The effects of the application of wood ash and of fertilizer regimes including phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), with and without simultaneous addition of nitrogen (N), were investigated on a stand of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) saplings growing on a drained oligotrophic peatland site in southern Sweden. A randomized block design was used. Tree growth and concentrations of various elements in the needles were measured. The addition of similar doses of P (approx. 40 kg P ha –1 ) from different sources resulted in similar growth responses, amounting to 1.6–1.9 m 3 ha –1 yr –1 of stem wood over the 26-year study. The P source was either wood ash (2500 kg d.w. ha –1 ) or PK-fertilizer (raw phosphate and potassium chloride). In response to several treatments there were both increased numbers of trees and increased growth of individual trees. The high PK-dose (40 kg P ha –1 and 80 kg K ha –1 ) appeared to result in a larger growth increase than the low dose (20 kg P ha –1 and 40 kg K ha –1 ). The N treatment had no additional effect on growth. In the control plots, tree growth was more or less negligible (0.04 m 3 ha –1 yr –1 ). After almost 26 years, concentrations of P and K in the needles of treated plants were still higher than in the untreated control plants. Nevertheless, in spite of the elevated P concentration, P appears to limit the growth of Scots pine. In conclusion, after sufficient drainage of this type of peatland site, it is possible for a forest stand to develop to the pole stage if wood ash or PK-fertilizer is applied.


Lane departure warning system (LDWS) has significant potential to reduce crashes on roads. Most existing commercial LDWSs use image processing techniques with or without Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and/or high-resolution digital maps to detect unintentional lane departures. However, the performance of such systems is compromised in unfavourable weather or road conditions e.g., fog, snow, or irregular road markings. Previously, the authors proposed and developed an LDWS using a standard GPS receiver without any high-resolution digital maps. The previously developed LDWS relies on a road reference heading (RRH) of a given road extracted from an open-source low-resolution mapping database to detect an unintentional lane departure. This method can detect true lane departures accurately but occasionally gives false alarms i.e., it issues lane departure warnings even if a vehicle is within its lane. The false alarms occur due to the inaccuracy of RRH originated from inherent lateral error in open-source low-resolution maps. To overcome this problem, now authors propose a novel algorithm to generate an accurate RRH for a given road using a vehicle's past trajectories on that road. The newly proposed algorithm to generate an accurate RRH for any given road has been integrated with the previously developed LDWS and extensively evaluated in the field to detect unintentional lane departures. The field test results show that the newly developed RRH generation algorithm significantly improves the performance of the previously developed LDWS by accurately detecting all true lane departures while practically reducing the frequency of false alarms to zero.


This volume, titled ?Africa?s Growing Role in World Politics,? includes a selection of papers dedicated to the problems of the contemporary international relations and foreign policies of the African states. Most of these papers were presented at the panels, held within the framework of the 13th International Conference of Africanists ?Society and Politics in Africa: Traditional, Transitional and New? (Moscow, Russia, May 27?30, 2014). The book contains many articles devoted to the Western countries? policies in Africa. On the background of the ongoing competition between Washington and Beijing, the US Administration has recently increased the amount of attention it pays to the continent. European Union is also actively developing its strategic partnership with Africa. The authors analyze thoroughly the ongoing cooperation between African states and a great ?emerging donor? and investor ? China. They particularly address the question about possible implications of China?s African policy for the countries of the continent. Major attention is given to Sudan and South Sudan. One of the urgent problems addressed by this book is the situation with African IDPs and refugees, their life conditions in camps and the measures for their transition to normal life.


What is concrete? Loved and loathed in equal measure, this building material, as soon as we try to define it, to specify it, to describe it, becomes, well, not very concrete at all, but rather fluid and surprisingly abstract! Concrete is a material which has been going through an interesting intellectual and practical renaissance in recent years, in no small part driven by the convergence of several different kinds of technology-driven manufacturing changes - ranging from computer aided manufacturing of formworks, to photograph etching, to engineering software, to nano- and bio-chemistry to 3D printing - which have opened up new worlds of realizable, expressive and performance optimised form. The demands posed by anthropogenic climate change, energy use, resource scarcity, and the environmental question more generally, have equally transformed the technologies and industries that are now feeding into developments in this material. On its own though, that is not enough to understand the revival in interest. In this paper I will argue that there are indeed profound relationships between capital, modernity and concrete. However, I will suggest that in order to really start to grasp these relations, we will need to explore some ways of thinking about concrete that have not been developed so far within the recent literature on the material. Notably I will develop an ecological approach to thinking about what concrete is, and in so doing redefine this material as a particular form of mud, or mudcrete: a material which is deployed by both human and non-human builders. I will note the ecological energetics and extended materialities of mudcrete, and will reflect upon the conceptual 'forms' or 'patterns' of this matter as a particular modality of the production of nature. Mudcretes always internalise in particularly interesting ways I argue, their external relations, the extended networks of materials, skills, labours and energies that go into their production. Mudcretes frequently stage fascinating bio-semiotic performances, whichever species or processes are dominant. But when the mudcretes in question are the product of human labour, they always act as social media.


On May 5, 2019, Indiana became the first state to legislate against a doctor's failure to obtain his fertility patient's consent before inseminating her using his own sperm. Less than a month later, Texas passed an even stricter law against fertility fraud, as the practice is called. The explosion of at-home DNA testing has recently uncovered dozens of doctors who conceived scores of offspring using their own sperm instead of the samples provided by a spouse, an unknown donor, or a donor that the patients had selected. This revelation has upended families, revealed webs of biological half-siblings, and confounded the legal system. Fertility fraud is a pressing case study about the demands of informed consent and modern struggles between patient wellbeing and autonomy in the clinical practice of obstetric and fertility medicine. The answers to these hard questions are also giving rise to new criminal and civil penalties that are codifying those developments in medical ethics into law.


Abstract Background: The clinical utility of non-invasive markers in the diagnosis and monitoring of ulcerative colitis (UC) has been intensively studied. The aim of our study was to evaluate the value of fecal calprotectin (FC) in differentiating between UC and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and in estimating inflammatory activity in UC. Method: A total number of 140 patients were included in the study. All patients underwent ileocolonoscopy with biopsies, quantitative determination of FC, and blood tests (white blood cell count, CRP, ESR). The severity of UC was assessed by using the Ulcerative Colitis Disease Activity Index (UCDAI) and Mayo endoscopic score. Results: In patients with active UC the mean values of FC were 373.8 +/- 146.3 μg/g, significantly higher than those in the inactive UC (mean values 36.04 +/- 13.25 μg/g), and in IBS (42.9 +/- 16.00 μg/g). In univariate regression analysis, elevated FC levels strongly correlated with pancolitis (p=0.0001), UCDAI and Mayo scores (p=0.0001), and elevated CRP levels. In multivariate regression model, FC was positively associated with severe pancolitis, and elevated CRP. The optimal cutoff value of FC for the prediction of severe pancolitis (Mayo score˃ 3) was 540 μg/g. We obtained 71.4% sensitivity (CI95%: 41.95-91.6) and 96.1% specificity (CI95%: 89.2 -99.2) of FC in assessing the severity of inflammation in UC patients. Conclusion: FC is a promising marker that can be used in clinical practice to select patients with organic intestinal disorders, compared with those with functional disorders. It also correlates very well with the extent of lesions and the severity of clinical symptoms in UC, with increased sensitivity and specificity.


A recurring theme in attribution theory is that lay explanations for intentional and nonintentional behaviors diverge (Buss, 1978; Fincham & Jaspers, 1980; Kruglanki, 1975; Malle, 2004; White, 1991). In this vein, Reeder (this issue) proposes that they evoke different inferential paths that produce different attributional patterns. In response to nonintentional behavior, perceivers think like scientists, reasoning abstractly about causes, seeking parsimony by discounting personal forces given plausible situational forces. By contrast, in response to intentional behavior, perceivers think like storytellers, positing motives, aims, reasons, inside the actor's mind and drawing conclusions about personal dispositions that cohere with these imputed mental states. The contrast between these divergent paths provides a valuable framework for analyzing past streams of attribution research, interpreting recent findings, and exploring future directions. This comment considers Reeder's proposal of diverging paths in relation to another duality in social inference research, spontaneous versus deliberate processing. Whereas earlier models of social perception often posited spontaneous and deliberate processes at different steps in an inferential sequence (e.g., Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988), many recent models hypothesize the existence of dual systems—an evolutionarilyold system of spontaneous, preconscious intuition and an evolutionarily-recent system of deliberate, conscious analysis (e.g., Kahneman, 2003; Lieberman, Gaunt, Gilbert, & Trope, 2002; Smith & DeCoster, 2000). Others, of course, have critiqued the dual systems thesis, holding that social inference processes merely range on a continuum of automaticity (Kruglanksi & Orehek, 2007). Reeder allies himself with this unitary system view, asserting that the proposed divergent attributional paths hold regardless of whether the processing occurs spontaneously or deliberately. In our view, Reeder's dismissal of the relevance of processing mode is a missed opportunity for theoretical integration and elaboration. Mounting evidence from social cognitive neuroscience (SCN) research has revealed networks of brain regions distinctively recruited in spontaneous and deliberate processing and elucidated functional components of each system (Satpute & Lieberman, 2006). The SCN literature, as we shall see, suggests that intentionality-divergence arguments by Reeder and others may need to be qualified in some respects, for although both systems respect the difference between intentional and nonintentional behavior, they do so in different ways that yield different attributional outcomes. However, on the bright side, SCN research can inform aspects of Reeder's model that are currently underspecified, such as: How do perceivers register that a behavior is intentional versus nonintentional in the first place? And how do perceivers recognize "hard" versus "soft" situational constraints in order to draw different inferences from them?


We perform cosmological simulations of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshift z ∼ 3 using the numerical gravity-hydrodynamics codes gadget-3 and enzo for the purpose of modelling the gaseous environments of galaxies. We identify haloes in the simulations using three different algorithms. Different rank orderings of the haloes by mass result, introducing a limiting factor, in identifying haloes with observed galaxies. We also compare the physical properties of the gas between the two codes, focusing primarily on the gas outside the virial radius, motivated by recent H i absorption measurements of the gas around z ∼ 2–3 galaxies. The internal dispersion velocities of the gas in the haloes have converged for a box size of 30 comoving Mpc, but the centre-of-mass peculiar velocities of the haloes have not up to a box size of 60 comoving Mpc. The density and temperature of the gas within the instantaneous turn-around radii of the haloes are adequately captured for box sizes of 30 Mpc on a side, but the results are highly sensitive to the treatment of unresolved, rapidly cooling gas, with the gas mass fraction within the virial radius severely depleted by star formation in the gadget-3 simulations. Convergence of the gas peculiar velocity field on large scales requires a box size of at least 60 Mpc. Outside the turn-around radius, the physical state of the gas agrees to 30 per cent or better both with box size and between simulation methods. We conclude that generic IGM simulations make accurate predictions for the intergalactic gas properties beyond the halo turn-around radii, but the gas properties on smaller scales are highly dependent on star formation and feedback implementations.


We examine the "learning by doing" hypothesis in medicine using a longitudinal census of laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) eye surgeries collected directly from patient charts. LASIK surgery has precise measures of presurgical condition and postsurgical outcomes. Unlike any other surgery, the impact of unobservable conditions on outcomes is minimal. Learning by doing is identified through observations on surgical outcomes over time for each doctor. Our unique data set overcomes some of the major measurement problems in health outcomes, and enhances the possibility of identifying the impact of learning by doing separate from other effects. Our results do not support the hypothesis that doctors' individual learning improves outcomes, but we find strong evidence that experience accumulated by doctors as a group in a clinic significantly improves outcomes.


That residents of Zimbabwe's Communal Areas (CAs) obtain a variety of goods and services from their natural woodlands has long been recognized. Little was known however, of the value or preferences of CA residents for these goods and services. This paper describes a study, carried out in mid-1991, to elicit the preferences of residents of CAs for the goods and services they derived from trees. A new approach to eliciting preferences and establishing monetary values for the non-market goods and services was developed and administered to a total of 369 households in three CAs. Scores given to tree-derived goods and services were indexed to an anchor (a borehole) for which a willingness to pay (WTP) estimate was elicited. A similar instrument, but without the WTP questions, was administered to 39 professionals involved in research, management, or administration of indigenous woodlands. Of the goods and services derived from trees CA residents valued fuelwood, farm and household materials, inputs to crop production, animal feed and ecological services most highly. Mean capital value to a household of the tree-derived goods and services was Z$1678. Using a 4% discount rate this capital could yield average annual household incomes of between 45 and 60% of the average incomes derived from agricultural activities. Differences in values between residents in high and low tree cover sites were used to estimate the per household loss in capital value of reductions in tree cover. These amounted to about Z$700 per household or about 50% of the mean total value in high tree cover sites. Professionals assigned a higher total value to tree derived goods and services than did CA residents. Professionals and CA residents also assigned different values to several of the categories of tree derived goods and services. The results had a number of implications for research and policy. Indigenous woodlands provide a significant source of household income whose value is not reflected in markets. Lack of understanding of the productivity of indigenous woodlands as well as the poor understanding of the impacts of management on woodlands were seen as major factors inhibiting their efficient and sustained use. Research, management and policy need to focus on enhancing the ability of CA residents to effectively manage their woodlands. This objective requires that researchers develop; a) a clear understanding of the values, needs and objectives of CA residents; b) reliable technical knowledge on the growth, production and reproduction of indigenous woodlands; c) a clear understanding of the institutions controlling the access to, and the use of, indigenous woodlands in the CAs of Zimbabwe.


"Design Thinking" is both a process and a set of cognitive tools used in acts of design. These activities are regularly employed by design practitioners to external problems, often in the role of mediation between ourselves and our environments, objects and information: also known as our "material culture." As IDEO and Stanford's d.School significantly shaped the concept of design thinking (essentially defining it as a structured process with emphasis on empathy, participatory design, and rapid prototyping), their concept has since broadened in scope and application to efforts beyond a product design / business application, and well beyond their doors. The essence of design thinking as it is used outside of design-proper, is to empower individuals and groups with a set of tools to affect change from within – moving design away from a colonialist activity to a native one. It is through this avenue that I propose we extend the concept further. Using design tactics in a native environment is a powerful idea. First, we are by no means limited to the tools and tactics currently associated with design thinking (divergence for example), but beyond this, a question arises that fundamentally challenges the existing paradigm – if we offer design thinking to non-designers, why not apply the same techniques to our own individual lives – what could be more native?


Objective
This article considers the sociopsychological implications of terrorism, which are sometimes neglected in preparedness plans.

Methods
Using Israeli experiences as a case study, this article briefly reviews four points of connection between terrorism and its psychological and social legacies: the sociopolitical aspects of terrorism, the unexpected nature of terrorism, normalization of terrorism and public resilience, and social aspects of medical care for terror-related injuries.

Results
The Israeli experience suggests preparedness plans should include planning for the sociopsychological effects of terrorism on targeted populations and may, in certain contexts, use Israeli approaches as a model.

Conclusions
Experience gained in Israel and elsewhere can set the stage for an appropriate response plan striving not only for preparedness but also resilience. Efforts should be made to advance local capabilities, response plans, and resilience by drawing on the experience of others in coping with the terror threat.


We report the results of an isotopic study designed to determine the source of solutes and carbon dioxide in the famed Saratoga Springs (New York) mineral waters. These waters have thousands of milligrams per liter total dissolved solid concentrations and are highly charged with carbon dioxide gas. The spring waters are cold (∼12 °C) and there is no local, deep-seated thermal anomaly. They emerge through thick shale caprock along the surface expression of normal faults. The δ13C (−5.8‰ to +0.8‰ Vienna Peedee belemnite) of the dissolved inorganic carbon and elevated 3He/4He ratios suggest that the source of the CO2 is the mantle or an ancient deep crystallized igneous melt. The stable isotopic content of the spring waters defines a mixing line between modern local meteoric waters (δ ∼ 70‰) and a component with heavier δD but similar δ18O values. This trend and that of 87Sr/86Sr of dissolved strontium versus 1/Sr are consistent with the hypothesis that Canadian Shield–type brines contribute salinity to the springs. These brines plausibly migrate from the Adirondack Mountains to the topographically low McGregor fault system in the Hudson River lowlands, where the Saratoga springs discharge.


Moving-target search, where a hunter has to catch a moving target, is an important problem for video game developers. In our case, the hunter repeatedly moves towards the target and thus has to solve similar search problems repeatedly. We develop Incremental ARA* (I-ARA*) for this purpose, the first incremental anytime search algorithm for moving-target search in known terrain. We provide an error bound on the lengths of the paths found by I-ARA* and show experimentally in known four-neighbor gridworlds that I-ARA* can be used with smaller time limits between moves of the hunter than competing state-of-the-art moving-target search algorithms, namely repeated A*, G-FRA*, FRA*, and sometimes repeated ARA*. The hunter tends to make more moves with I-ARA* than repeated A*, G-FRA* or FRA*, which find shortest paths for the hunter, but fewer moves with I-ARA* than repeated ARA*, which finds suboptimal paths for the hunter like I-ARA*. Also, the error bounds on the lengths of the paths of the hunter tend to be smaller with I-ARA* than repeated ARA*.


The development of European technology platforms is a valuable building block of European science and technology policy. Out of the range of technology platforms, seven technology fields were chosen and investigated for their potential impacts on selected economies of the European Union. The study is based on input-output analysis, thus enabling us to account for the complex interrelationships between the sectors related to technology fields, either as origin or as user sectors, and the other sectors of the economy. Multiplier analysis is used to quantify the impacts of demand for goods produced by the sectors related to technology fields. Key sector analysis yields suggestions as to whether these sectors play a key role within the network of intermediate inputs. By linking the input-output tables with data on business enterprise R&D technology flow matrices are calculated and evaluated with respect to the sectors related to technology fields. Subsystem minimal flow analysis (SMFA) is carried out in order to find out whether these sectors are part of growth bipols. Due to the principal difficulty to relate technologies which are not yet applied to actual economic data the results require great care in interpretation. Nevertheless, some patterns emerge from the analysis that suggest that some technology fields seem promising areas for future R&D efforts.


The global food market makes international players intrinsically connected through the flow of commodities, demand, production, and consumption. Local decisions, such as new economic policies or dietary shifts, can foster changes in coupled human–natural systems across long distances. Understanding the causes and effects of these changes is essential for agricultural-export countries, such as Brazil. Since 2000, Brazil has led the expansion of soybean planted area—19 million hectares, or 47.5% of the world's increase. Soybean is among the major crop commodities traded globally. We use the telecoupling framework to analyze (i) the international trade dynamics between Brazil and China as the cause of the increased production of Brazilian soybean since 2000; (ii) and the cascading effects of the Sino-Brazilian telecoupled soybean system for Brazilian maize production and exports, with attention to consequences on domestic prices, availability, and risks associated with climatic extreme events. Census-based data at state and county levels, policy analysis, and interviews with producers and stakeholders guided our methodological approach. We identified that the Brazilian soybean production decreased maize single crop production and accelerated maize as a second crop following soybean, a practice that makes farmers more vulnerable to precipitation anomalies (e.g., rainfall shortage). In addition, the two-crop system of soybean/maize pressures the Brazilian maize market when unexpected events such as extreme droughts strike and when this results in a failed maize harvest in the second crop, most of which is for domestic consumption rather than export. Our study suggests the need to incorporate the telecoupling framework in land use decision-making and understanding landscape changes.


Farmworkers play an integral part in both industrial and alternative agriculture, and in recent years the alternative agriculture and farmworker justice movements have been collaborating in more fruitful ways. These collaborations are applauded and are definite steps in the right direction; however, unlike many members of the alternate agriculture community, many farmworkers are discriminated against for their race, class, and citizenship status. These realities endure in that 25% to 50% of farmworkers are estimated to be undocumented individuals, new destinations for new farmworkers are often in states with tight immigration policies, and much of our immigration debate is based on a rhetoric of individual choice. As these types of partnerships become more common, power relations must be addressed and shifted if we wish to see more equal participation from both parties. This commentary outlines a framework for change at all levels of governance, and specifically expresses five ways in which the alternative agriculture movement can begin to shift power associated with race, class, and citizenship, and therefore create and maintain stronger partnerships with the farmworker community. These shifts will not happen overnight and will only occur if we work collaboratively to insist on a more transparent global capitalist system, advocate for immigration laws that are not based on fear, implement local food programs that include farmworker participation and input, and create new organizational policies that encourage individual voice and agency.


Taking some typical international practice situations, we can highlight the basic professional competence questions posed: (1) ABC Company, located in California, wants to establish a manufacturing facility in Mexico, (2) ABC asks a lawyer to draft a sales agency agreement that it will use in dealing with a French distributor. The lawyer has previously prepared such an agreement for this client for use with respect to distributorships in the United States. These hypothetical situations raise the following professional competence questions: (1) What are the lawyer's professional responsibilities if the lawyer undertakes sole representation of this client in the lawyer's home jurisdiction, for example California, and this representation involves advising on foreign law? In this example, sometimes referred to as the "self-help" option, the lawyer independently, and without foreign expert assistance, counsels the client. (2) What are the lawyer's professional responsibilities if the lawyer undertakes representation of the client in the foreign country? For example, given the facts above, is the lawyer somehow professionally restricted from going abroad to France or Mexico and doing legal work for a client in those countries? Which country's professional standards would apply to the lawyer's activities? (3) If the lawyer decides that he or she is not competent to advise on foreign law, what are that lawyer's responsibilities with respect to selecting competent local counsel and to selecting competent counsel who resides and practices in a foreign country? (4) Once the lawyer selects counsel competent to advise on foreign law matters, what are the lawyer's professional obligations as to the counsel's activities? What problems is the lawyer likely to encounter, and how can they best be handled? The following sections will address these concerns and hopefully offer guidance to the U.S. lawyer engaged in international practice. They will also offer suggestions regarding lawyer-client and U.S. lawyer-foreign lawyer communications, and liability for foreign lawyer legal opinions, both of which are relevant to the use and selection of foreign counsel. ETHICS AND INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE: A GUIDE TO THE PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF PRACTITIONERS*


Advances in autonomous agent technology have resulted in the potential for implementations of multiple agents to act as psychological theories of complex social and affective phenomena. Simulating attachment behaviours in infancy provides a relatively simple starting point for this type of theory development. The presence of neurophysiological, psychological and other types of data facilitates the validation of architectural theories by constraining these architectures at multiple levels. A seven part design process is described which details how requirements are specified and how design, implementation and evaluation processes are carried out. Two competing theories are proposed, one that involves some deliberation and one that is reactive only.


On 30 March 2007, Italy signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and ratified it by Law 18/2009. Through this, Italy has committed itself to reforming the structure of its own policy making process. It seems that Italy has taken its international commitment seriously, in compliance with Art. 117(1) of the Italian Constitution, for the last years have witnessed attempts to 're-imagine' the configuration of the whole 'institutional' disability domain. It is nonetheless surprising that the efforts at national level are not counterbalanced by identical commitments in the Regions (despite their important powers in the disability domain).
This essay aims to investigate the most intriguing aspects of current disability policy making, without neglecting empirical insights and dropping some comparative hints. This article is divided into six sections. After a succinct introduction, the main features of the Convention will be recalled. Then, the CRPD will be framed to fit the Italian legal order. Section 4 and 5 focus on how disability policy making has been reshaped in the process of the implementation of Art. 33 CRPD in the Italian legal system. Section 6 will provide concluding remarks.


Minocycline is a bacteriostatic, long-acting, lipid-soluble tetracycline that is generally well tolerated, but has been associated with polyarteritis nodosa (PAN). This is a case report of a 21-year-old woman presented to her primary care physician with several months of fatigue, mylagias, weight loss and intermittent severe bi-temporal headaches without changes in vision. Her medications included an Ortho-Tri-Cyclen Lo and Minocycline, which she started 2 years prior for acne. On presentation, she was tachycardic and severely hypertensive. Initial laboratory evaluation showed hyponatraemia and hypokalaemia as well as elevation of inflammatory markers. Autoimmune work-up was positive for perinuclear antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies. Renal arteriogram was characteristic of PAN and along with her other symptoms, she fulfilled the necessary criteria of American College of Rheumatology for diagnosis of PAN. Minocycline as a possible causative agent was discontinued since it was reported to cause cutaneous PAN in the literature. Cyclophosphamide and prednisone were initiated for treatment of her vasulculitis. Her symptoms and hypertension improved over the next several months. This is the first report of the minocycline-induced renal PAN.


Background: Pharmacovigilance deals with identification, assessment and prevention and reporting of adverse drug reaction (ADR), play a pivotal role in ensuring safe use of drugs. However, in spite of having well established ADR reporting system in India and worldwide, the ADR underreporting is a big challenge till date. It is therefore very important to assess the level of awareness of Pharmacovigilance among healthcare professionals to identify the factors affecting ADRs reporting. The objective of the study was to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance among nursing professionals in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Dehradun, India. Methods: It was a cross sectional observational study conducted at HIMS over a period of 1 year. Nursing professionals who work in internal medicine, Surgery, PAC and intensive care unit (ICU) were included in this study. A self-administered questionnaire comprising of 15 items related to ADRs and Pharmacovigilance programme of India (PvPI) activity was provided to them and sufficient time to fill the questionnaire was given. The completely filled questionnaire was collected and data was analyzed using SPSS ver.20.0. Results: A total of 415 participants were included in the study. The mean age of the participant was 28.52 years. The number of female was more than male participants. Majority of participant (56%) couldn't answer the meaning of pharmacovigilance. Only 25% participants were aware about ADR reporting process to ADR monitoring centre (AMC). Although majority of the participants understand the necessity of ADR reporting and aware about AMC centre and PvPI, but most of them showed unfamiliarity about ADR reporting form and previous experience of any kind of ADR. The most common reason for not reporting the ADR was difficulty in deciding the nature of adverse effects (AE) (44%) followed by lack of time (30%). Majority of participant (67%) denied any previous pharmacovigilance training and almost all (98%) have shown their interest in PvPI training. Conclusions: Nursing professionals in our hospital may lack adequate knowledge about ADR reporting and may need more education and training on the National Pharmacovigilance System and ADR reporting process.


We aimed to describe the current state of specialist obesity services for adults with clinically severe obesity in public hospitals in Australia, and to analyse the gap in resources based on expert consensus. We conducted two surveys to collect information about current and required specialist obesity services and resources using open‐ended questionnaires. Organizational level data were sought from clinician expert representatives of specialist obesity services across Australia in 2017. Fifteen of 16 representatives of current services in New South Wales (n = 8), Queensland (n = 1), Victoria (n = 2), South Australia (n = 3), and the Australian Capital Territory (n = 1) provided data. The composition of services varied substantially between hospitals, and patient access to services and effective treatments were limited by strict entry criteria (e.g. body mass index 40 kg/m2 or higher with specific complication/s), prolonged wait times, geographical location (major cities only) and out‐of‐pocket costs. Of these services, 47% had a multidisciplinary team (MDT), 53% had an exercise physiologist/physiotherapist, 53% had a bariatric surgeon and 33% had pharmacotherapy resources. Key gaps included staffing components of the MDT (psychologist, exercise physiologist/physiotherapist) and access to publicly funded weight loss pharmacotherapy and bariatric surgery. There was consensus on the need for significant improvements in staff, physical infrastructure, access to services, education/training in obesity medicine and targeted research funding. Based on the small number of existing, often under‐resourced specialist obesity services that are located only in a few major cities, the vast majority of Australians with clinically severe obesity cannot access the specialist evidence based treatments needed.


Bioenergycorrection as an ancient way of correcting vital energy flow is well known in many multi-millennial traditions, having withstood the test of time to this day, with some modern modifications. On the wave of the expansion of integrative medicine since the mid-1990s in China, the US and Europe, some bioenergycorrection techniques have been subjected to scientific research and have been included in the curricula of medical schools therein. We emphasize that numerous transpersonal phenomena associated with consciousness and psychosomatic bioenergycorrection are phenomenologically well documented, and that their physical explanation should be sought at the very border of the existing scientific paradigm. Within our quantum-holographic / quantum-gravitational (QHQG) theoretical framework of the acupuncture system, consciousness, and vital energy, they are of a deeper quantum-gravitational origin, with exotic aspects of spatio-temporal tunnels and vital energy extended to acupuncture channels (of exotic vacuum-like refractive index!) with transpersonal quantum-entangling inflow of vital energy. It should also be noted that the healing effects on the patient's acupuncture system / consciousness are often blocked by quantum-holographically encoded spiritual personal consent to the disease as a form of (self) punishment (as evidenced by the subjects' experiences in post-hypnotic regressions), when prayers and self-love for oneself and others are necessary with the aim of ending (self) punishment - thus performing spiritual integration of the personality, i.e. dis-entanglement of transpersonal energy blockages, which triggers the process of permanent healing. Such spiritual indeterministic interventions by introducing new vacuum excitations of vital energy in the otherwise deterministic quantum-holographic evolution of collective consciousness (similar to the spiritually-excited and mentally-channeled Ayurvedic, Qigong, Reiki and modern experiences of local and transpersonal healing, thus non-Schrodinger imposing necessary essentially new boundary conditions!) - can permanently remove as a net effect the whole mutual conflict between two people, which is also the greatest source of freedom in optimizing life programs through spiritual cleansing. This significantly contributes to our understanding that even the most severe psychosomatic disorders have their roots in energy-informational blockages, and that healing begins by removing them - first by loving oneself, accepting oneself and forgiving oneself, which is then manifested by loving others and accepting others (e.g. spiritually dis-entangling / unleashing repentant-forgiving prayer)!


Based on a multiple spells approach, this paper studies the extent and the composition of chronic poverty in Germany. The results indicate that about one third of cross-sectional poverty in a given year is chronic. The characteristics that are most closely associated with long-term poverty are economic inactivity and pensioner status, while the number of children and the gender of the household head do not seem to have a systematic effect. This is in contrast to cross-sectional results where the biggest poverty risk is usually unemployment and a large number of children, while pensioners do not face particularly high poverty risks. Estimates from a multiple spells hazard model further suggest that 6% of the population have unobserved characteristics that lead to low poverty exit and high re-entry rates, making these individuals likely candidates for chronic poverty. A comparison with results for Great Britain and the United States suggests that poverty is less persistent in Germany.


On Tuesday June 12th 2012 the Nuffield Council on Bioethics released its much anticipated report 'Novel techniques for the prevention of mitochondrial DNA disorders: an ethical review'.

The aim of the review was to garner expert and public opinion on the ethical implications of techniques involving mitochondria donation, pioneered by Professor Turnbull and his team at Newcastle, which could enable women with mitochondrial disease to have children without the disease. The report found that although these techniques can be considered 'germline therapies' they do not raise ethical objections.

This is an important landmark and raises concerns about the 'slippery slope' leading to modification of the nuclear germline. Geoff Watts, chair of the working party defended the findings at the launch, saying that their findings were significant and that extended debate would be needed in future.

The report concluded "we believe that if these novel techniques are adequately proven to be acceptably safe and effective as treatments, it would be ethical for families to use them, if they wish to do so and have been offered an appropriate level of information and support".

The Wellcome Trust has already confirmed its commitment to mitochondria research by investing in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research, which will be based at Newcastle University. The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority will be launching a public consultation in September this year to identify whether there is public support for the required change in law.

At Cesagen, is currently working on a project focusing on the social and ethical aspects of mitochondrial disease:

As part of this project Cesagen Cardiff hosted a multi-disciplinary symposium on 1st March 2012:


Excimer laser textured thin film silicon and poly(2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene bilayer solar cells are fabricated and characterized with air mass 1.5 simulated solar irradiation. The polymer layer increases the light harvesting capability of the cell and increases the shunt resistance while increasing open circuit voltage. The highest efficiency of 0.87% for the thin film silicon/polymer bilayer device is observed due to enhanced charge collection resulting from the inclusion of the polymer layer. Generation of charge carriers is proposed to be occurring mainly in the silicon layer and charge transport is explained using an energy band diagram.


Abstract. AR (Augmented Reality) could be realized as a basic and high-level function on latest smartphones with a reasonable price. AR enables users to experience consistent three-dimensional (3D) spaces co-existing with 3D real and virtual objects with sensing real 3D environments and reconstructing them in the virtual world through a camera. The accuracy of sensing real 3D environments using an AR function, that is, visual-inertial odometer, of a smartphone is extremely higher than one of a GPS receiver on it, and can be less than one centimeter. However, current common AR applications generally focus on "small" real 3D spaces, not large real 3D spaces. In other words, most of the current AR applications are not designed for uses based on a geographic coordinate system.We proposed a global extension of the visual-inertial odometer with an image recognition function of geo-referenced image markers installed in real 3D spaces. Examples of geo-referenced image markers can be generated from analog guide boards existing in the real world. We tested this framework of a global extension of the visual-inertial odometer embedded in a smartphone on the first floor in the central library of Akita University. The geo-referenced image markers such as floor map boards and book categories sign boards were registered in a database of 3D geo-referenced real-world scene images. Our prototype system developed on a smartphone, that is, iPhone XS, Apple Inc., could first recognized a floor map board (Fig. 1), and could determine the 3D precise distance and direction of the smartphone from the central position of the floor map board in a local 3D coordinate space with the origin point as the central positon of the board. Then, the system could convert the relative precise position and the relative direction of the smartphone's camera in a local coordinate space into a global precise location and orientation of it. A subject was walking the first floor in the building of the library with a world tracking function of the smartphone. The experimental result shows that the error of tracking a real 3D space of a global coordinate system was accumulated, but not bad. The accumulated error was only about 30 centimeters after the subject's walking about 30 meters (Fig. 2). We are now planning to improve our prototype system in the accuracy of indoor navigation with calibrating the location and orientation of a smartphone based sequential recognitions of multiple referenced scene image markers which have already existed for a general user services of the library before developing this proposed new services. As the conclusion, the experiment's result of testing our prototype system was impressive, we are now preparing a more practical high-precision LBS which enables a user to be navigated to the exact location of a book of a user's interest in a bookshelf on a floor with AR and floor map interfaces.


This paper will discuss migration from a missional diaconate ministry with specific focus on koinonia and the importance thereof for the Kingdom, church and society. The point of departure being that migration is not a foreign concept to the Bible or Christianity. From the earliest days in the Old Testament and throughout the Bible, believers in the Trinitarian God are described as "strangers in this world" (1 Peter). The paper will focus on the concepts of kyrugma/mission, diaconia and koinonia, as the three dimensions of mission (Kritzinger 1998:34-36) and the relation between them. Lastly, the missionary deaconate as a ministry of hope is discussed.


A review of the research on the instability of steady porous media convection leading to chaos, and the possibility of controlling the transition from steady convection to chaos is presented. The governing equations consisting of the continuity, the extended Darcy, and the energy equations subject to the assumption of local thermal equilibrium and the Boussinesq approximation are converted into a set of three nonlinear ordinary differential equations by assuming two-dimensional convection and expansion of the dependent variables into a truncated spectrum of modes. Analytical (weak nonlinear), computational (Adomian decomposition) as well as numerical (Runge-Kutta-Verner) solutions to the resulting set of equations are presented and compared to each other. The analytical solution for the transition point to chaos is identical to the computational and numerical solutions in the neighborhood of a convective fixed point and deviates from the accurate computational and numerical solutions as the initial conditions deviate from the neighborhood of a convective fixed point. The control of this transition is also discussed.


Background Today's teachers are turning to online educational marketplaces, such as TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT), where they purchase teacher-created classroom materials for a small fee. Meanwhile, teachers who sell resources in these spaces, online teacherpreneurs, stand to benefit financially and may experience other affordances as well as challenges associated with the practice. Purpose of Study This study is one of the first empirical investigations of online teacherpre-neurship. We interviewed highly experienced and successful online teacherpreneurs to understand who they are, what they do, and the impacts they encounter. Research Design Ten one-hour semistructured interviews were conducted with online teacherpreneurs who were ranked in the top 1% of sellers on TpT and had sold materials on TpT for at least four years. Interviews addressed the areas of online teacherpreneur experiences, personal characteristics, work environments, and opinions regarding online teacherpreneur controversies. Responses were analyzed to identify salient and/or repeated themes across the interviews, using the constant comparative method. Findings Online teacherpreneurs described themselves as helpful, hardworking, organized, creative, and risk-taking. Whereas some worked in supportive school environments, others worked in ambivalent schools, where they kept their teacherpreneur work separate and/or secret. They indicated that the practice of online teacherpreneurship involved creating resources, collaborating with teachers and online teacherpreneurs, and engaging in entrepreneurship. Online teacherpreneurs experienced positive impacts relating to teaching practice, teacher leadership, and their careers. They also experienced some professional stressors. Conclusions Online teacherpreneurs are emerging as virtual teacher leaders and educational influencers. They carry the responsibility to share high-quality resources, and they need the support of their schools and connections with colleagues to thrive.


With the constant barrage of new systems, porting software applications is inevitable. This article takes a look at the problems involved in porting an Ada/C application. The porting effort begins when the software architecture is defined and the code implemented. The task is completed with the successful execution of the software on all target platforms. The AFATDS porting effort to the HP RISC platform was completed successfully. The effort to port AFATDS to an InteVSCO Unix platform is still incomplete and is awaiting an Ada compiler upgrade that can pass the AFATDS messaging schema's large arrays to generic procedures. With the numerous operating systems available, the constant barrage of new operating system releases, and the continual hardware advancements, the need to port software applications is evident. The success of any porting effort depends on the maturation and reliability of the tools being used. If the Department of Defense's dual-use strategy is to succeed, DoD must also foster the development of reliable and affordable Ada tools.<<ETX>>


The Russian cities are connected by many telecommunication lines. The information flow between any two cities can be sent via multiple routes, including those running through the networks of other countries. Cross-border transitions are created to connect the Russian lines with the international networks. The effect of these transitions on the connectivity of the cities has not been analysed earlier, either for Russia or for any other country. Using my own database on the Russian telecommunication lines, the Rosstat data on the cities' population, and the results of the scanning of the Internet topology, I attempt to assess the effect of these transitions on the connectivity of the Russian cities. The assessment is carried out at the physical, economic, and digital levels of connectivity. For each level, I calculate the proportion of cities and their residents interacting directly with international telecommunication networks. Of the three categories of physical connectivity, the system of the Russian cities is associated with the worst option — the exogenous connectivity. This is explained by the impossibility of connecting the Kaliningrad region with mainland Russia without using international networks. An analysis of the traffic redistribution between the core cities of the autonomous systems shows that closed flows and internal economic connectivity are predominant in Russia. The calculation of information flow delays between all the Russian cities and the cores of the national and international digital agglomerations makes it possible to establish what cities are affected by the international cores. I conclude that the cross-border transitions have little effect on the information and communication connectivity of the Russian cities.


Bacteria have the ability to alter their morphology in order to adapt to changing environments. We have investigated the role of the cell envelope in the development and stress-adaptation strategies of Actinobacteria. Here, we demonstrate how cryo-electron microscopy techniques can be used as efficient tools to study cell envelope of various bacteria. An in-depth study on the Streptomyces cell wall with cryo-electron tomography reveals the structural complexity of the Gram-positive cell wall in apically growing bacteria. Additionally, we report the formation of intracellular membrane accumulations in Streptomyces as a result of exposure to a stress-inducing agent. Furthermore, we studied the ability of the filamentous actinomycete Kitasatospora viridifaciens to extrude wall-deficient cells or S-cells upon exposure to hyperosmotic stress. We characterized the structural alterations associated with S-cell formation using cryo-electron microscopy and reveal that S-cell formation requires cytoskeletal protein FilP in K. viridifaciens. To summarize, this thesis provides new insights in the structural complexity and stress-induced alterations of the bacterial cell envelope.


For this study, twisted nematic liquid crystals (TN-LCs) are sandwiched between two cross-embedded wire-grid polarizers (WGPs) as alignment and electrodes for projection displays. In the proposed device, the WGPs replace not only the sheet polarizers in a conventional TN-LC cell, but also the front and rear alignment layers and transparent electrodes. It is found that the structure of a WGP microgroove is suitable for alignment; however, the proposed TN-LC cell exhibits a multidomain phenomenon because there is no apparent pretilt angle on the two WGPs. The multidomain phenomenon can be solved by the annealing method and by blending chiral material with the TN-LC for twisting the LC in the same direction. In addition, the surface resistance of the aluminum WGP is two orders lower than the indium-tin-oxide glass substrates, so that it is suitable for electric conductivity and for use as a transparent electrode. Also, metallic WGPs exhibit a higher heat resistance characteristic than plastic sheet polarizers, making them robust. As a result, the threshold voltages, the saturation voltages, and the response time of the proposed TN-LC cell are almost identical to the conventional TN-LC cell. The contrast ratio of the LCD projector with the proposed TN-LC cell and the quarter-wave plate exhibit the best characteristics in comparisons with the other LCD projectors. Thus, the proposed TN-LC cell represents a simple and feasible solution for the next generation of high-brightness projection display devices.


This new field guide is a complete and convenient reference to every species of cetacean, pinniped and sirenian in the world, along with the Marine and Sea Otters and the Polar Bear. Every species is illustrated with magnificent colour paintings and a stunning collection of photographs, chosen to illustrate the key field marks which can be used to separate each species in the field. The author's unique depth of experience and knowledge, coupled with the artist's unrivalled skill, have come together to produce a neat, practical field guide that will enable any observer to quickly identify any mammals they may encounter at sea.


The presence of gastric acid plays a critical role in the mechanisms of NSAIDs/aspirin-associated gastric and duodenal mucosal injury and ulceration. The role of gastric acid and its relationship to NSAIDs/aspirin in mucosal damage, ulcer and ulcer complications continues to be an important concern because of the increasing worldwide use of NSAIDs and aspirin. Acid suppression continues to be an important prevention strategy for NSAID-associated gastric and duodenal ulcer and ulcer complications. While a coxib or an NSAID and PPI in combination are considered to have comparable safety profiles, the evidence from direct comparisons in high-risk patients is limited, and the cardiovascular safety of coxibs and NSAIDs remains a concern especially in patients with a high risk of cardiovascular disease. An evaluation of individual gastrointestinal and cardiovascular risks and benefits, selection of the most appropriate NSAID and dose for each particular patient should always be emphasized. Twice daily PPI is more appropriate to protect a patient who is taking NSAIDs twice daily. PPI co-therapy is still recommended in patients receiving dual antiplatelet treatment, although conflicting results have been reported about adverse drug interactions between PPIs and clopidogrel.


We propose a novel semi-supervised local discriminant analysis (SELD) method for feature extraction in hypers-pectral remote sensing imagery. The proposed method combines a supervised method (Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA)) and an unsupervised method (Neighborhood Preserving Embedding (NPE)) without any free parameters. The underlying idea is to design optimal projection vectors, which can discover the global discriminant structure of the available labeled samples while preserving the local neighborhood spatial structure of the unlabeled samples. Furthermore, in our approach the number of extracted feature bands is no longer limited by the number of classes, which is a disadvantage of LDA. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms consistently other related semi-supervised methods and that it is also much more stable when the percentage of the labeled samples changes


Numerical and experimental investigations have been carried out on transport of particles in an electrostatic travelling field. A three-dimensional hard-sphere model of the distinct element method was developed to simulate the dynamics of particles. Forces applied to particles in the model were the Coulomb force, the dielectrophoresis force on polarized dipole particles in a non-uniform field, the image force, gravity and the air drag. Friction and repulsion between particle–particle and particle–conveyer were included in the model to replace initial conditions after mechanical contacts. Two kinds of experiments were performed to confirm the model. One was the measurement of charge of particles that is indispensable to determine the Coulomb force. Charge distribution was measured from the locus of free-fallen particles in a parallel electrostatic field. The averaged charge of the bulk particle was confirmed by measurement with a Faraday cage. The other experiment was measurements of the differential dynamics of particles on a conveyer consisting of parallel electrodes to which a four-phase travelling electrostatic wave was applied. Calculated results agreed with measurements, and the following characteristics were clarified. (1) The Coulomb force is the predominant force to drive particles compared with the other kinds of forces, (2) the direction of particle transport did not always coincide with that of the travelling wave but changed partially. It depended on the frequency of the travelling wave, the particle diameter and the electric field, (3) although some particles overtook the travelling wave at a very low frequency, the motion of particles was almost synchronized with the wave at the low frequency and (4) the transport of some particles was delayed to the wave at medium frequency; the majority of particles were transported backwards at high frequency and particles were not transported but only vibrated at very high frequency.


Supervised topic models simultaneously model the latent topic structure of large collections of documents and a response variable associated with each document. Existing inference methods are based on either variational approximation or Monte Carlo sampling. This paper presents a novel spectral decomposition algorithm to recover the parameters of supervised latent Dirichlet allocation (sLDA) models. The Spectral-sLDA algorithm is provably correct and computationally efficient. We prove a sample complexity bound and subsequently derive a sufficient condition for the identifiability of sLDA. Thorough experiments on a diverse range of synthetic and real-world datasets verify the theory and demonstrate the practical effectiveness of the algorithm.


This book analyses the technological process of ceramic moulding. To this end, the work is organised into four sections: The first section discusses the concepts on which the analyses are based. The second section analyses the theoretical-methodological background. This section is based on a social view of the operational chain and on a specific design adapted to the technological interpretation of the macro-traces created by the ceramic moulding process. The third section discusses the entire protocol for the technological identification of macro-traces created by the ceramic moulding process. The final section deepens the interpretative strategies offered by the ceramic moulding analysis and the volume concludes with a reflection on the limits and possibilities of the proposed methodology.


The Sommerfeld-Maluzhinets theory for plasmons on a wedge surface with a small impedance ζ is used for the calculation of surface plasmon reflection, refraction, and transformation into photons. A methodologically simplified summary of the Sommerfeld-Maluzhinets theory, valid in the first order in ζ, is presented. The approach is satisfactory for highly conductive metals up to optical frequencies. Photon radiation takes place primarily in the direction of plasmon motion along the wedge surface. The angular distribution of the radiated photons has a Lorentzian form with width ∼ζ. For a right-angle wedge, the reflection and refraction coefficients and the diffuse part of the photon radiation are also ∼ζ.


In an ideal world, the effect of an occupational exposure would be measured by comparing the outcome in an exposed population for a specific time period with that in the same population during the same time period, but without exposure to the agent under study (1). This is, of course, counterfactual. Instead, we must deal with it differently. Randomization (ie, random assignment of subjects into exposure categories) is one way to approach the lack of comparability and uncontrolled confounding. Although potential confounding is not eliminated, we are able to account for its impact quantitatively. Randomized studies are seldom an option in occupational epidemiology. Assignment to occupational exposures in observational studies is typically the result of complex individual, group-dependent, and societal selection processes. We are used to approaching this problem by carefully selecting proper reference populations and by dealing with potential confounders in different stages of a study. Most of us are fully aware that we are not able to eliminate the problem in design and analysis, but we are used to dealing with it in the discussion part of a paper.

Lack of randomization came to mind when I read the article by Randem and her co-workers on cancer incidence among Nordic asphalt workers, published in this issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment & Health (2). The paper is part of a large study, coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (3), in the European asphalt industry. This is a project of considerable quality. In an assessment, we should also recognize that Randem and her co-workers have overcome difficult challenges. The study involved workers employed by many different companies in four different countries. Furthermore, the study participants were partly seasonal workers, who are not easy to track and follow.

The study objective was to investigate cancer risk in relation to employment in the asphalt industry (2). A particular aim was to study low-mortality cancer sites, as a complement to the results of the European mortality study (3). In spite of the qualities of the study, the results are inconclusive. Many questions should therefore be asked, and few definite answers can be given. Can the small increase in lung cancer incidence be ascribed to occupational exposure, or is the result confounded by smoking? Is the bladder cancer result nonpositive or negative? Or do the subset analyses show that there is truly an occupational risk? We should also be aware that the authors' results, in some respects, are in contrast to the results of an earlier review and meta-analysis (4). In the meta-analysis (to a large extent based on studies from the United States) roofers had an increased risk for cancer of the lung and other sites, whereas road pavers had a relative risk close to unity for lung cancer (4). By contrast, Randem et al (2) found no increase in the standardized incidence ratio for roofers and a small increase for road pavers. Are these discrepancies due to different exposures or exposure levels, or are there other explanations?

The usual answer when such problems are encountered is to improve information quality on exposures and potential confounders (notably smoking). A nested case-referent study offers an opportunity for such improvement. But what about the lack of randomization in this study on standardized incidence ratios, in which study populations are compared with the general population in different countries?

The indirectly adjusted rate is the crude rate in the reference population multiplied by the exposure-specific standardized incidence ratio. Strictly speaking, comparisons of standardized incidence ratios are invalid unless all stratum-specific study population rates are a constant multiple of the specific reference population rates. It is well known that this assumption may be violated, being a source of (not too serious) bias (5). I suspect that the Nordic asphalt study could demonstrate another, and perhaps more serious, comparison problem. The country-specific all-cancer standardized incidence ratios in table 2 of the article (2) give an indication of this. The statement of Randem and her co-workers that there was a deficit in all the cancer incidences in all four countries (2) should be more specified. The standardized incidence ratios (SIR) did, in fact, differ between the two main person-time contributing countries, being close to unity (SIR 0.96, 95% confidence interval 0.89-1.02) for Denmark and a deficit approximately six times larger for Norway (SIR 0.77, 95% confidence interval 0.69-0.86). The results for Finland were close to the Norwegian ones, whereas the Swedish results were close to those of Denmark.

Asphalt workers in the Nordic countries are partly seasonal workers. The standardized incidence ratios for all cancers may indicate that there have been differences in recruitment to asphalt work across countries. What if workers in Finland and Norway were, to a large extent, recruited from farming, whereas workers in Denmark and Sweden were recruited from the general population or a pool of unemployed persons or maybe sailors? These suggested occupational groups are extremes concerning cancer incidence in the Nordic countries (SIR 79 for farmers, SIR 120 for seamen) (6). Standardized incidence ratios based on the general population as reference may therefore be difficult to interpret correctly in this particular study.

The solution would be to use internal comparison, as in a nested case-referent study. Randem et al point to the lack of individual information on off-season work and occupational history as a limitation of their study (2). I agree, but I also believe that the background information available should be broader and not restricted to occupational data alone. One indication is the increase in the standardized incidence ratio for stomach cancer (2), which may indicate that Danish workers were not comparable with the general population concerning socioeconomy and infection risk in childhood (7).


Abstract. Anomalies of dynamic height derived from an analysis of Argo profiling buoys data are analysed to assess the relative roles of contributions from temperature and salinity over the North Atlantic for the period of 1999–2004. They are compared with dynamic topography anomalies based on TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason altimetry. It is shown that the halosteric contribution to the anomalies of dynamic height is comparable in magnitude to the thermosteric one over the period analyzed. Taking both salinity and temperature into account improves the agreement between zonally averaged trends in the satellite dynamic topography and dynamic height increasing the correlation between them to 0.73 from 0.63 when only temperature variability is taken into account. The implication of this result is that the salinity contribution cannot be neglected in the North Atlantic and that one cannot rely on estimating the thermosteric part by anomalies in the sea surface dynamic topography derived from the satellite altimetry.


We constructed water, salt, and nutrient budgets for San Francisco Bay and used them to analyze the net biogeochemical performance of the bay. The bay was subdivided into three sectors, North, Central, and South Bay, with the Central Bay serving as a proxy for the oceanic end member. Separate budgets were constructed for the wet (October—March) and dry (April—October) seasons of each year for 6 yr (1990–1995). This period of record contained 2 yr of above normal runoff (1993, 1995) and 4 yr of below average runoff. Effluent from sewage treatment plants accounts for approximately 50% of the nutrient loading to the bay in winter and 80% of the summer loading. Both arms of the bay were apparently net heterotrophic during the winter, with this signal being strongest during the wet winters of 1993 and 1995. We conclude that overall the bay is slightly net autotrophic (production of new organic matter in the bay by plant growth exceeds respiratory demands); however, this varies seasonally (strongest in summer) and is complicated by the possibility of significant abiotic P adsorption in the North Bay.


Citizens are born, but they are also made. How its citizens come to be - whether the educations they receive will expand or constrain their future options, whether the values they assimilate will encourage or dissuade their civic engagement, etc. - fundamentally concerns the state. Through the power it wields over a vast range of policymaking contexts, the state can significantly influence (or designate those who will influence) many of the formative experiences of young citizens. Young citizens' accumulated experiences in turn can significantly influence the future mature citizens they will become. The state insufficiently considers the cumulative nature of its citizens' development, however. Discrete spheres of policy- or law-making may be internally consistent, but they lack consistency when combined over time and across a range of contexts - which is the way in which developing citizens experience them. As a result of this discontinuity, the state at best squanders opportunities to more effectively advance its ends with respect to immature citizens; and at worst, fails to meet its most basic obligations to them. This Article develops a framework to guide the decisions that affect the young across a range of law and policy contexts, providing consistency and a coherence that will better serve those citizens and further the state's ends. It grounds the framework in the core values and ends of the liberal democratic state, which dictate the state's most basic obligations to its citizens, and its requirements of them. It accounts for the interests and constitutional rights of both parents and children. To better understand how these might change as the young develop to maturity, it reviews the processes of cognitive development, drawing on research from a range of disciplines within developmental science. This review examines developing capacities, ongoing deficiencies, and the effects of external influences on development. It then integrates these theoretical, constitutional, political, and developmental considerations into a framework comprising the ends toward which decisions affecting the young should aim: (1) guaranteeing parents' liberty to form and raise a family; (2) denying anyone absolute authority over the immature, while transferring to the immature themselves authority in realms where they have reliably attained decision-making maturity; (3) ensuring that young citizens will attain maturity with their entitlement to life-deciding liberty intact; and (4) ensuring that young citizens will attain maturity having acquired the capacities to fulfill the basic obligations of citizenship. To begin illustrating the framework's potential effects, the Article proposes a set of policies consistent with it. For infancy and early childhood, it proposes minimizing interference in parenting. For adolescence, it endorses obligatory, out-of-home education. It more generally proposes that decision makers identify contexts in which young citizens can make competent self-regarding decisions. The Article argues that by mid-adolescence, these include making health care decisions and voting. It also argues for changes to policies in other contexts where young citizens' decision making is likely to remain compromised, even into young adulthood, including driving and combat. Because the scope of policymaking affecting the young is so vast, future projects will carry forward and expand upon the policymaking implications of the framework set out here.


BACKGROUND
 In the United States, >40% of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) smoke cigarettes.

METHODS
 We used a computer simulation of HIV disease and treatment to project the life expectancy of HIV-infected persons, based on smoking status. We used age- and sex-specific data on mortality, stratified by smoking status. The ratio of the non-AIDS-related mortality risk for current smokers versus that for never smokers was 2.8, and the ratio for former smokers versus never smokers was 1.0-1.8, depending on cessation age. Projected survival was based on smoking status, sex, and initial age. We also estimated the total potential life-years gained if a proportion of the approximately 248 000 HIV-infected US smokers quit smoking.

RESULTS
 Men and women entering HIV care at age 40 years (mean CD4+ T-cell count, 360 cells/µL) who continued to smoke lost 6.7 years and 6.3 years of life expectancy, respectively, compared with never smokers; those who quit smoking upon entering care regained 5.7 years and 4.6 years, respectively. Factors associated with greater benefits from smoking cessation included younger age, higher initial CD4+ T-cell count, and complete adherence to antiretroviral therapy. Smoking cessation by 10%-25% of HIV-infected smokers could save approximately 106 000-265 000 years of life.

CONCLUSIONS
 HIV-infected US smokers aged 40 years lose >6 years of life expectancy from smoking, possibly outweighing the loss from HIV infection itself. Smoking cessation should become a priority in HIV treatment programs.


In this paper, a new Kalman filtering technique, unscented Kalman filter (UKF), is utilized both experimentally and theoretically as a state estimation tool in field-oriented control (FOC) of sensorless ac drives. Using the advantages of this recent derivative-free nonlinear estimation tool, rotor speed and dq-axis fluxes of an induction motor are estimated only with the sensed stator currents and voltages information. In order to compare the estimation performances of the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and UKF explicitly, both observers are designed for the same motor model and run with the same covariance matrices under the same conditions. In the simulation results, it is shown that UKF, whose several intrinsic properties suggest its use over EKF in highly nonlinear systems, has more satisfactory rotor speed and flux estimates, which are the most critical states for FOC. These simulation results are supported with experimental results


As computer crime becomes more widespread, countries increasingly confront difficulties in securing evidence stored in electronic form outside of their borders. These difficulties have prompted two related responses. Some states have asserted a broad power to conduct "remote cross-border searches" - that is, to use computers within their territory to access and examine data physically stored outside of their territory. Other states have pressed for recognition of a remote cross-border search power in international fora, arguing that such a power is an essential weapon in efforts to combat computer crime. This Article explores these state responses and develops a framework for evaluating the legality of cross-border searches, both as a matter of international law and as a matter of U.S. law. The Article argues that remote cross-border searches are problematic as a matter of international law, and that U.S. adoption of bilateral or multilateral agreements authorizing remote-cross border searches on foreign law standards lower than those of the Fourth Amendment would be problematic as a matter of U.S. constitutional law. The Article also situates the remote cross-border search issue within the context of the larger theoretical debate over the power of geographically based sovereigns to exercise jurisdiction over internet activities. That debate ordinarily focuses on a sovereign's jurisdiction to prescribe legal rules governing internet conduct; by broadening the inquiry to focus on a sovereign's enforcement jurisdiction, a study of remote cross-border searches highlights certain normative bases for refining our understanding of how principles of territorial sovereignty apply in the internet context.


I If you take the train from Naples around the northern rim of Mount Vesuvius, you will arrive at Madonna dell'Arco, on the edge of the town of Sant'Anastasia. The station takes its name from the large and rather grandiose whitewashed sanctuary that dominates the neighbourhood. With its generic belfry and copper-green cupola, the church building, begun in 1593 and much extended in the twentieth century, is nothing to write home about architecturally. But its bulky presence is a good starting point for thinking about the concrete means by which communities seek to record miraculous events. According to tradition, on Easter Monday 1450 a local lad was playing the ball game pall-mall with his friends when — in a fit of irritation — he threw the ball at a painting of the Madonna that had been placed within an arch (hence 'Madonna dell'Arco'). This act of sacrilege ignited a trio of miracles: firstly, the Virgin's face bled and secondly, the boy found himself rooted to the ground and unable to flee. The third miracle related to the punishment of the boy. When news reached the Count of Sarno, who held judicial authority over the region, he reacted quickly by condemning the accused to be hanged from the lime tree next to the Madonna. Two hours later, following the death of the intemperate youth, the tree dramatically withered — an event that was perceived as lending sacred force to the secular justice of the hanging. These were the first of thousands of miracles that subsequently occurred thanks to the intervention of the Madonna dell'Arco and which, to this day, are documented in a variety of media at the church and adjacent study centre.


The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing rapidly. Therefore, there are more and more vendors, which led to IoT being a heterogeneous collection of different IoT platforms, isolated solutions and several protocols. It has been proposed to use Data Integration to overcome this heterogeneity. In addition, costs are on the raise due to increasing volume of data which increases demands on bandwidth and cloud computing capabilities. Again a solution has already been proposed by reducing the amount of data to forward by processing data at the edge of an IoT-System, e. g. Ąltering or aggregation. This concept is called Edge Computing. In this article the Semantic Edge Computing Runtime (SECR) is introduced, combining both concepts. The application of Data Integration enables Edge Computing to be performed on a higher level of abstraction. In addition, the developed Driver-approach allows SECRŠs Data Integration algorithm to be applied to a wide range of data sources without imposing requirements on them. The Data Integration itself is based on technologies of Semantic Web, applying metadata to raw data giving it context for interpretation. Furthermore, SECRŠs REST-API enables applications to alternate Data Integration and Edge Computing at runtime. The tests of SECRŠs prototype implementation have shown its suitability for deployment on an edge device and its scalability, being able to handle 128 data sources and Edge Computing Tasks.


Abstract A surface molecular imprinted polymer on silica gel particles for highly selective recognition of heparin (sulphated glycosaminogylcan) was prepared by a sol-gel process. The low molecular weight heparin was exploited as the template model in preparation of the non-covalent surface imprinted polymer. Meanwhile the primary amine functioned silane was utilised as the key functional monomer for biologically relevant heparin sulphate sequences-specific recognition. The heparin imprinted silica microparticles were characterised by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron micrograph. Since there was template bleeding following the first extraction, a different washing solution type and template removal strategies have been developed to overcome the problem that was interfering with the binding performance. The finding of this study shows that the MeOH acid removes the higher amount of template from the imprinting polymer. The best rebinding analyte solution was obtained with acidic medium at both stirring and ultrasonic extraction.


The CA3 region of the hippocampus is a recurrent neural network that is essential for the storage and replay of sequences of patterns that represent behavioral events. Here we present a theoretical framework to calculate a sparsely connected network's capacity to store such sequences. As in CA3, only a limited subset of neurons in the network is active at any one time, pattern retrieval is subject to error, and the resources for plasticity are limited. Our analysis combines an analytical mean field approach, stochastic dynamics, and cellular simulations of a time-discrete McCulloch-Pitts network with binary synapses. To maximize the number of sequences that can be stored in the network, we concurrently optimize the number of active neurons, that is, pattern size, and the firing threshold. We find that for one-step associations (i.e., minimal sequences), the optimal pattern size is inversely proportional to the mean connectivity c, whereas the optimal firing threshold is independent of the connectivity. If the number of synapses per neuron is fixed, the maximum number P of stored sequences in a sufficiently large, nonmodular network is independent of its number N of cells. On the other hand, if the number of synapses scales as the network size to the power of 3/2, the number of sequences P is proportional to N. In other words, sequential memory is scalable. Further-more, we find that there is an optimal ratio r between silent and nonsilent synapses at which the storage capacity = P/[c (1 +r)N] assumes a maximum. For long sequences, the capacity of sequential memory is about one order of magnitude below the capacity for minimal sequences, but otherwise behaves similar to the case of minimal sequences. In a biologically inspired scenario, the information content per synapse is far below theoretical optimality, suggesting that the brain trades off error tolerance against information content in encoding sequential memories.


ABSTRACT Interleukin-12 (IL-12) functions as a representative lipopolysaccharide (LPS) mediator in both innate and adaptive immunity. We investigated the regulation of LPS-induced IL-12 production by mouse macrophages. In response to LPS, peritoneal macrophages produced bioactive IL-12 p70, a heterodimer (p40/p35) of subunits, but macrophage lines such as J774.1 and RAW264.7 did not. Induction of the p35 subunit was impaired in both cell lines, and additional impairment of p40 induction was observed in RAW264.7 cells. These results suggest that some negative regulatory mechanisms against LPS-induced IL-12 p40 production are constitutively functioning in RAW264.7 cells but not in the other types of cells. Activation of GA-12 (a repressor element of IL-12 p40), rather than suppression of promoter elements, such as binding sites for NF-κB, AP-1, and IRF-1, was detected in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells, accompanying hyperactivation of extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK). When ERK activation was suppressed by an inhibitor (U0126), production of p40 rose from an undetectable to a substantial level and GA-12 activation decreased. In peritoneal macrophages, stimulation with a high dose of LPS reduced p40 production with enhanced activation of ERK. Pretreatment of the cells with phorbol myristate acetate to enhance ERK activation reduced p40 production in response to the optimal LPS stimulation. Taken together, these results demonstrate that hyperactivation of the ERK pathway plays a role in upstream signaling for the activation of GA-12, leading to the repression of IL-12 p40 production in mouse macrophages.


An important example of a model category is the category of unbounded chain complexes of R-modules, which has as its homotopy category the derived category of the ring R. This example shows that traditional homological algebra is encompassed by Quillen's homotopical algebra. The goal of this paper is to show that more general forms of homological algebra also fit into Quillen's framework. Specifically, a projective class on a complete and cocomplete abelian category [Ascr ] is exactly the information needed to do homological algebra in [Ascr ]. The main result is that, under weak hypotheses, the category of chain complexes of objects of [Ascr ] has a model category structure that reflects the homological algebra of the projective class in the sense that it encodes the Ext groups and more general derived functors. Examples include the 'pure derived category' of a ring R, and derived categories capturing relative situations, including the projective class for Hochschild homology and co-homology. We characterize the model structures that are cofibrantly generated, and show that this fails for many interesting examples. Finally, we explain how the category of simplicial objects in a possibly non-abelian category can be equipped with a model category structure reflecting a given projective class, and give examples that include equivariant homotopy theory and bounded below derived categories.


This study concerns itself with examining the degree to which Live Projects can deliver learning experiences that enable architecture students to gain specific professional practice-ready skills and capabilities currently perceived to be lacking within the existing school curriculum - (1) collaborative interaction within and between inter-disciplinary teams, (2) participatory engagement with clients & civic concerns and the (3) capability to manage emergent ambiguities in risk exposure & decision-making – and as a consequence examine (4) how embryonic Live Project assessment rudiments might contribute to this acquisition?
Architects are under increased pressure to demonstrate the value of their contribution within the process of building design and construction. They are tasked with working effectively in teams, collaborating effectively with clients and end users and to cope with growing levels of risk and liability, uncertainty and ambiguity, often requiring greater creative leadership and commercial risk-taking in order to succeed. The need for architects to acquire three skillsets to cope with these conditions imposes changing expectations around the architect's role in practice and places increased pressure upon schools of Architecture to ensure their students are equipped with gaining these skillsets. The question emerges as to whether a less-established teaching model – Live Projects - might be able to deliver skills that will not only respond to, but also endure the ongoing changes within professional practice? And if so, in relation to what skillsets?

In contrast to other research enquiries concerning Live Projects and literature concerning architectural education in general, this thesis gathered evidence from a highly diverse range of sources – including data on emergent economic and industrial trends outside of the construction sector - as a means to define what the most valuable skillsets might be.

For schools of architecture, the specific challenge is to not only to work out how to teach these skillsets but to design and then assess learning activities that facilitate and reward their acquisition. Subsequently, this thesis also examines whether tentative assessment rudiments can play an enabling role in this respect.

Within a broader learning theory context, this enquiry supports a wider body of emergent evidence that Live Projects offer learning experiences consistent with much of the literature regarding effective pedagogy - one that involves authentic and active engagement with real situations being more effective at enabling learning more relevant to the nascent demands of wider industry. Subsequently, the main question being considered – as reflected in the title - is: To what extent do Live Projects enable the acquisition and application of three 'practice-ready' skillsets?
This question is then operationalised by examining this efficacy in relation to four sub-questions.
1. To what extent can Live Projects enable students to acquire interdisciplinary teamwork capabilities?
2. To what extent can Live Projects enable students to acquire client collaboration & civic engagement capabilities?
3. To what extent can Live Projects enable students to acquire ambiguity tolerance & risk management capabilities?
4. To what extent might Live Project assessment rudiments assist in the acquisition of the three skillsets?

In order to answer these questions, the enquiry employed qualitative as well as quantitative data collection methods. The qualitative evidence largely utilised grounded theory methods and analysis as a means to examine the perceptions of educators, architects and students. This involved the discovery of theory through the analysis of data and real world research, which focuses upon problem solving with a view to creating meaningful change. The mixed methods approach relied upon triangulation as a means to cross-examine evidence from the different data sets and to strengthen validity. The themes relating to the missing skillsets were then inter-related to highlight any interdependencies and to ensure a rigorous level of analysis and abstraction. Findings in relation to each skillset were isolated within focused chapters.

Mixed method or 'multi-method' analysis - involving a series of matrices - was used to compare both quantitative and (selected sections of) qualitative data. In line with practice-based research methodology, an extended and iterative period of data gathering and analysis allowed the researcher to consolidate observations regarding the acquisition of specific skills in both an academic as well as a practice context to consolidate into a concise set of learning concepts. The thesis subsequently used these learning concepts to define tentative assessment rudiments. The samples chosen for this study were situated in two distinctly different contexts; in practice and in education: encompassing architects, trainee architects, students and educators both with and without Live Project experience, to enable a clear set of variables for comparative analysis. The samples were also drawn from both the US and UK – a useful consequence of research funding in terms of providing quantitative data and comparable cohorts. These insights were then used to tentatively explore practical ways the acquisition of these skillsets could be assessed.

The conclusions of this study identify that Live Projects can enable students to acquire the three skillsets due to their ability to offer experiences that more closely align with professional practice. However it also pinpoints specific contingencies such as ensuring Live Project success is measured in terms of processes and not just outcomes - and - that keeping Live Projects as non-compulsory, extra curricula options or adjuncts to more established teaching models allows them to retain their inherently flexible, adaptive and responsive nature. Whilst there is general view that a lack of formal acknowledgement of Live Projects within the curricula-validating infrastructure of RIBA & NAAB has contributed to a collective sense that Live Projects are undervalued, the evidence suggests that the opposite is true – that Live Projects do have the ability to meet the criteria for validation extensively and effectively and can make the validation criterion more accessible and meaningful to students – and - because Live Projects encompass a hugely diverse range of projects by their nature of being holistically responsive to a set of site and community specific circumstances – assessment rudiments (rather than a design brief) might be the only unifying criteria.

 Given the current crisis in underemployment and the rise of the unpaid internship, these capabilities are of increasing relevance and value. Furthermore, it is transposable skills – which all three of the skillsets are – as opposed to those that are exclusive and unique to architecture – that are most likely to best serve students in future, whether or not they choose to become professional architects. Traditional subject specific skills are undeniably important, but transposable skills deserve greater emphasis and investment given the economic reality of finite resources and demands for greater user participation. Finally, for architectural educators already engaged in or initiating Live Projects, this thesis provides theoretical as well as an applied-knowledge framework to draw from, encompassing a practical as well as passionate advocacy for their wider implementation.


With the motor industry in turmoil and environmental concerns more pressing than ever, this book highlights the latest cars that promise to challenge our dependency on fossil fuels. Tesla's S offers an alternative to the traditional luxury sports sedan, Chevrolet's Volt could leap-frog Toyota and Honda's trailblazing hybrids, Smart goes zero-emission, while electric cars from Renault and Nissan are bringing up the rear. The book's scope is global, examining Indian company Tata's affordable Nano, supercars developed in Morocco, home-grown people's cars in Iran, Saab's reinvention at the hands of Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg, Hummer's new Chinese future, and the demise of legendary brands like Pontiac. Can Jaguar roar back under new ownership? Will Rolls-Royce overtake Bentley with its new entry-level model? How is Europe reacting to newly-introduced Infiniti and Cadillac models? What is Fiat planning at Chrysler? Written to satisfy autophiles without confusing learner drivers, this unparalleled guide to today's most stylish, innovative and intriguing automobiles also looks at the companies pushing the frontiers of design, value, and technology. Featuring a chapter on every manufacturer of note and their most desirable models, with hundreds of original photographs and illustrations, as well as interviews with designers and entrepreneurs at the forefront of change, and special features exploring street culture, it demystifies the rapidly evolving world of motoring for discerning drivers. Whether you're looking for an off-road workhorse or a limousine, an electric urban runabout or an exotic supercar, if it's on the road and worth a spin it's in this book.


Proposed and experimentally demonstrated is photonic generation of ultra-wideband (UWB) monocycle pulses using a silicon microring resonator to perform phase-modulation-to-intensity-modulation conversion. The microring resonator features compact size and thus is cost-effective especially for applications in UWB communication systems that support multiple users. As a microring resonator with a pin diode can function as a modulator, the use of the microring resonator to realise bi-phase modulation is discussed.