An information revolution is underway around the world. More than 108 million people world-wide have access to the Web and some 1.9 million homepages provide a wide variety of information. The move to electronic information formats is changing the processes and methods for conducting business. Timeliness is more important than ever and the focus is on easy access to information. Those of us who are in the business of providing access to information are changing with these demands and technologies. Journals, serials, newspapers and other periodicals are becoming 'electronic,' and we still have to find ways to provide access. The major players are the same in this 'electronic age' -- libraries, publishers and subscription agents --and the need to work together is far greater now than ever before. Changes in the roles and the functions of information professionals are apparent. The creation of the serial by the publisher remains the same, but now there are choices in formats. Whether electronic or paper, the serial is still published and circulated but how does an 'electronic' or 'online' serial get 'circulated?' For years, libraries have found it easy to work with subscription agencies to order numerous paper-based periodicals. With many serials available, both online and in paper formats, ordering and circulation become more complex, especially since electronic formats are expected to become more commonplace. Publishers, agents and libraries are turning to the World Wide Web to distribute information and are working together to provide users access to this information. Subscription agents can provide such online services as searching, ordering and claiming. Online services give librarians immediate access to databases at various subscription agencies, offering fast, accurate sources for locating online journals and other electronic serials. As more publishers begin to offer online serials, subscription agents will develop services to make access to those and traditional serials easier, while maintaining a traditional role as subscription management organisations. What we see as the future today-may change tomorrow, however. Thus the traditional role of the library is changing. Many libraries are forming or joining consortium groups, pooling their resources with others to provide their users with online materials efficiently. This is one solution that is beneficial for everyone involved. There are many concerns related to production of online journals, including cost, archiving and cataloguing. To find solutions, traditional boundaries will change -- formats, access methods and services. To keep up with changes, investments in technology, resources and strategies are required. The World Wide Web has provided the information industry with the best tool yet for fast access of information over the broad spectrum of users and library patrons. this valuable tool must be thoroughly utilised to manage information in the Information Age.


Structural information is available about several members of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family members and, in some instances, regarding these ligands with their receptors. Liu et al. provide structural data for the sTALL-1 (also known as BAFF, THANK, Blys, and zTNF4) member of this family of proteins, which is implicated in inflammation, apoptosis, and organogenesis. Similar to other members of the TNF family, sTALL-1 formed trimers through conserved hydrophobic interactions. Unlike other TNF ligands, sTALL-1 formed higher order oligomeric structures (60 monomers interacting as 20 trimers, for example) that strongly resemble the assembled viral envelope of the satellite tobacco necrosis virus. These higher order oligomers were sensitive to pH and could be detected at pH 7.4, but not lower pH values, by gel filtration or electron microscopy. Mutations in the "flap" region disrupted the formation of the oligomers and destabilized the trimers. The mutated sTALL-1 bound to its receptor BMCA with affinity similar to that of the wild-type sTALL-1, but was defective in activating the receptor in two cellular assays. Liu et al. propose that the oligomeric sTALL-1 acts to promote the recruitment of multiple receptor trimers, which could result in amplification of downstream signaling. Sequence alignments with the other TNF family members suggest that the flap region may not be conserved; thus, sTALL-1 may be unique in forming these higher order structures. Y. Liu, L. Xu, N. Opalka, J. Kappler, H.-B. Shu, G. Zhang, Crystal structure of sTALL-1 reveals a virus-like assembly of TNF family ligands. Cell 108, 383-394 (2002). [Online Journal]


Polarization orientation angle shifts can be seen not only in rugged terrain areas but also in urban areas. The latter is explained by backscatter from a wall of a building or house, which is equivalent to a tilted ground-surface patch. From the scattering model of built-up areas, the polarization orientation angle shift in the built-up areas is given as , where is the wall or street orientation angle, and is the radar incidence angle. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Pi-SAR L-band polarimetric data of Gifu, Japan, show a good agreement with the theory. The phase difference between VH and HH polarizations is used to demonstrate the contribution of double-bounce scattering ground-wall and wall-ground over a wide range of wall orientation angles.


Having students write and enact skits has been suggested for its potential to, for example, improve students' creative writing and communication skills (Myers & Torrance, 2003), enhance the psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains in slow readers (Kise, 1982), and provide opportunities for foreign language students to practice a target language in meaningful contexts (Makita-Discekici, 1999). Makita-Discekici additionally indicated that college students learning Japanese enjoyed creating and carrying out skits in class. Although assorted incidences of the use of skits in classrooms have been documented, though, literature on the use of skits as a learning tool is very limited. Further, discussions of the use of skits in teacher education are essentially nonexistent. Enabling teacher educators to examine preservice teachers in practice, skits allow for the generally absent observation component during early stages of the teacher education program. The purpose of this paper is to communicate the generative potential of classroom skits as curricular openings in teacher education. I present a case incorporating skits with preservice elementary teachers in a mathematics content/methods course. This case helps to raise insights and questions regarding preservice teachers' use of language about teaching and learning in connection with their instructional practices. Why Skits? Preservice teachers have a long history of experience with K-12 schooling from their pasts as students, and these pasts have often been acknowledged to play an important role in their eventual teaching (e.g., Borko & Putnam, 1996; Calderhead & Robson, 1991; Hollingsworth, 1989; Lortie, 1975; National Research Council [NRC], 2000; Pajares, 1992; Thompson, 1992). Given this, it has been popular for teacher educators to try to find ways to learn about and to address these histories in the context of promoting change, with many conversations having been carried out in teacher education literature about ways to purposefully use preservice teachers' pasts to support their ongoing learning in teacher education programs. For example, along with surveys, interviews, and field observations, Clark and Peterson (1986) communicated additional popular methods of inquiry often incorporated to understand teachers' thought processes and experiences--such as thinking aloud, stimulated recall, policy capturing, journal keeping, and the repertory grid technique. Among the more prevalent ways of trying to address preservice teachers' past experiences has the examination of constructs such as "beliefs" or "prior conceptions," particularly in relation to instructional practices. Wideen, MayerSmith, and Moon (1998) concluded from a review of 93 empirical studies on learning to teach that the most popular recommendation made by researchers was the essential first step of having beginning teachers examine their prior beliefs. Fosnot (1996) explained the need to draw out and address prior conceptions during teacher education, stating, "Just as young learners construct, so, too, do teachers" (p. 216). Further, she added: If understanding the teaching/learning process from a constructivist view is itself constructed, and if teachers tend to teach as they were taught, rather than as they were taught to teach, then teacher education needs to begin with these traditional beliefs and subsequently challenge them through activity, reflection, and discourse both in coursework and field work throughout the duration of the program (p. 206). Examining the features of 35 teacher education programs self-identified in their support of constructivist theories, Dangel and Guyton (2003) categorized eight elements prominent across programs, one of which was "learner-centered instruction" (p. 4). Within the discussion of learner-centered instruction, Dangel and Guyton described how in constructivist-oriented programs, "The teacher educator also works hard at assessing teacher-learners prior knowledge and understandings throughout instruction with an aim to helping them develop a deeper, richer conception of the topic" (p. …


Abstract. The trends and spreads of tropospheric and stratospheric temperature are discussed in terms of three groups of datasets in 1979–2008. These datasets include (a) three satellite observations of Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) measurements, (b) five radiosonde observations and (c) five reanalysis products. The equivalent tropospheric and stratospheric temperature from radiosonde and reanalyses are calculated based on the vertical weighting function of the MSU channel 2 (CH2) and channel 4 (CH4) measurements, respectively. The results show that both cooling in the stratosphere and warming in troposphere significantly depends on the datasets and latitudes.


Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts--like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy--have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy.


The South African government has been active in promulgating specific corporate social responsibility (CSR) regulations since 1994 directed at the economic empowerment of historically disadvantaged Black people. Government laws have sought to involve corporations in promoting social cohesion and in addressing problems of historical exclusion of Black communities from the mainstream economy. This objective of transformation within the economy culminated in the release of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act in 2003. The Department of Trade and Industry finalized the Codes of Good Practice on February 9, 2007, to clarify and ensure consistency in the implementation of socially responsible behavior in one area, empowerment of historically disadvantaged Black people (other areas of CSR do not display this consistently) within organizations across industry sectors. In this article, the authors discuss the key principles of this legislation, approaches to monitoring and measuring Codes of Good Practice implementation, and their implications for social-change initiatives in local and multinational enterprises that operate in South Africa.


Regrowth of the root system of transplanted sod has become a major concern in turf production. Since nitrogen is used on most turf sod installations, the amount of nitrogen applied and the time of its application may have important effects on the regeneration of roots from sods.Re-rooting of Merion Kentucky bluegrass sods given surface applications of N before transplanting, at the time of transplanting, and after transplanting to root observation containers in spring and summer was compared with that of sods given no N. Measurements included dry weights of roots grown from sods, rate of new root appearance, and color ratings.Applications of 98 and 293 kg/ha of N to the surface of Merion Kentucky bluegrass sod before transplanting and at the time of transplanting increased re-rooting compared with sods given no N. Proper timing is important for the best use of N in root regrowth from sods. Applications of N dose to the time of transplanting were more beneficial to rerooting than applications at longer intervals before or after transplanting.N decreased the carbohydrate content of topgrowth of sods by 20 to 25% at 23 days after transplanting in the summer test compared with sods given no N. Increased root regrowth was associated with decreased carbohydrates of topgrowth of sods given N at 4 days before transplanting and at the time of transplanting, but this did not occur when N was applied 9 days after transplanting.


Residual solvents often appear as nuisance signals in experimental NMR spectra, and many chemists turn to well-known literature sources to quickly identify such peaks. While these publications are very useful, they do not currently include many solvents exemplified in green chemistry-related literature. This work provides a single compiled reference for NMR chemical shifts of 80 solvents in each of 6 deuterated NMR solvents. The overall green chemistry assessments, as reached via the methodology of the GSK Solvent Sustainability Guide, are displayed on these charts.


In this chapter, ASCCC fractal is defined. The name " ASCCC " is based on the process that the fractal is built. It is made by adding and subtracting circles to the circumference of a circle. Then the necessary formulas to build up the first and higher orders of ASCCC fractal are derived. By calculating the perimeter of each order, it is shown that the ASCCC fractal has a great capability in antenna miniaturization. Based on first-order ASCCC fractal, a systematic approach is designed to miniaturize an antipodal dipole at any arbitrary frequency. Then the proposed method is applied at band LTE13 (746 – 787 MHz), which is controversy for mobile antenna, because it causes the size of a common antenna to become very large for a handheld mobile. It is illustrated that not only the ASCCC fractal is successful in miniaturization of dipole antenna, but also it is very good at improving the antenna ' s efficiency in comparison with its counterparts like Koch dipole/monopole.


The anchorage capacity of fully grouted bolts has been studied for many years, however the bolt rib profile and its effect on bolt shear resistance is poorly understood. A new development in calculating load transfer capacity between two rib profiles of varying geometries is discussed. The derived mathematical equations presented calculate the stress distribution adjacent to the fully grouted bolt and bolt pull out force needed to fail the resin. The Fast Lagrangian Analysis Continua (FLAC) program was used to verify the calculations of stress within the resin. The novel idea of coupling the bolt geometry with the calculated stress provides another powerful tool to investigate the bolt profile configuration and its effects on the load transfer mechanism for the benefit of the mining industry.


Taking a sharp photo at several megapixel resolution traditionally relies on high grade lenses. In this paper, we present an approach to alleviate image degradations caused by imperfect optics. We rely on a calibration step to encode the optical aberrations in a space-variant point spread function and obtain a corrected image by non-stationary deconvolution. By including the Bayer array in our image formation model, we can perform demosaicing as part of the deconvolution.


In this paper I review some of the key elements of Alasdair MacIntyre's conception of narrative identity. I focus on his notions of tradition and unified self, which have been interpreted by some critics as signs of a political conservatism and elitism. My argument proceeds by reviewing the critiques offered by Galen Strawson and Hilde Lindemann Nelson, both concerned with the conflict between tradition and choice. While Strawson and Nelson believe that traditions are oppressive at least to some individuals, MacIntyre offers a more complex understanding of tradition, emphasizing that traditions embody conflicts. In proposing a different reading of these concepts, one I claim is more accurate, I suggest that MacIntyre's concept of narrative selfhood can serve as foundation of a political theory that is utopian in a standard liberal way.


Sinusitis is an inflammation of the tissue that lines the sinuses. The sinuses are small, air-filled cavities situated behind the cheekbones and forehead which open up into the cavity of the nose, and help to control the temperature and water content of the air reaching the lungs. The sinuses have a thin lining that normally produces a small amount of mucus. Usually, the mucus that is produced naturally by the sinuses drains into the nose through small channels. When the sinus openings become blocked or too much mucus builds up, viruses, bacteria or fungi can grow more easily and cause infection. When the tissue lining of the sinuses gets infected, it swells and produces extra mucus.


This volume contains the proceedings of the Maurice Auslander Distinguished Lectures and International Conference, held April 25-30, 2012, in Falmouth, MA. The representation theory of finite dimensional algebras and related topics, especially cluster combinatorics, is a very active topic of research. This volume contains papers covering both the history and the latest developments in this topic. In particular, Otto Kerner gives a review of basic theorems and latest results about wild hereditary algebras, Yuri Berest develops the theory of derived representation schemes, and Markus Schmidmeier presents new applications of arc diagrams.


Large genomic reference data sets reveal a spectrum of pathogenicity in the prion protein gene and provide genetic validation for a therapeutic strategy in prion disease. Share trumps rare No longer just buzz words, "patient empowerment" and "data sharing" are enabling breakthrough research on rare genetic diseases. Although more than 100,000 genetic variants are believed to drive disease in humans, little is known about penetrance—the probability that a mutation will actually cause disease in the carrier. This conundrum persists because small sample sizes breed imperfect alliance estimates between mutations and disease risk. Now, a patient-turned-scientist joined with a large bioinformatics team to analyze vast amounts of shared data—from the Exome Aggregation Consortium and the 23andMe database—to provide insights into genetic-variant penetrance and possible treatment approaches for a rare, fatal genetic prion disease. More than 100,000 genetic variants are reported to cause Mendelian disease in humans, but the penetrance—the probability that a carrier of the purported disease-causing genotype will indeed develop the disease—is generally unknown. We assess the impact of variants in the prion protein gene (PRNP) on the risk of prion disease by analyzing 16,025 prion disease cases, 60,706 population control exomes, and 531,575 individuals genotyped by 23andMe Inc. We show that missense variants in PRNP previously reported to be pathogenic are at least 30 times more common in the population than expected on the basis of genetic prion disease prevalence. Although some of this excess can be attributed to benign variants falsely assigned as pathogenic, other variants have genuine effects on disease susceptibility but confer lifetime risks ranging from <0.1 to ~100%. We also show that truncating variants in PRNP have position-dependent effects, with true loss-of-function alleles found in healthy older individuals, a finding that supports the safety of therapeutic suppression of prion protein expression.


In the October 2001 issue of the JOURNAL OF LAW & EDUCATION, Christopher Haden resurrects the notion that student-athletes are exploited under policies established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).' He contends that student-athletes warrant additional compensation above and beyond the financial inducements of an athletic scholarship and the advantages of a college education. While acknowledging that additional compensation for collegiate athletes may implicate a range of legal issues, including federal antitrust law and Title IX compliance, Haden proposes an option, which Hurst and Pressley previously detailed, whereby collegiate athletes would be entitled to a monthly stipend characterized as part of their scholarships, or "laundry money."2 Collegiate Athletics' Inequities Haden's argument for additional compensation is predicated on a perception shared by millions of Americans. Any television viewer who has watched a college football game or the NCAA-sanctioned post-season basketball tournament knows college athletics is a corporate enterprise involving millions of dollars in revenues. Like so many critics of the current system, Haden cites the revenues big-time athletic programs generate, the generous salaries paid to head coaches in the principal revenue-generating sports, and the narrow view that athletes do not receive a share of the profits from the enterprise.3 Stipends for athletes have been limited to tuition and fees, room and board, and books. As the governing body of intercollegiate sports, the NCAA opposes compensation for collegiate athletes in an effort to preserve the status of amateur athletics in IMAGE FORMULA4letics in colleges and universities. In the NCAA's view, compensation may alter the accepted view that collegiate athletes are students rather than employees of higher education institutions. Critics argue that amateurism is a fiction intended to veil the status of college athletes as employees and deny players the right to participate in profits generated from the intercollegiate athletics market. The argument for profit-sharing through wage compensation is often referred to as "pay-for-play." Pay-for-play is predicated on the assumption that colleges and universities enjoy huge revenues from marketing their collegiate sports program and that the extraordinary profits resulting from these revenues are not shared with players who perform in the arena. As one illustration of this inequity, pay-for-play advocates insist that student athletes who contribute to an institution's success on the playing field are insufficiently protected if they sustain a debilitating or career-ending injury while playing their sport.' To remedy the perceived inequity, some critics advocate recognizing collegiate athletes as employees of their institutions in order to make workers' compensation available to them.' Workers' compensation would allow an injured collegiate athlete to seek an award that would extend beyond his collegiate career. However, institutions and the NCAA fear that recognizing collegiate athletes as employees for workers' compensation purposes will reshape the mission of higher education institutions. Granting workers' compensation could also lead to other student-athlete/employee demands for salaries, benefits, and collective bargaining. Advocates for a pay-for-play policy have been largely unsuccessful in convincing state legislatures to reform workers' compensation laws to include collegiate athletes.6 Haden references selected court decisions appearing to reflect judicial support for the status of collegiate athletes as employees.' However, courts have generally denied workers' compensation benefits on the basis of the institutions' successful arguments that their primary goal is to educate collegiate athletes and a corresponding recognition that significant public policy changes would result if workers' compensation laws were liberally interpreted to apply to these athletes. …


This article, written as part of the symposium on the Scholarship of Sanford Levinson, explores how Professor Levinson's theory of constitutional interpretation should intersect with the professional responsibility of a lawyer during representation on a constitutional issue, i.e., "What is the professional responsibility a lawyer has to the Constitution?" The thesis of the piece is that lawyers need to construct an ethical framework for themselves that helps to explain and guide behavior in their role as client representatives who are also public citizens with a sworn fealty to the Constitution - a framework, in other words, that helps them understand and define their role as constructors of Constitutional meaning. In exploring this question, I use the lens of Professor Levinson's protestant constitutionalism, rather than the lens of professional responsibility law. The former lens focuses attention upon the relationship between the actor (lawyer in the role of client representative) and the Constitution, rather than simply upon the relationship between the lawyer and the client, which has come to be the hallmark of exploring issues about professional responsibility from the perspective of the law of lawyering. Using Professor Levinson's approach permits the inquiry to avoid some of the problems of self-interest and self-protection that have accreted into the law of lawyering. The article shows how the theory of protestant constitutionalism requires an examination of the role that lawyers do and should play in constitutional interpretation. It then addresses the challenge of defining the lawyer's role, in light of the role of client representation. After presenting a sample case raising many of the difficult issues involved in addressing this question, the article proceeds to examine the lawyer's role by mining Professor Levinson's scholarship for the features of a well-executed lawyerly role. The article proposes that there are three models one can use to describe the lawyer's role: priest (the lawyer as the one who controls interpretation, by applying Supreme Court pronouncements to the client's problem), knowing instrument (the client as in complete control of the interpretation to be advanced, even if the lawyer sincerely disagrees with the constitutionality of that interpretation) and minister (the lawyer as initiator of a constitutional conversation with the client, with both maintaining responsibility for interpreting the constitution). It argues for adopting the minister role as that most consistent with protestant constitutionalism and good professional responsibility theory. Finally, the article proposes a simple rubric to help guide lawyers in executing their dual responsibility to client and Constitution.


Although lipid guidelines provide updated, practical, and clinically relevant information that may be used in patient care, the continuing publication of new evidence and the inevitable treatment gaps present in all guidelines reinforce the importance of clinical judgment in shared decision making. This article explores the development of the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Blood Cholesterol Guidelines and the evidence base for managing patients with severe hypercholesterolemia, provides more recent high-quality evidence, and identifies existing treatment gaps that should be considered when caring for such patients. Although it was submitted prior to publication of the 2018 AHA/ACC/AACVPR/AAPA/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol, this review also includes key takeaway messages from the updated guideline.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to develop a modified version of a 3-min all-out cycling test (3MT) using equipment readily available to cyclists and to identify exercise intensity domains using the average power output over the last 30 s of the 3MT (end-test power (EP)).

METHODS
Sixteen competitive cyclists (V(O2peak) = 60.3 +/- 8.3 mL.kg.min) completed three laboratory visits using their own bicycles and a power-measuring rear wheel. In visit 1, subjects performed an incremental load test to volitional termination on an electronically braked trainer (100 + 25 W every 4 min). Power output at lactate threshold was determined by absolute 4 mmol.L (OBLA-PO) and 1 mmol.L over exercise baseline (LT-PO). Power output at ventilatory threshold (VT-PO) was computed on the basis of the V-slope method. Power output at V(O2peak) (V(O2peak)-PO) was the mean power observed during the stage at which peak O2 consumption was recorded. In visits 2 and 3, subjects performed the 3MT using a progressive resistance trainer with Visit 2 as a familiarization trial. During Visit 3, EP was recorded.

RESULTS
EP (273 +/- 52 W) was significantly greater than VT-PO, OBLA-PO, and LT-PO (232 +/- 64, 235 +/- 54, and 208 +/- 45 W, respectively) but significantly less than V(O2peak)-PO (288 +/- 56 W). EP was correlated with V(O2peak)-PO (r = 0.97), VT-PO (r = 0.87), OBLA-PO (r = 0.85), and LT-PO (r = 0.79) with regression estimates through the origin made using 105%, 86%, 86%, and 76% of EP, respectively. Demarcations for moderate- to heavy-intensity (LT-PO at 76% EP) and heavy- to severe-intensity (100% EP) domains may be estimated.

CONCLUSION
The 3MT can be used to define exercise intensity in competitive cyclists using readily available equipment.


We couple noise into the driving current of a laser diode to produce correlated light. We characterize the intensity correlations of the laser with two different techniques: two-detector photon coincidence and analysis of the photocurrent from a single detector. The light exhibits bunching with a magnitude and characteristic time set by the bandwidth and the amplitude of the noise modulating the laser driving current. A simple model based on amplitude modulation of the laser intensity agrees with the measured correlation functions. The bunched light can be used to probe systems that are sensitive to intensity correlations.


Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a zoonotic disease, and remains a cause of concern for livestock, wildlife and human health, especially in Ethiopia. It is a contagious disease, so close contact between animals or sharing of feed between infected and non-infected animals are major risk factors for transmission. Thus, improving the understanding of the factors that promote contact between hosts (i.e., livestock animals but also wild ruminants) is critical for limiting bTB transmission in pastoral, multi-host communities. I found that the older the age of the cattle and the lower the body condition, the higher the chance of a positive bTB test result at the individual animal level. Moreover, at herd level, herd size, contact with wildlife, and the interaction of herd size and contact with wildlife were identified as significant risk factors for bTB prevalence in cattle in Ethiopia. Further to what is already known from the past studies, I found that the probability of contact with wildlife was positively influenced by herd size, through herd movement. As larger herds moved more and grazed in larger areas, the probability of grazing in an area with wildlife and contact with either infected cattle or infected wildlife hosts increased; this also increased the chances for bTB infection. I detected a possible 'dilution effect' in bTB, where a higher evenness of mammal species reduced the probability of bTB occurrence. This dilution effect might be caused by encounter reduction. Because the encounter rate is proportional to the distribution of the host species; evenness would then capture the probability of encounter between pathogens and each host species. Thus, species evenness can be an appropriate measure of biodiversity to explain disease risk. I also showed that bTB prevalence was positively associated with the invasion of the plant Prosopis (Prosopis juliflora), maybe due to the loss in host species evenness and the increase in cattle movement as a consequence of the loss of palatable grasses in Prosopis-infested areas. Moreover, social contacts between herd owners are also important, as I found that herds with a greater number of edges in a (social) network had more connections in the livestock transfer network, increasing the probability of becoming infected with bTB. Thus, cultural components like large herd size and social contacts are at odds with the global One Health rationale to reduce bTB.


What prerequisite knowledge should students achieve a level of mastery before moving forward to learn subsequent coursewares? We study the extent to which the prerequisite relation between knowledge concepts in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be inferred automatically. In particular, what kinds of information can be leverage to uncover the potential prerequisite relation between knowledge concepts. We first propose a representation learning-based method for learning latent representations of course concepts, and then investigate how different features capture the prerequisite relations between concepts. Our experiments on three datasets form Coursera show that the proposed method achieves significant improvements (+5.9-48.0% by F1-score) comparing with existing methods.


This dissertation presents a learning-based system for the detection, identification, localization, and measurement of various sub-cellular structures in microscopic images of developing embryos. The system analyzes sequences if images obtained through DIC microscopy and detects cell nuclei, cytoplasm, and cell walls automatically. The system described in this dissertation is the key component of a fully automated phenotype analysis system.
Our study primarily concerns the early stages of development of C. Elegans nematode embryos, from fertilization to the four-cell stage. The method proposed in this dissertation consists in learning the entire processing chain from end to end, from raw pixels to ultimate object categories.
The system contains three modules: (1) a convolutional network trained to classify each pixel into five categories: cell wall, cytoplasm, nuclear membrane, nucleus, outside medium; (2) an Energy-Based Model which cleans up the output of the convolutional network by learning local consistency constraints that must be satisfied by label images; (3) A set of elastic models of the embryo at various stages of development that are matched to the label images.
When observing normal (wild type) embryos it is possible to visualize important cellular functions such as nuclear movements and fusions, cytokinesis and the setting up of crucial cell-cell contacts. These events are highly reproducible from embryo to embryo. The events will deviate from normal behaviors when the function of a specific gene is perturbed, therefore allowing the association of a gene's activity with specific early embryonic events. One important goal of the system is to automatically detect whether the development is normal (and therefore, not particularly interesting), or abnormal and worth investigating. Another important goal is to automatically extract quantitative measurements such a the migration speed of the nuclei and the precise time of cell divisions.


© The Authors 2018; This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author (s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial license Share alike. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.


Substantial resources are devoted to forecasting macroeconomic series by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Forecasts for these series are also available from many private sources. For example, Consensus Economics, an English firm, combines forecasts from 10 to 30 private sector forecasts for each country. Batchelor asks whether the IMF and OECD, with their statistics and highly qualified analysts, might contribute to forecast accuracy beyond what is offered by private firms. Batchelor used a two-tailed significance test on whether these forecasts do better than the consensus. He examined forecasts for the G7 countries for seven years (1990-1996) using three starting points for each year for six variables. In all, there were comparisons for 1,200 forecasts. Using the Mean Absolute Errors, the consensus forecasts were superior to the OECD and IMF forecasts on 23 of 27 comparisons (summarized by variable by starting month). On average, the combined forecast error was 9.6% less than the IMF forecast and 8.1% less than the OECD forecast. These gains are in line with the estimate that combining will reduce the error by about 12% versus a single component forecast (Armstrong 2001). Batchelor then examined whether the Consensus Forecasts would be improved through the addition of the OECD and IMF forecasts. It was not, which is not surprising given the large number of forecasts included in the combined forecasts; the results for combining suggest that the gains in accuracy from adding forecasts become small after one has combined five forecasts (Armstrong 2001).


Camera-based advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) require the mapping from image coordinates into world coordinates to be known. The process of computing that mapping is geometric calibration. This paper provides a series of tests that may be used to assess the goodness of the
 geometric calibration and compare model forms:

 1. Image Coordinate System Test: Validation that different teams are using the same image coordinates.

 2. Reprojection Test: Validation of a camera's calibration by forward projecting targets through the model onto the
 image plane.

 3. Projection Test: Validation of a camera's calibration by inverse projecting points through the model out into the world.

 4. Triangulation Test: Validation of a multi-camera system's ability to locate a point in 3D.

 The potential configurations
 for these tests are driven by automotive use cases. These tests enable comparison and tuning of different calibration models for an as-built camera.


This article proposes a reading of the armed conflict from an evolutionary design that takes into account the concept of private protection agencies in the works of Schelling. Their aim is to assess the dynamics of conflict and changes from its author's scientific output. A context of conflicts that includes new expressions of violence and the relative failure of the paramilitary reintegration involves using new analytical models (argumentation, game theory and inconsistent information). The recent evolution of emerging gangs and their expansion into areas that were paramilitary camps requires monitoring not only of the government and the authorities, but those investigating the conflict in the present tense. The author provides heuristic research support from Schelling's theory of strategy, recent contributions to the relationship between organized crime and drug cartels.


Most voluntary actions rely on neural circuits that map sensory cues onto appropriate motor responses. One might expect that for everyday movements, like reaching, this mapping would remain stable over time, at least in the absence of error feedback. Here we describe a simple and novel psychophysical phenomenon in which recent experience shapes the statistical properties of reaching, independent of any movement errors. Specifically, when recent movements are made to targets near a particular location subsequent movements to that location become less variable, but at the cost of increased bias for reaches to other targets. This process exhibits the variance–bias tradeoff that is a hallmark of Bayesian estimation. We provide evidence that this process reflects a fast, trial-by-trial learning of the prior distribution of targets. We also show that these results may reflect an emergent property of associative learning in neural circuits. We demonstrate that adding Hebbian (associative) learning to a model network for reach planning leads to a continuous modification of network connections that biases network dynamics toward activity patterns associated with recent inputs. This learning process quantitatively captures the key results of our experimental data in human subjects, including the effect that recent experience has on the variance-bias tradeoff. This network also provides a good approximation of a normative Bayesian estimator. These observations illustrate how associative learning can incorporate recent experience into ongoing computations in a statistically principled way.


Integrating perennial groundcovers (PGC) — sometimes referred to as living mulches or perennial cover crops — into annual cash-crop systems could address root causes of bare-soil practices that lead to negative impacts on soil and water quality. Perennial groundcovers bring otherwise absent functional traits — namely perenniality — into cash-crop systems to preserve soil and regenerate water, carbon, and nutrient cycles. However, if not optimized, they can also cause competitive interactions and yield loss. When designing PGC systems, the goal is to maximize complementarity — spatial and temporal separation of growth and resource acquisition — between PGC and cash crops through both breeding and management. Traits of interest include complementary root and shoot systems, reduced shade avoidance response in the cash-crop, and PGC summer dormancy. Successful deployment of PGC systems could increase both productivity and profitability by improving water- and nutrient-use-efficiency, improving weed and pest control, and creating additional value-added opportunities like stover harvest. Many scientific questions about the inherent interactions at the cell, plant, and ecosystem levels in PGC systems are waiting to be explored. Their answers could enable innovation and refinement of PGC system design for multiple geographies, crops, and food systems, creating a practical and scalable pathway towards resiliency, crop diversification, and sustainable intensification in agriculture.


Populations of the ecologically important sea urchin Diadema antillarum suffered severe mass mortalities throughout the Caribbean. This mortality was first observed at Panama in January 1983; by January 1984 it had spread to the rest of the Caribbean and to Bermuda. The sequence of mortality events in most areas is consistent with the hypothesis that the causative agent was dispersed by major surface currents over large distances. However, some of the late die-offs in the southeastern Caribbean do not fit this pattern. Several lines of indirect evidence suggest that the phenomenon is due to a water-borne pathogen. If so, this is the most extensive epidemic documented for a marine invertebrate.


SARS-CoV-2 Lambda, a new variant of interest, is now spreading in some South American countries; however, its virological features and evolutionary trait remain unknown. Here we reveal that the spike protein of the Lambda variant is more infectious and it is attributed to the T76I and L452Q mutations. The RSYLTPGD246-253N mutation, a unique 7-amino-acid deletion mutation in the N-terminal domain of the Lambda spike protein, is responsible for evasion from neutralizing antibodies. Since the Lambda variant has dominantly spread according to the increasing frequency of the isolates harboring the RSYLTPGD246-253N mutation, our data suggest that the insertion of the RSYLTPGD246-253N mutation is closely associated with the massive infection spread of the Lambda variant in South America. Highlights Lambda S is highly infectious and T76I and L452Q are responsible for this property Lambda S is more susceptible to an infection-enhancing antibody RSYLTPGD246-253N, L452Q and F490S confer resistance to antiviral immunity Graphical Abstract


Blood is a vital part of the human physiology; a transport system that brings nutrients and oxygen to sustain living cells and simultaneously facilitates the removal of carbon dioxide and other waste products from the body. To assure the continuity of these functions, it is of uttermost importance to keep the flowing blood inside the vascular system at any cost. The principal components of the haemostatic system are the blood platelets and the plasma coagulation system, both working in concert to create a blood stopping haemostatic plug when a vessel is ruptured. In modern health care, methods for treatment and diagnostics often implicate the contact between blood and artificial materials (biomaterials). Biomaterial surfaces may activate platelets and the coagulation cascade by exposing a surface that during blood contact shares certain characteristics with surfaces found at the site of vascular injury. Therefore it is of great importance that the mechanisms behind the interactions between foreign surfaces and blood are studied in order to minimize, and if possible, prevent unnecessary reactions that may lead to thrombosis. This thesis describes two important methods to study blood – surface interactions in terms of surface induced plasma coagulation and platelet adhesion/aggregation. The method 'Imaging of coagulation', a coagulation assay based on time-lapse image capture of the coagulation process was developed during the course of this work. The use of images enables the method to answer questions regarding where coagulation was initiated and how fast coagulation propagates. Such questions are highly relevant in the study of blood-biomaterial interactions but also in general haemostasis research. In vivo, platelet adhesion and aggregation are events that always proceed under flow conditions. Therefore we also developed a cone-and-plate flow model to study these mechanisms under similar conditions in vitro. The cone-and-plate setup was found to be a flexible platform and was used for both blood compatibility testing of potential biomaterials as well as for general haemostasis research. With the above mentioned methods we tested the haemocompatibility of glycerol monooleate (GMO), a proposed substance for use in biomaterial applications. It was found that GMO did not activate coagulation to any great extent either in plasma or in whole blood. Surface induced coagulation and platelet adhesion was also studied on PEG-containing hydrogels and compared with hydrogels constructed from three different non-PEG-containing monomers. It was concluded that all the grafted hydrogels, in particular those produced from the monomers 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and/or PEG- methacrylate (PEGMA), demonstrated good haemocompatibility. Supported phospholipid bilayers were used to investigate the relationship between surface charge and procoagulant activity. The coagulation process was studied in a straightforward manner using the imaging of coagulation setup. We concluded that the content of negatively charged 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-[phospho-L-serine] (POPS) in the bilayer must exceed ~ 6% for the bilayer to exert procoagulant activity. The physiological role of factor XII in human haemostasis and thrombosis was investigated in the imaging of coagulation setup and the cone and plate setup by the use of surfaces with thrombogenic coatings. We found that tissue factor initiated coagulation could be greatly accelerated by the presence of contact activating agents in a platelet dependent manner. In conclusion, the method 'Imaging of coagulation' and platelet adhesion/aggregation in the cone-and-plate flow model are both versatile methods with many possible applications. The combination of the two methods provides a solid foundation for biomaterial and haemostasis research.


Fault-related folds develop above active faults, and as these faults propagate laterally so do the folds they produce. Geomorphic criteria useful in evaluating rates and direction of lateral propagation of active folds in the direction of propagation are: (1) decrease in drainage density and degree of dissection; (2) decrease in elevation of wind gaps; (3) decrease in relief of the topographic profile along the crest; (4) development of characteristic drainage patterns; (5) deformation of progressively younger deposits or landforms; and (6) decrease in rotation and inclination of forelimb. All these criteria are consistent with lateral propagation, but do not prove it. The presence of more than one wind or water gap formed by the same stream, however, is strong evidence of lateral propagation. Rates of lateral propagation of folding may be several times the rate of uplift and fault slip. Lateral propagation of anticlinal folds allows for a new explanation of how drainage may develop across active fold belts. Development of drainage across an active fold belt is probably a function of relatively long structurally controlled drainage diversion parallel to fold axes and development of relatively short antecedent stream reaches, around the nose (plunge panel) of a fold. Water and/or wind gaps form as uplift, drainage diversion, and stream capture associated with fold growth continue.


A book published by the author in 1993 contained a lengthy chapter on the August 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union. This article builds on and updates that chapter, making use of a trove of newly available documents and memoirs. The article discusses many aspects of the coup attempt, but it particularly seeks to explain why the coup failed and what the implications were for the Soviet Union. The events of December 1991 that culminated in the dissolution of the Soviet Union were the direct result of changes set in motion by the failed coup. The major state and party institutions that might ordinarily have tried to hold the country togetherthe Communist Party apparatus, the secret police, the military-industrial complex, the Ministry of Defense, and the state administrative organsall were compromised by their participation in the coup. As a result, when events pushed the Soviet Union toward collapse there was no way of staving off that outcome.


Data from 357 conscious stroke patients taking part in an acute intervention trial and assessed within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms, were used to investigate the prevalence and natural history of swallowing problems. Nearly 30% of patients with single-hemisphere strokes were initially found to have difficulty swallowing a mouthful of water, but in most of those who survived, the deficit had resolved by the end of the first week. Strong correlations were found between dysphagia and speech impairment (comprehension and expression) and with facial weakness, but there was no association with the side of the stroke. After controlling for other markers of overall stroke severity such as conscious level, urinary continence, white blood cell count and strength in the affected limbs, swallowing impairment still showed a significant inverse correlation with functional ability at 1 and 6 months. These results indicate that, even if dysphagia itself is not responsible for much excess mortality in acute stroke, it might still lead to complications which hamper functional recovery.


Military budget cuts and increased competition in the commercial market have shifted the focus of aircraft design to include affordability concerns. This has resulted in the need for increased knowledge in the early stages of design when a high percentage of the available resources are committed. The Technology Identification, Evaluation and Selection methodology outlined herein provides the designer with a structured decision making method within which technological alternatives can be compared. Furthermore, this methodology is probabilistic in nature to account for the uncertainty and risk inherent in design, as well as for the variability of the aerospace market. Thus, this seven-step process leads the designer from a societal need, through a series of alternatives, to a robust solution capable of meeting customer goals within a variable environment. As a proof of concept the methodology was applied to a very large commercial transport. Evaluation criteria and potential concepts were identified through systematic techniques such as Quality Function Deployment and Morphological Matrices. The baseline concept studied could not meet all customer requirements with an acceptable degree of confidence, and therefore, three potential technologies were considered. The technologies investigated were hybrid laminar flow control, composite wing and composite fuselage, and their possible combinations. Probabilistic techniques such as Response Surface Methodology and Monte Carlo Simulation were employed to identify technically feasible and economically viable alternatives. Finally, Multi-Attribute Decision Making methods were employed to select a best alternative according to the established evaluation criteria.


Orientation is a crucial time for newly hired nurses, both experienced and nonexperienced and this initial training period is a vital function for all healthcare organizations. Being a collaborative process that includes administrators, managers, preceptors, and orientees, formal orientation programs directly influence and are essential in improving staff retention, lowering turnover, increasing productivity and quality patient care, and improving staff morale and job satisfaction. This scholarly project offers a detailed plan for the development, implementation, and evaluation of the preceptor coordinator role, a department-level initiative that links hospital orientation to unit orientation; thus enhancing the overall orientation process.


Objective To explore the effect of tuina on the gene expression at the point of nerve injury in rats with sciatic nerve injury (SNI) and to elucidate the repair mechanism of tuina promoting the functional recovery of peripheral nerve injury. Methods In the Sham group, the right sciatic nerve was exposed without clamping. The SNI model was established using the sciatic nerve clamp method on the right leg and then randomly divided into the SNI group and the Tuina group. Seven days after modeling, the Tuina group was treated daily with a "massage and tuina manipulation simulator" (Patent No. ZL 2007 0187403.1), which was used daily to stimulate Yinmen (BL37), Yanglingquan (GB34), and Chengshan (BL57) with point-pressing method, plucking method, and kneading method. The stimulating force was 4N, and the stimulating frequency was 60 times per minute; each method and each point were used for 1 minute, totaling 9 minutes (1 min/acupoint/method × 3 methods × 3 acupoints). Treatment was administered for 21 days, followed by a 1-day rest after the 10th treatment, for a total of 20 times of intervention. The sciatic function index (SFI) was used to evaluate the fine movements of the hind limbs of rats in each group. The ultrastructural changes at the point of nerve injury were observed by transmission electron microscopy, and the gene changes at the point of nerve injury were detected using RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) technology. Results Compared with the baseline, the SFI of the SNI group and the Tuina group decreased significantly at the 0th intervention (7 days after molding); compared with the SNI group, the SFI of the Tuina group increased at the 10th intervention (P < 0.05) and increased significantly at the 15th and 20th intervention (P < 0.01). Compared with the Sham group, the myelin sheath integrity of the sciatic nerve in the SNI group was destroyed and the myelin sheath collapsed seriously, even forming myelin sheath ball, accompanied with severe axonal atrophy and mitochondrial degeneration. The tuina intervention could significantly improve the ultrastructure of the nerve injury point, and the nerve fiber myelin sheath in the Tuina group remained intact, without obvious axonal swelling or atrophy. Atrophic thread granules could be seen in the axon, but there were no vacuolated mitochondria. RNA-seq results showed that there were differences at 221 genes at the point of nerve injury between the Tuina group and the SNI group and the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) are enriched in the biological processes related to the regulation of myocyte. Regulations include the regulation of striated muscle cell differentiation, myoblast differentiation, and myotube differentiation. Conclusion Tuina can improve the fine motor recovery and protect the myelin integrity in rats with peripheral nerve injury, and this is achieved by changing the gene sequence at the injured point.


Estimating the number of pedestrians in surveillance images and videos has important applications in intelligent transportation systems. This problem is particularly challenging when the scenes are densely crowded, in which the techniques of tracking a single pedestrian has limited effectiveness. Alternative approaches employ statistical learning algorithms to infer pedestrian counts directly from visual features computed on images or scenes. In this paper, we describe a system for predicting pedestrian counts that significantly extends the utility of those ideas. Our approach incorporates a richer set of features for statistical modeling. While these features give rise to regression problems in a high-dimensional space, we leverage learning techniques to reduce dimensionality while still attaining high accuracy for predicting the number of pedestrians. Empirical results have validated our strategy. Specifically, our system outperforms state-of-the-art methods on standard benchmark tasks by a large margin.


This thesis is concerned with the development of
optimisation methods to solve stochastic Model Predictive
Control (MPC) problem and employ them in
the management of DrinkingWater Networks (DWNs).
DWNs are large-scale, complex both in topology and
dynamics, energy-intensive systems subjected to irregular
demands. Managing these networks play a
crucial role in the economic sustainability of urban
cities. The main challenge associated with such infrastructures
is to minimise the energy required for
pumping water while simultaneously maintaining
uninterrupted water supply. State-of-the-art control
methodologies as well as the current engineering
practices use predictive models to forecast upcoming
water demands but do not take into consideration
the inevitable forecasting error. This way, the
water network is operated in a deterministic fashion
disregarding its inherent stochastic behaviour
which accrues from the volatility of water demand
and, often, electricity prices. In this thesis, we address
two challenges namely: optimisation methods
for solving stochastic MPC problems and closedloop
feedback control for the management of drinking
water networks.
MPC is an advanced control technology that copes with complex control problem by repeatedly solving
a finite horizon constrained optimal control problem;
uses only the first decision as input and discards
the rest of the sequence. This methodology
decides the control action based on present state of
the system and thus provides an implicit feedback
to the system. Instead of historical demand profile,
time-series models were developed to forecast the
future water demand. The economic and the social
aspects involved in operation of the DWN were
captured in a cost function. Now the MPC controller
combined with online forecaster minimise the
cost function across a prediction horizon of 1 day
with sampling time equal to 1 hour and thus the
closed-loop strategy for DWN management is devised.
The forecasts are just nominal demands and differ
from the actual demands. There exist several approaches
when it comes to working with uncertain
forecasts: (i) to assume that forecast errors are negligible
and disregard them, (ii) to assume knowledge
of their worst-case values (maximum errors), (iii)
to assume knowledge of probabilistic information.
These three approaches lead to the three principal
flavours of MPC: the certainty-equivalent (CE), the
worst-case robust and the stochastic MPC. CE-MPC
is simple but not realistic (because the errors are not
negligible), worst-case MPC is more meaningful but
it is too conservative (because it is highly improbable
that the errors admit their worst-case values) and then we have stochastic MPC which is the approach
pursued in this thesis.
A stochastic MPC allows a systematic framework
as trade-off performance against constraint violation
by modelling the uncertainty as stochastic process
and quantifying its influence. However, this
formulation is an infinite dimensional optimisation
problem and its corresponding discrete approximation
is deemed to be a large-scale problem with millions
of decision variables. Therefore, the applicability
of stochastic MPC in control applications is
limited due to the unavailability of algorithms that
can solve them efficiently and within the sampling
time of the controlled system.
Here we developed optimisation algorithms that solve
stochastic MPC problem by exploiting their structure
and using parallelisation. These algorithms are
(i) accelerated proximal gradient algorithm also known
as forward-backward splitting and (ii) LBFGS
method for forward-backward envelope (FBE) function.
Both these algorithms employ decomposition
to solve the Fenchel dual and make them suitable
for parallel implementation. Graphics processing
units (GPUs) are capable of perform parallel computation
and are therefore perfect hardware to solve
the stochastic MPC problem with the accelerated
proximal gradient method.
The water network of the city Barcelona is considered
to study the validity of the proposed algorithm.
The GPU implementation is found to be 10 times faster than commercial solvers like Gurobi running
in multi-core environment and made the problem
computationally tractable in the sampling time. The
efficiency of the stochastic MPC to manage theDWN
is quantified in terms of key performance indicators
like economic utility, network utility and quality of
service.
The forward-backward splitting is a first-order method
and has slow convergence for ill-conditioned
problems. We constructed a continuously differentiable
real-valued forward-backward envelope function
that has the same set of minimisers as the actual
problem. Then we use quasi-Newton method,
in particular LBFGS method, that utilises secondorder
information to solve the FBE. The computations
with this algorithm are also parallelisable and
it demonstrated fast convergence compared to accelerated
dual proximal gradient algorithm.


The article offers a bird's-eye view on the program of reforms in science and university education, which have recently been implemented in Poland, in expectation to start a process of a far-reaching modernization. It attempts to identify and highlight a challenging message underpinning a whole concept of the reform; its deep radicalism is revealed and accentuated. The reform was conceived as a large-scale relocation of symbolical capital, creating new resources of influence and prestige, and changing the principles of self-identification in the milieu of scientists, by juxtaposing the old and the new "regime", and creating the aura of a great promise and expectations – promoting the vision of a Great Leap to the kingdom of opportunity. By stressing the fundamental role of a competition based efficiency, it was trying to connect science to the experience of market economy. The article is focused on serious doubts that must arise, in this perspective, when a peculiar character of the humanities is taken into consideration. It is intended to confront the "politics of putting to shame", designed to boost the triumphant message of the reformers.


Taking as its subject the layered anxieties of T. H. Parry-Williams's 1935 essay, 'Bwrn' (burden, weight on the mind), this lecture unpicks the complex strata of knowledge and unknowing that gather round a distressful engraving (hanging in a shop window) of three cowled figures that the writer cannot exorcize. Bringing Parry-Williams into a complex relationship with William Blake and artist Henry Fuseli, the lecture reflects on pathological acts of looking and reading, offering a bold new diagnosis of Parry-Williams's neurotic worlds.


With the emergence of Abstract Expressionism after World War II, the attention of the international art world turned from Paris to New York. Dore Ashton captures the vitality of the cultural milieu in which the New York School artists worked and argued and critiqued each other's work from the 1930s to the 1950s. Working from unsifted archives, from contemporary newspapers and books, and from extensive conversations with the men and women who participated in the rise of the New York School, Ashton provides a rich cultural and intellectual history of this period. In examining the complex sources of this important movement--from the WPA program of the 1930s and the influx of European ideas to the recognition in the 1950s of American painting on an international scale--she conveys the concerns of an extraordinary group of artists including Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, and many others. Rare documentary photographs illustrate Ashton's classic appraisal of the New York School scene.


Activated microbial induction of CaCO3 precipitation (AMICP) is a niche with innovative approaches that involves the exploration of bacterial attacks towards the alteration/transformation of the physical properties of soils. A handful have been documented on this technology in developed countries however, much is yet to be understood in developing African countries like South Africa, just as vermicomposting and waste water treatment technologies are gaining grounds. It is widely known that AMICP by urea hydrolysis in natural soils is possibly affected by contacts between ureolytic and non-ureolytic bacteria, the study explored a designed and experimental assessment of the relations between ureolytic and nonureolytic bacteria and their interactive effects on AMICP. Through existing studies an artificial leveled groundwater medium was injected with model species of bacteria i.e., ureolytic species Sporosarcina pasteurii and the non-ureolytic species Bacillus subtilis. The control treatment was inoculated with a pure culture of S. pasteurii under measurements of pH, optical density (OD), development of NH4-N, dissolved calcium (DC) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Outcomes revealed DC precipitated as CaCO3 slower in the control mixture than in the mixed culture irrespective of unfavorable conditions in the mixed culture, i.e., lower concentrations of pH and CO32−. Higher density of bacterial cells in the mixed culture resulted from B. subtilis showing significant higher growth rate than S. pasteurii. Previous authors indicate that the presence of the non-ureolytic bacterial species, B. subtilis, stimulate AMICP process through supply of nucleation sites in the form of non-ureolytic bacterial cells. Keywords—Natural soils, Bacillus subtilis, Sporosarcina pasteurii, Bacteria, Microbial attack


Computing universal distributed representations of sentences is a fundamental task in natural language processing. We propose ConsSent, a simple yet surprisingly powerful unsupervised method to learn such representations by enforcing consistency constraints on sequences of tokens. We consider two classes of such constraints -- sequences that form a sentence and between two sequences that form a sentence when merged. We learn sentence encoders by training them to distinguish between consistent and inconsistent examples, the latter being generated by randomly perturbing consistent examples in six different ways. Extensive evaluation on several transfer learning and linguistic probing tasks shows improved performance over strong unsupervised and supervised baselines, substantially surpassing them in several cases. Our best results are achieved by training sentence encoders in a multitask setting and by an ensemble of encoders trained on the individual tasks.


This paper presents a paralleled two-pass hexagonal (TPA) algorithm constituted by linear hashtable motion estimation algorithm (LHMEA) and hexagonal search (HEXBS) for motion estimation. In the TPA, motion vectors (MV) are generated from the first-pass LHMEA and are used as predictors for second-pass HEXBS motion estimation, which only searches a small number of macroblocks (MBs). We introduced hashtable into video processing and completed parallel implementation. We propose and evaluate parallel implementations of the LHMEA of TPA on clusters of workstations for real time video compression. It discusses how parallel video coding on load balanced multiprocessor systems can help, especially on motion estimation. The effect of load balancing for improved performance is discussed. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by using standard video sequences and the results are compared to current algorithms


Innovation in the U.S. airline industry offers lessons in the role that the interplay of competitive forces can play in economic progress. The quarter-century following deregulation saw many attempts at innovation, some of which were adopted for a time and then replaced by other innovations. After two decades of upheaval and evolution the airline industry has been reshaped along the lines of lower prices, more choices, and better service. This paper looks at these patterns of competitive evolution in terms of how they played out over time and against one another on the part of incumbents and new entrants. What emerges is a rich interplay of technological innovations, institutional changes, and new business practices that can be understood in terms of their joint contribution to economic progress.


European settlement in Australia has always been concentrated along or close to the coast. As a consequence,
saltmarshes, mangroves and other coastal marshes have experienced a long history of modification and destruction.
Depletion statistics are available for many coastal marshes in the Northern Hemisphere and, in Australia, for parts of
New South Wales and Queensland. There are no equivalent State-wide data for Victoria. Using a suite of historical
information, including extensive use of early surveyors' maps, we aimed to provide a consistent view of the change in
the extent of coastal marshes since European colonization in Victoria (i.e. the mid-19th century). Notwithstanding the
difficulties of interpretation, we estimate that prior to European colonization Victoria supported approximately 346–
421 km
2
of coastal marsh, of which approximately 80–95% remains. Although a simplistic interpretation suggests
a net loss of 5–20% in wetland area over this time period, it is clear that some parts of the coast have experienced
relatively little change since the mid 19th century whereas others have been severely depleted and, in a few sectors,
there may have been an expansion of coastal marsh. The situation with the Gippsland Lakes is complex, and according
to the method used to interpret the original data sources there has either been a substantial increase or a loss of up to
35% in wetland area around Lake Wellington. The largest absolute losses have probably been of EVC 140 Mangrove
Shrubland and of coastal saltmarsh dominated by
Tecticornia
spp. Parts of the coast where significant losses have
occurred include the Lonsdale Lakes, western shore of Port Phillip Bay, Anderson Inlet, Shallow Inlet, Powlett-
Kilcunda, Corner Inlet and Nooramunga, and possibly Lake Wellington. With the exception of the Lonsdale Lakes,
all these areas are situated along the Gippsland coast. Changes to coastal marshes have not stopped and are unlikely
to cease in the near future. The destruction of coastal marshes for industrial development remains an ongoing threat in
many regions (e.g. in Western Port) and is likely to be compounded by climate change and, in particular, sea-level rise.


Colour Structure 1 and Repeat Structure 2 are digitally generated artworks exploring colour and abstract geometries in the realisation of hypothetical architectural forms influenced by modern architects including Ben Nicholson and Zaha Hadid. These pieces complement From Thika to Dar es Salaam and Lotus Hotel, three metre digitally printed silk lengths informed by fieldwork and research in East Africa. The works were showcased at the 'Made in Future' exhibition at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan, a one-day event organised by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network. The exhibition catalogue expatiates the pieces:, The digitally printed fabrics 'Thika to Dar es Salaam' and 'Lotus Hotel' explore textile environmental, cultural, trade and travel themes in East Africa, a recurring creative theme. Architecture is another source of inspiration illustrated in the 'Colour Structure' series. The generation of these designs for fashion and interior contexts drew upon photography and design tools within Photoshop and Aleph-Step-And-Repeat software. The virtual designs are realised through the Mimaki TX-2 digital print technology. Both virtual design and digital print reduce textiles environmental impact and enhance the efficiency of global trade activities., Colour Structure 1 and Repeat Colour Structure are seen in Textile Design by Simon Clarke (Laurence King Publishing). 14 falls, digital artwork from a similar corpus of fieldwork and research in Africa, is discussed in the international publication Digital Visions in Fashion and Textiles, Made in Code, S.E. Braddock Clarke and J.Harris (Thames & Hudson). Visible in in international publications and exhibited by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, these works authoritatively present the contemporary influence of sculptural and architectural thought within the digital textile arts.


Pustular vasculitis is a new disease concept that links cutaneous, and possibly systemic, aspects of Behçet's, bowel bypass, bowel-associated dermatosis-arthritis, and disseminated gonorrhea syndromes. The pathomechanism of pustular vasculitic lesion generation may relate to circulating immune complex (CIC)-mediated vessel damage and serum enhancement of neutrophil migration. Thalidomide, an oral pharmaceutical available on strict protocol, has therapeutic effects based on proposed modulation of CIC- and neutrophil-mediated cytotoxicity. Thalidomide therapy was started for four patients with significant morbidity from Behçet's syndrome and for one patient with bowel-associated dermatosis-arthritis syndrome. Clinical benefit was dramatic in all patients who completed sequential four-week "on" and "off" thalidomide therapeutic cycles. In three of four patients, in vivo testing for CIC after histamine injection immunopathology converted from positive (immunoreactant deposition in dermal vasculature [four hours after histamine] and CIC-mediated vasculitis [24 hours after histamine]) to negative during therapy. No effects were noted on neutrophil migration or on the LFA-1/Mac-1/p150,95 family of glycoproteins associated with neutrophil adherence as assessed qualitatively by tritium labelling of neutrophil cell surfaces. In this small patient group, thalidomide was a clinically effective, safe (with rigid monitoring) therapy whose mechanism of action may relate more to inhibitory effects on CIC-induced vasculitis than to effects on neutrophil-mediated cytotoxicity.


In this classic account of the American revolution, Pauline Maier traces the step-by-step process through which the extra-legal institutions of the colonial resistance movement assumed authority from the British. She follows the American Whigs as they moved by stages from the organized resistance of the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 through the non-importation associations of the late 1760s to the collapse of royal government after 1773, the implication of the king in a conspiracy against American liberties, and the consequent Declaration of Independence. Professor Maier's great achievement is to explain how Americans came to contemplate and establish their independence, guided by principle, reason, and experience.


The Livonian Society as an Innovative Cooperative Organisation The Livonian Public Welfare and Economic Society evolved into a hotbed of innovative cooperative relationships between the cultural and political powers developing the territories of what are now Estonia and Latvia. Its joint action campaigns connected enlightened estate owners, top scientists, representatives of power, later also members of other classes. The Society became a bridgehead in integrating science, economy, education, and culture in the 19th century. Projects beneficial to public welfare in the economic sectors of Livonian agriculture, trade, industry, traffic, insurance, finance, and the cooperative networks of societies promoting them arose from the manors' need to develop. The Fund of the Society became the grounds for the scientific and economic cooperation in Livonia. The Riga merchant P. H. Blanckenhagen who had personal connections with Tallinn donated a remarkable fortune – 40,000 Albertusthalers – for establishing the Society (this was later supplemented by interests, yearly payments and donations). Back then, that sum was the cash equivalent of more than 3,250 oxen. The election of 12 authorized persons from the ranks of the then elite for administrating the Society was equally important. It later enabled financing scientific and economic projects of personal initiative (triangulation of Livonia, compilation and publication of an atlas of Livonia, levelling of Saaremaa and Livonia, creation of a network of weather observation points, development of an agricultural research centre) the cost of which often exceeded the main capital of the Society several times over. Many cooperative scientific and economic projects that have lasted in time belong to the innovative heritage of the Society – including Struve Geodetic Arc, initiated during the triangulation of Livonia, the only research based item in the UNESCO World Heritage List from the Baltic states. On the 220th anniversary year of the Society and the International Year of Cooperatives of 2012, the historical heritage of the Society enabled one to raise the issue of the viability of such an innovative cooperative model in the 21st century market economic society full of crises. Developing forms of permanent cooperation that unite large entrepreneurs, top scientists, leaders of big local government units has again become painfully relevant. In Latvia and Estonia, the output might be a Livonian Forum rooted in the idea of the Society.


Kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis Planch.) is a crop introduced to Greece about 45 years ago, which soon spread in the country, mostly in the Pieria, Imathia, Larissa, and Epirus areas. Nowadays, at the country level, about 6000 ha are cultivated with kiwifruit, showing an increasing trend. About half of this area is in the estuary of the Pinios river, located in the eastern part of the prefecture of Larissa. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the physico-chemical characteristics of the soils on which kiwifruit is grown in order to propose possible ameliorative measures. Over 150 composite surface-soil samples were selected from the whole area and analysed for basic soil physico-chemical and chemical properties related to kiwifruit growth [pH, electrical conductivity (EC), organic matter, calcium carbonate content, available P, K, and B, and metallic micronutrients Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn]. In addition, information from the soil map of the area such as soil texture and soil drainage was combined, and relevant thematic maps were created. Furthermore, leaf samples from 36 groves were selected at appropriate times and analysed for basic macro- and micronutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, B, Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn). Water samples from the basic water sources of the area also were selected and analysed for properties related to their quality for irrigation [pH, EC, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), cations (Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+), anions (CO3-, SO42-, NO3-) and B]. According to these results, most of the area cultivated with kiwifruit has medium drainage, but there are also areas with poorly drained soils. Almost all the soils studied have high CaCO3 content, medium EC, lower than desirable exchangeable K and available P but higher than critical B content. In conclusion, these soils are not ideal for kiwifruit growth, needing ameliorative measures and special care in nutrient management.


The user interface for decision support systems is normally structured for presenting relevant data for the skilled user in order to allow fast assessment and action of the hazardous situation, or for more complex situations to present the relevant rules and procedures to be followed in order to deal most efficiently with the situation. For situations not foreseen, however, no rules exist, and no support may be given to the user by suggested actions to be fulfilled. The idea of ecological user interface is to present to the user the complete situation at various interrelated levels of abstraction supporting the situation assessment and remedial actions based on the domain knowledge of the user. The concept of ecological user interface has been tested and appreciated in a variety of other domains using prototypes designed to be representative of industrial processes. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the possibility of using the same principles for emergency management with the aim of improved performance in complex and unanticipated situations.


This project has investigated the strategic
development and design of decorative systems that
can operate as independent entities or be part of an
adaptive system of architectural ornament. It is not
about autonomous art objects. The project presents a
re-invention of process, methodology and a new
strategic capability for the generation and
development of systems for a new decorative order.
The original drawings remain in the gallery but the
resultant spatial units or modules are installed on
buildings as required. Considerable in-depth analysis
of wooden door, window lattice and ceiling ornament
systems in the Alhambra was undertaken within the
project. Islamic interlaced ornament consists of
geometrically complex/inter-woven lathes of inlaid
wood integral within the fabric of building
construction where line/structure are one.
A primary focus in the research has been the
development of complex construction line drawings
that form the structural web on which aperiodic and
interlaced patterns are structured. Central to this
project thesis has been the expansion from gallery
wall mounted constructions and drawings to a number
of systems of decorative, volumetric, sculptural
configurations for integration and adoption into
architectural surface or facade.
The move to computer aided drafting (CAD) has
facilitated the development of new spatial units,
modules and systems. The unexpected impact on
drawing has been a vastly increased capability to
explore and produce more complex constructions than
was previously possible using hand drawing
techniques. These new decorative systems provide a
grammar of applied ornament, which are both
fragmentary and coherent. The resulting works have
an exciting 'un-predictability'.


Background. Vasculitis represents a specific pattern of inflammation of the blood vessel wall that can occur in any organ system of the body. The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and red blood cell distribution width (RDW) are currently used as markers of inflammation in several diseases. Objectives. This study analyzed C‐reactive protein level (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), white blood cell (WBC), NLR, and RDW in patients who had cutaneous vasculitis, or cutaneous vasculitis with systemic involvement, and in healthy controls. Methods. A total of 85 individuals were included in our study: 45 with vasculitis and 40 healthy controls. Patients who had complete blood count (CBC) analysis, CRP, and ESR at the time of skin biopsy were included in the study. NLR was calculated from these parameters. Results. NLR, CRP, ESR, and WBC were significantly higher in patients with vasculitis than in healthy controls (p≤0.05), but RDW did not significantly differ between the two groups. Conclusions. This study suggests that blood NLR may be used for predicting vasculitis, especially cutaneous vasculitis with systemic involvement.


OBJECTIVE Lifestyle interventions for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are best positioned for success if participants live in supportive neighborhood environments. Deprived neighborhoods increase T2DM risk. Parks and other "green spaces" promote active lifestyles and therefore may reduce T2DM risk. We investigated association between neighborhood green space and the risk of T2DM in a large group of adult Australians. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Multilevel logit regression was used to fit associations between medically diagnosed T2DM and green space exposure among 267,072 participants in the 45 and Up Study. Green space data were obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and exposure was calculated using a 1‐km buffer from a participant's place of residence. Odds ratios (ORs) were controlled for measures of demographic, cultural, health, diet, active lifestyles, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood circumstances. RESULTS The rate of T2DM was 9.1% among participants in neighborhoods with 0–20% green space, but this rate dropped to approximately 8% for participants with over 40% green space within their residential neighborhoods. The risk of T2DM was significantly lower in greener neighborhoods, controlling for demographic and cultural factors, especially among participants residing in neighborhoods with 41–60% green space land use (OR 0.87; 95% CI 0.83–0.92). This association was consistent after controlling for other explanatory variables and did not vary according to neighborhood circumstances. CONCLUSIONS People in greener surroundings have a lower risk of T2DM. Planning, promoting, and maintaining local green spaces is important in multisector initiatives for addressing the T2DM epidemic.


STUDY DESIGN
Controlled laboratory study, using a repeated-measures, counterbalanced design.

OBJECTIVES
To provide estimates on the average knee angle maintained, absolute knee angle error, and total repetitions performed during 2 versions of the heel raise test.

BACKGROUND
The heel raise test is performed in knee extension (EHRT) to assess gastrocnemius and knee flexion (FHRT) for soleus. However, it has not yet been determined whether select knee angles are maintained or whether total repetitions differ between the clinical versions of the heel raise test.

METHODS
Seventeen healthy males and females performed maximal heel raise repetitions in 0° (EHRT) and 30° (FHRT) of desired knee flexion. The average angle maintained and absolute error at the knee during the 2 versions, and total heel raise repetitions, were measured using motion analysis. Participants' kinematic measures were fitted into a generalized estimation equation model to provide estimates on EHRT and FHRT performance applicable to the general population.

RESULTS
The model estimates that average angles of 2.2° and 30.7° will be maintained at the knee by the general population during the EHRT and the FHRT, with an absolute angle error of 3.4° and 2.5°, respectively. In both versions, 40 repetitions should be completed. However, the average angles maintained by participants ranged from -6.3° to 21.6° during the EHRT and from 22.0° to 43.0° during the FHRT, with the highest absolute errors in knee position being 25.9° and 33.5°, respectively.

CONCLUSION
On average, select knee angles will be maintained by the general population during the select heel raise test versions, but individualized performance is variable and total repetitions do not distinguish between versions. Clinicians should, therefore, interpret select heel raise test outcomes with caution when used to respectively assess and rehabilitate soleus and gastrocnemius function.


Mammalian genomes are typically 3 Gbps (gibabase pairs) in size. The largest public database NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)) of DNA contains more than 20 Gbps. Suffix trees are widely acknowledged as a data structure to support exact/approximate sequence matching queries as well as repetitive structure finding efficiently when they can reside in main memory. But, it has been shown as difficult to handle long DNA sequences using suffix trees due to the so-called memory bottleneck problems. The most space efficient main-memory suffix tree construction algorithm takes nine hours and 45 GB memory space to index the human genome [S. Kurtz (1999)]. We show that suffix trees for long DNA sequences can be efficiently constructed on disk using small bounded main memory space and, therefore, all existing algorithms based on suffix trees can be used to handle long DNA sequences that cannot be held in main memory. We adopt a two-phase strategy to construct a suffix tree on disk: 1) to construct a diskbase suffix-tree without suffix links and 2) rebuild suffix links upon the suffix-tree being constructed on disk, if needed. We propose a new disk-based suffix tree construction algorithm, called DynaCluster, which shows O(nlogn) experimental behavior regarding CPU cost and linearity for I/O cost. DynaCluster needs 16 MB main memory only to construct more than 200 Mbps DNA sequences and significantly outperforms the existing disk-based suffix-tree construction algorithms using prepartitioning techniques in terms of both construction cost and query processing cost. We conducted extensive performance studies and report our findings in this paper.


Bankruptcy begins with a condition of financial distress. The purpose of this study was to test and analyze the accuracy of financial distress predictions in Cosmetic and Household Subsector Companies listing on the Indonesia Stock Exchange use two models: the Springate (S-Score) model and Zmijweski model. The population in this study are companies in the Cosmetic and Household Subsector Companies listing on the Indonesia Stock Exchange which publishes audited financial statements for fiscal year 2010-2017, which amounted to 5 companies: Martina, MRAT, TCID, UNLV, and ADES. Data analysis technique used is descriptive qualitative analysis using Springate score and Zmijewski score. Model Springate with valuation criteria S> 0.862 classified as healthy company, while Zmijewski sets the criteria, if the firm's score is less than 0 (X <0), then the company goes into nonfinancial distress (healthy). From the analysis of financial distress used the S-Score Springate model on Cosmetic and Household Subsector Companies in 2010-2017, companies experiencing distress condition of 21.57%. From the second model used a Zmijweski model, the entire enterprise in good condition. Thus, the accurate prediction method for Cosmetic and Household Subsector Companies registered in Indonesia is the Zmijweski models. The issue of effectiveness in carrying out the company's operational activities must be payed attention both from sales activities, purchases and other activities, so that reduce the decline in corporate profits. However, based on the overall average value the five companies showed healthy conditions.


There are several different imaging methods that are helpful in the diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome, including traditional radiography, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). CT and MRI offer the advantage of providing direct visualization of the structural abnormality of the carpal tunnel and median nerve, but both of these modalities are expensive and time-consuming. Recently, high-resolution ultrasonography has been reported to be effective in the study of the musculoskeletal system. The authors designed a case–control study to assess the diagnostic value of high-resolution ultrasonography. Forty-eight patients, for a total of 96 hands, whose diagnosis was confirmed by self-administered questionnaire and electrodiagnostic tests, underwent high-resolution ultrasonographic studies. The authors compared the sonographic findings with the electromyographic data and the patients' severity scores on the self-questionnaires. Proximal swelling of the median nerve at the entrance to the carpal tunnel was found to correlate with the nerve conduction data. Also, compression of the median nerve under the transverse carpal ligament was found to correlate with the subjective symptoms. Although ultrasonography is not an ideal method of diagnosis for carpal tunnel syndrome, it may be helpful for estimating the symptom severity and nerve conduction deficit.


5G mobile systems are expected to meet different strict requirements beyond the traditional operator use cases. Effectively, to accommodate needs of new industry segments such as healthcare and manufacturing, 5G systems need to accommodate elasticity, flexibility, dynamicity, scalability, manageability, agility, and customization along with different levels of service delivery parameters according to the service requirements. This is currently possible only by running the networks on top of the same infrastructure, the technology called network function virtualization, through this sharing of the development and infrastructure costs between the different networks. In this article, we discuss the need for the deep customization of mobile networks at different granularity levels: per network, per application, per group of users, per individual users, and even per data of users. The article also assesses the potential of network slicing to provide the appropriate customization and highlights the technology challenges. Finally, a high-level architectural solution is proposed, addressing a massive multi-slice environment.


This review essay looks anew at the connection between 'deviant' football hooligan literature and contemporary football hooligan subcultures. It considers some implications for the study of male dominated hooligan subcultures and the methodologies to be employed. The essay draws on new research work into the 'low' sport journalism genre of British football hooliganism literature, involving a comprehensive collection and reading of myriad football hooligan fan memoirs as well as interviews with participants. It shows that although hooligan subcultures disappeared from the mainstream media gaze for a time during the 1990s, partly as a result of legislation introduced to curb football gang violence, militaristic police operations and draconian prison sentences in the courts but also partly because of cultural change, there remain traces of these subcultures today. The argument also incorporates the notion that the methodological work which should be undertaken is a study of the simulacrum of hooliganism, the expanding body of football hooligan literature in all of its forms manifesting itself in literary novels and the explosion of 'gangster' memoirs of older football hooligans, which might eventually lead us to better, more informed ethnographies of football hooligan subcultures. The essay further engages with debates in socio-legal studies, sociology, cultural studies and criminology on football hooliganism and modernity and provides a unique bibliography of the field.


8 May 2008 saw the first anniversary of the devolved government in Northern Ireland. Its reestablishment as such was noteworthy per se, but the fact that the two once so acrimonious enemies of the republican Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party came together to form a coalition, rightly deserves the term historic. This development has sealed the progress made in the Northern Ireland question since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which was to a significant degree owed to the political priority given to the conflict by Tony Blair's Labour government. With the experience gained during the peace process, Peter Hain, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, explores the key factors and expands on the question, whether the lessons learnt in the resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland can be transferred to ongoing conflicts world wide.


Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common condition in commercial drivers while overweight and obesity as the most important risk factors. This study aimed to know the clinical symptoms and risk factors of OSA in overweight and obese taxi drivers in Jakarta, Indonesia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done in 103 taxi drivers in Jakarta from November 2011–September 2013, by systematic random sampling from 10 taxi stations. Inclusion criteria were taxi drivers with body mass index (BMI) which 23–29.9 and mild or moderate OSA. Portable polysomnography (PSG) test was used to diagnose OSA. Parametric and nonparametric test were used in bivariate analysis. Logistic regression multivariable was used to final evaluate risk factors of OSA. Results: There were 54 (52.4%) of 103 drivers with OSA and 49 (47.6%) without OSA. Clinical symptoms found significantly (p<0.05) were snoring, unrefreshing sleep, occasional sleep while driving, and headache or nausea on waking up in the morning. Risk factors for OSA were increased BMI (OR=0.60, 95% CI=0.45–0.79, p=0.001), snoring history in the family (OR=4.92, 95% CI=1.82–13.31, p=0.002) and sleep duration <7 hours within 24 hours (OR=5.14, 95% CI=1.37–19.23, p=0.015). Conclusion: Clinical symptoms of OSA were snoring, unrefreshing sleep, occasional sleep while driving and headache or nausea on waking up in the morning. Risk factors of OSA were increased BMI, snoring history in the family and sleep duration <7 hours within 24 hours.