Abstract The iron (Fe) L2,3-edge X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectrum is sensitive to the local coordination environment around the Fe metal center, making it a useful probe for understanding Fe mineral speciation. The two dominant spectral peaks in the Fe L3-edge are parameterized according to the difference in the energy position (ΔeV), and the quotient (intensity ratio) of the two peaks' maxima. Variations in the ΔeV value are strongly linked to factors that impact on the strength of the ligand field (e.g., Fe valence state, coordination number, and the nature of ligand bonding). The intensity ratio is affected by the strength of the ligand field and by the composition of the resultant molecular orbitals. The Fe valence state also strongly affects the intensity ratio, and an intensity ratio equal to one can be used to distinguish between Fe2+ and Fe3+ minerals. The effects of polyhedral distortion on the magnitudes of ΔeV and intensity ratio values were tested by considering the Fe oxide and -oxy- hydroxide mineral system, in which ligand effects are limited to the differences between the oxygen and hydroxyl ligands. In this system, the distribution of Fe oxide and -oxy-hydroxide minerals on a ΔeV vs. intensity ratio two-parameter plot could be explained by considering the Fe valence state, the ligand chemistry and the site symmetry of the Fe polyhedra. Furthermore, the ΔeV and intensity ratio values were found to be anti-correlated with respect to the various distortion measures considered in this study (e.g., polyhedral volume distortion percentage). This two-parameter plot is thus presented as a standard-less phase-specific identification tool for use in Fe speciation studies, applicable to both natural systems (e.g., aerosols, aquatic colloids) as well as to engineered systems (e.g., nanoparticle synthesis). A major advantage of this technique is that it is applicable to both crystalline and poorly crystalline phases, thus enhancing our ability to study amorphous and nano-crystalline phases that are typically difficult to characterize using X-ray diffraction techniques.


This thesis examined how receivers who vary in Interaction Involvement and Locus of Control (LOC) might differ in their interpretations of service complaints. Locus of control was measured using Rotter's (1966) LOC scale, while Interaction Involvement was measured with Cegala's (1984) Interaction Involvement measure, including a separate assessment of the effects for each sub-scale. Individuals were assigned to four groups based on their Interaction Involvement and LOC scores. The groups were compared with one-another for differences in how complaints were interpreted. Four complaint categories and a corresponding scale were developed to measure these differences. The categories were Subject, Goal, Opportunity, and Accountability. Interaction Involvement was expected to affect how receivers interpret the subject and goal of a complaint, while LOC was predicted to affect understanding of the opportunity and accountability aspects. Two research questions explored possible relationships between the complaint categories and the independent variables for individuals within each group. The study's four hypotheses were not supported, although some evidence was found for a significant relationship between receiver Interaction Involvement and perceived complainant Opportunity, for External LOC individuals only.


Since Aristotle, many different theories of distributive justice have been proposed, by philosophers as well as social scientists. The typical approach within social choice theory is to assess these theories in an axiomatic way – most of the time the reader is confronted with abstract reasoning and logical deductions. This book shows that empirical insights are necessary if one wants to apply any theory of justice in the real world. It does so by confronting the main theories of distributive justice with data from (mostly) questionnaire experiments. The book starts with an extensive discussion on why empirical social choice makes sense and how it should be done. It then presents various experimental results relating to theories of distributive justice, including the Rawlsian equity axiom, Harsanyi's version of utilitarianism, utilitarianism with a floor, responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism, the claims problem and fairness in health.


A watershed decade in U.S. history, the 1930s witnessed a struggle on various fronts--fought by many different Americans--that raised the country's awareness of the inequalities and injustices suffered by African Americans. Featuring a new preface and an expansive, up-to-date bibliography, this 30th Anniversary Edition of Harvard Sitkoff's A New Deal for Blacks presents a comprehensive account of the changes--substantive and symbolic--that eventually led to the emergence of civil rights as a national issue and helped make a successful quest for racial justice possible. It emphasizes a wide variety of individuals and organizations that contributed to the coming-of-age of civil rights, and highlights the role of New Dealers, organized labor, the Left, Southern women opposed to lynching, biological and social scientists, black lawyers, and, especially, African American organizations that planted the seeds of racial progress. This unique text is an ideal resource for undergraduate courses in African American history.


Following the end of the Second World War, the late 1940s witnessed a dramatic and rapid transformation in working-class living conditions enacted via the Welfare State, and largely experienced through an enormous expansion in public housing. Ernesettle is a product of this boom. One of seven new estates constructed as part of Plymouth's programme of reconstruction, it follows a conceptual blueprint laid out in The Plan for Plymouth, a document compiled in 1943 by town planner Patrick Abercrombie and city engineer James Paton-Watson. Designed after a 'neighbourhood' model, the Plymouth Plan estates were to provide for life from cradle to grave, incorporating schools, workplaces, clinics, churches, pubs, and shops as well as housing and green space. The progressive social programme propounded by post-war neighbourhood designers strove towards social homogeneity, a strategy that sought to reconcile interests across the class and political spectrum. This thesis examines the results of those ambitions, using oral history accounts of Ernesettle to consider if and how council housing of the 1940s and 50s affected the material and social circumstances of its residents. By focusing on residents' narratives of daily life between 1950 and 1980, I document a high point in council estate history comprising: a neighbourhood culture of mutual support and lively street life; a domestic culture, closely bound to the nuclear family and the home as a site of consumption; an associational culture of clubs, sports, the church, the pub, and social club; and a working culture of full male employment, collective representation, and increasing employment opportunities for women. The function of the neighbourhood in a process of drawing working-class populations into the mid 20th century cultural mainstream, and its subsequent association with their post-1980s expulsion to the social margins, provides a recurrent research theme underpinning my discussion of Ernesettle life as I explore how changes over time corresponded with the status of residents and their sense of place in society at large.


ABSTRACT Using mission statements from the UCT, UWC and Stellenbosch University (South Africa), we explore how the three universities have rematerialised prior discourses to rebrand their identities as dictated by contemporary national and global aspirations. We reveal how the universities have recontextualised the experiences and discourses of liberation struggle and the new government's post-apartheid social transformation discourses to construct distinctive identities that are locally relevant and globally aspiring. This has led to the semiotic refiguring of universities from spatial edifices of racially based unequal education, to equal opportunity institutions of higher learning, and to the blurring of historical boundaries between these universities. We conclude that the universities have reconstructed distinct and recognisable identities which speak to a segregated past, but with a post-apartheid voice of equity and redress.


To investigate the role of transforming growth factor‐β1 in tissue repair, we performed wound healing studies in the transforming growth factor‐β1—deficient mouse with targeted disruption of the transforming growth factor‐β1 gene. Transforming growth factor‐β1—deficient mice exhibit no obvious developmental defects and are phenotypically normal until approximately 3 weeks of age when a severe wasting syndrome develops, accompanied by an overwhelming inflammatory response resulting in multisystem organ failure and death. Full‐thickness 0.5 × 0.5 cm skin wounds were created on the backs of 10‐day‐old mice (wild type or heterozygous controls versus homozygous transforming growth factor‐β1—deficient mutants) and covered with a nonabsorbent dressing (OpSite). Serial wound measurements were made, and percentage of wound closure over time was determined. On day 10, wounds and liver were harvested for histologic and molecular analysis. Histologic scores were assigned (1 [no healing] to 12 [complete healing]) on the basis of granulation tissue formation, vascularity, collagen deposition, and epithelialization. Reverse transcription—polymerase chain reaction was performed to detect messenger RNA transcripts for transforming growth factor‐β1, transforming growth factor‐β2, platelet‐derived growth factor A‐chain and B‐chain, interleukin‐1β and ‐6, and tumor necrosis factor‐α in unwounded skin, day 10 wounds, and liver. No significant differences in wound closure were observed until day 10. Weight gain, however, was significantly decreased in the mutant animals as early as day 6. Histologic scores were significantly lower in the transforming growth factor‐β1—deficient mutants (5.4 ± 0.6 versus 11.1 ± 0.3, p < 0.01, Wilcoxon rank‐sum test) and showed decreased granulation tissue formation, vascularity, collagen deposition, and epithelialization and a marked inflammatory infiltrate. As expected, transforming growth factor‐β1 was expressed in controls but not mutants. Transforming growth factor‐β2, platelet‐derived growth factor A‐chain and B‐chain, and tumor necrosis factor‐α were constitutively expressed in unwounded skin, day 10 wounds, and liver of both controls and mutants. Interleukin‐1β and ‐6, however, were induced after wounding. Early wound healing in the transforming growth factor‐β1—deficient mouse proceeds relatively normally because of upregulation or functional redundancy of other growth factors or possibly because of maternal rescue by means of transforming growth factor‐β1 transmitted in milk. Loss of transforming growth factor‐β1 regulation ultimately results in a marked inflammatory response, as evidenced by the histologic appearance of the wound and increased expression of the inflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor‐α, interleukin‐1β and 6). The severe wasting syndrome (marked by weight loss) undoubtedly has an adverse effect on wound healing.


Abstract. In January 1977 a new type of radar aurora experiment named STARE (Scandinavian Twin Aurora Radar Experiment) commenced operation in northern Scandinavia. The purpose of the experiment was two-fold: to make observations of the nature of radar auroras, and to contribute to the study of solar–terrestrial relationships (or space weather). The experiment was designed for automatic continuous operation, and for nearly two and a half decades it provided estimates of electron flows with good spatial coverage and resolution and good time resolution. It was a successful experiment that yielded a wealth of observations and results, pertaining to, and based on, the observed time variations of the electron flows and to the spatial flow pattern observed at any given time. This radar system inspired the creation of a similar system, SABRE (Sweden And Britain Radar Experiment), which increased the field of view towards the southwest of STARE. This system commenced operation in 1982.


Little is known on the effect of sodium intake on BP of children with clinical conditions. Our objective was therefore to review systematically studies that have assessed the association between sodium intake and BP in children with various clinical conditions. A systematic search of several databases was conducted and supplemented by a manual search of bibliographies and unpublished studies. Experimental and observational studies assessing the association between sodium intake and BP and involving children or adolescents between 0 and 18 years of age with any clinical condition were included. Out of the 6861 records identified, 51 full texts were reviewed, and 16 studies (10 experimental and 6 observational), involving overall 2902 children and adolescents, were included. Ten studies were conducted in children with elevated BP without identifiable cause, two in children with familial hypertension, one in children with at least one cardiovascular risk factor, one in children with chronic renal insufficiency, one in children with urolithiasis, and one in premature infants. A positive association between sodium intake and BP was found in all studies, except one. The meta‐analysis of six studies among children with elevated BP without identifiable cause revealed a difference of 6.3 mm Hg (95% CI 2.9‐9.6) and 3.5 mm Hg (95% CI 1.2‐5.7) in systolic and diastolic BP, respectively, for every additional gram of sodium intake per day. In conclusion, our results indicate that the BP response to salt is greater in children with clinical conditions, mainly hypertension, than in those without associated clinical conditions.


ABSTRACT This article derives a new coefficient of relationship of two symmetric alpha-stable variables when alpha is in the interval (1,2] based on covariation. Its numerical value ranges from −1 to +1. Simulation studies are used to evaluate the performance of the coefficient of relationship estimators.


We have combined the principles of phase-shifting interferometry (PSI) and laser-feedback interferometry (LFI) to produce a new instrument that can measure both optical path length (OPL) changes and discern sample reflectivity variations. In LFI, coherent feedback of the incident light either reflected directly from a surface or reflected after transmission through a region of interest will modulate the output intensity of the laser. LFI can yield a high signal-to-noise ratio even for low reflectivity samples. By combining PSI and LFI, we have produced a robust instrument, based upon a HeNe laser, with high dynamic range that can be used to measure either static (dc) or oscillatory changes along the optical path. As with other forms of interferometry, large changes in OPL require phase unwrapping. Conversely, small phase changes are limited by the fraction of a fringe that can be measured. We introduce the phase shifts with an electro-optic modulator (EOM) and use either the Carre or Hariharan algorithms to determine the phase and visibility. We have determined the accuracy and precision of our technique by measuring both the bending of a cantilevered piezoelectric bimorph and linear ramps to the EOM. Using PSI, sub-nanometer displacements can be measured. We have combined our interferometer with a commercial microscope and scanning piezoelectric stage and have measured the variation in OPL and visibility for drops of PDMS (silicone oil) on coated single crystal silicon. Our measurement of the static contact angle agrees with the value of 68 deg stated in the literature.


This paper provides evidence for imitative abilities in neonatal chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ), our closest relatives. Two chimpanzees were reared from birth by their biological mothers. At less than 7 days of age the chimpanzees could discriminate between, and imitate, human facial gestures (tongue protrusion and mouth opening). By the time they were 2 months old, however, the chimpanzees no longer imitated the gestures. They began to perform mouth opening frequently in response to any of the three facial gestures presented to them. These findings suggest that neonatal facial imitation is most likely an innate ability, developed through natural selection in humans and in chimpanzees. The relationship between the disappearance of neonatal imitation and the development of social communicative behavior is discussed from an evolutionary perspective.


In the growing field of volunteer tourism research, the motivations, benefits and criticisms of this activity have been widely explored. An area that has received less attention has been the post-experience domain and particularly its impact on volunteer tourist contributions to their own communities. In the spirit of exploring effective altruism through the maximisation of social good, this study explores the impact of the volunteer tourism experience on the propensity of volunteer tourists to undertake other volunteering variants post-trip, indicative of a potential conduit for volunteer recruitment. To achieve this, the study is underpinned by the Expectation-Disconfirmation Paradigm ('EDP'). The researcher measured the expectations, disconfirmation and satisfaction of volunteer tourists over the course of their trip. By doing so, she was able to examine the effects of these constructs on behavioural intentions relating to repeat purchase, overseas travel, domestic travel volunteering and local volunteering. Initial interviews were conducted with past volunteer tourists and with volunteer sending organisations to determine volunteer tourist expectations. The ensuing list of items was supplemented by the literature on tourism and volunteering. The expectations that were identified formed the basis of a two-round questionnaire that was designed to measure expectations, disconfirmation, satisfaction and behavioural intentions prior to volunteer tourists' departure and upon their return. The results revealed that disconfirmation had more influence on behavioural intentions than the other variables measured. The disconfirmation of expectations was related primarily to personal growth and learning. These factors yielded statistically significant relationships in relation to volunteering behavioural intentions. This study found tentative associations between the transformative experience of volunteer tourism and decisions to start or continue volunteering in the future, but did not find strong evidence that could confirm the role of volunteer tourism as a conduit for volunteer recruitment. While contributing to the research on volunteer tourism using the lens of EDP, recommendations for future research include the implementation of alternative data analyses, and the utilisation of multiple theories to develop more holistic frameworks of comparison.


We present a general framework for semantic role labeling. The framework combines a machine-learning technique with an integer linear programming-based inference procedure, which incorporates linguistic and structural constraints into a global decision process. Within this framework, we study the role of syntactic parsing information in semantic role labeling. We show that full syntactic parsing information is, by far, most relevant in identifying the argument, especially, in the very first stagethe pruning stage. Surprisingly, the quality of the pruning stage cannot be solely determined based on its recall and precision. Instead, it depends on the characteristics of the output candidates that determine the difficulty of the downstream problems. Motivated by this observation, we propose an effective and simple approach of combining different semantic role labeling systems through joint inference, which significantly improves its performance. Our system has been evaluated in the CoNLL-2005 shared task on semantic role labeling, and achieves the highest F1 score among 19 participants.


The Late Palaeozoic rocks of southern Portugal have a complex thermal history. Vitrinite reflectance determinations from 90 samples confirm that the organic maturity of Late Palaeozoic rocks in SW Portugal is very high, mainly corresponding to meta-anthracite coal rank. The optic fabric of vitrinite in oriented coal samples from the Brejeira Formation suggests maturation under simple, non-tectonic, burial conditions with peak temperatures being attained prior to Variscan deformation. The lack of any increase in vitrinite reflectance with depth through c. 1 km of section in borehole AC-1 is not consistent with conductive heat transfer and is interpreted as the result of late synorogenic to post-orogenic advective heating. This heating episode generated temperatures sufficiently high to produce levels of maturity corresponding to meta-anthracite coal rank through much of the terrane now exposed, but not high enough to result in overprinting of the pre-deformation optic fabric of vitrinite in the thin coals. The slightly lower maturity of older, platform-facies rocks in the Aljezur–Bordeira area may reflect either deposition on a basement high followed by less burial than adjacent parts of the basin, or the area being the site of a sink for descending relatively cool fluids.


Using Chinese provincial data, we examine the relationship between relative prices and wages, which can be derived on the basis of the Balassa-Samuelson theorem. First, considering cross sectional dependency in our data, we implement recently developed panel unit root tests. We report strong evidence of non-divergence in the prices of provinces vis-a-vis those of the benchmark (Beijing) and weaker evidence in wages. In the latter case, the results seem sector-specific, suggesting that wages in some industries are not following the trend in Beijing. Secondly, using sectorlevel data, we find evidence that relative prices can be explained by relative wages.


Achromatic phase matching (APM), a favorable method in increasing phase matching bandwidth, is explored for second harmonic generation of ultrashort pulses based on a typical grating telescope system. A set of coupled equations incorporating angular dispersion is constructed in the space–time domain. An analytic solution with a pump of tilting pulsed Gaussian beam to the equations is given under the undepleted pump approximation. With the aid of matrix formalism, some properties of the conversion are demonstrated. Though a maximal phase matching bandwidth is obtained, angular dispersion makes the conversion active only around the geometrical focus. Theory shows that APM does not require an overall pulse-front matching in the conversion process.


A novel detection method for RNA pathogens based on one-step reverse transcription PCR is introduced here. This method utilized the reverse transcriptase activity and the 5'-nuclease activity of TaqM1 DNA polymerase to transform target RNA into cDNA. The following PCR process released a fragment from the 5' end as a specific probe. Afterwards this fragment triggered a strand-displacement based signal amplification to release large amounts of G-quadruplex DNAzymes. All the probes applied in our method were unmodified DNA oligonucleotides. The detection results could be reported without sophisticated instruments either in the colorimetric way through oxidizing ABTS or in the fluorometric way by using tyramine as substrate. This approach could successfully detect HIV-1 in a blood sample and it has a linear concentration range of 6 fM to 60 pM.


One of the major problems in computational biology is the inability of existing classification models to incorporate expanding and new domain knowledge. This problem of static classification models is addressed in this thesis by the introduction of incremental learning for problems in bioinformatics. The tools which have been developed are applied to the problem of classifying proteins into a number of primary and putative families. The importance of this type of classification is of particular relevance due to its role in drug discovery programs and the benefit it lends to this process in terms of cost and time saving. As a secondary problem, multi–class classification is also addressed. The standard approach to protein family classification is based on the creation of committees of binary classifiers. This one-vs-all approach is not ideal, and the classification systems presented here consists of classifiers that are able to do all-vs-all classification. Two incremental learning techniques are presented. The first is a novel algorithm based on the fuzzy ARTMAP classifier and an evolutionary strategy. The second technique applies the incremental learning algorithm Learn++. The two systems are tested using three datasets: data from the Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database, G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCR) database and Enzymes from the Protein Data Bank. The results show that both techniques are comparable with each other, giving classification abilities which are comparable to that of the single batch trained classifiers, with the added ability of incremental learning. Both the techniques are shown to be useful to the problem of protein family classification, but these techniques are applicable to problems outside this area, with applications in proteomics including the predictions of functions, secondary and tertiary structures, and applications in genomics such as promoter and splice site predictions and classification of gene microarrays.


Extracted from text ... ALAN C. DESSEN. Recovering Shakespeare's Theatrical Vocabulary. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999 283 pp.
Reviewed by DENNIS SCHAUFFER
In this meticulous and well-researched study Dessen proceeds from John Shearman's contention
that "wherever possible a work of art should be interpreted by throwing it back into the nest of
ideas in which it was born" (1). In pursuit of this objective, and with specific reference to
Shakespeare's plays, he articulates three questions that the rest of the book then explores. These
questions that he recalls (with interesting variation to the wording) towards the middle of the
work and at the ..


The concept of prebiotics is well known from food products, where several ingredients are used to stimulate the beneficial gut microflora. However, prebiotic substances can in principle be applied to balance almost any microbial community to achieve advantageous effects. Since many cosmetic products target skin bacteria as a cause for undesirable conditions like inflammation or body odour, prebiotic actives can help to cope with these problems in a very effective way. To ensure a focused and successful mode of action we demonstrated that it is essential to analyse the microflora and the interactions between different bacterial species carefully. These analyses were made using a molecular method, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), allowing a precise determination of a bacterial community without the drawbacks of classical culture methods. In a further step it was then possible to identify new actives that inhibit harmful or unwanted bacterial species while protecting the beneficial flora. Using a quick and reliable in vitro screening method we found several plant extracts (e.g. Ginseng or Black currant) which inhibit the inflammation-causing bacterium Propionibacterium acnes, but do not affect beneficial species like coagulase-negative staphylococci. In addition, it could also be demonstrated that a prebiotic product line for treatment of inflamed (or acne prone) skin showed the predicted effects on the microflora composition in a first in vivo trial, i.e. decrease of Propionibacterium acnes at a constant level of total bacteria. After 3 weeks, the microflora of 91% of the volunteers had been rebalanced in this way. Furthermore, these formulations have been shown to exhibit excellent skin compatibility compared to an antibacterial product. Thus, prebiotic substances have the potential to provide a gentle and sustainable alternative to undirected antibacterial ingredients which can cause irritation, and frequently only show short time effects.

Paper presented at the IFSCC Conference 2005, Florence, Italy.


The interest in integrating web-scale knowledge bases (KBs) has intensified in the last several years. Research has focused on knowledge base completion between two KBs with complementary information, lacking any notion of uncertainty or method of handling conflicting information. We present SigmaKB, a knowledge base system that utilizes Consensus Maximization Fusion and user feedback to integrate and improve the query results of a total of 71 KBs. This paper presents the architecture and demonstration details.


Sam and his classmates despise 'nerds': they say working hard in school makes a student unpopular, and that they purposefully do only the minimum to pass. Research suggests that such 'oppositional' attitudes are prevalent among working class students and/or ethnoracial minorities. Like most of his classmates, however, Sam is white, hails from a privileged background, and attends a selective school in the Netherlands. Deeply ambivalent about working hard and 'acting wise', Sam and the others constituting his adolescent society are thoroughly caught up in peer dynamics which sanction success and promote mediocrity. We link these anti-school peer dynamics to the institutional configuration of education in the Netherlands, characterized by rigid tracking at the end of primary school and non-selective universities: state structures and policies contribute to these privileged students' rationale for 'taking it easy' and doing poorly in school.


Authors investigate interactions between the rate of economic growth and the saving rate in Poland in the 1990s. Tendencies observed in the Polish economy are related to the long term trends of growth and saving in a number of OECD countries. A simulation of possible development paths of the Polish economy is conducted using results of the estimation of the saving function for the OECD countries in the period 1971-1994. The model implies that, if the factors determining the rate of saving and the rate of growth were the same as those in the OECD countries during the last 25 years, the rate of saving in Poland would be higher by 5 percentage points and would equal 22 percent. Moreover, assuming the medium term rate of growth of 5-7 percent, a reduction of the budget deficit and the current account deficit, would result in a rise in the saving rate up to the level of 25-27 percent of GDP. Savings of households would rise by 2-3 percentage points to the level of 12 percent of GDP. The long term rate of growth would either be lowered down to 4 percent or raised up to 8 percent depending on the extent of utilisation of externalities and increasing returns from the employment of the human capital and technological change.


STUDY OBJECTIVE
We sought to validate a previously developed model of emergency department patient satisfaction in a general population using a standard mailed format. The study aims to export the findings of a comprehensive ED quality-of-care study to an easily measured patient population.

METHODS
A double-sided, single-page survey was mailed to all patients discharged home from 4 teaching hospital EDs during a 1-month period. Determinants of patient satisfaction were analyzed with a previously developed multivariate, ordinal logistic-regression model.

RESULTS
The mail survey response rate was 22.9% (2,373/10,381). The survey validates the importance of previously identified determinants of patient satisfaction, including age, help not received when needed, poor explanation of problem, not told about wait time, not told when to resume normal activity, poor explanation of test results, and not told when to return to the ED (P <.01). Greater age predicted higher patient satisfaction, whereas all other variables correlated with lower patient satisfaction. In contrast with prior findings, black race was not a significant predictor of satisfaction in the mail survey population. Low ratings of overall care are strongly correlated with reduced willingness to return (P <.0001).

CONCLUSION
A patient satisfaction model was previously developed from a comprehensive research survey of ED care. We demonstrate the generalizability of this model to a mail survey population and replicate the finding that satisfaction strongly predicts willingness to return. The response rate of this study is typical of commercial patient-satisfaction surveys. The validated model suggests that ED patient satisfaction improvement efforts should focus on a limited number of modifiable and easily measured factors.


This paper presents recent developments in a distributed semantic hypertext framework called DHT that supports software development projects within virtual enterprises. We show how hypertext functionality embodied in DHT solves the practical problems of project coordination. These include collaborative data sharing in a virtual enterprise of distributed teams, integrating existing tools and environments, and enacting software processes to coordinate development activities for teams across wide-area networks.In particular, we describe how software process enactment can be achieved within a virtual enterprise without centralized mechanisms. This is when the process description is represented as a user-navigable hypertext graph the nodes of which associate process steps, staff roles and associated tools with designated software products. Overall, these capabilities provide support for coordinating software development projects across a virtual enterprise of teams connected via the Internet.


Aim: This doctoral research aimed to develop a better understanding of the process of implementing Enhanced Recovery Pathways (ERPs) in real-world settings. Through a realist evaluation approach, I aimed to identify which implementation strategies worked, to what extent, for whom, under what circumstances, and why.
Background: ERPs are an increasingly popular, evidence-based approach to streamlining a broad range of surgeries. When successfully implemented, ERPs have demonstrated an improvement in patient outcomes, including reduced length of stay, reduced pain and improved recovery. However, implementation and staff adherence to ERPs remains inconsistent, limiting the potential benefits of ERPs in practice.
Methodology: I conducted a realist synthesis of existing UK literature related to ERP implementation research. Building on these findings, I designed a qualitative investigation of a new ERP being introduced in three UK hospitals. This empirical study, conducted over the twelve-month implementation period, involved repeat-interviewing of the co-ordinating change agents, and secondary analysis of ethnographic data. I analysed the entire dataset using thematic analysis.
Findings: My realist synthesis of ERP implementation literature identified the most commonly used strategies for ERP implementation in UK NHS hospitals, but also highlighted the lack of detailed reporting regarding selection and design of these strategies. My subsequent empirical research tested and refined these programme theories further, identifying a number of critical factors which mediate the successful implementation of ERPs. These included: change agent understanding of role and responsibilities, ward staff readiness to change, and contextual sensitivity of implementation strategy design.
Conclusions: Although no single, general implementation strategy can be applied to ensure successful ERP implementation across all contexts, the programme theories developed through this research highlight important areas for attention when designing ERP implementation design strategies. Future ERP implementation efforts should prioritise contextually sensitive, evidence-based implementation strategies, in order to maximise pathway adherence and optimise patient care.


This dissertation thesis unravels various strategies of the Drosophila melanogaster olfactory circuit to decode the olfactory world into an accurate perception of odors underlying innate odor-guided behavior. The olfactory system is an extremely flat but elegantly organized circuitry, which is optimized to extract relevant variables at any of its processing levels. The peripheral machinery composed of various OSN types mainly serves as a pure detection area encoding odors in a combinatorial manner. Already at the first synapse between OSNs and PNs specific features of an odor stimulus as valence and intensity are extracted by the PNs that relay this information to higher processing centers. Hereby excitatory PNs, which represent the majority of the AL output, possess the capacity to extract odor identity as well as positive and negative valence. Inhibitory PNs constitute a parallel processing stream to ePNs towards the higher brain and perform a decoding of features from the AL into a particular percept underlying a traceable behavior. Moreover, I found evidence for a spatial partitioning of the LH according to distinct odor features. Since both PN types are reunited within the LH, valence and intensity-specific activity might be computed to configure a valence-specific behavioral output. Besides general rules of olfactory coding, this thesis elucidates two exceptional cases with evolutionarily highly conserved underlying principles. First, the olfactory mimicry of yeasty fermentation products performed by the plume of the deceptive Arum palaestiunum flower and second, a labeled line circuit of fundamental significance for the animal's survival could be discovered: the geosmin pathway is exclusively tuned to the repellent product of toxic microorganisms. In conclusion, findings within my thesis reveal general rules for decoding odor features as innate valence and odor intensity as well as specialized hard-wired mechanisms initiating innate behavior.


Earthquake mechanics may be determined by the geometry of a fault system. Slip on a fractal branching fault surface can explain: 1) regeneration of stress irregularities in an earthquake; 2) the concentration of stress drop in an earthquake into asperities; 3) starting and stopping of earthquake slip at fault junctions, and 4) self-similar scaling of earthquakes. Slip at fault junctions provides a natural realization of barrier and asperity models without appealing to variations of fault strength. Fault systems are observed to have a branching fractal structure, and slip may occur at many fault junctions in an earthquake. Consider the mechanics of slip at one fault junction. In order to avoid a stress singularity of order 1/r, an intersection of faults must be a triple junction and the Burgers vectors on the three fault segments at the junction must sum to zero. In other words, to lowest order the deformation consists of rigid block displacement, which ensures that the local stress due to the dislocations is zero. The elastic dislocation solution, however, ignores the fact that the configuration of the blocks changes at the scale of the displacement. A volume change occurs at the junction; either a void opens or intense local deformation is required to avoid material overlap. The volume change is proportional to the product of the slip increment and the total slip since the formation of the junction. Energy absorbed at the junction, equal to confining pressure times the volume change, is not large enongh to prevent slip at a new junction. The ratio of energy absorbed at a new junction to elastic energy released in an earthquake is no larger than P/µ where P is confining pressure and µ is the shear modulus. At a depth of 10 km this dimensionless ratio has th value P/µ= 0.01. As slip accumulates at a fault junction in a number of earthquakes, the fault segments are displaced such that they no longer meet at a single point. For this reason the volume increment for a given slip increment becomes larger. A juction with past accumulated slip ??0 is a strong barrier to earthquakes with maximum slip um < 2 (P/µ) u0 = u0/50. As slip continues to occur elsewhere in the fault system, a stress concentration will grow at the old junction. A fresh fracture may occur in the stress concentration, establishing a new triple junction, and allowing continuity of slip in the fault system. The fresh fracture could provide the instability needed to explain earthquakes. Perhaps a small fraction (on the order of P/µ) of the surface that slips in any earthquake is fresh fracture. Stress drop occurs only on this small fraction of the rupture surface, the asperities. Strain change in the asperities is on the order of P/µ. Therefore this model predicts average strais change in an earthquake to be on the order of (P/µ)2 = 0.0001, as is observed.


Multiple-environment Markov decision processes (MEMDPs) are MDPs equipped with not one, but multiple probabilistic transition functions, which represent the various possible unknown environments. While the previous research on MEMDPs focused on theoretical properties for long-run average payoff, we study them with discounted-sum payoff and focus on their practical advantages and applications. MEMDPs can be viewed as a special case of Partially observable and Mixed observability MDPs: the state of the system is perfectly observable, but not the environment. We show that the specific structure of MEMDPs allows for more efficient algorithmic analysis, in particular for faster belief updates. We demonstrate the applicability of MEMDPs in several domains. In particular, we formalize the sequential decision-making approach to contextual recommendation systems as MEMDPs and substantially improve over the previous MDP approach.


High temperature combined with low dissolved oxygen (DO) is one of the most challenging environmental conditions farmed fish experience; thus, understanding their impact on growth regulation is of relevance to cultured and wild populations. This study examines appetite- and growth-regulating mechanisms in Atlantic salmon postsmolt exposed to either high (HO) or low oxygen (LO) at a suboptimally high temperature (17°C). Additionally, the effects of high (HE) and low (LE) dietary energy (DE) were examined. After a month of treatment, analyses of hormones, regulating appetite (ghrelin) and growth (growth hormone receptor ghr1 and insulin-like growth factor IGF-1), and free amino acids (FAA) were measured pre- and postprandially at −4, −2, 0, 2, 4 and 6 h. No preprandial ghrelin peaks were detected despite a significant reduction in feed intake and growth under hypoxia compared to normoxia. LO treatment also had an overall negative effect on survival compared to HO, while nutrient retention efficiency, FCR and plasma FAA concentrations were unaffected (P > 0.05). Feeding HE diet resulted in increased growth (+17%) and improved FCR (−14%) and energy retention efficiency (+26%) independent of DO. Plasma FAA concentrations were unaffected by LO treatment and DE (P > 0.05). Growth regulatory gene expressions possibly reflect an overall lower growth at a high temperature overriding the impacts of DO and DE. This study also indicates that optimal adaptation time to environmental conditions and feeding regime is crucial for establishing a regular hormonal appetite signalling that reflects real feeding anticipation in salmon.


Organic stilbazolium salt crystals pumped by intense, ultrashort mid-infrared laser have been investigated for efficient THz generation by optical rectification. In this paper we present our latest results in view of the generation of single-cycle and high-field THz transient in the THz gap (0.1-10 THz). The organic rectifiers like DAST, OH1 and DSTMS combine extremely large optical susceptibility with excellent velocity matching between the infrared pump and the THz radiation. Our simple collinear conversion scheme provides THz beams with excellent focusing properties and single cycle electric field larger than 1.5 MV/cm and magnetic field strength beyond 0.5 Tesla. The source can potentially cover the full THz gap at field strength which is barely provided by other THz sources. The THz pulse is carrier-envelope phase stable and the polarity of the field can be easily inverted.


The Austroads Guide to Road Design has eight parts and provides a comprehensive coverage of road design guidance for practitioners involved in road design. Part 5 - Drainage Design is concerned with road drainage design for all drainage infrastructure, except bridges which is covered in the Austroads Guide to Bridge Technology. Part 5 provides guidance on good design process and practice, and focuses on the hydraulic design of the drainage systems and facilities, including the required design charts and formulae. Part 5 presents detailed information and guidelines on factors that need to be considered in the selection and design of appropriate and effective road drainage. Whilst it provides general information on the assessment of rainfall and run-off the guide requires other key documents to provide detailed information for the determination of water flows for design purposes. The Guide describes the need to control pollution and erosion from road use, road construction and road maintenance activities, and provides processes, parameters and techniques associated with treatments designed to prevent pollutants from entering natural water courses, and water flows from causing damage.


This dissertation uses applied microeconometrics to examine the economics of time allocation and human capital. To do so, these essays bring together data from a variety of sources, build theoretical economic models, and apply econometric methods to deal with empirical issues. In Chapter II, a new measure of commuting time for U.S. households is constructed by applying a previously developed methodology to a novel data source, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). To assess the suitability of this new measure for empirical analysis, commuting times and patterns within the ATUS measure are then compared to those for commuting measures that have been constructed from other commonly used data sources. Chapter III takes advantage of this novel measure and associated ATUS data to investigate why women tend have shorter commutes than men. Previous studies have examined this "gender commuting gap," but have yet to provide a satisfying explanation. A theoretical economic model is developed here that generates predictions complementary to those in the literature. The empirical analysis that follows establishes that the measured gender gap is reduced when stops are included in the calculation of commuting times, but that the remaining gender difference in commuting time is related to gender differences in wages and the types of jobs held. Chapter IV applies econometric methods to a different empirical issue: the impact of military service in WWII and the Korean War on the educational attainment of children. Using U.S. Census data, this chapter constructs linked family data to find that a father's military service is associated with greater educational progress for his children. Applying multiple methods to account for endogenous effects, the analysis is unable to reject the hypothesis that the observed relationship is due to endogeneity.


OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study was to determine the time to, and durability of, viral suppression, among Canadian children living with HIV after initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART).

DESIGN
Prospective, multicenter Canadian cohort study (Early Pediatric Initiation Canada Child Cure Cohort), using both prospective and retrospectively collected data.

METHODS
Kaplan-Meir survival estimates with Cox regression were used to determine the time to and risk factors for viral suppression, defined as two consecutive undetectable viral loads (<50 copies/ml) at least 30 days apart after initiation of cART.

RESULTS
A total of 228 children were enrolled between December 2014 and December 2018. The time to viral suppression was significantly shorter among children initiating cART after 5 vs. 5 years or less of age [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 1.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13-2.20], among those born after 2010 vs. prior (aHR 1.71, 95% CI 1.04-2.79), and among those without child protection services involvement (aHR 1.44, 95% CI 1.03-2.01). Overall, 27% of children had a viral rebound within 3 years of achieving viral suppression; the risk of viral rebound was significantly lower among children initiating cART after 5 vs. 5 years or less of age [adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 0.32, 95% CI 0.13-0.81], those whose families had not received social assistance (aOR 0.16, 95% CI 0.06-0.46), and females vs. males (aOR 0.51, 95% CI 0.26-0.99).

CONCLUSION
Only 73% of the children in the Early Pediatric Initiation Canada Child Cure Cohort had maintained viral suppression 3 years after it was first achieved. Age at cART initiation, and socioeconomic factors were predictors of both time to viral suppression and risk of viral rebound in this cohort.


Human urine is an abundant, renewable resource that can be used as a valuable source of fertilizer because it is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. As fertilizers derived from urine become more widely used, it is important to understand how excreted pharmaceuticals are transported from urine to the environment. Many pharmaceuticals are excreted from the human body in their native form; therefore, when urine is used as a fertilizer, biologically active pharmaceuticals can be released into the environment. The goal of this study was to develop sensitive methods for the analysis of pharmaceuticals in urine, struvite, lysimeter water, soil, and food crops using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The ability to detect low levels of pharmaceutical residues in various environmental matrices will aid in assessing the potential risks associated with the field application of urine that is used to fertilize croplands. The optimized method reported in this paper, which utilizes solid phase extraction for sample clean-up and pre-concentration, offers analyte recoveries ranging from 29 to 112 percent, and detection limits ranging from 0.89 ng L−1 to 0.0047 μg g−1. The optimized extraction method provides intra-day and inter-day reproducibility of less than 10% for all analytes in all matrices investigated, with the exception for ciprofloxacin in urine. The use of isotope dilution for quantification proved necessary to compensate for matrix effects, especially in urine where matrix effects can range from about 21% to 79%. Overall, the method described here is robust and widely applicable to various types of environmental samples.


Algorithms that list graphs such that no two listed graphs are isomorphic, are important building blocks of systems for mining and learning in graphs. Algorithms are already known that solve this problem efficiently for many classes of graphs of restricted topology, such as trees. In this article we introduce the concept of a dense augmentation schema, and introduce an algorithm that can be used to enumerate any class of graphs with polynomial delay, as long as the class of graphs can be described using a monotonic predicate operating on a dense augmentation schema. In practice this means that this is the first enumeration algorithm that can be applied theoretically efficiently in any frequent subgraph mining algorithm, and that this algorithm generalizes to situations beyond the standard frequent subgraph mining setting.


Introduction Historically speaking, connections between useful knowledge and red brick institutions were advocated by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) as early as 1620 in his Novum organon. The text and the title were originally written in the language of the learned at the time. In the English translation, the Cambridge University graduate, jurist, and member of the court of Elizabeth I wrote: "The true and legitimate goal of the sciences is to endow human life with new discoveries and resources.... Just let man recover the right over nature which belongs to him by God's gift, and give it scope; right reason and sound religion will govern its use." (1) According to Bacon's The New Method, useful knowledge is the link between science and religion. Some three hundred years later, after earning his doctorate in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916, Vannevar Bush joined its Electrical Engineering Department and later served as Vice President and Dean of Engineering at MIT. In 1922, he co-founded Raytheon Company. During NASA's 1969 Apollo Mission, the guidance and navigation system designed by MIT and built by Raytheon made it possible for the first man (Neil Armstrong) to walk on the Moon and return safely to Earth. (2) In his 1999 biography, Endless Frontier: Yannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century, G. Pascal Zachary wrote that even though Bush had "designed the world's most powerful mechanical calculators in the 1930s, laying the groundwork for the advent of the digital computer and the information revolution," he is probably best known for his World War II service as Director of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Office of Scientific Research and Development. "At the age of 57, he personified military research in America and was the most politically powerful inventor in America since Benjamin Franklin." However, it was his post-War, 1945 report "Science--the Endless Frontier" that encouraged public funding for university scientific research in the United States. And, that same year, in his Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think," Bush "predicted that new technologies would someday deliver an unprecedented ability to receive and manage information, thus improving the quality of life in untold ways." According to his biographer, Bush's "words contained the germ of what would become the Internet and won him a posthumous reputation as the sage of cyberspace" (Zachary 1999, 2-3). (3) Although never built, the design Vannevar Bush called "Memex" encouraged the construction of the World Wide Web's hypertext technology that makes browsing the Internet faster, more interactive. "Bush laid the blame on librarians for the growing inability to find relevant information swiftly.... Rather than fixed indexes, Bush envisioned flexible ones, along the lines of the 'associative trails' that he described in his "As We May Think" article." As the author explained, "[t]hese dynamic indexes would evolve on the fly, becoming personalized. The building block of this new organizing scheme was the 'key word.' Each document would contain at least one key word and probably more" (Zachary 1999, 272). (4) What Vannevar Bush called "associative trails," we can access via hypertext links to "useful knowledge" and "red brick institutions." Although the latter were not incorporated until the nineteenth century, they had been envisioned two hundred years earlier when the Englishman Sir Francis Bacon proposed "the establishment of state institutions that would be dedicated to improvements in the crafts and trades" (Dear 2001, 57). As early as 1605, in his Advancement of Learning, Bacon introduced his useful knowledge campaign. Fifteen years later, in The New Method, he would denounce the Aristotelian natural philosophy curriculum taught at the universities in his day for its "contemplative ideal.... Instead, he held that natural philosophy, properly understood, should be directed towards achieving improvements in the well-being of humanity--what we would nowadays think of as technological advances. …


In this paper, we construct a three-country model with two governments and two firms and consider dynamic behavior of the sequential subsidy game in which the governments determine their optimal trade policies and then the firms determine their optimal outputs. We first show the existence of an optimal trade policy under realistic conditions. In the case of symmetric firms, the governments adopt periodic mixed trade policy (i.e., one government gives subsidy and the other levies tax in one period and then the governments interchange their policies in the next period) if the adjustment is naive, and the governments adopt a stable mixed policy if adaptive. In the case of asymmetric firms, a firm receives subsidy if its cost is lower and pays tax if higher. If the Cournot output point under the optimal subsidy is locally stable, then its dynamics can be periodic which is synchronized with the periodic trade policy. If it is locally unstable, then complex dynamics involving chaos emerges regardless of the cost difference.


This reprint volume focuses on recent developments in knot theory arising from mathematical physics, especially solvable lattice models, Yang-Baxter equation, quantum group and two dimensional conformal field theory. This volume is helpful to topologists and mathematical physicists because existing articles are scattered in journals of many different domains including Mathematics and Physics. This volume will give an excellent perspective on these new developments in Topology inspired by mathematical physics.


Life cycle cost (LCC) is an important technique for evaluating the total cost of ownership between mutually exclusive alternatives. Executive Order 13123 requires government agencies to use life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) to minimize the government's cost of ownership. Unfortunately, many stakeholders do not understand the concept of cost and proceed to minimize project acquisition (first) cost, rather than total project cost. However, over the life of the project, facility management cost is often two to three times higher than acquisition costs. Therefore, it is essential to design for minimum facility management cost.


Adaptive streaming over HTTP has become the de-facto standard for video streaming over the Internet, partly due to its ease of deployment in a heavily ossified Internet. Though performant in most on-demand scenarios, it is bound by the semantics of TCP, with reliability prioritised over timeliness, even for live video where the reverse may be desired. In this paper, we present an implementation of MPEG-DASH over TCP Hollywood, a widely deployable TCP variant for latency sensitive applications. Out-of-order delivery in TCP Hollywood allows the client to measure, adapt and request the next video chunk even when the current one is only partially downloaded. Furthermore, the ability to skip frames, enabled by multi-streaming and out-of-order delivery, adds resilience against stalling for any delayed messages. We observed that in high latency and high loss networks, TCP Hollywood significantly lowers the possibility of stall events and also supports better quality downloads in comparison to standard TCP, with minimal changes to current adaptation algorithms.


Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), often referred as drones, have been widely implemented for civilian, commercial, search and rescue, and military operations with the advantages of easy deployment, low cost, automation, as well as, most importantly, allowing the execution of dangerous or difficult tasks remotely and safely. However, current UAVs are equipped with a skid or wheel landing gear that limits the application of UAVs to an even and flat ground for safe landing and taking off; this constraint impedes the development of UAVs for application in extreme environments, such as war fields and remote wilderness where proximate level ground is inaccessible. The ability of UAVs to land on un-level ground would help broaden the application of UAVs; in particular, the ability to go beyond thermal imaging to locate a lost hiker with the ability to land and deliver life-sustaining resources in a more timely manner offers a benefit to human rescue missions. This paper presents an innovative robotic landing system consisting of three slanted legs, each individually controlled by a motor. The footpad of each leg has an integrated force sensor for detecting ground touch. An inclinometer is installed on the platform of the landing system to sense the UAVs orientation during landing. Thus, the landing system can keep the platform horizontal when it lands on the ground by extending or retracting the legs. The feasibility and effectiveness of the robotic method have been demonstrated by several indoor and outdoor experiments.


This essay seeks to theoretically defend a certain type of narratable history of Chinese political philosophy against the challenge of both cultural essential ism and its critique.1 I will begin with an examination of cultural essentialism in existing works on the history of Chinese political philosophy, which shall serve as a foundation for the alternative approach I will then develop. It is my contention that it is possible to formulate a non-essentialist notion of Chinese political philosophy that may facilitate the writing of an integrated, chronological history of Chinese political philosophy. 21 conclude by considering its broader implications in relation to the notion of East Asian civilization.I believe that we no longer have to defend the necessity of studying the Chinese tradition of political philosophy perse, for much ink has been devoted to the critique of various versions of Eurocentrism. Since Europe's "discovery" of competing civilizations around the world, even Europeans themselves have gradually accepted an irremediable human pluralism, perhaps with the exception of some narrow-minded and recalcitrant intellectuals. It became possible to think of Europe as only one of many civilizations, and not necessarily the best one. I presume that many view Chinese or East Asian civilizations to be on an equal ontological footing with the European one. At the very least, they are, in principle, equally worthy of scholarly attention.Having said this, what I want to discuss in this essay is the question of whether a specific form of exploration-i.e., an integrated, chronological history of Chinese political philosophy-is theoretically defensible. Before proceeding to explore its theoretical justification, a few comments on the state of the art seem to be in order, although I will make no effort to state the long pedigrees of relevant works on Chinese political philosophy or thought.Hsiao Kung-chuan's A History of Chinese Political Thought is practically the only book-length study available in Western languages that introduces students to Chinese political thought from antiquity to the present.3 In fact, Hsiao's work is part of the 1930-40's scholarly trend that produced quite a few histories of Chinese political thought including those of Tao Xisheng, Lii Zhenyu, Liang Qichao and Lu Simian.4Until the 1980s, very few scholarly efforts were made to write a chronological narrative of Chinese political thought in mainland China since then. As many scholars acknowledge, such a void in mainland Chinese scholarship was caused largely by political turmoil during that period.5 Meanwhile, Taiwanese scholars, who were relatively free from political uncertainty, 6 produced a series of histories of Chinese political thought or philosophy, including those of SaMengwu, Xie Fuya, Ye Zuhao, and Yang Youjiong to name but a few.7 Over the last few decades, however, as the political landscape changed, mainland Chinese scholars have increasingly produced histories of Chinese political thought or philosophy." The growing number of volumes entitled "The History of Chinese Political Thought" indicates the fact that chronological narrative is a popular genre in mainland Chinese scholarly writing on Chinese political thought or philosophy, while there appears to be no corresponding tendency outside China.Cultural Essentialism in the Histories of Chinese Political PhilosophyThis is not the place to attempt a review of all recent works on Chinese political philosophy in mainland China. Suffice it to say, significant portions of existing histories of Chinese political philosophy are still founded on an "essentialist" picture of Chinese political philosophy as somewhat determinate, bounded, and homogeneous. One indication is that many relevant studies are based on the dichotomy between the Chinese tradition of political philosophy and Western political philosophy. In my view, it is this essentialist approach that leads scholars to consider the otherwise unfeasible chronological narrative to be constructive and even desirable. …


To obtain shorter pulses in chirped-pulse-amplification lasers, researchers have recently proposed several designs for aberration-free pulse stretchers. We examine the limitations of two aberration-free chirped-pulse-amplification systems and show that comparable results can be obtained with simpler, conventional pulse stretchers. In addition, we present a simple, quintic-phase-limited, aberration-free chirped-pulse-amplification system that can support ultrashort, high-contrast pulses.


For some years, the historiography of Australian Pentecostalism has been dominated by the belief that Pentecostalism came to Australia in 1909 through the agency of Sarah Jane Lancaster who had, in turn, been influenced by news of overseas events. There had, apparently, been little or no influence in the Australian context by such groups as the Catholic Apostolic Church, which formed in Britain in 1835, in the wake of Edward Irving's proto-Pentecostal theology. Although members of the Catholic Apostolic Church arrived in Melbourne in the 1850s, the general view was that they had by then abandoned their earlier pursuit of the charismata.

In 2012, I argued (based on a limited sample of evidence) that the adherents of the Catholic Apostolic Church in Australia both taught and practised the charismata throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. This evidence is contained in the Angels' Report Books, located in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Since then, the Bradford collection has been fully digitised, thereby allowing a comprehensive review of the Catholic Apostolic Church's charismatic activity and further evaluation of the Lancaster hypothesis.

The significance of this research is that it allows a considerable re-framing of the pre-history of Australian Pentecostalism, demonstrating that the Catholic Apostolic Church taught and practised glossolalia, prophecy and divine healing through the last four decades of the nineteenth century.


This Article explores the current status of the law of setoff in this country. It first briefly examines the history of setoff, details where and when it arises, and explains its importance. The Article then illustrates the .different ways in which states have approached some of the complex issues presented by setoff and determines which approaches appear best. Finally, presuming the need for increased uniformity, the Article proposes a draft Uniform Setoff Act and an "Official Comment" thereto.


Objective. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects adults of working age and leads to productivity losses because of presenteeism that results from limitations while at work. The aim of our study was to gain insight into disease-related factors, general health, and work characteristics as predictors of presenteeism in workers with RA. Methods. Workers with RA (n = 150) recruited by rheumatologists completed questionnaires at baseline and after 1 year. Medical information was retrieved from patient records. Presenteeism was measured by the Work Limitations Questionnaire. Disease [28-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS28), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), pain, fatigue], general health (mental, physical, deterioration of health), and work characteristics (work instability, social support, workload) were assessed as predictors of presenteeism after 1 year using linear regression analyses. Results. Presenteeism was 4.0 h over a 2-week period based on an average work week of 28.7 hours. More RA-related disability (HAQ; B = −1.20, 95% CI −2.12 to −0.28), poorer mental health (B = −0.04, 95% CI −0.08 to −0.01), and health deterioration over a 1-year period (B: −0.02, 95% CI −0.04 to −0.01) were associated with more presenteeism. Work characteristics were not associated with presenteeism. Conclusion. Disease-related factors and general health characteristics were significantly associated with presenteeism at 1-year followup, although the effects of the general health characteristics were considered not to be relevant. To reduce presenteeism and improve functioning at work, it is important to pay attention to reducing RA-related disability in addition to reducing disease activity. A broader perspective is needed and should also take into account the level of RA-related disability.


Inactivation or stimulated degradation of the inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) constitutes one component of the apoptotic pathway. Proteins that have a conserved IAP-binding motif (IBM), which mediates the interaction with the BIR domains of IAPs, inhibit the antiapoptotic activity of IAPs. Hegde et al. identified GSTP1 (also known as eRF3) as a human IBM-containing protein on the basis of its ability to interact with a glutathione S-transferase (GST)-BIR fusion protein. GSTP1 is known as a G1-to-S-phase transition protein and as a protein that functions in translation. GST-BIR affinity purification identified a form of GSTP1 that was cleaved of the first 60 amino acids, which exposed an IBM domain. Only the processed GSTP1 was able to interact with GST-BIR and processed GSTP1 bound to full-length IAPs, XIAP, c-IAP1, and c-IAP2. In transfected cells, both the full-length and cleaved forms of GSTP1 were detectable, with the cleaved form representing a fraction of the total; thus, stimulation of GSTP1 cleavage may provide a point of regulation for the GSTP1 and IAP interaction. Cleaved GSTP1 stimulated caspase activity in vitro, and overexpression of cleaved GSTP1 led to increased cellular caspase activation and apoptosis. Immunostaining showed that full-length GSTP1 is predominantly localized to the endoplasmic reticulum and overexpression of the cleaved form of GSTP1 showed a cytosolic and nuclear localization, which suggests that cleavage of GSTP1 may alter the subcellular distribution of GSTP1. The enzyme responsible for GSTP1 processing to produce an IAP-binding protein and the signals that may regulate such processing remain to be determined. R. Hegde, S. M. Srinivasula, P. Datta, M. Madesh, R. Wassell, Z. Zhang, N. Cheong, J. Nejmeh, T. Fernandes-Alnemri, S. Hoshino, E. S. Alnemri, The polypeptide chain-releasing factor GSPT1/eRF3 is proteolytically processed into an IAP-binding protein. J. Biol. Chem. 278, 38699-38706 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Modern Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) can accommodate complex system-on-chip designs and require extensive intellectual-property (IP) support. However, current IP protection mechanisms in FPGAs are limited, and do not reach beyond whole-design bit-stream encryption. This work presents an architecture and protocol for securing IP based designs in programmable platforms. The architecture is reprsented by the Secure Authen-tication Module (SAM), an enabler for next-generation intellectual-property exchange in complex FPGAs. SAM protects hardware, software, application data, and also provides mutual assurances for the end-user and the intellectual-property developer. Further, this work demonstrates the use of SAM in a secure video messaging device on top of a Virtex-II Pro development system.


One of the strong forces of attraction coming from the carbon role is discussed here as the main force of interaction in the protein association during relief work. One can consider several examples of drug interaction with the protein of interest. Here it is taken as microbial controlling beta-lactamase binding oxacillin one for study and to detail out the force of involvement and associated principles. Our results clearly explain the role of carbon in the interaction between the drug of action and associated protein. One can take this principle coming out of carbon value for further study on drug development or protein inhibition value. We conclude here that the carbon value is the best treatment of all sort of interaction associated with drug-protein interaction and all other forces are merely there for the association and not at all important for study in drug development further on.


Evidence exists regarding the impact of flourishing in individuals living with chronic pain, but there are currently no reviews which collate the literature on flourishing in adolescents living with chronic pain and their parents. Therefore, the aim of this scoping review was to map and review the current literature, to document how flourishing is defined and understood in the literature, and to identify gaps in the field. Six databases were searched (Web of Science, Medline, Embase, APA PsycNet and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials). In addition, a limited gray literature search was conducted. The resulting data were collated and reported in relation to the review questions, by examining the included papers to search for the presence of flourishing. Database searches resulted in 7326 papers after duplicate removal, with eight remaining papers being assessed for full‐text eligibility. Following full‐text screening, a final four papers were included in the review. Within the papers, flourishing was defined in relation to commonalities of benefit finding, enhanced maturity and growth, and social support. Gaps in the literature and directions for future research are considered. This review suggests that there is a dearth of knowledge and research regarding flourishing among adolescents living with chronic pain and their parents, despite aspects of flourishing identified in limited literature. This warrants further investigation.


Purpose/Background Activating and sedating adverse effects of antipsychotics can be obstacles to their use. Methods/Procedures This study quantified the activating and sedating properties of first-line oral second-generation antipsychotics by examining the rates of adverse reactions as reported in product labeling for the indications of schizophrenia and adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder. Additional data sources included regulatory documents, study synopses, and published study reports. Attributable risk increase and number needed to harm (NNH) were calculated for each agent versus placebo. Findings/Results Heterogeneity among the different antipsychotics regarding activating or sedating adverse events was observed, with some agents displaying the potential for both activating and sedating properties. For agents indicated for the treatment of schizophrenia, predominantly activating medications include lurasidone (NNH, 11 for akathisia vs 20 for somnolence) and cariprazine (NNH, 15 for akathisia vs 65 for somnolence-combined terms). Similarly activating and sedating are risperidone (NNH, 15 for akathisia vs 13 for sedation) and aripiprazole (NNH, 31 for akathisia vs 34 for somnolence). Predominantly sedating are olanzapine, quetiapine immediate and extended release, ziprasidone, asenapine, and iloperidone. Agents that are neither activating nor sedating are paliperidone and brexpiprazole. For major depressive disorder, the overall findings regarding activation and sedation appear similar to those seen with schizophrenia. Data extracted were limited to those available from registrational studies that contributed to the adverse event tables contained in the product labels. Postregistrational comparative studies may yield different outcomes. Implications/Conclusions Differences in tolerability profiles regarding activation and sedation have implications in terms of selecting the optimal antipsychotic for a given individual.


Background: Lead is the oldest known toxic metal, physiologically and biologically harmful to living creatures. This study aimed to evaluate the lead accumulation in the liver and breast muscles of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) and to compare concentrations in both sexes and its effect on blood biochemical factors. Methods: Twenty-four young farm Japanese quails (25 day old) prepared from local breeders in December 2014 and randomly divided into control and treatment group. Treatment group were exposed to 0.4 mg per kg diet of "Lead Acetate" for 21 days. We studied the effects of lead on survival and blood biochemical factors. The lead accumulation in the liver and breast muscles of Japanese quail was determined using atomic absorption. Results: Exposure to lead caused a significant increase in the activity of enzymes (AST), (ALT), (LDH), glucose, creatinine and uric acid in poultry treated with lead compared with the control group (P<0.05). In addition, significant decrease in the activity of ALP, AChE, total protein, albumin, globulin, and triglycerides was found (P<0.05). The treated group had no significant change in the activity of CPK and cholesterol. Lead accumulation was more in the liver rather than the breast muscle. There was no significant difference between males and females as for concentration of lead in muscle and liver of quail. Conclusion: Quail have capabilities to accumulate lead in their tissues. In addition, it can lead to apparent changes in enzymes and blood biochemical factors, which show adverse effects of heavy metals on the immune and physiological system of birds.


This case describes the precarious fiscal situation of the Illinois public pension system in the spring of 2009 and the accounting of pension plans by nonfederal municipalities more generally. In February 2009, in the midst of a recession, recently appointed Governor Quinn had to lay out his budget for the coming fiscal year and tackle the state's underfunded public pension, its largest liability. Immediately, the governor needed to raise funds to make the state's annual contribution to the pension plan, and at the same time he needed to come up with a plan for pension reform to prevent the future insolvency of the state. Governor Quinn had a number of levers he could employ, including changing the asset allocation of the pension funds; directly tackling entitlements through a defined benefit or defined contribution plan; or implementing a package of pension bonds, taxes, and employee contributions. Through this case, students should more fully understand pension accounting and the hard choices that many states will face because of their outstanding pension liabilities.Learning Objective: To educate students about the serious problems facing public pension funds and the financial-political challenges of solving these problems.


Olfactory reception occurs via the interaction of odorants with the chemosensory cilia of the olfactory receptor cells located in the nasal epithelium. The cDNA clones from mRNA specific to olfactory mucosa were studied. One of these clones, OBPII, encodes a secretory protein with significant homology to odorant-binding protein (OBP), a protein with broad odorant-binding ability, and is expressed in the lateral nasal gland, which is the site of expression of OBP. The OBPII sequence also shows significant homology to the VEG protein, which is thought to be involved in taste transduction. OBPII is a new member of the lipophilic molecule carrier protein family. The second cDNA clone encodes a novel homologue of glutathione peroxidase, an enzyme involved in cellular biotransformation pathways. Its expression appears to be localized to the Bowman's glands, the site of several previously identified olfactory-specific biotransformation enzymes.


Title of dissertation: INVESTIGATIONS OF FACTORS THAT AFFECT CONSUMERS' ONLINE WORD OF MOUTH BEHAVIOR Yu-Jen Chen Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Amna Kirmani Professor David Godes Department of Marketing This dissertation includes two essays investigating factors that affect consumers' online word of mouth (WOM) behavior. The first essay studies how consumers as online posters make an online forum choice decision when they are motivated to influence other consumers. We propose that consumers have theories about effective word of mouth persuasion, acting as intuitive media planners in making online forum choices. Specifically, consumers possess audience beliefs (i.e. how loyal to the brand) and beliefs about effective persuasion (i.e. surprising and novel things are more impactful). Across three studies, we demonstrate that posters prefer posing positive messages on a brand-neutral forum (e.g., Digital Camera Forum) to a brand-specific (e.g., Nikon Forum) because positive brand information is not surprising to the later audience. However, when posting negative brand information, posters are equally likely to choose either forum since negative brand information is perceived as diagnostic and surprising to all audience. We further offer a boundary condition in which the poster's primary motive is not to persuade and affect others but to affiliate with others. Under affiliation motive, message valence does not affect forum choice since posters are not considering message valence as a way to being impactful. The second essay investigates the role of product rating scale in a product rating task, and how it can drive WOM behavior. We argue that rating scale can affect a rater's likelihood of engaging subsequent WOM behavior. Specifically, conducting three experiments, we show that participants' WOM intention are higher after evaluating their consumption experience on a 5-point rating scale than on a 2-point rating scale. We suggest that rating scales can affect a rater's certainty belief regarding the rating score assigned (i.e., high rating certainty leads to higher WOM intention). We further provide evidence that rating certainty mediates the impact of rating scale on WOM intention. INVESTIGATIONS OF FACTORS THAT AFFECT CONSUMERS' ONLINE WORD OF MOUTH BEHAVIOR


The Economy of Modern Israel: Malaise and Promise, by Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993. x + 225 pages. Tables to p. 246. Refs. to p. 250. Index to p. 256. $34.95. In what is essentially a book for economists, Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka review the recent economic history of Israel in considerable detail. Chapters 1 and 2 of this work are devoted to providing an analysis of the background to and policies of the 1985 stabilization program. Although the program undoubtedly proved a success in curbing Israel's runaway inflation, the authors are intensely critical of some of the basic policy tools of the program's architects, which they believe contributed to the 1988-89 recession. The stabilization program, which consisted principally of the realignment of key prices and fiscal and monetary restraint, created a short-lived boom that rapidly deteriorated into recession. Apparently, the recession was totally unforeseen by Israel's policymakers and was largely attributed by them to the combined effects of excessive wage increases and the intifada (uprising). Razin and Sadka, by contrast, point to the persistent and (in their view) mistaken determination of then-Finance Minister Moshe Nissim to maintain a freeze on the exchange rate and to use it to manipulate wage and price stability. On top of this, the restrictions on capital imports intended to limit the money supply pushed interest rates uncomfortably high. In short, the authors claim, "the monetary policy pursued [subsequently] should be viewed as the fundamental force driving the economy into recession, a recession further deepened by the intifada and the rise in the effective tax burden" (p. 65). Michael Bruno, the governor of the Bank of Israel at the time, is singled out for particularly heavy criticism. The authors move in the succeeding parts of the book to discuss some of the primary economic issues facing Israel in recent years, notably, the impact of the intifada and Israel's own stranglehold on the economies of the occupied territories, the implications of emigration from the former Soviet Union, taxation policy, international trade, and economic liberalization. Unfortunately, the pages on the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip can only be termed as entirely misleading. It is inappropriate to describe the economic relationship between Israel and the occupied territories as "a classic example of the integration of a 'large' and a 'small' economy," or to assert that it has resembled anything close to a common market (pp. 74-7). Israel has imposed an extensive set of military orders that circumvent its obligations under international law and that (contrary to the inference of the authors on page 76) effectively replace and certainly override existing Egyptian and Jordanian law. These military orders, which cover everything from the planting of a tomato plant to the picking of wild thyme, have undermined any independence of the Palestinian economy and have been used to ensure that the economic benefits of the relationship are nearly all in Israel's favor. Most critically, Israeli governments have sought to deny the Palestinian population any independent engine for growth by severely restricting capital accumulation and credit for development--for example, by closing the existing sources of formal agricultural loans to farmers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Israeli practices have been so well documented, not least by international agencies such as the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),(1) as well as by renowned Israeli academics such as Meron Benvenisti, that it does the authors little credit to display what amounts to willful blindness. Benvenisti's own description of the relationship between Israel and the occupied territories--that it resembles "integration and exclusion," integration into the dominant economy when it benefits that economy and exclusion when it does not--is far closer to the truth. …


This Article analyzes what impact, if any, the slaying of one beneficiary by another should have on distribution of a decedent's property. This issue could arise in a variety of conveyances, such as intestate succession, wills, pay-on-death bank accounts, transfer-on-death securities, or life insurance proceeds. Based on equity, the Restatement (Third) of Restitution takes the position that a beneficiary may never move forward in the line of succession as the result of a slaying. This result is thought to be an extension of the traditional "slayer rule," which disallows a slayer from inheriting from her victim.The Article argues for the opposite conclusion: the slaying of a higher-priority beneficiary by a contingent beneficiary does not result in unjust enrichment because it does not result in a transfer of a property interest to the slayer. Although the slayer advances in the line of succession as a result of the slaying, the slayer still only possesses a defeasible expectancy, not a property interest. Because an expectancy is the legal equivalent of nothing, the slayer has not profited as a result of the killing.Thus, the property distribution should be governed by the likely intent of the owner of the estate rather than by the Restatement's misguided notion of equity. When there is no governing instrument, the best approach is to presume that the owner of the estate would neither wish to totally disinherit the slayer nor permit the slayer's share to increase as a result of the slaying. Thus, the slayer's distribution should be calculated as if the victim of the slaying did not predecease the owner of the estate. But when there is a governing instrument that was either republished after the slaying or went unchanged for a reasonable time after the slaying, the law should simply carry out the property distribution as directed in the instrument even if it results in a larger share for the slayer than the slayer would have received if the slayer's victim was still alive. This result is most likely in keeping with the intent of the estate's owner.


Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) mainly affects young persons in traffic accidents and the elderly in fall accidents. Improvements in the clinical management have significantly improved the outcome following TBI but survivors still suffer from depression, memory problems, personality changes, epilepsy and fatigue. The initial injury starts a series of events that give rise to a secondary injury process and despite several clinical trials there is no drug available for clinical use that targets secondary brain injury mechanisms. Some recovery of function is seen during the first months following injury but is usually limited and there are no drugs that stimulate the recovery of lost function. Some of the recovery is attributed to plasticity, the brains ability to adapt to new circumstances, and enhancing plasticity via increased axonal growth has the potential to partly restore lost function. In this thesis mice were subjected to the controlled cortical impact model of TBI and functional outcome was evaluated using Morris water maze, the cylinder test and the rotarod. Brain tissue loss was measured in all Papers but the additional histological analyses differ among the Papers. Attempts to increase axonal growth were made by interfering with Nogo receptor function in Paper I and by conditional knockout of ephA4 in Paper II. Contrary to the hypothesis cognition was impaired in Paper I but otherwise no effects of treatment were detected in Paper I and II. Much is still unknown about plasticity and despite the discouraging results of Papers I and II this treatment approach is still worth further exploration. It is firmly established that TBI results in an inflammatory response and some aspects of it may damage brain tissue. In Papers III and IV the inflammatory response was attenuated using an IL-1β directed antibody which resulted in reduced tissue loss and edema while improving cognitive function. The results from Papers III and IV are encouraging and the possibility to find a treatment based on IL-1β inhibition appears promising.


We study the effects of aggregate and idiosyncratic uncertainty on the entry of firms, total investment, and prices in a competitive industry with irreversible investment. We first use standard dynamic programming methods to determine firms' entry decisions, and we describe the resulting industry equilibrium and its characteristics, emphasizing the effects of different sources of uncertainty. We then show how the conditional distribution of prices can be used as an alternative means of determining and understanding the behavior of firms and the resulting industry equilibrium. Finally, we use four-digit U.S. manufacturing data to examine some implications of the model.


Entrepreneurial activity is often regarded as an engine for economic growth and job creation. Through tax policy, governments possess a potential lever to influence the decisions of economic agents to start and close small businesses. In Germany, the top marginal income tax rates were reduced exclusively for entrepreneurs in 1994 and 1999/2000. These tax reforms provided two naturally defined control groups that enable us to exploit the legislation changes as "natural experiments". First, the tax rate reductions did not apply to freelance professionals (Freiberufler), and second, entrepreneurs with earnings below a certain threshold were not affected. Using data from two different sources, the SOEP and the Mikrozensus (LFS), we analyse the effect of the tax cuts on transitions into and out of self-employment and on the rate of self-employment. We apply a "difference-in-difference-in-difference" estimation technique within a discrete time hazard rate model. The results indicate that the decrease in tax rates did not have a significant effect on the self-employment decision.


A simple, low cost arsenic removal system was developed to treat arsenic contaminated ground water containing 425 ± 4.2 µg/L arsenic. The system decontaminates arsenic from water by sorption through fine particles of waste materials (Coconut husk's ash, Refused brick dust, Stone dust and Waste newspaper) of multilayer. The treatment efficiency of the process was investigated under various operating conditions that might affect the sorption/ desorption of arsenic. Sorption column method shows the optimum removal of As(III) under the following conditions: initial As concentration (100 µg/L), sorbent amount (4.0 g for brick dust, 3.0 g for stone dust, 3.0 g for Coconut husk's ash and 0.3 g for waste newspaper), particle size (<355 µm), treatment flow rate (1.4 mL/min), optimum volume (100 mL) and pH (5.0). Desorption efficiencies with 2M of KOH after the treatment of groundwater were observed in the range of 78 ± 1.2% - 82 ± 1.4%. Average arsenic concentration of treated sample water was 8.30 ± 0.4 µg/L which is below the WHO guideline value for Bangladesh. Different techniques were used to measure thirteen metals, four anions with pH, conductivity, and temperature to understand the status of other species before and after treatment. The average concentrations of other inorganic constituents of health concern (Cu, Mn, Pb, Cr and Fe) in treated water were below WHO guideline value for drinking water. The present study showed a new method for removal of as from ground water


We defined the central circuit innervating various regions of the rat heart using a neurotropic herpesvirus as a transneuronal tracer. Location of viral antigens in the brain after cardiac injection of three strains of pseudorabies virus (PRV) provided insight into vagal preganglionic neurons and their connected interneurons. At short survival times, labeled vagal preganglionic neurons were localized in both the nucleus ambiguus (NA) and the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMV), and in an arc-like band through the reticular formation between the NA and the DMV. The amount of DMV labeling was dependent on viral strain. Similar distributions of labeled neurons were observed following either ganglionic, sinoatrial node, or ventricular injections. At intermediate survival times postcardiac injection, the virus replicated in vagal preganglionic neurons and was trans- synaptically transported to interneurons observed primarily in the NA regions and in an arc-like band through the reticular formation. Labeled neurons were also observed in ventral regions of the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS). At longer survival times, labeled neurons were found in various regions of the NTS with the most abundant label dorsal and dorsomedial to the solitary tract. Abundant neuronal labeling was also found in the intermediolateral cell column, the raphe nuclei, the caudal and rostral ventral lateral medulla, the A5 region, the locus coeruleus, and the lateral and paraventricular hypothalamic nuclei. These data define the central circuits including the interneuronal connections that innervate various cardiac targets.


Background: Multimodal analgesic strategies that reduce perioperative opioid consumption are well-supported in Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) literature. However, the optimal analgesic regimen has not been established, as the contributions of each individual agent to the overall analgesic efficacy with opioid reduction remains unknown. Perioperative ketamine infusions can decrease opioid consumption and opioid-related side effects. However, as opioid requirements are drastically minimized within ERAS models, the differential effects of ketamine within an ERAS pathway remain unknown. We aim to pragmatically investigate through a learning healthcare system infrastructure how the addition of a perioperative ketamine infusion to mature ERAS pathways affects functional recovery. Methods: The IMPAKT ERAS trial (IMpact of PerioperAtive KeTamine on Enhanced Recovery after Abdominal Surgery) is a single center, pragmatic, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trial. 1544 patients undergoing major abdominal surgery will be randomly allocated to receive intraoperative and postoperative (up to 48 hours) ketamine versus placebo infusions as part of a perioperative multimodal analgesic regimen. The primary outcome is length of stay, defined as surgical start time until hospital discharge. Secondary outcomes will include a variety of in-hospital clinical end points derived from the electronic health record. Discussion: We aimed to launch a large-scale, pragmatic trial that would easily integrate into routine clinical workflow. Implementation of a modified consent process was critical to preserving our pragmatic design, permitting an efficient, low-cost model without reliance on external study personnel. Therefore, we partnered with leaders of our Investigational Review Board to develop a novel, modified consent process and shortened written consent form that would meet all standard elements of informed consent, yet also allow clinical providers the ability to recruit and enroll patients during their clinical workflow. Our trial design has created a platform for subsequent pragmatic studies at our institution. Trial registration number: NCT04625283, Pre-results


The introduced soil-borne pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi Rands infects and kills a large number of species in the jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata Donn. ex Smith) forest of Western Australia, causing great floristic and structural change. Many of the floristic changes can be explained simply by the known susceptibility of species to infection. Some common species, however, are rarely found at infested sites but are thought to be resistant to infection. It has been postulated that such species may be affected by the change in habitat caused by the death of trees, and not by P. cinnamomi directly. If this were the case, such species should cluster around surviving trees at infested sites. The occurrence of a susceptible species in the vicinity of trees surviving at infested sites has also been reported. To investigate the spatial relationship between trees and understorey species, the positions of trees and selected perennial understorey species were mapped at two sites in jarrah forest long-affected by P. cinnamomi. Random sets of plants and trees were generated and used in simulations to test whether understorey species grew closer to trees than expected. Many understorey species, both resistant and susceptible to infection by P. cinnamomi, were found to grow closer than expected to trees currently growing at the sites and closer to the trees that would have been present at the time of infestation. This suggests that not only do these trees enable some resistant species to persist at infested sites but that they also offer protection to some susceptible species against damage by P. cinnamomi. The proximity of many understorey species to trees that are likely to have appeared at the study sites since the first infestation indicates that the maintenance and enhancement of tree cover at infested sites in the jarrah forest may limit the damage caused by P. cinnamomi and assist in the protection of biodiversity.