Part I of this dissertation examines five works by the author for solo instruments and electroacoustic sounds composed between 1986 and 1992.
Chapter 1 deals with the conceptual framework which underlines the different compositional strategies employed in the works discussed. Chapter 2 examines the integration of instrumental sounds with electroacoustic sounds in the work Papalotifor piano and tape and its use to generate a dynamic structure. Compositional techniques are discussed in detail. In Chapter 3, the author discusses the work On going on for baritone saxophone and electroacoustic sounds focusing on improvisation as a significant element in the composition process and the structuring of instrumental and electroacoustic material. In Chapter 4 the generation of rhythmic objects is examined as the basis for the formal strategies in Acuerdos por Diferencia for harp and electroacoustic sounds. The design and integration of rhythmic objects are then discussed in the context of the composition process. Chapter 5 deals with the appropriation of an instrumental technique as the compositional instigator of choreomusical design in the conception and composition of As! el Acero for tenor steel pan and electroacoustic sounds. Chapter 6 focuses on the use of different stylistic traits as the basis for a compositional genesis, and the elaboration of instrumental and electroacoustic sound materials in Mannam for kayagum and electroacoustic sounds. In Chapter 7 the author discusses the dilemmas presented to the composer when discussing his own compositional strategies. The general context of the works discussed is analysed from the perspective of electroacoustic and acousmatic music, attempting to assess how such works may contribute to the changing sthetic enunciates of a young medium. A number of general theoretical and practical issues pertaining to mainstream electroacoustic music are then examined in closer detail. The author then puts
forward the thesis that a significant advancement of experimental composition in general can be brought about by a renewed cross-fertilisation betweeninstrumental and electroacoustic thought and practice. Part II includes recording details, a score and a complete studio recording of
each of the works discussed in Part I.


ABSTRACT This paper takes a retrospective look over Wal-Mart's IT systems. Major types of IT systems used by Wal-Mart are listed chronologically. The paper then explains the economies of IT systems at their application areas and how such economies have contributed to Wal-Mart's everyday low price strategy. The paper explores how distribution centers and IT systems function strategically at Wal-Mart, how Wal-Mart uses point-of-sale data and data warehouse technology, how Wal-Mart has used Retail Link in inventory management, and how economies of scale and scope and external economies are realized in the implementation of IT systems at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The paper concludes with the challenges Wal-Mart is facing. INTRODUCTION Researchers have attempted to reveal the importance of the relationships between retailers and suppliers using Wal-Mart as a case (Bloom et al., 2001 ; Bloom and Perry, 2001 ; Kumar, 1996). Stalk et al. (1992), on the other hand, have advocated capability-based competition by comparing Wal-Mart and Kmart. They have suggested that WaI-Mart's strategic vision was fully expressed in Wal-Mart's cross-docking system. None of the previous studies, however, have ever tried to take a comprehensive overview of Wal-Mart's IT systems and reveal how its IT systems have helped Wal-Mart in realizing its everyday low price strategy. This case study takes a retrospective look over Wal-Mart's IT systems. Major types of IT systems used by Wal-Mart are listed chronologically. The paper then explains the economies of IT systems at their application areas and how such economies have contributed to Wal-Mart's everyday low price strategy. IT systems at Wal-Mart are applied in major areas such as inventory management, administrative management, customer management and supplier management, etc. Efficiency and performance of IT systems in these areas apparently affect each other. Wal-Mart seeks to achieve not only the efficiency of individual systems, but also that of the integrated systems. Finally, the paper clarifies the existing challenges that Wal-Mart is facing. Cost control and inventory management are one of major concerns for Wal-Mart, though cost control goes beyond inventory management. Wal-Mart also has to control and reduce its cost of operation and administration and cost of sales. The case is divided into a few sections. section one is a brief overview of Wal-Mart's IT systems; section two explain the case study approach and data; section three discusses the strategic role of Wal-Mart's distribution centers; section four describes how Wal-Mart uses Point-of-Sale systems to collect customer data and uses data warehouse and datamining to analyze customer behavior; section five is about Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Retail Link systems at WalMart; section six discusses productivity improvement from IT systems; section seven shows the economies of scale and scope at the distribution centers with IT systems; section eight is about the business process standards and external economies with IT systems. sectionnine covers Wal-Mart's integrated structure and major challenges Wal-Mart is facing. The final section concludes the case study with a summary. THE CASE STUDY APPROACH The case study approach in this paper follows Yin (1994). Yin (1994) gives very detailed instructions of how to conduct a case study. According to Yin (1994), A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident. The case study inquiry copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and as another result benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis (p. …


Many plants have mechanisms of physical or chemical resistance that protect them from herbivores in their environment. The ornamental plant Pachysandra terminalis Sieb. and Zucc is highly unpalatable to voles, but the nature of this resistance is not fully understood. Extracts of P. terminalis were prepared to determine the extent to which chemical constituents could account for its avoidance by voles. A bioassay in which samples were mixed with applesauce showed that ethanolic extracts were highly deterrent to captive prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster Wagner, 1842). Bioassay-guided fractionation ofethanol extracts showed that antifeedant activity was present in both polar and non-polar fractions. Further separation of each fraction by open column chromatography and high pressure liquid chromatography revealed that combinations of compounds were responsible for the deterrent activity. Preliminary ultraviolet and mass spectroscopic analyses indicated that steroidal alkaloids that are characteristic of this plant are likely to be involved.


In multiterminal communication systems, signals carrying messages meant for different destinations are often observed together at any given destination receiver. Han and Kobayashi proposed a receiving strategy, which performs a joint unique decoding of messages of interest along with a subset of messages, which are not of interest. It is now well-known that this provides an achievable region, which is, in general, larger than if the receiver treats all messages not of interest as noise. Nair and El Gamal and Chong, Motani, Garg, and El Gamal independently proposed a generalization called indirect or nonunique decoding where the receiver uses the codebook structure of the messages to uniquely decode only its messages of interest. Nonunique decoding has since been used in various scenarios. The main result in this paper is to provide an interpretation and a systematic proof technique for why nonunique decoding, in all known cases where it has been employed, can be replaced by a particularly designed joint unique decoding strategy, without any penalty from a rate region viewpoint.


From 29 June to 25 July 2014, scientists from Heriot Watt University and the Natural History Museum, London, aboard the vessel MV Halton, undertook a research cruise along the Norwegian coast. The cruise started in Bergen and over the two-week period surveys were conducted at intervals along the coastline, heading northwards, and including the major ports of Alesund, Kristiansund, and Trondheim. When the vessel moored up in each harbour, surveys of the local pontoons were conducted to identify fouling species and to ascertain whether any non-native Bryozoa were present. Seven species of fouling Bryozoa were identified. Two of these were the non-native species Tricellaria inopinata d'Hondt and Occhipinti Ambrogi, 1985 and Schizoporella japonica Ortmann, 1890. This study represents the first confirmed records for these species from Norwegian coastal waters. It is likely, given the locations of occurrence, that small boat traffic was a vector for the introduction of these species. Recommendations are given for the amendment and addition of species to the Norwegian Black List.


This paper draws on the writings of Michel Foucault, in particular his lectures on biopolitics at the Collège de France from 1978–79, to examine liberalism and neoliberalism as governmental forms that operate through different models of surveillance. First, this paper re-reads Foucault's Discipline and Punish in the light of his analysis of the art of liberal government that is advanced through the course of these lectures. It is argued that the Panopticon is not just an architecture of power centred on discipline and normalization, as is commonly understood, but a normative model of the relation of the state to the market which, for Foucault, is 'the very formula of liberal government'. Second, the limits of panopticism, and by extension liberal governance, are explored through analysis of Gilles Deleuze's account of the shift from disciplinary to 'control' societies, and Zygmunt Bauman's writings on individualization and the 'Synopticon'. In response to Deleuze and Bauman, the final section of this paper returns to Foucault's lectures on biopolitics to argue that contemporary capitalist society is characterized not simply by the decline of state powers (the control society) or the passing down of responsibilities from the state to the individual (the individualization thesis), but by the neoliberal marketization of the state and its institutions; a development which is underpinned by a specific form of governmentality. In conclusion, a four-fold typology of surveillance is advanced: surveillance as discipline, as control, as interactivity, and as a mechanism for promoting competition. It is argued that while these types of surveillance are not mutually exclusive, they are underpinned by different governmentalities that can be used to address different aspects of the relationship between the state and the market, and with this the social and cultural logics of contemporary forms of market capitalism more broadly.


Ticket pricing in public transport usually takes a welfare or mnemonics maximization point of view. These approaches do not consider fairness in the sense that users of a shared infrastructure should pay for the costs that they generate. We propose an ansatz to determine fair ticket prices that combines concepts from cooperative game theory and integer programming. An application to pricing railway tickets for the intercity network of the Netherlands demonstrates that, in this sense, prices that are much fairer than standard ones can be computed in this way.


Background Human cord blood (hCB) is the main source of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSCs/PCs) for transplantation. Efforts to overcome relative shortages of HSCs/PCs have led to technologies to expand HSCs/PCs ex vivo. However, methods suitable for clinical practice have yet to be fully established. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, we screened biologically active natural products for activity to promote expansion of hCB HSCs/PCs ex vivo, and identified Garcinol, a plant-derived histone acetyltransferase (HAT) inhibitor, as a novel stimulator of hCB HSC/PC expansion. During a 7-day culture of CD34+CD38– HSCs supplemented with stem cell factor and thrombopoietin, Garcinol increased numbers of CD34+CD38– HSCs/PCs more than 4.5-fold and Isogarcinol, a derivative of Garcinol, 7.4-fold. Furthermore, during a 7-day culture of CD34+ HSCs/PCs, Garcinol expanded the number of SCID-repopulating cells (SRCs) 2.5-fold. We also demonstrated that the capacity of Garcinol and its derivatives to expand HSCs/PCs was closely correlated with their inhibitory effect on HAT. The Garcinol derivatives which expanded HSCs/PCs inhibited the HAT activity and acetylation of histones, while inactive derivatives did not. Conclusions/Significance Our findings identify Garcinol as the first natural product acting on HSCs/PCs and suggest the inhibition of HAT to be an alternative approach for manipulating HSCs/PCs.


Abstract The purpose of the study was to describe the differences in the activity demands of sub-elite and elite Australian men's basketball competition. Ten elite (age 28.3 ± 4.9 years, mass 97.0 ± 13.9 kg, height 197.4 ± 8.3 cm) and 12 sub-elite (age 26.1 ± 5.3 years, mass 85.9 ± 13.2 kg, height 191.4 ± 7.6 cm) Australian basketball players participated in the study. Player activity was analysed using video-based time–motion analysis across multiple in-season matches. Customized analytical software was used to calculate player activity into frequencies, mean and total durations (s), and mean and total distances (m) for standing/walking, jogging, running, sprinting, low shuffling, high shuffling, and dribbling movements. Only movement frequency was calculated for jumping and upper body activity. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that elite players performed significantly more total movement changes (P <0.001), and experienced greater activity workloads while jogging (P <0.01) and running (P <0.002). In contrast, sub-elite players performed significantly more standing/walking (P <0.023) and sprinting (P <0.003) activities. These data suggest that elite basketball competition requires a greater intermittent workload and more sustained activity demands, whereas sub-elite competition may involve greater bursts of activity and longer recovery periods. These differences are likely to reflect variations in player skill and fitness, as well as playing structure between playing standards.


This study is an investigation of cross-national comparative
analysis of agenda-setting and political communication process during the 2004 Cyprus Referendum. The main aim of the study is to explore the dynamics amongst political campaigners and news media in the agenda-setting process in the referendum that was proposed by the United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan to reunify the island after 50 years of division. This research is a unique subject to study as it has not been scrutinised by academics from a mass media and political communication perspective.
There have only been a few attempts to compare the contents of election communication in different societies, particularly for referendum campaigns communication. To scrutinise the dynamics and discretionary power between the media professionals and political campaigners, I have employed the framework of the pioneering study of Semetko et al.(1991) The Formation of campaign Agendas: A Comparative Analysis of Party and Media Roles in Recent American and British Elections. In this
study I have explored the dynamics between the political campaigners, politicians and the news media over the agenda-setting process and I have also investigated to what extent cultural and political factors influenced the political campaign design and the agenda-setting power of the political actors.
Additionally, the influence of media systems-in particular print media on the agenda-setting process has been examined.
So, this study analysis not only contributes to the comparative studies, where there is a dearth of research scope, but it also contributes particularly to the literature of agenda-setting research within the context of referendum elections, an area in which scholarly research is also neglected.
Perhaps, most importantly, this study will also create a body of knowledge for likely future referendum studies in Cyprus on reunification


When authors use the rhetorical device of literary allusion, they not only teach through their own words but also attach to their own text meanings and interpretations from the alluded text. This is true of Nephi's allusion to the account of David and Goliath in Nephi's own account of his killing Laban, which allusion is generally of a thematic nature. A few of the main thematic parallels between the two accounts are that both unbelieving Israel and Laman and Lemuel are fearful of the main antagonist, both David and Nephi prophesy the death of their opponent, and both Goliath and Laban have their heads cut off and armor stripped. The implications of this allusion run deep. At a time in which the right to kingship was continually in dispute between Nephi and Laman, Nephi casting himself as David—the archetypal king of Judah, whose faith led to his supplanting Saul—could be seen as legitimizing his regal authority over Laman. Title


Predicting the suitability and reliability of traits associated with juvenile growth as indirect selection criteria for choosing future broodstock requires accurate and repeatable estimates of genetic (co)variation for growth traits at different ages. We compared juvenile wet weight of black bream Acanthopagrus butcheri (Munro) at 6 months of age with wet weight, dressed weight, fillet yield and gonad weight in tagged individuals at 18 months of age, following 12 months of farm grow-out. Fish survival and tag retention was high, and there was significant among-family variation for all traits. The phenotypic correlations among wet weight, dressed weight and fillet yield at 18 months of age were very high (0.93-0.97) and similar to their genetic correlations (0.96). Importantly, the phenotypic correlations between wet weight at 6 months and wet weight, dressed weight and fillet yield at 18 months were high (0.63-0.65), and so too were their genetic correlations (0.66-0.73), indicating the potential for using wet weight in the hatchery as a selection criterion for improved weight and meat yield of fish at harvest. Gonad weight shared little or no phenotypic or genetic correlation with these other traits, suggesting that selection for faster growing fish will not affect fecundity or sexual maturation rate. It appears, however, that cultured black bream do become sexually mature more rapidly than wild fish, as 78% of all fish harvested in this study had developing or mature gonads, whereas less than 50% of fish in wild populations are reproductively mature by the same age. Precocious sexual development may lead to uncontrolled spawning in grow-out ponds and a potential loss of selection gains.


You know, when I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and find myself living in a sixties spy series. Funny how things turn out, isn't it? King Mob, The Invisibles. he astrologer and magician John Dee worked for Sir Francis Walshingham. Dennis Wheatley worked for the London Controlling Section during World War II. Aleister Crowley may have worked for British intelligence. This should not surprise us; intelligence and espionage are by their very nature exercises in the occult, the investigation and discovery of hidden knowledge, revealed and analysed by a priestly caste of scholars seeking the truth lying behind the veil of 'secrets and mysteries' (specific terms in the lexicon of espionage). Spy stories are always already tales of the occult, and more than that, they are horror stories, whose protagonists are engaged in a struggle against dark powers posing an existential threat to all they believe in. This paper examines the idea of secrecy and espionage as a contemporary cultural avatar of the eternal fear of the Other. The spy is an archetype embodying fears of transgression and liminality, whose shifting roles mirror our society's anxiety concerning the concept of a stable self. In an era where we are ever more defined by our informational footprint, the revelations of Snowden, Manning et al. raise uncomfortable questions about the nature of identity observed, surveilled and interrogated through its online manifestations. As Stross has argued, we are willing participants of a 'Participatory Panopticon'; inhabitants of the global Village, we are choosing to become Number Two, the character who, in the minatory and prophetic series The Prisoner, acted as the agent of repression of the individual through perpetual surveillance.


Growth and differentiation of multicellular systems is orchestrated by spatially restricted gene expression programs in specialized subpopulations. The targeted manipulation of such processes by synthetic tools with high-spatiotemporal resolution could, therefore, enable a deepened understanding of developmental processes and open new opportunities in tissue engineering. Here, we describe the first red/far-red light-triggered gene switch for mammalian cells for achieving gene expression control in time and space. We show that the system can reversibly be toggled between stable on- and off-states using short light pulses at 660 or 740 nm. Red light-induced gene expression was shown to correlate with the applied photon number and was compatible with different mammalian cell lines, including human primary cells. The light-induced expression kinetics were quantitatively analyzed by a mathematical model. We apply the system for the spatially controlled engineering of angiogenesis in chicken embryos. The system's performance combined with cell- and tissue-compatible regulating red light will enable unprecedented spatiotemporally controlled molecular interventions in mammalian cells, tissues and organisms.


Pd/Co-based metal-filled carbon nanotubes (MF-CNTs) were synthesized by a microwave plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition method using a bias-enhanced growth technique. Pd/Co-based MF-CNTs were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), and Raman spectroscopy. MF-CNTs were well-aligned and uniform in size on a Si substrate. Both multiwall nanotube carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and herringbone (or stacked cups structure) structures were observed. High-resolution TEM revealed that MF-CNTs were composed of highly ordered graphite layers, and the elemental maps of EELS indicate that both Co and Pd metals are present inside the nanotubes. TEM results clearly showed that both Pd and Co metals were successfully encapsulated into the CNTs.. We observed a low value for the Raman intensity ratio between D (1355 cm-1) and G (1590 cm-1) bands with no shift of the G-peak position and no broadening of the G-peak, indicative of high quality Pd/Co-based MF-CNTs. Based on TEM characterization, we propose a description for the encapsulating mechanisms.


Until now, the evolution of cyber security has been largely driven by market demand and has developed in the absence of formal governance. However, in the post-9/11 world and with an increase in cyber attacks, government's role in cyber security has become a major policy issue. This paper contends that economic principles have been excluded from the debate about who should provide cyber security. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We postulate that an analysis of cyber security in the absence of economic considerations is incomplete. Toward this end, we employ several economic concepts in order to offer insight to policymakers involved in this debate. In doing so, we hope to shed light on the most effective means of securing the Internet.


BACKGROUND
This study examined associations between sports participation, physical activity, fitness level, and body mass index in ninth-grade girls.

METHODS
Data were analyzed for 221 participants who completed sports participation and physical activity recall questionnaires, an aerobic step test, and height and weight measurement.

RESULTS
On average, participants had low physical activity levels, and many were overweight or obese (47%). About half participated in at least one organized sport in the previous year. Sports participants had higher current estimated energy expenditure compared with non-sports participants (P=.0007). Those who participated on at least two teams were more likely to complete the three-stage step test without reaching their target heart rate than those who did not participate on any teams (P<.03). Past sports participation was positively associated with current physical activity and fitness levels.

CONCLUSION
Urban adolescent girls who participate in sports have increased energy expenditure and higher fitness levels, indicating sports as a potential strategy to improve physical activity and health in this population.


The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) plays an enormous role in establishing the agenda for mental health research across the country (its 2016 appropriation was nearly $1.5 billion; NIMH, 2016a). As the primary funder of research that will lead to development of new assessments and interventions to identify and combat mental illness, the priorities set by NIMH have a major impact on the mental health of our nation and training of the next generation of clinical scientists. Joshua Gordon has recently begun his term as the new Director of NIMH and has been meeting with different organizations to understand how they can contribute to the grand challenge of reducing the burden of mental illness. As a group of clinical psychological scientists (most representing the Coalition for the Advancement and Application of Psychological Science), he asked what we saw as key gaps in our understanding of the burden of mental illnesses and psychological disorders that psychosocial research could help fill. In response, we first present data illustrating how funding trends have shifted toward biomedical research over the past 18 years and then consider the objectives NIMH has defined in its recent strategic plan (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, & National Institute of Mental Health, 2015). We then note ways that advances in psychosocial research can help achieve these objectives. Critically, this involves integrating psychosocial and biomedical approaches to efficiently relieve the suffering of millions of Americans who struggle with mental illnesses and psychological disorders.


The evolution of class actions continues to feature prominently on Europe's competition law landscape. At European Union (EU) level, the European Commission (Commission) has supported private enforcement vocally, going as far as drafting legislation to mandate an EU-wide class action mechanism although withdrawing it from the agenda at the last minute. Nonetheless, the Commission is preparing a new round of discussions in order to finalise the ongoing debate on the harmonisation of class action rules in Europe. In the meantime, certain EU Member States such as Italy have implemented their own national class action legislation.


In this book, Professor Wells, one of the leading freethinkers of our time, addresses the question of why so many people believe and adopt the doctrines of religion. The work opens with a new attempt to analyze the nature of belief, developing the theoretical approach of the late F.R.H. Englefield. Wells rejects the view that an idea is a definite image, and distinguishes between general and abstract ideas. An account of the evidence for reasoning in non-human animals rebuts the frequently-heard claim that language is intrinsic to thinking, and a discussion of fairytales and primitive thinking concludes that these are closer to modern modes of thought than some philosphers have maintained. Moving to a consideration of the Bible as a basis for religious belief, Professor Wells describes the Bible's contradictory views of the person of Jesus, and presents an account of the traditional Muslim theory that Jesus was in fact saved by God from crucifixion. Wells also appraises the significance of various modern attempts to rethink the significance of the New Testament (Schweitzer, Hoskyns and Davey, Sanders and Davies), and reviews Charlesworth's attempt to salvage some historical evidence for Jesus from the Christian interpolation in Josephus. "Belief and Make-Believe" also contains explorations of conceptual difficulties in the New Testament view of man, with special attention to bodily resurrection, predestination, and eternal punishment, and analyzes recent attempts to defend the Christian message by restating it in more abstract terms. Finally, Professor Wells investigates the links between poetry, arts, and religion and the prevalence of make-believe in the arts and artistic criticism.


This article explores the role of desire in Iran's revolutionary movement. In a series of essays on the 1979 revolution, Michel Foucault asked, "What are the Iranians dreaming about?" This article takes up this question to consider the place of dreams in the formation of revolutionary subjects who find themselves displaced and marginalized within the social fabric. I argue that Foucault's "repressive hypothesis," which he developed as he wrote about the uprising in Iran, encourages us to read Islam not as a repressive force but as a site of desire that animated anti-imperialist political action in Iran. I enter this conversation though the audiovisual archives of North American feminists Kate Millett and Sophie Keir, who traveled to Iran in 1979 as a gesture of feminist solidarity. While their archive documents their own alienation, displacement, and eventual expulsion from Iran, it nonetheless provides a view of transnational homosocial strategies that enabled feminist resistance to gendered oppression in Iran. I revisit this failed historical moment of global sisterhood, and Muslim dreaming, to ask if there is a critical agency in desiring that can be used by displaced subjects to create new social movements.


Cytokines modulate the course of autoimmunity, but their role in the evolution of spontaneous disease is unclear. This study compared the cytokine kinetics of T cell cultures from thyroiditis (LT)-prone NB line BB/Wor rats with those of Wistar (Wis) rat controls following activation with the thyroid-specific antigen thyroglobulin (Tg) or Concanavalin A (Con A). Design: T cell enhanced splenocytes from 60 day old Wis and NB rats were activated with 0.5 μg/ml rat thyroglobulin (Tg) or Con A in the presence of homologous irradiated splenocytes as antigen presenting cells (APC's). In addition, the effect of APC's was determined in a crisscross experiment which examined NB T cell responses to Con A in the presence of Wis APC's. ELISA and RT-PCR were used to examine IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, TNFα, IFNγ, IL-10 concentrations and mRNA expression in the supernatant and cells from parallel cultures harvested at specific intervals. Frozen thyroids from 60 day old NB, Wis and Fisher rats were examined for the presence of IL-10 by immunohistochemistry. T cell proliferation was measured by H thymidine uptake. Results: Following activation with either Tg or Con A, IL-10 concentrations exceeded IFNγ in NB rat cultures, but IFNγ exceeded IL-10 in Wis cultures. Wis splenocytes significantly enhanced NB T cell proliferation and cytokine responses to Con A. Thyroids from 60 day NB rats contained IL-10, but no IFNγ. There was no IL-10 in thyroids from Wistar or Fisher rats. Conclusion: Splenocyte responses in LT-prone BB/Wor rats favor IL-10 production. Future investigations will examine the source of intrathyroidal IL-10 and its role in LT


Storm water runoff is a major contributor to the pollution of receiving waters. Storm water characteristics may vary significantly between locations and events. Hence, for each given location, this necessitates a well-designed monitoring campaign prior to selection of an appropriate storm water management strategy. The challenge for the design of a monitoring campaign with a given budget is to balance detailed monitoring at a limited number of locations versus less detailed monitoring at a large number of locations. This paper proposes a methodology for the selection of monitoring locations for storm water quality monitoring, based on (pre-)screening, a quick scan monitoring campaign, and final selection of locations and design of the monitoring setup. The main advantage of the method is the ability to prevent the selection of monitoring locations that turn out to be inappropriate. In addition, in this study, the quick scan resulted in a first useful dataset on storm water quality and a strong indication of illicit connections at one of the monitoring locations.


Abstract. The diurnal, seasonal and latitudinal variations of electron temperature Te , measured by the SROSS C2 satellite at equatorial and the low-latitudes during the low solar activity period of 1995–1997 are investigated. The average height of the satellite was ~ 500 km and it covered the latitude belt of –31° to 34° and the longitude range of 40°–100°. Te varies between 700–800 K during night-time (20:00–04:00 LT), rises sharply during sunrise (04:00–06:00 LT) to reach a level of ~ 3500 K within a couple of hours and then falls between 07:00–10:00 LT to a daytime average value of ~ 1600 K. A secondary maximum is observed around 16:00–18:00 LT in summer. Latitudinal gradients in Te have been observed during the morning enhancement and daytime hours. Comparison of measured and International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) predicted electron temperature reveals that the IRI predicts nighttime Te well within ~ 100 K of observation, but at other local times, the predicted Te is less than that measured in all seasons. Key words. Ionosphere, equatorial ionosphere, plasma temperature, and density


The detection and diagnose of liver tumors from CT images by using digital image processing, is a modern technique depends on using computer in addition to textural analysis to obtain an accurate liver diagnosis, despite the method's difficulty that came from liver's position in the abdomen among the other organs. This method will make the surgeon able to detect the tumor and then easing treatment also it helps physicians and radiologists to identify the affected parts of the liver in order to protect the normal parts as much as possible from exposure to radiation. This study describes a new 2D liver segmentation method for purpose of transplantation surgery as a treatment for liver tumors. Liver segmentation is not only the key process for volume computation but also fundamental for further processing to get more anatomy information for individual patient. Due to the low contrast, blurred edges, large variability in shape and complex context with clutter features surrounding the liver that characterize the CT liver images. In this paper, the CT images are taken, and then the segmentation processes are applied to the liver image which will find, extract the CT liver boundary and further classify liver diseases.


Water efficiency research has focused on consumption rates and the tools—for example, pricing—designed to modify consumers' demand. But municipal practitioners can also be a highly influential group and have been neglected in the conventional water demand management (WDM) research. To understand better how to make WDM policy implementation more successful, practitioners "tacit knowledge" must be identified and examined. Tacit knowledge consists of deep beliefs and values about the way the world works and is important. Grounded in practical experience, tacit knowledge is informal, unspoken and often difficult to articulate. People may not even be consciously aware of their tacit knowledge; rather, their deepest beliefs and values operate as an implicit and unquestioned background understanding that shapes how they see the world and act within it. Tacit knowledge influences why practitioners are concerned about WDM, how they act on that concern and what they say about the issue when they talk to their colleagues. Identifying and understanding the potential influence of tacit knowledge would be tremendously valuable for day-to-day practices in growing municipalities and for government agencies that are responsible for infrastructure and sustainable development. By understanding practitioners' learning processes, their rationale for action and the organizational cultures in which they operate, it will be possible to make more informed policy recommendations.


Embracing a wide range of material from promotions for shirts to suits, and from footwear to underwear, this deeply researched and timely study analyses advertising for men's clothing and the representation of masculine identities in the context of poster design and periodical publishing in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. Work by celebrated graphic designers Tom Purvis for Austin Reed and Ashley Havinden for Simpson of Piccadilly is assessed alongside that by less well-known, though equally talented, practitioners in advertising design like C.B. Bowmar, Traus, Fran Sutton, and William Houghton.

The central theme of this book picks up on Cyril King's idea, expressed in Man and his Clothes in 1927, that publicity could be instrumental in overcoming any apathy or resistance which men might have toward changes in fashion - especially if advertisers attended to the balance between 'atmospheric' or symbolic content and 'reason why' or factual content. Accordingly, the seven chapters it contains are organised thematically as well as chronologically and deal with issues such as period style in commercial art, the dynamics of text and image in advertising messages, the rise and influence of advertising agencies, market and media classifications, consumer psychology, gender and sexuality, class, pleasure and spectatorship, and national propaganda.


By the end of the 20th century, many of the coastal lagoons along the French Mediterranean coast showed insufficient water quality and degraded ecosystem states due to anthropogenic impacts. Among these, nutrient over-enrichment, resulting in eutrophication, has been a major concern. The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) has initiated public action to improve their water quality and ecosystem state using an approach rooted in restoration ecology. Here we analyze how this has been applied for the coastal lagoons in South France, considering eutrophication as an example of ecosystem degradation and oligotrophication as the corresponding trajectory for ecological restoration of the eutrophied coastal lagoons. Oligotrophication trajectories, initiated by the reduction of external nutrient loading, have resulted in a quick recovery (i.e., within 3 years) of integrative water column variables (Chlorophyll a, total N and P) and phytoplankton. Starting from hypertrophic systems, the oligotrophication trajectory is described by a sequence of three ecosystem states dominated respectively by (i) phytoplankton with bare non-vegetated sediments, (ii) opportunistic macroalgae, (iii) angiosperm and perennial macroalgae, punctuated by regime shifts between these ecosystem states. Nevertheless, the latter regime shift has not been observed for the most degraded ecosystems after 10-years oligotrophication. The N and P accumulated in sediments during eutrophication may also retard the ecological restoration. In shallow freshwater lakes, the phytoplankton-dominated and the angiosperm-dominated states are also characteristic for highly degraded and fully restored ecosystems states, respectively. In contrast, opportunistic macroalgae do not bloom in these systems. Hence, the alternative stable state model, used successfully for these lakes, cannot be applied straightforwardly for coastal lagoons. To be successful, ecological restoration should consider the legislative and societal questions as according the DPSIR framework it typically is a response of society. The conservation-oriented Habitats Directive systematically applies to coastal lagoons and the Birds Directive in some cases as well. The WFD approach is complementary to these more conventional nature conservation approaches. Collectively, local citizens and highly involved stakeholders strongly value the coastal lagoons and attribute very high importance to their regulating ecosystem services (ESs), while differences between stakeholder profiles are related to different perceptions and appreciations of cultural ESs. Hence, coastal lagoon ESs are very important for the different stakeholders and public policies aiming at the ecological restoration of these ecosystems may count on public support.


A small-molecular model reaction was designed to probe the reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) process. In this reaction, alkoxyamine releases radicals that react in situ with dithioester through the RAFT process, generating new radicals through the fragmentation of the intermediate radical. The new radicals can be trapped by free 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-piperidinyl-N-oxyl radicals (TEMPO) from homolysis of alkoxyamine. The overall reaction is the crossover of the leaving groups between alkoxyamine and dithioester. The advantage of this model as a probe of the RAFT process is that it does not involve polymerization-related elementary reactions such as initiation, propagation, and chain length dependent termination. The kinetics of the model reaction were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography, and then fitted by Monte Carlo simulation to estimate rate coefficients. The obtained rate coefficients of addition for various dithioesters fell into a narrow range of 107–108 L mol–1 s–1, whereas the rate coefficient of fragmentation was model-dependent. It was also found that a significant fraction of the dithioester was consumed by an unspecified additional mechanism. A tentative explanation is proposed in which the intermediate radical undergoes a secondary RAFT reaction with dithioesters, forming a secondary intermediate that serves as a radical reservoir.


Introduction
Due to the rise of multidrug-resistant forms of microbial pathogens, the development of alternative approaches for fighting infectious diseases is urgently needed. One such approach is the use of probiotics. Lactobacillus fermentum strain 3872 is a promising probiotic bacterium with a range of antibacterial properties.

Methods
Complete genome sequencing was achieved by using a hybrid approach, including Ion Torrent PGM, (producing up to 400 bp reads with low error rates), PacBio technology (generating long reads with higher error rates), as well as optical genomic mapping system (OpGen) allowing an independent verification of the assembly. Protein binding and bacterial attachment experiments were conducted by using an ELISA assay employing microtiter plates coated with collagen. Affinity purification was conducted using magnetic particles coated with collagen. Liquid State Mass-Spectrometry (LS-MS/MS) analysis was conducted at Cambridge Centre for Proteomics.

Results
The genome of Lactobacillus fermentum strain 3872 was found to consist of a circular chromosome (2,297,851 bases) and a plasmid, pLF3872 (32,641 bases). Genome sequencing of this strain revealed a number of specific features, potentially contributing to its beneficial probiotic properties, including a capability of producing a range of vitamins (e.g. as B1, B2, B5, B7 and B9). One remarkable feature of the genome is the presence of genes encoding putative adhesins with different specificities. In particular, a gene encoding a collagen-binding protein (CBP) was detected on the plasmid, which also contains a number of 'selfish genes' required for stable maintenance of the plasmid within the host. No other known L. fermentum strains contained this plasmid. The CBP structure was unique with a record number (five) of repetitive B domains, not found in similar proteins produced by other bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus. As the B domains in similar proteins are known to form a stalk structure, the increased number of the units in this stalk is expected to improve interaction with the target host cells, increase stability of the protein and reduce a masking effect of the bacterial capsule. Strong binding of probiotic bacteria to host tissue collagen may lead to competitive exclusion of harmful pathogenic microorganisms using this receptor for attachment.
The unique predicted features of the CBP of Lactobacillus fermentum 3872 prompted further investigation of its properties. The results of this study confirmed that the recombinant CBP protein of L. fermentum 3872, isolated after expression and purification from E. coli, binds to collagen 1. Moreover, we found that both CBP and L. fermentum compete with campylobacter for binding to this host cell receptor. Furthermore, using affinity purification system followed by LS MS/MS, we identified collagen-binding adhesins campylobacter.

Discussion
Combined with our observation that L. fermentum 3872 also possesses other factors involved in anti-campylobacter activity (e.g. by producing acidic environment), our findings provides a good basis for further investigation of this strain as a potential tool for fighting infections caused by campylobacter and other pathogens.


The sharp increase in travel volumes, shift in traffic mix, and large increases in crashes have transformed the traffic environment in the oil region of western North Dakota. Roads once used for local access and agricultural purposes now regularly serve the energy sector. Oil companies, workers, commercial trucks, and industrial equipment associated with oil extraction use these roads to access drilling and production sites. This has led to a larger number of overweight and oversized vehicles sharing the roadway with other traffic. A survey questionnaire was sent to drivers to better understand perceptions and behaviors of road users in this region. County-level crash data were gathered to analyze changes in driving conditions during the latest oil boom – specifically between 2004 and 2014. This study addresses two goals for improving regional traffic safety: first, to examine public perceptions of traffic safety issues and priorities; and, second, to address crash trends and intervention strategies. Survey results indicate residents believe driving conditions in the region are dangerous, but ratings have improved as oil activity has decreased. Crash data reveal that crashes parallel oil production: as the number of active oil wells grew exponentially, so too did crashes – even when factoring for changes in vehicle miles traveled and population growth. Economic factors, such as the price of a barrel of oil, may be linked to the prevalence of crashes, especially those involving large trucks.


The nervous system of hydra consists of a nerve net that extends throughout the animal. Because of the tissue dynamics of hydra, the nerve net is in a steady state of production and loss of neurons. Neurons are continuously produced in the body column and are constantly lost by sloughing at the extremities and into developing buds. Consequently, every neuron is continuously displaced towards an extremity. A subset of the neurons of the nerve net, termed vasopressin- like-immunoreactive (VLI+) neurons, has been identified with an antiserum against vasopressin. This subset has a specific regional distribution in that it is found in the head, peduncle, and foot of an adult hydra. The VLI+ neurons in the head and peduncle are ganglion cells, while those in the foot include a newly described sensory cell. How is the regional distribution of the subset maintained when every neuron is continually changing location? Removal of the neuron precursors indicates the VLI+ neurons can arise by conversion from VLI- neurons of the body column. In the normal animal they probably arise by conversion as well as by differentiation. Conversion of VLI- to VLI+ neurons is due to a change in axial position, or region, instead of a maturation process.


The 30 Doradus (30 Dor) nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the brightest HII region in the Local Group and a prototype starburst similar to those found in high redshift galaxies. It is thus a stepping stone to understand the complex formation processes of stars in starburst regions across the Universe. Here, we have studied the formation history of massive stars in 30 Dor using masses and ages derived for 452 mainly OB stars from the spectroscopic VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey (VFTS). We find that stars of all ages and masses are scattered throughout 30 Dor. This is remarkable because it implies that massive stars either moved large distances or formed independently over the whole field of view in relative isolation. We find that both channels contribute to the 30 Dor massive star population. Massive star formation rapidly accelerated about 8 Myr ago, first forming stars in the field before giving birth to the stellar populations in NGC 2060 and NGC 2070. The R136 star cluster in NGC 2070 formed last and, since then, about 1 Myr ago, star formation seems to be diminished with some continuing in the surroundings of R136. Massive stars within a projected distance of 8 pc of R136 are not coeval but show an age range of up to 6 Myr. Our mass distributions are well populated up to 200 M⊙. The inferred IMF is shallower than a Salpeter-like IMF and appears to be the same across 30 Dor. By comparing our sample of stars to stellar models in the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, we find evidence for missing physics in the models above log L/L⊙ = 6 that is likely connected to enhanced wind mass loss for stars approaching the Eddington limit. Our work highlights the key information about the formation, evolution and final fates of massive stars encapsulated in the stellar content of 30 Dor, and sets a new benchmark for theories of massive star formation in giant molecular clouds.


Kurdistan is a semi-autonomous region of Iraq with proven reserves of 200 trillion cubic feet (5.7 trillion cubic meters) of natural gas and 45 million barrels of oil. While oil is currently being exported to world markets from Iraqi Kurdistan, providing the region with an important source of revenue, natural gas will likely be a key source of Kurdistan's revenues in the future. It remains an open question whether that wealth will be used to promote social and economic development and good governance or whether it will become a curse that affects the region's well-being. This research examines the internal and external dimensions of Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) natural resource geography. Internally, KRG has policies in place to develop its natural resources; therefore, this study analyzes the Kurdistan energy policy on natural gas, and the obstacles the KRG faces such as the deal and sharing of petroleum revenue which has caused issues between Kurdistan and Baghdad governments. Externally, the research examines energy relations between Kurdistan and powerful neighbors such as Turkey and Iran and also with actors in Europe that are keen to bring Kurdish gas supplies to market. Geopolitically, this research tests how Kurdistan's location and contingent sovereignty affects its ability to develop its resource base. The dissertation employs a case study method. The analysis is based primarily on interviews with key actors in Kurdistan, including politicians from different political parties, members of Kurdistan's parliament, Natural Resource Commission members, and representatives of international energy companies active in Kurdistan. The project also includes analysis of official statements of the political opposition's parties, publically available data, and news reports.


The Higher Education sector as a whole has come under increasing levels of public scrutiny over recent years, often critiqued in relation to sustainable funding strategies and levels of public funding. One response from Governments and HEIs is to consider institutional merger as a means of reducing the number of providers, whilst maintaining levels of access to and quality of higher education. This thesis seeks to review a merger case study – University of the West of Scotland (UWS) - created in 2007 following a merger of the 'University of Paisley' and 'Bell College of Higher Education' creating Scotland's largest modern (post-1992) university with over 20,000 students and around 2,500 staff. Whilst many organisational mergers are referenced as failures (eg, Epstein 2005) or presented as cases whereby success cannot be reliably measured for around 10 years post-merger (eg, Mao et al 2009), in 2010 the UWS merger was lauded a success by the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council. This study seeks to ascertain what were the key factors in the merger process that resulted in this successful outcome. A literature review is provided, followed by a research methodology that includes document analysis, in-depth focussed interviews and focus groups. Document analysis is considered fundamental to gaining a thorough understanding of the vision, intended outcome of the merger and the strategic approach the institution took to deliver a successful merger. In-depth focussed interviews with senior staff of the University explore key themes identified from the literature review and resultant conceptual framework, this will be supplemented by focus groups with a number of academic and support staff to ensure representation of staff views cutting across the layers of the organisation. The qualitative data extracted via these methods inform the findings and conclusions of the study. This study is expected to be of particular interest to scholars, practitioners and policy makers in the higher education arena.


Clinicians spend a significant amount of time inputting free-form textual notes into Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems. Much of this documentation work is seen as a burden, reducing time spent with patients and contributing to clinician burnout. With the aspiration of AI-assisted note-writing, we propose a new language modeling task predicting the content of notes conditioned on past data from a patient's medical record, including patient demographics, labs, medications, and past notes. We train generative models using the public, de-identified MIMIC-III dataset and compare generated notes with those in the dataset on multiple measures. We find that much of the content can be predicted, and that many common templates found in notes can be learned. We discuss how such models can be useful in supporting assistive note-writing features such as error-detection and auto-complete.


Triangulation of a domain is a discretization process in which a selection of triples pertaining to one of the various possible collections of three distinct elements of a set within the domain is found such that every triple can be used as a triangular facet to model that domain. The ideal triangulation process should render a domain decomposition into a triangular grid which should be simple to generate, comfortable to use and computationally efficient. To select a triangular grid exhibiting these properties is far from being an easy task. In short, what is sought of in this problem is a triangulation schemme which may lead to Delaunay triangles. In the present paper a computerized triangulation method accomplished through three refinement phases is resented. During the first phase the set is pre-processed to organize the candidate triples. In the second phase an initial temptative triangular grid is formed. Finally, this temptative grid is
automatically refined by optimizing the triangular facets so that each triangle exhibits the greatest minimum internal angle. This innovative algorithm. although based on well known ideas. can be used advantegeously to discretize 2D convex and non-convex sets and also 3D smooth surfaces for any given set of discrete surface.


Background Knee osteoarthritis (OA) causes long-term pain and few medical remedies effectively influence the course of the disease. Our previous work demonstrated that Tai Chi can improve both physical and psychological health among patients with chronic pain conditions (1). Objectives This study is the first randomized, single-blind trial of Tai Chi versus a standard Physical Therapy regimen for patients with symptomatic and radiographic Knee OA. Methods In this study, adults ≥40 years of age satisfying American College of Rheumatology criteria for Knee OA were randomized to 12 weeks of Tai Chi (2x/week) using classical Yang style or to a standard Physical Therapy regimen (2x/week for 6 weeks, followed by 6 weeks of rigorously monitored home exercise). The study physician and outcomes assessments were blinded to treatment allocation. The primary outcome was change in pain measured by the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities (WOMAC) subscale at 12 weeks. Secondary outcomes included change in WOMAC function domain scores, patient global assessment (VAS, 0-10 cm), depression (Beck II), chronic pain self-efficacy (0-10), 20 meter walk test (sec) and 6 min walk test (meters), and quality of life (SF-36, 0-100), at 12, 24 and 52 weeks. Both groups were compared using an intent-to-treat analysis. Results 204 adults were randomized: 106 to Tai Chi and 98 to Physical Therapy. The mean age of participants was 60 y (SD 10.5), mean disease duration 8 y (SD 10.1), mean BMI, 33 kg/m2 (SD 7.2), 70% were female, and 53% were white. There were no significant differences in baseline characteristics between treatment groups. Participants' baseline expectations of benefit from an exercise intervention were similar between the groups [Tai Chi =4.0 (SD 0.8), Physical Therapy =4.1 (SD 0.7)]. At 12 weeks, WOMAC pain scores declined by 167 points (95% CI: 144, 190) in the Tai Chi group and by 143 points (95% CI: 119, 167) in the Physical Therapy group. Though both groups improved significantly, there was no significant difference between groups in WOMAC pain improvement (p=0.16). Most outcomes (WOMAC pain and function, patient global assessment, self-efficacy, 20 meter and 6 minute walk tests and SF-36 Physical Component Summary) demonstrated sustained improvement in both treatment groups at 12 weeks. A significantly greater improvement in the Tai Chi group was found in the SF-36 Physical Component Summary (3.2; 95% CI: 0.8, 5.5) and the Beck depression score (2.7; 95% CI, 0.7, 4.8). No significant differences between groups were found for other outcomes at 12 weeks. No serious adverse events were observed. Conclusions Tai Chi was as effective as standard Physical Therapy in reducing pain and improving physiological and psychological functioning of participants with knee OA with a similar safety profile. References Wang C, Iversen MD, McAlindon T, et al. Assessing the comparative effectiveness of Tai Chi versus physical therapy for knee osteoarthritis: design and rationale for a randomized trial. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2014 Sep 8;14:333. doi: 10.1186/1472-6882-14-333. PubMed PMID: 25199526. Acknowledgements Supported by R01 AT005521 from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health. Disclosure of Interest None declared


In recent years, dramatic developments in genetics research have begun to transform not only the practice of medicine but also conceptions of the social world. In the media, in popular culture, and in everyday conversation, Americans routinely link genetics to individual behavior and social outcomes. On the other hand, social researchers contend that biological definitions of race have lost ground in the United States over the last 50 years. At the crossroads of two trends—on one hand, the post-World War II recoil from biological accounts of racial difference, and on the other, the growing admiration for the advances of genetic science—the American public's conception of race is a phenomenon that merits greater attention from sociologists than it has received to date. However, survey data on racial attitudes has proven to be significantly affected by social desirability bias. While a number of studies have attempted to measure social desirability bias with regard to racial attitudes, most have focused on racial policy preferences rather than genetic accounts of racial inequality. We employ a list experiment to create an unobtrusive measure of support for a biologistic understanding of racial inequality. We show that one in five non-black Americans attribute income inequality between black and white people to unspecified genetic differences between the two groups. We also find that this number is substantially underestimated when using a direct question. The magnitude of social desirability effects varies, and is most pronounced among women, older people, and the highly-educated.


Objective:To analyze various business models for improving the diagnosis and treatment of familial hypercholesterolaemia. Methods:Five different strategies were analyzed and data were collected through documentary analysis and structured interviews. Interviewees included professionals from universities, Western Australia Department of Health, private medical practitioners and not-for-profit organizations. Results:Two business models are recommended: alliance with general practitioners and primary health care organizations and a joint venture model between private cardiology clinics and lipid disorder clinics in the public sector. Primary care providers are in a good position to co-ordinate across the multi-disciplinary health services required to treat familial hypercholesterolaemia within the population. Conclusions:Devolution of knowledge on treatment of familial hypercholesterolaemia from centralized specialist hospital clinics to primary care services is required to improve the rate of detection of this condition in the community. An International Classification of Disease (ICD)-10 and/or a Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG) code is required to codify, catalogue and document new cases and treatment, as well as to facilitate research and re-imbursement strategies. Primary Health Care Organizations can usefully facilitate the transfer of knowledge on best standard of care to general practice, but the best model of care will require close integration of care with specialist and academic centres.


The issue of irregular migration is experiencing heightened attention in political, social and legal arenas. While deterrence and crime-control discourse and practices dominate current approaches to irregular migration, this article seeks to focus on the problematic neglect of the treatment of irregular migrants in destination countries, in relation to their ability to access fundamental rights and basic public services. This article will put forth an argument for the establishment of firewalls – a separation between immigration enforcement activities and public service provision. This article will canvass existing trends and practices that have both contributed to the erosion of firewall protections, and have built and maintained meaningful firewalls between immigration and public service provision.


It has been repeatedly shown in the literature that deaf children display a higher percentage of visual abnormalities than normal children. The deaf child relies more on other sensory modalities to gather information since hearing has been compromised. Vision may play a major role in this reliance. The need for a comprehensive visual examination cannot be overestimated. Many of the testing sequences found in the literature do not thoroughly explore the visual system. It is important to evaluate all areas of visual functioning to insure that the childs vision is capable of information gathering.


During the execution of the project Floating Automotive Data Collection (FADC), various traffic conditions were recorded using in-vehicle measurements. A series of reference measurements were performed on a fixed route in Belgium in real traffic circumstances, including motorway, rural and city traffic. Three vehicles were used for the reference measurements: a passenger car, a delivery van, and a delivery truck. An on-board device recorded vehicle speed and GPS position on second-basis. The resuiting speed profiles were used as input in the vehicle emission simulation program VeTESS to estimate fuel consumption and emissions of certain vehicles driving according to these speed profiles. Goal of these calculations was to quantify the effect of preventing traffic jams. From the simulations it was concluded that a reduction in average speed, does not necessarily lead to higher fuel consumption. Actually when average speed is reduced from speeds above 100km/h down to 80 or 60km/h, fuel consumption can even be expected to decrease. Of course traffic jams are more about low average speeds. The simulations showed that when average speed drops below 30 or 40km/h, fuel consumption increases significantly. Emissions of NOx, CO and HC also increase in this case. So concerning fuel consumption and emissions it is I indeed worth the effort to prevent traffic jams and slow traffic and to improve the traffic flow. The role of traffic jam detection is very important to take measures to improve the traffic flow and this way save fuel and reduce emissions.


This document provides a discussion of the technical progress on DOE/PETC project number DE-AC22-92PC91338, {open_quotes}High Efficiency SO{sub 2} Removal Testing{close_quotes}, for the time period 1 October through 31 December 1994. The project involves testing at six full-scale utility flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems, to evaluate low-capital cost upgrades that may allow these systems to achieve up to 98% SO{sub 2} removal efficiency. The upgrades to be evaluated primAllily involve using additives in the FGD systems. The {open_quotes}base{close_quotes} project involved testing at the Tampa Electric Company Big Bend station. AR five potential options to the base program have been exercised by DOE, involving testing at the Hoosier Energy Merom Station (Option I), the Southwestern Electric Power Company Pirkey Station (Option II), the PSI Energy Gibson Station (Option III), the Duquesne Light Elrama Station (Option IV), and the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation (NYSEG) Kintigh Station (Option V). By the beginning of the fourth quarter of 1994, testing had been completed for the base project and for all options. The remainder of this document is divided into four sections. Section 2, Project Summary, provides a brief overview of the status of technical efforts on this project. Section 3, Results, summarizesmore » the outcome from these technical efforts during the quarter. In Section 4, Plans for the Next Reporting Period, an overview is provided of the technical efforts that are anticipated for the first quarter of calendar year 1995. Section 5 contains a brief acknowledgement.« less


It seems self-evident that life for teachers would be simplified if there existed a large corpus of relevant resources that was available for them to reuse and for inquisitive students to download. The learning object community has worked for the past decade and more to provide the necessary infrastructure, standards, and specifications to facilitate such beneficial activity, but the take-up has been disappointingly small, particularly in University and Higher Education, which is the subject of this research. The problem has been that practitioners have not deposited their teaching resources, or have not made them openly available, in the quantity that would achieve critical mass for uptake. EdShare and the Language Box are two initiatives that have concentrated on the issue of facilitating and improving the practice of sharing, the former in an institutional setting and the latter in a subject community of practice. This paper describes and analyzes the motivations for these projects, the design decisions they took in implementing their repositories, the approaches they took to change agency and practice within their communities, and the changes, in practice, that have so far been observed. The contribution of this paper is an improved understanding of how to encourage educational communities to share.


Parasitic infection during pregnancy is a major cause of anaemia in Africa. Social and environmental risk factors for the transmission of human parasites vary according to geographical location. Knowledge of the geographical distribution of parasitic helminths and malaria parasites is key to any interventional programme. Thus, in August-November 2005, a hospital-based study was conducted on 300 pregnant women at their first attendance to antenatal health care. This was to determine the distribution of helminth/Plasmodium infections among pregnant women in the Kassena-Nankana District of Northern Ghana. Stool specimens were examined by the concentration method whilst blood specimens were examined microscopically. The district was divided into three micro-ecological zones; the irrigated-rural area, the non-irrigated-rural area and the township. The participants were allocated to a zone according to their place of residence. Prevalence of intestinal helminths in gravid women from the irrigated-rural area was 41.2% (28/68), followed by the non-irrigated area of 15.64% (28/178) and then the township of 11.32% (6/53). There was a significant difference in the prevalence of intestinal helminths by micro-ecological zone (p=0.0001, X²=23.02), and in the prevalence of Plasmodium by micro-ecological zone (p=0.0001, X²=42.30). The prevalence of Plasmodium infection in irrigated- rural area was 80.9% (55/68) , followed by the non-irrigated area of 60.7% (108/178) and the township of 22.64% (12/53). Out of the total 62 women infected with the intestinal helminths, 67.7% (42/62) were also co-infected with the Plasmodium parasite. The participant's age had no significant association with intestinal helminth infestation or Plasmodiuminfection. Knowledge of the geographical distribution of intestinal helminths and malaria infection in this district will assist public health policy formulation and direction of health promotion activities. The high prevalence of parasites found in pregnant women from rural-irrigated areas requires interventions to reduce transmission of malaria and intestinal helminths.

 Key words: Plasmodium, Intestinal helminths, pregnant women.


The paper examines three equity-based structural models to study the nonlinear relationship between equity and credit default swap (CDS) prices. These models differ in the specification of the default barrier. With cross-firm CDS premia and equity information, we are able to estimate and compare the three models. We find that the stochastic barrier model performs better than the constant and uncertain barrier models in terms of both in-sample fit and out-of-sample forecasting of CDS premia. In addition, we demonstrate a linkage between the default barrier, jump intensity, and barrier volatility estimated from our models and firm-specific variables related to default risk, such as credit ratings, equity volatility, and leverage ratios.


Abstract Objective. To assess the usefulness of a community-based mailed survey to identify participants with functional dyspepsia (FD) for a clinical trial. Material and methods. In 2008, a valid self-report questionnaire of gastrointestinal symptoms required for diagnosis of FD was mailed to randomly selected cohorts of Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents. From survey responses (54%), FD cases and controls were identified. Phone calls were completed in 2010 and 2011 to 54% of respondents offering participation to those meeting criteria. Results. Of 937 people identified from the survey, 189 cases and 265 controls were contacted by phone using four questions similar to the written survey resulting in a moderate level of agreement (Kappa 0.43, 95% CI: 0.35– 0.51; p = 0.11). The proportion reporting FD symptoms by survey was 42%, while the proportion by phone was 38%. Comparing classification of cases and controls, 118 (62%) survey cases had dyspepsia symptoms on phone screening while 53 (20%) of the survey controls reported FD symptoms. Of 171 who had symptoms, 60 (35%) declined, 33 (19%) were over study age limit, 24 (14%) had inadequate symptom levels and 36 (21%) had comorbidities. Of survey respondents contacted, six (3%) people were enrolled with two screen fails resulting in four (1%) randomized. Conclusion. Agreement between survey and phone questions was modest. Classifications between case and control changed. People eligible and willing to participate were a fraction of people reporting symptoms. People participating in clinical trials do not broadly represent those in the population.


The paper explores a number of issues related to lot size and urban density. First, trends in single-family residential lot size over the past 35 years are examined in eight counties in the state of Maryland. We find that there was a trend toward larger lot sizes in many suburban counties in the mid to late 1990s, and that there has been a general flattening of the density gradient in urban areas over the last few decades. We then examine the extent to which lot size is being constrained by regulation by comparing actual subdivision density to the allowable density under zoning rules. This analysis is done for three counties with different degrees of suburbanization. We find that only in the areas with the very large lot zoning does zoning seem to be constraining actual lots size. There is a good deal of excess capacity in the density that could be built, especially in the more densely zoned areas. Finally, recognizing that households have preferences for lot size and other housing characteristics, we provide some evidence about the strength of household preferences over lot size and their willingness to trade off lot size for other characteristics.


Background Iatrogenic long QT syndrome is an adverse effect commonly described in psychiatry. Purpose To correlate real observations from clinical practice with the predictions. Materials and methods A prospective study was performed analysing patients admitted to the psychiatric ward over two months. Exclusion criteria were: patients suffering from cardiopathy, hypokalaemia, and/or patients not participating in the treatment. The following data were collected: age, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking habits, QTC interval in the ECG when admitted, and prescriptions of psychoactive and non-psychoactive drugs. Each drug prescribed was given a score established for the purpose, based on the four groups provided by an updated table (www.qtdrugs.com). QTC segment in the ECG not affected (0 points), conditional risk existed (1 point), with chances of appearance (2 points), with high risk of appearance (3 points). The QT interval was considered short <430 ms, borderline 430–460 ms, or long >460 ms. Results 64 patients (50% women) with an average age of 51.53 years (SD = 17.7), 31% smokers and with average BMIs of 26.8. The patients had an average of 3.18 prescriptions of psychoactive drugs, 43% of which were described in the literature as possibly causing a change in the QT interval. 78% of patients had a short QT interval and average scores of 2.66 points (SD = 1.68). 15% showed a borderline QT with an average of 1.8 points (SD = 1.47), and 7% of them had a long QT, reaching averages of 1.25 (SD = 1.5). Conclusions A high percentage of patients were treated with drugs that, theoretically, could increase the QT interval. However, we did not find a correlation between real and predicted values. No conflict of interest.


This paper considers a smart grid cyber-security problem analyzing the vulnerabilities of electric power networks to false data attacks. The analysis problem is related to a constrained cardinality minimization problem. The main result shows that an relaxation technique provides an exact optimal solution to this cardinality minimization problem. The proposed result is based on a polyhedral combinatorics argument. It is different from well-known results based on mutual coherence and restricted isometry property. The results are illustrated on benchmarks including the IEEE 118-bus, IEEE 300-bus, and the Polish 2383-bus and 2736-bus systems.


This research project is an experimental study of decision-making in very difficult contexts resembling those encountered in financial markets. The starting point was the empirical observation that financial assets are objects of a very complex kind. Specifically, financial assets generate rewards in an unpredictable way (stochastic processes), and they jump regularly (unstable processes). What's more, they are covert: finance practitioners lack information about their nature, and may well be unable to uncover it. After all, can humans really learn the nature of unstable stochastic processes? To address this question, I designed an investment task, the "Boardgame," characterized by assets – in the form of locations displayed on a board – which are, like the financial assets in the real world, unpredictable, unstable, and (initially) unknown. Specifically, the game consists of choosing between six locations of initially unknown probability of winning or losing. Each trial, the player selects one location and immediately receives the outcome returned by the chosen location (a reward, a loss, or 0 CHF). She accumulates gains and losses throughout the game, with the goal of maximizing the cumulative earnings. One essential characteristic of the Boardgame is that outcome probabilities – at all locations – jump regularly. An ideal player accounts for jump occurrence and re-learns outcome probabilities once a jump has occurred. Such two-stage mental process – consisting of jump detection and subsequent reappraisal of the probabilities – is extremely demanding. I invited 62 subjects – all undergraduate or graduate students at the EPFL – to play the Boardgame during 30 minutes, and recorded their action in each trial (namely, which location they chose). From their choices, I attempted to infer the nature of their learning in the game. To do so, I followed an inter-disciplinary approach, at the intersection of economics, machine learning, and neurobiology. I first formalized normative learning in the game (how ideal players learn), as well as bounded rational learning (how adaptive – intelligent – agents, albeit of limited cognitive capabilities, are expected to learn). I then examined whether my subjects did a good job of learning in the Boardgame, by comparing the fits of the normative and bounded rational models. I eventually studied the neural implementation of the behavior at work. It appears that for the majority of my subjects, the normative learning model did a much better job of explaining actual behavior than the alternative, bounded rational model. In other words, subjects were apt at learning the outcome probabilities of the locations, despite the difficulty of the enterprise. This suggests that people may be better fit to cope with the instability of financial markets than previously thought. Beyond being of interest for the finance field, this result has actually a broader scope. For it demonstrates the human ability to adapt behavior to suit an uncertain changing environment. This cognitive flexibility, which some eminent neuroscientists have been taken to be the most relevant definition of human intelligence, is essential in many domains beyond the one studied here (reward learning) – in particular, the same neuroscientists have suggested that it is chief in contexts of social interaction. The finding that my subjects were very good at learning the nature of the locations is also important from an epistemological point of view. For one message drawn from this study is that people can be very sophisticated in the face of very complex problems. This message should prompt a reevaluation of the scope of the dominant paradigm in decision making – namely, the limited cognition paradigm. The limited cognition paradigm has led either to a hyperemphasis on cognitive biases as sources of human mistakes (irrationality), or to the idea that complexity in a cognitive task precludes the emergence of optimal behavior (bounded rationality). In contrast, the present work highlights human adaptation, and further suggests that complexity is not necessarily an obstacle for full rationality to emerge. One reason that my subjects could fare so well in my complex task is that the human brain is fit to cope with the Boardgame, which is reminiscent of the living conditions of the early man. For Homo has long had to deal with an uncertain unstable environment. As a result, the hominoid brain was geared to cope with instability. The finding that optimal behavior prevailed in my experiment prompted me to flesh out the neural implementation of this behavior. In the final stage of this project, I conjectured a neural system that is fit to cope with unforeseen and ever-changing conditions. I attempted to describe this neural system rigorously, in the vein of a recent computational trend in decision neuroscience. This computational approach aims to reveal the neural substrates of subjective states that the behavioral models purport to estimate – e.g., how much reward a subject expected on each trial, how much surprise a subject experienced on each trial, how much uncertainty a subject perceived in her environment on each trial. Likewise, I estimated subjective variables that are essential to implement the optimal Bayesian rule in my task. In particular, I estimated how much credit a subject assigned to the belief that a jump occurred on each trial. This estimation enabled me to make precise predictions as to the neural mechanisms involved in the Boardgame. The incoming step shall be to put these predictions to a test in an imaging study of the Boardgame. As such, the present research has laid the basis for a larger research program to be pursued. It is hoped that it shows the utility of bringing the modeling tools from economics to bear on neurobiological questions. I think that such scientific exchanges carry the possibility of insights useful to build an adequate model of individual decision-making.


This paper reviews the geodynamic evolution of the Belledonne, Grandes Rousses and Oisans massifs in the western Alps from Early Ordovician to Permian times. Three domains are distinguished. The eastern domain, which includes the NE Belledonne massif and the inner Oisans massif, records the subduction of the Central-European ocean along a NW dipping subduction zone. The western domain is marked by Cambro-Ordovician back-arc rifting (Chamrousse ophiolite) initiating the opening of the Rheic ocean. It was followed by Mid-Devonian obduction of the back-arc Chamrousse ophiolite, towards the NW in relation with the SE dipping subduction of the Saxo-Thuringian ocean. The central domain, including the SW part of the Belledonne massif, the Grandes Rousses massif and the outer Oisans massif, records the Devonian to Carboniferous orogenic activity that produced calc-alkaline magmatism, Mg-K granite intrusions and syn-collisional sedimentation related to Visean nappe stacking that we relate to the closure of the Saxo-Thuringian ocean. Based on tectonostratigraphic correlations we propose that these domains initially correspond to the northeastward extension of the Bohemian massif. During the late Carboniferous, the External Crystalline Massifs including Sardinia and Corsica were stretched towards the SW along the > 600 km long dextral External Crystalline Massifs shear zone. Offset of the Saxo-Thuringian and eo-Variscan suture zones from the Bohemian massif to the ECM suggests a possible dextral displacement of about 300 km along the ECM shear zone.


Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is being deployed increasingly in diverse applications and has become pervasive and ubiquitous. While the characteristics of RFID make recognition possible without physical contact, it also has many problems pertaining to privacy and security. This has led to slow adaptation of RFID technology for large number of applications. Moreover, any approach without addressing the crucial factors like, scalability, flexibility, cost, performance, computational resources and ease of use is not acceptable for deploying the RFID technology. This project provides an introduction to RFID technology and the privacy and security threats it faces. It reviews recently proposed RFID authentication techniques, and presents an FPGA-based RFID tag with a secure authentication protocol between the tag and reader, addressing all RFID security issues and threats including forward secrecy, eavesdropping, tracking, cloning, replay attack and denial of service attack. The project explores RFID authentication protocol using the Altera's Nios II embedded processor that provides a flexible exploration environment.


Learning nonlinear dynamics from aggregate data is a challenging problem because the full trajectory of each individual is not available, namely, the individual observed at one time may not be observed at the next time point, or the identity of individual is unavailable. This is in sharp contrast to learning dynamics with full trajectory data, on which the majority of existing methods are based. We propose a novel method using the weak form of Fokker Planck Equation (FPE) -- a partial differential equation -- to describe the density evolution of data in a sampled form, which is then combined with Wasserstein generative adversarial network (WGAN) in the training process. In such a sample-based framework we are able to learn the nonlinear dynamics from aggregate data without explicitly solving the partial differential equation (PDE) FPE. We demonstrate our approach in the context of a series of synthetic and real-world data sets.


This is a tribute to all of you, the elders, who served
CMFRI in various capacities in the past 60 years to make
this institution a standing testimony to the devotion and
dedication of the numerous scientists, technical and administrative staff who made this institution stand apart Mohan Joseph Modayil
and shine amidst the best marine fisheries institutions in the world. Hats
off to each one of you for what you have done for CMFRI, the fruits of
which are here to stay. My personal gratitude to all of you for all the
support and encouragement you have been giving me in the past seven
years and I will always cherish the time I spent in CMFRI, contributing
my small mite to the development of this premier institution. I had requested
several of our former colleagues to write a few words about their memories
in CMFRI. Many responded promptly, a few thought it was not worth
writing. I thank you all for putting in so few words so much of feelings
and emotions which truly reflect what CMFRI means to each one of you.
And let me assure you all that each one of you mean so much for each one
of us passing through the corridors of this great institution, reminding us
that there are miles to go before we sleep, miles to go before we sleep. Thank
you all.


SOCI 1050. Sociology Focus. (3 Credits) Sociologists are concerned with the production of personal identity through cultural practices. In the contemporary Western context, we imagine ourselves to be individuals who are free to invent and reinvent ourselves — to "be all we can be." This ideology of self-invention, and the related value of self-reliance, have profound implications for how we live our lives, and for how we understand the lives of others. Students will investigate questions of agency and interdependence through critical readings of the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Helen Keller and others. Key sociological frameworks of analysis will be drawn from the work of George Herbert Mead, C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault, and Nikolas Rose. Selected readings from critical disabilities studies (e.g. Robert McRuer and Rosemary Garland Thomson) will also inform course discussions. Attributes: FRSS, SSCI.


Moving magnetic features (MMFs) are small magnetic elements moving almost radially away from sunspots toward the boundary of moat regions. They are mostly seen during the decay phase of a sunspot. Here we present a high-resolution observation of MMFs around a sunspot in NOAA AR 12565 on 2016 July 14 using the the 1.6 m Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at Big Bear Solar Observatory. The spectropolarimetric measurements of photospheric magnetic field are obtained from GST's newly commissioned Near Infra-Red Imaging Spectropolarimeter at the Fe i 1.56 μm line. The statistical study of physical properties of identified fine-scale MMFs (i.e., size, lifetime, inclination, horizontal velocity, and flux) is presented. The origin of the minority polarity flux in the sunspot is determined. Same as the majority polarity flux, the minority polarity flux can originate from mid-penumbra with highly inclined fields. The role of MMFs in both polarities in the flux evolution of the sunspot is speculated, as they can both contribute to the sunspot evolution.


This paper reports the results of a recent study funded by the AHRC into the current provision of multisensory stimulation for people with dementia living in care homes, in particular the design of multisensory spaces - often referred to as 'Sensory Rooms' or 'Multisensory Environments' (MSEs). The investigation aimed to establish new knowledge from which coherent, user-centred design solutions supporting improved dementia care could be developed.
Previous research has shown that the use of Sensory Rooms in dementia care has beneficial effects as a resource for meaningful engagement and they are established in many UK care homes. However, evidence suggests that they often fail to benefit the people with dementia resulting in staff becoming discouraged, perceiving the space of little value, and subsequently becoming unused. Sixteen care homes with some type of sensory space were recruited for a study. Data were collected using ethnographic methods including semi structured interviews with 32 care home staff and observations were made from the perspective of the person with dementia. Results suggested that existing Sensory Rooms had inadequate design, inappropriate set-up and poor facilitation by staff. A focus group workshop was conducted further exploring design and methods of multisensory stimulation with staff from 4 care homes.
Based on these results, design criteria and recommendations were identified that can potentially improve accessibility for people with dementia, and published in a Guide book "How to make a Sensory Room for people living with dementia" (accessible online ). The Guide is a tool for health care practitioners, care home staff and carers enabling them to create a sensory environment that is appropriate for residents with dementia and their families.


The number of potential job candidates, and therefore costs associated to their hiring, has grown significantly in the recent years. This is mainly due to both the complicated situation of the labor market and the increased geographical flexibility of employees. Some initiatives for making the e-Recruitment processes more efficient have notably improved the situation by developing automatic solutions. But there are still some challenges that remain open since traditional solutions do not consider semantic relations properly. This problem can be appropriately addressed by means of a sub discipline of knowledge management called semantic processing. Therefore, we overview the major techniques from this field that can play a key role in the design of a novel business model that is more attractive for job applicants and job providers.


In microwave applications, specific high performance packages have to be designed in order to reduce parasitic reflections, coupling effect... In this paper, the design of a package for microwave applications up to 12 GHz is presented. From the geometry of different leads and dielectric properties, an electromagnetic simulator is used to derive propagation characteristics. Results are discussed in terms of signal degradation, coupling and cross talk. Our analysis points out the stronger limitation of performance due to curved leads especially for high frequencies. The influence of the connection layout in the signal degradation for a transmission through the package and the cross coupling between leads are analyzed.


Stator current signature analysis on induction motors is a proven method for diagnosing rotor squirrel cage winding defects and air gap eccentricity problems. With this technology, specific frequency current components can be identified as an indication of cage winding defects as well as a non-uniform gap between the stator and rotor. Because this data is generally collected periodically, it is important to identify these components as early as possible. These trendable parameters can then be monitored more often to avoid inservice failure. With the application of new processing technologies, the ability to identify these critical current signature frequency components and trend the deterioration they indicate has improved. This allows for maintenance activities to be scheduled earlier and performed prior to failure avoiding costly motor component damage and unplanned downtime.


Abstract Objective: To study the transfer of parenteral iron sucrose into maternal milk in the postpartum period. Study design: Ten healthy lactating mothers with functional iron deficiency 2–3 days after delivery received 100 mg intravenous iron sucrose and were observed together with a control group (n=5) without iron treatment during four days. Milk samples were taken before the treatment and every day afterwards. Results: Mean milk iron levels at baseline were 0.43 and 0.46 mg/kg in the treatment and control group and decreased until the end of observation in both groups by 0.11 mg/kg. No significant difference between the groups was found on any study day as well as in the mean change from baseline over all four days. Conclusion: We could not show transfer of iron-sucorose into maternal milk for the given dosage. Since parenteral iron sucrose is widely used in obstetrics, the results provide information about safety of parenteral iron sucrose in the lactation period. The findings are also in agreement with other reports on active biological mammary gland regulation of milk iron concentration.


Although the scholarship on social capital and immigrant economic incorporation has sufficiently documented how immigrants mobilize social capital in their search for employment which often leads to the formation of immigrant niches, how social capital is processed after immigrants acquire employment and its significance for the preservation of immigrant employment niches is less well explored. This paper addresses this gap in the literature with a case study of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers in the New York metropolitan area. In particular, this study shows how a group of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers mobilized social capital via embeddedness in co-ethnic social networks and improved their working conditions – a process that must be considered in explanations of the Punjabi niche in the taxi industry for more than two decades. The study has implications for the relationship between social capital and the structure of the workplace or industry where immigrants are incorporated and its subsequent impact on immigrant economic trajectories. Further, this study contributes to the debate on the usefulness of ethnic communities for the adaptation of immigrant groups. Additionally, this research is relevant to the scholarship on the economic adaptation of South Asian (a subset of Asian Americans) immigrants, an understudied immigrant group in the United States.


Foreword: The Department of Health (DH) asked the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE or the Institute) to produce guidance on brief interventions and referrals to specialist services to help people who smoke to stop, in particular, pregnant women and people from disadvantaged groups. It asked the Institute to look at the most effective ways that professionals, both within and outside the NHS in England, can achieve this. The Public Health Interventions Advisory Committee (PHIAC) considered both a review of the evidence and an economic appraisal before developing these recommendations. This guidance only examines brief smoking cessation interventions. Although important, these must be seen in the context of a rapidly changing environment. Publication of the tobacco white paper 'Smoking kills[1]' set out a comprehensive tobacco control policy for the UK that has seen increased spending on mass media anti-smoking campaigns, a ban on tobacco advertising and promotion, more prominent health warnings and wider access to stop smoking services and treatments. In addition, the public health white paper, 'Choosing health[2]' confirmed that all NHS premises and government departments would be smoke-free from the end of 2006. It also paved the way for legislation for a ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces in England by summer 2007. In light of these changes, the effectiveness of brief interventions should be revisited. In addition, it will be crucial to monitor the impact of this guidance to determine if it is likely to narrow health inequalities or, at least, to ensure that it does not widen them. The impact of wider policy and practice on smoking cessation is already being examined by the Smoking Cessation Programme Development Group at NICE. Coupled with this guidance on brief interventions, it will provide both practitioners and policy makers with a comprehensive evidence-based approach to delivering smoking cessation services in England.