Background: There is a paucity of data on the health risks and benefits of recreational cycling.
Research question: Describes the injury patterns, health risks and benefits of recreational cycling.
Type of study: Internet-based retrospective self-reported data.
Methods: Web based study of cyclist behaviours, injuries and medical conditions.
Subjects: The study was open to subjects over 18 years of age, who cycled at least 2 times a week with internet access.
Experimental procedure: Conducted using DatStat® software.
Main outcome measurements: Self-reported injuries and health conditions.
Results: In this study, 4792 subjects were >18 and met the authors' definition of a cyclist. The majority of injuries were taken care of by the cyclist with no effect on their ability to continue with their job or activities of daily living. At least 7.0% reported the use of performance-enhancing drugs. There were reductions in obesity (76.2%), cholesterol (66.1%), hypertension (50%) and asthma (58.7%) after cycling. There were increases in musculoskeletal complaints. Hand pain and numbness increased by 420%. Urologic complaints increased by 310%. There were decreased reports of all mental health diseases reported. Abrasions were the most common injury (53%). The most injured body parts were the pelvis/hip (15.5%), knee (14.8%), and shoulder (13.6%). The least injured body parts were the abdomen (0.4%), foot (0.5%) and upper arm (0.7%).
Conclusions: There is encouraging data that cycling results in reductions in obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, asthma and hypertension. The greater health risks of cycling appear to be related to compressive forces on the perineum and the hand/wrist. Injuries are common to cycling, although the majority of injuries are minor.


In the typical framework for boolean games (BG) each player can change the truth value of some propositional atoms, while attempting to make her goal true. In standard BG goals are propositional formulas, whereas in iterated BG goals are formulas of Linear Temporal Logic. Both notions of BG are characterised by the fact that agents have exclusive control over their set of atoms, meaning that no two agents can control the same atom. In the present contribution we drop the exclusivity assumption and explore structures where an atom can be controlled by multiple agents. We introduce Concurrent Game Structures with Shared Propositional Control (CGS-SPC) and show that they account for several classes of repeated games, including iterated boolean games, influence games, and aggregation games. Our main result shows that, as far as verification is concerned, CGS-SPC can be reduced to concurrent game structures with exclusive control. This result provides a polynomial reduction for the model checking problem of specifications in Alternating-time Temporal Logic on CGS-SPC.


Health care professionals are increasingly aware of the impact of cancer and cancer treatment on sexuality and intimacy, which are important components of quality of life until death. However, professionals are struggling with addressing these issues with cancer patients and their partners (clients). One of the reasons is lack of in-depth knowledge of clients' experiences.

Aims of the study

• To increase understanding of how cancer and cancer treatment impact upon the experience of sexuality and intimacy of patients and their partners
• To increase understanding of how cancer patients and their partners experience the way health care professionals address sexuality and intimacy
• To gain insight into health care professional's perceptions of their role regarding sexuality and intimacy for cancer patients and their partners
• To develop patient driven models, tools and recommendations to acknowledge sexuality and intimacy in cancer and palliative care

Methodology

Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected in the Netherlands through interviewing 8 patients, 7 couples and 6 partners of patients affected by cancer, and 20 health care professionals working in cancer and palliative care. Analysis was based on the hermeneutic circle, moving from the whole to the parts and back, and was enhanced by the use of ATLAS.ti, by peer debriefing and by expert consultation.
Findings

Findings are based on multiple perspectives and are presented in a storyline using vignettes. The core theme of the findings is 'worlds apart', manifesting itself on several levels: between clients and professionals, between partners and on the intrapsychic level of the patient. Cancer and cancer treatment impact on sexual function, sexual relationship and sexual identity, resulting in a unique outcome for every client or couple. Most participants reported that health care professionals did not address sexuality and intimacy, and attempts made often did not match participants' preferences. Most participants said they would value discussing the impact of cancer on their sexuality and intimacy. This does require a 'personalized' approach from the health care professional from the start of the interaction with the patient onwards. Based on the findings of this study and the available literature, a systemic client driven model (the BLISSS communication model) and an integral team approach (model of stepped skills) were developed.

Conclusions and recommendations

All types of cancer and cancer treatment potentially have an enormous adverse and enduring impact on sexuality and intimacy. Therefore, sexuality and intimacy should be put on the agenda of health care education and of every cancer and palliative care team.

Both personal factors and lack of guidance hinder professionals in addressing sexuality and intimacy. Using the stepped skills team approach, team members can develop clear and complementing roles in order to properly address sexuality and intimacy issues, resulting in adequate support for clients in all sexual domains: sexual functioning, sexual relationship and sexual identity. Team members should be trained to develop the competencies matching their role.


Hierarchical spatial decompositions are a basic modeling tool in a variety of application domains including scientific visualization, finite element analysis and shape modeling and analysis. A popular class of such approaches is based on the regular simplex bisection operator, which bisects simplices (e.g. line segments, triangles, tetrahedra) along the midpoint of a predetermined edge. Regular simplex bisection produces adaptive simplicial meshes of high geometric quality, while simplifying the extraction of crack-free, or conforming, approximations to the original dataset. Efficient multiresolution representations for such models have been achieved in 2D and 3D by clustering sets of simplices sharing the same bisection edge into structures called diamonds.
In this thesis, we introduce several diamond-based approaches for scientific visualization. We first formalize the notion of diamonds in arbitrary dimensions in terms of two related simplicial decompositions of hypercubes. This enables us to enumerate the vertices, simplices, parents and children of a diamond. In particular, we identify the number of simplices involved in conforming updates to be factorial in the dimension and group these into a linear number of subclusters of simplices that are generated simultaneously. The latter form the basis for a compact pointerless representation for conforming meshes generated by regular simplex bisection and for efficiently navigating the topological connectivity of these meshes.
Secondly, we introduce the supercube as a high-level primitive on such nested meshes based on the atomic units within the underlying triangulation grid. We propose the use of supercubes to associate information with coherent subsets of the full hierarchy and demonstrate the effectiveness of such a representation for modeling multiresolution terrain and volumetric datasets.
Next, we introduce Isodiamond Hierarchies, a general framework for spatial access structures on a hierarchy of diamonds that exploits the implicit hierarchical and geometric relationships of the diamond model. We use an isodiamond hierarchy to encode irregular updates to a multiresolution isosurface or interval volume in terms of regular updates to diamonds.
Finally, we consider nested hypercubic meshes, such as quadtrees, octrees and their higher dimensional analogues, through the lens of diamond hierarchies. This allows us to determine the relationships involved in generating balanced hypercubic meshes and to propose a compact pointerless representation of such meshes. We also provide a local diamond-based triangulation algorithm to generate high-quality conforming simplicial meshes.


According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, some nursing homes have been ranked worst in the nation when rating the quality of resident care. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative strength of workplace stress, job satisfaction, organizational support, and personal data (number of years employed, age, highest education level) in predicting director of nursing (DON) intentions to leave the position. This information contributes to social change because it is important to know that DONs need to experience general satisfaction in order to maintain stable leadership that positively contributes to the quality of care in Tennessee nursing homes and ensures that the factors decreasing the stability in the DON position in nursing homes can be addressed.


The greater energy requirements that accompany exercise necessitate an increase in fuel mobilization from sites of storage and a subsequent increase in the oxidation of thesefuels within the working muscle. A precise endocrine response controls the needed increment in fuel metabolism. The importance of the endocrine system is readily apparent in individuals with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in whom the normal endocrine response to exercise is lost. When a person with IDDM exercises with too little insulin in the circulation, an excessive counterregulatory hormone response may ensue, and the alreadyelevated blood glucose and ketone body levels can become even greater. On the other hand,if too much insulin is present, the exercise-induced increase in substrate mobilization can be attenuated or completely blocked and, as a result, hypoglycemia may ensue. Insulin therapy must be modified in anticipation of exercise to avoid states of under- or overinsulinization, and/or carbohydrate ingestion must be adjusted to compensate for the potential glycemic effects of inappropriate insulin levels. The presence of advanced diabetic complications can further accentuate the difficulty of exercise for those with IDDM. The purpose of this review is to provide the scientific information necessary to assess therationale for recommending regular exercise to individuals with IDDM and to develop guidelines for integrating daily exercise with insulin treatment and dietary management.


The present thesis concerns method development and applications in the field of first principles electronic structure calculations.Augmented planewaves combine the simple planewaves with exact solutions of the Schrodinger equation for a spherical potential. This combination yields a very good set of basis functions for describing the electronic structure everywhere in a crystal potential. In the present work, developments of the original augmented planewave (APW) method are presented. It is shown that the exact APW eigenvalues can be found using information from the eigenvalues of the APW secular matrix. This provides a more efficient scheme to solve the APW eigenvalue problem, than the traditional evaluation of the secular determinant. Further, a new way of linearizing the APW method is presented and compared to the traditional linearized APW method (LAPW). Using a combination of the original APW basis functions and the so called local orbitals (lo), the APW+lo linearization is found to reproduce the results of the LAPW method, but already at a smaller basis set size. Another advantage of the new linearization is a faster convergence of forces, with respect to the basis set size, as compared to the LAPW method.The applications include studies of the non-collinear magnetic configuration in the fcc-based high-temperature phase of iron, γ-Fe. The system is found to be extremely sensitive to volume changes, as well as to a tetragonal distortion of the cubic unit cell. A continuum of degenerate spin spiral configurations, including the global energy minimum, are found for the undistorted crystal. The in-plane anisotropy of the ideal interface between a ferromagnetic layer of bcc Fe and the semiconducting ZnSe crystal is also investigated. In contrast to the four-fold symmetric arrangement of the atoms at the interface, the in-plane magnetic anisotropy displays a large uniaxiality. The calculated easy axes are in agreement with experiments for both Se and Zn terminated interfaces. In addition, calculations of the hyperfine parameters were performed for Li intercalated battery materials.


The production from 2016 is being revived for performances in Ireland, the UK, and Colombia (TBC) in 2018.
"Imagine a performance event somewhere between an academic lecture and cabaret. A mute corpse in an elaborately engineered whale boned costume peels off strips to reveal mysteries beneath the flesh. Narrated by her verbose double and accompanied by a musical saw-player, a whole fascinating world opens on how we perceive, and have perceived, our insides.
This unique performance is drawing on the history of the Renaissance anatomy theatres of Europe. It plays with how, over the ages, human remains have been considered from a medical and moral point of view. When the anatomist's knife first cut the body open in public, society was in turn opened up to new knowledge. The body's interior parsed before the spectators eyes found echoes in the writings of Shakespeare and Johnson: the anatomy theatre and the soliloquy each being modes of introspection, both marking the birth of individualism.
Playing with these ideas, THE ANATOMY ACT explores historical in contrast to current medical protocols: the merits of the virtual versus the corporeal cadaver in dissection training, haptics in knowing the body, and the vital contribution to knowledge provided by the human donor. Weaving themes of life and death, the status of the cadaver, the way certain body parts become culturally meaningful, and what we know - or not - and disavow, this unique show takes the audience on a vivid journey of gazing and reflecting on our compulsion and revulsion at looking at ourselves inside and out.
The production is a creative collaboration between director/writer/performer Anna Furse, musician David Coulter http://www.davidcoulter.co.uk/, and scenographer Mela Dell' Erba of Teatro Garibaldi, Palermo https://teatrogaribaldiaperto.wordpress.com/.
Research is in collaboration with The Anatomy Department, Trinity College, Dublin https://medicine.tcd.ie/anatomy/
and Kings College, London http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/study/departments/anatomy/about/index.aspx
THE ANATOMY ACT is a Residency Commission within CREATE- Ireland's EU- funded Collaborative Arts Partnership programme(CAPP) http://www.create-ireland.ie/ and http://www.cappnetwork.com/
for Live Collision Festival, Dublin http://www.livecollision.com/"hi


Against the background of last-ditch efforts by the United States, the European Communities, Brazil and India meeting in Potsdam to drive the Doha Round to a timely conclusion prior to the expiry of US trade negotiating authority, an international group of expert analysts of the trade scene gathered from June 17-18, 2007, in Waterloo, Ontario, for an informal discussion of the state of the international trade system in general and the prospects for the Doha Development Agenda in particular. The roundtable discussion was cosponsored by the Centre for International Governance Innovation, the International Development Research Centre and the Canadian Institute for International Affairs. This note is a thematic summary of the discussions. As these were held under Chatham House rules, no attribution is given.


Due to the abundance of seminal discoveries establishing a strong causal relation between changes in aldosterone signaling, the activity of the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) and blood pressure, the role of ENaC in health and disease is understood almost exclusively through the concept that this channel functions (in the distal nephron) as a key end-effector controlling renal sodium excretion during feedback regulation of blood pressure by the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). Recent findings of aldosterone-independent stimulation of ENaC by vasopressin challenge the completeness of dogmatic understanding where ENaC serves solely as an end-effector of the RAAS important for control of sodium balance. Rather the consequences of activating ENaC in the distal nephron appear to depend on whether the channel is activated in the absence (by aldosterone) or presence [by vasopressin (AVP)] of simultaneous activation of aquaporin 2 water channels. Thus, a unifying paradigm has ENaC at the junction of two signaling systems that sometimes must compete: one controlling and responding to changes in sodium balance, perceived as mean arterial pressure, and the other water balance, perceived as plasma osmolality.


The Philippines used a number of incidents involving China around Mischief Reef between February and May 1995 as a lever to stimulate their political and military relationship with the USA following the closure of the US bases in the Philippines in 1992. However, the success enjoyed by the Philippines was not due to the underlying logic of US–Philippines relations narrowly defined. Rather, the main factor was China's resort to military pressure against Taiwan in July and August 1995, and again in March 1996. For the first time, the USA used its ally's presence in the disputed Spratly islands as a lever of its own for winning back Philippine support for renewed US military access as part of the USA's strategy for regional power projection against China. The Philippines had played for a security guarantee from the USA in respect of the Spratly islands, but found the price of alliance was mutual commitment, especially with regard to a possible Taiwan contingency.


Highway travel is the lifeblood of modern industrial nations. The larger roads are sorely over burdened: around the major cities, heavy usage slows most peak-hour travel on freeways to less than 60 kilometers per hour. In all excessive traffic causes more than five billion hours delay every year; it wastes countless gallons of fuel and needless multiplies exhaust emission. The main goal of this paper is to make the experience of driving less burdensome and accident less, especially on long trips. This can be achieved by making the highway itself part of the driving experience and integrating roadside technologies that would allow the overburdened highway system to be used more efficiently. The automobile will have automatic throttle, braking and steering control. Here is a system to host these cars consist of roadside sensors that obtain information about current traffic condition and rely them to receives in the automobile on the road. The automobile can be grouped together at highway speeds, 65-70MPH, no more than a few feet apart, which make better use of the available roadways. In this manner, the traffic system and the automobiles work together to bring passengers safely and quickly to their destination. Keywords— Integrating roadside technologies, overburdened highway system, automatic throttle, braking control, steering control.


Sophisticated autonomous AI may need to base its behavior on fuzzy concepts such as well-being or rights. These concepts cannot be given an explicit formal definition, but obtaining desired behavior still requires a way to instill the concepts in an AI system. To solve the problem, we review evidence suggesting that the human brain generates its concepts using a relatively limited set of rules and mechanisms. This suggests that it might be feasible to build AI systems that use similar criteria for generating their own concepts, and could thus learn similar concepts as humans do. Major challenges to this approach include the embodied nature of human thought, evolutionary vestiges in cognition, the social nature of concepts, and the need to compare conceptual representations between humans and AI systems.


The autophagy degradation pathway is a cellular pathway that sequesters cargo from the cytosol to autophagosomes that are transferred to lysosomes for degradation or recycled as precursor metabolites. The autophagy pathway allows the removal of damaged organelles/proteins and is emerging as an important aspect of multiple human pulmonary diseases. The autophagy process is important in both the function of the immune system and the control of inflammation. Xenophagy (autophagy of bacteria) is an example of selective autophagy which could play a role in host defense mechanisms in pulmomary diseases such as sepsis. Autophagy pathways involving the degradation of cytosolic cargo could play different roles in disease pathogenesis and progression. In the case of certain lung diseases, mitophagy is elevated and the cilia shorten (ciliophagy), which contribute to lung dysfunction in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In other types of lung diseases such as pulmonary vascular disease, autophagy may provide a protective role to allow cell proliferation, repair and control of cell death. Disruption of autophagy in cystic fibrosis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis could promote pathogenesis of the disease. In lung cancer, autophagy is a 'double-edged sword' it blocks progression, but at the same time promotes tumour growth. In this chapter, we will review the different types of autophagy, the role of autophagy and its significance to human lung diseases. In addition, we will discuss the potential of targeting autophagy with therapeutics for lung disease management.


A facile synthesis of 6,7-di-[substituted]-phenyl-3-pyridin-4-yl-5H-[1,2,4]-triazolo-[3,4-b][1,3,4]-thiadiazines have been carried out by reacting 4-amino-3-mercapto-5-pyridin-4-yl-4H-[1,2,4]triazole with substituted benzoins in presence of potassium hydroxide. The required 4-amino-3mercapto-5-pyridin-4-yl-4H-[1,2,4]-triazole was synthesized by reacting isoniazide with carbondisulphide and potassium hydroxide followed by the addition of hydrazine hydrate. The acetylation of triazolo-thiadiazines afforded monoacetyl derivatives. The constitution of synthesized compounds have been delineated on the basis of chemical transformation, elemental analysis, equivalent weight determination and IR, H NMR spectral studies. The title compounds have been assayed for their biological activity against gram-positive as well as gram-negative microorgansms.


There is generally a tendency of using various types of composite members across the whole spectrum of civil engineering branches. As one of the possibilities it can be taken an application of these members in case of bridge structures (for example as a part of a bridge deck or of a guardrail), where it can be advantageously used their load-carrying capacity together with a relatively small self-weight. A design of connection between composite members made of the glass-fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) is a very important problem in this event. To get information about an actual behaviour of such kind of construction details, several series of the loading tests of adhesively bonded joints subjected to a loading force have been recently realized on the authors' workplace. This paper deals with some particular results of mentioned experiments and describes the test evaluation as well as the subsequent verification of the load-carrying capacities by the help of the design assisted by testing method given by Eurocode. Key-Words: adhesively bonded joints, loading tests, tension loading, actual behaviour, mode of failure, loadcarrying capacity, experimental verification


Low-energy, pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) have reversed therapeutically resistant pathologic processes in the musculo-skeletal system. Their development as a non-thermal therapeutic agent is based on 30 years of study of the electro-biological properties of connective tissues. Specific energy characteristics in applied PEMFs produce selected biological effects by modifying synthetic and other behavioral patterns of target cells; some mechanisms of action are defined. The technology appears safe and effective in clinical treatment of un-united fractures, avascular necrosis of bone, and chronic, refractory tendinitis. An expanding, rational use in biomedical science is predicted.


It has been detected that UV radiation in the 300–400 nm wavelength interval affects the rate and final result of subsequent thermal annealing of a thin silver film on a sapphire substrate. Whereas the annealing of unirradiated films rapidly causes them to decay and causes the formation of individual fine particles of round shape, larger particles of irregular shape are formed when irradiated films are annealed, while the changes themselves occur significantly more slowly.


The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has recently emerged as a standard for
data representation and interchange on the web. As a lot of XML data in the web,
now the pressure is to manage the data efficiently. Given the fact that relational
databases are the most widely used technology for managing and storing XML,
therefore XML needs to map to relations and this process is one that occurs
frequently. There are many different ways to map and many approaches exist in the
literature especially considering the flexible nesting structures that XML allows. This
gives rise to the following important problem: Are some mappings 'better' than the
others? To approach this problem, the classical relational database design through
normalization technique that based on known functional dependency concept is
referred. This concept is used to specify the constraints that may exist in the relations
and guide the design while removing semantic data redundancies. This approach
leads to a good normalized relational schema without data redundancy. To achieve a
good normalized relational schema for XML, there is a need to extend the concept of
functional dependency in relations to XML and use this concept as guidance for the
design. Even though there exist functional dependency definitions for XML, but these definitions are not standard yet and still having several limitation. Due to the
limitations of the existing definitions, constraints in the presence of shared and local
elements that exist in XML document cannot be specified. In this study a new
definition of functional dependency constraints for XML is proposed that are general
enough to specify constraints and to discover semantic redundancies in XML
documents.
The focus of this study is on how to produce an optimal mapping approach in the
presence of XML functional dependencies (XFD), keys and Data Type Definition
(DTD) constraints, as a guidance to generate a good relational schema. To approach
the mapping problem, three different components are explored: the mapping
algorithm, functional dependency for XML, and implication process. The study of
XML implication is important to imply what other dependencies that are guaranteed
to hold in a relational representation of XML, given that a set of functional
dependencies holds in the XML document. This leads to the needs of deriving a set
of inference rules for the implication process. In the presence of DTD and userdefined
XFD, other set of XFDs that are guaranteed to hold in XML can be
generated using the set of inference rules. This mapping algorithm has been
developed within the tool called XtoR. The quality of the mapping approach has
been analyzed, and the result shows that the mapping approach (XtoR) significantly
improve in terms of generating a good relational schema for XML with respect to
reduce data and relation redundancy, remove dangling relations and remove
association problems. The findings suggest that if one wants to use RDBMS to
manage XML data, the mapping from XML document to relations must based be on
functional dependency constraints.


BACKGROUND
Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) [corrected] is widely used for fluid resuscitation in intensive care units (ICUs), but its safety and efficacy have not been established in patients with severe sepsis.

METHODS
In this multicenter, parallel-group, blinded trial, we randomly assigned patients with severe sepsis to fluid resuscitation in the ICU with either 6% HES 130/0.42 (Tetraspan) or Ringer's acetate at a dose of up to 33 ml per kilogram of ideal body weight per day. The primary outcome measure was either death or end-stage kidney failure (dependence on dialysis) at 90 days after randomization.

RESULTS
Of the 804 patients who underwent randomization, 798 were included in the modified intention-to-treat population. The two intervention groups had similar baseline characteristics. At 90 days after randomization, 201 of 398 patients (51%) assigned to HES 130/0.42 had died, as compared with 172 of 400 patients (43%) assigned to Ringer's acetate (relative risk, 1.17; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01 to 1.36; P=0.03); 1 patient in each group had end-stage kidney failure. In the 90-day period, 87 patients (22%) assigned to HES 130/0.42 were treated with renal-replacement therapy versus 65 patients (16%) assigned to Ringer's acetate (relative risk, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.80; P=0.04), and 38 patients (10%) and 25 patients (6%), respectively, had severe bleeding (relative risk, 1.52; 95% CI, 0.94 to 2.48; P=0.09). The results were supported by multivariate analyses, with adjustment for known risk factors for death or acute kidney injury at baseline.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with severe sepsis assigned to fluid resuscitation with HES 130/0.42 had an increased risk of death at day 90 and were more likely to require renal-replacement therapy, as compared with those receiving Ringer's acetate. (Funded by the Danish Research Council and others; 6S ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00962156.).


This work devises a formalism to obtain the equations of motion for a black hole-fluid configuration. Our approach is based on a Post-Newtonian expansion and adapted to scenarios where obtaining the relevant dynamics requires long time-scale evolutions. These systems are typically studied with Newtonian approaches, which have the advantage that larger time-steps can be employed than in full general-relativistic simulations, but have the downside that important physical effects are not accounted for. The formalism presented here provides a relatively straightforward way to incorporate those effects in existing implementations, up to 2.5PN order, with lower computational costs than fully relativistic simulations.


Thank you for reading repositioning higher education. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have look numerous times for their chosen books like this repositioning higher education, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they are facing with some harmful bugs inside their computer. repositioning higher education is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our book servers spans in multiple locations, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the repositioning higher education is universally compatible with any devices to read.


Ability to report back the conclusion of an assignment of the progress made so far to the person(s) who delegated the authority to the performer of an assignment, duty or function, has for decades eluded this nation both in the private and public responsibilities to be performed and performed and reported back has been carried out as accomplished. The lack of accountability leads to many vices in our social and economic system. The objectives of this study therefore are: (a) To ascertain the determine the role of independent audit towards accountability in an organization (b) To determine if independent audit can control fraud and embezzlement. The primary data sources (the questionnaire) collected response from thirty two (32) respondents out of forty (40) that was sampled. Data collected through primary sources were analyzed on tables using percentages, three hypotheses were stated in null form and ere tested using the X2 statistics, simple percentages and the test revealed that audit enhances accountability in an organization and also help in controlling fraud, embezzlement and defalcation in an organization.


Integrated smart sensors are quickly becoming an industry norm and often require multi-stage, multi-skilled design. This paper describes the fabrication of a temperature compensated light sensor using only a basic fabrication laboratory. A complete description of how to build the sensing elements, support electronics and communications is described and test results are presented. The construction of a light sensor using a shottkey barrier diode between the nickel and n-type silicon has been previously described by the authors. In this two such sensors are used as active and passive sensor elements to compensate for temperature effects. The outputs from each are differentially amplified, conditioned and buffered using an LM324 die to provide a temperature compensated output. Further reduction in size is possible when the temperature sensors are mounted front to back on a single silicon substrate and coupled directly to the LM324 die. External communications are only power, ground and an analogue signal.


It has been shown that UK nursing and medical students feel un-prepared for registered practice and foundation jobs (Whitehead and Holmes, 2011; Goldacre et al., 2010). A key reason for this is lack of experience in prioritisation, difficulties managing workloads and increased stress levels (Monaghan, 2015; Monrouxe et al., 2014).

We have piloted a new collaborative programme between the University of the West of England and Bristol University delivering multi-disciplinary ward based simulation teaching to a cohort of 70 final year nursing and medical students. The programme aimed to improve prioritisation skills, management of patient safety and care and inter-disciplinary team work. We delivered this with realistic staffing levels to assess the feasibility of embedding the programme within the undergraduate curicula for health care students.

Nursing students delivered care, assessed patients, referred to the 'doctor' and initiated treatment. Medical students worked as the junior doctor on-call; triaging bleeps, undertaking a variety of ward jobs, and managing sick patients. At several 'time out' points during the ward simulation all students gathered to discuss issues that emerged and developed suggestions and solutions.

Qualitative and quantitative data collected from students and staff overwhelmingly suggested that not only was the on-call ward simulation an effective way of improving confidence in prioritisation and on-call skills, it was also a preferred method of understanding the roles of allied health care professionals and how to best support each other to promote patient safety. This pilot project also showed the effectiveness of students acting as patients in the scenarios which allowed them a fresh perspective, decreased running costs and a friendly learning environment.

We hope to better equip medical and nursing students for the challenges of registered practice. By understanding co-workers roles, challenges and limitations we hope to foster more effective interdisciplinary communication and most importantly improve patient safety.


Liver disease encompasses pathologies as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, alcohol liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, viral hepatitis, and autoimmune hepatitis. Nowadays, underlying mechanisms associating gut permeability and liver disease development are not well understood, although evidence points to the involvement of intestinal microbiota and their metabolites. Animal studies have shown alterations in Toll-like receptor signaling related to the leaky gut syndrome by the action of bacterial lipopolysaccharide. In humans, modifications of the intestinal microbiota in intestinal permeability have also been related to liver disease. Some of these changes were observed in bacterial species belonging Roseburia, Streptococcus, and Rothia. Currently, numerous strategies to treat liver disease are being assessed. This review summarizes and discusses studies addressed to determine mechanisms associated with the microbiota able to alter the intestinal barrier complementing the progress and advancement of liver disease, as well as the main strategies under development to manage these pathologies. We highlight those approaches that have shown improvement in intestinal microbiota and barrier function, namely lifestyle changes (diet and physical activity) and probiotics intervention. Nevertheless, knowledge about how such modifications are beneficial is still limited and specific mechanisms involved are not clear. Thus, further in-vitro, animal, and human studies are needed.


Recent research has highlighted the potential impact of nutritional factors and individual micronutrients on the brain and on cognitive performance, especially in older adults. The B vitamins, folate, B12, and B6, are of particular interest because even subclinical deficiencies in these vitamins are thought to be relatively common in the general population and in older adults in particular. Recent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have provided evidence for an association between these B vitamins and many aspects of cognitive performance and have raised the possibility that even subclinical differences in nutritional status may have a subtle influence on aspects of cognitive performance, especially in older adults and in clinical populations. Preliminary evidence also indicates the effectiveness of supplementation in enhancing cognitive performance in older adults. Important considerations for future research include the use of placebo-controlled intervention studies, sensitive outcome measures of cognitive performance, and exploration of bioavailability and dose-response relationships.


Johan Heyns as apologist It is well known that Johan Heyns developed not only the theological disciplines of Dogmatics and Ethics. He also published a number of important works in the field of Apologetics. In this article special attention is paid to these books. This investigation leads to the conclusion that Heyns most certainly made a valuable contribution to the way in which Apologetics should be practised. His evaluation of viewpoints which differ from his own is always balanced, although he does not hesitate to point out the dangers in the modernistic worldview that threaten the Christian faith. He impresses one with his knowledge of contemporary philosophy.


Abstract. The Preliminary VOCALS Model Assessment (PreVOCA) aims to assess contemporary atmospheric modeling of the subtropical South East Pacific, with a particular focus on the clouds and the marine boundary layer (MBL). Models results from fourteen modeling centers were collected including operational forecast models, regional models, and global climate models for the month of October 2006. Forecast models and global climate models produced daily forecasts, while most regional models were run continuously during the study period, initialized and forced at the boundaries with global model analyses. Results are compared in the region from 40° S to the equator and from 110° W to 70° W, corresponding to the Pacific coast of South America. Mean-monthly model surface winds agree well with QuikSCAT observed winds and models agree fairly well on mean weak large-scale subsidence in the region next to the coast. However they have greatly differing geographic patterns of mean cloud fraction with only a few models agreeing well with MODIS observations. Most models also underestimate the MBL depth by several hundred meters in the eastern part of the study region. The diurnal cycle of liquid water path is underestimated by most models at the 85° W 20° S stratus buoy site compared with satellite, consistent with previous modeling studies. The low cloud fraction is also underestimated during all parts of the diurnal cycle compared to surface-based climatologies. Most models qualitatively capture the MBL deepening around 15 October 2006 at the stratus buoy, associated with colder air at 700 hPa.


When, in the fall of 1947, my predecessor, Dr. F. P. Koumans, suddenly withdrew from ichthyological research, some of the fossil fish-remains from Trinil, collected and partly examined by Prof. Dr. E. Dubois (1907; 1908), still remained to be investigated or re-examined. I gladly accepted the opportunity to complete the research on this interesting material. A considerable part of these fossil remains, labelled by Dr. Koumans (but not mentioned in his paper, 1948, p. 80) as "16 fragments of skullbones", which "probably belong to Ophicephalus spec." (no. 11640), still proved to be in a sufficient state of preservation to permit an accurate identification of the bones these fragments must represent, as well as of the kind of fish to which the greater part must have belonged, and its affinitie s. Almost all identified bones or fragments obviously belong to an in my opinion extinct, Ophicephalid 1) species or form, and consequently have been compared most accurately with our material of that genus in the collection of fish-skeletons. However, I regret to have to state that this material was very small, consisting of but three specimens: one identified as Ophiocephalus striatus Bl., from Java, Kuhl & Van Hasselt, total length 21.5 cm (cat. a), in a rather bad condition; a second identified as O. micropeltis K. & v. H., from Java, Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 52.5 cm (cat. a) ; and a third identified as Ophiocephalus spec., also from Java, Van Raalte, 45 cm (cat. a). The latter two are in a fine condition. A close re-examination, moreover, quite convinced me that, especially on account of the locality, the dentification, and the numbers of finrays, the latter two specimens too probably must be regarded as representing the common recent O. striatus Bl., this making the material available for comparison


Emergency Departments (EDs) represent a crucial component of any healthcare infrastructure. In today's world, healthcare systems face growing challenges in delivering efficient and time-sensitive emergency care services to communities. Overcrowding within EDs represents one of the most significant challenges for healthcare quality that adversely impacts clinical outcomes, patient safety, and overall satisfaction. Research in this area has resulted in creating several ED crowding indices, such as National Emergency Department Overcrowding Scale (NEDOCS) and Emergency Department Work Index (EDWIN) that have been developed to provide measures aimed at mitigating overcrowding. Recently, efforts made by researchers to examine the validity and reproducibility of these indices have shown that they are not reliable in accurately assessing overcrowding in regions beyond their original design settings. The shortcomings of such indices stem from their reliance upon the perspective and feedback of only clinical staff and the exclusion of other stakeholders. These limited perspectives introduce bias in the results of ED overcrowding indices. This study starts with confirming the inaccuracy of such crowding indices through examining their validity within a new healthcare system. To overcome the shortcomings of previous indices, the study presents a novel framework for quantifying and managing overcrowding based on emulating human reasoning in overcrowding perception. The framework of the proposed study takes into consideration emergency operational and clinical factors such as patient demand, patient complexity, staffing level, clinician workload, and boarding status when defining the crowding level. The hierarchical fuzzy logic approach is utilized to accomplish the goals of this framework by combining a diverse pool of healthcare expert perspectives while addressing the complexity of the overcrowding issue. The innovative design of the developed framework reduces bias in the assessment of ED crowding by developing a knowledge-base from the perspectives of multiple experts, and allows for its implementation in a variety of healthcare settings. Statistical analysis of results indicate that the developed index outperform previous indices in reflecting expert subjective assessments of overcrowding.


This paper provides a generalization of the theory of shareholder monitoring, originally developed by Admati, Pfleiderer, and Zechner (1994). An activist shareholder can trade with a finite number of strategic passive investors. If there are only a few investors, then their strategic behavior leads to an allocation of shares that increases the activist investor's incentive to monitor, which is socially desirable. This is because they take into account the effect of their purchases on the incentives of the large shareholder, so they buy fewer shares. On the other hand, a large number of investors leads to free-riding and less monitoring. In the limit, as the number of investors grows to infinity, a similar equilibrium as in Admati, Pfleiderer, and Zechner (1994) emerges. The model formalizes the idea that a financial market with a small number of shareholders provides stronger incentives for shareholder monitoring. The prediction is consistent with empirical findings which show that in countries where monitoring is important, e.g. because of weak legal protection of investors, shareholder concentration is high and stock market participation is low. ∗Vienna Graduate School of Finance, firstname.lastname@example.com. I would like to thank Thierry Foucault, Denis Gromb, Daniel Rettl, Leopold Sögner, Josef Zechner, and especially Klaus Ritzberger for many helpful discussions.


Prime Scientific Sailing Expedition (EPSP 2009), was carried out in the South China Sea (SCS) along Sarawak waters for nine days from 20 to 29 June 2009. The main objective was to enhance physical oceanography data to support the management of marine ecosystem and other marine resources off Sarawak waters. The main purpose of this present study is to construct vertical temperature and salinity structures off Sarawak waters and to define the water properties based on differ water depths. The temperature and salinity data were obtained using Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) from sea surface down to 523 m water depth. The measurement was done along the transect line that consists of 60 sampling stations involved with furthest distance offshore at ~471 km. Vertical profiles of temperature, salinity and temperature-salinity (T-S) diagrams of each station were plotted and analyzed based on location and water depth. Offshore sampling stations at water depth greater than 50 m are known as deep waters while near shore sampling station at water depth less than 50m is known as shallow waters. The constructed vertical profiles showed that as water depth increases, salinity increases whereas temperature decreases. Comparison of minimum and maximum temperature range of shallow and deep waters is 15°C and 1°C respectively. However, there is only 0.71°C difference of salinity between minimum salinity of shallow waters and deep waters. The seawater variable of Sarawak waters are impacted by the distance from mainland and its geographical location as well as the rivers influx into the SCS. Constant climate change due to seasonal monsoon and high rainfall as it is located in the tropical region contribute to the spatial temperature and salinity in this area. High rivers runoff into the SCS can reduce the salinity of the water at coastal area. Salinity increases as sampling location further offshore. High rainfall may decreases water temperature and salinity at water surface.


Philanthrocapitalism – the harnessing of pro-market strategies in order to increase returns on philanthropic investment – is starting to polarize opinions in the worlds of philanthropy, global health and development. With the term coined in just 2006, "philanthrocapitalism" has yet to attract significant attention among social scientists. In this paper, drawing on interviews with policy experts at places such as WHO, the World Economic Forum, and Medicins san Frontieres, I examine the emergence of philanthrocapitalism, comparing it to parallel trends aimed at alleviating poverty in developing regions, such as the promotion of social investment and the rise of social entrepreneurship. I then explore the influence of these related, but distinct, phenomena on the politics of global health governance, with a particular focus on concerns with the growing dominance of the Gates Foundation on agenda-setting and advocacy efforts. Finally, I draw parallels between the new philanthropy and more traditional forms of charitable investment practiced during the 20th-century. Theorists such as Bourdieu, building on Mauss' work, have long suggested there is no such thing as a free gift: all gifts are offered with either the assumption of eventual reciprocity, or with an eye to generating greater social prestige. This insight parallels criticisms from scholars who, pointing to Gramsci's conception of hegemony as "intellectual and moral leadership," argue that philanthropic projects aimed at improving social conditions or providing educational opportunities are rooted in ensuring the viability of US and European economic and foreign policy interests. I suggest the growth of philanthrocapitalism raises novel concerns, which both legitimate and surpass questions posed by earlier scholars such as Gramsci, Mauss and Bourdieu of older forms of philanthropy.


This study reports on the thermal dislocation and crystal growth changes during preparation of active metasilicate of group 2 periods 3.4 and 5 elements from waste fines of finishing process of crystal glass (CG) industry. Sodium carbonate fused the fines at ≈1273 K for 120-180 minutes followed by water leaching. Alkali silicate goes into solution.  Primary chloride and sulphate salts of elements of group 2 periods 2, 4 and 5 added to the alkali silicate solution at temperatures 300 K to 353 K for 60 minutes to give metasilicate as a white precipitate followed by heating at 473 K to 1073 K for 30 minutes.  The study discussed the physical changes taking place after heating. Results revealed that surface area and adsorption capacity of Mn ions from underground water increased with the surface area of the silicate associating the decrease in atomic radius of the element. The effect of pH, concentration of the reactants and temperature on the synthesis and physical changes of the silicate salts has been investigated. Formation of the silicate salt proceeded in a reaction sequence involving atom rearrangement to form a honeycomb structure with very narrow pore diameter amounting to 1.538 Ằ.  Heating silicate at 773 K dislocate the oxygen atoms around metal atoms to form unit crystals with mild pore diameter of 15.29 Ằ. With further increase in temperature, narrow pore system collapses to form sponge structure with wider pore diameter and lower surface area. The manuscript tabulated the physical changes in digital presentation derived mathematically.


The objective of this article is to deal precisely and systematically with the preliminary urban missionary outreach of the apostle Paul as referred to the book of Acts, chapters 13–14. This article covers an ample spectrum of Paul's mission work together with his companions. The book of Acts gives us a full exposition of the Holy Spirit as the primary agent of mission. The Holy Spirit led the church in Antioch of Syria in the dedication of Paul and Barnabas for their mission work which was specifically to the Gentiles as the Jews who were given the first preference rejected the Gospel (Ac 13:46). Christ in Acts 9:15 indicated his intention of choosing Paul as his chosen vessel to bear his name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel, and this commission of Paul to the Gentiles was also referred to in Acts 22:21. The result of the apostles' propagation of the Word of God was that many Gentile people from different cities repented and became Christians. Although the apostles encountered many challenges and opposition, their initial campaign ended in a good mode, as they experienced the wonderful works of God to the Gentiles as God had opened a door of faith (salvation) among the Gentiles. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article deals with missiological issues as it refers to Paul, who together with his crew encountered many challenges in their mission work like an opposition, expulsion, exaltation, stoning and so on. Even though they faced those challenges, they did not evacuate their responsibility of propagating the Word of God in different metropolitan areas. Thus where the element of 'perseverance of the saints' of the Reformed Dogmatics comes in.


The cost of doing business in Western Australia has long been a rhetoric heard and discussed throughout the state, with increased economic activity in recent times exacerbating the issue. The geography of the state, with its capital – Perth, one of the most isolated cities on earth, together with the majority of its land area classified as 'remote' or 'very remote' can add to cost pressures, making business operations more challenging than might otherwise be the case. The Cost of Doing Business in WA is the fourth report in the BCEC Focus on Western Australia series. It addresses an issue of central importance to Western Australia in maintaining its economic growth story – the costs of doing business in the State. The question of whether the cost of doing business in Western Australia is more or less expensive compared to other states and territories and whether business input costs have been rising disproportionately over time, is largely a relative one. Much like the question of whether the cost of living has increased – it depends to a large extent on the means one has. Excessively high business costs can hamper growth and productivity, making it difficult for existing and incumbent firms to realise their full potential. A number of WA business input costs have been increasing over time and are high compared to other Australian jurisdictions. However, WA business revenues have also been increasing at a faster rate than other states and territories. Is the cost of doing business in Western Australia problematic? For some businesses and in certain regions and industries – yes. Small to medium businesses, those operating in remote or regional areas and those reliant on inputs that have seen the biggest price increases are among these. For other businesses, cost pressures are for the most part a product of increased demand, fuelled by strong industry-specific economic growth. Continued microeconomic reform that focuses on taxation and industry specific issues will help to ease cost pressures for many business in the West, ensuring that the state builds on previous growth and has the ability to diversify and compete in a global market.


The purpose of this study is to compare the financial performance of two UAE based Islamic and conventional banks between the years 2002 and 2006. Quantitative analysis was undertaken by looking at various sets of financial ratios that are routinely used to measure bank performance. The main ratios that were employed put a particular focus on the banks liquidity, profitability, management capacity, capital structure and share performance as reliable indicators of a bank performance. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to rank the performance, measuring the dispersion and the stability-variability of the indicators. The research goes one step further and measures the financial stability of the two banks. Conclusions were then drawn from the computation of the relevant ratios that allowed the author to make an effective comparison of said banks. Subsequently, each bank's performance was then ranked via the use of descriptive statistical analysis. This type of analysis was used to summarize the performance of each bank based on three criteria, mean, coefficient of variation and the overall stability of each banks performance. The findings showed that both banks performed reasonably well during the period studied. While the bank of Sharjah benefitted by having an overall higher degree of liquidity, profitability, management capacity and capital structure, Dubai Islamic bank was better off in relation to share indicators performance and in terms of overall stability.


Planning systems are not the property of planners alone, rather they are collectively owned by the broad range of stakeholders that planning involves and affects (after Hague, 2000). As a consequence, issues of participation, responsiveness and relevance are fundamental to the health and vitality of planning systems. To accurately diagnose this aspect of the patient's condition it is necessary, as Allmendinger notes, to examine `the rich context in which planning operates' (2002: 4). This article does so by shedding light on planning consultation at the local level. It examines the often overlooked relationships between community councils (the lowest level of statutory community representation in planning) and principal councils (a term employed to include all local authorities and national parks that make planning decisions). The article will illustrate the frequency, function and degree of agreement existing between different council tiers on planning deliberations and, from this, identify a number of crucial points of tension between community councils and the planning system. These tensions centre on the nature of democracy within the system, the legitimacy of local knowledge in deliberation, and perhaps most importantly, the (perceived) interests and values of the planning system as they are practised. The article will argue that these tensions produce both competence and confidence disparities between councils and, as a consequence, the planning dialogue is reduced to each council `talking to the hand' of the other. Such circumstances raise important concerns regarding the vitality of the planning system in remaining relevant and responsive to these local participants, and thus the health of the planning system overall.


This paper presents estimates of the impact of retraining and public service employment (PSE) on reemployment and earnings in the Republic of Hungary during the early phase of post-Socialist economic restructuring. Since assignment to programs resulted in groups with vastly dissimilar characteristics, impact estimates were computed using a variety of methods. Controlling for observable characteristics, retraining may have slightly improved the chances for reemployment in a non-subsidized job, but the gain in reemployment was probably not sufficient to justify the cost of retraining. However, since the durability of jobs appears to be better for those who were retrained, the long term earnings impacts may be significant. Net societal benefits from retraining could be improved by targeting services to more males, older persons, those with fewer years of formal education, and those with no non-manual specialization. PSE was a successful strategy to keep people out of unemployment, but it did not appear to be a cost effective means of getting people reemployed in non-subsidized jobs. PSE is probably best viewed as an income transfer program that has the side effect of preventing deterioration of basic work habits. In terms of reemployment, the net societal impact of PSE could be improved if it involved more older persons and females.


Media critics remain captivated by the modernist myth of the new: they assume that digital technologies such as the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and computer graphics must divorce themselves from earlier media for a new set of aesthetic and cultural principles. In this richly illustrated study, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges this assumption. They argue that new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television. They call this process of refashioning "remediation," and they note that earlier media have also refashioned one another: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville, and radio.


Background: Little information exists regarding the nature and quality of feedback in case based discussions (CBDs).
Summary of Work: Paediatric trainees at ST1 and ST2 level within a deanery completed a semi-structured online questionnaire (n=27) and taped interviews (n=9) exploring the educational value of CBDs and associated feedback. Data from the questionnaire informed interview design and interviews were performed until saturation was achieved .
Summary of Results: Qualitative data were analysed using a thematic frame-work analysis. Trainee's viewed CBDs as educationally valuable, aiding reflective learning, improving decision making skills, and effecting a change in practice. Opinions varied greatly regarding how useful they found the feedback and several contributing factors were identified. Feedback was perceived as more educationally valuable from assessors who had positive attitude towards CBDs, understood the process and had experience in leading them. Time constraints and assessments performed in less suitable environments had a negative impact on feedback.
Conclusions: CBD assessments present an opportunity for good quality learning and feedback, which is valued by trainees, providing there is a commitment to the educational aspects of the process by both supervisor and trainee.
Take-home messages: Supervisors should be aware of the key elements that facilitate constructive feedback in CBDs and may benefit from specific training in this area.


We argue that the waning of nepotism in academia bolstered scientific production in pre-industrial Europe. We build a database of families of scholars (1088-1800), measure their scientific output, and develop a general method to disentangle nepotism from inherited human capital -two determinants of occupational persistence. This requires jointly addressing measurement error in human capital proxies and sample selection bias arising from nepotism. Our method exploits multi-generation correlations together with parent-child distributional differences to identify the structural parameters of a first-order Markov process of human capital transmission with nepotism. We find an intergenerational human capital elasticity of 0.59, higher than that suggested by parent-child elasticities, yet lower than multi-generation estimates ignoring nepotism. On average, 16 percent of scholars' sons achieved their position because of nepotism. Nepotism was lower in science than in law and in Protestant than in Catholic institutions, and declined during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment---two periods of buoyant scientific advancement.


Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are known for high thermal conductivity and have potential use as nano-radiators or heat exchangers. This paper focuses on the thermal performance of carpet-like arrays of vertically aligned CNTs on solid graphite substrates with the idea of investigating their behavior as a function of carpet dimensions and predicting their performance as thermal interface material (TIM) for electronic device cooling. Vertically aligned CNTs were grown on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate, which creates a robust and durable all-carbon hierarchical structure. The multi-layer thermal analysis approach using Netzsch laser flash analysis system was used to evaluate their performance as a function of carpet height, from which their thermal properties can be determined. It was seen that the thermal resistance of the CNT array varies linearly with CNT carpet height, providing a unique way of decoupling the properties of the CNT carpet from its interface. This data was used to estimate the thermal conductivity of individual multi-walled nanotube strands in this carpet, which was about 35 W/m-K. The influence of CNT carpet parameters (aerial density, diameter, and length) on thermal resistance of the CNT carpet and its potential advantages and limitations as an integrated TIM are discussed.


It is important to understand the science underlying philosophical debates. In particular, careful reflection is needed on the scientific study of the origins of Homo sapiens, the division of current human populations into ethnicities, populations, or races, and the potential impact of genomics on personalized medicine. Genomic approaches to the origins and divisions of our species are among the most multi-dimensional areas of contemporary science, combining mathematical modeling, computer science, medicine, bioethics, and philosophy of biology. The best evidence suggests that we are a young species, with a cradle in Africa. While prejudice, misunderstanding, and violence grow in many corners of the world, our best genomic science suggests a deep biological connection among all peoples.


Sixteen roosting sites of Gould's wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) were found between October and November of 2001 and May of 2002 in Sierra Fria, Aguascalientes. A large percentage (87.5%) of the roost sites was located in oak-pine forest (in pine stands), at an elevation range of 2500 to 2650 meters. Eight roost sites were on the upper portion (2/3) of the ridge, and 7 at northeast exposures with an average slope of 38.9 ± 12.6%. Most (81.2%) of the roost trees (n =170) were pines (Pinus teocote, P. durangensis, P. leiophylla and P. michoacana), 17.6% oaks (Quercus laurina, Q. grisea, and Q. eduardii), and 1.2% madrones (Arbutus arizonica). More than half (62.5%) of the roosting sites were frequently used during the period of study and the remaining sites were occasionally used. Most of the roost sites were near bait sites and small agricultural areas. The number of roost trees found at roosting sites varied from 1 to 23. The average distance within roost trees was of 24.4 ± 17.8 m. The average roost tree height was 16.6 ± 4.4 m and the average diameter at breast height (dbh) was 43.2 ± 11.5 cm. The selection of pines as roost trees by wild turkey may be due to tree structure. However, in places without pines, wild turkey used oaks, madrones and sycamore with similar characteristics of pine for roosting.


The present expansion of environmental standards and regulations in industrialised countries can have significant impacts on the market access of developing countries. The fear in many developing countries is that stricter product standards in the markets of developed countries will act as trade barriers for their exports. Moreover, there is widespread suspicion that environmental restrictions are sometimes used as an indirect means of protecting northern industries. This paper briefly examines these issues, focusing on recent eco-labelling schemes for cut flowers in the Netherlands. The paper concludes that eco-labels may have a significant negative impact on the export opportunities of a number of developing countries.


During the last decade, federal and provincial government departments acquired about 4,000 hectares of land in the Tantrmar Marches in the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border region. Some 440 hectares have been dyked and flooded to constant water levels to provide habitat for breeding and migratory waterfowl. This study prepared an inventory of the biting flies of the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border region, studied aspects of the population dynamics of these flies, and determined how the species composition and population dynamics of biting flies are influenced by environmental modification and marsh management. -- One hundred and eight species of biting flies (32 Culicidae, 20 Simuliidae, and 56 Tabanidae) are now recorded from the Maritime Provinces. A total of 59 species (19 culicids, 9 simuliids, and 31 tabanids) were collected in the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border region during the period 1 May to 31 August, 1973-1975. With the exception of Simulium latipes auct. nec. Meigen, Chrysops calvus Pechuman and Teskey, Hybomitra illota (Osten Sacken), H. Itasca (Philip). And H. typhue Whitney Form B, all species collected in this area were previously recorded in the literature or contained in the Biosystematics Research Institute, Ottawa. Taxonomic keys were constructed for the families of Culicidae, Simuliidae, and Tabanidae of maritime Canada. -- Seven species of mosquitoes were found in temporary pools of snowmelt origin and three were taken in temporary floodwater pools. Aedespunctor (Kirby) was the most abundant culicid taken in snowmelt pools, and A. cantator (Coquillett) was the most abundant in floodwater pools. One species of each of five genera of mosquitoes were found in permanent marshes. Mansonia perturbans (Walker) was the most abundant mosquito of this group. And was the most serious pest encountered in the Tantramar Marshes and neighboring towns of Sackville, New Brunswick and Amherst, Nova Scotia. -- Nine species of simuliids were found in temporary and permanent streams in the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border region. Larvae of a complex of species, consisting of S. venustum Say and S. verecundum Stone and Jamnback, were found in all streams which contained larval simuliids. While adult simuliids were relatively uncommon in the study area, this species complex comprised over two-thirds of the adults collected. -- Ten species of culicids, six species of simuliids, and 15 species of tabanids were taken feeding on man. The principal pest within each group was M. perturbans, S. venustum-verecundum and H. frontalis (Walker). Nine species of tabanids were found feeding on cattle, the most abundant which was H. thphus Form A. -- The seasonal succession of culicids, simuliids, and tabanids, is determined by aerial net sweeps in the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border region, very closely follows the seasonal succession of the same species in other regions of eastern North America. -- A two-year study of natural and man-made marshes of various ages has indicated that mosquito productivity was greatest in marshes of 3.5 years of age. On the average, the man-made marshes produced over 2.5 times as many mosquitoes as the natural marsh, the majority of which were M. perturbans. -- A system of shoreline modification, constant water levels, and periods of water drawdown in the man-made waterfowl marshes is recommended for control of pest mosquitoes, especially M. perturbans.


A wide variety of smartphone applications today rely on third-party advertising services, which provide libraries that are linked into the hosting application. This situation is undesirable for both the application author and the advertiser. Advertising libraries require additional permissions, resulting in additional permission requests to users. Likewise, a malicious application could simulate the behavior of the advertising library, forging the user's interaction and effectively stealing money from the advertiser. This thesis describes AdSplit, where we extended Android to allow an application and its advertising to run as separate processes, under separate user-ids, eliminating the need for applications to request permissions on behalf of their advertising libraries. We also leverage mechanisms from QUIRE to allow the remote server to validate the authenticity of client-side behavior. In this thesis, we quantify the degree of permission bloat caused by advertising, with a study of thousands of downloaded apps. AdSplit automatically recompiles apps to extract their ad services, and we measure minimal runtime overhead. We also observe that most ad libraries just embed an HTML widget within and describe how AdSplit can be designed with this in mind to avoid any need for ads to have native code.


Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs) are classified as either seminomas or nonseminomas. Both tumors originate from carcinoma in situ (CIS) cells, which are derived from transformed fetal gonocytes. CIS, seminoma, and the undifferentiated embryonal carcinoma (EC) retain an embryonic phenotype and express pluripotency factors (NANOG/OCT4). Vitamin D (VD) is metabolized in the testes, and here, we examined VD metabolism in TGCT differentiation and pluripotency regulation. We established that the VD receptor (VDR) and VD-metabolizing enzymes are expressed in human fetal germ cells, CIS, and invasive TGCTs. VD metabolism diminished markedly during the malignant transformation from CIS to EC but was reestablished in differentiated components of nonseminomas, distinguished by coexpression of mesodermal markers and loss of OCT4. Subsequent in vitro studies confirmed that 1,25(OH)(2)D(3) (active VD) downregulated NANOG and OCT4 through genomic VDR activation in EC-derived NTera2 cells and, to a lesser extent, in seminoma-derived TCam-2 cells, and up-regulated brachyury, SNAI1, osteocalcin, osteopontin, and fibroblast growth factor 23. To test for a possible therapeutic effect in vivo, NTera2 cells were xenografted into nude mice and treated with 1,25(OH)(2)D(3), which induced down-regulation of pluripotency factors but caused no significant reduction of tumor growth. During NTera2 tumor formation, down-regulation of VDR was observed, resulting in limited responsiveness to cholecalciferol and 1,25(OH)(2)D(3) treatment in vivo. These novel findings show that VD metabolism is involved in the mesodermal transition during differentiation of cancer cells with embryonic stem cell characteristics, which points to a function for VD during early embryonic development and possibly in the pathogenesis of TGCTs.


Whitney Newey and James Powell, founding CeMMAP Fellows, wrote an influential paper on instrumental variable estimation of an additive error non-parametrically specified structural equation, presented at the December 1988 North American Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society. A version circulated in 1989 but the results were not published until 14 years later: "Instrumental Variable Estimation of Nonparametric Models", Econometrica, 71(5), (September 2003), 1565-1578. The 1989 working paper is often referred to, but hard to find. For the sake of completeness CeMMAP is pleased to publish the 1989 paper.


This article focuses on an unresolved issue within international trade law and policy, namely whether there is a need to consider gender-differentiated impacts of trade agreements and if so, how such impacts should be addressed. The author argues in favor of a gender aware approach to trade, discussing this topic within the context of regional trade agreements ("RTAs"), which are being used increasingly as a route to economic integration among nations. While there is evidence of gender-differentiated impacts of trade liberalization, there has been little progress made in advancing an agenda to address gender issues at the level of multilateral trade negotiations through the World Trade Organization("WTO"). The author suggests that gender issues might be better addressed at the regional level through RTA negotiations, citing several examples of recent developments reflecting a gender aware approach to support her claim. She cautions, however, that such efforts fall short of a comprehensive work program that would advance women's equality in a truly meaningful way.


This thesis presents original research carried out in the topic of electronic dance music (EDM) drum sequencing, a fundamental and yet underdeveloped subject in the music production literature. The work undertaken is focused in two main areas: similarity between drum patterns and modeling of drumming style. The study of pattern similarity is rooted in current knowledge on human processing of monophonic rhythms, and is expanded until a model capable of predicting similarity sensations of polyphonic drum rhythms is reached. With this model, RhythmSpace, a graphical system for the continuous real-time exploration of drum pattern collections, is developed. The second area of research, drumming style modeling, is approached from a statistical perspective, developing a generative model capable of learning styles from examples and creating original drum patterns in the learned styles. This model allows high-level musical flexibility, letting a musician combine and transform styles in real-time during the generative process. Taking advantage of this model, a style-based drum machine application, DrDrums, is implemented and evaluated in subject-based experiments.


Worldwide, Facebook is becoming increasingly widespread as a communication platform. Young people especially use this social networking site daily to maintain and establish relationships. Despite the Facebook expansion in the last few years and the widespread acceptance of this social network, research into Facebook Addiction (FA) is still in its infancy. Hence, the potential predictors of Facebook overuse represent an important matter for investigation. This study aimed to deepen the understanding of the relationship between personality traits, social and emotional loneliness, life satisfaction, and Facebook addiction. A total of 755 participants (80.3% female; n = 606) aged between 18 and 40 (mean = 25.17; SD = 4.18) completed the questionnaire packet including the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, the Big Five, the short version of Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. A regression analysis was used with personality traits, social, family, romantic loneliness, and life satisfaction as independent variables to explain variance in Facebook addiction. The findings showed that Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Loneliness (Social, Family, and Romantic) were strong significant predictors of FA. Age, Openness, Agreeableness, and Life Satisfaction, although FA-related variables, were not significant in predicting Facebook overuse. The risk profile of this peculiar behavioral addiction is also discussed.


Purpose: The paper deals with the analysis of the influence of interregional labor migration in the Russian Federation on regional labor productivity. Design/Methodology/Approach: Empirical analysis was conducted on the statistical data collected from the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation. The sample includes data on 85 subjects of the Russian Federation for the period 2011-2016. The study substantiates the impact of interregional labor migration in the Russian Federation on regional labor productivity and to form the tools for managing migration processes, ensuring its improvement. Findings: The study showed that interregional differences in wages, the differentiation of the characteristics of labor markets in the region of residence and the potential region of employment, different transport accessibility and additional employee costs associated with staying in another region are the main economic reasons for interregional labor migration in the Russian Federation. The regression analysis confirmed hypotheses that higher level of labor migration from the region leads to a decrease in labor productivity in the region. Practical Implications: Based on the empirically derived relationships, authors created a set of tools for managing migration processes, ensuring their improvement, which can be used for the development of program documents at the regional and interregional levels. Originality/Value: The main contribution of this study is the combination of deep statistical analysis and migration factors' analysis to provide valuable conclusions in interregional labor migrations.


Auditory-pigmentary syndromes are caused by physical absence of melanocytes from the skin, hair, eyes, or the stria vascularis of the cochlea. Dominantly inherited examples with patchy depigmentation are usually labelled Waardenburg syndrome (WS). Type I WS, characterised by dystopia canthorum, is caused by loss of function mutations in the PAX3 gene. Type III WS (Klein-Waardenburg syndrome, with abnormalities of the arms) is an extreme presentation of type I; some but not all patients are homozygotes. Type IV WS (Shah-Waardenburg syndrome with Hirschsprung disease) can be caused by mutations in the genes for endothelin-3 or one of its receptors, EDNRB. Type II WS is a heterogeneous group, about 15% of whom are heterozygous for mutations in the MITF (microphthalmia associated transcription factor) gene. All these forms show marked variability even within families, and at present it is not possible to predict the severity, even when a mutation is detected. Characterising the genes is helping to unravel important developmental pathways in the neural crest and its derivatives.


In this paper, we estimate a fully optimized BVAR model of the Canadian economy for the period 1971-87. The model is well-adapted to the features of a small open economy. We show how it can be used as an input in the monetary policy process either as a forecasting instrument or an analytical tool. In general, forecast results over the 1988-92 period compare well with those of univariate autoregressive models. The results from the variance decomposition exercise show a rather weak influence of monetary aggregates on macroeconomic variables, at least in a short-run context. However, foreign variables, particularly commodity prices, play an important role.


Production and manufacturing firms are under great pressure to continuously reduce their production costs in order to stay competitive. Industrial operation cost analysis shows that, in general, maintenance represents a significant proportion of the overall operating cost. For instance, the cost of maintenance in the highly mechanized Kiruna underground iron ore mine in Sweden is 30–50% of the total operating cost. Spare parts availability, an issue of the maintenance process, is studied in this paper. Simply stated, production can be enhanced by the increased availability of functional machinery and the subsequent minimization of the total production cost. Spare parts estimation based on machine reliability characteristics and operating environment is a pragmatic method to improve supportability; it can guarantee non-delay in spare parts logistics which can ultimately improve production output. This study uses an improved statistical-reliability (S-R) approach which incorporates system/machine operating environment information in systems reliability analysis. It selects a multiple regression type of analysis based on Cox's proportional hazards modeling (PHM). It considers a parametric approach with a baseline Weibull hazard function and time independent covariates and analyzes the influence of operating environment factors on this model. Based on the results of analyses, a mathematical model for spare parts prediction in component level for non-repairable parts is developed and the findings are validated through a case study in the Swedish mining industry. The study finds that the outputs represent a significant difference in the required spare parts estimation when considering the influence of the system operating environment. The difference is significant in the sense of spare parts forecasting and inventory management; this can enhance the availability of parts and consequently of machines resulting in economical operation and cost savings.


Abstract We extend the classical formula of Porteous for blowing-up Chern classes to the case of blow-ups of possibly singular varieties along regularly embedded centers. The proof of this generalization is perhaps conceptually simpler than the standard argument for the nonsingular case, involving Riemann–Roch without denominators. The new approach relies on the explicit computation of an ideal, and a mild generalization of a well-known formula for the normal bundle of a proper transform ([8, B·6·10]). We also discuss alternative, very short proofs of the standard formula in some cases: an approach relying on the theory of Chern–Schwartz–MacPherson classes (working in characteristic 0), and an argument reducing the formula to a straightforward computation of Chern classes for sheaves of differential 1-forms with logarithmic poles (when the center of the blow-up is a complete intersection).


Educational research has found that students have challenges understanding thermal science. Undergraduate physics students have difficulties differentiating basic thermal concepts, such as heat, temperature, and internal energy. Engineering students have been found to have difficulties grasping surface emissivity as a thermal material property. One potential source of students' challenges with thermal science is the lack of opportunity to visualize energy transfer in intuitive ways with traditional measurement equipment. Thermodynamics laboratories have typically depended on point measures of temperature by use of thermometers (detecting heat conduction) or pyrometers (detecting heat radiation). In contrast, thermal imaging by means of an infrared (IR) camera provides a real-time, holistic image. Here we provide some background on IR cameras and their uses in education, and summarize five qualitative investigations that we have used in our courses.


A growing body of evidence has begun to reveal flaws in the traditional assumption of female passivity and lack of discrimination after copulation has begun. William Eberhard has compiled an impressive array of research on the ability of females to shape the outcome of mating. He describes studies of many different cryptic mechanisms by which a female can accept a male for copulation but nevertheless reject him as a father. Evidence from various fields indicates that such selectivity by females may be the norm rather than the exception. Because most post-copulatory competition between males for paternity is played out within the bodies of females, female behaviour, morphology, and physiology probably often influence male success in these contests. Eberhard draws examples from a diversity of organisms, ranging from ctenophores to scorpions, nematodes to frogs, and crickets to humans. Cryptic female choice establishes a new bridge between sexual selection theory and reproductive physiology, in particular the physiological effects of male seminal products on female reproductive processes, such as sperm transport, oviposition, and remating. Eberhard interweaves his review of previous s


OBJECTIVE
Increased carotid arterial stiffness (CAS) is a predictor of subclinical early atherosclerosis as well as carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT). We aimed to determine CAS and cIMT in Behçet's disease (BD).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
BD (n=49) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (n=64) patients and healthy controls (HC) (n=40) were included in the study. cIMT was measured. CAS indices, including arterial compliance (AC), arterial distensibility (AD), Young's elastic modulus (YEM), Peterson's elastic modulus (Ep), and β stiffness index (βSI) were measured based on the diameter-pressure relationship.

RESULTS
When compared to the HC group, the mean cIMT was significantly higher in the RA group (p=0.033), but it was not higher in the BD group. The CAS indices, including AD, AC, Ep, and βSI were not significantly different among the study groups. Moreover, the cIMT and CAS indices were not significantly different between active (n=20) and inactive BD patients, and these indices were not correlated with the scores of disease activity. AD, AC and Ep were significantly lower in the BD patients with a positive pathergy reaction than in those with a negative reaction.

CONCLUSION
These results suggest that BD does not directly lead to arterial stiffness or to an increase in cIMT.


Trust in physicians is the fundamental social mechanism in the health sector to address the issue of uncertainty in the effectiveness of health care and asymmetric information between patients and physicians. As health systems are so diverse in the world, there are substantial differences across nations in trust in physicians. Few studies have paid attention to the link between the characteristics of health system and patient trust in physicians. This study used 2011 International Social Survey Programme data to explore the potential mechanism in accounting for cross-country heterogeneity in trust in physicians. We hypothesize that physician-induced demand in the pharmaceutical sector shapes the perception that physicians serve as imperfect agents to their patients, which in turn lowers trust in physicians. Specifically, we used the share of pharmaceutical expenditure in total health expenditure as a proxy measure of physician-induced demand in prescription drugs, and we found that individuals were more likely to believe that physicians serve as imperfect agent if their countries spend a high share of health care costs on pharmaceutical products. In addition, our cross-country analysis shows a significant negative relationship between the perception of imperfect agency and trust in physicians.


Bacterially produced cytokinins promote infection by repressing a transcription factor in host plants. This Podcast features an interview with Stanton Gelvin, senior author of a Research Article that appears in the 19 November 2013 issue of Science Signaling, about a transcription factor that controls a plant's susceptibility to infection by a bacterium that is both a disease-causing pathogen and a valuable tool for genetic engineering. Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a bacterium that causes crown gall disease by inserting into plant cells genes that cause the cells to proliferate and form a tumor. Although it can damage crops, Agrobacterium is also useful for research and genetic engineering because the bacterium can be used to transfer genes of interest into plants. Although Agrobacterium is widely used to transform plants, there are some species and strains that are not highly susceptible to Agrobacterium infection. Previous efforts to identify the plant genes involved in infection by Agrobacterium have focused on mutant plants that are resistant to infection. Sardesai et al. took the opposite approach, using mutant plants that are hyper-susceptible to Agrobacterium infection, to identify plant genes that control susceptibility to infection.


Objectives: Efficacy evaluation of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment for localized prostate cancer and identification of the factors affecting the outcome. Patients and Methods: 102 patients with prostate cancer stage T1–T2 and noncandidates for radical prostatectomy have been treated with HIFU (Ablatherm™, EDAP–Technomed). The disease progression (failure) was strictly defined by any positive sample at control biopsies, whatever the prostate–specific antigen (PSA) level, or by 3 consecutive increases in PSA levels in case of negative biopsies. Results: At inclusion, patients' baseline characteristics were (mean ± standard deviation): age 70.8 (±6.13) years, PSA 8.38 (±4.8) ng/ml, prostate volume 33.3 (±16.71) cm3. The population mean follow–up was 19 months (3–76 months). The overall success rate was 66%. Statistically significant variations of the overall success with a more favorable outcome were observed when (1) the initial PSA level was ≤10 ng/ml (73 vs. 50%, p = 0.02), (2) the Gleason score was ≤6 (81 vs. 46%, p<0.001) and (3) the pretreatment sextant biopsy evidenced 1–4 positive samples (68 vs. 40%, p = 0.01). Conclusion: Results observed after HIFU treatment in localized prostate cancer are now challenging those obtained after radiation therapy. The success rate is influenced by disease–related prognostic factors.


A retrospective study that was published concluded that hospital admissions for adult patients in the United States suffering from skin infections is increasing by significant amounts. In a 10-year period in the early 2000's, infections due to S. aureus increased by 123%, and this number is increasing as time goes on [1]. The purpose of this experiment was to use hyaluronic acid, silver nanoparticles, and a bacteriophage cocktail to create a hydrogel. Unlike traditional hydrogels, which only aid in the protection and healing of wounds, this hydrogel promoted wound healing by increasing cell proliferation while simultaneously disrupting biofilm formation and breaking down Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which are two strains of bacteria that attribute to nosocomial infections and are increasing in antibiotic resistance. The biofilm formation forms a barrier that gives the bacteria the power to resist antibiotics and give a pathway to create a source of systemic chronic infections [2]. If hyaluronic acid is used in conjunction with colloidal silver and species-specific bacteriophages, we predicted that cell proliferation in an in vitro wound healing model would increase. We tested our bacteriophage-containing hydrogel on human fibroblast cells and on S. aureus and P. aeruoginosa cultures to investigate its potential wound healing and antibacterial properties. In support of our hypothesis, we found that cell proliferation increased. Simultaneously, the bacteriophage cocktail and colloidal silver decreased biofilm growth in both S. aureus and P. aeruginosa while not affecting cell viability. This finding is important because it offers a cost-effective, non-invasive approach to improving wound healing without the use of antibiotics, which is important in a world where antibiotic resistance is becoming an increasingly prevalent problem.


Mangrove ecosystem in Muna Regency,includingKembarMaminasa village, has been started to be exploited by the local community. Unfortunately information about mangrove status and their condition are still negligible. The result of this study is useful to provide basic information for sustainable management of mangrove ecosystems. A study of mangrove community structure was conducted at the Tembe River inKembar Maminasa village, from September to November 2013. Mangrove community structure was analyzed using non-metric multidimensional scaling technique and Bray-Curtis cluster analysis, while the most contributed species to difference of fish community structure was analyzed using SIMPER (similarity of percentages) procedure. The difference between the community structure in three different substrates(muddy, mud-sandy, sand-muddy) was analyzed using ANOSIM. All the statistics analysis were carried out using PRIMER v6 software.The results of the study showed that there were seven species found in the Desa Kembar Maminasa and they tended to distribute differently among three different substrate, creating three slightly different zones of mangrove from seaward to landward. The community structure of the mangrove trees were different among the three different substrates. Similar results were found in community structure of mangrove saplings and mangrove seedlings. Key words: District Muna, community structure of mangrove, mangrove tree, mangrove saplings, mangrove seedlings.


Ultrathin rhodium films with a thickness ranging from 1 to a few monolayers were deposited on a single-crystal Ru(0001) surface in order to investigate the oxidation behavior of ultrathin epitaxial films on a dissimilar substrate. It is found that rhodium grows on Ru(0001) initially layer by layer, adapting the in-plane lattice parameters of Ru(0001). When exposing Rh films to oxygen environment (approximately 4.8 x 10(6) L O2 exposure) at 660 K, 2-4 ML Rh films form a surface oxide composed of (9 x 9) O-Rh-O trilayers. Quite in contrast, oxidation of the 1 ML RhRu(0001) film leads to a poorly ordered oxide with a rutile structure reminiscent of RuO2(110) on Ru(0001). The oxidized 1 ML RhRu(0001) film contains much more oxygen than the oxidized thicker Rh films. Lower temperatures (535 K) and high doses of oxygen lead to a (1 x 1)-O overlayer on the 1 ML RhRu(0001) surface, whose atomic geometry resembles closely that of the (1 x 1)-O phase on clean Ru(0001).


The proliferation of applications that must reliably distribute large, rich content to a vast number of autonomous receivers motivates the design of new multicast and broadcast protocols. We describe an ideal, fully scalable protocol for these applications that we call a digital fountain. A digital fountain allows any number of heterogeneous receivers to acquire content with optimal efficiency at times of their choosing. Moreover, no feedback channels are needed to ensure reliable delivery, even in the face of high loss rates. We develop a protocol that closely approximates a digital fountain using two new classes of erasure codes that for large block sizes are orders of magnitude faster than standard erasure codes. We provide performance measurements that demonstrate the feasibility of our approach and discuss the design, implementation, and performance of an experimental system.


Do video games have the potential to act as a vehicle for effective psychological counseling ? This was the question we tried to answer in several experimental video game workshops that were held with adolescents in a youth counseling center. Connecting elements between the clinical framework and the virtual world can create a space where youths can feel comfortable to express themselves. It is during post-game debriefing that the effectiveness of this medium is put to the test. At the end of this article we try to shed the light on whether the final creation involved in this virtual tool is subject to an interpretation or to a simple act of reading the story of the avatar.


This document contains a specification of YANG modules for the
management of SAVI (Source Address Validation Improvements) protocol.
The core SAVI data module ietf-savi serves as a framework for
configuring and managing SAVI instance and provides common building
blocks. It is expected to be augmented by additional YANG modules for
specific IP address assignment methods. The other four modules
augment the core SAVI data module and define data models for different
IP address assignment methods. Module ietf-savi-fcfs defines module
specific for Stateless Address Auto Configuration (SLAAC), module
ietf-savi-dhcpv4 and ietf-savi-dhcpv6 define modules specific for
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol version 4 and version 6 (DHCPv4
and DHCPv6), and module ietf-savi- send defines module specific for
Secure Neighbor Discovery (SEND).