This chapter discusses many types of evidence that may be used within a portfolio. However, this is not an exhaustive list, and it is hoped that students will be creative and innovative in devising ways of producing the required evidence necessary in order to complete their portfolios.
Good preparation is the key to a successful portfolio. Portfolios are a personal account of learning, and therefore it is important that students feel comfortable with the chosen methods. However they can be seen as a tool to provide critical reflection of a learning journey, and therefore exploring the many varieties of development. Examples of the types of evidence that may be utilised are included, as is a discussion on reflective writing and presentation skills.
There are numerous forms of evidence that may be submitted within a portfolio, however there will differ greatly depending on their required function.
The evidence within a portfolio will enable an assessor to measure student learning, and enable a student to show progression throughout a period of time/ study, provide critical reflection of situations and incidents that are pertinent to the student's learning, demonstrate self-directed learning, provide details of competence within required learning outcomes, and capture the student's learning journey of personal and professional development.
As already discussed, portfolios in the nursing profession have many uses, and therefore it is imperative that you take time to ascertain all relevant information and necessary requirements prior to commencement.
A portfolio to be completed as an assessment for postgraduate 30 credit in nursing leadership will have a different format and content to a portfolio required as a pre-registration nursing diploma programme.
When compiling a portfolio, it is important to ask the questions why, what and who to ensure that the content and format meet the necessary requirements.


We studied the immunologic responsiveness to Haemophilus influenzae type b capsular polysaccharide-Neisseria meningitidis group b outer membrane protein conjugate vaccine (PRP-NOMP) in children 2 to 42 months of age with vaccine dosages containing 7.5, 15, or 30 micrograms of PRP. Overall, PRP-NOMP was highly immunogenic. Geometric mean titers of anti-PRP antibody increased from 0.09 to 3.3 mg/L and 6.6 mg/L following each dose of vaccine, respectively, in the 2- to 18-month age group. Similarly, anti-PRP antibody geometric mean titers increased from 0.12 to 5.9 mg/L in the older than 18-month age group. However, we noted an apparent inverse relationship between vaccine dosages and immune responses following two doses of PRP-NOMP in 2- to 18-month-old children. Anti-PRP antibody geometric mean titers were 12.0, 6.9, and 3.5 mg/L, respectively, after the second dose of vaccine containing 7.5, 15, or 30 micrograms of PRP. Additional studies are needed to understand the mechanisms responsible for this inverse relationship and also to determine the optimal dosage of PRP-NOMP for young children.


Rice is the second most important crop in the world after wheat, with more than 90 per cent grown in Asia. In order to evaluate the effects of cold stress in the period of germination and seedling and recovery percent of rice cultivars, two independent tests were performed in 2006-2007 in Rice Research Institution at Amol city. An experiment was conducted by split split plots within a randomized block design (CRD) with 54 caring composition, 3 replications and 6 cultivars were used. In this study, main plots were temperature, sub plots were length of stress and sub sub plots were cultivars. The levels of temperature including 10 oc (intense stress), 14 0 C (critical temperature) and 32 0 C (improving temperature, control) and levels of stress time 12, 24, 48 hours and cultivars of local Tarom, Domsiya, Hybrid, Nemat, Gerde, Unda were selected two by two based on quality of product and then performed in unit area and finally resistance against cold respectively. On the period of germination with decreasing temperature from 32 0 C to 14 0 C and from 14 0 C to 10 0 C, total decrease studied indices with exception of percentage of damage to seed are meaningful and similar reaction in recovery section of germination is obvious. In the period of seedling, we can see a meaningful decrease in significant level 1% about of decreasing temperature of total stress, percentage of damage to seedling, vigour of seedling. By increasing temperature in the period of stress of germination, there is a meaningful increase level 1% of total studied features with the exception of damage of seed. In the period of recovery of germination, there is a meaningful increase in significant level 1% of total studied features with the exception of damage to seed. In the period of stress of germination, there is a meaningful decrease at total features with the exception of sensitive to stress, percentage of damage to seedling and vigour of seedling and aceous recovery are similar in the period of seedling. By decreasing time of stress in the period of germination, there is a meaningful decrease by percent of damage total features with exception of rate of germination, percentage of germination. In the period of germination recovery, there is a meaningful increase in length if radicle, length of stem, percentage of germination and rate of germination and other features have meaningful decrease. In the period of seedling recovery, by decreasing time of stress, length of shoot, length of radicle, weight of wet, dry root and other features have meaningful increase. The effects of cultivar in total tests and stages, was significant level 1%. The results show that, feature of germination and length of stem and percentage of damage to seed in different cultivars are various. In the period of recovery, percentage of germination, rate of germination and percentage of damage to seeds, had correct criteria for selecting cultivars sensitive to cold stress. Low temperature can delay pitch and growth of transplant for more time. We can use height of shoot in rice as an index for determining of cultivars resistant to cold. According to these results, we decide precisely for re cultivate rice store or selecting to resistant cultivar by introducing Nemat cultivar in the period of germination and hybrid cultivar in the period of seedling aceous as resistant cultivar during occurring stress of cold.


The objective of this extended paper is to produce a systematic and principled study of the theory of some of the most important aspects of English corporate insolvency law. It aims to present this body of law as a coherent whole, stemming from common fundamental principles, and amenable to being justified or criticised on that basis. At a high level of abstraction, the principle which is argued to underlie the law governing corporate insolvency is that all the parties affected by it are to be regarded as worthy of equal care and concern. This implies that equal attention and respect must be accorded to the interests of them all. To the extent that it succeeds in being egalitarian in this way, the law is fair and just. The argument draws on the work of John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin to construct a framework within which the relevant rules and principles of insolvency law can be tested for compliance with this fundamental requirement. The argument is also very much alive to considerations of economic efficiency. The paper consists of seven chapters. English insolvency law is of course very diverse and has evolved over a considerable period of time. It would be surprising if it did not reflect the influence of the numerous political and ideological struggles which would have been part of the legislative and judicial context at various stages of its development. Given this undeniable fact, the very notion that some common fundamental principles could be found woven into it as a whole has been questioned. The first chapter presents a way of understanding the project of the paper, and thus of meeting this objection. The second chapter examines and criticises the Creditors' Bargain, the best-known analytical and justificatory model in insolvency law. The third constructs an alternative (referred to as the Authentic Consent Model) while seeking to avoid the various shortcomings which it identifies in the Bargain and in other approaches extant in the literature. Chapters four, five, and six deploy the new Model alongside of economic analysis to examine three of the most basic features of English insolvency law, namely, the pari passu principle, the priority accorded to secured claims, and the liability of directors for wrongful trading. The seventh chapter concludes.


Conflict arises in families because of a fundamental relatedness asymmetry. When parents are equally related to all offspring they would prefer to divide resources equitably among young. However, offspring only share half of their genes with siblings. Thus each will be selected to demand the largest share of resources for itself, which conflicts with the interest of both parents and other siblings. Mathematical models have demonstrated that the resolution of this conflict depends on the degree to which parental provisioning and offspring solicitation influences resource allocation. Because levels of parental provisioning and offspring solicitation are affected by underlying genetic variation, they can evolve and coevolve, leading to coadapted parental and offspring traits. The Reactions Norms approach successfully captures both variation and consistency in parent and offspring strategies and is a promising tool for the investigation of family conflict.

Key Concepts:

Conflict exists within families, with offspring demanding more than parents are willing to provide, and each sibling desiring a larger share of resources than its littermates.

Both parents and offspring are able to influence provisioning, and their strategies are determined in part by genes.

How conflict is resolved depends on parental and offspring strategies; generally, the equilibrium point is somewhere between the parental and offspring optima.

Parental and offspring strategies coevolve to maximise inclusive fitness.

The Reaction Norms approach can be used to reconcile conflict and coadaptation.

Keywords:

parent–offspring conflict;
parent–offspring coadaptation;
solicitation;
provisioning;
reaction norms


The interview with professor Samantha King, the author of the famous Pink Ribbons, Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), reveals her current studies within the field of cultural politics of health, sport and the body. Samantha introduces her research group in Queen's University that critically looks at the healthification of market and political processes when social control, inequality and power asymmetry are pursued under the super value of health. She describes how her team uses the genealogical method by M. Foucault to reconstruct the dynamics of historical, ideological, economic, social agendas that shape local judgments about fruitful cultural frames for corporate charity, medicalized performance in professional sport, and painkiller use by people from different social classes. King's Group studies criticize discourses about individual responsibility and good citizenship as those that may welcome getting pills into bodies instead of transforming the economic and social contexts out of which the disease arises. In the interview, Samantha traces the changes in anti-cancer philanthropy in recent years, comments on the political struggles behind the COVID-19 pandemic and points to the the hidden layers of the protein supplements market challenged by the post-humanistic ban on eating animals, emerging laboratory-meat supply, and ecological concern. The interview with Samantha King as well as her scientific articles will be useful for those who reflect on the incorporation of the human body and subjectivity into capitalistic production in different geopolitical realms.


Scale direction effects refer to the impact on survey responses of the direction in which a response scale is presented or read, holding other scale features constant. Scale direction tends to produce primacy effects. However, empirical research on scale direction effects turns up mixed evidence – scale direction effects are observed in some studies on some items, but not in other studies for other items. As a result, it is not clear under what circumstances scale direction effects can be expected. It is also unclear what questions are more prone to scale direction effects and what scale features induce or reduce scale direction effects. This paper advances the literature by examining empirically the impact of two question level characteristics (i.e., type of survey questions and location of questions in the questionnaire) and two scale features (i.e., type of response scales and the number of scale points) on scale direction effects. We found that scale direction effects are stronger for non-attitudinal items, earlier survey items, and items with longer scales. In addition, the moderating impact of question type, question location, and scale length on scale direction effects is more pronounced for items administered via Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing than in self-administration. These findings have important implications for designing response scales in surveys.


Background Temperature, precipitation, relative humidity (RH), and Normalized Different Vegetation Index (NDVI), influence malaria transmission dynamics. However, an understanding of interactions between socioeconomic indicators, environmental factors and malaria incidence can help design interventions to alleviate the high burden of malaria infections on vulnerable populations. Our study thus aimed to investigate the socioeconomic and climatological factors influencing spatial and temporal variability of malaria infections in Mozambique. Methods We used monthly malaria cases from 2016 to 2018 at the district level. We developed an hierarchical spatial–temporal model in a Bayesian framework. Monthly malaria cases were assumed to follow a negative binomial distribution. We used integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) in R for Bayesian inference and distributed lag nonlinear modeling (DLNM) framework to explore exposure-response relationships between climate variables and risk of malaria infection in Mozambique, while adjusting for socioeconomic factors. Results A total of 19,948,295 malaria cases were reported between 2016 and 2018 in Mozambique. Malaria risk increased with higher monthly mean temperatures between 20 and 29°C, at mean temperature of 25°C, the risk of malaria was 3.45 times higher (RR 3.45 [95%CI: 2.37–5.03]). Malaria risk was greatest for NDVI above 0.22. The risk of malaria was 1.34 times higher (1.34 [1.01–1.79]) at monthly RH of 55%. Malaria risk reduced by 26.1%, for total monthly precipitation of 480 mm (0.739 [95%CI: 0.61–0.90]) at lag 2 months, while for lower total monthly precipitation of 10 mm, the risk of malaria was 1.87 times higher (1.87 [1.30–2.69]). After adjusting for climate variables, having lower level of education significantly increased malaria risk (1.034 [1.014–1.054]) and having electricity (0.979 [0.967–0.992]) and sharing toilet facilities (0.957 [0.924–0.991]) significantly reduced malaria risk. Conclusion Our current study identified lag patterns and association between climate variables and malaria incidence in Mozambique. Extremes in climate variables were associated with an increased risk of malaria transmission, peaks in transmission were varied. Our findings provide insights for designing early warning, prevention, and control strategies to minimize seasonal malaria surges and associated infections in Mozambique a region where Malaria causes substantial burden from illness and deaths.


Networks on Chip (NoC) come along with increased complexity from the implementation and management perspective. This leads to higher energy consumption and programming complexity of NoC architectures. This work introduces communication aware programming to address communication resource management and efficient programming of NoC architectures. A programming interface is introduced to express communication requirements at the language level. These requirements are evaluated by an operating system component, which configures the communication hardware accordingly. The proposed concept enables an intuitive use of NoC features like end-to-end connections and Direct Memory Access (DMA). The presented results show that communication aware programming can improve performance and energy consumption.


The purpose of this study was to compare informal caregivers in a coastal Newfoundland community during the fishery closure at two time periods: a) when The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy (TAGS), a federal government program that provided financial support for those affected was in place (phase 1) and b) after TAGS completion (phase 2). Method: This study involved secondary analysis of data collected during two time periods. The data were collected in the same geographic area at both times, using a randomly selected sample. The first set of data was collected in 1995-1997, during the first study, an interdisciplinary Eco-Research program entitled Sustainability in a Changing Cold-Ocean Coastal Environment, while individuals who were affected by the cod moratorium were receiving income support through TAGS. The second set of data was collected in 2001-2003, during the Natural Resources Depletion and Health study which was conducted after the TAGS program had been completed. The sample consisted of individuals who identified themselves as 1) main informal caregivers: caregivers of an adult(s) or child(ren) with a health problem and 2) elderly supporters: those providing an elderly relative over age 65 with assistance. Structured face-to-face interviews were conducted by trained local interviewers. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire (Appendix A) and the abbreviated General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (Appendix B). Quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), windows version. The t-test was used for all continuous data and the non-parametric Chi-Square test was used for ordinal data. Descriptive statistics were also provided. -- Results: This study revealed that there was no change in the percentage of informal caregivers between phases, however, the proportion of elderly supporters decreased significantly during phase 2 (p = 0.008). The demographic characteristics of both phases showed that the majority of main informal caregivers were female (phase 1, 51.98%; phase 2, 56.18%) in their mid forties. In phase 2, employment increased for both main caregivers (p = 0.001) as well as elderly supporters (p = 0.027). The psychosocial health, measured by the abbreviated General Health Questionnaire, of both main informal caregivers and elderly supporters showed no significant change between both phases of the study. When comparing stress level at the time of the interviews with that of three years before the interviews, stress levels of main caregivers remained unchanged, however, stress levels of elderly supporters decreased significantly in phase 2 (p = 0.044). The perceived physical and mental health as well as life satisfaction of main caregivers and elderly supporters also improved in phase 2. Since informal caregiving in the Bonavista Headland was done mostly by women and although limitations exist in the study design, this research raises important questions about the health and well being of rural informal caregivers as well as the care recipients as the population of rural Newfoundland is aging much more rapidly than the rest of Canada. Furthermore, the results may have direct implications for nursing practice and policy development and provide support for the need for a more specific strategic plan to care for the elderly in this province and provide support for informal caregivers.


Writing in 1984, Professor Greenawalt described cases on the excuse/justification border as "perplexing." He concluded that two of the most frequently articulated reasons for distinguishing between justifications and excuses - warranted versus unwarranted conduct, objective and general versus subjective and individual - are not as descriptively clean as they sometimes purport to be. The "conceptual fuzziness" that Greenawalt documents is inherent in the nature of the acts themselves; they are neurobiologically indistinct. Justifications and excuses in the boundary cases trigger both our emotional and cognitive processing areas almost simultaneously. The emotions tend precede the cognitive but only long enough to focus attention on the immediate threat. The conceptual blur will continue as long as our jurisprudence categorizes rigidly conduct that exists only on a continuum. This is not a new problem. The law tends to break down into categories - guilty or not guilty, for example. But the world is not binary; it is continuous and categorical thinking tends to distort our view of the world. The drafters of the Model Penal Code's mens rea provisions, which divide into four categories and which the drafters concede exist only on a continuum and cannot be rationally determinate without question-begging, constitute implicit recognition of the way in which our control functions actually operate. It is time to acknowledge that these problematic excuse/justification cases defy categorization and thereby eliminate the confusion by adopting an advertently hybrid defense.


The Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is repeatedly identified in ready-to-eat foods. Analyses performed on samples taken during state inspections showed unsatisfactory results in 1.8% of cases. Totally 2% of analyses performed on samples taken by food industry operators showed unsatisfactory results. The greatest contamination was found in sea fish (10.8%), followed by delicatessen products (3.4%), meat products supporting the growth of Lm (3%) and fermented meat products (1.6%). Frozen vegetables show consistently high contamination (2.5%). The contamination of raw meat is a significant factor. The Lm was detected in raw meat from sows (36.4% positive samples) and meat from cows (4.8% positive samples), in 1988. Positive results were found in 1.1% of samples taken from the surface of pork shoulder, 1.8% of samples from the surface of leg of pork and 0.6% of samples of mesenteric lymph nodes. Food contamination, Listeria monocytogenes, meat products, raw meat


Many contexts dealing with sensitive data are constantly looking for high assurance security solutions. The Multilevel Security represents one of the toughest unresolved problems faced over many years. Information and Communications systems need to exchange data, their software needs to be patched and updated hence, they need a connection to the Internet. Attacks can be launched using this connection, and through a compromised host attackers can steal and illicitly disclose information. In this paper we present a novel Multi Independent Levels of Security solution that enforces the separation of networks and data flow control through the use of a Separation Kernel Hypervisor. We show the robustness of our solution through a theoretical evaluation, supported by tools designed for the analysis of security protocols.


The NASA DC-8 and P-3B aircraft flew within about a kilometer or less of each other on three occasions during the Transport and Chemical Evolution Over the Pacific (TRACE-P) campaign in order to intercompare similar measurements on the two aircraft. The first and last intercomparisons were in relatively remote marine environments during transits to and from Asia. The first began with a boundary layer measurement followed by an ascent to 3 km. The second set of intercomparisons was at a fixed altitude of about 5.2 km off the coast of Japan, also in relatively clean air. Finally, the third measurement began at 5.3 km and then descended into the boundary layer. A number of measurements were compared with the best agreement observed for the most abundant compounds such as CO 2 and CH 4 and with very good agreement for CO, O 3 , and j values. Other comparisons, including measurements of the same compounds on both aircraft and measurements of the same compound by two different instruments on the DC-8, varied over a wide range from quite good for PAN, NO, HNO 3 , H 2 O; to reasonable agreement for OH, HO 2 CH 2 O, acetone, and methylethylketone; and to generally poor for NO 2 ,SO 2 , PPN, acetaldehyde, and methanol. The comparison results, particularly those for the fast 1-s CO and O 3 measurements, suggest that credible intercomparisons can be made using two aircraft in close proximity for relatively long lifetime and stable compounds. Much new understanding can also be gained from measurements of more reactive and generally shorter lifetime compounds, but additional improvements are needed to make such studies as meaningful as those of longer lifetime compounds. Comparisons such as these, made as a component of a larger field campaign, have the advantage that they test the actual instrument configuration used during the field study and they require no additional instrument installation and testing.


Objective High-fat high-calorie diets can induce whole body insulin resistance (IR) whilst increasing stores of intramuscular triglyceride (IMTG) contained within lipid droplets (LD). Perilipin (PLIN) proteins assist in IMTG storage. Synaptosomal-associated protein (SNAP23) may support LD growth and also direct IMTG-derived fatty acids (FA) to mitochondria for β-oxidation. The objectives of this study were: 1) to test the hypothesis that 7 days of high-fat overfeeding increases IMTG content to prevent lipid induced muscle IR and 2) identify changes in PLINs, SNAP23 and mitochondria content and colocalisation of PLINs with LD, and SNAP23 with LD and mitochondria.
Methods Muscle biopsies were obtained from thevastus lateralisof thirteen healthy individuals (age: 23±1years, BMI: 24.4±0.7kg.m-2) before (0min) and during (30min) an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), pre and post 7-days consuming a high-fat (65% energy) high-calorie (+50% kcal) diet. IMTG, PLIN2, PLIN3, PLIN5, SNAP23 and mitochondria content were measured using (semi)-quantitative confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. PLIN2, PLIN3 and PLIN5 colocalisation to LD was measured using object-based colocalisation analyses. Pearson's correlation coefficient quantified colocalisation between SNAP23 and plasma membrane (PM), mitochondria and LD. Phosphorylation of intermediates of the muscle insulin-signalling cascade (Akt and AS160) were measured at 0 and 30 min of the OGTT before and after the dietary intervention.
Results Following overfeeding phosphorylation of Akt and AS160 in muscle was not impaired during the OGTT, however Matsuda index of whole-body insulin sensitivity decreased (-23%; P < 0.01). IMTG content increased in type I fibres (+100%; P < 0.001) due to both an increase in LD number (+43%; P < 0.001) and size (+44%; P< 0.001). Of the PLINs investigated, only PLIN3 content increased (+50%;P < 0.01) exclusively in type I fibres. PLIN2-associated LD increased (+80%; P < 0.01) in type I fibres only, whereas PLIN3 and PLIN5-associated LD were unaltered. SNAP23 and mitochondria content did not change, nor did the colocalisation of SNAP23 with the PM, mitochondria or LD.
Conclusions Our data confirm the hypothesis that following high-fat overfeeding IMTG stores increased whilst activation of key muscle insulin signalling components were maintained. The increase in IMTG stores is likely supported by the concurrent increase in total PLIN3 content and a redistribution of existing stores of PLIN2 to the expanded LD pool in type I fibres. To confirm if increased IMTG storage protects muscle from IR future research should determine whether meal-derived FAs are directed to IMTG rather than ceramides and diacylglycerol.


Cross-modal hashing aims to map heterogeneous multimedia data into a common Hamming space, which can realize fast and flexible retrieval across different modalities. Unsupervised cross-modal hashing is more flexible and applicable than supervised methods, since no intensive labeling work is involved. However, existing unsupervised methods learn hashing functions by preserving inter and intra correlations, while ignoring the underlying manifold structure across different modalities, which is extremely helpful to capture meaningful nearest neighbors of different modalities for cross-modal retrieval. To address the above problem, in this paper we propose an Unsupervised Generative Adversarial Cross-modal Hashing approach (UGACH), which makes full use of GAN's ability for unsupervised representation learning to exploit the underlying manifold structure of cross-modal data. The main contributions can be summarized as follows: (1) We propose a generative adversarial network to model cross-modal hashing in an unsupervised fashion. In the proposed UGACH, given a data of one modality, the generative model tries to fit the distribution over the manifold structure, and select informative data of another modality to challenge the discriminative model. The discriminative model learns to distinguish the generated data and the true positive data sampled from correlation graph to achieve better retrieval accuracy. These two models are trained in an adversarial way to improve each other and promote hashing function learning. (2) We propose a correlation graph based approach to capture the underlying manifold structure across different modalities, so that data of different modalities but within the same manifold can have smaller Hamming distance and promote retrieval accuracy. Extensive experiments compared with 6 state-of-the-art methods on 2 widely-used datasets verify the effectiveness of our proposed approach.


This letter describes the improvement of two methods of detecting high-frequency oscillations (HFOs) and their use to localize epileptic seizure onset zones (SOZs). The wavelet transform (WT) method was improved by combining the complex Morlet WT with Shannon entropy to enhance the temporal-frequency resolution during HFO detection. And the matching pursuit (MP) method was improved by combining it with an adaptive genetic algorithm to improve the speed and accuracy of the calculations for HFO detection. The HFOs detected by these two methods were used to localize SOZs in five patients. A comparison shows that the improved WT method provides high specificity and quick localization and that the improved MP method provides high sensitivity.


Everything you should know--but PC professors won't teach--about our Western heritage Western civilization is the envy of the globe. It has given to the world universally accepted understandings of human rights (rooted in Judeo-Christian principles), created standards for art, music, and literature that have never been equaled, and originated political and social systems that have spread all across the planet. Unfortunately, the fog of political correctness now obscures these and other truths about Western civilization. Leftists and Islamic jihadists find common cause in assailing Western "colonialism," "imperialism," and "racism" as its defining characteristics. Guilt-ridden Western leaders and public figures speak of their cultural patrimony in disparaging terms they would never dare to use about a non-Western culture. And in the academy, "multicultural"-minded professors flatter students into believing they have nothing really to learn from Sophocles or Shakespeare. But now, Professor Anthony Esolen--one of the team-teachers of Providence College's esteemed Development of Western Civilization Core Curriculum--has risen to the West's defense. The Politically Incorrect Guide(TM) to Western Civilization takes on the prevailing liberal assumptions that make Western civilization the universal whipping boy for today's global problems, and introduces you to the significant events, individuals, nations, ideas, and artistic achievements that make Western civilization the greatest the world has ever known. Today--with the West imperiled as never before by the global jihad and threats from China and elsewhere--defending the West has become an urgent imperative: if we don't value what we have and what we have inherited, we will surely lose it. The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Western Civilization is an essential sourcebook for that defense.


A much neglected literary figure, Ivan Bunin is one of Russia's major writers and ranks with Tolstoy and Chekhov at the forefront of the Russian Realists. Drawing artistic inspiration from his personal experience, these powerful, evocative stories are set in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia of his youth, in the countries that he visited and in France, where he spent the last thirty years of his life. In the title story, for example, a family's tour of fashionable European resorts comes to an unexpected end; 'Late Hour' describes an old man's return to the little Russian town in the steppes that he has not seen since his early youth; while 'Mitya's Love' explores the darker emotional reverberations of sexual experience. Throughout his stories there is a sense of the precariousness of existence, an omnipresent awareness of the impermanence of human aspirations and achievements.


is the only man made Omni Present system contributing immensely providing complex and critical services to mankind. It's increasing popularity and usefulness enforces us to measure the software quality. In this paper Time domain failure data is applied to Statistical Process Control(SPC) method to monitor the quality of a software system. We propose a Statistical Control Method over the cumulative quantity between observations of time domain failure data using mean value function of an Non Homogeneous Poisson Process(NHPP) based Logarithmic Poisson Execution Time Model(LPETM).Maximum Likelihood estimation(MLE) is used to estimate the unknown parameters of proposed model.The SPC method employs LPETM to construct the control limits. Two failure data sets are used.


Published in America on November 11, 2008, one week alter Barack Obama's election, Toni Morrison's A Mercy has become coupled with that event through reviews, interviews, and public "conversations" that Morrison gave in a number of major cities. This phenomenon is somewhat unsurprising, given Morrison's role as a public intellectual and in light of her unprecedented endorsement of Barack Obama in January of 2008. Indeed, at least some of the buzz was premeditated: the publisher pushed forward the release of the text to coincide with the election (Morrison, "Mercy"). Obama and then-current politics are ubiquitous presences in the reviews of A Mercy. While some aspects of the book work well for this type of reading, the tendency to emphasize certain comparisons, particularly the semantic relationship between Morrison's use of pre-racial to describe the novel's late-seventeenth-century racial landscape and the media's use of post-racial to describe Obama's America, simplifies and at times misreads the complexity of the racial relationships Morrison explores in the text. The reviewers' confusion crystallizes around the character of Sorrow, a confusion that Morrison insists upon but reviewers try to explain away. Paradoxically, although many reviewers want to use A Mercy to make arguments about the fluidity of race in contemporary America, taken together, the reviews insist on an antiquated racial binary, while the text itself posits a more fluid conception of race. Reactions to the text, which describes the beginnings of the processes by which race would be invented and constructed in the United States, expose the permanence of that construction in the present day. (1) By and large, the reviewers of A Mercy do not separate the text from its moment of publication. While reviewers such as Lenora Todaro and Jennifer Reese describe the text as a "creation myth," many others see it as a look back at the past that is meant to tell us something about the future, noting that at this historical moment, the future of America was inexorably tied to Obama. In short, the argument goes, it is a good book, but it is made even better by the context in which it is published, an ethos exemplified by commentators who characterize the text as "a timely reminder," "a thought-provoking bookend to the era we are entering" (Morrison, "Windows"), and "a spellbinding story of early America [that] is uniquely resonant at this moment in history" (Carey). (2) Even the negative reviews of the book invoke its relationship to the present. One faults Morrison for creating a historical tableau with too much contemporary resonance: "In short, A Mercy resembles its creator's own art, which is far less of a portrait of what 17th-century America was or could have been, given its unintentionally comic stereotypes and historical inaccuracies, than it is a guide to its author's litany of [contemporary] political, social, sexual, and moral grievances" (Miller 64). (3) Particularly in the international press, reviewers read the text as a rumination on the American psyche, a historical examination of what "went wrong," and a reminder that the United States has a legacy of racism that still needs to be addressed (Carey). Tim Adams, reviewing the book for The Observer before the election results were in, points to the division of the United States along racial lines: "That this book will be published in the week before her nation may choose a President who for the first time could eclipse that divide, who could make 'them' 'us,' lends it a fundamental resonance." Canada's Globe and Mail reviewer characterizes A Mercy as "a devastating examination of the conditions that have led to the nation that is the United States, for all its recent optimism with Barack Obama as president-elect. The chains of the past are difficult to break" (Van Herk). The Irish Times points out that "it is impossible not to read A Mercy in the context of the present political dilemma lacing the US," an assertion that is borne out by references in most of the reviews, and asserts that "present day, pre-election America continues to lick its wounds" (Battersby). …


" "Without Honor" is a courageous and honest book about a period of American history which most would rather forget." -- Seymour Hersh A gripping account of one of the century's most harrowing human catastrophes -- the fall of South Vietnam -- "Without Honor" captures the tragedy and the irony of the Vietnam War's last days and examines the consequences of the American military and political decisions that had sustained the war effort for a generation only to lead to the worst foreign policy failure in the nation's history. Arnold Isaacs, who spent the final years of the war in Vietnam as a correspondent for the Baltimore "Sun," describes his firsthand observations of the collapse of Cambodia and South Vietnam -- from the 1973 Paris peace agreement to the American evacuation of Saigon and its aftermath -- with heartbreaking detail, from the devastated battlefields and villages to the boats filled with terrified refugees. He also provides an historical record of unparalleled accuracy and depth about the strategic decisions made during the war's end game and the intelligence failure that led Americans and their Southeast Asian allies to underestimate the strength and perseverance of the enemy. Drawing on previously classified military documents, field reports from American advisors, eyewitness accounts by soldiers and civilians, and North Vietnamese propaganda broadcasts, Isaacs offers a compelling and compassionate portrait of the impact of America's "Vietnamization" of the conflict and a bracing indictment of political and military leaders in the United States and both Vietnams for the massive human suffering that accompanied the end of the war. "Vivid and very passionate...[Isaacs] succeeds so brilliantly that one almost wishes -- before our near-universal national forgetfulness and instinct for self-justification take over for good -- that all candidates for public office could be required to pass a public examination of its contents." -- Gene Lyons, "Newsweek" "Impassioned... Isaacs's anguished chapter on the collapse of the city of Da Nang, where the first American Marines had landed in 1965, is reason enough to read his fast-paced report." -- John Spragens, Jr., "Commonweal" "A sound and interesting narrative, which succeeds in combining vivid images of the war with the statistics and analysis that are essential of historical perspective... A good book." -- "Times Literary Supplement" "A wonderful weave of Isaacs' eyeball-reporting and subsequent, intense research. The thud and blood of combat in the wailing of mortally wounded nations are here. So are the softer sounds of negotiations, riffled documents, the sigh of broken agreements, and the tinkle of glass on conference tables." -- Paul Dean, "Los Angeles Times Book Review" "The most complete account of the fall of Indochina... A biting indictment of American policy... The immediacy and impact of his book is compelling." -- "Reviews in American History"


Social media are increasingly envisioned by public health authorities as a new promising arena for public engagement. Against this backdrop, this article attends to how citizens confirm, debate and resist governmental framings of health information online. By drawing upon STS and affect theory, it centers on the digital mediation of feelings on a Facebook engagement site for HPV vaccination. While the public authorities framed HPV vaccination as a matter of love and fear, a wide register of positive and negative feelings were mediated on the site. The article proposes the notion of 'digitalised literary devices' to analyse how mundane literary habits, such as the use of punctuation, online have been transformed to digital devices that, for instance, mediate public feelings. By conceptualizing public engagement as 'civic intensities', it shows how digital devices, such as digitalised literary devices, mediate and intensify public feelings of engagement.


The websites provided by academic libraries are challenged by the rapid developments in information and communication technology (ICT). These developments have created diverse options and channels for information sources that can be accessed easily by users through the Internet. Because of these alternate sources, many users no longer physically visit the library. Instead, they depend on the library's website to obtain information online, or they use Internet searches to obtain the information they require.
This research addresses the following question: How do the users of academic libraries search for information and interact with the libraries' web interfaces? The research draws on models from the disciplines of information-seeking behaviour (ISB) and human-computer interaction (HCI). A unified model based on the models in ISB and HCI is created and investigated. In addition, a qualitative study has been conducted to investigate users' information needs, information-seeking behaviours, and difficulties and experiences with the websites of academic libraries. Interpretive case studies were conducted at two universities, one in the UK and one in Kuwait. Qualitative data were collected in interviews, focus groups, and observations of diverse groups of library users. Furthermore, a content analysis approach was applied to analyse the data.
The findings revealed seven steps taken in searching for information and interacting with academic libraries' web interfaces, but exposed variance in the order in which users executed these steps. The findings also revealed several issues regarding the use of library websites to search for information. In particular, these concerned the complexity of finding information, the content organisation of the library websites and the use of incomprehensible terms on the library websites. As a result, the library users relied heavily on Google to find information. The thesis concludes with suggested guidelines for how academic library interfaces can best support the way users search for information, as well as their interactions, experiences and needs.
Keywords: information-seeking behaviour, human-computer interaction, users' needs, user experience, academic library website, usability, content analysis, postgraduate students, academics, library staff, Kuwait, UK.


After the enormous success of The Sartorialist, Scott Schuman is back with a completely new collection of beautiful images of the men and women who have caught his attention. His much-loved blog, thesartorialist.com, remains one of the most-read in the fashion world and continues to grow in popularity as Scott travels further and more widely. This book emcompasses the diverse style and visual attitude of people as far afield as Japan, Korea, London, Milan, New York, Paris, and beyond. In The Sartorialist: Closer, Scott Schuman looks deeper and with great breadth at human style, and the way it is expressed across the world. Always reacting to an inspirational moment, the images in his new book continue to reflect Scott's unique sensibility and vision. Available with two different covers: one featuring a woman, the other a man.


The recent development of the research field of Computing and Philosophy has triggered investigations into the theoretical foundations of computing and information.This thesis consists of two parts which are the result of studies in two areas of Philosophy of Computing (PC) and Philosophy of Information (PI) regarding the production of meaning (semantics) and the value system with applications (ethics).The first part develops a unified dual-aspect theory of information and computation, in which information is characterized as structure, and computation is the information dynamics. This enables naturalization of epistemology, based on interactive information representation and communication. In the study of systems modeling, meaning, truth and agency are discussed within the framework of the PI/PC unification.The second part of the thesis addresses the necessity of ethical judgment in rational agency illustrated by the problem of information privacy and surveillance in the networked society. The value grounds and socio-technological solutions for securing trustworthiness of computing are analyzed. Privacy issues clearly show the need for computing professionals to contribute to understanding of the technological mechanisms of Information and Communication Technology.The main original contribution of this thesis is the unified dual-aspect theory of computation/information. Semantics of information is seen as a part of the data-information-knowledge structuring, in which complex structures are self-organized by the computational processing of information. Within the unified model, complexity is a result of computational processes on informational structures. The thesis argues for the necessity of computing beyond the Turing-Church limit, motivated by natural computation, and wider by pancomputationalism and paninformationalism, seen as two complementary views of the same physical reality. Moreover, it follows that pancomputationalism does not depend on the assumption that the physical world on some basic level is digital. Contrary to many believes it is entirely compatible with dual (analogue/digital) quantum-mechanical computing.


Parallelization transformations are an important vehicle for improving the performance and scalability of a software system. Utilizing concurrency requires that the developer first identify a suitable parallelization scope: one that poses as a performance bottleneck, and at the same time, exhibits considerable available parallelism. However, having identified a candidate scope, the developer still needs to ensure the correctness of the transformation. This is a difficult undertaking, where a major source of complication lies in tracking down sequential dependencies that inhibit parallelization and addressing them.
 We report on Hawkeye, a dynamic dependence-analysis tool that is designed to assist programmers in pinpointing such impediments to parallelization. In contrast with field-based dependence analyses, which track concrete memory conflicts and thus suffer from a high rate of false reports, Hawkeye tracks dependencies induced by the abstract semantics of the data type while ignoring dependencing arising solely from implementation artifacts. This enables a more concise report, where the reported dependencies are more likely to be real as well as intelligible to the programmer.


2001 This repon is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U.S. Geological Survey editorial standards or with the North American Stratigraphic Code. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S.


Purpose: To understand the role of relaxin peptide in prostate cancer, we analyzed the expression of relaxin and its receptor in human prostate cancer samples, the effects of relaxin signaling on cancer cell phenotype in vitro, and the effects of increased serum relaxin concentrations on cancer progression in vivo. Experimental Design: The relaxin and its receptor leucine-rich repeat containing G protein–coupled receptor 7 (LGR7) expression were studied by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (11 benign and 44 cancer tissue samples) and by relaxin immunohistochemistry using tissue microarrays containing 10 normal and 69 cancer samples. The effects of relaxin treatment and endogenous relaxin/LGR7 suppression via short interfering RNA in PC-3 and LNCaP cells were analyzed in vitro. The effect of transgenic relaxin overexpression [Tg(Rln1)] on cancer growth and survival was evaluated in autochthonous transgenic adenocarcinoma of the mouse prostate (TRAMP). Results: The relaxin mRNA expression was significantly higher in recurrent prostate cancer samples. In tissue microarrays of the 10 normal tissues, 8 had low staining in epithelial cells, whereas only 1 of 9 high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia lesions had low expression (P = 0.005) and only 29 of 65 cancers had low expression (P = 0.047). Stimulation with relaxin increased cell proliferation, invasiveness, and adhesion in vitro. The suppression of relaxin/LGR7 via short interfering RNAs decreased cell invasiveness by 90% to 95% and growth by 10% to 25% and increased cell apoptosis 0.6 to 2.2 times. The Tg(Rln1) TRAMP males had shorter median survival time, associated with the decreased apoptosis of tumor cells, compared with non-Tg(Rln1) TRAMP animals. Conclusions: Relaxin signaling plays a role in prostate cancer progression.


Food allergic patients have to deal with an avoidance diet. Confusing labelling terms or precautionary labels can result in misinterpretation and risk‐taking behaviour. Even those patients that strictly adhere to their diet experience (sometimes severe) unexpected allergic reactions to food. The frequency, severity and causes of such reactions are unknown. The objective of this review was to describe the frequency, severity and causes of unexpected allergic reactions to food in food allergic patients aged > 12 years, in order to develop improved strategies to deal with their allergy. A systematic review was carried out by two researchers, in six electronic databases (CINAHL, Cochrane, EMBASE, Medline, Psychinfo and Scopus). The search was performed with keywords relating to the frequency, severity and causes of unexpected allergic reactions to food. This resulted in 24 studies which met the inclusion criteria; 18 observational and six qualitative studies. This review shows that knowledge about the frequency of unexpected reactions is limited. Peanut, nuts, egg, fruit/vegetables and milk are the main causal foods. Severe reactions and even fatalities occur. Most reactions take place at home, but a significant number also take place when eating at friends' houses or in restaurants. Labelling issues, but also attitude and risky behaviour of patients can attribute to unexpected reactions. We conclude that prospective studies are needed to get more insight in the frequency, severity, quantity of unintended allergen ingested and causes of unexpected allergic reactions to food, to be able to optimize strategies to support patients in dealing with their food allergy. Although the exact frequency is not known, unexpected reactions to food occur in a significant number of patients and can be severe. For clinical practice, this means that patient education and dietary instructions are necessary.


The 3D regular lattice of bi-spherical dielectric resonant inclusions arranged in a cubic lattice as two sets of spheres made from the same dielectric material having different radii and embedded in a host dielectric material with lower dielectric permittivity was carefully investigated. The magnetic resonance corresponding to the first Mie resonance in the spherical particles is followed by forming a regular array of effective magnetic dipoles, and the structure of the identical spherical dielectric resonators can be designed as an isotropic μ-negative 3D-metamaterial. For the electric resonance it was found experimentally and by the simulation that the resonant response of the electric dipole was weakly pronounced and the μ-negative behavior was remarkably suppressed. To enhance the electric dipole contribution we considered another kind of the symmetry of the bi-spherical arrangement of the particles corresponding to the body-centered cubic symmetry instead of the symmetry of NaCl analog considered previously. Electromagnetic properties of a volumetric structure based on a regular lattice of identical cubic dielectric particles is also considered and analyzed as μ-negative metamaterial. The cubic particle based 3D-metamaterial is preferable for practical realization as compared with the spherical inclusions.


Physical activity (PA) is considered essential to overall health, yet it is consistently reported that children worldwide are failing to meet the recommended levels. Affective responses are a potential predictor of long-term PA engagement due to their bidirectional relationship with PA. One way to influence the affective response to PA may be to influence the environment in which it takes place; a method of doing this is to immerse children using a narrative with characters. The aim of this research was to compare the effects of using a Disney branded, compared to a non-branded, PA session on children's post activity affective responses and perceived effort of PA. 32 children participated (aged between 4-11 years) and they each completed four sessions of branded activities, and four sessions of unbranded activities. The results showed that children had similar positive affective responses and perceived effort to branded and unbranded activities, and qualitative feedback from parents supported this. However, a secondary finding from qualitative thematic analysis was that parents considered branding a key contributing factor to children's enjoyment and the effort they put into the PA sessions. Future research into influencing the affective response through the environment should carefully consider how to capture this during the activity. Lastly, the research was conducted during the period of the COVID-19 lockdown and so should be interpreted in this context. Conceptual replication outside of this should be an aim of future research.


Marc Bloch wrote Strange Defeat during the three months following the fall of France, after he returned home from military service. In the midst of his anguish, he nevertheless "brought to his study of the crisis all the critical faculty and all the penetrating analysis of a first-rate historian" (Christian Science Monitor). Bloch takes a close look at the military failures he witnessed, examining why France was unable to respond to attack quickly and effectively. He gives a personal account of the battle of France, followed by a biting analysis of the generation between the wars. His harsh conclusion is that the immediate cause of the disaster was the utter incompetence of the High Command, but his analysis ranges broadly, appraising all the factors, social as well as military, which since 1870 had undermined French national solidarity. "Much has been, and will be, written in explanation of the defeat of France in 1940, but it seems unlikely that the truth of the matter will ever be more accurately and more vividly presented than in this statement of evidence." - P. J. Philip, New York Times Book Review "The most wisdom-packed commentary on the problem set [before] all intelligent and patriotic Frenchmen by the events of 1940." - D. W. Brogan, Spectator


A general question in biology is how processes at one scale, for example that of individual organisms, influence patterns at larger scales, for example communities of interacting individuals. Here we ask how changing the size-dependence of the foraging behaviour of individuals can influence the structure of food webs. We assembled communities using a model in which species interactions are determined by allometric foraging rules of (1) handling time and (2) attack rates, and also (3) the distribution of body sizes. We systematically varied these three factors and examined their effects on three com munity level, food web allometries: the generality - mass correlation, the vulnerability - mass correlation and the trophic height - mass correlation. The results demonstrate how allometries of individual foraging behaviour (handling time and attack rates) are linked across scales of organisation: different community level allometries are influenced by different individual level allometries. For example, generality allometries in the community are most affected by the individual allometric relationships of the attack rate, whereas trophic level allometries in the community are more strongly influenced by variation in individual handling time allometries. Importantly, we also find that the shape of the body size distribution from which species are drawn has a substantial influence on how these links between scales operate. This study suggests that understanding the variation of size structure among ecological networks requires knowledge about the causes of variation in individual foraging behaviour and determinants of the regional body size distribution.


A recently developed algorithm performs kernel-machine classification via incremental approximate nearest support vectors. The algorithm implements support-vector machines (SVMs) at speeds 10 to 100 times those attainable by use of conventional SVM algorithms. The algorithm offers potential benefits for classification of images, recognition of speech, recognition of handwriting, and diverse other applications in which there are requirements to discern patterns in large sets of data. SVMs constitute a subset of kernel machines (KMs), which have become popular as models for machine learning and, more specifically, for automated classification of input data on the basis of labeled training data. While similar in many ways to k-nearest-neighbors (k-NN) models and artificial neural networks (ANNs), SVMs tend to be more accurate. Using representations that scale only linearly in the numbers of training examples, while exploring nonlinear (kernelized) feature spaces that are exponentially larger than the original input dimensionality, KMs elegantly and practically overcome the classic curse of dimensionality. However, the price that one must pay for the power of KMs is that query-time complexity scales linearly with the number of training examples, making KMs often orders of magnitude more computationally expensive than are ANNs, decision trees, and other popular machine learning alternatives. The present algorithm treats an SVM classifier as a special form of a k-NN. The algorithm is based partly on an empirical observation that one can often achieve the same classification as that of an exact KM by using only small fraction of the nearest support vectors (SVs) of a query. The exact KM output is a weighted sum over the kernel values between the query and the SVs. In this algorithm, the KM output is approximated with a k-NN classifier, the output of which is a weighted sum only over the kernel values involving k selected SVs. Before query time, there are gathered statistics about how misleading the output of the k-NN model can be, relative to the outputs of the exact KM for a representative set of examples, for each possible k from 1 to the total number of SVs. From these statistics, there are derived upper and lower thresholds for each step k. These thresholds identify output levels for which the particular variant of the k-NN model already leans so strongly positively or negatively that a reversal in sign is unlikely, given the weaker SV neighbors still remaining. At query time, the partial output of each query is incrementally updated, stopping as soon as it exceeds the predetermined statistical thresholds of the current step. For an easy query, stopping can occur as early as step k = 1. For more difficult queries, stopping might not occur until nearly all SVs are touched. A key empirical observation is that this approach can tolerate very approximate nearest-neighbor orderings. In experiments, SVs and queries were projected to a subspace comprising the top few principal- component dimensions and neighbor orderings were computed in that subspace. This approach ensured that the overhead of the nearest-neighbor computations was insignificant, relative to that of the exact KM computation.


Kidney exchanges are organized markets where patients swap willing but incompatible donors. In the last decade, kidney exchanges grew from small and regional to large and national — and soon, international. This growth results in more lives saved, but exacerbates the empirical hardness of the NP-complete problem of optimally matching patients to donors. State-of-the-art matching engines use integer programming techniques to clear fielded kidney exchanges, but these methods must be tailored to specific models and objective functions, and may fail to scale to larger exchanges. In this paper, we observe that if the kidney exchange compatibility graph can be encoded by a constant number of patient and donor attributes, the clearing problem is solvable in polynomial time. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for losslessly shrinking the representation of an arbitrary compatibility graph. Then, using real compatibility graphs from the UNOS US-wide kidney exchange, we show how many attributes are needed to encode real graphs. The experiments show that, indeed, small numbers of attributes suffice.


Due to the progress of organizations and the increased competition among them, they are paying more attention to supporting factors of their operations. One of the factors that has highly been considered by organizations is enhancement of knowledge level of the organization. In recent years, organizations have found out that they can achieve competitive advantage through enhancement of their knowledge level and thus use its advantages and realize their agility at all dimensions of the organization, because increased level of knowledge management increases agility of employees and clients besides making the organization agile. Given the importance of knowledge management and organizational agility, performance of the Municipality in Isfahan province is evaluated using the above two approaches. To this end, data envelopment analysis is employed. Then, the most important dimensions of organizational agility are determined by means of sensitivity analysis.


Abstract Although state-owned banks are expected to promote the growth of less-developed regions, especially in developing economies, several cross-country studies report that lending by state banks is associated with the inefficient allocation of credit and low levels of development. Further, state banks have been found to lend to their cronies, especially around elections. In this paper, we study the lending activities of state-owned and private banks during the period 1992–2010 and analyze the relationship between the credit these banks provide and local economic growth in Turkey during crisis periods and in election years. We find that the share of state-owned banks in the credit market in crisis periods and local election years is significantly higher than their share in non-crisis and non-election periods. The per capita real credit that state-owned banks provide during crisis years is found to be positively associated with local growth in all provinces. Our results suggest that although state-owned banks might issue loans for political reasons in election periods, they also seem to play an important role in offsetting the adverse effects of economic shocks, especially in developed provinces.


Lead and cadmium are heavy metal pollutants released by vehicles which are propagated into the urban environment by traffic flow. To study roadside soil pollution and to determine the traffic parameters affecting levels of read and cadmium in soil, Isfahan was selected for a case study. In this city, soil samples were collected from 13 roadside sites and traffic parameters were determined. The traffic parameters studied include total traffic volume, total traffic volume to road oriented width, total traffic volume total traffic capacity, speed, and aspect ratio. Average lead and cadmium concentration in soil at distances from 0 to 50 meters from the road edge were found to be higher than background values, thus failing to meet maximum acceptable agricultural soil standards. The regression analysis of concentrations in stream soils versus selected traffic parameters showed that the total traffic volume was the parameter with the highest impact on soil metal content. Also, it was observed that lead and cadmium concentration (as dependent variables) decreased logarithmically with increasing distance (as one of the independent variables) while each of the lead and cadmium concentration increased linearly and exponentially, respectively, with increasing total traffic volume (as another independent variable). The regression models developed in this study can be used for predicting lead and cadmium levels in roadside soil in terms of distance from road edge and total traffic volume. The results obtained obtained from this study may be used in urban traffic control, transportation management, urban design and architecture, and urban land use planning.


The index of refraction of optical quality fused silica (SiO2) was determined for 60 wavelengths from 0.21 to 3.71 μ at 20°C. The dispersion equation n2-1=0.6961663λ2λ2-(0.0684043)2+0.4079426λ2λ2-(0.1162414)2+0.8974794λ2λ2-(9.896161)2.where λ is expressed in microns was found to yield an absolute residual of 10.5×10−6. The variation in index between 12 specimens was determined. Dispersive properties of the material and thermal coefficient of index are graphically presented. A comparison with previous NBS index data is discussed.


What is the difference between a team that can absorb a crisis and one that cannot? Based on three case studies - the Tokyo subway sarin poisoning incident in 1995, which was conducted by the AUM cult; Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (SEI), after the Hanshin Awagi Earthquake in 1995 when it faced the collapse of its main plant; and the air accident case of United Airlines Flight 232 - I can observe the existence of an efficacy cycle, and many managers have used this cycle unconsciously and produced successful results. For this to take place, an important feature is a mechanism that permits a team to be independent from its mother organisation and have autonomous and free decision-making authority.


A Bayesian statistical model is developed for analysis of the time-evolving properties of infectious disease, with a particular focus on viruses. The model employs a latent semi-Markovian state process, and the state-transition statistics are driven by three terms: (i) a general time-evolving trend of the overall population, (ii) a semi-periodic term that accounts for effects caused by the days of the week, and (iii) a regression term that relates the probability of infection to covariates (here, specifically, to the Google Flu Trends data). Computations are performed using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling. Results are presented using a novel data set: daily self-reported symptom scores from hundreds of Duke University undergraduate students, collected over three academic years. The illnesses associated with these students are (imperfectly) labeled using real-time (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for several viruses, and gene-expression data were also analyzed. The statistical analysis is performed on the daily, self-reported symptom scores, and the RT PCR and gene-expression data are employed for analysis and interpretation of the model results.


The safety of hydrogen release and discharge from a fuel cell vehicle was evaluated using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) tests in various situations. First, the validity of the locations of the hydrogen sensors installed in Hyundai fuel cell vehicle and the workshop were tested. In addition, the discharge tests of the fuel cell vehicle based on SAE J2578 were conducted in non-ventilated, ventilated and outdoor modes. Through these tests, it was verified that the hydrogen sensor locations are suitable for the detection of hydrogen leakage and SAE J2578 regulation is satisfied in the fuel cell vehicle.© 2009 ASME


According to Nord's approach (1991) strategic competence is believed to be crucial in dealing with translation problems. It plays an important role as a regulating mechanism, compensating for deficiencies in the other sub-competencies and contributes towards solving the problems that arise. Nord also argues that there is a need for further research that can provide empirical data derived from the problems encountered by translators. The data can also be relevant to the mechanisms the translators use in solving problems.Based on Nord's claim, this study has investigated the communication strategies used by a sample of thirty six Saudi majors at the College of Languages and Translation at King Saud University in Riyadh. First, the strategies employed by Saudi students to compensate for any difficulties they encountered during translation process were examined. The subjects involved were asked to translate a one- page text from their native language, Arabic, into English. It was found that approximation was the most frequently used communication strategy. The other strategies used in order of frequency were circumlocution, message abandonment/reduction, and literal translation. These strategies are elaborated along with recommendations to provide more insights into how to develop students' strategic competence in translation.


A crucial area of research in nanotechnology is the formation of environmentally benign nanoparticles. Both unicellular and multicellular play an important role in synthesis nanoparticles through the production of inorganic materials either intracellularly or extracellularly. The agents (pigments, siderophores, cell extracted metabolites and reducing compounds) were used to prepare silver nanparticles with different sizes and shapes. The color variations (dark yellow, slightly dark yellow and golden yellow) arising from changes in the composition, size, and shape of nanoparticles, surrounding medium can be monitored using UV-visible spectrophotometer. These effects are due to the phenomena called surface plasmon resonance. The silver nanoparticles have Plasmon resonances ranged between (390, 383 and 365) nm which they are among the limitation of silver nanoparticles (360 – 420 nm). AFM analysis of Ag NP's showed partially purified big triangular Ag NP having edge length around ~1. mm. Hexagonal particles on the background of a matrix made up of some molecules which may be metabolites products are found. Small spherical nanoparticles embedded in some kind of matrix indicate that this molecule acts as capping agent, which inhibits further growth of nanoparticles. Also ribbons like structures of width around 50 nm which are intertwined are the noble and rare structures which are synthesized by this method. MIC of silver Nanoparticles for. E coli, ranges between 80-90 µg/ml.., Serrtia, ranges between 50-60 µg/ml and Shagilla, ranges between 90-100 µg/ml.

Keywords: Metabolites product of microorganisms, silver nanoparticles.


The college admissions process is an ideal time to help teens learn to manage stress...before they show up in your office with complaints of anxiety, depression, or the results of risky behavior. Is your teen stressing over college admittance? Are you? Cowritten by a former top college admissions dean and a leading pediatrician, this first-of-its-kind book delivers strategies for surviving the admissions process while strengthening parent-child relationships, managing the stress of applying to college, and building resilience to meet challenges today and in the future. Less Stress, More Success is just what parents and teens need to thrive during this important rite of passage into adulthood. For Parents: How to encourage true high achievement, rather than perfectionism, Important dos and don'ts about the admissions process and how you can most effectively help your child, Why and when some forms of "helping" undermine your teenager's self-confidence and chances of admission, How to turn deadlines into opportunities to learn time-management and organization skills, How you can encourage positive strategies for handling stress and building resilience. For Teens: How to evaluate campus culture to find the right fit for you, Ways to manage your parents and your friends, Tips for the college interview, Letting your true, authentic self come through in your admissions essay, How your body handles stress...and what you can do to feel better and stay healthy. Includes a Personalized Stress Management Plan!


Internal migration is a major driving force for urbanization all over the world and is of concern in Asia due to its rising magnitude. Most studies on internal migration focus on the migrant in the process of migration and a large majority of studies are interested in understanding the conditions of the migrant at the destination for policy concerns. This article makes a case for studying the source of migration and the role that circular migration plays in processes of urbanization at the source of migration. This is particularly important in the context of the growing urbanization away from cities in India. Using the case of a dryland village in northeastern Karnataka, this article attempts to understand the role that circular migration for construction work to cities has in the process of localized urbanization in the village.


Algorithms are now regularly used to decide whether defendants awaiting trial are too dangerous to be released back into the community. In some cases, black defendants are substantially more likely than white defendants to be incorrectly classified as high risk. To mitigate such disparities, several techniques have recently been proposed to achieve algorithmic fairness. Here we reformulate algorithmic fairness as constrained optimization: the objective is to maximize public safety while satisfying formal fairness constraints designed to reduce racial disparities. We show that for several past definitions of fairness, the optimal algorithms that result require detaining defendants above race-specific risk thresholds. We further show that the optimal unconstrained algorithm requires applying a single, uniform threshold to all defendants. The unconstrained algorithm thus maximizes public safety while also satisfying one important understanding of equality: that all individuals are held to the same standard, irrespective of race. Because the optimal constrained and unconstrained algorithms generally differ, there is tension between improving public safety and satisfying prevailing notions of algorithmic fairness. By examining data from Broward County, Florida, we show that this trade-off can be large in practice. We focus on algorithms for pretrial release decisions, but the principles we discuss apply to other domains, and also to human decision makers carrying out structured decision rules.


Soils and the underlying permafrost from undisturbed sites and sites that had been disturbed by construction activities at Marble Point and Pram Point in the McMurdo Sound regionwere sampled from excavated pits and drill cores. Gravimetric moisture (ice) contents and particle size distribution were determined. Volumetric moisture contents were calculated from these results. At undisturbed sites soil moisture contents within the active layer (to c. 60 rm depth) were low and ranged from 0.5% by weight at the soil surface to 10% above the permafrost. The permafrost was generally completely saturated with ice, but sometimes contained considerable excess ice, with ice contents rising as high as 80% by volume. At disturbed sites, soil moisture contents within the active layer were similar to those of the undisturbed sites (generally ~10% by weight) but within the permafrost, moisture contents were lower and less variable than in the undisturbed sites, rarely exceeding 20% by weight. The release of considerable quantities of water from the permafrost as a result of land disturbance during construction activities caused stream flows, soil shrinkage, land slumping and salinisation, resulting in significant permanent environmental damage. At Marble Point there has been no significant re-establishment of icy permafrost in the disturbed soils in the 30 years since land disturbance occurred.


Diabetic neuropathy is a disease that affects a large proportion of the world population, so that its prevention and early detection is of vital importance at the present time. In this paper we evaluate an ANN and SVM designed using MatLab 18.104.22.1689 for the classification and prediction of patients with diabetic neuropathy, using Pulse Waves Sequences of Blood Volume. Efficiency was evaluated taking into account the algorithms and training time as well as effectiveness in classification and prediction. Considering 40 cases in the process of learning and 18 in the validation, the best classification results were obtained with the ANN for an 88.88% effective with the Gradient descent learning algorithm with adaptive learning rate, and the SVM was obtained 72.22% success rate using the Quadratic programming algorithm. In predicting both methods were 100% effective.


Probabilistic Guarantees on the Termination Time of a Consensus Algorithm in Asynchronous Systems N. Sergent This paper is concerned with an application of Hierarchical Coloured Timed Petri Nets to the modelling and the performance evaluation of a distributed consensus algorithm. The asynchronous system model is augmented with Failure Suspectors, which allow to overcome the impossibility of reaching consensus in the presence of crash failures. We have used a top down modular approach to manage the complexity of the considered protocols. The termination time of the consensus algorithm is determined by the communications cost, i.e. by the timing characteristics of the network used for exchanging messages. Our model establishes a strong interdependence between the end-to-end delays and the amount of traffic on the network. As a network protocol we have considered UDP/IP. Simulating the consensus Petri net model, it is possible to obtain optimal values for the Failure Suspectors parameters. Probabilistic guarantees on the termination time of consensus are provided.


Synopsis Detailed morphological, lithostratigraphical and biostratigraphical studies in the lower Nith valley and estuary, Scotland, disclose evidence for changing relative sea levels during the Holocene. The Main Postglacial Transgression was in progress in the area around c. 7500 14C years bp (8350 cal. years bp) to c. 7800 14C years bp (c. 8600 cal. years bp), perhaps by c. 7675 14C years bp (c. 8490 cal. years bp); relative sea levels fell briefly after c. 7200 14C years bp (c. 8020 cal. years bp); then resumed their rise after c. 7000 14C years bp (c. 7800 cal. years bp) and culminated by c. 590014C years bp (c. 6720 cal. years bp) reaching the Main Postglacial Shoreline, the evidence for which is widespread in the lower Nith valley. Subsequently, relative sea levels may have fluctuated, modifying or exceeding Main Postglacial Shoreline features along the estuary coastline before falling to a lower shoreline and then falling farther to reach present levels at c. 1760 14C years bp (c. 1800 cal. years bp), after which there is no evidence for relative sea-level change in the area. This sequence is considered broadly comparable with sequences recorded at other sites along the northern shore of the Solway Firth, in particular confirming evidence for a fluctuation in the Main Postglacial Transgression and for the age of the Main Postglacial Shoreline.


Emily Dickinson's metrical structures were as fully influenced by the ballad as by the hymn, and other elements of her style may also have been shaped by the huge popularity of ballads in the early nineteenth century in the United States. Understanding that the ballad is as important a model as hymns for Dickinson's short-lined verse undercuts interpretation of her chosen forms as either inherently rebellious against orthodoxies or devoutly meditative. Instead, Dickinson participated actively in secular as well as religious nineteenth-century popular verse culture. Attention to the ballad form and to ways ballads were read in the early nineteenth century illuminates both what is most extraordinary in Dickinson's verse and ways that it participates in the widespread development of popular forms. Her greatness emerges from her pleasure in, and experimentation with, her era's most popular and common forms as much as from the distinctiveness of her ear and imagination.


The research undertaken investigates the difficulties that dyslexics have with reading and spelling, attempting to explain these from the standpoint of cognitive psychology, using an information processing paradigm. Evidence is produced to support the contention that dyslexics suffer from both a short-term memory deficit and a specific weakness in accessing deeper levels of processing. This manifests itself as a wider limitation in processing all forms of information. As a basis for research, neurological and psychological perspectives are examined and, from a study of observed symptoms, a classification and definition of dyslexia is offered. The precise differences between dyslexia and general reading retardation are discussed with specific reference to the significance of short-term memory deficits and by an analysis of the theoretical levels of processing. Haber and Hershenson's model of information processing is adopted as the frame of reference for the experimental investigation. This investigation considers the hypothesis that dyslexia is characterized by both a limited capacity in short-term memory, exhibited by reduced channel capacity and a limited access to deeper levels of processing. Three experiments are presented to test this hypothesis: (1) An investigation into the performance of cross-lateral, dyslexic and control groups on a direct recall task using various forms of tachistoscopically presented information. (2) An investigation into immediate recall of auditory signals of varying set size under direct recall conditions by three different age groups of dyslexic and control subjects. (3) An investigation into spatial and temporal factors that influence dyslexic's performance on a memory task.The results show that dyslexic's performance in all these tasks is inferior to that of matched controls. The hypothesis is therefore accepted. A model is presented that incorporates the initial hypothesis and is substantiated by considering current research literature. Finally the implications of these findings for teaching are considered.


Learning competitive behaviors in multi-agent settings such as racing requires long-term reasoning about potential adversarial interactions. This paper presents Deep Latent Competition (DLC), a novel reinforcement learning algorithm that learns competitive visual control policies through self-play in imagination. The DLC agent imagines multi-agent interaction sequences in the compact latent space of a learned world model that combines a joint transition function with opponent viewpoint prediction. Imagined self-play reduces costly sample generation in the real world, while the latent representation enables planning to scale gracefully with observation dimensionality. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm in learning competitive behaviors on a novel multi-agent racing benchmark that requires planning from image observations. Code and videos available at this https URL.


Vibrio parahaemolyticus utilized ATP, ADP or AMP as the sole source of carbon. About three times higher activity of membrane-bound 5'-nucleotidase was observed in cells grown in the presence of these nucleotides than in their absence: and therefore the enzyme seems to be inducible. Since the 5'-nucleotidase activity could be measured with whole cells, the active site of this enzyme appears to be outwardly oriented. Both Mg2+ and Cl- were required for activity. Among the divalent cations tested, Mn2+ and Co2+ could replace Mg2+ to some extent, whereas Zn2+ strongly inhibited activity. Among the anions tested, Br-, I- and NO3- could replace Cl-, but SO4(2-) and CH3COO- could not. When cells were grown with ATP, Cl- was indispensable and Zn2+ strongly inhibited growth. Therefore, it is concluded that extracellular ATP and other 5'-nucleotides are cleaved by the membrane-bound 5'-nucleotidase outside the cells and that the adenosine produced is then utilized.


Understanding the mechanisms of cancer development and metastasis requires comprehensive analyses of interactions between normal and tumor cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) in hypoxic tumor microenvironments. However, the scope of many tumor microenvironment studies is limited to verifying the development and performance of microenvironment-producing cell culture platforms. This study describes the effects of co-culture and hypoxia on contraction and degradation of the ECM. Collagen type I gel was placed in the gel channel of an oxygen tension–controllable microfluidic device as a tumor tissue substrate. MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells and/or human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were cultured inside the gel or on the adjacent media channels, respectively. Changes in the collagen gel were evaluated by generating normoxic (21% O2) or hypoxic (1% O2) conditions via variation of the supply of gas mixture. HUVECs induced collagen gel contraction and degradation more strongly than MDA-MB-231 cells. Although interaction between co-cultured MDA-MB-231 cells and HUVECs promoted gel contraction and degradation, hypoxia attenuated the effect. Immunofluorescence staining indicated decreased expression of secretory matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP-7) inside the collagen gel under hypoxic conditions, but no morphologic changes in cells were observed. Separate Western blot analyses using cells cultured on cell culture dishes confirmed reduced endogenous MMP expression in hypoxia-exposed HUVECs. These results demonstrate that hypoxic conditions affect collagen gel contraction and degradation by altering the expression of MMP-7 in co-cultured MDA-MB-231 cells and HUVECs.Understanding the mechanisms of cancer development and metastasis requires comprehensive analyses of interactions between normal and tumor cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) in hypoxic tumor microenvironments. However, the scope of many tumor microenvironment studies is limited to verifying the development and performance of microenvironment-producing cell culture platforms. This study describes the effects of co-culture and hypoxia on contraction and degradation of the ECM. Collagen type I gel was placed in the gel channel of an oxygen tension–controllable microfluidic device as a tumor tissue substrate. MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells and/or human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were cultured inside the gel or on the adjacent media channels, respectively. Changes in the collagen gel were evaluated by generating normoxic (21% O2) or hypoxic (1% O2) conditions via variation of the supply of gas mixture. HUVECs induced collagen gel contraction and degradation more strongly than MDA-MB-...


There is no more polarizing literary genre than romance. It is often referred to in academic and literary circles by the disparaging moniker, "Chick Lit." Nevertheless, the romance genre continues to be one of the most successful in popular literature today, with over 30 million avid readers and sales of $1.44 billion annually. This creative thesis is broken down into two parts—essay and completed manuscript. In the essay I take an autoethnographic approach by assessing the genre and how it impacts me as a writer of contemporary romance. First, I address the belief held by many feminists regarding the universal romance plot of "the happily ever after" as being an antifeminist message. I evaluate, as times have changed, romance storylines and how they have transformed to reflect shifting reader demographics that are decidedly pro-feminist, including my own work. Within the essay I discuss my writing path and focus on the romance genre and acknowledge two authors who have influenced my work—Jennifer Crusie and Jane Austen. Citing samples of their work, I reflect on how both author's styles have not only informed my writing, but also illustrate their decidedly pro-feminist messaging. Finally, I explore the process to publication, both through traditional and independent publishing, citing the various resources available to authors. I conclude with a tentative timeline to publication for my completed manuscript, a 75,700-word contemporary romance novel entitled "Ghost of a Chance."


Landscape genetic studies based on neutral genetic markers have contributed to our understanding of the influence of landscape composition and configuration on gene flow and genetic variation. However, the potential for species to adapt to changing landscapes will depend on how natural selection influences adaptive genetic variation. We demonstrate how landscape resistance models can be combined with genetic simulations incorporating natural selection to explore how the spread of adaptive variation is affected by landscape characteristics, using desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) in three differing regions of the southwestern United States as an example. We conducted genetic sampling and least-cost path modeling to optimize landscape resistance models independently for each region, and then simulated the spread of an adaptive allele favored by selection across each region. Optimized landscape resistance models differed between regions with respect to landscape variables included and their relationships to resistance, but the slope of terrain and the presence of water barriers and major roads had the greatest impacts on gene flow. Genetic simulations showed that differences among landscapes strongly influenced spread of adaptive genetic variation, with faster spread (1) in landscapes with more continuously distributed habitat and (2) when a pre-existing allele (i.e., standing genetic variation) rather than a novel allele (i.e., mutation) served as the source of adaptive genetic variation. The combination of landscape resistance models and genetic simulations has broad conservation applications and can facilitate comparisons of adaptive potential within and between landscapes.


BACKGROUND
Low-grade glioma (LGG) patients have increased life expectancy, so interest is high in the treatments that maximize cognition and quality of life.

OBJECTIVE
To examine presurgical baseline cognitive deficits in a case series of LGG patients and determine cognitive effects of surgical resection with awake mapping.

METHODS
We retrospectively assessed neurological deficits, subjective concerns from patient or caregiver, and cognitive deficits at baseline and postsurgery for 22 patients with newly diagnosed LGG who underwent baseline neuropsychological evaluation and magnetic resonance imaging before awake surgical resection with mapping. Twelve of the 22 patients returned for postoperative evaluation approximately 7 months after surgery.

RESULTS
At baseline, 92% of patients/caregivers reported changes in cognition or mood. Neurological examinations and Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale scores were largely normal; however, on many tests of memory and language, nearly half of individuals showed deficits. After surgery, 45% had no deficits on neurological examination, whereas 55% had only transient or mild difficulties. Follow-up neuropsychological testing found most performances stable to improved, particularly in language, although some patients showed declines on memory tasks.

CONCLUSION
Most LGG patients in this series presented with normal neurological examinations and cognitive screening, but showed subjective cognitive and mood concerns and cognitive decline on neuropsychological testing, suggesting the importance of comprehensive evaluation. After awake mapping, language tended to be preserved, but memory demonstrated decline in some patients. These results highlight the importance of establishing a cognitive baseline before surgical resection and further suggest that awake mapping techniques provide reasonable language outcomes in individuals with LGG in eloquent regions.


Purpose: We evaluate and compare the imaging performance of two prototype CadmiumZinc Telluride (CZT) gamma cameras. The long‐term use of these systems is gamma‐ray imaging of small animals and laboratory research. Method and Materials: The two systems, made by Mosaic Imaging Technology, Inc., using CZT modules and components from IMARAD, Ltd., consist of a 25‐module carrier board, power supplies, and pulse processing and data acquisition boards. In testing we used 2 modules in the original prototype and 3 modules in the newer system. Each CZT module is a 38×38×5 mm monolithic crystal divided into 16×16 pixels, with two logic/pulse‐shaping ASICs. The original prototype uses older ASIC designs. We developed detector initialization and control software in LabVIEW 7.0. In operation, the detector processes each gamma ray interaction to produce energy and pixel information, which the LabVIEW program converts into energy spectra and images. The imaging performance of the two systems is evaluated using the NEMA NU 1 (2001) guidelines. Performance tests include energy resolution, spatial resolution, flood field uniformity, linearity and count rate performance. Results: In operation, the original prototype's modules generally show better performance than the newer modules, which require more tuning to achieve satisfactory imaging performance. Intrinsic spatial resolution is limited by the 2.4‐mm pixel pitch of the CZT modules. The original prototype's overall energy resolution is 7.2% FWHM for Tc‐99m and somewhat worse for the new system. Energy resolution for individual pixels is even better, but photopeak locations vary. Linearity, uniformity and count‐rate performance are comparable for the two systems, but the new modules generally have more dead pixels than the older modules. Conclusion: Individual CZT pixels have superior energy resolution compared to NaI(Tl), but intrinsic spatial resolution is slightly worse. The large pixel size impacts the utility of CZT gamma cameras for high‐resolution applications.


This volume adds new dimension and organization to the literature of touch and the hand, covering a diversity of topics surrounding the perception and cognition of touch in relation to the hand. No animal species compare to humans with regard to the haptic (or touch) sense, so unlike visual or auditory cognition, we know little about such haptic cognition. We do know that motor skills play a major role in haptics, but senses like vision do not determine hand preference or hand ability. It seems also that the potential ability to perform a task may be present in both hands and evidence indicates that the hand used to perform tactile tasks in blind or in sighted conditions is independent of one's hand preference. This book will be useful for those in education and robotics and can serve as a general text focusing on touch and developmental psychology.


Small RNAs (sRNAs) play significant roles in regulating gene expression post-transcriptionally in response to environmental changes in bacteria. In this work, we identified and characterized six novel sRNAs from an emerging multidrug-resistance (MDR) plasmid pNDM-HK, a New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase 1 gene (blaNDM−1)-carrying IncL/M plasmid that has caused worldwide threat in recent years. These sRNAs are located at different regions of pNDM-HK, such as replication, stability, and variable regions. Moreover, one of the plasmid-encoded sRNAs (NDM-sR3) functions in an Hfq-dependent manner and possibly plays roles in the fitness of pNDM-HK carrying bacteria. In addition, we attempted to construct the phylogenetic tree based on these novel sRNAs and surprisingly, the sRNA-phylogenetic tree provided significant information about the evolutionary pathway of pNDM-HK, including possible gene acquisition and insertion from relevant plasmids. Moreover, the sRNA-phylogenetic tree can specifically cluster the IncM2 type and distinguish it from other IncL/M subtypes. In summary, this is the first study to systematically identify and characterize sRNAs from clinically-isolated MDR plasmids. We believe that these newly found sRNAs could lead to further understanding and new directions to study the evolution and dissemination of the clinically MDR bacterial plasmids.