Background Eviplera is a combination of three antiretroviral drugs, emtricitabine, tenofovir and rilpivirine, which has just been marketed in Spain. Its approval indication, in 2012, was the treatment of treatment-naïve patients with type-1 HIV infection and a viral load ≤100,000 copies/ml, although it could be used in certain cases in pretreated patients. Due to its recent approval, it seems interesting to assess all the side effects that our patients may experience and the real effectiveness given its lower price compared to most antiretroviral drugs in use. Purpose To assess the effectiveness, safety and cost of treatment with Eviplera in treatment-naïve and pretreated patients. Materials and methods Observational retrospective study of 48 patients. Values of CD4+ lymphocytes and viral load were recorded to assess effectiveness and telephone interviews were conducted to find out the side effects experienced. The cost of Eviplera was compared to the cost of the previous treatment in the case of pretreated patients. Results 48 patients were studied, 10 treatment-naïve and 38 pretreated. Data of effectiveness and safety were available only in 21 and 33 patients, respectively. Eviplera seemed to be effective in 100% of the patients regardless of their condition of treatment-naïve or pretreated. The median increment in CD4+ lymphocytes was 106. 42% of the patients suffered some side effect and the most frequently observed were mild headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, fatigue, sickness and insomnia. Finally, median annual savings of 1463 euros per patient were observed. Conclusions Eviplera seems to be a cost-effective combination of antiretroviral drugs in treatment of HIV-1 treatment-naïve or pretreated patients. It has been shown that patients may experience adverse events but these are mild in most cases. Further studies should be carried out with longer periods of follow-up before reaching a conclusion. No conflict of interest.


ABSTRACT This study explores the boundaries of investigative journalism by examining how investigative journalists compete to construct, reiterate and challenge acceptable epistemic practices. Departing from the notion that investigative methods are fixed tools and tactics, the paper argues that methods also serve as relational skills and epistemic resources in the struggle for identity and recognition within the field of journalism. By conducting a qualitative textual analysis of 44 method reports submitted to the annual Norwegian investigative journalism award (SKUP) in 2018, both the transformative and normative aspects of the investigative epistemology are examined. The findings suggest that the investigative method can be conceptualized as a continuum of intertwining epistemic practices whose distribution and emphasis are context dependent. Within these contexts, some identity markers emerge as more contingent than others. The study contributes to two streams of scholarship by deploying the concept of boundary work within the field of journalism, and by reassessing the epistemology of investigative journalism as an object of ongoing negotiations.


A theory of cold fusion is presented, based on the Bloch theorem. The Bloch functions are used to represent the charged reactants and products of the nuclear fusion reaction in solid-state crystals. The nuclear fusion reaction is treated as a perturbation, the validity of which is shown. Field operator formalism, or quantum field theory, is used to calculate the transition matrix elements. Density offinal states is calculated based on the phonon theory. The reaction rate and fusion power output density are calculated by Fermi's golden rule, and from them it is recognized that they look as if they had no reproducibility-unless it is known that they depend on the number of the primitive cells in one crystal, the numbers of both the reactants and products, and the degree of the effectiveness of the Pauli exclusion principle. The triggering mechanism may also have a relation with its dependence on the aforementioned parameters. Three selection rules are derived. One of them is very important and valuable because it suggests that cold fusion is a very clean energy resource; i.e., the radioactivity level of cold fusion is extremely low and safe compared with its output power or the current fission output power The ratio (f/t) of the production rate of 4 He (heat) to that of tritons is derived quantitatively and compared with the observed value. The necessary conditions for cold fusion to occur and continue are given. Quantitative descriptions about nuclear fusion reactions in light (or hydrogen) water electrolysis are also given.


We want to organize a body of trajectories in order to identify, search for, classify and predict behavior among objects such as aircraft and ships. Existing compari- son functions such as the Fr'echet distance are computationally expensive and yield counterintuitive results in some cases. We propose an approach using feature vectors whose components represent succinctly the salient information in trajectories. These features incorporate basic information such as total distance traveled and distance be- tween start/stop points as well as geometric features related to the properties of the convex hull, trajectory curvature and general distance geometry. Additionally, these features can generally be mapped easily to behaviors of interest to humans that are searching large databases. Most of these geometric features are invariant under rigid transformation. We demonstrate the use of different subsets of these features to iden- tify trajectories similar to an exemplar, cluster a database of several hundred thousand trajectories, predict destination and apply unsupervised machine learning algorithms.


We examined seasonal patterns of drifting macroinvertebrates, and transported moss and (in)organic particulate matter at a fine spatial scale within the tufa-depositing barrage hydrosystem of Plitvice Lakes, Croatia. Samples were collected at six sites along a stream reach during autumn, winter, spring and summer. The sampling sites differed in flow velocity, depending on their position within the study reach and distance from tufa barriers and associated waterfalls. Seasonality was pronounced for most physico-chemical measurements. The highest concentrations of transported (in)organic particulate matter, being related to increased amounts of moss in transport, were observed in autumn. Drift densities were highest at tufa barriers that had higher flow velocities. Drift abundance partially followed the seasonal pattern in transported (in)organic matter. Autumn peaks in drift of Oligochaeta, Coleoptera as well as some Diptera and Trichoptera were related to increased moss and particulate matter quantities, while observed increases in drifting Nematoda, Cladocera, Copepoda, Ephemeroptera, Simuliidae and Chironomidae in spring and summer were probably due to distribution shifts of larvae or to higher seston levels originating from the upstream lake. Although we found that faster flowing stream sites generally had higher drift densities, there typically was no significant correlation between flow velocity and the amount of drift. Therefore, our expectation that fine-scale spatial drift patterns primarily depend on flow differences between lotic habitats was not supported for this system. The positive correlation between transported moss and other measured drift parameters, both at the seasonal and fine spatial scale, suggests that drift patterns were influenced by trapping/refuge efficiency of moss-covered tufa substrate and respective seasonal changes in instream vegetation (moss) as linked to hydrochemistry and water temperature.


In this paper, a novel variational model based on prior shapes for simultaneous object classification and segmentation is proposed. Given a set of training shapes of multiple object classes, a sparse linear combination of training shapes in a low-dimensional representation is used to regularize the target shape in variational image segmentation. By minimizing the proposed variational functional, the model is able to automatically select the reference shapes that best represent the object by sparse recovery and accurately segment the image, taking into account both the image information and the shape priors. For some applications under an appropriate size of training set, the proposed model allows artificial enlargement of the training set by including a certain number of transformed shapes for transformation invariance, and then the model remains jointly convex and can handle the case of overlapping or multiple objects presented in an image within a small range. Numerical experiments show promising results and the potential of the method for object classification and segmentation.


Infants start learning the prosodic properties of their native language before 12 months, as shown by the emergence of a trochaic bias in English-learning infants between 6 and 9 months (Jusczyk et al., 1993), and in German-learning infants between 4 and 6 months (Höhle et al., 2009, 2014), while French-learning infants do not show a bias at 6 months (Höhle et al., 2009). This language-specific emergence of a trochaic bias is supported by the fact that English and German are languages with trochaic predominance in their lexicons, while French is a language with phrase-final lengthening but lacking lexical stress. We explored the emergence of a trochaic bias in bilingual French/German infants, to study whether the developmental trajectory would be similar to monolingual infants and whether amount of relative exposure to the two languages has an impact on the emergence of the bias. Accordingly, we replicated Höhle et al. (2009) with 24 bilingual 6-month-olds learning French and German simultaneously. All infants had been exposed to both languages for 30 to 70% of the time from birth. Using the Head Preference Procedure, infants were presented with two lists of stimuli, one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /GAba/ with word-initial stress (trochaic pattern), the second one made up of several occurrences of the pseudoword /gaBA/ with word-final stress (iambic pattern). The stimuli were recorded by a native German female speaker. Results revealed that these French/German bilingual 6-month-olds have a trochaic bias (as evidenced by a preference to listen to the trochaic pattern). Hence, their listening preference is comparable to that of monolingual German-learning 6-month-olds, but differs from that of monolingual French-learning 6-month-olds who did not show any preference (Höhle et al., 2009). Moreover, the size of the trochaic bias in the bilingual infants was not correlated with their amount of exposure to German. The present results thus establish that the development of a trochaic bias in simultaneous bilinguals is not delayed compared to monolingual German-learning infants (Höhle et al., 2009) and is rather independent of the amount of exposure to German relative to French.


More efficient water treatment technologies would decrease the water bodies' pollution and the actual intake of water resource. The aim of this thesis is an in-depth analysis of the magnetic separation of pollutants from water by means of a continuous-flow magnetic filter subjected to a field gradient produced by permanent magnets. This technique has the potential to improve times and efficiencies of both urban wastewater treatment plants and drinking water treatment plants. It might also substitute industrial wastewater treatments. This technique combines a physico-chemical phase of adsorption and a magnetic phase of filtration, having the potential to bond magnetite with any conventional adsorbent powder. The removal of both Magnetic Activated Carbons (MACs) and zeolite-magnetite mix with the addition of a coagulant was investigated. Adsorption tests of different pollutants (surfactants, endocrine disruptors, Fe(III), Mn(II), Ca(II)) on these adsorbents were also performed achieving good results. The numerical results concerning the adsorbent removals well reproduced the experimental ones obtained from two different experimental setups. In real situations the treatable flow rates are up to 90 m3/h (2000 m3/d).


We evaluate system capacities for multicellu- lar systems with different multiple access strategies. The interference from another cell sharing the same frequency is calculated, and the total interference arising from the frequency reuse pattern is evaluated. A simple analytical model for the inter-cell interference is developed, which i s in good agreement with numerical experiments. Irrespective of the multiple access strategy, capacity becomes interference limited. When comparing TDMA and CDMA in the uplink, there is a crossover in capacity. At low SNR CDMA is preferable, at high SNR TDMA performs better.


Predictions about population and community dynamics are usually based on lab experiments. Because the results are difficult to transfer to natural conditions, the major purpose of this study was to test the effects of biotic and abiotic factors on tadpole populations in a natural environment. We stocked six ponds, created the previous year, with known numbers of Rana esculenta and R. lessonae tadpoles and followed their development over several months. When compared among ponds, tadpole density correlated positively with the nitrate:phosphate ratio. This suggests that water chemistry may have affected survival, either directly or indirectly via productivity. Within ponds, both species showed a clear preference for the shallow zone. This behavior probably reflects a preference for warm water close to the surface, rather than avoidance of predators, because relative densities of odonates also increased from deep to shallow zones. This study is one of few that not only considers the distribution of the anuran tadpoles but the distribution of their predators as well.


Comparing the emigration rates of countries at different stages of economic development, an inverse u-shape emerges. Although merely based on cross-sectional evidence, the 'migration hump' is often treated as a causal relationship. Since the peak is located at rather high per capita incomes of 6000-10 000 USD policy makers in rich destination countries worry that supporting economic development in poor origin countries might increase migration. In this paper we systematically test whether the migration hump holds up to more scrutiny, finding that the crosssectional pattern is misleading. Using 35 years of migration flow data from 198 countries of origin to OECD destinations, we successfully reproduce the hump-shape in the cross-section. However, more rigorous fixed effects panel estimations that exploit the variation over time consistently show a negative association between income and emigration. This result is independent of the level of income a country starts out at and thus casts doubt on any causal interpretation of the migration hump.


Since the establishment of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS), there was a surge in women's incorporation into the organization. Traditionally, nationalist and leftist militant movements utilised women only during periods of mobilization and political struggle. Upon the periods of state consolidation, women were discarded and pushed out of the state institutions. Ironically and against the above established trend, this article demonstrates that this trend was reversed in the case of ISIS. By using the 'mahram' concept, the article also explains the reason why women were largely absent at the midst of ISIS's conflict and military clashes and were brought to the stage only after the triumph of the organization in establishing its state. The findings of this research are based on secondary sources and primary data personally collected from more than 150 interviews through multiple field trips to Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the borders of ISIS-controlled territories in Syria from July 2015 to January 2017.


When Chinese leaders announced in late 1978 that China would "open to the outside world," they embarked on a strategy for attracting private foreign capital to spur economic development. At the same time, they were concerned about possible negative repercussions of this policy. Margaret Pearson examines government efforts to control the terms of foreign investment between 1979 and 1988 and, more broadly, the abilities of socialist states in general to establish the terms of their own participation in the world economy. Drawing on interviews with Chinese and foreigners involved in joint ventures, Pearson focuses on the years from 1979 through 1988, but she also comments on the fate of the "open" policy following the economic retrenchment and political upheavals of the late 1980s. "Since the policy of opening' was launched in Beijing in 1979 some Chinese leaders have favoured foreign investment, while others have feared that it would carry ideas and institutions that would corrupt Chinese socialism. This study of Chinese policies toward foreign-invested enterprises (FIFs) during the 1980s broadly charts significant changes in the impact of these competing views on policy. . . . Pearson's overview and analysis provide thought-provoking perspectives. . . . Pearson furnishes excellent evidence that throughout the 1980s the pressure for reform was so great that the conservatives had to retreat repeatedly, despite their concerns about the decline of collectivist values and the Maoist dream."--Stanley Lubman, The China Quarterly


For many natural resources, property rights are established and maintained by using the resource, but this creates obstacles to the emergence of non-use rights for environmental or conservation purposes. If rights can only be established once a resource is used, then the institutions that govern natural resources will be unable to resolve conflicting use and non-use demands. This article describes the ways in which various natural resource governance institutions are based on use rights and the obstacles that creates for accommodating environmental demands based on non-use. It provides several case studies that illustrate the challenges of establishing non-use rights to rangelands, oil and gas resources, timber, and water. These institutional impediments to the emergence of property rightsbased solutions to conflicts over natural resources have been overlooked by many scholars, but they may be as important and prevalent as the common concerns over the provision of public goods and the free-rider problem.


This study investigates the ways in which understandings of gender, physicality and equality influenced policy and thus constructed the identities and experiences of female cadets during the 1976 integration of women into the United States Military Academy at West Point. Policy decisions and the way in which they were put into practice set the precedent for all subsequent female cadets and so it is important to explore their origins and early impact. West Point is an ideal setting in which to explore two historically masculinist institutions, sport and the military, during a time when the women's movement was cresting and the military was redefining itself in a new postVietnam voluntary military. An exploration of the changing gender dynamics as this elite male military institution became co-ed at a particular historical moment shows that physicality was more integral to the process of integrating women than actual military training was. This study is based on archival research conducted at the Special Collections and Archives of USMA and the personal accounts of female cadets who attended West Point from 1976-1980 to produce a qualitative picture of the integration of women into West Point. Focusing on military training, physical education, athletics, and covert training I found that women generally performed equally to men in military training yet struggled in certain aspects of physical training which seemed to validate those who doubted women's ability to be successful cadets. Women were also excluded from important physical activities because of "physiological differences," something that further served to separate them and construct them as "different" and "lesser." Based on the Academy's policy and practice with regard to physical training, along with a number of related matters, I conclude that while women were given equality in most respects, those in which they were not served to make them a second-class tier of cadet and soldier, judged not on combat and military skill and potential but rather on physical capabilities and


This dissertation explores performative perspectives on classical and contemporary vocal improvisation (CCVI) as a critical, creative tool for development of and research in vocal performance. It consists of one introductory part and five articles, with additional documentation on a homepage. The artistic projects have been performed in close collaboration with fellow classically trained singers and musicians. The practice of CCVI is contextualised in relation to vocal history, opera, improvisation practice(s) and research in vocal performance. The artistic methods of opera improvisation, lyrical improvisation and CCVI without words are described in text and video. The studies performed also investigate how theoretical concepts such as performativity, action and interperformativity can be used for articulating aspects of communication, creativity and knowledge in CCVI. Central to the thesis is a suggested model for analysing performativity in three dimensions: the structural, the symbolic and the individual. Performative aspects of the singer's subject positions as a vocal and instrumental persona in a classical vocal concert approach and an opera performance approach are articulated and problematised in the artistic practice. New artistic performance concepts and projects are presented. CCVI is used as a creative artistic tool for singers in critical dialogue with classical vocal performance tradition: deconstructing methods of portraying gender and power in operatic performance; opera improvisation with symphonic orchestra; composed and improvised opera with choirs; abstract improvisation in dialogue with visual art; improvisation with poetry and electronics and deconstructing Lied performance in dialogue with light design. An interview study focusing on the experiences and perspectives of the improvisers indicate that presence, relations to one another in the ensemble, relations to the emerging material, and the creation of common agreements and structures are central in CCVI. Three analytical models focusing on interaction in CCVI are presented: action analysis in improvisation, the Interplay Analysis Model and the use of the concept musico-performative tropes. It is suggested that improvisers in CCVI create music, text and dramatic content as vocal and musical actions by the intuitive use of musical and performative tropes in an interperformative play with the performance context as well as the classical singing tradition. (Less)


The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed substantial changes in the U.S. swine industry. The industry structure has shifted from relatively large numbers of hog (Sus scrofa) farm operators producing for open markets to fewer and larger farm operators raising hogs under contracts for intermediary firms or meatpackers. This shift has resulted in debates over whether the movement from independent to contract hog production has proven beneficial or detrimental for manure management and pollution control. To shed light on these debates, we surveyed by mail independent and contract hog producers in the southern USA and gathered data on the structure of their farms, their opinions on environmental issues in the hog industry, and their manure management strategies. The survey results indicate that contract producers maintain higher animal units per hectare and spread the hog manure over smaller areas than do independents. However, contract producers also realize they are pushing the adsorptive capacity of their farms and adopt ameliorating and monitoring technologies at higher rates than independent producers. We conclude that market structure is an important determinant of farm structure and environmental management regime, and that adoption of pollution control technologies is not equivalent to environmental performance.


The meniscofibular ligament is an anatomically defined ligament of the knee in humans. However, there are no data regarding the prognosis following injury to this ligament. Our case was a 42-year-old man who presented at our clinic with pain of the lateral side of his left knee. MRI of his left knee revealed the rupture of the meniscofibular ligament. The mechanism of injury was consistent with anatomical and mechanical studies of the meniscofibular ligament. The patient was treated conservatively for 1 year, but his pain did not resolve completely. A case series of patients with the same injury is required to establish an effective treatment for this rare injury. Introduction The lateral collateral ligament of the knee consists of superficial, intermediate, and deep layers, which contain defined ligaments and pericapsular tissues. The meniscofibular ligament is an anatomically defined ligament of the knee in humans [1-3]. However, there are no data regarding injury to this ligament and the prognosis. Bozkurt et al. confirmed the presence of this ligament in all the subjects examined in their study, demonstrating increased tension of this ligament during dorsiflexion of the ankle and describing its protective function against varus forces to the knee and external rotation forces to the leg [1]. Furthermore, Bozkurt et al. emphasized the need for biomechanical, radiological, and clinical studies of the meniscofibular ligament [1]. Although anatomical and mechanical characteristics of the meniscofibular ligament have been described, to the best of our knowledge, no case of injury to this ligament has been reported in the literature. Here, we describe a case of meniscofibular ligament injury and present our preferred treatment method and its outcome. Case Presentation A 42-year-old male taxi-driver presented to our clinic with pain of the lateral side of his left knee. He had no history of trauma and did not report any rheumatological disease or previous knee surgery in his medical history. He stated that the pain was usually more intense when he waited in the car for a customer. His position in the car seat while waiting for a customer is depicted in Figure 1. This position forced his ankle into dorsiflexion, his knee into varus, and his tibia into external rotation. Tenderness at the head of the fibula and at the periphery of the lateral meniscus during palpation was the only positive finding during physical examination of the left knee. Tests for postero-lateral knee instability were negative. There was no pain or limp during walking. Pain occurred only during squatting and kneeling. Lower extremity neurological examination was intact. Peroneal nerve entrapment and radiculopathy-discopathy was not found. Antero-posterior radiography of his left knee showed no abnormalities. MRI of the knee (Figure 2 &3) revealed the rupture of the meniscofibular ligament. No other pathology was detected by MRI. The inclination of the proximal fibular joint was measured as 35 degrees; as the angle was greater than 20 degrees, it was classified as an oblique proximal fibula [3]. Bed rest was recommended for the first 10 days, with no weight-bearing and the use of two crutches. The knee was stabilized with a knee brace for 6 weeks, and a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, diclofenac sodium 1 × 75 mg/day, was used for 3 weeks. The patient was allowed to return to his job after 3 weeks. He was advised to not sit for a long time in the above-mentioned position in the car seat. His pain gradually declined but persisted for 4 months. He was followed up for 1 year. At his last visit, the pain was considerably reduced because he had not sat in the above-mentioned position, but the pain had not subsided completely. * Correspondence: firstname.lastname@example.com 1 Department of Orthopaedic and Traumatology, Goztepe Research and Training Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey Full list of author information is available at the end of the article BioMed Central © 2010 Unay et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Unay et al. Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2010, 5:35 http://www.josr-online.com/content/5/1/35 Page 2 of 3 Discussion In an anatomical study, Bozkurt et al. described the position at which the meniscofibular ligament is in tension [1]. According to its anatomical structure, the proximal fibula is classified as oblique when the inclination of the joint is greater than 20 degrees or horizontal when the inclination of the joint is less than 20 degrees [3]. A horizontal proximal fibula allows a wider range of rotation [1,3]. Bozkurt et al. demonstrated that the meniscofibular ligament is thicker in subjects with a horizontal proximal fibula and rather slender in those with an oblique proximal fibula. Dorsiflexion of the ankle has been shown to create tension in the meniscofibular ligament. A protective function against varus and external rotation forces to the knee has been described for the meniscofibular ligament [1]. The sitting position described by the patient exactly matches the position that creates meniscofibular ligament tension (Figure 1). We believe that repetitive minimal stretching was responsible for the ligament rupture. The mechanical significance of the ligament may be limited to its support of the lateral group of ligaments, but the meniscofibular ligament may also have a role in posterolateral corner and lateral meniscus injuries. Although the pain in the present case was considerably reduced after treatment, it had not subsided completely at the end of 1 year. This implies that the rupture of this ligament does not have a simple clinical prognosis. We have presented the treatment and clinical prognosis of a patient with rupture of the meniscofibular ligament. This is the first time that this injury is reported. The mechanism of injury in our patient was consistent with previous mechanical and anatomical studies of this ligament. This case was the first clinical description suggesting a mechanical role for the meniscofibular ligament. Pain was considerably reduced after 1 year of conservative treatment but had not completely resolved. A case series of patients with the same injury is required to define the prognosis of this injury. List of abbreviations MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging. Figure 1 Sitting position of the patient in the car. Figure 2 Coronal section of MRI of the left knee. Arrow: ruptured meniscofibular ligament. Figure 3 Sagittal section of MRI of the left knee. Arrow: ruptured meniscofibular ligament. Unay et al. Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2010, 5:35 http://www.josr-online.com/content/5/1/35 Page 3 of 3 Consent Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this case report and accompanying images. A copy of the written consent is available for review by the Editor-in-Chief of this journal. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors' contributions KU conceived the idea and co-wrote the paper; KO and IE writing and aided in the editing of the manuscript; OP colleted the references and analyzed them and KA design the manuscript and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Author Details Department of Orthopaedic and Traumatology, Goztepe Research and Training Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey References 1. Bozkurt M, Elhan A, Tekdemir I, Tönük E: An anatomical study of the meniscofibular ligament. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 2004, 12:429-433. 2. Ogden JA: The anatomy and function of the proximal tibiofibular joint. Clin Orthop Relat Res 1974, 101:186-191. 3. Obaid H, Gartner L, Haydar AA, Briggs TW, Saifuddin A: The meniscofibular ligament: An MRI study. Eur J Radiol 2008. doi:10.1016/ j.ejrad.2008.09.026 doi: 10.1186/1749-799X-5-35 Cite this article as: Unay et al., Rupture of the meniscofibular ligament Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2010, 5:35 Received: 10 October 2009 Accepted: 18 May 2010 Published: 18 May 2010 This article is available from: http://www.josr-online.com/content/5/1/35 © 2010 Unay et l; lic nsee BioMed Central Ltd. is an Open Access article distributed under the ter s of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Journal of rthopaedic Surgery and Res a ch 2010, 5:35


The majority of landscapes, natural or cultivated, are nonlevel. However, specifically designed instruments are not available for estimation of soil hydraulic properties in sloping landscapes. The objective of this study is to examine if tension and double‐ring infiltrometers are suitable for determination of soil hydraulic properties on sloping soil surfaces. A field experiment was conducted in a silt loam soil (Typic Haplustolls) in Saskatchewan, Canada to explore the usefulness of tension and double‐ring infiltrometers for the determination of soil hydraulic properties in sloping landscapes. Soil surfaces were created to represent four treatments, 0 (level), 7, 15, and 20% slopes. For each treatment, water infiltration rates were measured using a double‐ring infiltrometer and a tension infiltrometer at −3, −6, −10, −13, −17, and −22 cm water pressure heads. In addition, three‐dimensional computer simulation studies were performed for a tension infiltrometer with various disc diameters and water pressure heads for different surface slopes. Steady‐state infiltration rate, field‐saturated hydraulic conductivity, unsaturated hydraulic conductivity as a function of water pressure head, macroscopic capillary length parameter, and water‐conducting macro‐ and mesoporosity were compared for different surface slopes. These parameters were not significantly different (p < 0.05) between level and sloping lands. Experimental and numerical results of this study suggest that both tension and double‐ring infiltrometers are suitable for characterization of surface soil hydraulic properties in landscapes with slopes up to 20%.


Context.The Solar Orbiter spacecraft will be equipped with a wide range of remote-sensing (RS) and in situ (IS) instruments to record novel and unprecedented measurements of the solar atmosphere and the inner heliosphere. To take full advantage of these new datasets, tools and techniques must be developed to ease multi-instrument and multi-spacecraft studies. In particular the currently inaccessible low solar corona below two solar radii can only be observed remotely. Furthermore techniques must be used to retrieve coronal plasma properties in time and in three dimensional (3D) space. Solar Orbiter will run complex observation campaigns that provide interesting opportunities to maximise the likelihood of linking IS data to their source region near the Sun. Several RS instruments can be directed to specific targets situated on the solar disk just days before data acquisition. To compare IS and RS, data we must improve our understanding of how heliospheric probes magnetically connect to the solar disk.Aims.The aim of the present paper is to briefly review how the current modelling of the Sun and its atmosphere can support Solar Orbiter science. We describe the results of a community-led effort by European Space Agency's Modelling and Data Analysis Working Group (MADAWG) to develop different models, tools, and techniques deemed necessary to test different theories for the physical processes that may occur in the solar plasma. The focus here is on the large scales and little is described with regards to kinetic processes. To exploit future IS and RS data fully, many techniques have been adapted to model the evolving 3D solar magneto-plasma from the solar interior to the solar wind. A particular focus in the paper is placed on techniques that can estimate how Solar Orbiter will connect magnetically through the complex coronal magnetic fields to various photospheric and coronal features in support of spacecraft operations and future scientific studies.Methods.Recent missions such as STEREO, provided great opportunities for RS, IS, and multi-spacecraft studies. We summarise the achievements and highlight the challenges faced during these investigations, many of which motivated the Solar Orbiter mission. We present the new tools and techniques developed by the MADAWG to support the science operations and the analysis of the data from the many instruments on Solar Orbiter.Results.This article reviews current modelling and tool developments that ease the comparison of model results with RS and IS data made available by current and upcoming missions. It also describes the modelling strategy to support the science operations and subsequent exploitation of Solar Orbiter data in order to maximise the scientific output of the mission.Conclusions.The on-going community effort presented in this paper has provided new models and tools necessary to support mission operations as well as the science exploitation of the Solar Orbiter data. The tools and techniques will no doubt evolve significantly as we refine our procedure and methodology during the first year of operations of this highly promising mission.


This paper will present a research project, which integrated approaches from systems modelling and systems science with the methods and tools from the discipline of epidemiology, producing outcomes for the management of international health policy and emerging (and re-emerging) infectious disease (EID). The aim of this research was to provide additional insights into the management of EID, alongside the aims of enriching the practice of systemic practice and epidemiology. The project began with gathering of qualitative ecological and epidemiological data and qualitative human data on risk factors for EID, which were then collated and analysed prior to developing a model of an international health policy framework. Outcomes included: 1) the demonstration that there are contributing risk factors in the emergence of infectious disease not addressed in current policy making procedures for EID; 2) the design of a systems model to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative data for the modelling process, and recommendations for reviewing current and future international health policy frameworks for EID. The implications of this are important in reviewing current EID policies. Further work in this area is suggested to develop the sophistication of the systems model and develop implementations for comparison using both system dynamics and agent based modelling.


The scalability and availability of cloud computing makes it an ideal platform for many database applications. However, it is challenging to secure sensitive client information in a practical and rigorous manner against both external attackers and curious cloud administrators. In this paper, we describe a novel secure FPGA-based query coprocessor and discuss how it can be tightly integrated with a commercial database system such as SQL Server. This combination, called Cipherbase, leverages efficient division of labor - using a conventional untrusted cloud server to handle mundane database operations while sensitive data is segregated and processed in trusted hardware to ensure confidentiality. We examine the architectural design issues that affect the achievable performance of the system and report initial results demonstrating the effectiveness for real-world cloud database applications.


This dissertation aims at improving spectrum sensing algorithms in order to effectively apply
them to cellular systems. In wireless communications, cellular systems occupy a significant
part of the spectrum. The spectrum usage for cellular systems are rapidly expanding due to the
increasing demand for wireless services in our society. This results in radio frequency spectrum
scarcity. Cellular systems can effectively handle this issue through cognitive mechanisms for
spectrum utilization. Spectrum sensing plays the first stage of cognitive cycles for the adaptation
to radio environments.
This dissertation focuses on maximizing the reliability of spectrum sensing to satisfy
regulation requirements with respect to high spectrum sensing performance and an acceptable
error rate. To overcome these challenges, characteristics of noise and manmade signals are
exploited for spectrum sensing. Moreover, this dissertation considers system constraints, the
compatibility with the current and the trends of future generations. Newly proposed and existing
algorithms were evaluated in simulations in the context of cellular systems. Based on a prototype
of cognitive cellular systems (CCSs), the proposed algorithms were assessed in realistic scenarios.
These algorithms can be applied to CCSs for the awareness of desired signals in licensed and
unlicensed bands.
For orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, this dissertation exploits
the characteristics of pilot patterns and preambles for new algorithms. The new algorithms
outperform the existing ones, which also utilize pilot patterns. Additionally, the new algorithms
can work with short observation durations, which is not possible with the existing algorithms. The
Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard is taken as an example application for
the algorithms. The algorithms can also be developed for filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) signals,
which are a potential candidate for multiplexing techniques in the next cellular generations. The
experimental results give insights for the reliability of the algorithms, taking system constraints
v
into account. Another new sensing algorithm, based on a preamble, is proposed for the DVBT2
standard, which is the second generation of of DVB system. DVB-T2 systems have been
deployed in worldwide regions. This algorithm can detect DVB-T2 signals in a very short
observation interval, which is helpful for the in-band sensing mode, to protect primary users (in
nearly real-time) from the secondary transmission.
An enhanced spectrum sensing algorithm based on cyclostationary signatures is proposed
to detect desired signals in very low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). This algorithm can be
developed to detect the single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) signal,
which is adopted for the uplink of long-term evolution (LTE) systems. This detector substantially
outperforms the existing detection algorithms with the marginal complexity of some scalar
multiplications. The test statistics are explicitly formulated in mathematical formulas, which
were not presented in the previous work. The formulas and simulation results provide a useful
strategy for cyclostationarity-based detection with different modulation types.
For multiband spectrum sensing, an effective scheme is proposed not only to detect but
also to classify LTE signals in multiple channels in a wide frequency range. To the best of our
knowledge, no scheme had previously been described to perform the sensing tasks. The scheme is
reliable and flexible for implementation, and there is almost no performance degradation caused
by the scheme compared to single-channel spectrum sensing. The multiband sensing scheme was experimentally assessed in scenarios where the existing infrastructures are interrupted to
provide mobile communications.
The proposed algorithms and scheme facilitate cognitive capabilities to be applied to real
cellular communications. This enables the significantly improved spectrum utilization of CCSs.


Background: Globally, almost half of all adolescent deaths occur due to injury. Injuries related to accidental fall, being struck by an object or person, and road traffic injury (RTI) are particularly relevant among adolescents. Accidental falls and RTI are the most common causes of injury among children and adolescents. This study examines the profile of injuries among adolescents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including motor vehicle injuries (MVI), and identifies related factors associated with injury. Methods: A cross-sectional study design determined incidence of injury for a sample of 6,363 adolescents aged 13 to 19 years. Data collected information on injury in the past 12 months, socio-demographic, behavioral, sensory data, and traffic-related behaviors. Logistic regression modeling was used to examine predictors of physical injury for the past 12 months, including injuries from motor vehicle collisions. Results: Among participants, 18% experienced injury; the three top causes include accidental falls (38%), being struck by an object or person (18%), and MVI (13%). Identified risk factors that are amenable for prevention include smoking behavior, exposure to smoking, physical activity profile, family income, and speeding behavior. In relation to MVI, significant predictors are attending private schools (OR = 2.58), physical activity (OR = 1.11), family income (OR = 16.25), and speeding (OR = 2.34). Additionally, expatriates were less likely to experience MVI than locals. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the need for public health policies and education programs that reduce injury among the UAE adolescent population. Future studies should build upon these findings to plan and implement tailored injury prevention strategies for this sub-population.


This thesis aims to investigate digital methods of signification in order to examine the impact of the apparatus on poetic expression. This is done through a critical analysis of the translation process from analogue to digital, in the sense that even as we read a page we are in fact translating sight into sound. The resulting effects of this change in form are explored in order to understand their impact on meaning-making in the digital realm. Through this interrogation the comprehension and definition of ePoetry (electronic poetry or digital poetry) is extended, by exposing the unique affordances
and specificities of digital expression.

Digital poetry theorists such as Loss Pequeno Glazier posit that the emerging field of electronic literature is composed of interweaving strands from the areas of computer
science, sociology, and literary studies. This is reflected in the interdisciplinary nature of this thesis, which necessitates an engagement with the broad areas of translation, literature, and digital media studies. Currently the pervasiveness of digital technology
and access to the Internet means that the creation and consumption of online content such as ePoetry is becoming seamless and apparently effortless. Whilst recent studies
have explored electronic literature as a field, there is a noticeable deficit of research that specifically focuses on ePoetry, a deficit that this thesis seeks to rectify.

Within this work cybernetic and technosocial theories of communication are drawn on which provide as much emphasis on the apparatus, as is afforded to the author and
reader. Traditional poetry criticism is problematised with reference to its suitability for application to online works in order to develop a comprehensive ePoetry rhetoric
that explores not only what is being said, but also crucially how it is being said. Theories of translation are also used as a context in which to analyse the transposition
of poetry from analogue to digital. This framework then forms the basis for a study that explores the move from print to pixel by analysing qualitative ePoet interviews as
well as their corresponding ePoems.


The effect of the growing season and topographic zone on biomass production, protein content, cell content (CC), lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose, digestibility (DMD), and mineral element concentrations (P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn) were studied in herbage samples collected from semiarid grasslands in Central Western Spain. Protein and mineral contents decreased as the growing season progressed whereas fibre properties tended to increase. Topographic gradient significantly affected peak biomass production, fibre properties, protein and mineral contents. Stepwise multiple regression showed that the prediction of biomass production on these areas was related to cellulose, Na, Fe, and Mg contents in the grassland community whereas fibre properties were mainly predicted by Ca, Na, and Cu. Principal component analysis indicated that the temporal evolution (component II) of the organic variables determined pasture quality whereas most of the variation in mineral content was related to the topographical gradient (component I). Some organic and inorganic parameters may cause deficiencies in cattle grazing en the upper and middle zones, mostly at the end of the growing season. The data suggest that information about the temporal and spatial variations of the production and nutritional quality of semiarid grassland is necessary for making correct management.


Purpose
While broader property-type categories of real estate markets have been scrutinized at microeconomic level in some segments – namely, residential, retail, industrial and hospitality, there is limited evidence showing that local office markets can be viewed as monolithic and economically integrated entities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how occupiers differ in their willingness to pay for principal office rent determinants in the corporate and non-corporate sectors.

Design/methodology/approach
A sample of properties located in the largest office market in Latin America is partitioned based on the average size of leasable units. This approach captures interactions between different groups of investors and occupiers, and is commonly adopted by local market practitioners due to lack of detailed information on market participants. The pricing schedules for these two groups of buildings are then empirically compared through hedonic regression analysis and parameter stability tests.

Findings
The regressions show that corporate and smaller occupier properties form distinct spatial and non-spatial submarkets, but that their temporal patterns are quite similar. Thus, these property-type segments can be classified as imperfect substitutes with distinct pricing schemes, but not as a unique market, as their pricing schedules are not generalizable.

Practical implications
The results imply that "office properties" are too complex and disparate to be reliably examined with a simple aggregate approach as practiced in developed office market research since the 1980s. The fragmented reality of office properties has important implications for investment decisions and real estate valuation.

Originality/value
This paper shows that the corporate office market exhibits distinct characteristics and key determinants of office price and rent valuation differ significantly between the corporate and non-corporate segments. The corollary of these findings is that market studies that require reliable estimates of price drivers may be enriched by modeling these two segmented markets separately. It is also important to note that this distinction cuts across the established A/B/C office space quality classification.


In the research and reports on international migration, relatively little sustained academic scholarship addresses the impacts and implications of migration for youth and children whose families migrate or who themselves migrate to other developing countries. In the international debate on migration, scant attention has been given to children, and few statistics on migration provide data disaggregated by age. The dearth of general information on children left behind is one of the reasons for the lack of appropriate policy responses. There is no global estimate on the number of children who have at least one parent migrating, and the impact of migration and remittances on the children left behind is still notably absent in the economic literature.Policy makers and researchers have focused their attention on migration flowing from developing to industrialized countries (also known as South-North migration), giving almost no attention to flows between developing countries, or the so-called South-South migration. Looking at South-South child migration (the migration of children and youth among developing countries) presents two main difficulties: first, we know little about the mobility of children in general, and secondly, we have very little information on South-South migration. The paper assesses the state of knowledge of existing academic research and empirical evidence on the impact of migration on youth and children in developing countries. It develops a framework matrix for identifying relevant research topics and assesses the status of currently available data. In addressing the impact of migration on children, this paper also examines how migration affects the survival, well-being, and development of children left behind, of forced child migrants, and of children migrating with their parents or migrating alone.


To investigate thermal response, hydration behaviour and performance over flatwater kayaking races in tropical conditions (36.8°C and 68% rh). Five internationally-ranked subjects participated in the 2012 Surfski Ocean Racing World Cup in Guadeloupe to the "Ze Caribbean Race 2012" [i.e., a 35-km downwind race]. Core temperature (T°C) and heart rate (HR) were measured using portable telemetry units whereas water intake was deduced from backpacks absorption. The kayakers were asked to rate both their comfort sensation and thermal sensation on a scale before and after the race. The performance was related to an increase in T°C, high HR and low water intake (WI); and (2) high values of final T°C were related to high pre T°C and greater increases in T°C being obtained with low pre T°C and (3) WI being related to high pre T°C. The present study demonstrated that the fastest kayakers were those able to paddle at the highest intensities, increasing their T°C and drinking little water without any interference from thermal sensations. Water intake was positively related to pre-race T°C, which reinforces the importance of beginning surfski races with a low T°C. This study demonstrated that well-trained kayakers drinking ad libitum were able to anticipate their intensity/heat storage ratio to prevent heat illness and severe dehydration and maintain high performance.


We are looking at how new forms of document interface can be used to support new forms of scholarly discourse, and ultimately, new models of scholarly publishing. Towards this end, we have been using specially designed computer-meditated conferencing technology to realize an innovative peer review model within an academic e-journal – The Journal of Interactive Media in Education. In essence, through re-design of social processes and technical products, we have tried to shift reviewing from a closed process centered on evaluating scholarly work to an open process promoting constructive dialogue between participants. Our experiences indicate that ongoing and explicit mediation activities by editors play an important role in helping review participants (authors, reviewers, guest editors) effectively learn about and participate in the new process. We describe our specific mediation activities and the theoretical framework they are derived from: meta-structuring. The utility of the meta-structuring theory is derived from its explicit acknowledgement that (1) technology adaptation and cultural change are gradual processes that occur primarily after deployment and during use and (2) ongoing proactive interventions (mediations) can facilitate these gradual processes and improve technology use and acceptance. We argue that 'meta-structuring' is an instance of a broader class of theories, which we call "developmental theories-in-action", which offer a promising direction for future research agendas.


Delays are one of the biggest problems faced by construction firms. The objectives of this study are to identify non-excusable delay factors, their effects on project completion and means of minimising these delays. A questionnaire survey was conducted to solicit the causes, effects and methods of minimising delays with two groups of respondents: consultants and contractors. Data were collected and analysed using a weighted mean method. A total of 57 major factors that cause non-excusable delays were identified from the reviewed literature and were further classified into eight major groups. The findings of this study revealed 20 key factors that cause non-excusable delays. The resultant effects of non- excusable delays are time overrun, cost overrun and disputes, among others. Ensuring adequate financial sources, engaging competent project managers and making all necessary resources available are some of the most important means of minimising non- excusable delays. Since non-excusable delays are specific to contractors, this study concludes that contractors should review their activities so that construction work will not be delayed.


The collected papers in this volume cover the effects of environmental stress under a biological and energetic model. Examples are taken from fossil and living animal populations, and from outlier human populations and traditional societies. These examples indicate that stress increases energy demands and so reduces reproductive fitness. A wide range of stressful situations also are analyzed under the less stringent conditions experienced by modern human populations, when cultural factors assume importance. These emphasize the interaction between genetic, physiological, psychological and social factors in everyday life and in clinical settings.


Beach morphology and nearshore hydrodynamics were monitored over a number of sea breeze cycles on a beach with pronounced beach cusp morphology in southwestern Australia. The action of the sea breeze resulted in consistent changes to the incident wave field and beach cusp morphology, and induced a diurnal cycle of beach change. The morphological changes were accomplished without an apparent sediment gain or loss, but involved a redistribution of sediment within the cusp morphological system. During the sea breeze, the addition of locally-generated, short-period wind waves to the background swell resulted in an increase in wave height, a decrease in wave period and an intensification of the nearshore currents. The cusp morphology became increasingly subdued due to accretion in the embayment and, to a lesser extent, erosion of the horns. After the cessation of the sea breeze, the wind-wave energy level gradually decreased and the associated wind-wave period increased. Accretion on the cusp horns was accompanied by minor erosion of the embayment and resulted in an accentuation of the cusp morphology. The build-up of the cusp morphology was a consequence of the morphodynamic feedback between the antecedent cusp morphology and the wave runup characteristics. The wave runup was diverted from the horn into the embayment, resulting in decreased backwash volumes and hence build-up of the horn. In the cusp embayment, increased backwash volumes resulted in scouring and the suppression of potential swash events at the base of the beachface. Consequently, the proportion of infragravity-wave energy in the runup record was larger in the embayment than on the horn. Ten hours after the sea breeze had stopped blowing, significant amounts of wind-wave energy were still present. It is suggested that these wind waves were generated a distance of almost 200 km south of the study area, implying that the presence of the local sea breeze may have regional implications for coastal processes.


This case describes Oracle's hostile takeover bid to acquire PeopleSoft, which began with an unsolicited cash tender offer at $16.00 per share in June 2003 and ended with a negotiated deal at $26.50 per share in December 2004. Novel questions of corporate law are raised by the prolonged use of a poison pill against a structurally non-coercive, all-cash, fully-financed offer; as well as PeopleSoft's unprecedented Customer Assurance Program (CAP), which promised PeopleSoft customers between two and five times their money back if Oracle acquired PeopleSoft and then reduced support for PeopleSoft products. This case study will be published as part of a dealmaking symposium in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, followed by commentaries from practitioners involved in the deal, judges, and academics.


Dicynodonts were the most diverse and abundant herbivorous therapsids of the Permo-Triassic. They include Lystrosaurus, one of the few taxa known to survive the end-Permian extinction and the most abundant tetrapod during the Early Triassic postextinction recovery. Explanations for the success of Lystrosaurus and other dicynodonts remain controversial. This study presents an assessment of dicynodont growth patterns using bone histology, with special focus on taxa associated with the end-Permian extinction event. Bone histological analysis reveals a high cortical thickness throughout the clade, perhaps reflecting a phylogenetic constraint. Growth rings are absent early in ontogeny, and combined with high vascular density, indicate rapid, sustained growth up to the subadult stage. Extraordinarily enlarged vascular channels are present in the midcortex of many dicynodonts, including adults, and may have facilitated a more efficient assimilation of nutrients and rapid bone growth compared to other therapsids. Both increased channel density and enlarged vascular channels evolved at or near the base of major radiations of dicynodonts, implying that the changes in growth and life history they represent may have been key to the success of dicynodonts. Furthermore, this exceptionally rapid growth to adulthood may have contributed to the survival of Lystrosaurus during the end-Permian extinction and its dominance during the postextinction recovery period.

© 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 160, 341–365.


Though a net brain gain has tended to be seen as a benefit and referred to as a 'beneficial brain drain' in the literature, its welfare impact for source country residents – or non-migrants – is at best ambiguous. Increased educational investment in response to a brain drain is equivalent to a bet where migrants (M) win and where the impact on residents (R) – whose well-being is a concern for the government – is ambiguous or negative. I compare residents' welfare a) for an open vs. a closed economy, b) under the presence or absence of education externality, c) with vs. without government intervention, and d) with government's concern equal for R and M (R = M) or greater for R (R > M). Main findings are: i) residents lose under an open economy in four of the five scenarios considered, with an ambiguous result under an externality and no intervention; ii) optimal education policy has a positive or ambiguous impact on residents' welfare (and a positive impact under a closed economy); and iii) welfare is higher under intervention when R > M than when R = M. It is worth noting that, though the standard developing country policy of subsidizing higher education is optimal under an education externality in the case of a closed economy, this result need not hold under an open economy.


As a key component of e-commerce computing, product representation learning (PRL) provides benefits for a variety of applications, including product matching, search, and categorization. The existing PRL approaches have poor language understanding ability due to their inability to capture contextualized semantics. In addition, the learned representations by existing methods are not easily transferable to new products. Inspired by the recent advance of pre-trained language models (PLMs), we make the attempt to adapt PLMs for PRL to mitigate the above issues. In this article, we develop KINDLE, a Knowledge-drIven pre-trainiNg framework for proDuct representation LEarning, which can preserve the contextual semantics and multi-faceted product knowledge robustly and flexibly. Specifically, we first extend traditional one-stage pre-training to a two-stage pre-training framework, and exploit a deliberate knowledge encoder to ensure a smooth knowledge fusion into PLM. In addition, we propose a multi-objective heterogeneous embedding method to represent thousands of knowledge elements. This helps KINDLE calibrate knowledge noise and sparsity automatically by replacing isolated classes as training targets in knowledge acquisition tasks. Furthermore, an input-aware gating network is proposed to select the most relevant knowledge for different downstream tasks. Finally, extensive experiments have demonstrated the advantages of KINDLE over the state-of-the-art baselines across three downstream tasks.


In the past two decades, multi-agent systems (MAS) have emerged as a new paradigm for conceptualizing large and complex distributed software systems. A multi-agent system view provides a natural abstraction for both the structure and the behavior of modern-day software systems. Although there were many conceptual frameworks for using multi-agent systems, there was no well established and widely accepted method for modeling multi-agent systems. This dissertation research addressed the representation and analysis of multi-agent systems based on model-oriented formal methods. The objective was to provide a systematic approach for studying MAS at an early stage of system development to ensure the quality of design.
Given that there was no well-defined formal model directly supporting agent-oriented modeling, this study was centered on three main topics: (1) adapting a well-known formal model, predicate transition nets (PrT nets), to support MAS modeling; (2) formulating a modeling methodology to ease the construction of formal MAS models; and (3) developing a technique to support machine analysis of formal MAS models using model checking technology. PrT nets were extended to include the notions of dynamic structure, agent communication and coordination to support agent-oriented modeling. An aspect-oriented technique was developed to address the modularity of agent models and compositionality of incremental analysis. A set of translation rules were defined to systematically translate formal MAS models to concrete models that can be verified through the model checker SPIN (Simple Promela Interpreter).
This dissertation presents the framework developed for modeling and analyzing MAS, including a well-defined process model based on nested PrT nets, and a comprehensive methodology to guide the construction and analysis of formal MAS models.


Abstract The article proposes a new way of analysing and understanding blended learning and contributes to current debates about adult learner motivations for study. It argues that, whilst the validity of the Andragogical Model has been criticised, it has provided a useful framework of analysis in the context of blended learning to meet the needs of adult learners studying part-time, vocationally relevant degrees at a distance. A mixed methods approach was adopted to conduct a detailed exploration of eight tutors' practice. The article argues that the predominant approaches to teaching and assessment adopted by tutors were mainly congruent with the Andragogical Model's core principles, which was in part due to the structured, assessment driven learning environment, but particularly the type of problem and case-based assessments undertaken by learners on the courses investigated. The Andragogical Model offered an analytical lens that was valuable as it provided a number of actions appearing to influence learner perceptions of quality, which can support practice for tutors and HE institutions in similar contexts. Further, this analysis highlighted the importance to tutors of providing extrinsic motivators and suggests an addition to the Andragogical Model to accommodate this.


We experimentally measured the cold cavity loss of a mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser in situ by using the relaxation oscillation frequency method. The relaxation oscillation frequency is measured for various pumping powers and the data is fitted by the least squares method with a theoretical curve of parameters including the cavity loss. We obtained a cavity loss of 15.3 $\pm$ 0.5 dB which was found to agree with the results of direct transmission loss measurements.


This study involves the comparative analysis of the (post)human bodies and their metamorphosis as they are represented in the live-action and computer animated films that were released mostly in 2000s. The analyses are done through a case study and a focus group study. The case study involves the analysis of selected sequences from The Matrix Trilogy (1999, 2003) and The Animatrix (2003). The sequences of metamorphosis are analyzed in terms of their implications about the blurring boundaries of human and machine and the "freedom" and / or fear that is associated with this hybridization. In this context, the real flesh and bone bodies of the live-action films are juxtaposed to the fluid and virtual bodies of the animation films. The focus group study, which involves three separate groups of mine-workers, housewives and high school students who were asked to react and interpret selected scenes from The Matrix Trilogy and The Animatrix and it aims to present the influences of class difference in defining a new cultural understanding of how people associate freedom and technology in Turkey. Is metamorphosing about getting adapted to a new social system or is it a reaction to the social and political changes that are imposed on the body? How does the gradual metalmorphing of the body as it is reflected on the screen deal with the issues of freedom, bodily ambiguation, boundary breaking that are associated with "becoming" posthuman? What role can animation as a popular art form claim in terms of being prosthesis for human body and/or mind or the externalization of the mind? These are the questions that this thesis tries to answer through the comparison of the metamorphosing post/human bodies as presented in different media of live action, animation and liveaction and animation hybrids.


This paper explores the incidence and extent of multidimensional poverty for the households in Purulia district, the western most backward district of West Bengal in India. In context of Purulia district the decompositions of multidimensional poverty index (MPI) across the social castes and across the indicators have also been explained. MPI and its decomposition across the sub-groups have been computed using the methodology developed by Alkire and Foster (2007) and Alkire et al. (2011). This study covers twelve non income indicators under three dimensions education, health and living conditions. Collecting a set of primary data from 698 households in Purulia district during 2018, this study reveals that the incidence of multidimensional poverty in the district of Purulia is higher than that in national level. But the breadth of poverty is almost equal to that in India as a whole. In respect of poverty there is wide variation across the social castes. Among the indicators, use of dirty cooking fuel, not having improved sanitation have highest contribution to the district MPI.


Objective To examine the effect of psychiatric diagnoses on healthcare use in youth with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) during their first year of SLE care. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study using claims from 2000 to 2013 from Clinformatics Data Mart (OptumInsight). Youth aged 10 years to 24 years with an incident diagnosis of SLE (≥ 3 International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, codes for SLE 710.0, > 30 days apart) were categorized as having: (1) a preceding psychiatric diagnosis in the year before SLE diagnosis, (2) an incident psychiatric diagnosis in the year after SLE diagnosis, or (3) no psychiatric diagnosis. We compared ambulatory, emergency, and inpatient visits in the year after SLE diagnosis, stratified by nonpsychiatric and psychiatric visits. We examined the effect of childhood-onset vs adult-onset SLE by testing for an interaction between age and psychiatric exposure on outcome. Results We identified 650 youth with an incident diagnosis of SLE, of which 122 (19%) had a preceding psychiatric diagnosis and 105 (16%) had an incident psychiatric diagnosis. Compared with those without a psychiatric diagnosis, youth with SLE and a preceding or incident psychiatric diagnosis had more healthcare use across both ambulatory and emergency settings for both nonpsychiatric and psychiatric-related care. These associations were minimally affected by age at time of SLE diagnosis. Conclusion Psychiatric comorbidity is common among youth with newly diagnosed SLE and is associated with greater healthcare use. Interventions to address preceding and incident psychiatric comorbidity may decrease healthcare burden for youth with SLE.


Recent work examining entrepreneurial scientists demonstrate that different conceptualizations and types exist (Lam, 2010, Louis et al., 1989). The diversity of scientific types suggests that there are a range of adaptive and engagement strategies that scientists employ within these knowledge regimes (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008, Lam, 2010). This study systematically examines how individual orientations of scientists are mediated by its institutional and organizational contexts and the management strategies of these organizations in response to the rhetoric of new public management for entrepreneurship and commercial outcomes (Cartner and Bollinger, 1997, Luke et al., 2008).


Background: Traditionally, research integrity studies have focused on research misbehaviors and their explanations. Over time, attention has shifted towards preventing questionable research practices and promoting responsible ones. However, data on the prevalence of responsible research practices, especially open methods, open codes and open data and their underlying associative factors, remains scarce. Methods: We conducted a web-based anonymized questionnaire, targeting all academic researchers working at or affiliated to a university or university medical center in The Netherlands, to investigate the prevalence and potential explanatory factors of 11 responsible research practices. Results: A total of 6,813 academics completed the survey, the results of which show that prevalence of responsible practices differs substantially across disciplines and ranks, with 99 percent avoiding plagiarism in their work but less than 50 percent pre-registering a research protocol. Arts and humanities scholars as well as PhD candidates and junior researchers engaged less often in responsible research practices. Publication pressure negatively affected responsible practices, while mentoring, scientific norms subscription and funding pressure stimulated them. Conclusions: Understanding the prevalence of responsible research practices across disciplines and ranks, as well as their associated explanatory factors, can help to systematically address disciplinary- and academic rank-specific obstacles, and thereby facilitate responsible conduct of research.


We consider the problem of reliably transmitting CELP-encoded speech over noisy communication channels. Our objective is to design efficient coding/decoding schemes for the transmission of the CELP line spectral parameters (LSPs) over very noisy channels. We begin by quantifying the amount of "residual redundancy" inherent in the LSPs of Federal Standard 1016 CELP. This is done by modeling the LSPs as first- and second-order Markov chains. Two models for LSP generation are proposed; the first model characterizes the intraframe correlation exhibited by the LSPs, while the second model captures both intraframe and interframe correlation. By comparing the entropy rates of the models thus constructed with the CELP rates, it is shown that as many as one-third of the LSP bits in every frame of speech are redundant. We next consider methods by which this residual redundancy can be exploited by an appropriately designed channel decoder. Before transmission, the LSPs are encoded with a forward error control (FEC) code; we consider both block (Reed-Solomon) codes and convolutional codes. Soft-decision decoders that exploit the residual redundancy in the LSPs are implemented assuming additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and independent Rayleigh fading environments. Simulation results employing binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) indicate coding gains of 2-5 dB over soft-decision decoders that do not exploit the residual redundancy.


Abstract Measurement of density and thickness of cuticle of an array of decapod crustaceans indicates that cuticle tends to be thick and dense in benthic organisms and thinner and less dense in nektobenthic decapods. Thin section analysis of the cuticle under crossed polarized light documents a broad range of area of biomineralization. Cuticle density is strongly correlated with area of calcification. One of the nektobenthic decapods in the study exhibited no calcification of the cuticle at all, and thus exhibited the lowest density. These data support the hypothesis that density and thickness of cuticle contribute to adaptation to benthic and nektobenthic lifestyles.


Objective: To determine the prevalence and pattern of eye diseases and visual impairment in the Nairobi Comprehensive Eye Care Services (NCES) Project; the catchment area of the Mbagathi District Eye Unit of Nairobi. Design: Community based survey conducted from October 15th to 31st 2007 Setting: Kibera and Dagoreti divisions of Nairobi City Subjects: 4200 people of all ages were randomly selected; 4056 were examined (96.6% response rate). 122 (2.9%) were not available and 15 (0.4%) declined to be examined. Results: Females: 54.2%, Males: 45.8%. Mean age; 22.4 years, SD; 16.5. Only 241(5.9%) aged >50years old. The leading eye disorders in Kibera and Dagoretti divisions are conjunctival disorders including allergic conjunctivitis and conjunctival growths. This was found to affect 7.6% of the subjects. This was followed by refractive errors found in 5.3% of the subjects. Cataract was found in 30 subjects (0.7%). Disorders of the retina and the optic nerve were found in 1.1% of the subjects and corneal disorders in 0.5%. The prevalence of visual impairment was 0.6%, severe visual impairment was 0.05% and blindness was 0.1%. This indicates that most of the ocular disorders encountered were not visually threatening. The main cause of visual impairment is refractive errors and the causes of severe visual impairment and blindness are cataract, corneal opacity and glaucoma. Conclusion: The population of the NCES is relatively young and the prevalence of blindness and visual impairment is low. The main cause of visual impairment was refractive errors and the causes of severe visual impairment and blindness were cataract, corneal opacity and glaucoma. Recommendations: The level of blindness in NCES is low and the project should focus more on rendering eye care and not treatment of blindness. There is need to address the issue of refractive errors as this was one of the main ocular problems encountered. In this survey, it was not possible to perform detailed refraction and hence it was recommend that a refractive error survey be conducted; especially in school going children.


The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act significantly revised long-standing rules regarding the tax treatment of many employer provided in-kind benefits. Instead of including the value of these benefits in the recipients' taxable income, for the most part the new rules disallow employers a deduction for the cost of providing the affected benefits. This article argues that the two components of this legislative scheme – relying on cost of provision as the measure of taxable income and on imposing the nominal tax obligation on providers rather than recipients – are distinct policy decisions. It argues that the better approach would be to require employers to allocate their costs of providing benefits among recipients of those benefits.


two experiments examined effects of regulatory fit and music training on performance on one subtest of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). Participants made same-different judgments about melody pairs, while either gaining points for correct answers (gains condition) or losing points for incorrect answers (losses condition). In Experiment 1, participants were told that the test was diagnostic of their music ability and then were asked to self-identify as a musician or a nonmusician. In Experiment 2, participants were given either a promotion-focus prime (a performance-based opportunity to gain entry into a raffle) or a prevention-focus prime (a raffle ticket was awarded at the start of the experiment and participants prevented its loss by maintaining a certain level of performance). Consistent with a regulatory fit hypothesis, nonmusicians and promotion-primed participants performed better in the gains condition than the losses condition, while musicians and prevention-primed participants performed better in the losses condition than the gains condition. Experiment 2 additionally revealed that regulatory fit effects were stronger for musicians than nonmusicians. This study demonstrates that regulatory fit impacts performance on the MBEA and highlights the importance of motivational orientation with respect to musician performance advantages in music perception.


Background We recently reported the complete sequence of a blaKPC-2- and rmtB-carrying IncFII-family plasmid p675920-1 with the pKPC-LK30/pHN7A8 hybrid structure. Comparative genomics of additional sequenced plasmids with similar hybrid structures and their prevalence in blaKPC-carrying Klebsiella pneumoniae strains from China were investigated in this follow-up study. Methods A total of 51 blaKPC-carrying K. pneumoniae strains were isolated from 2012 to 2016 from five Chinese hospitals and genotyped by multilocus sequence typing. The blaKPC-carrying plasmids from four representative strains were sequenced and compared with p675920-1 and pCT-KPC. Plasmid transfer, carbapenemase activity determination, and bacterial antimicrobial susceptibility test were performed to characterize resistance phenotypes mediated by these plasmids. The prevalence of pCT-KPC-like plasmids in these blaKPC-carrying K. pneumoniae strains was screened by PCR. Result The six KPC-encoding plasmids p1068-KPC, p20049-KPC, p12139-KPC and p64917-KPC (sequenced in this study) and p675920-1 and pCT-KPC slightly differed from one another due to deletion and acquisition of various backbone and accessory regions. Two major accessory resistance regions, which included the blaKPC-2 region harboring blaKPC-2 (carbapenem resistance) and blaSHV-12 (β-lactam resistance), and the MDR region carrying rmtB (aminoglycoside resistance), fosA3 (fosfomycin resistance), blaTEM-1B (β-lactam resistance) and blaCTX-M-65 (β-lactam resistance), were found in each of these six plasmids and exhibited several parallel evolution routes. The pCT-KPC-like plasmids were present in all the 51 K. pneumoniae isolates, all of which belonged to CG258. Conclusion There was clonal dissemination of K. pneumoniae CG258 strains, harboring blaKPC-2- and rmtB-carrying IncFII-family pKPC-LK30/pHN7A8 hybrid plasmids, among multiple Chinese hospitals.


Purpose: Disposal of infectious waste remains one of the most serious problems in the social and environmental domains of almost every nation. Selection of new suitable locations and finding the optimal set of transport routes to transport infectious waste, namely location routing problem for infectious waste disposal, is one of the major problems in hazardous waste management. Design/methodology/approach: Due to the complexity of this problem, location routing problem for a case study, forty hospitals and three candidate municipalities in sub-Northeastern Thailand, was divided into two phases. The first phase is to choose suitable municipalities using hybrid fuzzy goal programming model which hybridizes the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy goal programming. The second phase is to find the optimal routes for each selected municipality using hybrid genetic algorithm which hybridizes the genetic algorithm and local searches including 2-Opt-move, Insertion-move and ?-interchange-move. Findings: The results indicate that the hybrid fuzzy goal programming model can guide the selection of new suitable municipalities, and the hybrid genetic algorithm can provide the optimal routes for a fleet of vehicles effectively. Originality/value: The novelty of the proposed methodologies, hybrid fuzzy goal programming model, is the simultaneous combination of both intangible and tangible factors in order to choose new suitable locations, and the hybrid genetic algorithm can be used to determine the optimal routes which provide a minimum number of vehicles and minimum transportation cost under the actual situation, efficiently.


The stroma, which embeds epithelial cells, plays a major role in the shaping and physiological regulation of animal organs such as the breast. Aberrant functioning of the stroma was found to support tumorigenesis and cancer progression. Among many crucial aspects of breast cancer biology two issues focused our attention; (I) the impact of mutual interactions between the cancer cells and the stroma, specifically the endothelial cells and (II) the impact of insulin like growth factor one (IGF-I) on the gene expression profiles of stromal fibroblasts, as an example of the influence of a growth factor on the stroma. To address tumor-endothelial interaction we took advantage of an in vitro system mimicking the interaction of tumor and endothelial cells and explored gene expression changes using DNA microarrays. Our results suggest the interaction of endothelial cells and tumor cells that express the CD44+/CD24- signature indicative of stem cell-like cells, which are thought to have a low proliferative potential, might explain the unexpected and paradoxical association of the CD44+/CD24- signature with highly proliferative tumors that have an unfavorable prognosis. Furthermore, the gene expression signature induced in this system is of prognostic value in early stage and metastatic breast cancer. Since malignant epithelial cells and tumor-associated stromal cells are under the influence of hormones and growth factors, we examined the effects of IGF-I on cancer cells and primary fibroblasts in parallel to assess concordant and discordant gene expression changes. Our results show that primary breast fibroblasts, breast carcinoma associated fibroblasts and primary lung fibroblasts respond to IGF-I stimulation with increased expression of genes related with proliferation, which is phenotypically followed by an increased growth rate. Comparing in vitro gene expression data with available in vivo data, we have shown that the evoked gene expression signatures are able to stratify patients into groups with significantly different outcome. We propose that this prognostic gene expression signature might also serve as a predictor for the effectiveness of an anti-IGF-I therapy, a new therapeutic strategy that is currently in phase III development. Concluding, the data presented in this thesis underline the importance of the stroma, specifically the interaction between tumor and endothelial cells and the response of the stroma to stimulation with growth factors such as IGF-I. The gene expression changes in response to these interactions and stimulations carry prognostic information and might potentially be useful in clinical decision making.


Amidst the euphoria of 1994 many South Africans saw the democratic reform process as the precursor to fundamental changes in the state and its organs of government and administration. There was no doubt that this fledgling democracy would, through its structures, transform society to achieve the goals that had been enunciated in the liberation struggle. The expectation was that the democratically elected state would act decisively to redress the legacies of apartheid especially in the area of of education. One such book documenting some of the challenges and interventions is Education and Equity: The Impact of State Policies on South African Education.


This paper examines contemporaneous and historical evidence on the structure of ownership and control of corporate sectors in developed countries to draw lessons for development of financial markets. It records the critical role that equity markets played in the ownership and financing of corporations at the beginning of the 20th century. It notes that this occurred in the absence of formal systems of regulation and that equity markets functioned on the basis of informal relationships of trust. These were sustained through local stock markets in the UK, banks in Germany, and business coordinators and family firms in Japan. The paper explores the concept of trust that is required to promote the development of financial markets.


Exendin-4 (EX4) is a GLP-1 receptor agonist used clinically to control glycemia in Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM), with the additional effect of promoting weight loss. The weight loss seen with EX4 is attributable to the varied peripheral and central effects of GLP-1, with contributions from the mesolimbic dopamine pathway that are implicated in cue-induced reward seeking. GLP-1 receptor agonists reduce preference for palatable foods (i.e. sweet and fat) as well as the motivation to obtain and consume these foods. Accumulating evidence suggest that GLP-1 receptor activity can attenuate cue-induced reward seeking behaviors. In the present study, we tested the effects of EX4 (0.6, 1.2, and 2.4 µg/kg i.p.) on incentive cue (IC) responding. This rat model required rats to emit a nosepoke response during an intermittent audiovisual cue to obtain a sucrose reward (10% solution). EX4 dose-dependently attenuated responding to reward predictive cues, and increased latencies of the cue response and reward cup entry to consume the sucrose reward. Moreover, EX4 dose-dependently decreased the number of nosepokes relative to the number of cue presentations during the session. There was no drug effect on the number of reward cup entries per reward earned during the session, a related reward-seeking behavior with similar locomotor demand. Interestingly, there was a dose-dependent effect of time on the responding to reward predictive cues and nosepoke response latency, such that 2.4 µg/kg of EX4 delayed responding to the initial IC of the behavioral session. Together, these findings suggest that agonism of the GLP-1 receptor with EX4 modulates the incentive properties of cues attributed with motivational significance.


Economic science has extensively studied the creative power of individuals and social groups, but it has largely ignored the destructive power of economic agents. This highly original book redresses the balance and, for the first time, looks at how much an agent can destroy. Destructive power is conceptualised in a unique way, covering all types of deliberate (violent and non-violent) social conflict behaviour. The theoretical arguments in the book are skilfully linked to burning political issues of our time such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Second Gulf War.


The Swiss writer Friedrich Durrenmatt (1921 90) was one of the most important literary figures of the second half of the twentieth century. During the years of the cold war, arguably only Beckett, Camus, Sartre, and Brecht rivaled him as a presence in European letters. Yet outside Europe, this prolific author is primarily known for only one work, "The Visit." With these long-awaited translations of his plays, fictions, and essays, Durrenmatt becomes available again in all his brilliance to the English-speaking world. Durrenmatt s essays, gathered in this third volume of "Selected "Writings, are among his most impressive achievements. Their range alone is astonishing: he wrote with authority and charm about art, literature, philosophy, politics, and the theater. The selections here include Durrenmatt s best-known essays, such as Theater Problems and Monster Essay on Justice and Law, as well as the notes he took on a 1970 journey in America (in which he finds the United States increasingly susceptible to every kind of fascism ). This third volume of "Selected Writings "also includes essays that shade into fiction, such as The Winter War in Tibet, a fantasy of a third world war waged in a vast subterranean labyrinth a Plato s Cave allegory rewritten for our own troubled times. Durrenmatt has long been considered a great writer but one unfairly neglected in the modern world of letters. With these elegantly conceived and expertly translated volumes, a new generation of readers will rediscover his greatest works. "


In recent years, the language model Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), which clusters co-occurring words into topics, has been widely applied in the computer vision field. However, many of these applications have difficulty with modeling the spatial and temporal structure among visual words, since LDA assumes that a document is a "bag-of-words". It is also critical to properly design "words" and "documents" when using a language model to solve vision problems. In this paper, we propose a topic model Spatial Latent Dirichlet Allocation (SLDA), which better encodes spatial structures among visual words that are essential for solving many vision problems. The spatial information is not encoded in the values of visual words but in the design of documents. Instead of knowing the partition of words into documents a priori, the word-document assignment becomes a random hidden variable in SLDA. There is a generative procedure, where knowledge of spatial structure can be flexibly added as a prior, grouping visual words which are close in space into the same document. We use SLDA to discover objects from a collection of images, and show it achieves better performance than LDA.


Hebrew and Ancient Israel is a new, peer-reviewed, quarterly journal focusing primarily on the biblical texts in their ancient historical contexts, but also on the history of Israel in its own right. Each issue has a topical focus. The primary language is English, but articles may also be published in German and French. A specific goal of the new journal is to foster discussion among different academic cultures within a larger international context pertaining to the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in the first millennium b.c.e.


A port (or seaport) is a place that provides for the vessel transfer of cargo and passengers to and from waterways and shores. Port economics is concerned with the study of the economics of port services.

 Users of port services are those that utilize the port as part of the transportation process of moving cargo and passengers to and from origin and destination locations. Users include transportation carrriers such as shipping lines, railroads and trucking firms that perform these movements and shippers and individuals that provide the cargo and themselves as passengers to be transported. Port users demand port services, whereas port service providers such as the port terminal operator supply port services to port users.

 Port economics and shipping economics comprise the branch of economics known as maritime economics. This volume provides original contributions to the study of port economics: 1) the evolution of port economics; 2) economic theories of the port, port cost functions and port investment; and 3) empirical evidence on the relative efficiency of ports, the impact of ports on international maritime transport costs, the competitiveness of ports and the impact of deregulation on dockworker wages.

 *Provides original contributions to the study of port economics
 *Examines the evolution of port economics, economic theories of the port, and emprical evidence on the relative efficiency of ports, the impact of ports on transport costs, and the competitiveness of ports


Hypertension is a worldwide problem that affects up to 22% of adults and contributes to the global burden of disability due to cardiovascular disease. Several factors influence blood pressure and participate to the development of hypertension. Among these factors, polyunsaturated fatty acids of the omega-3 family (omega-3 PUFA) are effective hypotensive agents. Through their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, omega-3 PUFA can improve cardiac hemodynamics and vascular function and potentially reduce arterial stiffness and atherosclerotic damage. However, despite this promising evidence many meta-analyses on the cardiovascular effect of omega-3 PUFA were inconclusive. The choice of the omega-3 PUFA sources, baseline tissue content of these fatty acids, and individual compliance to their intake can be reasons for such a discrepancy between studies. Basic and clinical research on these fatty acids docu‐ ments interesting mechanisms through which these molecules could be useful in the treatment of hypertension and its related organ damage. The role of the maternal dietary habit during pregnancy and the quality of prenatal growth on the effect of omega-3 PUFA in cardiovascular system need further investigations. This chapter summarizes the literature of the past 30 years on the antihypertensive effects of this family of essential fatty acids.


This paper reviewed principally accepted methods applied to investment analysis. To describe every aspect of investment analysis fully would require far more space than available here, so we highlight only of few of its aspects. This study collects several well-known bibliographies, contrasts them with each other and provides explanations for having done so. There are many questions about which authors and companies agree, including about how to apply certain methods, but on others there is disagreement. Four dynamic methods (Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Profitability Index, and Discounted Payback Period) are demonstrated from the viewpoint of application. Moreover, this study clarifies several sensitive questions, such as handling income taxes, inflation and uncertainty. Other examined issues are only mentioned at the end of this paper, and we will publish on these more thoroughly at a later date.