production zones rank second, followed by urban areas in
production zones. Urban areas in non-production zones (Nairobi) have the lowest share of
sorghum consumers. For finger millet, urban areas in production zones rank second,
followed by rural areas in non-production zones. Nairobi again ranks last. In Nairobi, high
income areas have lowest share of sorghum and finger millet consumers. Maize is
consumed by almost all respondents and wheat by the vast majority and by a higher share
of respondents than sorghum and finger millet. The mean amount consumed in a month is
also highest for maize. This holds true in all settings. Wheat ranks second and finger millet
and sorghum third and fourth, respectively


The members of the insulin receptor substrate (IRS) family are docking proteins that participate in transducing signals that emanate from several different receptors. Kabuta et al. studied IRS-3 and found that it localized to the nucleus and might transactivate gene expression. Overexpression of IRS-1, IRS-2, or IRS-4 in cells resulted in the localization of these proteins in the cytoplasm or at the plasma membrane, whereas IRS-3 localized to the plasma membrane and nucleus. Deletion analysis of IRS-3 revealed that a region not well conserved in the other IRS proteins was essential for nuclear targeting. These data indicate that IRS-3 may be the only IRS protein that can shuttle to the nucleus. But what is its function there? Human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells were transfected with a Gal4 promoter-driving gene reporter and chimeras of the Gal4 DNA-binding domain fused to segments of IRS-3. Although neither the full-length IRS-3 nor an NH2-terminal portion of IRS-3 could drive expression from the gene reporter, a 200-amino acid COOH-terminal fragment of IRS-3 stimulated gene expression from the reporter plasmid. These data suggest that IRS-3 might not only function as a docking protein for signaling proteins in the cytoplasm, but that IRS-3 might also participate in activating gene expression. T. Kabuta, F. Hakuno, T. Asano, S.-I. Takahashi, Insulin receptor substrate-3 functions as transcriptional activator in the nucleus. J. Biol. Chem. 277, 6846-6851 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We present results illustrating the effects of using explicit summation terms for the r − 6 dispersion term on the interfacial properties of normal and branched alkanes. We study two all-atom force fields, the OPLS force field of Jorgensen et al. and the exponential-6 force field of Smith and co-workers. We find that the OPLS force field offers excellent agreement with experimental data for surface tension at low temperatures, while the Smith force field agrees well at lower molecular weights. Cutting off the dispersion term at a finite distance r c can have pronounced effects on interfacial properties, with as much as a 20% reduction in the measured liquid–vapour surface tension for r c = 12 Å. Our results also suggest the need for long simulation for normal alkanes, as equilibrium values are not reached for nearly 3 ns or more. Examining the effect of molecular weight on the surface tension, we find that the data for both force fields show excellent agreement with the dependence proposed in the literature.


Prior to formation of the neuromuscular junction, clusters of acetylcholine receptors (AChRs) form a band in the central region of the muscle fiber; with innervation, nascent AChRs become stabilized in the muscle membrane underlying the nerve terminal but disperse elsewhere. Agrin, a protein released from motor neurons, is involved in promoting and maintaining postsynaptic AChR clusters, but the signals that promote dispersal of AChRs in extrasynaptic regions of the muscle have remained unclear (see Xiong and Mei). Lin et al. found that cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) mutant mouse embryos showed more AChR clusters in diaphragm muscle than wild-type embryos. Moreover, at a stage at which agrin mutant mouse embryos show few AChR clusters in diaphragm muscle, pharmacological blockade of cdk5 activity in in utero agrin mutants inhibited dispersal so that many clusters were apparent, as did inactivation of the gene encoding Cdk5. The cholinergic agonist carbachol activated Cdk5 in mouse C2C12 myotube cultures and caused dispersal of AChR clusters induced by prior treatment with agrin. Both pharmacologic and genetic analysis indicated that Cdk5 was required for carbachol-induced AChR dispersal. Moreover, AChR clusters were maintained in E17.5 mice that were deficient in the acetylcholine synthetic enzyme choline acetyltransferase as well as in agrin. Thus, the authors concluded that acetylcholine, which likely diffuses further than agrin, plays a role in dispersal of extrasynaptic AChR clusters and negatively regulates formation of the neuromuscular synapse. W. Lin, B. Dominguez, J. Yang, P. Aryal, E. P. Brandon, F. H. Gage, K.-F. Lee, Neurotransmitter acetylcholine negatively regulates neuromuscular synapse formation by a Cdk5-dependent mechanism. Neuron 46, 569-579 (2005).[Online Journal] W. C. Xiong, L. Mei, An unconventional role of neurotransmission in synapse formation. Neuron 46, 521-523 (2005). [Online Journal]


Freshwater marshes are well‐known for their ecological functions in carbon sequestration, but complete carbon budgets that include both methane (CH4) and lateral carbon fluxes for these ecosystems are rarely available. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first full carbon balance for a freshwater marsh where vertical gaseous [carbon dioxide (CO2) and CH4] and lateral hydrologic fluxes (dissolved and particulate organic carbon) have been simultaneously measured for multiple years (2011–2013). Carbon accumulation in the sediments suggested that the marsh was a long‐term carbon sink and accumulated ~96.9 ± 10.3 (±95% CI) g C m−2 yr−1 during the last ~50 years. However, abnormal climate conditions in the last 3 years turned the marsh to a source of carbon (42.7 ± 23.4 g C m−2 yr−1). Gross ecosystem production and ecosystem respiration were the two largest fluxes in the annual carbon budget. Yet, these two fluxes compensated each other to a large extent and led to the marsh being a CO2 sink in 2011 (−78.8 ± 33.6 g C m−2 yr−1), near CO2‐neutral in 2012 (29.7 ± 37.2 g C m−2 yr−1), and a CO2 source in 2013 (92.9 ± 28.0 g C m−2 yr−1). The CH4 emission was consistently high with a three‐year average of 50.8 ± 1.0 g C m−2 yr−1. Considerable hydrologic carbon flowed laterally both into and out of the marsh (108.3 ± 5.4 and 86.2 ± 10.5 g C m−2 yr−1, respectively). In total, hydrologic carbon fluxes contributed ~23 ± 13 g C m−2 yr−1 to the three‐year carbon budget. Our findings highlight the importance of lateral hydrologic inflows/outflows in wetland carbon budgets, especially in those characterized by a flow‐through hydrologic regime. In addition, different carbon fluxes responded unequally to climate variability/anomalies and, thus, the total carbon budgets may vary drastically among years.


Poor prognosis of ovarian cancer, the deadliest of the gynecologic malignancies, reflects major limitations associated with detection and diagnosis. Current methods lack high sensitivity to detect small tumors and high specificity to distinguish malignant from benign tissue, both impeding diagnosis of early and metastatic cancer stages and leading to costly and invasive surgeries. Tissue microarray analysis revealed that >98% of ovarian cancers express the prolactin receptor (PRLR), forming the basis of a new molecular imaging strategy. We fused human placental lactogen (hPL), a specific and tight binding PRLR ligand, to magnetic resonance imaging (gadolinium) and near-infrared fluorescence imaging agents. Both in tissue culture and in mouse models, these imaging bioconjugates underwent selective internalization into ovarian cancer cells via PRLR-mediated endocytosis. Compared with current clinical MRI techniques, this targeted approach yielded both enhanced signal-to-noise ratio from accumulation of signal via selective internalization and improved specificity conferred by PRLR upregulation in malignant ovarian cancer. These features endow PRLR-targeted imaging with the potential to transform ovarian cancer detection. Cancer Res; 77(7); 1684-96. ©2017 AACR.


The contributions of this work are twofold. First, we developed an electrophysiological training simulator in SOFA which tackles the interactive issue in the context of cardiac arrhythmias. Coupled with this electrophysiology, we developed a mechanical model of the heart that can be personalized from MRI datasets. Our simulations are based on the SOFA platform. SOFA is an open-source framework targeted at real-time simulation with an emphasis on medical simulation, mainly developed at Inria. A large choice of efficient solvers, hyperelastic or viscous material laws are already implemented in SOFA. Moreover, it enables interactivity during the simulation (pacing, surgery planning, ...) and gives a good trade-off between accuracy and computational efficiency.


Based on interviews with people who had diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease in Flint, Michigan, we found people actively doing information work to manage their health in the face of poverty, potentially violent conditions, high stress, and a distrust of institutionalized medicine. More specifically, we observed people translating information into the context of their everyday lives. We present various translations of health information in the form of local strategies for chronic illness management. Study findings highlight initial implications to support health information services on a community level.


The number of $n \times n$ matrices whose entries are either $-1$, $0$, or $1$, whose row- and column- sums are all $1$, and such that in every row and every column the non-zero entries alternate in sign, is proved to be $$[1!4! \dots (3n-2)!] \over [n!(n+1)! \dots (2n-1)!],$$ as conjectured by Mills, Robbins, and Rumsey.


An atypical HIV-1 strain (CAM001) was identified in a pregnant Cameroonian woman in 1995. HMA subtyping of the env region was unsuccessful, and sequence analyses were performed. Unique sequence motifs were found at the V3 tip (GAGRALHA and GAGRAWIHA), and phylogenetic studies showed that the env C2-V5 sequence branched within group M but remained distinct from all known HIV-1 subtypes, while p17 gag branched with the subtype F sequences. Four other HIV group M viruses, undetermined by HMA, of African origin were found to cluster with CAM001 in the C2-V5 sequences. With the BLAST method, we found in databases three strains whose V3 sequences also clustered with CAM001. These unusual env sequences from eight HIV-1 strains derived from Cameroon formed a separate cluster in HIV-1 group M, which we designated k.


Introduction: Acrylamide, an industrial toxic chemical, formed naturally in starchy foods, cooked at high temperature. Acrylamide is known to cause reproductive toxicity in male rats and extent of its effect with respect to sperm and histopathological parameters is not well studied.Aim: To evaluate the influence of acrylamide on male reproductive structural and functional alterations. Materials and Methods: We examined the toxic potential of acrylamide doses, including 0 (distilled water), 6.25, 25 mg/kg body weight/day, in 18 adult male Wistar rats administered by oral gavage for 21 days. Body weight was recorded daily, and the animals were sacrificed at the end of treatment. The relative testis and epididymis wet weights were measured. Sperm count, motility, and morphology were assessed from the epididymis sperm reserve. The testis and epididymis were examined for histological abnormalities. One-way ANOVA was used to test the significant difference in the quantitative responses, followed by Tukey HSD pairwise comparison test.Results: The acrylamide decreased the body weight (p<0.001) and epididymis weight (p<0.05) significantly. The epididymal sperm reserve in the high dose group were observed with significant changes in count, motility and morphology. Histologically, the high dose exposed epididymis, showed sloughing and apoptosis of germ cells inducing reduced sperm capacitance and vacuolar degeneration of basal epithelium. The high dose treated testis showed atrophy with reduced luminal diameter.C onclusion: We observed significant reproductive toxicity in male Wistar rats after the acrylamide ingestion, which is similar to the dose of exposure that can be taken in, by that population, who regularly consume food items having acrylamide in it. Hence, our findings strengthened the concern about male reproductive toxicity of acrylamide exposure and demanding the awareness on the same.


This article introduces several types of robots having physical interactions among a human/humans and a robot/robots, which we have developed so far. MR Helper (mobile robot helper) is a mobile robot with dual manipulators, which could manipulate an object in cooperation with a human. DR Helpers (distributed robot helpers) are multiple small mobile robots which transport an object in cooperation with a human/humans. MS DanceR (mobile smart dance robot) could dance the waltz as a female dance partner with a male dancer. These examples inspire possible applications of the human-robot interaction in near future


Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale's book seeks to set out cutting-edge developments in the field of social research and to encourage students and researchers to consider ways of learning from different approaches and perspectives in such a way as to make their own research richer, more insightful and more rewarding.
Social Researching brings together a wide variety of research methods - both qualitative and quantitative - to help students and researchers to consider the relative benefits of adopting different approaches for their own research work.

The authors clearly identify the most appropriate methods for different research questions and also highlight areas where it might be fruitful to compliment different methods with each other or exploit creative tensions between them. The book is therefore a highly practical guide which also seeks to draw readers outside their methodological comfort zones.

This book includes:

- Critical coverage of issues in research design;

- Expert experience in many methodological fields;

- An overview of the many different ways to approach similar research problems;

- Coverage of the tensions between different methodological approaches;

- Examples of excellence in research design and practice;

- An examination of how to turn methodological tensions into richer research practice.

The methods covered include highly innovative, 'cutting-edge' approaches and they are demonstrated in terms of their transferability between the different social sciences. This inter-disciplinary approach is complimented by a wide range of strategically chosen examples which demonstrate the authors' pragmatic and creative take on research design.


This study explores caregiver perceptions of social supports provided for people with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in relation to caregiver burden. Twenty-four people acting as' primary caregivers of a person with TBI completed measures of social support and caregiver distress (Head Injury Behaviour Scale and a social support questionnaire developed specifically for this study). The domains assessed included the nature and number of treatment services utilized by the TBI person and caregivers ' perceptions of these, the problems exhibited by the TBI person, and the distress experienced by the caregiver. Significant correlations were found between caregiver distress and the following variables: number of problems exhibited by the TBI person, change in caregiver employment status, helpfulness of treatment services for TBI person, and overall caregiver satisfaction. Regression analyses revealed that the number of problems exhibited by the TBI person and lack of helpfulness of treatment services were significant predictors of caregiver distress. These correlations and regressions were interpreted with respect to the buffering hypothesis and the Stress Appraisal Coping model (SAC). It was concluded that caregiver perception of social support rather than social support p er se, is associated with caregiver distress, and that caregiver perception can buffer or attenuate caregiver distress. Methodological considerations and directions for future research are discussed.


Pre-chondrocytes undergo cellular differentiation stages during chondrogenesis under the influence by different transcription factors such as sry-type high mobility group box-9 (Sox9) and runt-related transcription factor-2 (Runx2). We have shown upregulation by parathyroid hormone (PTH) of the clock gene Period-1 (Per1) through the cAMP/protein kinase A signaling pathway in pre-chondrocytic ATDC5 cells. Here, we investigated the role of Per1 in the suppression of chondrogenic differentiation by PTH. In ATDC5 cells exposed to 10 nM PTH, a drastic but transient increase in Per1 expression was seen only 1 h after addition together with a prolonged decrease in Sox6 levels. However, no significant changes were induced in Sox5 and Runx2 levels in cells exposed to PTH. In stable Per1 transfectants, a significant decrease in Sox6 levels was seen, with no significant changes in Sox5 and Sox9 levels, in addition to the inhibition of gene transactivation by Sox9 allies. Knockdown of Per1 by siRNA significantly increased the Sox6 and type II collagen levels in cells cultured for 24 – 60 h. These results suggest that Per1 plays a role in the suppressed chondrocytic differentiation by PTH through a mechanism relevant to negative regulation of transactivation of the Sox6 gene during chondrogenesis.


Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain's borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance of liquidly traded bonds allowed the nobility to switch out of low-return investments such as agricultural improvements. This switch lowered factor demand by old sectors and increased profits in new, rising ones such as textiles and iron. Because external financing contributed little to the Industrial Revolution, this boost in profits in new industries accelerated structural change, making Britain more industrial more quickly. The absence of an effective transfer of financial resources from old to new sectors also helps to explain why the Industrial Revolution led to massive social change – because the rich nobility did not lend to or invest in the revolutionizing industries, it failed to capture the high returns to capital in these sectors, leading to relative economic decline.


In this paper we address the actuator/sensor allocation problem for linear time invariant (LTI) systems. Given the structure of an autonomous linear dynamical system, the goal is to design the structure of the input matrix (commonly denoted by B) such that the system is structurally controllable with the restriction that each input be dedicated, i.e., it can only control directly a single state variable. We provide a methodology to determine the minimum number of dedicated inputs required to ensure structural controllability, and characterize all (when not unique) possible configurations of the minimal input matrix B. Furthermore, we show that the proposed solution incurs polynomial complexity in the number of state variables. By duality, the solution methodology may be readily extended to the structural design of the corresponding minimal output matrix (commonly denoted by C) that ensures structural observability.


In this paper a model-based approach for restoring a continuous fundamental frequency (F0) contour from the noisy output of an F0 extractor is investigated. In contrast to the conventional pitch trackers based on numerical curve-fitting, the proposed method employs a quantitative pitch generation model, which is often used for synthesizing F0 contour from prosodic event commands for estimating continuous F0 pattern. An inverse filtering technique is introduced for obtaining the initial candidates of the prosodic commands. In order to find the optimal command sequence from the commands efficiently, a beam-search algorithm and an N-best technique are employed. Preliminary experiments for a male speaker of the ATR B-set database showed promising results both in quality of the restored pattern and estimation of the prosodic events.


The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified shift-work involving circadian disruption as probably carcinogenic in humans, with evidence strongest for long-term female night workers and breast cancer. It regarded the epidemiological data as being limited by possible confounding and inconsistent definitions of shift-work. Epidemiological reviews and studies reporting mechanistic data and health and safety policies and practices since 2005 were identified and selected for review according to specific inclusion/exclusion criteria. Individual cohort and case-control studies studies since 2013 were also included. The relative risk of breast cancer for ever versus never working nights is lower in recent epidemiological studies than when the association first came to our attention 15 years ago, probably due to better control for confounding. There are also increasingly well conducted studies that look at a range of measures associated with chronodisruption and which also account for a large number of known and potential confounding factors. Some of these studies provide evidence of an increasing risk with increased duration of working nights. However, the heterogeneity in exposure-response means that a casual determination remains elusive. We conclude that the most likely causal mechanism for a breast cancer risk amongst night shift workers is suppression of melatonin because of exposure to light at night, although the risk may be modified by other circadian factors such as chronotype. However, it is also plausible that there may be direct or indirect causal pathways because of the tendency for shift workers to be obese, and have other lifestyle risk factors for breast cancer. Aside from the possible indirect benefit of formulating shift patterns that maximise workers' alertness, we believe the most useful intervention is in health promotion, in which employers actively provide healthy diets, opportunities to exercise, and discourage tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption.


The purpose of this study was to provide new knowledge about the temporal and contextual aspects of the alcohol–sport relationship. Eight U.K. student-athletes completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test in their final year at university, 18 months, and 30 months after graduation. They also completed semistructured interviews about their drinking motives, behaviors, and life circumstances. Results showed that participants reduced their alcohol consumption after leaving university, but despite the onset of some adult responsibilities, most were still drinking at hazardous levels. After university, drinking took place with old friends, new colleagues, and new sporting teammates. At all time points, social drinking motives were the most prevalent. Findings demonstrate a relationship between alcohol and sport that is cemented at university but continues beyond it. Targeted interventions to reduce the role of alcohol in the social experience of sport are needed to support long-term athlete health.


Characterizing the bulk atmosphere of a terrestrial planet is important for determining surface pressure and potential habitability. Molecular nitrogen (N2) constitutes the largest fraction of Earth's atmosphere and is likely to be a major constituent of many terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres. Due to its lack of significant absorption features, N2 is extremely difficult to remotely detect. However, N2 produces an N2–N2 collisional pair, (N2)2, which is spectrally active. Here we report the detection of (N2)2 in Earth's disk-integrated spectrum. By comparing spectra from NASA's EPOXI mission to synthetic spectra from the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory three-dimensional spectral Earth model, we find that (N2)2 absorption produces a ∼35% decrease in flux at 4.15 μm. Quantifying N2 could provide a means of determining bulk atmospheric composition for terrestrial exoplanets and could rule out abiotic O2 generation, which is possible in rarefied atmospheres. To explore the potential effects of (N2)2 in exoplanet spectra, we used radiative transfer models to generate synthetic emission and transit transmission spectra of self-consistent N2–CO2–H2O atmospheres, and analytic N2–H2 and N2–H2–CO2 atmospheres. We show that (N2)2 absorption in the wings of the 4.3 μm CO2 band is strongly dependent on N2 partial pressures above 0.5 bar and can significantly widen this band in thick N2 atmospheres. The (N2)2 transit transmission signal is up to 10 ppm for an Earth-size planet with an N2-dominated atmosphere orbiting within the habitable zone of an M5V star and could be substantially larger for planets with significant H2 mixing ratios.


ABSTRACT Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Anterior Elevate® mesh kit system (AES) in woman with symptomatic stage 3 or 4 anterior and/or apical pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Materials and Methods: This retrospective, monocentric, single surgeon study enrolled between May 2010 and January 2013 fifty-six woman experiencing symptomatic anterior vaginal prolapse with or without apical descent (POP-Q stage 3 or 4). All women received a AES and 7 (12.5%) received a concomitant transvaginal hysterectomy. Primary endpoint was anatomic correction of prolapse; success was defined as POP-Q stage ≤ 1 or asymptomatic stage 2. Secondary endpoints were quality-of-life (QOL) results and patients' safety outcomes, which were assessed by 3 validated self-reporting questionnaires at baseline and annually: ICIQ-UI short form, ICIQ-VS and P-QOL. All patients completed 2-years and 28 women 3-years of follow-up. Surgical approach was modified in women with uterus, moving the two-propylene strips anteriorly around the cervix itself crossing one another, so the left will take place in the right side and the right on the opposite. This modification was made in order to better support the uterus. Results: Vaginal mesh exposure was present in 3 (5,3%) patients. Very good anatomical outcomes were seen, with one (1,8%) failure at 6-months, 4 (7,1%) at 1-year, 6 at 2-years (10,7%). Statistically significant improvements were seen in the ICIQ-VS and P-QOL questionnaires throughout follow-up. Conclusion: Our data suggest that AES is a minimally-invasive transvaginal procedure to repair anterior and apical POP, with good evidence related to mid-term safety and efficacy.