Australians are now able to live longer due to scientific and medical technology advances and improved economic conditions, but, ironically, such benefits do not necessarily guarantee that, as we age, we will all be able to support and maintain ourselves financially, physically, mentally or socially. Residential aged care facilities provide safe accommodation and a range of care services for elderly people for whom remaining in their own homes is not viable. Although some of these facilities provide religious and pastoral care in addition to personal, medical and therapy services, research has indicated that the 'spiritual care' dimension of holistic aged care services in Australia is either absent, or given low priority. Spiritual care overarches religious and pastoral care, and is therefore as essential a dimension of holistic care as are its medical, psychological, psychosocial, familial and emotional dimensions.

This research project was undertaken with residents of aged care facilities in Perth, Western Australia, as an assessment of the participants' understanding and presence of spirituality, and to determine whether their spiritual and religious needs are being met. The results showed that the participants are generally representative of their generation in their affiliations with Christian denominations, worship practices and traditions, with their perceptions of the concepts of 'spirituality' and 'religion' either being confused, or couched in terms of their religious backgrounds and experiences. The majority of participants was found to possess a stoical desire to withstand encroaching debility and loss of independence, while remaining optimistic, keeping occupied, and endeavouring to identify the meaning and purpose within their lives. Most participants expressed contentment with, and acceptance of, the current living arrangements, level of care, and religious and spiritual support provided within their aged care facilities.


This document specifies how to use DNS (Domain Name Service) SRV RRs
(Resource Records) to locate services for the AFS distributed file
system and how the priority and weight values of the SRV RR should be
interpreted in the server weighting system used by AFS. It deprecates
use of the AFSDB RR to locate AFS cell database servers and provides
guidance for backward compatibility. Internet Draft Comments
Comments are solicited. Please include the AFS Standardization mailing
list at firstname.lastname@example.com as a recipient of any
comments.


By measuring interactions among and between anxiety and the independent variables of country of origin, gender, level of education, and age, this study attempted to gain insight into how students from different countries experience anxiety on a U.S. college campus. Results of the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and the univariate test(ANOVA) indicated that the gender and level of education of the subjects made no significant difference. However, when it came to country of origin, there were
significant differences between two of the cultural groups and respective anxiety level. Findings also support a positive correlation between age and anxiety levels, with the youngest participants having the lowest anxiety levels.


Understanding short texts is crucial to many applications, but challenges abound. First, short texts do not always observe the syntax of a written language. As a result, traditional natural language processing methods cannot be easily applied. Second, short texts usually do not contain sufficient statistical signals to support many state-of-the-art approaches for text processing such as topic modeling. Third, short texts are usually more ambiguous. We argue that knowledge is needed in order to better understand short texts. In this work, we use lexical-semantic knowledge provided by a well-known semantic network for short text understanding. Our knowledge-intensive approach disrupts traditional methods for tasks such as text segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, and concept labeling, in the sense that we focus on semantics in all these tasks. We conduct a comprehensive performance evaluation on real-life data. The results show that knowledge is indispensable for short text understanding, and our knowledge-intensive approaches are effective in harvesting semantics of short texts.


Patents are peculiar legal instruments in that they contain both technical and legal information. This Janus-like nature of the document is important because they serve the legal purpose of affording the owner the right to exclude others from practicing the invention, and third parties need to be able to assess the scope of that right. At the same time, through the patent's disclosure, the document is intended to contribute to the storehouse of technical knowledge. Superficially, patents are generally viewed through the eyes of the hypothetical person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA), patent law's "reasonable person." Unfortunately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has marginalized the PHOSITA by treating the document, particularly in claim construction and in assessing the sufficiency of the patent's disclosure, as a purely legal document. While this shift is understandable, it is also unfortunate. Possible justifications for the court's move are unpersuasive. For instance, from the ex ante perspective, the court may hope to encourage future applicants to provide better disclosures. As this Article explains, that argument fails because the court's legal standards are too vague and the lapse of time between the application and a competitor's review of the patent causes informational asymmetries for which the applicant cannot account. A second temporal problem arises because the Federal Circuit is setting the standard primarily through litigation. By the time of litigation, however, current technologies have shifted, altering the nature of the required disclosures in current applications. As a result, the court is offering the standard for old technologies, too late for current applications, with the cost of invalidating extant patents. From an ex post perspective, this shift may assist lay-judges and juries in evaluating patents, but such a result is the problem - this treatment reduces the technical value of the patent and incentivizes future applicants to treat the disclosure in a legal fashion, not as a technical resource. To balance the interest in public notice with the technical nature of the patent, this Article posits the use of presumptions. Courts should use the intrinsic evidence - the patent and the prosecution history - to generate a presumptive conclusion as to the construction of the patent or the sufficiency of the patent's disclosure. Then, the court should resort to the extrinsic evidence to determine whether the legalistic conclusion reached should be rejected in light of the understanding of technologists in the relevant field. In this way, the default position for courts is interpretation afforded by the intrinsic record, enhancing public notice. This default, however, can be rebutted when facts regarding the technical import of the document are brought to bear, bringing the viewpoint of the PHOSITA into the calculus.


Approximate computing provides an opportunity for exploiting application characteristics to improve performance of computing systems. However, such opportunity must be balanced against generality of methods and quality guarantees that the system designer can provide to the application developer. Improved parallel processing in graphics processing units (GPUs) provides one such means for data-level parallel applications. We propose SqueezCL a software method to reduce the hardware resources used by an OpenCL kernel. SqueezCL transforms an exact OpenCL kernel to an approximate OpenCL kernel by squeezing dimensions of its data elements. The core of SqueezCL leverages bitwidth reduction to shrink the hardware resources. Selectively reducing the precision and size of data elements generates approximate kernels that can be executed faster at a cost to quality loss. Exploiting this opportunity is particularly important for GPU accelerators that are inherently subject to memory resource constraints. We evaluate SqueezCL on a diverse set of data-level parallel OpenCL benchmarks from the AMD APP SDK v2.9. Experimental result on the AMD Radeon HD 5870 shows that SqueezCL yields on average 1.1× higher performance with less than 10% quality loss without requiring any changes to the underlying GPU hardware.


For the first 150 years of their existence, "natural foods" were consumed primarily by body builders, hippies, religious sects, and believers in nature cure. And those consumers were dismissed by the medical establishment and food producers as kooks, faddists, and dangerous quacks. In the 1980s, broader support for natural foods took hold and the past fifteen years have seen an explosion—everything from healthy-eating superstores to mainstream institutions like hospitals, schools, and workplace cafeterias advertising their fresh-from-the-garden ingredients. Building Nature's Market shows how the meaning of natural foods was transformed as they changed from a culturally marginal, religiously inspired set of ideas and practices valorizing asceticism to a bohemian lifestyle to a mainstream consumer choice. Laura J. Miller argues that the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the leadership of the natural foods industry. Rather than a simple tale of cooptation by market forces, Miller contends the participation of business interests encouraged the natural foods movement to be guided by a radical skepticism of established cultural authority. She challenges assumptions that private enterprise is always aligned with social elites, instead arguing that profit-minded entities can make common cause with and even lead citizens in advocating for broad-based social and cultural change.


This work addresses the problem of regret minimization in non-stochastic multi-armed bandit problems, focusing on performance guarantees that hold with high probability. Such results are rather scarce in the literature since proving them requires a large deal of technical effort and significant modifications to the standard, more intuitive algorithms that come only with guarantees that hold on expectation. One of these modifications is forcing the learner to sample arms from the uniform distribution at least Ω( √T) times over T rounds, which can adversely affect performance if many of the arms are suboptimal. While it is widely conjectured that this property is essential for proving high-probability regret bounds, we show in this paper that it is possible to achieve such strong results without this undesirable exploration component. Our result relies on a simple and intuitive loss-estimation strategy called Implicit exploration (IX) that allows a remarkably clean analysis. To demonstrate the flexibility of our technique, we derive several improved high-probability bounds for various extensions of the standard multi-armed bandit framework. Finally, we conduct a simple experiment that illustrates the robustness of our implicit exploration technique.


OBJECTIVE
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) can occur in association with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is not easy to differentiate MIS-C from severe COVID-19 or Kawasaki disease based on symptoms. The aim of this study was to describe the clinical and laboratory characteristics of MIS-C.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We searched PubMed/Medline for case series and reports of MIS-C published until June 20, 2020. From a total of nine articles involving 45 cases, various clinical and laboratory data were extracted. Each target case was evaluated by using different diagnostic criteria.

RESULTS
The average age at onset of MIS-C was 8.6 years. In 80% of cases, the age of patients ranged from 5 to 15 years. Fever (100%) and shock (82%) were the most common presenting symptoms. Sixty percent of cases met the diagnostic criteria for typical or atypical Kawasaki disease. Biomarkers indicative of inflammation, coagulopathy, or cardiac injury were characteristically elevated as follows: ferritin (mean: 1,061 ng/mL), CRP (217 mg/L), ESR (69 mm/hr), IL-6 (214.8 pg/mL), TNFα (63.4 pg/mL), D-dimer (3,220 ng/mL), PT (15.5 s), troponin I (1,006 ng/L), and BNP (12,150 pg/mL). Intravenous immunoglobulin was administered in all target cases, and inotropic agents were commonly used as well. No case of death was observed.

CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrated that MIS-C is a serious condition that presents with fever, rash, as well as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal symptoms. Although it is challenging to differentiate MIS-C from Kawasaki disease or severe COVID-19, initiation of appropriate treatments through early diagnosis is warranted.


Social media plays a major role in helping people affected by natural calamities. These people use social media to request information and help in situations where time is a critical commodity. However, generic social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are not conducive for obtaining answers promptly. Algorithms to ensure prompt responders for questions in social media have to understand and model the factors affecting their response time. In this paper, we draw from sociological studies on information seeking and organizational behavior to identify users who can provide timely and relevant responses to questions posted on social media. We first draw from these theories to model the future availability and past response behavior of the candidate responders and integrate these criteria with user relevance. We propose a learning algorithm from these criteria to derive optimal rankings of responders for a given question. We present questions posted on Twitter as a form of information seeking activity in social media and use them to evaluate our framework. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed framework is useful in identifying timely and relevant responders for questions in social media.


Author(s): Friedman, Lia G. | Abstract: In librarianship today, we encourage voices from our field to join conversations in other disciplines as well as in the broader culture. People who work in libraries and are sympathetic to, or directly involved in, social justice struggles have long embodied this idea, as they make use of their skills in the service of those causes. From movement archives to zine collections, international solidarity to public library programming, oral histories to email lists, prisons to protests —and beyond —this book is a look into the projects and pursuits of activist librarianship in the early 21st century.


Construction of structures on soft soil is a challenging task and considered as one of the biggest concerns in geotechnical engineering. Binders that are environmentally friendly such as fly ash based geopolymer have been explored widely. In this study, the agro-waste material, Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) was used to produce an environmentally friendly geopolymer binder to be used in soft soil stabilization. POFA was used in three ratios; 10%, 20% and 30% of dry weight of soil to produce geopolymer. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was used as an alkali activator at 12 molarity along with sodium silicate (Na2SiO3). Physical properties of soil (Atterberg Limits, Plasticity Index, and Linear Shrinkage Limit) and compaction assessment; before and after mixing with the geopolymer binder were investigated. The studied soil was classified as an inorganic high plasticity silt (MH), according to the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS). From compaction results; optimum moisture content (OMC) values showed a decreased pattern from 24.7% to 17.5%; and maximum dry density (MDD) increased from 1.37 Mg/m3 to 1.73 Mg/m3 for geopolymer with POFA ranging from 0% to 30% of the dry weight of soil, respectively. The optimum dosage of POFA based geopolymer was found to be 30% according to all tests mentioned. These properties suggest the potential use of the agro-waste based geopolymer binder to stabilize the soft soil.


Background: The Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial tested the effects on chronic disease of a dietary pattern lower in fat and higher in vegetables, fruit, and grains. Objective: The objective was to evaluate the effects of dietary carbohydrate changes on lipids and lipoprotein composition. Design: Postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to an intervention or a comparison group for a mean of 8.1 y. Lipoprotein analyses and subclasses were based on subsamples of 2730 and 209 participants, respectively. Results: At year 6, the total reported fat intake was 7.8% lower and carbohydrate intake was 7.6% higher in the intervention group than in the comparison group. Triglyceride change between groups differed by 2.3, 3.8, and 20.8 mg/dL at 1, 3, and 6 y, respectively, and HDL-cholesterol change differed by 21.6, 20.7, and 21.0 mg/dL at 1, 3, and 6 y, respectively. Changes did not differ by age, ethnic-ity, or obesity. In diabetic intervention women who were white, the triglyceride difference between the intervention and comparison groups was 33.8 mg/dL, whereas in black women with diabetes (n = 50 in the intervention group; n = 83 in the comparison group), the triglyceride difference was 6.4 mg/dL (P for 3-factor interaction = 0.049). No significant changes were observed in apolipoprotein or lipoprotein particles. Reductions in LDL cholesterol varied by quar-tile of reported lowering of saturated or trans fat. Conclusions: The replacement of 7–8% of fat intake with complex carbohydrates over 6 y was not associated with clinically adverse effects on triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, or lipoprotein sub-classes. Diabetic white women with higher triglyceride concentrations may have greater increases in triglycerides.


Gabriel Furman, Notes Geographical and Historical, relating to the Town of Brooklyn, in Kings County on Long-Island. (Brooklyn, 1824) Furman's work is one of the earliest compilations of historical documents (with commentary) about an American city, in this case his native Brooklyn. It is an invaluable source of information on the early Dutch and English settlements of Brooklyn, Flatbush, Bushwick, New Lotts, Canarsie, Bedford, New Utrecht, Jamaica, and New Amsterdam, and their controversies with one another and with the Governors of New York and the crown of England. Included are original documents relative to the Indian purchases, original boundaries, water rights, ferry rights, wood rights, and forms of town government. Sections include: Situation of the Town of Brooklyn, Ancient Names and Remains, Soil and Climate, Ancient Grants and Patents, Town Rights and Ferries, Roads and Public Landing Places, Common Lands, and the Division thereof, Differences as to Bounds, Revolutionary Incidents, Ancient Government, Present Government, Public Buildings and Institutions, Schools, Newspapers and Moral Character, and Fire Department. Gabriel Furman (1800-1854) was a lawyer, judge, and state senator, and an eminent scholar, book collector, compiler, and antiquarian. He led an eccentric and solitary life, and died in poverty, the victim, some said, of an opium addiction. His only other work published during his life was an 1845 edition of Daniel Denton's 1670 tract, A Brief Description of New York, Formerly Called New-Netherlands. This online electronic edition is transcribed from a facsimile of the original, produced by RENASCENCE in Brooklyn in 1968. The table of contents has been moved to the beginning of the volume, and a small number of typographical errors corrected, but otherwise the pagination and the language, style, spelling, and punctuation are those of the original. The Notes was re-issued after Furman's death, in 1865 in a edition prepared for the Faust Club of Brooklyn, compiled (according to some catalogers) by A.J. Spooner, and containing two biographical sketches of Furman. These sketches can bee seen at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/28/ and Furman's "Introduction" and "Notes" to Denton's Brief Description can be seen at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/23/


The paper will describe a new approach based on the development of a procedural modelling methodology for archaeological data representation. This is a custom-designed solution based on the recognition of the rules belonging to the construction methods used in roman times. We have conceived a tool for 3D reconstruction of masonry structures starting from photogrammetric surveying. Our protocol considers different steps. Firstly we have focused on the classification of opus based on the basic interconnections that can lead to a descriptive system used for their unequivocal identification and design. Secondly, we have chosen an automatic, accurate, flexible and open-source photogrammetric pipeline named P astis A pero M icmac – PAM , developed by IGN (Paris). We have employed it to generate ortho-images from non-oriented images, using a user-friendly interface implemented by CNRS Marseille (France). Thirdly, the masonry elements are created in parametric and interactive way, and finally they are adapted to the photogrammetric data. The presented application, currently under construction, is developed with an open source programming language called Processing, useful for visual, animated or static, 2D or 3D, interactive creations. Using this computer language, a Java environment has been developed. Therefore, even if the procedural modelling reveals an accuracy level inferior to the one obtained by manual modelling (brick by brick), this method can be useful when taking into account the static evaluation on buildings (requiring quantitative aspects) and metric measures for restoration purposes.


Ever-increasing gaps and overlaps in the national regulation of cross-border events challenge territorial sovereignty as the conceptual basis for rules on legislative jurisdiction. At the same time, the work of scholars in a range of disciplines, including international relations and critical geography, has complicated our understanding of the relationship between territory and power in the age of globalization. As a result, emerging models of jurisdictional theory are moving away from territory, and territorially based concepts of regulatory power, as the basis for defining legislative authority. What risks being overlooked in this shift is the critical step between re-thinking the construction of territory and rejecting the salience of territoriality to jurisdictional frameworks. While territorial contacts may function as simple factual inputs in jurisdictional analysis, 'territoriality' and 'extraterritoriality' are legal constructs - claims made by particular actors, and assessed by particular institutions, within particular legal systems. The meaning of such claims is therefore dependent upon the local practices and understandings of specific regimes. This article uses a case study of the role of territory in U.S. and German competition law to uncover differences in those systems that affect their respective constructions of territoriality. It argues that local legal and institutional frameworks remain relevant in the transition from traditional conflicts models to newer regulatory strategies, and that the process of integrating critical reconceptualizations of territory into jurisdictional theories must account for differences in those frameworks across regimes.


In the previous papers of this series (Bettoni & Fasano 1993, 1995 and Fasano & Bettoni 1994) we presented data relative to early-type galaxies in several Hickson (1982) and Shakhbazyan (1973-1979) Compact Groups. In this paper we present, for the first time, data on early-type galaxies belonging to 9 Rose (1977) compact groups. The selection criteria of these groups make them more compact than the Hickson and Shakhbazyan groups and, for this reason, the Rose groups constitute a good sample for testing the properties of early-type galaxies in environments of extreme (at least apparent) density. Even if the present sample is not a sizeable one (18 objects), we find that morphological and photometric properties of E and S0 galaxies in the Rose groups are fairly consistent with those of galaxies in the Hickson and Shakhbazyan samples. In particular, there is a lack of very flat objects in the ellipticity distribution.


Over half of the world's population is female; and yet one of the most widely used systems for collaboration, the web, has far to go in meeting the needs of girls and women. The need for more women computer practitioners at both professional and user level can be addressed by exploiting web-based forums created by women and focused on meeting their needs. Within the U.K., the formation of a web-based specialist forum for female members of the BCS has significantly improved both informal and formal networking of women working in IT.
Various influences on females starting from their childhood through to adulthood can encourage or discourage their participation in computing, both as users and as professionals working with computers. Consideration is given to the root causes for the low percentage of women entering the Computer industry in the UK. Various national and local initiatives to encourage girls to take up IT and to support women in IT, all with a based-web presence, are discussed.
The BCSWomen web-based forum is presented as a case study of how Internet technology has been effectively employed to support an online community of women in IT and to address breaking down the barrier that discourages females from IT. There are still many challenges and there is much to be done in achieving greater numbers of women in IT, but the community that has grown out of the BCSWomen group's initiative is actively engaged in addressing these challenges.


Abstract There is increasing evidence that GABAC receptors are composed of GABA ρ subunits. In this study, we compared the properties of native GABAC receptors with those of receptors composed of a GABA ρ subunit. A homologue of the GABA ρ gene was cloned from a white perch (Roccus americana) retinal cDNA library. The clone (perch-s) has an open reading frame of 1422 nucleotide base pairs and encodes a predicted protein of 473 amino acids. It is highly homologous to GABA ρ subunits cloned from human and rat retinas. The receptors (perch-s receptor) expressed by this gene in Xenopus oocytes show properties similar to those of the GABAC receptors present on white perch retinal neurons. GABA induced a sustained response that had a reversal potential of –27.1 +minus; 3.6 mV. The EC50 for the response was 1.74 +− 1.25 μM, a value similar to that reported for GABAC receptors. Pharmacologically, the responses were bicuculline insensitive and not modulated by either diazepam or pentobarbital as is the case for GABAc receptors. There were, however, some distinct differences between native GABAc and perch-s receptors. I4AA acts as a partial agonist on perch-s receptors whereas it is strictly an antagonist on native GABAC receptors. Picrotoxin inhibition is noncompetitive on perch-s receptors, but both competitive and noncompetitive on GABAC receptors. We conclude that GABAC receptors are formed by GABA p subunits but that native GABAc receptors probably consist of a mixture of GABA ρ subunits.


Background: Despite its potential, little is known about how school leaders use social media or the benefits of doing so. This includes the social media platform, Twitter, and the grass-roots phenomenon of using Twitter chats to connect, communicate, and learn from others. Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore whether school leaders who engage in Twitter chats show key characteristics of a community of practice. Literature Review: The purpose of the literature review was to provide background knowledge on communities of practice, social media, and their combined potential for providing school leaders with viable ways to improve their leadership practices. Research Design: A qualitative research design, based on a research approach of qualitative content analysis, directed this study. The theoretical framework was based upon two theories of social learning: communities of practice and connectivism. Data Collection and Analysis: Based on the data collected from an analysis of school leaders' tweets during an educational Twitter chat, a content analysis revealed two key themes with implications for school leaders. Results: Following the analysis of 1, 741 leader tweets, two primary themes were uncovered in this research, both of which provided an answer to the central research question of the study. First, the structure and content of #satchat shows the presence of the main elements of a community of practice. Second, activities indicative of a community of practice, such as problem solving, seeking experience and mapping knowledge were also evident. Conclusion: Twitter provides an opportunity for school leaders to join a community of practice that enables them to learn from each other and exchange ideas that support their professional growth. As participants share their expertise, they are able to drive strategy, solve problems, and transfer best practices. These findings might be of particular interest to busy school leaders with limited time and resources to invest in their own professional learning. INDEX WORDS: Twitter, Communities of practice, School leaders, Twitter chats SCHOOL LEADERS AND TWITTER: EXAMINING PRACTICES IN A TWITTER CHAT


Background. At Medunsa, Pretoria, South Africa, the training of final-year medical students includes the management of simulations that incorporate, inter alia , the following emergency skills: cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, airway suctioning, oropharyngeal airway placement, endotracheal intubation and bag-valve-mask ventilation. Other than CPR, all emergency training of the 2012 student group was by means of apprenticeship in clinical rotations. Therefore, there was no evidence of the students' competence or confidence with regard to their performance of emergency skills.  Objectives. To explore the effect of simulated skills training and assessments on medical students' competence and confidence when using the skills required to manage clinical emergencies.  Method. A one-group pretest post-test quasi-experimental design was used, with a convenience sample ( n =82) comprising final-year medical students from 3 of the 6 annual Family Medicine rotations. The participants' competence (knowledge and selected emergency skills as per curriculum) and confidence were assessed before training. The intervention comprised training in relevant theory, demonstrations and supervised hands-on practice. The post-training assessments were a repeat of the pretraining assessments.  Results. The improvement in participants' confidence and competence levels when performing all the emergency skills on completion of the demonstrations and hands-on practice was highly significant ( p ≤0.001). Participants were unanimous in their opinion that pre-assessments had enhanced their learning experience.  Conclusions. The strategy of teaching/learning and assessment of emergency skills in simulation was highly effective in enhancing the competence and confidence of medical students when managing a clinical emergency. However, students appeared to be overconfident, which could be ascribed to ignorance, and possibly indicates that feedback during training should be improved.


As the number of Americans with prediabetes and diabetes continues to grow,
so too will the number of patients who come into the hospital with
hyperglycemia. Although tight glycemic control has been a well-established
goal in the outpatient setting, it has only recently gained heightened
interest in the inpatient arena. There is a growing body of knowledge
supporting the benefits of strict glycemic control in hospitalized patients,
yet there is little or no formal didactic training for health care
professionals in inpatient management of patients with diabetes. Despite
widespread inpatient hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic events, there are few
systems in place for effective diabetes care and management. In January 2006, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the
American College of Endocrinology, and the American Diabetes Association
convened a meeting titled "Improving Inpatient Diabetes Care: A Call to
Action Consensus Development Conference," which concluded that
facilitating these changes required a paradigm shift that involves modifying
both individual and institutional beliefs and practices that have been status
quo for decades. One of the key consensus recommendations was the formation of
an interdisciplinary steering committee to identify deficits, develop
strategies, and facilitate the implementation of interventions to improve
inpatient care. This article illustrates the planning and implementation of a
systems-wide model to conquer inpatient hyperglycemia in an academic medical
center.


How should the Caribbean region foster economic development? The question has long been on the minds of Caribbean leaders. Their small island states face significant hindrances to development, including modest populations, limited expanses of viable land, and insufficient capital flow. Even worse, the global shift toward free trade has hit the Caribbean hard, removing market protections of major industries like bananas. Heads of state have turned to integration of the region's markets to increase investment and improve competitiveness. It is a smart strategy, largely because integration brings increased leverage in trade negotiations. Operating as an economic bloc, the Caribbean nations must compel WTO free-trade negotiators to approve concessions that will not force the Caribbean prematurely into global competition. In July 2001, members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) prepared for an increasingly competitive global marketplace. They agreed to replace their Common Market agreement with the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). This replacement represents a shift from trade protectionism to trade liberalization vis-a-vis the rest of the world and to more extensive integration within the region. The earlier agreement sought to protect CARICOM markets from foreign goods and included such policy measures as a common external tariff. By contrast, the CSME has made way for the elimination of external tariffs, pushing for a common free-trade policy with the world. Internally, while the Common Market lowered barriers on the trade of goods produced among member countries, the CSME has also allowed the free trade of services and the free movement of certain skilled personnel. The liberalization of trade in goods and services within the region will expand the resource base and increase the potential consumer market, making more businesses regionally sustainable. However, the liberalization of trade with the rest of the world has proven detrimental to Caribbean economies in the past. This is most noticeable in banana-producing countries. Since the Lome Convention of 1976, Caribbean banana producers enjoyed secure preferential markets for their produce. According to a 2003 Caribbean Banana Exporters Association report, bananas comprised about 33 percent of total exports from the Windward Islands of Dominica, St. Lucia, and Grenada. In 1999, however, the WTO condemned the European Union's preferential trade agreement as non-compliant with WTO free-trade rules. …


This paper shows that self-timed meshes can achieve linear speed-up. The per-processor performance of a mesh is the average number of operations per processor per unit time. For synchronous processors, it has been shown that the per-processor performance of a mesh goes to zero as the size of the mesh goes to infinity. This paper shows that for self-timed meshes, the per-processor performance can be bounded below by a positive constant. Thus, self-timed meshes are asymptotically faster than synchronous ones. Furthermore, simulation and analytic results are used to show that analysis based solely on average case times can be optimistic and leads to poor design decisions.


In recent years, cognitive radio technology (CR) has been proposed to allow unlicensed secondary users (SUs) to opportunistically access the channels unused by primary users. As a result, there is a lot of recent interests on studying cognitive radio cellular networks (CogCells) that can support both PUs and SUs. Due to the limited transmission range of SUs, in this work we consider supporting Multi-hop infrastructure-based secondary systems (SSs), where SUs can communicate with the BS over multiple hops. The use of SSs improves the reliability and coverage compared to its single-hop counterpart. In addition, SUs are allowed to access multiple channels, which helps to increase transmission reliability and coverage and relieve interference at PUs. To enable multi-hop secondary transmissions, it is also important to support efficient routing. In CogCells, efficient admission control, channel assignment and routing is crucial for the coverage optimization of SSs and to ensure the QoS requirements in CogCells. In this paper, we mathematically formulate the problem of joint admission control, channel assignment and QoS routing to maximize the coverage of SUs in a CogCell system that supports multi-hop secondary transmissions, taking into account the interference constraints and QoS requirements from the PUs and admitted SUs. To our best knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to optimize the coverage of SUs in multi-hop CogCells with the concurrent support of the above three important procedures. We show that the problem is NP-hard and propose three different algorithms to solve the coverage optimization problem and give the theoretical analyses of its performances in terms of approximation ratio to the optimum. Our solutions include a greedy heuristic approximation scheme, an algorithm that can provide exact solution, and a new approximation solution with a poly-logarithmic approximation ratio guarantee, e.g., the performance of our algorithm is within a poly-logarithmic factor of that of any optimal algorithm for the problem. Our preliminary simulation results indicate that our new approximation algorithms can effectively exploit the increased number of SUs and channels, and performs much better than the theoretical worst case bound.


This special section analyzes the variety of recursivity in transnational regulatory governance. We conceptualize recursivity as a complex cycle through which addressees' response to transnational rules continuously feeds back into the rulemaking process and triggers rule revision. In the introduction to the special section, we emphasize that recursivity varies across governance organizations and governance fields and develop an analytical framework to capture this variation. We also propose a typology of recursive governance organizations. Finally, we preview five case studies included in the special section and summarize their key findings and conclusions, with particular attention to the implications for accountability and legitimacy.


Tuber-bearing Solanum species exhibit a wide variation with respect to cold sensitivity. Physiological evaluation based on the leakage of cellular electrolytes showed a continuous gradient of sensitivity among cultivated and wild species, which ranged from chilling sensitivity to freezing tolerance by cold acclimation (CA). Solanum trifidum Correll, a chilling-sensitive species, defines the baseline of cold tolerance within the genus, while S. commersonii Dunal, a cold-acclimating species, represents the hardiest end of the spectrum. Solanum species at the extreme ends of the sensitivity gradient exhibited distinct expression signatures for selected CA-associated genes (CBF1, ZAT12, COR47, and GolS3). Transcription factor (CBF1 and ZAT12) expression was positively correlated with CA but not with the sensitivity gradient among nonacclimating species. Variation across the sensitivity gradient was reflected by the differences in induction profiles of nonregulatory genes (COR47 and GolS3).


Gone are the days when the only branded footwear Indians knew was Bata. After years of economic liberalization, one finds many firms; local, national, and international jostling for consumer attention by producing various types of footwear in Indian market. In fact, today Indian footwear industry is the second largest in the world. This market can be described as a stylized case of a monopolistically competitive market where there is intense competition among firms manufacturing differentiated products. In this study, we focus our attention on men's formal shoes which are distinguished by the presence (or absence) of many differentiated attributes such as heel, toes, colour, surface, laces, buckles and brands. Invoking hedonic price analysis and bid and offer curves of the customers and firms respectively, shoe prices are viewed as the sum total of the valuation of each of the shoe attributes. We estimate the relative valuation of the shoe attributes by regressing market prices of shoes on various quality attributes. Analysis shows that shoes made of leather, shiny surface, buckles, laces, and brands carry a premium and differentiation based on colour, pointed toes, high heels, and texture is not important. In a highly competitive market, such data driven studies can provide pointers to firms in altering existing shoe models and successfully launching newer ones. From Well-heeled to Tip-toed, Shoe-shine to Shoe-lace: Monopolistic Competition and Product Differentiation in Men's Footwear


SharePoint experts focus on SharePoint 2010 as a platform for Enterprise Content ManagementSharePoint allows all users in an organization to manage and share their content reliably and securely. If you're interested in building Web sites using the new capabilities of enterprise content management (ECM) in SharePoint 2010, then this book is for you. You'll discover how SharePoint 2010 spans rich document management, records management, business process management and web content management in a seamless way to manage and share content. The team of SharePoint experts discusses the ECM capabilities included in SharePoint Server 2010 that will assist with your workflow and content management. They cover Web content management (WCM) features and discuss accessibility and extensibility as well as scale and compliance. Shows how to use the capabilities of enterprise content management (ECM) to build Web sitesCovers SharePoint 2010 ECM features and WCM (Web Content Management) featuresReviews workflow and content management, mater pages and layouts, scale and compliance, and accessibility and extensibilityFeatures real-world examples and code samples to help with your learning process Packed with code examples and real-world scenarios, this comprehensive book provides you with the information you need to get started using ECM with SharePoint 2010 today.


Current strategies for optimizing deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy involve multiple postoperative visits. During each visit, stimulation parameters are adjusted until desired therapeutic effects are achieved and adverse effects are minimized. However, the efficacy of these therapeutic parameters may decline with time due at least in part to disease progression, interactions between the host environment and the electrode, and lead migration. As such, development of closed-loop control systems that can respond to changing neurochemical environments, tailoring DBS therapy to individual patients, is paramount for improving the therapeutic efficacy of DBS. Evidence obtained using electrophysiology and imaging techniques in both animals and humans suggests that DBS works by modulating neural network activity. Recently, animal studies have shown that stimulation-evoked changes in neurotransmitter release that mirror normal physiology are associated with the therapeutic benefits of DBS. Therefore, to fully understand the neurophysiology of DBS and optimize its efficacy, it may be necessary to look beyond conventional electrophysiological analyses and characterize the neurochemical effects of therapeutic and non-therapeutic stimulation. By combining electrochemical monitoring and mathematical modeling techniques, we can potentially replace the trial-and-error process used in clinical programming with deterministic approaches that help attain optimal and stable neurochemical profiles. In this manuscript, we summarize the current understanding of electrophysiological and electrochemical processing for control of neuromodulation therapies. Additionally, we describe a proof-of-principle closed-loop controller that characterizes DBS-evoked dopamine changes to adjust stimulation parameters in a rodent model of DBS. The work described herein represents the initial steps toward achieving a "smart" neuroprosthetic system for treatment of neurologic and psychiatric disorders.


This essay investigates the limiting capacity of the planet to support humans, making various assumptions about current practices and the intensities of per caput resource consumption. Supposing people to be exclusively vegetarian, consuming cereals produced by present methods, at the highest reported yields, and also eschewing the cultivation of non-edible crops, the Earth is argued to be capable of sustaining a population up to 55 billion. Consuming mixed diets including meat and beverages while continuing to raise non-food crops reduces the capacity by 7- to 10-fold, closer to the actual population at the present time. When the availability and distribution of exploitable water supplies are considered, it is difficult to argue for a sustainable population much exceeding 10 billion, without considerable changes in the equity of supply. All such extrapolations are subject to unknown consequences of rapid and chaotic climate change. The possibility that the rate of human population growth may be stabilising for other reasons, with numbers perhaps peaking at 10 to 11 billion, may yet allow increasingly widespread and severe water shortages to be avoided. This coincidence offers the opportunity to improve human sustainability through new social structures and new, cleaner, more resource-efficient technologies. They need to be directed towards solving inequities in resource use—not only of food and energy, but especially also of water. Though ultimately speculative and polemical, the essay is a genuine attempt to promote the case for recognising our real problems and the need to evolve strategies for survival.


Two-dimensional (2D) conductive metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as a unique class of multifunctional materials due to their compositional and structural diversity accessible through bottom-up self-assembly. This feature article summarizes the progress in the development of 2D conductive MOFs with emphasis on synthetic modularity, device integration strategies, and multifunctional properties. Applications spanning sensing, catalysis, electronics, energy conversion, and storage are discussed. The challenges and future outlook in the context of molecular engineering and practical development of 2D conductive MOFs are addressed.


This paper discusses the suitability of the Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology for storage performance tuning. The DOE estimates the main and interaction effects of three major storage factors viz, Cache Partition Size (CPS),LUN Strip Size (LSS) and Cache Segment Size (CSS) settings of an enterprise level storage system on the overall storage performance. Other factors influencing performance are kept constant throughout the experiment to minimize experiment duration and complexity. DOE has provided key ideas for effectively analyzing the relationship of storage factors in storage performance tuning. © 2008 Wipro Technologies Page : 1 of 15


We present seismic-hazard calculations for what is arguably the most sophisticated earthquake forecast ever developed—the model by the 2002 Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (2003), or WGCEP-2002 as referred to hereafter. These calculations have been made possible by developments in both OpenSHA (Field et al. , 2003) and the Information Technology Research (ITR) Collaboration of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) (Jordan et al. , 2003). In particular, we demonstrate the use of a freely available, platform-independent, and graphical-user-interface-based application for computing hazard curves. This application utilizes distributed-object technologies, meaning the code running on the client's computer communicates over the Internet with code hosted elsewhere on server computers. This interoperability, which is invisible to the user, makes the application fast and executable without heavy installation requirements. Instructions on how to reproduce the calculations presented here are available under "Publications" at the Web site http://www.OpenSHA.org/.

### OpenSHA

OpenSHA (Field et al. , 2003) is a collaborative effort between SCEC and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The goal has been to develop a "community modeling environment" or "collaboratory" for seismic hazard analysis (SHA), where any arbitrarily complex model component can be plugged in for analysis (without having to change what is being plugged into). This is a departure from previous approaches in which PSHA code (typically FORTRAN) would be rewritten for each new application. Developing a more flexible "plug and play" environment is particularly important in that proper SHA requires that all viable models be considered in the analysis (SSHAC, 1997).

As the name implies, OpenSHA is an open-source development, meaning anyone is free to examine the code. It is also object-oriented (enabling the plug-and-play modularity), platform-independent, accessible via a graphical user interface (GUI), and potentially network-distributed. These features have been achieved using the Java programming language. There is no …


Guided by theory in both the trust and leadership domains, the overarching aim of this thesis was to answer a fundamental question. Namely, how and when does trust-building between leaders and followers enhance leader-member exchange (LMX) development and organisational trust? Although trust is considered to be at the crux of the leader-follower relationship, surprisingly little theoretical or empirical attention has been devoted to understanding the precise nature of this relationship. By integrating both a typology of trustworthy behaviour and a process model of trust development with LMX theory, study one developed and tested a new model of LMX development with leader-follower trust-building as the primary mechanism. In a three wave cross-lagged design, 294 student dyads in a business simulation completed measures of trust perceptions and LMX across the first 6 months of the LMX relationship. Trust-building was found to account for unexplained variance in the LMX construct over time, while controlling for initial relationship quality, thus confirming the critical role of the trust-building process in LMX development. The strongest evidence was found for the role of integrity-based trust-building behaviour, albeit only when such behaviour was not attributed to insincere motives. The results for ability and benevolence-based trustworthy behaviour revealed valued insights into the developmental nature of trustworthiness perceptions within LMX relationships. Thus, the pattern of results in study one provided a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the dynamic interplay between trust and LMX. In study two, leader trust-building was investigated cross-sectionally within an organisational sample of 201 employees. The central aim of this study was to investigate whether leader trust-building within leader-follower relationships could be leveraged for organisational trust. As expected, the trust-building process instigated by members in study one was replicated for leaders in study two. In addition, the results were most consistent for benevolence-based trust building, whereas both integrity- and ability-based trust-building were moderated by the position of the leader within the organisation's hierarchy. Overall, the findings of this thesis shed considerable light on the richness of trusting perceptions in organisations, and the critical role of trust-building in LMX development and organisational trust.


ABSTRACT A revision of Dombeya subsect. Rigidae, which comprises two Malagasy species (D. linearifolia and D. rigida), is presented. The classification of these species within Dombeya is preferred to an alternate placement within Helmiopsis. Three subspecies of D. rigida are recognized: subsp. parvifolia, characterized by small leaves, is newly described, and subsp. guazumifolia is newly recognized at that rank. Arènes' two subspecies of D. linearifolia are synonymized, and a new subsp. muricata, characterized by fruit similar to that of D. rigida, is described. Both species display considerable variation in leaf and fruit morphology in the north, but variation is discontinuous, indicating that the species are usually reproductively isolated.


According to the first Principle of the Ethical Practice of Public Health by the Public Health Leadership Society, "Humans have a right to the resources necessary for health." When dealing with rare inheritable conditions, oftentimes disease mechanisms remain largely unknown. The uniqueness of rare conditions render healthcare professionals unaware of their existence or of ways to deliver best medical care adapted to individual patients' needs. Lysosomal Storage Disorders constitute a group of more than 50 rare heritable conditions that share some pathological and biochemical features and result in significant morbidity and early death. Most of the pathophysiological aspects of individual disorders of this group remain uncharacterized. Advances in clinical development of therapies in the past two decades have improved clinical outcomes for patients with some of these diseases, but progress still needs to be made for better management of some of the complications of these disorders. The cost associated with some of these therapeutic options still represents a limiting factor to access, especially in developing countries. This study's primary aim was to foster basic science research in the field of lysosomal storage disorders by developing and characterizing a cell model for Fabry disease that can be used to understand disease pathogenesis for drug development. An additional aim was to develop a strategic plan for a public health genetics program with focus on Lysosomal Storage Disorders in an underprivileged state in a developing country. This study's public health significance lies in the continuation of efforts to understand disease mechanisms, which potentially allow development of new therapeutic approaches through basic and clinical science research. In addition, efforts to increase awareness of these disorders among healthcare professionals, and to integrate research findings into clinical practice, fostering the delivery of evidence-based medical care in the field are of public health relevance and necessary to improve health of patients with Lysosomal Storage Disorders.


In this commentary, we discuss the lessons we learned from case studies of two African American mathematics teachers, thereby endorsing the claim made by the contributors to this special issue that the insights they gained are not restricted to mathematics teaching in non-selective urban schools but can also inform the field more generally. We then focus on differences in the two teachers' goals for students' mathematical learning and clarify that they were consequential and constrained the types of purposes that the teachers could convey to their students for engaging in mathematical activity. We go on to argue that high expectations for all students' learning are not by themselves sufficient for their development of mathematical proficiency and discuss the importance of supporting teachers' development of specific instructional practices that enable their students to meet those expectations. Finally, we suggest that it is critical to situate the ways in which teachers draw on their cultural resources with respect to the school and district settings in which they work and in which they refine and elaborate their instructional practices.


Recent, rapid population declines in many Afro‐Palaearctic migratory bird species have focussed attention on changing conditions within Africa. However, processes influencing population change can operate throughout the annual cycle and throughout migratory ranges. Here, we explore the evidence for impacts of breeding and non‐breeding conditions on population trends of British breeding birds of varying migratory status and wintering ecology.


Previous studies reveal that young Dutch children display a [t]-bias in the middle of words in pronunciation (e.g. van der Feest 2007; Kerkhoff 2007). First graders, however, display a 〈d〉-bias in the middle of words in their writings (Neijt & Schreuder 2007). The present study investigates children's spelling and pronunciation of word medial d and t to examine this apparent contrast. It turned out that first graders started with a 〈t〉-bias in their spellings while later on they displayed a 〈d〉-bias. A similar development was found for pronunciation: Kindergartners displayed a [t]-bias, while second graders displayed a [d]-bias instead. Our explanation is that this change is caused by overgeneralization, due to differences between Dutch pronunciation and orthography. We conclude that the orthographic system, although learned later in life, affects children's earlier acquired pronunciation.


The thesis describes experiments aimed at measurement of heat-transfer coefficients for condensation in a multi micro channel tube. Experiments were performed with steam and R113, fluids chosen to cover a wide range of thermophysical properties, in particular, surface tension which plays an important role during condensation in small, non-circular channels. The aluminum extruded condenser tube used had cooled length 748 mm and 13 parallel channels each with height 1.38 mm and width 1.41 mm. The upper and lower outer surfaces were cooled separately by water in counter flow in channels above and below the test tube. The mass flow rates in the two channels were adjusted to be the same. Coolant temperatures were measured at 17 positions along each of the coolant channels as well as at inlet and exit. An accurate direct measurement of the overall inlet-to-outlet coolant temperature difference was also measured directly with a 10 junction thermopile for each of the two coolant streams with junctions downstream of mixers. Temperatures of the condenser tube wall were measured at 10 positions on each of the upper and lower surfaces using embedded thermocouples. Temperatures and pressures of the vapour were measured in chambers at the inlet and outlet of vapour stream. Pressures were also measured in the condenser channels just upstream and just downstream of the cooled section. Data have been obtained for cases where the vapour was saturated (for both steam and R113) at inlet. Runs were made for complete and incomplete condensation within the tube. Earlier investigations are critically reviewed and seen to exhibit wide scatter and disagreement. For reasons which will become clear in the thesis, the present results cannot, unfortunately, be claimed to have superior accuracy and generally fall within the ranges of earlier data. A new and innovative test section has been designed and will be used in forthcoming experiments.


The SINR (Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio) model for the quality of wireless connections has been the subject of extensive recent study. It attempts to predict whether a particular transmitter is heard at a specific location, in a setting consisting of n simultaneous transmitters and background noise. The SINR model gives rise to a natural geometric object, the SINR diagram, which partitions the space into n regions where each of the transmitters can be heard and the remaining space where no transmitter can be heard. Efficient point location in the SINR diagram, i.e., being able to build a data structure that facilitates determining, for a query point, whether any transmitter is heard there, and if so, which one, has been recently investigated in several articles. These planar data structures are constructed in time at least quadratic in n and support logarithmic-time approximate queries. Moreover, the performance of some of the proposed structures depends strongly not only on the number n of transmitters and on the approximation parameter ε, but also on some geometric parameters that cannot be bounded a priori as a function of n or ε. In this article, we address the question of batched point location queries, i.e., answering many queries simultaneously. Specifically, in one dimension, we can answer n queries exactly in amortized polylogarithmic time per query, while in the plane we can do it approximately. In another result, we show how to answer n2 queries exactly in amortized polylogarithmic time per query, assuming the queries are located on a possibly non-uniform n × n grid. All these results can handle arbitrary power assignments to the transmitters. Moreover, the amortized query time in these results depends only on n and ε. We also show how to speed up the preprocessing in a previously proposed point-location structure in SINR diagram for uniform-power sites, by almost a full order of magnitude. For this, we obtain results on the sensitivity of the reception regions to slight changes in the reception threshold, which are of independent interest. Finally, these results demonstrate the (so far underutilized) power of combining algebraic tools with those of computational geometry and other fields.


Incidents account for a large portion of all congestion and a need clearly exists for tools to predict and estimate incident effects. This study examined (1) congestion back propagation to estimate the length of the queue and travel time from upstream locations to the incident location and (2) queue dissipation. Shockwave analysis, queuing theory, and cellular automata were initially considered. Literature indicated that shockwave analysis and queuing theory underestimate freeway travel time under some conditions. A cellular automata simulation model for I-66 eastbound between US 29 and I-495 was developed. This model requires inputs of incident location, day, time, and estimates of duration, lane closures and timing, and driver re-routing by ramp. The model provides estimates of travel times every 0.2 mile upstream of the incident at every minute after the start of the incident and allows for the determination of queue length over time. It was designed to be used from the beginning of the incident and performed well for normal conditions and incidents, but additional calibration was required for rerouting behavior. The authors recommend that the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) (1) further pursue cellular automata approaches for near-real time applications along freeways; and (2) consider adopting an approach to address detector failures and errors. Adopting these recommendations should improve VDOT's freeway real-time travel time estimation and other applications based on detector data.


Agricultural value chains can be understood as the systems of people, organizations and activities needed to create process and deliver agricultural products from producers to consumers. Over time and due to huge changes that have happened in the surroundings, agricultural value chains have become very integrated and complex. Small farmers can prosper by joining in modern higher-level agricultural value chains, but there are numerous obstacles, as well. The work presents the typology of organizational models for agricultural production that consists of the models organised by producers, agribusiness companies (processors, retail chains, and intermediaries), facilitators (governments, non-governmental organisations) and completely integrated models, established by some big companies. None of these models provides ideal solutions from the perspective of small producers. However, they say that the institutions, such as cooperatives and small farmers' organisations, present important mechanisms for including small producers in modern value chains and realizing the cooperation with agribusiness companies and other important players. This is also important for decision-makers and governmental bodies that should create a suitable environment and provide support so that small farmers and their organisations can integrate in modern value chains in a successful way.


Endocarditis is an inflammation of the lining of the heart and valves. It can be due to a noninfectious cause (Asopa et al., 2007) but when the inflammation is associated with an infection, usually bacterial, it is known as infective endocarditis (IE) and is characterized by the development of a large septic thrombus on one of the cardiac valves (Beynon et al., 2006; Moreillon and Que, 2004). As this thrombus grows, it can lead to valve failure or may fragment forming a septic embolus that is associated with high mortality if the target of the embolus is the brain, heart or lung (Homma and Grahame-Clarke, 2003). Untreated the mortality is very high and even with aggressive therapy with antibiotics and valve replacement surgery there is a significant mortality. Primarily the disease is due to the formation of a platelet-bacteria thrombus on a cardiac valve and this review will look at the interaction between bacteria and platelets within the context of endocarditis.


Global warming becomes a pressure in food production sustainability because it affected crop growth and development. The purpose of this study was to obtain information on the effect of high-temperature stress on the growth and development phase of rice and to evaluate the genotype for tolerance to high-temperature stress. Two environment conditions were used in the field and greenhouse of IPB Cikabayan experimental field, IPB University from August 2016 until February 2017. The study used varieties of IPB 4S, IPB 6R, Mekongga, and Situ Patenggang. High-temperature treatment was done by transferring the rice plants to the greenhouse at 50 days after transplanting. Observations were made on the generative phase in two different environmental conditions. The results showed that the total tillers number, filled grain number per panicle, unfilled grain number per panicle, total grain number per panicle, grain filling rate, percentage of filled grain and filled grain weight per plant had different responses among rice genotypes due to high-temperature stress. High-temperature decreased pollen fertility in all genotypes, which classified IPB 4S as a sensitive genotype and Mekongga as a tolerant genotype. This information could be useful for development and improving rice variety to anticipate high-temperature stress.


This research is based on two contexts. First, the .research is concerned with a much understudied aspect of flood inundation: upland environments with topographically complex floodplains. Although the presence of high resolution topographic data (e.g. LiDAR) has improved the quality of river flood inundation predictions, the optimum dimensionality of hydraulic models for this purpose has yet to be fully evaluated for situations of both topographic and topological (i.e. the connectivity of floodplain features) complexity. In this research, we present the comparison of three treatments of upland flood inundation using: (a) a one-dimensional model (HEC-RAS) with the domain defined as series of extended cross-sections; (b) the same 1 D model, but with the floodplain defined by a series of storage cells, hydraulically connected to the main river channel and other storage cells on the floodplain according to floodplain topological characteristics; and (c) a 2D diffusion wave treatment, again with explicit representation of floodplain structural features. The three models were tested on a 6 km upland reach of the river Wharfe, UK. The results showed that both the extended cross-section and storage cell modes were conceptually problematic. They also resulted in poorer model predictions, requiring incorrect parameterisation of the main river to floodplain flux in order to approach anything like the level of agreement observed when the diffusion wave treatment was assessed. The research concludes that a coupled 1 D-2D treatment is likely to provide the best modelling approach, with currently available technology, for complex floodplain configurations. Second, as a substantive issue, the research is concerned with the effects of channel configuration change (i.e. in-channel morphology) and climate change on flood inundation; the aspect on which mush less attention has been paid. The results show that for the 1 in 0.5 flood event in this study reach, there is a rise of 5.7% and 12.2% to the inundation extent due to 2-year in-channel change '(i.e. 10cm rise in bed level) and climate change (i.e. scenario 2050) respectively. The sensitivity of inundated area changes to climate change is strongly conditioned by in-channel sedimentation.


No theme has been more central to international philosophical debates than that of community: from American communitarianism to Habermas's ethic of communication to the French deconstruction of community in the work of Derrida and Nancy. Nevertheless, in none of these cases has the concept been examined from the perspective of community's original etymological meaning: cum munus. In Communitas: The Origin and Destiny of Community, Roberto Esposito does just that through an original counter-history of political philosophy that takes up not only readings of community by Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Heidegger and Bataille, but also by Holderlin, Nietzsche, Canetti, Arendt, and Sartre. The result of his extraordinary conceptual and lexical analysis is a radical overturning of contemporary interpretations of community. Community isn't a property, nor is it a territory to be separated and defended against those who do not belong to it. Rather, it is a void, a debt, a gift to the other that also reminds us of our constitutive alterity with respect to ourselves.


Multiple description (MD) coding is a source coding technique for information transmission over unreliable networks. In MD coding, the coder generates several different descriptions of the same signal and the decoder can produce a useful reconstruction of the source with any received subset of these descriptions. In this paper, we study the problem of MD coding of stationary Gaussian sources with memory. First, we compute an approximate MD rate distortion region for these sources, which we prove to be asymptotically tight at high rates. This region generalizes the MD rate distortion region of El Gamal and Cover (1982), and Ozarow (1980) for memoryless Gaussian sources. Then, we develop an algorithm for the design of optimal two-channel biorthogonal filter banks for MD coding of Gaussian sources. We show that optimal filters are obtained by allocating the redundancy over frequency with a reverse "water-filling" strategy. Finally, we present experimental results which show the effectiveness of our filter banks in the low complexity, low rate regime.


We treat the problem of privacy-preserving statistics verification in clinical research. We show that given aggregated results from statistical calculations, we can verify their correctness efficiently, without revealing any of the private inputs used for the calculation. Our construction is based on the primitive of Secure Multi-Party Computation from Shamir's Secret Sharing. Basically, our setting involves three parties: a hospital, which owns the private inputs, a clinical researcher, who lawfully processes the sensitive data to produce an aggregated statistical result, and a third party (usually several verifiers) assigned to verify this result for reliability and transparency reasons. Our solution guarantees that these verifiers only learn about the aggregated results (and what can be inferred from those about the underlying private data) and nothing more. By taking advantage of the particular scenario at hand (where certain intermediate results, e.g., the mean over the dataset, are available in the clear) and utilizing secret sharing primitives, our approach turns out to be practically efficient, which we underpin by performing several experiments on real patient data. Our results show that the privacy-preserving verification of the most commonly used statistical operations in clinical research presents itself as an important use case, where the concept of secure multi-party computation becomes employable in practice.


Central bank cooperation depends on a few crucial parameters: the extent to which central bankers agree on theory (end means relationships); the extent to which they can agree on goals (social purpose); the capacity (technical and institutional) to achieve their collective goals; and whether the broader political environment facilitates or impedes cooperation. This article explores these questions by first providing an overview of central banks and bankers. Among the G-10 countries, central bankers are likely to share political independence, relatively long term horizons, and (increasingly) academic backgrounds. These conditions may be conducive to high levels of cooperation in the future. Second, I explore the "easiest" form of cooperation – information sharing – and conclude that this is an area in which central bank cooperation will become increasingly routinised. Cooperation to address global financial stability is a more difficult cooperative dilemma, with tensions between the need for efficient regulatory management and the inclusion of a broader range of cooperating institutions. In the area of exchange rate and monetary policy coordination, consensus among the major exchange rate authorities regarding the effectiveness of coordinated exchange market interventions has withered, though this does not preclude a new consensus from emerging in the future. One of the most significant challenges to central bank cooperation in the future will be how to include rising monetary and financial powers, particularly China, into the cooperative management of international monetary conditions.


Triangle meshes are widely used in representing surfaces in computer vision and computer graphics. Although 2D image processing-based edge detection techniques have been popular in many application areas, they are not well developed for surfaces represented by triangle meshes. This paper proposes a robust edge detection algorithm for triangle meshes and its applications to surface segmentation and adaptive surface smoothing. The proposed edge detection technique is based on eigen analysis of the surface normal vector field in a geodesic window. To compute the edge strength of a certain vertex, the neighboring vertices in a specified geodesic distance are involved. Edge information are used further to segment the surfaces with the watershed algorithm and to achieve edge-preserved, adaptive surface smoothing. The proposed algorithm is novel in robustly detecting edges on triangle meshes against noise. The 3D watershed algorithm is an extension from previous work. Experimental results on surfaces reconstructed from multi-view real range images are presented.


Multi-agent policy gradient (MAPG) methods recently witness vigorous progress. However, there is a significant performance discrepancy between MAPG methods and state-of-the-art multi-agent value-based approaches. In this paper, we investigate causes that hinder the performance of MAPG algorithms and present a multi-agent decomposed policy gradient method (DOP). This method introduces the idea of value function decomposition into the multi-agent actor-critic framework. Based on this idea, DOP supports efficient off-policy learning and addresses the issue of centralized-decentralized mismatch and credit assignment in both discrete and continuous action spaces. We formally show that DOP critics have sufficient representational capability to guarantee convergence. In addition, empirical evaluations on the StarCraft II micromanagement benchmark and multi-agent particle environments demonstrate that DOP significantly outperforms both state-of-the-art value-based and policy-based multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithms. Demonstrative videos are available at this https URL.


Letter from John Patterson Osterhout to his brother regarding land in Texas. He sold a couple hundred acres out of the 400 acres he bought a few years earlier. He wrote about other land he had bought and the cheap pricing of land in Texas. An uncle of theirs was thinking about moving to Texas and John agreed that he should and could get a lot of land for his money. He gave some advice for his uncle if he chose to move to Texas and recommended he should have a few thousand dollars before coming. At the end of the letter, John wrote about several pieces of furniture and cattle he purchased.


Gases which are strongly emitting only in the 8–13-μm wavelength range can be employed for radiative cooling to low temperatures. We carried out a general discussion of molecular vibration and rotation to identify a number of candidate gases. Three of the most promising ones—ammonia, ethylene, and ethylene oxide—were then studied in detail. Infrared transmittance spectra were recorded for 5–50 μm by spectrophotometry. These data were used to compute the basic cooling parameters and the relation between cooling power and temperature difference for pure and mixed gases. The results of some practical field tests of radiative cooling are reported.


A protein that has a nuclear function as a transcription factor also functions to support respiration in the mitochondria. The Stat proteins (signal transducers and activators of transcription) are transcription factors that are activated in response to cytokines. As if Stat3 did not have enough to do, Wegrzyn et al. (see the Perspective by Myers) now find that Stat3 appears to have a distinct function in the mitochondria. Because Stat3 interacts with a component of complex I of the electron transport chain and interferons, which signal through Stat proteins, inhibit mitochondrial function, the authors explored a role for Stat3 in mitochondria. Stat3 was indeed detected in the mitochondria of cultured cells and cells isolated from tissues, and cells lacking Stat3 had inhibited function of the electron transport chain. Mitochondrial function could be restored by expression of Stat3 targeted to the mitochondria, and the traditional transcriptional regulatory function of Stat3 appeared not to be necessary; mutants compromised for transcriptional activation still rescued mitochondrial function. J. Wegrzyn, R. Potla, Y.-J. Chwae, N. B. V. Sepuri, O. Zhang, T. Koeck, M. Derecka, K. Szczepanek, M. Szelag, A. Gornicka, A. Moh, S. Moghaddas, Q. Chen, S. Bobbili, J. Cichy, J. Dulak, D. P. Baker, A. Wolfman, D. Stuehr, M. O. Hassan, X.-Y. Fu, N. Avadhani, J. I. Drake, P. Fawcett, E. J. Lesnefsky, A. C. Larner, Function of mitochondrial Stat3 in cellular respiration. Science 323, 793–797 (2009). [Abstract] [FullText] M. G. Myers Jr., Moonlighting in mitochondria. Science 323, 723–724 (2009). [Summary] [FullText]


Blogs have recently emerged as a new open, rapidly evolving and reactive publishing medium on the Web. Rather than managed by a central entity, the content on the blogosphere — the collection of all blogs on the Web — is produced by millions of independent bloggers, who can write about virtually anything. This open publishing paradigm has led to a growing mass of user-generated content on the Web, which can vary tremendously both in format and quality when looked at in isolation, but which can also reveal interesting patterns when observed in aggregation. One field particularly interested in studying how information is produced, consumed, and searched in the blogosphere is information retrieval. In this survey, we review the published literature on searching the blogosphere. In particular, we describe the phenomenon of blogging and the motivations for searching for information on blogs. We cover both the search tasks underlying blog searchers' information needs and the most successful approaches to these tasks. These include blog post and full blog search tasks, as well as blog-aided search tasks, such as trend and market analysis. Finally, we also describe the publicly available resources that support research on searching the blogosphere.


NADPH-induced lipid peroxidation of hepatic microsomes from vitamin E-deficient rats has been used to assess the antioxidant effectiveness of dl alpha, d alpha- and gamma-tocopherol. When the tocopherols were added in ethanol to microsomes, the degree of inhibition of formation of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) decreased in the order dl alpha- greater than d alpha- greater than gamma-tocopherol. This reflected the difference in the solubility of the tocopherols in the microsomes, dl alpha-tocopherol being the most soluble and gamma-tocopherol the least. Using inhibition of TBARS produced per tocopherol content in microsome as a measure of antioxidant potency, the effectiveness of the isomers was gamma- greater than d alpha- greater than dl alpha. Despite addition of pharmacological concentrations of the isomers, it was not possible to inhibit lipid peroxidation to the same levels as were found in microsomes from vitamin E sufficient animals. Use of ethanol as a vehicle may not allow optimum orientation of the tocopherols into the lipid bilayer.


Objectives To assess the outcomes of the surgical management of "isolated" displaced lateral malleolar fractures, comparing the techniques of lateral plating and antiglide plating as described previously. Design This is a retrospective review, being largely a surgeon-randomized comparative study. Setting The study was carried out at a university teaching hospital that serves as a provincial trauma referral service and provides local community care. The senior surgeons are all orthopaedic trauma subspecialists. Patients A total of 193 patients meeting our inclusion criteria, with isolated lateral malleolus fractures surgically treated at the Vancouver General Hospital between 1987 and 1998, were studied. Intervention Eighty-five were treated with antiglide plating, whereas the remaining 108 patients underwent traditional lateral plating. Main Outcome Measures The functional results were evaluated with the ankle scoring system described previously. We also compared the complication rates, including failure of fixation, infection, wound dehiscence, and need for hardware removal. Results Both groups were comparable for age, sex distribution, mechanism of injury, and occupation. There was no difference in ankle score, function, and infection rate. The incidence of wound dehiscence and reoperation for hardware removal was slightly higher in the lateral plate group, but the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusions The outcome of the surgical management of a displaced lateral malleolus fracture is comparable with both techniques. Although few studies have reported some advantages using the antiglide technique, our data do not support one technique over the other.


The concept, design and experimental validation of the new Avancon Bridge in Bex, Switzerland, are described. The lightweight glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) sandwich bridge deck adhesively bonded to steel girders reduced the traffic disruption period by approximately 40 days or 80% compared to a cast-in-place concrete bridge and also enabled the bridge to be widened to two lanes. The semi-integral bridge concept allows the application of a continuous asphalt layer across the abutments without expansion joints and thus facilitates and reduces maintenance. The GFRP sandwich deck with structural balsa core fulfils all the requirements concerning serviceability, ultimate limit state and fatigue.


Over the past decade computer simulation techniques have become an increasingly valuable tool in science as an aid to the interpretation of experimental data and as a means of yielding an atomic level model (Catlow et al. 1994; Wright et al. 1992). The scope of such methods has advanced alongside the developments in computational hardware, as has their accuracy, to the point where predictions can now be made ahead of experiment (Couves et al. 1993).

The development of the methodology for the simulation of inorganic and organic materials has largely evolved independently to date. For organic materials, interatomic potential calculations have utilized the natural connectivity of covalent systems to develop the molecular mechanics approach (Allinger 1977). The pioneering programs in this field, such as WMIN of Busing (1981) and PCK6 of Williams (1984) were able to simplify the problem by working with rigid molecules and therefore only intermolecular potentials had to be considered. However, varying degrees of intramolecular flexibility could also be introduced by defining molecules as a series of coupled rigid fragments.

In contrast inorganic materials, particular oxides and halides, have tended to be simulated starting from the concept of formally charged ions without covalent bonding. For many cases this leads to close-packed materials with relatively regular, high symmetry, structures. Deviations from such environments can be explained by inclusion of polarization of the anion, and occasionally the cation (Wilson et al. 1996a).

The aim of this chapter is to highlight some of the methods being used based on interatomic potentials in the simulation of mineral structures under various conditions, but with the emphasis on static approaches, as opposed to dynamical techniques.

The basis on which interatomic potential methods are built is that the energy of a system can be expressed as a sum over many-body interaction …


The discrete logarithm problem, and its adaptation to elliptic curves, called the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP) is an open problem in the field of number theory, and its applications to modern cryptographic algorithms are numerous. This paper focuses on a statistical analysis of a modification to the ECDLP, called the x-ECDLP, where one is only given the xcoordinate of a point, instead of the entire point. Focusing only on elliptic curves whose field of definition is smaller than the number of points, this paper attempts to find a statistical indication of underlying structure (or lack thereof) in the ECDLP. Using functional graphs, this translates into discovering certain structure in the functional graphs induced by the ECDLP on a wide range of elliptic curves, and comparing these statistics to what would be expected of a random functional graph. A lack of randomness may translate into an exploitable structure in the ECDLP that would undermine the security of cryptographic algorithms based on this problem. In addition to providing an extensive list of data for small primes, this paper details a generating function for the number of elliptic curve functional graphs (ECFGs).


In 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts', Thomas De Quincey argues that murder can, by definition, be considered a form of visual art and should be viewed as an aesthetic rather than from a sociological point of view. This is also what I intend to do. I will look at murder from a stylistic perspective and use De Quincey's aesthetic analysis of murder to create my own pieces of textual practice. This link between murder, eroticism and art can also be seen in numerous other novels and pieces of art. My research is concerned with the relational and psychodynamic aspects of the connection between the topics. The first step towards confirming this connection is to define murder, a concept that is both difficult to process but one that is also constantly provoking attention. Murder is seen as the worst thing in human life but that doesn't stop people being incredibly curious about it.

In the Oxford English Dictionary art is defined as "The expression or application of creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting, drawing, or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." The key words here are 'typically' and 'primarily.' By this definition it is possible that, like Thomas De Quincey argued, murder could be considered an art form.

Any attempt at pinning this definition down, however, shows that it is seen as a pervasive one to many. The problem with this then becomes a methodological one. How does one study murder as it operates in the encounter with works of art? I decided on a practice-led approach, comprised of three different strands; artistic, psychoanalytic and writing practices.

The context for my research is polymorphic and located in the continuously changing field between visual and textual material.

I have focussed mainly on the following novels; The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, Justine by Marquis De Sade, In the Realms of the Unreal by Henry Darger, The Aesthetics of Murder by Joel Black and Murder as a Fine Art by Thomas De Quincey. I have used these pieces of literature as the basis for my own textual practices as well as using artists that have been viewed historically as controversial.

These artists are as followed; Walter Sickert, Henry Darger and Jake and Dinos Chapman. I have used these artists and writers as characters in my writing practices, always besides the story's main character – Murder.

I have written my own psychological short stories and will be using these stories/poems to create textual imagery of the assembly between murder and art. The use of adjectives in these pieces are particularly important. My research will look into controversy, ethical issues and stylised violence in art as well as the psychological features that go into writing about murder. I will be presenting violence as a form of expressive art both through creative writing and illustrative pieces representing both the artists involved in my writing and a replication of their styles of creativity. My own artistic practice will support the writing and help sustain the storyline and connection.


In a refereed journal in the food and agriculture sector, papers were tracked over a five-year period during the introduction of electronic submissions. Papers originated in the Americas and Pacific region and were processed in Canada. Acceptance times for revised papers were reduced (P < 0.001) to 59% of the original, from 156.5 ± 69.1 days to 92.8 ± 57.5 days. But the start of electronic submission coincided with a change in the geographical origin of papers, with papers from Anglophone countries changing from a 61% majority to a 42% minority. It is possible that submissions from non-Anglophone sources were facilitated, thus creating challenges to the traditional Anglophone reviewer population.


THE mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition. The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract --Let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherche movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.


In this paper, the secrecy outage probability of cooperative cyclic prefixed single carrier (CP-SC) systems with multiple transmitters and unreliable backhaul connections is derived. The transmitters communicate with the destination in the presence of an eavesdropper over two-hop relay channels with non-identical frequency-selective fading. The existence of asymptotic limits on the secrecy outage probability is verified for various backhaul scenarios. For a fixed eavesdropper signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the limit is found to be exclusively determined by the backhaul reliability. This shows that the diversity gain promised by cooperative CP-SC systems cannot be achieved in the high SNR region. Simulations are presented to verify the derived impact of backhaul reliability on the secrecy performance.


In this work, we have investigated polymer-based flexible antennas from commercial and modified polymers, which are competitive to rigid PCB technology. Classical designs of the patch and bow-tie antennas have been realized and showed that the realized gain can get up to 9.16dBi for the patch and 7.9dBi for the bow-tie antennas. The effects of the dielectric loss and conductivity on the antennas' performance in S-band have been analyzed in order to find limits for further material engineering and the optimum trade-off between microwave and mechanical performance. The bending effects have been investigated, and it has been found that E-plane bend inside can boost the antenna gain from 8.6dBi to 10.1dBi with the frequency shift from 2.5 GHz to 2.4 GHz for the patch and 7.9dBi to 11.3dBi at 3.1 GHz for the bow-tie antennas. The non-classical π-shaped conductors' edges lead to additional fringing fields, which have an effect on the antenna's gain and can be explored and exploited for further performance improvements. The new recipes for low-loss, low-Dk dielectric materials, and chemical integration between conducting


In this paper we describe a framework to build ambient assisted living (AAL) applications able to transform a conventional environment in a smart environment using low cost technology. The main purpose of this work is to assist people with disabilities in their residences or works promoting the social inclusion The system allows its users to be their own remote control to control different appliances of their house or office, interacting with them naturally using HCI and natural user interfaces This document is organized as follows: first, we present an introduction to AAL and describe the related work. In Section 2, we describe the main aspects of the implementation of the framework. Section 3 explains the communication between the different devices and describes a prototype. Finally, Section 4 introduces the limitations of the system, while section 5 concludes the paper.


Cloud Computing adoption has experienced a considerable rate of growth since its emergence in 2006. In 2011, it
had become the top technology priority for organizations worldwide and according to some leading industry reports the
cloud computing market is estimated to reach $241 billion by 2020. Reasons for adoption are multi‐fold, including for
example the expected realisation of benefits pertaining to cost reduction, improved scalability, improved resource
utilization, worker mobility and collaboration, and business continuity, among others. Research into the cloud computing
adoption phenomenon has to date primarily focused on its impact on the larger, multinational enterprises. However, one
key area of the market where cloud computing is expected to hold considerable promise is that of the Small and Medium
Sized Enterprise (SME). SMEs are recognized as being inherently different from their larger enterprise counterparts, not
least from a resource constraint perspective and for this reason, cloud computing is reported to offer significant benefits
for SMEs through, for example, facilitating a reduction of the financial burden associated with new technology adoption.
This paper reports findings from a recent study of Cloud Computing adoption among Irish SMEs. Despite its suggested
importance, this study found that almost half of the respondents had not migrated any services or processes to the cloud
environment. Further, with respect to those who had transitioned to the cloud, the data suggests that many of these SMEs
did not rigorously assess their readiness for adopting cloud computing technology or did not adopt in‐depth approaches for
managing the cloud lifecycle. These findings have important implications for the development/improvement of national
strategies or policies to support the successful adoption of Cloud Computing technology among the SME market. This
paper puts forward recommendations to support the SME cloud adoption journey.