In summary, this thesis presents the localisation and identification of genetic variants of which some are disease associated and some considered to be neutral. Knowledge of the basic mechanisms behind human disorders is important both from a biological and medical point of view. The thesis is based on four papers of which the first two clarify the genetic basis of autosomal dominant aplasia of lacrimal and salivary glands (ALSG). ALSG is a rare disorder with high penetrance and variable expressivity characterized by dry mouth and eyes. In paper I, we located the ALSG gene to a 22 centiMorgan region on chromosome 5 through a genome-wide linkage scan with microsatellite markers in two families. Mutations were found in the gene encoding fibroblast growth factor 10 (FGF10) situated in the linked chromosome 5 region. Mice having only one copy of the FGF10 gene (Fgf10+/- mice) have a phenotype similar to ALSG, providing an animal model for the disorder. In paper II, we describe two additional patients with ALSG and missense mutations in FGF10, providing further genotype-phenotype correlations. The aim of paper III was to identify a gene involved in autosomal recessive severe congenital neutropenia (SCN), also referred to as Kostmann syndrome. The disease is characterized by a very low absolute neutrophil count and recurrent bacterial infections. Affected individuals from the family with SCN originally described by Dr Kostmann were genotyped with whole-genome SNP arrays. Autozygosity mapping identified a shared haplotype spanning 1.2 Mb on chromosome 1q22. This region contained 37 known genes, of which several were associated with myelopoiesis. Our finding contributed to the identification of the gene mutated in Kostmann syndrome. In paper IV a cytogenetic inversion on chromosome 10 was mapped and characterized. Sequence- and haplotype analysis of carriers from four non-related Swedish families revealed identical inversion breakpoints and established that the rearrangement was identical by descent. A retrospective study of karyotypes together with screening of large sample sets established that the inversion is a rare and inherited chromosome variant with a broad geographical distribution in Sweden. No consistent phenotype was found associated with the inversion. Genetic research increases the understanding of our genomes and makes it possible to discover variants contributing to disease. Identification of such genetic variants further enables studies of gene function and pathogenesis. The finding of the disease associated variants in this thesis will eventually contribute to improved diagnosis, prognosis, risk assessment and a future treatment of patients.


A vectored human RSV vaccine protects young seronegative calves. RSV vaccine cows infection Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes a severe lower respiratory tract disease that affects both children and the elderly. Vaccines have shown promise in rodents and nonhuman primates, but it remains unclear if these models reflect human RSV infection. Now, two papers by Taylor et al. and Green et al. translate one vaccine strategy first into calves, which are natural hosts of bovine RSV (BRSV), and then into humans in a phase 1 clinical trial. A prime-boost strategy protected against upper and lower respiratory tract infection and pulmonary disease induced by heterologous BRSV challenge in calves, and demonstrated safety and immunogenicity in humans. These data support further trials to test vaccine efficacy in human patients. Human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) is a major cause of lower respiratory tract disease in children and the elderly for which there is still no effective vaccine. We have previously shown that PanAd3-RSV, which is a chimpanzee adenovirus–vectored vaccine candidate that expresses a secreted form of the HRSV F protein together with the N and M2-1 proteins of HRSV, is immunogenic in rodents and nonhuman primates, and protects mice and cotton rats from HRSV challenge. Because the extent to which protection demonstrated in rodent models will translate to humans is unclear, we have exploited the calf model of bovine RSV (BRSV) infection, which mimics HRSV disease in children more closely than do experimental models of unnatural laboratory hosts, to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the PanAd3-RSV vaccine. We show that PanAd3-RSV alone and in combination with a modified vaccinia Ankara expressing the same HRSV antigens (MVA-RSV) induced neutralizing antibodies and cellular immunity in young seronegative calves and protected against upper and lower respiratory tract infection and pulmonary disease induced by heterologous BRSV challenge. There was no evidence either of enhanced pulmonary pathology or of enhanced respiratory disease in vaccinated calves after BRSV challenge. These findings support the continued evaluation of the vectored RSV vaccines in man.


The continuing development and growth of the Internet imply that business and customers perceive that the Internet provides them with some kind of value. The Internet has also seen an increasing importance of user-generated content and utilisation of the Internet as a social medium often referred to as the Web 2.0. In this study the concept of customer value, based on the typology of consumer value (Holbrook, 1994; 1999) and the value hierarchy model (Woodruff & Gardial, 1996; Woodruff, 1997), is used to identify dimensions and expressions of what customer-perceived value is in travel and tourism web sites and how it is created. Moderately structured in-depth interviews are used to collect data. In the analysis connections between different types of value are presented and the lack of certain types of value is discussed.


The use of polynomial expansion in image registration has previously been shown to be beneficial due to fast convergence and high accuracy. However, earlier work has only briefly outlined how non-rigid image registration is handled, e.g. not discussing issues like regularization of the displacement field or how to accumulate the displacement field. In this work, it is shown how non-rigid image registration based upon polynomial expansion can be integrated into a generic framework for non-rigid image registration achieving diffeomorphic displacement fields. The proposed non-rigid image registration algorithm using diffeomorphic field accumulation is evaluated on both synthetically deformed data and real image data and compared to additive field accumulation. The results clearly demonstrate the power of the diffeomorphic field accumulation.


Promoter hypermethylation is an important pathway for repression of gene transcription in cancer cells and a promising marker for cancer detection. We tested five gene promoters [CDKN2A (p16), O(6)-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase, glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1), adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), and death-associated protein kinase (DAPK)] by real-time methylation-specific PCR in primary tumors from 90 stage I lung cancer patients for aberrant DNA methylation. We then used the presence of tumor methylation as a marker to investigate the presence of occult metastasis in corresponding histologically negative lymph nodes. Of the primary tumors, 73 of 90 (81%) displayed promoter hypermethylation in at least one of the genes studied: 17% (15 of 90) at p16 (CDKN2A); 16% (14 of 90) at O(6)-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase; 8% (7 of 90) at GSTP1; 72% (65 of 90) at APC; and 17% (15 of 90) at DAPK. Squamous histology was predictive of worse overall survival (P = 0.074, log-rank test). APC methylation and GSTP1 methylation in the primary tumor were both correlated with nonsquamous histology (P = 0.02 and P = 0.01 likelihood ratio respectively). The presence of both APC methylation and DAPK methylation in the primary tumor predicted a worse outcome, with 7 of 13 (54%) deaths in this group compared with 21 of 77 (27%) deaths in cases without both genes methylated (P = 0.229, log-rank test). The same methylation pattern was detected in DNA from at least one of the corresponding lymph nodes in 11 of 73 (15%) cases. Five of 11 (45%) patients with occult metastasis detected by methylation analysis have died compared with 17 of 62 (27%) patients with negative lymph nodes, although survival analysis did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.632, log-rank test). Promoter hypermethylation is common in lung cancer and represents a promising marker for the molecular staging of lung cancer patients. Although this study showed important trends, a larger prospective study is required to better understand the value of methylation analysis in detecting occult metastasis.


A numerical evaluation and comparisons using performance profiles of some representative conjugate gradient algorithms for solving a large variety of large-scale unconstrained optimization problems are carried on. In this intensive numerical study we selected eight known conjugate gradient algorithms: Hestenes and Stiefel (HS), Polak-RibièrePolyak (PRP), CONMIN, ASCALCG, CG-DESCENT, AHYBRIDM, THREECG and DESCON. These algorithms are different in many respects. However, they have a lot of concepts in common, which give the numerical comparisons sense and confident expectations. The initial search direction in all algorithms is the negative gradient computed in the initial point and the step length is computed by the Wolfe line search conditions. Excepting CONMIN and CG-DESCENT, all the algorithms from this numerical study implement an acceleration scheme which modifies the step length in a multiplicative manner to improve the reduction of the functions values along the iterations. The numerical study is based on a set of 800 artificially large-scale unconstrained optimization test functions of different complexity and with different structures of their Hessian matrix. A detailed numerical evaluation based on performance profiles is applied to the comparisons of these algorithms showing that all of them are able to solve difficult large-scale unconstrained optimization problems. However, comparisons using only artificially test problems are weak and dependent by arbitrary choices concerning the stopping criteria of the algorithms and on decision of whether an algorithm found a solution or not. To get definitive conclusions using this sort of comparisons based only on artificially test problems is an illusion. However, using some real unconstrained optimization applications we can get a more confident conclusion about the efficiency and robustness of optimization algorithms considered in this numerical study.


Forest fire occurring in the tropical peat swamp forest has been a major concern and has been on the increase at an alarming rate during the past decades. This problem is further compounded by the fact that some of the affected areas have burned twice or more. If left unabated, peat areas that will be at risk to frequent fires will be on the increase. Peat soils when dry, posed a high risk of combustibility. It is therefore essential to understand the moisture characteristic of the peat soil in order to develop forest fire management programme. The objective of this study was to monitor peat moisture and water level relationship. A study has been conducted to investigate the temporal characteristics of the peat water level and to understand the relationship between water table and peat moisture. The study was conducted at Compartment 101, Raja Musa Forest Reserve, Selangor, Malaysia. This area was on fire in 1998, early June 1999 and 9 March 2000. A 180 m long transect starting from the edge of the canal into the forest was established. Twenty peizometers of 2 m length each, were installed along the established transect. Water table and peat samples were taken weekly beginning at 24 October to 20 December 2000. Peat soils were analyzed for soil moisture on oven-dry basis. The result showed that there was a systematic rise and fall of the water table. The maximum and minimum water table recorded were at 22.6 cm above ground and 31.5 cm below ground, respectively. In the forested area, results showed that the changes in water level had a smaller range (16.9 cm) compared to the open area (25.1 cm). Mean peat moisture sample at depths 0 cm (surface), 50 and 100 cm were 577,891 and 1070%, respectively. ANOVA analysis showed that lower depth has significantly higher moisture (at 95% confidence level) compared to higher layers. The study shows the temporal variations of water level in peat swamp forest. This variations can be used as a basis for early warning indicator of peat forest fire. © 2006 Asian Network for Scientific Information.


Abstract
The limitation of water sources in most places all over the world, especially in arid and semi-arid lands is an important Issue for those who live in these areas. Many governments have dedicated their efforts toward finding new water resources to obtain water. Fog and cap clouds harvesting are one of the candidate methods to produce pure water. Many countries including Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Canada, Namibia and Nepal Have yet invested on fog harvesting. On the other hand, no significant calculation studies have been yet carried out on quantifying fog harvesting. In this work, we examined the Physical and dynamic relationship between cloud physics and atmosphere humidity; factors such as distribution of particle amounts, collection efficiency, water including base cloud and vapour flux were all considered. We also presented a new method to estimate fog harvesting, based on fractal theory and concerning the characteristics of collecting devices. Finally, we successfully evaluated the theories for fractal dimension of particle distribution, using the real data of fog harvesting. The incremental fractal dimension reliability was found to be 83% acceptable.

Keywords: Cap cloud, Fog, Fog harvesting, Fractal theory


Despite a considerable amount of research investigating factors that influence the development of food preferences, there is very little research considering factors associated with food items themselves and the cognitive processes used by children to determine acceptance or rejection of a novel food. When offered a new food, children will see what colour, size and shape it is and may be able to determine its texture. In addition, they will be able to smell the food and may even be informed of what the food is called by their parents labelling it. Hence children will have a significant amount of knowledge of what the food they are being offered is like. It may therefore be reasonable to suggest children will use this knowledge and make comparisons to prior experience with 'similar' foods. This thesis presents three experimental chapters which aim to explore the role of perceptual (e.g. colour, texture and size) and cognitive (categorisation) factors on the development of food preferences. Chapter 2 presents an Explicit Preference Task, which enables children to self-report on their food preferences, complemented by parental report Food Preference and Frequency questionnaires. Chapter 3 presents a Longitudinal Food Diary method exploring the relationship between preference and exposure. Finally in Chapter 4 using a series of match-to-sample experiments to consider if children use colour as a basis for categorisation of food objects, a comparison is made against non-food objects. Results indicated children to dislike food colours particularly associated with vegetables more so than other food colours. This was found to be related to the amount of exposure they had to those foods and specifically results indicated children to use food colour as a basis for rejection of novel foods. It was also observed that whilst children use shape as a basis for categorisation of non-food objects, they are more inclined to categorise foods on the basis of colour.


FOR MORE THAN a decade, successive U.S. presidents have declared that political liberalization leading ultimately to democratization in China would be desirable and decidedly in America's--and the world's--interests. The Clinton administration, after some initial tortuous twists and turns, fashioned a policy of "constructive engagement" with the Chinese government that called for close bilateral economic and political cooperation along with U.S. advocacy for democracy, open markets and human rights in China. The George W. Bush administration, though openly suspicious of China's opaque military buildup and strategic intentions, has exhorted China to become a "responsible stakeholder" of the international community while urging it to embrace democracy. To Washington, a China that is headed down a democratic path--even as it amasses military, political, and economic might--would offer the best assurance for peace, prosperity and cooperation with the United States and the world. China, however, appears immune to and unmoved by U.S. wishes. American democracy promotion--ranging from economic engagement to democracy programs to lofty rhetoric--has not halted the speed at which the Chinese authoritarian behemoth presses on with grave human rights abuses. For now, U.S. hopes remain just hopes. The reasons for democracy's slow boat to China are complicated: They range from American delusions to Chinese authoritarian resilience to Chinese nationalism. Far less complicated is the reality that as the United States trumpets democracy worldwide as a strategic objective and a sign of human progress, China is unabashedly providing a counter-example. Successful democratization in China, therefore, will not only usher in freedom for 1.3 billion Chinese citizens, but also strike a blow against the stubbornness of authoritarianism worldwide. It is therefore vital for U.S. policymakers to examine China's success in resisting democratization, reassess the tools and assumptions of current democracy promotion efforts, and think of new ways to remove the roadblocks to freedom. The "inevitability" of change MANY CHINA OBSERVERS have long been predicting that China's encounter with market forces or liberal institutions and instruments from the West would spur inevitable democratic change. These observers have been right that China would become more pluralistic and multifaceted. But they have been delusional in thinking that Chinese leaders would simply roll over and relinquish power when presented with new challenges to their rule. On everything ranging from trade to the Internet, from village elections to the rule of law, Chinese rulers have consistently proven China optimists wrong. Economic engagement. The fundamental underpinning of American policy toward China today--and U.S. democracy promotion in China--is economic engagement. Since the U.S. Congress granted permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) to China in 2000, an underlying assumption of economic engagement with China is that the market forces unleashed by international trade and investment will necessarily spur economic and political change in Chinese society. Washington's assumption is spurred in no small part by the successful democratic transitions undertaken by other authoritarian regimes--such as those in Taiwan, South Korea, and Chile in the 1980s--after they had embarked on economic liberalization. Indeed, two decades-plus of U.S.-China trade have drastically altered the face of Chinese society, resulting in an unprecedented expansion of economic, social, and personal freedoms for ordinary Chinese citizens. The links between economic liberalization and political reform, however, have turned out to be much more complicated and tenuous in the China case. More than six years after PNTR, drastic improvements in Chinese society have not been translated into political liberalization. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shows no interest in meaningful political reforms and has continued to rely on repression and brutality to maintain its rule. …


I. INTRODUCTION A recurring jurisprudential conflict in modern law is the extent to which religious communities may appropriately seek to have their own religious norms incorporated into secular law. In the Muslim world, that issue takes on life and death significance.1 Conflict arises when the question goes beyond asking whether Islamic law should be incorporated into secular law and asks whether secular law in general should be required to be consistent with, and subordinate to, Islamic law.2 Similar questions arise in Western nations regarding the extent to which secular norms may parallel or incorporate religious norms. Examples include Sunday closing laws,3 laws exempting Jews and Muslims from otherwise applicable animal slaughter regulations,4 and, more controversially, laws criminalizing conduct that violates what some would consider religious mandates, such as laws concerning abortion5 or homosexual conduct.6 This conflict is particularly difficult within the context of a pluralistic democracy, where it is problematic-if not altogether illegitimate-for one religious group to invoke coercive legal sanctions in support of its religious beliefs. On the other hand, it would be paradoxical if religious speakers were the only ones who were denied the right to use democratic processes to advocate adoption of their ideas.7 Significantly, these conflicts may arise not only in the context of affirmatively legislating values that coincide with religious beliefs, but they may also arise as a result of affording protections to conscientiously held objections. To the extent that neither the State nor other citizens will be able to require conduct inconsistent with the beliefs protected, the religious beliefs in question would acquire not only legal protection but also status as legal imperatives. This Article analyzes the struggle for proper balance in the context of the Roman Catholic experience. During the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church transformed itself from a vigorous defender of the ancien regime "into one of the world's leading advocates of social and political justice, democratic governance, and human rights."8 The new Catholic understanding of democratic liberalism is a complex story,9 and the critical test for discovering the meaning and scope of the Church's new understanding lies in the extent to which it will allow religious norms to be incorporated into secular law. The aim of this Article is to discuss key Catholic pronouncements that address this fundamental issue and, from that vantage point, to contribute to the more general discussion regarding the appropriate relation of religion and law within the framework of democracy. More specifically, the aim is to address Catholic thought about democratic constraints in matters of religious importance, which, for purposes of this Article, amounts to determining when religious-grounded norms may be democratically imposed. Thus, this Article will explore the internal conditions under which religious bodies such as the Roman Catholic Church may consider it legitimate to promote religious norms and values in a democratic-legal setting. To address the point, this Article compares two approaches. Part II discusses the Catholic Church's evaluation of the scope of religious freedom under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,10 as viewed from the vantage point of the famous declaration Dignitatis Humanae, which was promulgated in 1965 during the Second Vatican Council.11 Part III provides a comparative exploration of a recent doctrinal statement that the Holy See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith-chaired by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)-issued in November 2002.12 Part IV ultimately draws the conclusion that the Catholic notions of "religious norms" in these two approaches differ, and it will be necessary to find a way to reconcile them (or to choose between them) in order to provide clear guidance concerning the extent to which Catholic thought allows religious norms to be incorporated into secular legal systems. …


Background: Melanin is the pigment that is responsible for the hyperpigmentation of skin and gingival tissues. This can result in significant amount of esthetic dilemma and affect the smile line which forms integral part of oro-facial esthetics. Numerous cosmetic modalities have been used for correction of hyperpigmentation. However, repigmentation can be seen few months following surgery. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare three techniques of scalpel, electrosurgery and diode laser therapy for management of gingival hyperpigmentation for repigmentation and comparing pain intensity using the visual analogue scale (VAS). Materials and methods: Thirty subjects with gingival pigmentation were categorized into Group 1: Depigmentation performed using Scalpel surgery method; Group II: Depigmentation by using electro-surgical method and Group III: Depigmentation procedure using Laser therapy. Results: Treated subjects were observed at baseline, at first month and six months post-operative period for repigmentation occurrence and intensity of pain score immediately following surgery and after twenty four hours. All observations were entered in Microsoft Excel 2007 work sheet. Mean and standard deviations were calculated and inter-group comparisons were made using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tool. A p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. All methods demonstrated lack of repigmentation after six months follow-up and almost similar VAS score significance (P<0.05 for electrosurgical and laser technique and >0.05 for scalpel technique. Conclusion: Since comparable results were demonstrated in this study, it is choice of clinician and patient selection based on which appropriate technique can be selected.


OBJECTIVE
We designed a longitudinal clinical database for autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD), recruited patients from pediatric nephrology centers in the United States and Canada, and examined their clinical morbidities and survival characteristics. We initially targeted enrollment to children who were born and diagnosed after January 1, 1990, so as to capture a cohort that is representative of ARPKD patients born in the last decade. When a significant number of older ARPKD patients were also referred, we extended our database to include all patients who met our inclusion criteria, thereby allowing direct comparisons between a long-term survivor subset and a cohort that included both neonatal survivors and nonsurvivors.

DESIGN
Patient entry into our database required either compatible histopathology or ultrasonographic evidence of enlarged, echogenic kidneys and the presence of at least 1 of the following additional criteria: a) biopsy-proven ARPKD in a sibling; b) biliary fibrosis based on either clinical or histopathologic evidence; c) no sonographic evidence of renal cysts in the parents (parents must be >30 years of age); or d) parental consanguinity, eg, first-cousin marriage. Clinical questionnaires (primary data form and follow-up data form) were developed to collect initial patient data and follow-up data at yearly intervals.

RESULTS
Thirty-four centers provided clinical information for 254 patients and of these, 209 had sufficient data for analyses. When stratified by date of birth, 166 (79.4%) were born on or after January 1, 1990 (younger cohort) and 43 children (20.6%) were born before 1990 (older cohort). The gender distribution was equal in both cohorts. The median age at diagnosis was significantly later in the older cohort and no deaths were reported among these patients, suggesting that this group is biased toward long-term survivors. In the younger cohort, 74.7% of the patients are alive, with a median age of 5.4 years. In this group, 40.5% of patients required ventilation and 11.6% developed chronic lung disease. Hypertension was a common, but not universal finding in both cohorts. The relative risk for developing hypertension was higher in the older cohort, but the median age at diagnosis was significantly earlier in the younger cohort. Chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) was reported in approximately 40% of patients with no significant difference in the relative risk between age groups. However, in the younger cohort, the median age at diagnosis was significantly earlier and the age of diagnosis of CRI and hypertension were significantly correlated. Clinically significant morbidities related to periportal fibrosis were more common in the older cohort. There was a trend toward increasing frequency of portal hypertension with age in both cohorts. Portal hypertension was not significantly correlated with either systemic hypertension or CRI.

CONCLUSIONS
The ARPKD Clinical Database represents the largest single cohort of ARPKD patients collected to date. Our initial data analysis provides several new clinical insights. First, in our subset of long-term survivors, ARPKD has a slower rate of disease progression, as assessed by age of ARPKD diagnosis, as well as age of diagnosis of clinical morbidities. Second, neonatal ventilation was strongly predictive of mortality as well as an earlier age of diagnosis in those who developed hypertension or chronic renal insufficiency. However, for infants who survive the perinatal period, the long-term prognosis for patient survival is much better than generally perceived. Third, although systemic hypertension and CRI were significantly correlated with respect to age of diagnosis, similar relationships with portal hypertension were not evident, suggesting that disease progression may have organ-specific patterns. Fourth, only a subset of patients may be at risk for developing clinically significant manifestations of periportal fibrosis. Based on these observations, the next challenges will be to determine how various factors, such as specific mutations in the ARPKD gene, PKHD1(polycystic kidney and hepatic disease 1), variations in modifying gene loci, modulation by as yet unspecified environmental factors, and/or gene-environment interactions contribute to the marked variability in survival and disease expression observed among ARPKD patients.


Aquatic ecosystems in high latitude and altitude environments are strongly influenced by cryospheric and hydrological processes due to links between atmospheric forcing, snowpack/glacier mass‐balance, river discharge, physico‐chemistry and biota. In the current phase of global climate warming, many glaciers are shrinking. Loss of snow and ice‐masses will alter spatial and temporal dynamics in bulk basin runoff with important changes in the relative contributions of snowmelt, glaciermelt and groundwater to stream flow. Accordingly, altered water source contributions will be accompanied by changes to fluvial, solute, sediment and thermal regimes and, thus, channel stability and habitat. The projected reduction in sediment load, warmer water temperature and increased channel stability will drive significant shifts in the floral and faunal composition of glacier‐fed rivers. This paper hypothesizes a general increase in the richness and production of micro‐organisms, algae, macroinvertebrates and fish as glacier hydrological influence shrinks under a warmer climate. With reduced glacial influence, macroinvertebrate species trait diversity will increase with more organisms possessing larger body size, less specialized body shape and lower adult mobility. In larger river systems, potential reduction of meltwater inputs will have a significant influence on off‐channel habitats (e.g. side‐channels and sloughs) that depend on glacial runoff to sustain habitat availability and connectivity, particularly for fish. Some species such as cold stenothermic taxa (including some endemic macroinvertebrates) may be vulnerable to extinction and therefore gamma (regional) diversity will be reduced. These sensitive macroinvertebrate taxa may be important biological indicators of environmental change in glacierized river basins. Moreover, high climatic sensitivity and low human perturbation make glacially influenced river basins early indicator systems for identifying hydrological and ecological responses to climate change/variability. It is concluded that glacier shrinkage and associated changes in runoff amount and timing, water source contributions and physico‐chemical habitat will be a major driver of the future biodiversity of stream communities in cold environments. Research imperatives and future directions are proposed for investigation of glacier‐fed river hydroecology. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In previous studies, increased ventilation rates and reduced indoor carbon dioxide concentrations have been associated with improvements in health at work and increased performance in work-related tasks. Very few studies have assessed whether ventilation rates influence performance of real work. This paper describes part one of a two-part analysis from a productivity study performed in a call center operated by a health maintenance organization. Outside air ventilation rates were manipulated, indoor air temperatures, humidities, and carbon dioxide concentrations were monitored, and worker performance data for advice nurses, with 30-minute resolution, were analyzed via multivariate linear regression to look for an association of performance with building ventilation rate, or with indoor carbon dioxide concentration (which is related to ventilation rate per worker). Results suggest that the effect of ventilation rate on worker performance in this call center was very small (probably less than 1%) or nil, over most of the range of ventilation rate experienced during the study (roughly 12 L s{sup -1} to 48 L s{sup -1} per person). However, there is some evidence suggesting performance improvements of 2% or more when the ventilation rate per person is very high, as indicated by indoor CO{sub 2} concentrations exceeding outdoor concentrations by less than 75 ppm.


As most cancers occur in middle-aged or older adults, only a very small proportion of the overall radiotherapy workload relates to children and young people. As there is a wide spectrum of different cancer types in this age group, not only is paediatric cancer uncommon overall but each individual type is very rare. There are many ways in which to deliver radiotherapy, including advanced photon techniques, proton beam therapy, brachytherapy, and molecular radiotherapy. For these reasons, the care of children and young people requiring radiotherapy is limited to a small number of highly specialist centres. Delivery of high-quality paediatric radiotherapy requires a multiprofessional team including radiation or clinical oncologists, therapy radiographers, physicists, dosimetrists, anaesthetists, and play specialists. This team has to interact very closely with the wider paediatric and adolescent oncology multidisciplinary team, which includes oncologists, surgeons with different anatomical expertise, radiologists, and pathologists. Children, with their developing tissues and organs, are more susceptible to long-term radiation-induced complications, including second cancers, than adults. The art of paediatric radiotherapy, therefore, is to select treatment approaches which offer the maximum chance of cure while minimizing the risk of adverse effects. Careful teamwork, peer review of radiotherapy planning, and quality assurance within a clinical trial framework offer the best chances of achieving this balance. This book covers all these aspects, highlighting the need for highly specialist teams with the extensive knowledge and the broad skillset required to offer children and young people the best possible treatments.


As many as one in four women have suffered severe neglect or abuse in childhood. This doubles the likelihood of their suffering clinical depression in adult life. Based on twenty years of systematic research,Wednesday's Child examines why neglect and abuse occur and demonstrates how such negative experience in childhood often results in abusive adult relationships, low self-esteem and depression. Drawing on interviews with over 200 women, the authors show vividly what can be learned from the experience of adult survivors of abuse. Most importantly, Wednesday's Child assesses the factors which can reduce the later impact of such experience on both the children of today and the parents of tomorrow.


Objectives and Methods: Many authors have argued that ethical, legal, and social issues ("ELSIs") should be explicitly integrated into health technology assessment (HTA), yet doing so poses challenges. This discussion may be particularly salient for technologies viewed as ethically complex, such as genetic screening. Here we provide a brief overview of contemporary discussions of the issues from the HTA literature. We then describe key existing policy evaluation frameworks in the fields of disease screening and public health genomics. Finally, we map the insights from the HTA literature to the policy evaluation frameworks, with discussion of the implications for HTA in genetic screening. Results and Conclusions: A critical discussion in the HTA literature considers the definition of ELSIs in HTA, highlighting the importance of thinking beyond ELSIs as impacts of technology. Existing HTA guidance on integrating ELSIs relates to three broad approaches: literature synthesis, involvement of experts, and consideration of stakeholder values. The thirteen key policy evaluation frameworks relating to disease screening and public health genomics identified a range of ELSIs relevant to genetic screening. Beyond straightforward impacts of screening, these ELSIs require consideration of factors such as the social and political context surrounding policy decisions. The three broad approaches to addressing ELSIs described above are apparent in the screening/genomics literatures. In integrating these findings we suggest that the method chosen for addressing ELSIs in HTA for genetic screening may determine which ELSIs are prioritized; and that an important challenge is the lack of guidance for evaluating such methods.


In this work, the development of an on-site early warning system for Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) is outlined. Several low cost sensors equipped with MEMS accelerometers are installed in eight buildings distributed within the urban area. The different sensing units communicate each other via wireless links and the seismic data are streamed in real-time to the data center using internet. Since each single sensing unit has computing capabilities, software for data processing can be installed to perform decentralized actions. In particular, each sensing unit can perform event detection task and run software for on-site early warning. If a description for the vulnerability of the building is uploaded in the sensing unit, this piece of information can be exploited to introduce the expected probability of damage in the early-warning protocol customized for a specific structure.


The primary goal of a national minimum wage floor is to raise the incomes of poor or near-poor families with members in the work force. However, estimates of employment effects of minimum wages tell us little about whether minimum wages are can achieve this goal; even if the disemployment effects of minimum wages are modest, minimum wage increases could result in net income losses for poor families. We present evidence on the effects of minimum wages on family incomes from matched March CPS surveys, focusing on the effectiveness of minimum wages in reducing poverty. The results show that over a one-to-two year period, minimum wages increase both the probability that poor families escape poverty and the probability that previously non-poor families fall into poverty. The estimated increase in the number of non-poor families that fall into poverty is larger than the estimated increase in the number of poor families that escape poverty, though this difference is not statistically significant. We also find that minimum wages tend to boost the incomes of poor families that remain below the poverty line. The evidence indicates that in the wake of minimum wage increases, some families gain and others lose. On net, the various tradeoffs created by minimum wage increases more closely resemble income redistribution among low-income families than income redistribution from high- to low-income families. Given these findings it is difficult to make a distributional or equity argument for minimum wages.


OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of cell phone use on various markers of semen quality. DESIGN: Observational study. SETTING: Infertility clinic. PATIENT(S): Three hundred sixty-one men undergoing infertility evaluation were divided into four groups according to their active cell phone use: group A: no use; group B: <2 h/day; group C: 2-4 h/day; and group D: >4 h/day. INTERVENTION(S): None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Sperm parameters (volume, liquefaction time, pH, viscosity, sperm count, motility, viability, and morphology). RESULT(S): The comparisons of mean sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology among four different cell phone user groups were statistically significant. Mean sperm motility, viability, and normal morphology were significantly different in cell phone user groups within two sperm count groups. The laboratory values of the above four sperm parameters decreased in all four cell phone user groups as the duration of daily exposure to cell phones increased. CONCLUSION(S): Use of cell phones decrease the semen quality in men by decreasing the sperm count, motility, viability, and normal morphology. The decrease in sperm parameters was dependent on the duration of daily exposure to cell phones and independent of the initial semen quality.


Attention is drawn to the movements of the body and to the ethical imperative that emerges in compelling, flowing moments of teaching. Such moments of teaching are not primarily intellectual, discursive events, but physical, sensual experiences in which the body surrenders to its own movements. Teaching is recognized momentarily as a carnal intensity embedded in and emerging from the flesh. The ethical imperative to this teaching is felt proprioceptively and kinaesthetically when one holds in self-motion the well-being of another as being of the same flesh. The teaching caress offers a primary example. This gesture of intimacy discloses an embodied ethic that contrasts with the transcendental ethics of curricular prescriptions, professional codes of conduct, and the presumptions of self-monitoring behavior. It is a gesture of care for another person, without fastidious carefulness. It is a gesture of pure duration, without sanctimonious purity, in its contact with the beauty, truth and value of the teachable moment. From earliest engagements with children to the dynamics of the university classroom, what makes for good teaching is essentially attentiveness to intimate gestures, such as the caress, that guide teachers kinethically in the moment.


Seven possible nominal variables are considered as candidates to be the anchor or target for monetary policy. The context is countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which tend to be price takers on world markets, to produce commodity exports subject to volatile terms of trade, and to experience procyclical international finance. Three anchor candidates are exchange rate pegs: to the dollar, euro and SDR. One candidate is orthodox Inflation Targeting. Three candidates represent proposals for a new sort of inflation targeting that differs from the usual focus on the CPI, in that prices of export commodities are given substantial weight and prices of imports are not: PEP (Peg the Export Price), PEPI (Peg an Export Price Index), and PPT (Product Price Targeting). The selling point of these production-based price indices is that each could serve as a nominal anchor while yet accommodating terms of trade shocks, in comparison to a CPI target. CPI-targeters such as Brazil, Chile, and Peru are observed to respond to increases in world prices of imported oil with monetary policy that is sufficiently tight to appreciate their currencies, an undesirable property, which is the opposite of accommodating the terms of trade. As hypothesized, a product price target generally does a better job of stabilizing the real domestic prices of tradable goods than does a CPI target. Bottom line: A Product Price Targeter would appreciate in response to an increase in world prices of its commodity exports, not in response to an increase in world prices of its imports. CPI targeting gets this backwards. JEL classifications: E5, F4.


Something is blooming every day of the year in the renowned gardens at Montrose, Nancy Goodwin's nineteenth-century property in historic Hillsborough, North Carolina. Since moving to Montrose with her husband Craufurd in 1977, Goodwin has transformed more than twenty acres into an extraordinary complex of interlocking gardens that come in and out of focus as the seasons overlap and change.

Beautifully written and illustrated, Montrose: Life in a Garden is Goodwin's affectionate biography of her gardens, recounting how and why each section was developed over the years, including the Dianthus Walk, Nandinaland, Hellebore Slope, Mother-in-Law Walk, Snowdrop Woods, and Jo's Bed. It is also a meticulous month-by-month chronicle of a specific year in these gardens—a year that saw a punishing drought that threatened Goodwin's no-irrigation policy, a damaging December ice storm, and the beginnings of a plan to preserve Montrose in the future.

Working on her knees for long days throughout the year, Nancy Goodwin always has a vision of how her gardens will appear in twelve months or in twelve years. She will spend weeks, for instance, planting hundreds of snow drops along a woodsy path in order to enjoy a fleeting week of exquisite beauty in coming years. She never puts anything into the ground without imagining what form, color, and texture it will add to a bed. With tireless patience and unflagging optimism, Goodwin will wait years to see a single plant bloom.

Following Goodwin's activities throughout the year, readers will learn the fundamentals of maintaining a four-season garden in Zone 7 in the South. Award-winning garden illustrator Ippy Patterson has provided more than 160 lavish illustrations of the gardens at Montrose and these meticulously detailed drawings appear throughout the book.


I provide a brief introduction to the early literatures on Matching, Auctions, and Market Design.The design of matching markets and auctions has brought economic theory and practice together. Indeed, this is an area where microeconomic theory has had its largest direct impact. This is in part because it focuses on settings where people interact according to very clearly delineated rules. Thus, the strategic interactions of the participants are relatively easy to model, and outcomes are comparatively straightforward to assess relative to the many other less structured interactions that occur in an economy. In view of this, these are arenas where economic theory has directly shaped institutions ranging from the systems by which students are assigned to public schools to the manner in which governments have auctioned to the rights to parts of the broadcast spectra in particular geographic regions.


A key challenge in reconstructing high-quality 3D scans and image mosaics is registration of data from different viewpoints. Existing global alignment algorithms are restricted to rigid-body transformations, and cannot adequately handle non-rigid warps in the data. Algorithms that can compensate for such warps between pairs of scans do not easily generalize to the multiview case. We present an algorithm for obtaining a globally-optimal alignment of multiple overlapping datasets in the presence of lowfrequency non-rigid deformations, such as those caused by device nonlinearities or calibration error. The process first obtains sparse correspondences between views using a locally-weighted stability-guaranteeing variant of iterative closest points (ICP). Global positions for feature points are found using a relaxation method, and the scans are warped to their final positions using thin-plate splines. The technique is efficient, with only minimal overhead beyond comparable rigid-body global alignment techniques. We demonstrate that, relative to rigid-body registration, it improves the quality of alignment and better preserves detail in large 3D-scanned meshes, range images obtained using photometric stereo, and image sequences obtained with an uncalibrated camcorder.


Patients with major burns experience pathological changes which have been shown to influence the pharmacokinetics of antibiotics. Subsequently it has been demonstrated that conventional doses of some antibiotics given to patients with major burns may result in sub-therapeutic serum concentrations. The aim of this thesis was to identify antibiotics used to treat infection in critically ill patients with burns, and to develop dosage guidelines for those where data is lacking. A survey of antimicrobial use in burns centres in the UK was undertaken, leading to the identification of five antimicrobials to be studied further. Published pharmacokinetic values for gentamicin were used to develop dosage guidelines for extended dose administration. With vancomycin, current dose recommendations were reviewed for their appropriateness. Three more antimicrobials were identified where little or no pharmacokinetic data were available for patients with burns; meropenem, linezolid and colistin. A patient study was therefore set up where serum samples at steady state were collected from patients enabling the calculation of pharmacokinetic data. These were related to pharmacodynamic principles in order to propose dose recommendations.


Maternal vitamin D insufficiency is associated with childhood rickets and longer-term problems including schizophrenia and type 1 diabetes. Whilst maternal vitamin D insufficiency is common in mothers with highly pigmented skin, little is known about vitamin D status of Caucasian pregnant women. The aim was to investigate vitamin D status in healthy Caucasian pregnant women and a group of age-matched non-pregnant controls living at 54-55 degrees N. In a longitudinal study, plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) was assessed in ninety-nine pregnant women at 12, 20 and 35 weeks of gestation, and in thirty-eight non-pregnant women sampled concurrently. Plasma 25(OH)D concentrations were lower in pregnant women compared to non-pregnant women (P < 0.0001). Of the pregnant women, 35, 44 and 16 % were classified as vitamin D deficient (25(OH)D < 25 nmol/l), and 96, 96 and 75 % were classified as vitamin D insufficient (25(OH)D < 50 nmol/l) at 12, 20 and 35 weeks gestation, respectively. Vitamin D status was higher in pregnant women who reported taking multivitamin supplements at 12 (P < 0.0001), 20 (P = 0.001) and 35 (P = 0.001) weeks gestation than in non-supplement users. Vitamin D insufficiency is evident in pregnant women living at 54-55 degrees N. Women reporting use of vitamin D-containing supplements had higher vitamin D status, however, vitamin D insufficiency was still evident even in the face of supplement use. Given the potential consequences of hypovitaminosis D on health outcomes, vitamin D supplementation, perhaps at higher doses than currently available, is needed to improve maternal vitamin D nutriture.


Digital technology is rapidly reshaping the way how brands interact with consumers. More and more marketers are shifting their focus from traditional marketing channels (e.g., TV) to digital channels (e.g., social media platforms). Effective targeting is key to successful social media and digital marketing campaigns. This dissertation seeks to shed light on who and how to target on social media platforms. The first chapter aims to provide insights on how to target customers who are connected to each other on social media platforms. We investigate how the network embeddedness (i.e., number of common followees, common followers, and common mutual followers) between two users impacts information diffusion from one (sender) to another (receiver). By analyzing the sharing of sponsored ads on Digg and brand-authored tweets on Twitter, we find that the effect of embeddedness in directed networks varies across different types of "neighbors". A receiver is more likely to share content from a sender if they share more common followees. A receiver is also more likely to share content if she shares more common followers and common mutual followers with the sender. However, this effect is moderated by the novelty of information. The second chapter strives to understand what affects paid endorsers' participation and effectiveness in social advertising campaigns. We conduct a field experiment with an invitation design in which we manipulate both incentives and a soft eligibility requirement to participate in the campaign. There are three main findings from our analysis. (1) Payments higher than the average reward a potential endorser received in the past (gains) do not increase participation, whereas lower payments (losses) decrease participation. Neither gains nor losses compared to past reward affect performance. (2) Potential endorsers who are more likely to participate tend to be less effective. (3) Which characteristics are associated with effectiveness depends on whether success is measured in likes, comments, or retweets. For marketing managers, our findings provide insights on how to target customers in a directed network at a micro level and how to improve social advertising campaigns by better targeting and incenting potential endorsers. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Operations & Information Management First Advisor Kartik Hosanagar Second Advisor Christophe Van den Bulte This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1942


We investigate the export-enhancing effect of foreign workers at the firm level. We first develop a theoretical framework of heterogeneous firms, assuming that foreign workers allow for productivity gains and convey valuable information on foreign markets. We illustrate that foreign workers foster exports at the extensive and the intensive margins. This effect can be decomposed in a general effect - to which any foreign worker contributes - and a destination-specific effect - to which only foreign workers who were born in the export destination contribute. We test these theoretical predictions using French firm-level data over the 1997-2008 period and a propensity score matching method to address endogeneity concerns. We find that foreign-born workers, and especially skilled individuals, foster exports at both margins. On average, a firm employing foreign-born workers exports 30% more in value than a control firm. We find evidence that this increase is spread over all destinations, suggesting that the effect of foreign-born workers goes beyond a destination-specific informational channel.


As the flexibility and reliability of additive manufacturing (AM) and its corresponding design tools increases, it is becoming a viable option for more industries. One application area that could benefit from AM is composite component manufacture. The layup and molding of composite materials face significant challenges presented by tight design timescales, growing demand for productivity, and the complexity of components and end products. Therefore, there is an immediate potential to save energy by reducing the mass of the curing equipment and tooling to enhance process heat transmission. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the reduction of embodied energy within mold tools that are printed using an AM process. Using an AM approach, it is possible to design lightweight curing tools to increase the curing rate and quality of heat distribution in the mold. The viability of additively producing these cure tools was assessed by analyzing the geometrical precision of the composite mold outputs, material utilization, and heat transmission qualities of each sample. In this study, 14 cure tools were designed and manufactured with a 100 mm2 curing surface area, top plate thickness of 1–2 mm, and stiffening lattices behind the curing surface with a depth of 10 mm. Four lattice geometries, gyroid, dual-wall gyroid, planar diamond, and stochastic, were tested based on their overall geometrical accuracy and thermal responsiveness. While the stochastic lattice had the best single tool properties, the planar diamond and gyroid lattice tools had better potential for future use in the design of additively manufactured composite tooling.


A constant dimension code consists of a set of k-dimensional subspaces of \BBF qn. Orbit codes are constant dimension codes which are defined as orbits of a subgroup of the general linear group, acting on the set of all subspaces of \BBF qn. If the acting group is cyclic, the corresponding orbit codes are called cyclic orbit codes. In this paper, we show how orbit codes can be seen as an analog of linear codes in the block coding case. We investigate how the structure of cyclic orbit codes can be utilized to compute the minimum distance and cardinality of a given code and propose different decoding procedures for a particular subclass of cyclic orbit codes.


Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) studies of sunroof buffeting on production vehicles demonstrate accurate prediction of the main buffeting frequency and its harmonics. For production vehicles, none to date has illustrated the phenomenon of buffeting intensity maximization over a vehicle speed range, at a frequency related to the volume of the passenger compartment. All assume that the interior surfaces of the vehicle are rigid, potentially overestimating in-cabin noise intensities by failing to account for surface impedance from non-acoustically rigid trims and linings. In this paper, a modelling study of both effects is presented. Advanced LES-type turbulence modelling, in the form of Detached Eddy Simulation (DES), is used. The hybrid approach, linking acoustic source generation in CFD to acoustic pressure wave propagation with Boundary Element Methods (BEM), is adopted. The former is used to predict the surface pressure excitations induced by the flow, the latter to interpret these as equivalent dipoles to be propagated. The results confirm both the necessity of accounting for compressibility effects in the CFD solver when predicting the buffeting intensity maximization, and surface impedance affects on noise levels perceived by the driver and passengers at higher frequencies closer to the peak audibility range.


"Together, protecting marine biodiversity: know how to act" was the French governmental conference organized by three ministries in Paris on 12 March 2020. Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Ministry of Agriculture and Alimentation, and Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition along with two research think tanks, Ifremer and OFB have organized the "day of biodiversity". Participants were mostly researchers, governmental and local officials, business leaders, fishermen, representatives of associations and foundations, all from France. Thus, the language of the conference was French. The conference took place in the 13th century Collège of Bernardins, a former Cistercian college of the historic University of Paris. Experts and audience shared reflections and discussions on major research issues on ocean change, as well as the French position towards global maritime policy in order to find proposals for sustainable management and protection of the ocean.


of a dissertation at the University of Miami. Dissertation supervised by Margaret Miller, Ph.D. and Diego Lirman, Ph.D. No. of pages in text. (133) As the resiliency of coral reefs is eroded by a variety of natural and anthropogenic stressors, corallivory is becoming an increasingly important factor affecting the structure and function of these important ecosystems. Yet, little is known about the mechanistic drivers of coral-corallivore dynamics in many regions, including the Caribbean. In this dissertation, I used an integrated approach to investigate the evolutionary ecology of the coral-eating gastropod, Coralliophila abbreviata, on the reefs of Florida and the Caribbean. Coralliophila abbreviata snails live and feed on most of the major reefbuilding corals in the region and cause substantial and chronic mortality of the threatened acroporid corals, Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis. The overall objective of this research was to elucidate feedback mechanisms between coral community structure and snail population structure and dynamics. In the first age-based analysis of C. abbreviata populations, I identified remarkable coral-host-associated variation in life-history traits of snails on Florida reefs. Based on estimates of fitness correlates such as growth, longevity, and female reproductive output, A. palmata appears to be a superior host for C. abbreviata compared to two other common coral taxa investigated (Diploria spp. and Montastraea spp.). However, host-specific life-history trade-offs may exist for individual snails that act to balance snail population fitness across hosts. I then developed a set of five polymorphic microsatellite loci that were used in conjunction with mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence data to assess the population genetic structure and demographic history of C. abbreviata from three coral host taxa (A. palmata, Montastraea spp., Mycetophyllia spp.) and six geographic locations spanning most of the species' range. I found no evidence of genetic differentiation among the snail populations sampled. Demographic analyses of population genetic data support a scenario of a large population expansion during the Pleistocene, a time of major carbonate reef development in the region. These results indicate that C. abbreviata are successful generalist coral predators with unrestricted gene flow throughout the greater Caribbean. On a reef scale, the density and identity of neighboring corals indirectly affected predation pressure on focal A. cervicornis colonies in a manipulative field experiment. Snails exhibited a strong feeding preference for A. cervicornis during the experiment but the presence of the alternative prey, M. faveoloata, also contributed to predator abundance in the experimental plots. Thus, M. faveolata neighbors had a negative effect on A. cervicornis colonies through apparent competition. Overall, these results have implications for coral reef community structure and dynamics. Understanding these processes is necessary to develop effective conservation and management strategies for imperiled corals and predict how these communities will respond to further perturbations in the future.


Smart contracts---stateful executable objects hosted on blockchains like Ethereum---carry billions of dollars worth of coins and cannot be updated once deployed. We present a new systematic characterization of a class of trace vulnerabilities, which result from analyzing multiple invocations of a contract over its lifetime. We focus attention on three example properties of such trace vulnerabilities: finding contracts that either lock funds indefinitely, leak them carelessly to arbitrary users, or can be killed by anyone. We implemented Maian, the first tool for specifying and reasoning about trace properties, which employs interprocedural symbolic analysis and concrete validator for exhibiting real exploits. Our analysis of nearly one million contracts flags 34, 200 (2, 365 distinct) contracts vulnerable, in 10 seconds per contract. On a subset of 3, 759 contracts which we sampled for concrete validation and manual analysis, we reproduce real exploits at a true positive rate of 89%, yielding exploits for 3, 686 contracts. Our tool finds exploits for the infamous Parity bug that indirectly locked $200 million US worth in Ether, which previous analyses failed to capture.


Till this day, there are more than 60 described surgical procedures of the intestinal reconstructions after a total gastrectomy. In 1897, Schlatter reconstructed the digestive tract by creating a termino-lateral esophagojejunostomies that was the first successful total gastrectomy. Many of the total gastrectomy pioneers did the reconstruction by esophagoduodenostomy or by forming a loop esophagojejunostomy. The main reconstruction modalities after a total gastrectomy are a restitution of the intestinal continuity, without a preservation of the duodenal food passage (esophagojejunostomy with a Roux-en-Y configuration) and a restitution of the intestinal continuity with a preservation of the duodenal passage (esophagojejunostomy with Roux-en-Y configuration and forming of the lateral-terminal jejunoduodenal anastomosis double tract and jejunal interposition by Longmire). The surgeries in these categories can be combined with forming of an enteral pouch or a stomach reservoir which would simulate a reservoir of a normal intact stomach. The ideal reconstruction procedure after total gastrectomy should replace all lost functions of the stomach. Preservation of duodenal transit with replacement of the jejunal segment, the so-called physiological route, is now believed to be preferential for postoperative nutritional condition, prevents persistent postgastrectomy syndrome, and improves the quality of life. Reconstructive procedures which allow duodenal passage should be regarded as a key to physiological reconstruction.


Hicks, M., Tough, S., Johnston, D., Siever, J., Clarke, M., Sauve, R., Brant, R., & Lyon, A. (2014). T-ACE and predictors of self-reported alcohol use during pregnancy in a large, population-based urban cohort. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 3(1), 51-61 . doi:10.7895/ijadr.v3i1.117 Aims: To determine 1) the relationship between T-ACE score and maternal self-reported alcohol use prior to and during pregnancy, and 2) the relationship between T-ACE score and maternal demographics, mental health and life circumstances. Design: Prospective, population-based cohort study. Setting: Three urban maternity clinics in Calgary, Canada. Participants: 1,929 pregnant women attended by family physicians at low-risk maternity clinics. Measures: Women completed three standardized questionnaires over the telephone in the first and third trimesters and eight weeks post-delivery, including the T-ACE and questions about drug and alcohol use, demographics, mental health and life circumstances. Findings: 43.6% of subjects had a positive T-ACE score at intake (score 2 or greater). A positive T-ACE score was predictive of alcohol use throughout pregnancy, although most women reported no alcohol after the first trimester (93.1%). Multivariate analysis indicated that a positive T-ACE score was significantly associated with being less than 30 years of age; being Caucasian; smoking during pregnancy; having an income of less than $80,000 per annum; having a history of depression; having a history of alcohol use and binge drinking during a previous pregnancy; lower social support; and poor network orientation. Conclusions: There was a positive association between the T-ACE score and maternal self-report of alcohol use, poor mental health and poor social support. Routine use of the T-ACE to assess for risk of an alcohol-exposed pregnancy may also help identify women with complex needs who could benefit from additional prenatal support.


Tumor cells that have active PI3K signaling are resistant to the inhibitory effects of dietary restriction on tumor growth. The beneficial effects of dietary restriction (DR) in a number of organisms include increased life span and protection against age-related diseases, including cancer; however, not all types of cancer respond to DR in the same way (see commentary by Brunet). To address this question, Kalaany and Sabatini introduced various human cancer cell lines into immunocompromised mice and monitored the effect of DR on both the incidence and size of the resulting tumors. They found that tumors could be classified into one of two types: those whose volume was reduced in mice subjected to DR compared to that in mice with a normal diet, and those that were resistant to the effects of DR. Because cell lines that generated DR-resistant tumors could grow in culture media devoid of insulin or insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), whereas DR-sensitive cell lines could not, the authors investigated phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) and Akt, components of insulin and IGF1 signaling pathways. They found that DR-resistant cell lines had mutations that led to constitutive PI3K signaling, whereas DR-sensitive cell lines did not. Indeed, replacement of an allele encoding a constitutively active mutant of PI3K with one encoding wild-type PI3K was sufficient to convert cells from a DR-resistant phenotype to a DR-sensitive one. DR-sensitive tumors exhibited increased apoptosis rather than decreased proliferation when exposed to DR, and this correlated with the increased activity of the transcription factor FOXO1, a downstream target of Akt that activates genes encoding proapoptotic factors. Together, these data suggest that the extent of PI3K signaling in tumor cells determines their sensitivity to the effects of DR-type therapies. N. Y. Kalaany, D. M. Sabatini, Tumours with PI3K activation are resistant to dietary restriction. Nature 458, 725–731 (2009). [PubMed] A. Brunet, When restriction is good. Nature 458, 713–714 (2009). [PubMed]


Aim: This study investigated the lifestyle convenience of Insulin therapy for
adult women patients with type 1 diabetes. Methods: Participants were
type 1 diabetes adult women patients who switched from multiple daily injection
(MDI) therapy to Continuous Subcutaneous Insulin Infusion (CSII) therapy. We
conducted semi-structured interviews with participants. To analyze,
we referenced the classification table of Hamada's study comparing the
usefulness of both the NovoPen? and CSII. Semi-structured interviews were
conducted with the research subjects. The questions focused mainly on diabetes
management, instrument operation, everyday life, and social, psychological and
lifestyle convenience aspects during MDI and CSII. Results: Research
subjects were 4 women patients with type 1 diabetes. The average age was 35.3 ±
6.24 (SE) years old. Participants were undergoing MDI therapy; however, in the
middle, they switched to CSII therapy. CSII therapy is convenient in terms of
diabetes management, social and psychological. MDI therapy is convenient in
terms of instrument operation and daily life. Compared to MDI therapy, CSII
therapy is less convenient in terms of instrument operation and everyday life.
However, since CSII therapy has more stable HbA1c and blood glucose levels
compared to MDI therapy, it is more convenient in terms of social and
psychological aspects and reduces those burdens. About economy CSII therapy,
patients paid about 5000 yen more per month compared to MDI therapy. Conclusion: It is believed that patients prioritize therapeutic effects, and choose
CSII, which is stable in psychological and social aspects, even though it is
inconvenient with life.


Development of improved genetic traits in maize (Zea mays L.) requires robust measures to prevent pollen-mediated gene flow (PMGF) and assure isolation of new traits whether these traits are the result of conventional breeding or of modern genetic techniques. Studies were conducted in California and Washington to evaluate the relationship of distance and temporal separation for isolation from PMGF. Kernel color was used to detect outcrossing from source plots of 0.4 to 1.2 ha in size to receptor plots planted at distances up to 750 m and planting intervals of up to 3 wk from the pollen source. Outcrossing from source to receptor plots was observable to 0.0002% (1 kernel in 500 000 kernels). Increasing temporal separation reduced the distance required to achieve genetic isolation. Outcrossing was <0.01% at 500 m when source and receptors flowered at the same time, whereas this level of confinement was achieved at 62 m or less when 2 wk of temporal separation was used. No outcrossing was detected at 750 m and 2 wk of temporal separation. This is the first practical evaluation of time and distance acting together to achieve genetic purity in maize.


Abstract. The transboundary Mekong River is facing two ongoing changes that are expected to significantly impact its hydrology and the characteristics of its exceptional flood pulse. The rapid economic development of the riparian countries has led to massive plans for hydropower construction, and projected climate change is expected to alter the monsoon patterns and increase temperature in the basin. The aim of this study is to assess the cumulative impact of these factors on the hydrology of the Mekong within next 20–30 yr. We downscaled the output of five general circulation models (GCMs) that were found to perform well in the Mekong region. For the simulation of reservoir operation, we used an optimisation approach to estimate the operation of multiple reservoirs, including both existing and planned hydropower reservoirs. For the hydrological assessment, we used a distributed hydrological model, VMod, with a grid resolution of 5 km × 5 km. In terms of climate change's impact on hydrology, we found a high variation in the discharge results depending on which of the GCMs is used as input. The simulated change in discharge at Kratie (Cambodia) between the baseline (1982–1992) and projected time period (2032–2042) ranges from −11% to p15% for the wet season and −10% to p13% for the dry season. Our analysis also shows that the changes in discharge due to planned reservoir operations are clearly larger than those simulated due to climate change: 25–160% higher dry season flows and 5–24% lower flood peaks in Kratie. The projected cumulative impacts follow rather closely the reservoir operation impacts, with an envelope around them induced by the different GCMs. Our results thus indicate that within the coming 20–30 yr, the operation of planned hydropower reservoirs is likely to have a larger impact on the Mekong hydrograph than the impacts of climate change, particularly during the dry season. On the other hand, climate change will increase the uncertainty of the estimated reservoir operation impacts: our results indicate that even the direction of the flow-related changes induced by climate change is partly unclear. Consequently, both dam planners and dam operators should pay closer attention to the cumulative impacts of climate change and reservoir operation on aquatic ecosystems, including the multibillion-dollar Mekong fisheries.


Oxadiazole is a five membered heterocyclic ring which is a versatile lead compound for designing potent bioactive agents. This interesting group of compound has diverse biological activities such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antitubercular, anticonvulsant, anticancer, anti-HIV, hypogycemic and genotoxic. Given data represents that oxadiazole being heterocyclic planar five membered ring system have various pharmacological actions. Results of various derivatives of different oxadiazole and their substitutions are reviewed in present article. Various methods for synthesizing oxadiazole are discussed with their pharmacological actions. These derivatives of oxadiazole are analysed here for varying pharmacological activities.


We report for the first time, magnesium oxide (MgO) 3D-flowers, synthesized by a simple reflux method. The synthesized MgO 3D-flowers were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), ultra-violet visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping to confirm their purity, morphology and elemental composition. The synthesized MgO 3D-flowers had a very high specific surface area of 218 m2 g−1 as confirmed by the N2 adsorption–desorption isotherm. These MgO 3D-flowers were employed as an electrode modifier for the construction of an electrochemical sensor to detect 4-chlorophenol (4-CP). The active surface area of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was modified with MgO 3D-flowers with the assistance of 0.1% Nafion (MgO 3D-flowers/GCE) and the MgO 3D-flowers/GCE sensor shows an excellent electrocatalytic behavior towards 4-CP. The constructed MgO 3D-flowers/GCE sensor exhibits the limits of detection (LOD) of 45 nM, 68 nM, and 52 nM, and sensitivities of 2.84 μA μM−1 cm−2, 5.94 μA μM−1 cm−2, and 10.67 μA μM−1 cm−2 in cyclic voltammetry (CV), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV) techniques, respectively. The modified MgO 3D-flowers/GCE sensor displays excellent performance in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, repeatability and reproducibility. The excellent electrocatalytic activity of the proposed MgO 3D-flowers/GCE sensor was attributed to the high specific surface area, surface electron transfer ability and the presence of the edges/corner defects of MgO 3D-flowers.


The definitive evidence-based introduction to patient history-taking NOW IN FULL COLOR For medical students and other health professions students, an accurate differential diagnosis starts with The Patient History. The ideal companion to major textbooks on the physical examination, this trusted guide is widely acclaimed for its skill-building, and evidence based approach to the medical history. Now in full color, The Patient History defines best practices for the patient interview, explaining how to effectively elicit information from the patient in order to generate an accurate differential diagnosis. The second edition features all-new chapters, case scenarios, and a wealth of diagnostic algorithms. Introductory chapters articulate the fundamental principles of medical interviewing. The book employs a rigorous evidenced-based approach, reviewing and highlighting relevant citations from the literature throughout each chapter. Features NEW! Case scenarios introduce each chapter and place history-taking principles in clinical context NEW! Self-assessment multiple choice Q&A conclude each chapter-an ideal review for students seeking to assess their retention of chapter material NEW! Full-color presentation Essential chapter on red eye, pruritus, and hair loss Symptom-based chapters covering 59 common symptoms and clinical presentations Diagnostic approach section after each chapter featuring color algorithms and several multiple-choice questions Hundreds of practical, high-yield questions to guide the history, ranging from basic queries to those appropriate for more experienced clinicians


Most contract cases involve disputes about the interpretation of the contracts. There is a voluminous law and economics literature on contract interpretation, but ironically, it does not address whether and how the contract term that is usually of most interest to economists – the contract price – might be used to interpret other ambiguous contract terms. This is no doubt in part because there are legal authorities that discourage courts from considering the adequacy of the contract price in deciding whether other clauses are contractually enforceable. However, these authorities are much more persuasive for some contracts than for others. Indeed, in some contracts for the sale of goods between sophisticated business parties the contract price provides costless information that may be highly relevant to interpreting parties' intended bargains. From an economic perspective, therefore, courts would be remiss in such cases if they ignored it. Indeed, it is not clear that the drafters of the UCC intended to preclude courts from considering the contract price in interpreting sales contracts; the Official Comments to the UCC actually appear to prescribe that in at least some contexts courts should evaluate the contract price in interpreting parties' intended bargains. It should not be surprising therefore that many courts have in fact considered the adequacy of the contract price in interpreting parties' intended bargains under UCC contracts. But to the extent that they have, they have done so without any guidance from economic theory. This article presents an economic analysis of bargains and uses it to provide some guidelines to courts about how to use the contract price to interpret whether disputed terms are an intended part of parties' bargains. It then illustrates how the guidelines might have been applied in some recent sales cases. The hope is that the use of some basic economic analysis might help to improve the resolution of at least some contractual disputes.


An asset possessed by a defender grows from the first to the second period and is attacked in both periods. With large growth, there is no attack in the first period. Conflict is eliminated. The attacker postpones the attack until the second period. The attacker shows restraint in the first period in order to cash in on the fruits of her restraint in the second period. When the defender's discount parameter is at least 1/8 of the attacker's discount parameter, the defender's first period investment is inverse U formed in growth and eventually decreases to zero since with more growth, he eventually has to defend against a greater attack in the second period. In the second period, both actors' investments increase in growth. The defender's discount parameter does not influence whether an attack occurs in the first period. A first period attack is prevented if the attacker's discount parameter is large, and growth is above a certain value. Also, if the product of growth and the attacker's discount parameter is above one, a first period attack is prevented if the defence inefficiency is large, or the attack inefficiency is low, or the usability of appropriation is large.


We demonstrate an experimental method to separately test the optical response of a single sub-wavelength nano-structure to tailored electric and magnetic field distributions in the optical domain. For this purpose a highly focused y-polarized TEM10-mode is used which exhibits spatially separated longitudinal magnetic and transverse electric field patterns. By displacing a single sub-wavelength nano-structure, namely a single split-ring resonator (SRR), in the focal plane, different coupling scenarios can be achieved. It is shown experimentally that the single split-ring resonator tested here responds dominantly as an electric dipole. A much smaller but yet statistically significant magnetic dipole contribution is also measured by investigating the interaction of a single SRR with a magnetic field component perpendicular to the SRR plane (which is equivalent to the curl of the electric field) as well as by analyzing the intensity and polarization distribution of the scattered light with high spatial resolution. The developed experimental setup as well as the measurement techniques presented in this paper are a versatile tool to investigate the optical properties of single sub-wavelength nano-structures.


Alagille syndrome (MIM #118450) causes the majority of cases of congenital cholestasis. It is an autosomal dominant multisystem disorder associated with several different clinical manifestations including the core criteria of cholestasis, cardiac defects, skeletal abnormalities, and eye and facial features. This condition is caused by mutations in the JAG 1 gene on chromosome 20p12. It is known a second form of Alagille syndrome that is caused by mutations in the NOTCH gene on 1p13-p11 (MIM #610205). Diagnosis is often delayed because only few patients show a classical picture in the early stages of the disease, causing an increase in morbidity. This review suggests clinical


The object of the thesis was to build a portrait of a local peace movement in order to contrast and compare it with existing descriptions of the peace movement written from a national perspective. The Sheffield Peace Movement is examined from the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War to the disestablishment and reformation of the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council in 1940 as a result of its support for the anti-war line taken by the Communist Party of Great Britain. The peace movement is treated holistically. Political, religious and other organisations associated with it are discussed alongside groups specifically devoted to the issues of peace. These various strands are followed through from the impulse to unity which existed after the successful operation of the Peace Ballot, through the fundamental division between pacifist and pacificist outlooks which began with the War in Abyssinia, to the final split of the movement when its large pacificist majority accepted the necessity for war with Germany. The character of local peace movements, it is suggested, depended very much on the political, social and economic context in which they flourished. The history of the Sheffield movement is characterised by competition between three groups for its leadership. The Labour Party dominated its political relationships but is scarcely to be understood without reference to Communist-inspired efforts to form a Popular Front of socialist and liberal groups. The Anglican Church leadership provided a strand of pacificism difficult to distinguish from defencism but nevertheless crucial to the position of the majority of the movement at the outbreak of war, while Nonconformism dominated the city's pacifism. Despite the strength of both these party political and religious influences, however, the League of Nations Union led the Sheffield movement during two key periods. The growth of the pacificist consensus, which at a national level saw the formation of a coalition spanning both right and left of British politics, is a stronger theme in Sheffield than the move of the minority pacifist wing into absolutism. The impact of a new "realism" on the "utopian" theories of the first decade and a half after the Great War is generally to be found in the move from the quasi-pacifism of the early thirties, which found expression on the Left in Sheffield in the policy of working-class war-resistance, to the rather crude version of League of Nations inspired Collective Security embodied in the mutual defence pacts and guarantees sought by Britain after March 1939. The ideological complexion of Sheffield's Left-wing and its importance in the deliberations of the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council ensured that, overlaying the general move towards pacificism, were a number of specific objections to aspects of the "realist" policies espoused by the national Labour leadership rooted in Communist Party policy and opposition to Chamberlain's National Government. The superficial similarities between communist objections to specific aspects of war preparations and the policies of the pacifist rump of the peace movement gave the impression that Sheffield was a centre of opposition to the war. The fundamental division between the pacificist and pacifist approaches ensured, however, that these two groups, the only remaining anti-war elements of the Sheffield movement after October 1939, never entered a formal alliance. The Communist Left remained wedded to interaction with working class groups while the remaining pacifists became isolated and increasingly quietist under the relentless pressure of the pro-war majority including their former pacificist colleagues in the peace movement.


In this paper, we take an overview of several of the biggest independently constructed global multi-regional input–output (MRIO) databases and ask how reliable and consonant these databases are. The key question is whether MRIO accounts are robust enough for setting environmental policies. This paper compares the results of four global MRIOs: Eora, WIOD, EXIOBASE, and the GTAP-based OpenEU databases, and investigates how much each diverges from the multi-model mean. We also use Monte Carlo analysis to conduct sensitivity analysis of the robustness of each accounts' results and we test to see how much variation in the environmental satellite account, rather than the economic structure itself, causes divergence in results. After harmonising the satellite account, we found that carbon footprint results for most major economies disagree by<10% between MRIOs. Confidence estimates are necessary if MRIO methods and consumption-based accounting are to be used in environmental policy-making at the national level.


PURPOSE
The intermediate goal of this work is to develop a novel 3D image boundary detection algorithm in order to reliably detect the soft tissue boundaries in patient CT images. This is the very critical first step towards a potential solution for the currently unsolved problem - automatic verification of deformable image registration (DIR) on patient images. Our hypothetic procedure of DIR verification is 1) tissue boundary detection, 2) boundary matching, and 3) verification of DIR results using the matched tissue boundaries.

METHODS
A novel 3D image boundary detection algorithm was developed. Multiple steps were used in the tissue boundary procedure, including 3D gradient computation supporting anisotropic voxels, hysteresis thresholding, non-maxima suppression directly based on the boundary normal directions, boundary thinning, tissue boundary type selection based on the image intensity values on both sides of the boundaries, boundary separation and voxel reconnection based on boundary probability tests. These steps are innovative and critical to enable reliable detection of separated tissue boundaries that would be used in the following boundary matching step. Preprocessing includes automatic couch table removal and non-local-mean noise reduction. Post-processing includes small piece removal and boundary voxels to point coordinate conversion.

RESULTS
The algorithm was implemented in MATLAB and tested using patients' head-neck and pelvis CT images. Results were visually assessed. Compared to the results of the 3D extension of the standard Canny edge detection algorithm, results of the proposed algorithm are significantly more accurate and reliable.

CONCLUSION
The proposed algorithm is a new approach of medical image processing. Combined with image feature matching methods from computer vision fields, it could lead to a potential solution for DIR verification, which is the current roadblock for many clinical applications including treatment adaptation, automatic segmentation and treatment response evaluation.


Most attempts to monitor the effects of introductions of Genetically Modified Micro-organisms (GMMs) have centred on the enumeration of specific populations. However for a significant perturbation to be measured, changes of between 100% and 300% (0.3 and 0.5 on a log scale) are necessary for the impact to be significant. Standard population measurements, assessing the survival, dissemination and effect on total indigenous populations do not give an indication of the functioning of the ecosystem. A range of soil enzyme assays have been developed as alternatives to population measurements. Assays for determining chitobiosidase, N-acetyl glucosaminidase, beta-glucosidase, beta-galactosidase, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, phosphodiesterase, aryl sulphatase and urease activities from small soil samples were developed. These assays were employed to assess the impact of microbial inoculation into the rhizosphere of crop plants and compared to traditional microbial population measurements. The impact of a chromosomally modified Pseudomonas fluorescens (SBW25) in the wheat rhizosphere using a large intact core microcosm was studied with a combined substrate addition of urea, colloidal chitin and glycerophosphate. The substrate addition caused an increase in the soil chitobiosidase, N-acetyl glucosaminidase aryl sulphatase and urease activities but did not affect acid and alkaline phosphatase and phosphodiesterase activity. Seed inoculated with P. fluorescens caused significant increases in rhizosphere chitobiosidase and urease activities and a significant decrease in alkaline phosphatase activity. Inoculation with the bacteria in the presence of substrate gave opposing effects to those treatments without substrate addition. Using these enzyme assays perturbations of less than 20% could be detected. Two strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens were compared in microcosm experiments one with a functional modification of strain F113 with repressed production of the antibiotic 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol (DAPG), to create the DAPG negative strain F113 G22. The other, SBW25 EeZY 6KX, with nonfunctional modifications consisting of marker genes (LacZY, xylE and kan') only. Both were assessed, along with the corresponding wild types (F113 and SBW25), for their effects upon the indigenous microflora, plant growth and rhizosphere soil enzyme activities. Significant perturbations were found in the indigenous bacterial population structure, with the F113 (DAPG+) strain causing a shift towards slower growing colonies (K strategists). The DAPG+ strain also significantly reduced, in comparison with the other inocula, the total Pseudomonas populations. The survival of the F113 strains were an order of magnitude lower than the SBW25 strains. The DAPG+ strain caused a significant decrease in the shoot to root ratio in comparison to the control and other inoculants. The F113 (DAPG+) inocula resulted in higher alkaline phosphatase, phosphodiesterase and aryl sulphatase activities than the other inoculants and lower beta glucosidase, beta galactosidase and N-acetyl glucosaminidase activities. These results indicate that the soil enzymes are extremely sensitive to perturbations in the rhizosphere ecosystem and are sensitive enough to measure the impact of GMM inoculation. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).


The job demands–resources model attributed burnout to incompatibility between job demands and job resources, and underplayed the role of personal resources in employees' adaptation. Based on the Conservation of Resources Theory, this study proposes the inclusion of personal resources as predictors of burnout. A cross-sectional survey design was employed to gather data from 256 paramilitary personnel in Nigeria. Participants' ages ranged from 19 to 65 years (M = 35.03 years, standard deviation [SD] = 8.55 years). Data were collected using measures of emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, optimism, and burnout. Results confirmed the joint influence of psychological resources on burnout. Emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, optimism, and tenure were found to have a significant influence on burnout. The findings suggest that organizations should be able to minimize burnout among their employees by increasing their adaptive capacities through appropriate training and development workshops.


Plagiarism is the theft of intellectual property. Plagiarism has been a problem in academic settings and appears to be on the increase, now moving into areas including the medical and scientific fields as well as industry, manufacturing, military, and legal briefs. The ethical implications can have serious consequences for organizations, individuals, and society, resulting in harm being done to others in favor of expediency. In this scholarly essay, the authors explore and discuss the ethical implications of plagiarism and the increase of ghostwriting in a free society through the writings of Kant, Popper, Kostenbaum, Plato, Whedbee, and others. The conclusion is that the act of stealing is not the true crime; rather, it is the act of deception that inflicts moral harm on all parties by damaging the reputation of self and others, insulting others' intelligence, and harming the integrity of all. The intended audience is students in their first year of a doctoral program.


Congenital anomalies of the kidney, urinary tract and genitalia anomalies are among the most frequent types of congenital malformations. Many can be diagnosed by means of ultrasound examination during pregnancy. Some will be discovered after birth. Kidney and urinary malformations represent 20% of all birth defects, appearing in 3–7 cases at 1000 live births. Environmental factors (maternal diabetes or intrauterine exposure to angiotensin- converting enzyme inhibitors) and genetic factors (inherited types of diseases) seem to be among causes that lead to the disturbance of normal nephrogenesis and generate anoma- lies of the reno-urinary tract. It is very important to diagnose and differentiate between the abnormalities incompatible with life and those that are asymptomatic in the newborn. The former requires interruption of pregnancy, whereas the latter could lead to saving the renal function if diagnosed antenatally. In many cases, the congenital anomalies of the urinary and genital tract may remain asymptomatic for a long time, even up until adulthood, and can be at times the only manifestation of a complex systemic disease. Some can manifest in more than one member in the family. This is the reason why the accurate genetic characterization is needed; it can help give not only the patient but also her family the appropriate genetic counseling, and also, in some cases, the management may prevent severe complications.


Love is all around us. It flows through every aspect of our lives and has inspired legions of people to talk, write, paint, act, and fight for it. Moreover, love affects our biological, mental, and physical states of being. A lack of love in ones life can have disastrous effects while an abundance of love can produce life-enhancing rewards. Positive psychology is the study of what makes life worth living and the strengths and virtues that enable people to live within optimal ranges of human functioning. Through a positive psychology lens and a review of the current literature, this capstone is an exploration into the contextual and biological implications of love, why it is a key component into what makes life worth living, and how people can learn to cultivate more love in their lives through empirically-tested activities and exercises.