The telecom operators are experiencing low revenues due to reduction in voice calls and SMS in their networks mainly driven by communication services like Skype, Google talk, msn and other VOIP (voice over internet protocol) products. Instant messaging services and social networking are also taking away the operator's customers reducing them to "dumb pipes" with the OTT (Over the Top) players like Google, Microsoft and other content providers making profits at the expense of the operator. The growth of operators' revenue is not keeping pace with the growth of traffic in their networks creating the perception that the content providers and OTT players do not share their revenue generated using the operator's infrastructure. The operators are therefore increasingly being reduced to act as "dumb pipes" connecting the content generated by OTT's with the operator's subscribers. The operator's revenue stream in one-sided, only coming from the subscriber usually as a flat data plan. The operator's are looking at new revenue models and the cloud computing market is a business opportunity which allows them to monetize their network resources with the possibility to earn revenue from both the subscriber and the content providers. The communication system providers who are the communication equipment vendors to the operators are indirectly affected from the shrinking operator revenue. As part of this thesis, we address how Telco's and system vendors can differentiate in the cloud computing market against other cloud service providers and monetize the network resources which they own. We discuss the roles in the cloud value network and activities in the value chain that could be adopted and the business opportunities they could pursue. We begin by introducing the telecom operator market and the challenges faced by the industry today. The research question we are targeting is then discussed followed by the limitations of the thesis. The lecommunication industry, cloud computing technology and the relevant service delivery models are discussed. A literature review is then done to formulate our theory. Theory on strategy by Porter, Prahalad and other researchers who have contributed to the research on cloud computing are discussed. The method adopted is then proposed. Data collected is first presented and then analyzed before discussing the results of the analysis.


The talk will address some of the key algorithmic and computational challenges associated with the modelling of certain classes of biological networks (e.g. biochemical, signalling). This will involve several research threads that cover a range of theoretical, software and hardware implementation issues. The theoretical modelling developments involve a variety of issues related to the numerical, probabilistic, logical, and symbolic aspects of computation and implementation. A lack of effective tools for modelling and analysing networks has prevented their use in many possible applications. The simulation tools will allow us to develop applications in which millions of randomly generated networks can be simulated and analyzed with great computational efficiency. This efficiency can be obtained by parallelizing the modelling process and address problems that arise from the increasing size of networks and the parallel computing systems that they will require. The problems will include, for example, the unpredictable workload and strong data dependencies characteristic of the modelling of networks; they will require us to investigate a number of related design issues, such as domain decomposition, data access and management, workload balancing, and architecture selection.


In this paper, we show how a simulated anthropomorphic robotic arm controlled by an artificial neural network can develop effective reaching and grasping behaviour through a trial and error process in which the free parameters encode the control rules which regulate the fine-grained interaction between the robot and the environment and variations of the free parameters are retained or discarded on the basis of their effects at the level of the global behaviour exhibited by the robot situated in the environment. The obtained results demonstrate how the proposed methodology allows the robot to produce effective behaviours thanks to its ability to exploit the morphological properties of the robot's body (i.e. its anthropomorphic shape, the elastic properties of its muscle-like actuators and the compliance of its actuated joints) and the properties which arise from the physical interaction between the robot and the environment mediated by appropriate control rules.


This paper is a case study of the impact of a community-based, collaborative, mentoring intervention on the academic and personal success of a group of 32 students who were enrolled in Rowland Hill Latham Elementary School in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools during the year that the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction identified Latham as a "School of Distinction," 2001-2002. In the spring of 2011, approximately 30% of those 32 students had dropped out of school, approximately 25% had left the system, and approximately 53% (17) persisted in school. The paper goes on to discuss how schools and their stakeholders can make the "Latham Way" a reality in their communities. The "Latham Way" logic model is based on collaborative planning, data-based decision making, and transformational leadership. These variables support collaboration among teachers, students, families, the community, Project CHILD, and the administration to improve student performance. The mentoring intervention was a creation of a community organization in this logic model. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)


Background Hormone treatment based on analogues of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) with antiandrogens is the first-line treatment for prostate cancer. This treatment produces a PSA reduction, improvement of symptoms and tumour regression. When PSA increases again it is considered to have developed resistance and other treatment lines such as abiraterone are used.

Abiraterone is an androgen synthesis inhibitor in the testes, adrenals and prostate tumour tissue.

Purpose To analyse the response to, and safety of, abiraterone in the population of a tertiary level hospital.

Material and methods A retrospective observational study was carried out including all patients who started on abiraterone from 2011 to present. Demographical, diagnostic, therapeutic and clinical variables were gathered.

The response was assessed by a 50% PSA reduction or more as compared to baseline values. To assess the safety, abiraterone-related adverse events were recorded.

Outpatient dispensing application Farmatools and electronic medical records were used for patient identification and data collection.

Results 18 patients were included, 89% diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. 50% had poor tumour differentiation with high aggressiveness (Gleason 7–10).

As a first-line of treatment, 83% received GnRH analogues plus an antiandrogen, 11% GnRH analogues alone and 6% ketoconazole. No patients orchiectomized. As a second-line treatment, 28% received docetaxel, 44% estramustine, 22% abiraterone and 6% ketoconazole. Abiraterone was started as third-line or later treatment and after tumour progression, except in 3 patients who received it as second-line treatment.

44% were considered responders and 56% non-responders because of an increase or non-reduction of PSA.

The median duration of treatment was 5 months (1–25). In all cases, the reason for suspension was disease progression.

17% had fatigue as the only adverse effect.

Conclusion Abiraterone is a well-tolerated drug that has shown low activity in previously-treated prostate cancer patients who had responded poorly to ketoconazole, docetaxel and estramustine.

Best responding patients were those who received only GnRH analogues as pre-treatment.

References and/or Acknowledgements No conflict of interest.


Biomimetics is based on the use of biological concepts in the development of innovative technologies, products, and processes. Indeed, nature is a vast source of wisdom, with 3.8 billion years of experience in preserving successful biological strategies and discarding failures. A complete understanding of natural constraints, challenges, and corresponding solutions is however required for these strategies to be used to solve human problems, including the development of new products with minimal use of energy and materials. Additionally, the incorporation of Biomimetics into the industrial process has to be conducted as part of a structured process. In partnership with a design company, we built a structured methodology for the application of Biomimetics in the development of packaging solutions for our cosmetics company. We initially identified 12 demands associated with packaging. Of those, containing was identified as a central demand, which prompted us to ask How does Nature contain liquids? A report describing biological solutions to this problem included drawings and pictures of organisms and potential ideas. This approach resulted in 25 new proposals for the development of new packaging strategies and products. Our results show that it is possible to incorporate the science of Biomimetics into the creative process underlying the development of new strategies and products in a cosmetics company, and possibly in other types of companies as well.


Humans readily infer the meanings of novel symbols in communicative contexts of varying complexity, and several researchers in the field of language evolution have explicitly acknowledged that inference plays a key role in accounting for the evolution of symbolic communication. However, in this field at least, there has been very little investigation into the nature of inference in this regard. That is, evolutionary linguists have yet to address the following questions if we are to have a fuller picture of how humans came to communicate symbolically: 1. What kinds of inference are there? Specifically, i Diachronically, what forms of inference are comparatively simpler in evolutionary terms, and thus shared with a wider range of species? What forms of inference are more complex, and limited to humans or to us and our closest relatives? ii Synchronically, if humans are capable of several kinds of complex inference, how do we know which particular kind of inference is being applied in solving a given problem? 2. How do symbol-learning problems vary? Specifically, i What makes a particular symbol-learning problem more or less complex in terms of the kind of inference needed to solve it? ii How would the communicative context of our pre-linguistic ancestors have been different from that of a human child learning words from its linguistic parent? This dissertation takes a step towards answering these questions by investigating a little-known form of inference called 'abduction' (or insightful hypothesis generation), which has thus far been wholly overshadowed in language evolution by a much better understood form called 'induction' (or probabilistic hypothesis evaluation). I will argue that abduction and induction are both comparatively complex in the diachronic terms expressed above in 1.i, and while induction is useful in accounting for how modern children learn words from linguistic adults, abduction is more important in situations like those that would have faced our pre-lingistic ancestors as they first began to use symbols. That is, I will argue on both theoretical and empirical grounds that abductive inference was an evolutionary milestone as our ancestors crossed what Deacon (1997) calls the symbolic threshold.


This book presents a new perspective on the role of the wolf in American literature. The wolf is one of the most widely distributed canid species, historically ranging throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia, it has also been one of the most pervasive images in human mythology, art, and psychology. "Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature" examines the wolf's importance as a figure in literature from the perspectives of both the animal's physical reality and the ways in which writers imagine and portray it. Author S. K. Robisch examines more than two hundred texts written in North America about wolves or including them as central figures. From this foundation, he demonstrates the wolf's role as an archetype in the collective unconscious, its importance in our national culture, and its ecological value. Robisch takes a multidisciplinary approach to his study, employing a broad range of sources: myths and legends from around the world; symbology; classic and popular literature; films; the work of scientists in a number of disciplines; human psychology; and field work conducted by himself and others. By combining the fundamentals of scientific study with close readings of wide-ranging literary texts, Robisch astutely analyzes the correlation between actual, living wolves and their representation on the page and in the human mind. He also considers the relationship between literary art and the natural world, and argues for a new approach to literary study, an ecocriticism that moves beyond anthropocentrism to examine the complicated relationship between humans and nature.


Videos are a widely-used kind of resource for online learning. This paper presents an empirical study of how video production decisions affect student engagement in online educational videos. To our knowledge, ours is the largest-scale study of video engagement to date, using data from 6.9 million video watching sessions across four courses on the edX MOOC platform. We measure engagement by how long students are watching each video, and whether they attempt to answer post-video assessment problems. Our main findings are that shorter videos are much more engaging, that informal talking-head videos are more engaging, that Khan-style tablet drawings are more engaging, that even high-quality pre-recorded classroom lectures might not make for engaging online videos, and that students engage differently with lecture and tutorial videos. Based upon these quantitative findings and qualitative insights from interviews with edX staff, we developed a set of recommendations to help instructors and video producers take better advantage of the online video format. Finally, to enable researchers to reproduce and build upon our findings, we have made our anonymized video watching data set and analysis scripts public. To our knowledge, ours is one of the first public data sets on MOOC resource usage.


A comprehensive review of visual impairment in children and possible solutions

 The rising number of cases in visual disorders during development, over the last decade, has strongly influenced approaches to diagnosis and rehabilitation.
 Moreover, the study of visual function has evolved not only within an ophthalmological, but also a neurodevelopmental framework: advances in our understanding of the maturation and plasticity of visual system functioning have further guided the progress of such approaches. As a result, the key importance of the developmental age is now widely acknowledged, from as early as the first months of life.

 This book provides an overview of the diagnosis and treatment of visual disorders in relation to advances in neurodevelopmental studies. The concept of early and multimodal management is discussed, with a focus on neuro-psycho-ophthalmological issues. The need for training courses aimed at updating semiological aspects and methodological and rehabilitative strategies is established, as being of significant value to clinical practice.


Background: Intrinsic obstruction and extrinsic compression of the airway are the main causes of pulmonary atelectasis. The differential diagnoses of right middle lobe atelectasis (MLA) in children are lengthy, and practicing pediatricians usually are frustrated by the diagnostic possibilities in the clinic. Objective: The aim of our study is to present the experience of a children facility with chronic MLA in ambulatory children and guide a pragmatic approach. Materials and Methods: Retrospective chart analysis was performed by a computer search for discharge diagnosis of right MLA or MLA between January 2006 and December 2017 in a pediatric department in Northern Taiwan. Demographic data, underlying diseases, clinical symptoms, radiographic features, and course of treatment were collected and analyzed by descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 30 pediatric patients with chronic MLA were recruited in this study. Isolated MLA was identified in four (13.3%) patients. The remaining 26 patients had associated atelectasis or bronchiectasis in other parts of the lung. The most common causes of chronic MLA identified in our patients were postinfectious bronchiectasis (40%) and immunodeficiency (23.3%). Asthma was an uncommon cause of MLA in this study. Conclusions: Tumors, tuberculosis, retained foreign body, and asthma were all uncommon in the children identified with MLA. While chronic cough was common in the children studied, most were associated with bronchiectasis in other pulmonary segments. When faced with evidence of right MLA, one should consider a chronic suppurative lung disease with or without bronchiectasis, either postinfectious or related with recurrent aspiration.


Criteria are used to help decide whether the risk associated with a project or activity is low enough to proceed. The key question then, is when is low enough good enough? This paper describes the flexible framework in use in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries for deciding on the tolerability of risk. The levels of individual risk that are generally accepted world-wide as intolerable are presented. The situation is not so straightforward for societal risk, where there is a wide variation in both regulatory and operator criteria. In reality, the risks associated with most facilities lie in the middle band of the risk tolerability framework – the ALARP region. This paper describes the process used to demonstrate that risk levels have been reduced to ALARP. Insights are provided on the appropriate tools to apply during the life of a facility. It is concluded that, in practice, this amounts to taking a balanced view and reaching a defensible consensus amongst stakeholders.


The Common Fiscal is known to prey on chicks from bird nests (Hockey et al. 2005), including weaver nests. It has not been recorded as predating Cape Weaver nests (HDO pers comms), but has robbed the nests of a similar weaver, the Southern Masked Weaver Ploceus velatus (Schoeman 1995). It is strange that the Common Fiscal was trying to rob green nests, i.e. no eggs or chicks expected in the nests. Invertebrates may be present on weaver nests, but the Common Fiscal did not appear to be feeding on the nests. It did not appear to be trying to steal nest material, although this is a possibility. The nest of the Common Fiscal is made of sticks, not green grass or reed blades, although aromatic herbs and other plant material is used as nest lining (Hockey et al. 2005).


Abstract Phases of activity of four solifluction lobes at an altitude of 750–800 m are dated by tephrochronology at Snaefell, central eastern Iceland (64°48′ N 15°33′ E). The sample includes sorted lobes with tread gradients of 3–11° and unsorted (turf-banked terraces) in slope-foot locations. Trenches through lobe fronts reveal detailed internal structures picked out by multiple tephra layers. The tephras V1717, V1477, Ö1362, V870, Hekla-3 (2900 years bp and Hekla-4 (3800 years bp) provide isochronous surfaces of known age whose deformation and disturbance indicate mass movement and/or cryoturbation of the soil cover. Undisturbed soil including the Hekla-3 tephra indicates an absence of solifluction prior to 2900 years bp. Several centuries after Hekla-3, gravel-rich horizons mark wide-spread frost heave and solifluction of hillslopes. Later stabilization of these lobes allowed the accumulation of aprons of aeolian sediment below lee-side risers. These aprons contain in situ mediaeval tephras, dating the inception of solifluction to a considerable time prior to Norse settlement. The likely period of this first phase of solifluction is the Later Bog Period of the Subatlantic, c. 2500-1000 years bp. The aprons are currently being overridden and deformed by solifluction lobes reactivated in the Little Ice Age.


CONTEXT
Effective contraceptive use among first-time adolescent mothers can reduce the risk of a rapid repeat pregnancy and associated negative maternal and child health outcomes. Many adolescent mothers begin using a highly effective method after delivery; however, their rates of contraceptive discontinuation are high. Little research has explored the factors that influence adolescents' postpartum contraceptive use.

METHODS
In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 black, white and Latina adolescent first-time mothers from rural and urban areas of North Carolina between November 2007 and February 2009. In addition, interviews were conducted with 18 key informants-professionals who work closely with adolescent mothers. Interviews explored adolescent mothers' health behaviors, including contraceptive use, before and after pregnancy. Content analysis was used to identify key themes and patterns.

RESULTS
Teenagers' use of contraceptives, particularly injectables, IUDs and implants, increased postpartum. Reasons for this improvement included improved clarity of intention to avoid pregnancy and improved contraceptive knowledge, support and access after delivery. However, this increased access often did not continue long after delivery, and levels of method switching were high. Among the barriers to postpartum contraceptive use that key informants cited were lack of information and parental support, as well as the loss of Medicaid and continuity of care.

CONCLUSIONS
Ongoing follow-up may help reduce adolescent mothers' risk of contraceptive discontinuation postpartum. Increasing use of long-acting methods also may help reduce their vulnerability to gaps in contraceptive use and discontinuation, which increase the risk of unintended pregnancy.


The cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is one of the most efficient, low-cost, and energy-efficient radio access techniques proposed as a potential candidate for the implementation of next-generation (NGN) mobile base stations (BSs). A high-performance C-RAN requires an exceptional broadband radio frequency (RF) front end that cannot be guaranteed without remarkable antenna elements. In response, we present state-of-theart antenna elements that are potential candidates for the implementation of the C-RAN's RF front end. We present an overview of C-RAN technology and different types of planar antennas operating at the future proposed fifth-generation (5G) bands that may include the following: (i) ultra-wide band (UWB) (3–12 GHz), (ii) 28/38 GHz, and (iii) 60-GHz radio. Further, we propose different planar antennas suitable for the implementation of C-RAN systems. We design, simulate, and optimize the proposed antennas according to the desired specifications covering the required frequency bands. The key design parameters are calculated, analyzed, and discussed. In our research work, the proposed antennas are lightweight, low-cost, and easy to integrate with other microwave and millimeter-wave (MMW) circuits. We also consider different implementation strategies that can be helpful in the execution of large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)


Modern operating systems should be extensible and flexible. This means that the operating system should be able to accept new behaviour and change existing behaviour without too much trouble and that it should ideally also be able to do this without any, or very little, downtime. Furthermore, during the past years the importance of the network has increased drastically, creating a demand for operating systems to function in a distributed environment. To achieve this flexibility and distribut-edness, I have designed and evaluated ABOS, an Agent-Based Operating System. ABOS uses agents to solve all the tasks of the operating system kernel, thus moving away from traditional monolithic kernel structures. Early results show that I have gained in flexibility and modularity, creating a fault-tolerant distributed operating system that can adapt and be adapted to almost any situa-tion with negligible decrease in performance. Within ABOS some tasks has been designed further, and there exists a demonstration of how the agent-based filesystem might work.


Palladium nanoparticles (Pd NPs) supported on organoamine-functionalized SBA-15 mesoporous silica are known to have higher catalytic activity for formic acid dehydrogenation than Pd NPs supported on plain, unmodified SBA-15 mesoporous silica. The organoamine groups present around the Pd NPs play important roles in stabilizing the Pd NPs, providing strong metal-molecular support interaction (SMMSI) to the Pd NPs, and rendering enhanced catalytic activities to the materials toward formic acid dehydrogenation. However, detailed studies on the effects of different types of amine groups on the catalytic activities of mesoporous silica-supported Pd NPs toward formic acid dehydrogenation have not been reported. Herein, we describe the synthesis of SBA-15 mesoporous silica grafted with three types of organoamine groups (primary, secondary, and tertiary amine), which are further decorated with tetraamminepalladium(II) complexes that are then reduced to Pd NPs in situ with 10% of H2/N2 at 250 °C. The effects of the different compositional and steric properties associated with the amine groups on (i) the electronic properties of the Pd NPs, (ii) the size of the Pd NPs, and (iii) the structure–property relationships of the materials were closely examined. Based on the results, the materials' catalytic activities toward dehydrogenation of formic acid to generate hydrogen (H2) for fuel cells were determined.


This book is appropriately divided into five sections, namely the introduction, broader community and system responses, home-based care and volunteering, other perspectives on responsibility to HIV and Aids, and conclusions and a vision. The text is based on the three constructs of social bonding, social bridging, and linking at individual, family, community and external / governmental levels. The authors also focused on creating dialogue between practitioners, academics, researchers, trainers and facilitators in the field of HIV and Aids.


Introduction. The urgent task of hydraulic engineering as a science is to search for more sophisticated, effective, and safe structures of embankment dams. Wide possibilities in this are presented by the use of artificial materials and structures made of them. To estimate the perspectives of their use, a historical survey was carried out on experience gained in the construction and operation of embankment dams with seepage-control structures (SCS) made of artificial materials. Materials and methods. For the survey the different sources, both modern and those of the past years, were used. There were analyzed SCS which were used in bodies and foundations of embankment dams since the start of the XX-th century. Results. The historical survey showed that over the last 50-70 years significant progress took place in the development of SCS made of artificial materials. First of all, there were used the new types of SCS made of new materials: asphalt-concrete and geosynthetics. Secondly, the new methodologies have been introduced in the construction practice by arranging SCS made of materials based on cement in dam foundations. The experience showed that these methodologies were also used for arranging SCS in dam bodies. Conclusions. In the future, there may be expected further extension in the scope of using artificial materials for the construction of embankment dam SCS. At that, the leading role among artificial materials is played by the materials based on cement (concrete, clay-cement concrete, soil-cement mixes, etc.). At the construction of ultra-high dams, these materials do not have any alternatives. Nevertheless, the most perspective way in improving structural designs of embankment dams SCS is a combination of different artificial materials (cement-containing and other materials), as well as the use of combined SCS.


Taking Paul Connerton's essay How modernity forgets (2009) as a starting point and using it as a fil rouge in the argumentation, the paper aims to reflect on how the transformations impressed in the social fabric and in the public space by capitalism affect our capacity to remember, generating a "culture of oblivion". In the last decades, and especially after 1989, as the new political and social asset of the world gave rise to a resilient need of recollecting national memories and identities, this issue has become more and more important in the artistic research. In this context many international artists work with the aim of encouraging a recovery of a "cultural memory": some of them undertake actions or walks (often involving the public) in the urban space to let re-emerge the histories or cultural identities of significant places (as in the cases, token into account in the essay, of Gregor Schneider, Luca Vitone and Cesare Viel); other ones (John Akomfrah and Walid Raad) trick or forge the archive in order to excavate stories that have been overwhelmed by the "dominant narrative". The selected artists and works set themselves in boundary territories among urbanism, sociology, anthropology, social and economic history, psychology, using different media and languages (cinema, installations and performance). Such a complexity is the only possible response to the many different competences, perspectives, sensitivities and attitudes that the theme of memory requests from anyone who wants to deal with.


INTELLECTUAL property law has always been in tension with antitrust law. Intellectual property law protects monopolies; antitrust law disfavors them. Since the early years of the Sherman Act, the pendulum of antitrust law has swung back and forth between treating patentees leniently and disfavoring them. In the early years under the Sherman Act, a patent was essentially a "get out of jail free card" as far as the Sherman Act was concerned; patent licensees openly leveraged their rights to evade antitrust restrictions. Then courts overcorrected and began to treat all patent holders with suspicion. That suspicion lasted from 1912 to at least the 1960s. During those decades, the law presumed every patentee enjoys market power, rendering a whole laundry list of license uses per se illegal. Now the pendulum has swung back in favor of owners of intellectual property. Today, antitrust laws have relaxed considerably. In fact, there is even some question as to whether classic patent tying arrangements are still actually (not just technically) per se illegal. Federal courts, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission now take a gentler, more nuanced approach to determining whether any particular intellectual property license triggers antitrust concerns. This paper will provide a brief history of the tension between antitrust law and intellectual property law. It will then discuss how courts today treat a variety of intellectual property licenses. 1. A Brief History There have been three major periods in the development of the relationship between antitrust law and intellectual property law. In the first period, lasting for the first two decades following the passage of the Sherman Act, patent holders who wanted to license their rights enjoyed virtual immunity from the antitrust laws. In Bement v. National Harrow Co., the Supreme Court stated "the general rule" of absolute freedom in the use or sale of rights under the patent laws of the United States. The very object of these laws is monopoly, and the rule is, with few exceptions, that any conditions which are not in their very nature illegal with regard to this kind of property, imposed by the patentee and agreed to by the licensee for the right to manufacture or use or sell the article, will be upheld by the courts. The fact that the conditions in the contracts" keep up the monopoly or fix prices does not render them illegal. (1) In short, patents were the Sherman Act's kryptonite in those first two decades. Or, to be more precise, it was not patents that allowed the dodge around the young Sherman Act, but rather, patent license pools that could cleverly leverage patents and extend them beyond their original purpose of protecting the commendable ingenuity of the inventor. Licensed and pooled, patent rights could be alienated from inventors and collected by corporations whose purpose was to abuse market power. One commenter describes these early license pools as "unconditional shelter for collusion." (2) The Supreme Court caught on, however, and it put teeth in the Sherman Act in 1912 with Standard Sanitary Manufacturing. Standard Sanitary broke up a patent pool that required licensees to fix resale prices and to deal only with jobbers that sold to licensed manufacturers. In a dramatic reversal of its previous attitude of total deference to patent licenses, the Standard Sanitary court described the licenses as having "evil consequences." (3) The Court continued to crimp patent poolers' style with Morton Salt v. Suppiger Co., a patent misuse case, in 1942. Morton Salt involved a pool that required licensees of a canning invention to buy their unpatented salt from Morton Salt. (4) The Supreme Court held that Morton Salt was attempting "to secure an exclusive right or limited monopoly not granted by the Patent Office and which it is contrary to public policy to grant." (5) There is nothing shocking about Morton Salt itself; it makes sense that no one should be able to leverage his rights in new technology to restrict commerce in salt, the world's most ancient and commonplace good. …


The aim of this article is to explain what the Cassandra database is all about and how it works. Cassandra is a bibliographical database which fundamental aim is to operate as a means of consultation to come to a better understanding of literary works and to be able to study aspects of literature which haven't received much attention. Since it´s not a simple bibliography, but bibliographical information organised in a continually changing database, you could say it's a "living bibliography". Cassandra consists of the dates and explanations of 135 books dedicated to literature on classical and modern women writers. It contains a summary of all books and in most cases also an evaluation, so that whoever consults Cassandra can get a better idea of whatever book he or she is interested in.


Two textiles included in group show.

About the show:
"The Aram Gallery hosts an exhibition celebrating the enduring legacy of The Cass as being a part of the creative landscape of east London for over 100 years.

As part of the gallery's ongoing interest in process, The Cass: Hands On will show new and experimental design at the roots, using this versatile school and its history as the focus.

Work by a range of students, alumni and staff will represent the wide variety of courses on offer including jewellery, silversmithing, furniture upholstery and musical-instrument making. Alongside finished products, the exhibition will also reflect The Cass's dedication to making within its teaching philosophy. A display of hand tools and a wall of experimental ceramic studies will give a taste of the school's workshop atmosphere.

The exhibition also anticipates the future of The Cass, with its latest generation of graduating designers included in the mix.

Participating designers include Afsiah Asghar, Adi Toch, Ben Cresswell Riol, Christopher Emmett, Elise Mclaughlan, Isabel Farchy, James Hunting, James Tattersall, Josie Wood, Julian Leedham, Jude Dennis, Juliette Bigley, Lisa Bloomer, Lucy Johnson, Majeda Clarke, Matteo Pacella, Michael Marriott, Narinda Minnaar, Ray Brown, Ray Gonzalez Brown, Richard Clarke, Samantha Ndlovu, Sylvia Weidenbach, Stephen McCoombe, Suchada Sae Khow, Terence Woodgate, Tim Summers, Vicky Cowin and Zoe Robertson.

The exhibition is co-Curated by The Aram Gallery and The Cass."


A number of injuries and fatal collisions have occurred at certain highway-rail grade crossings that are located immediately adjacent to highway intersections, driveways or interstate ramps. Some guide signage, pavement markings, and other traffic control devices present near or at the crossings in the past may have confused drivers and caused them to turn onto the railroad tracks, rather than at the nearby intersections, driveways or ramps. This research found the major contributing causes of incorrect turns onto railroad tracks includes (1) confusing signs and pavement markings near highway-rail crossings, (2) darkness and low visibility near or at highway-rail crossings, (3) following turn instructions from a global positioning system (GPS) device onto railroad tracks, (4) skewed highway-rail grade crossings, and (5) driver distraction. Based on the findings from intensive literature review, historical crash data analysis, and field observations, a set of practical countermeasures was developed to prevent incorrect turns onto railroad tracks. The major recommended treatments for upstream of a highway-rail grade crossing include advance direction signage and striping. The recommended downstream treatments also consist of guide signs and striping. For the critical zone, treatments such as striping or dynamic envelope pavement markings, pavement gate markings, bollards, and illumination are recommended. Adequate illumination is essential for reducing the number of rail-vehicle crashes and stuck vehicle incidents due to incorrect turns at night. Finally, this research developed a simple and effective method to help quantify potential drivers that experience confusion or hesitation when they approach a highway-rail grade crossing. It provided a cost-effective method to evaluate the effectiveness of any implemented treatments to prevent incorrect turns onto railroad tracks.


The Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) is typically interpreted as a time of drastic global cooling and drying associated with massive growth of a glacial icecap in Antarctica and the shift to an "icehouse" climate. The effects of this transition on the terrestrial environments, floras, and faunas of the Southern Hemisphere, however, have been unclear. Here we document simultaneous changes in fire regime and plant community in Patagonia, Argentina. Decreases in the concentration of magnetite in loessites from the Eocene-Oligocene Vera Member of the Sarmiento Formation correlate with decreases in the fraction of burnt palm phytoliths as well as more consistently palm-dominated phytolith assemblages. Association of magnetite and burnt palm phytoliths suggests intense wildfires, which appear to have been suppressed for ∼200 k.y. shortly after the EOT. The disappearance of fire-related characteristics near the EOT is possible if changes in regional wind patterns—consistent with observed changes in sediment particle sizes—caused changes in seasonal precipitation. These results imply a more important role for fire in structuring Eocene-Oligocene landscapes than previously thought.


The present study is focused on the application of phase-field modelling techniques to fracture simulation in laminated glass samples under bending. A damage model using a phase-field formulation of fracture is introduced and applied to three-layer laminated glass samples. The identification of material parameters of polymer foils and glass is also provided, based on a combined experimental and numerical analysis. Specifically, the results of small scale testing and the calibration of the constitutive models of polymer interlayers are discussed in connection to ethylen-vinyl acetate and polyvinyl butyral foils. The statistical data obtained by the evaluation of tensile strength of glass samples are used for the formulation of the tensile stress criterion. Therefore, a generalisation of the energetic formulation of phase-field models towards the stress-based criterion is employed here to simulate the fracture behaviour of laminated glass. The experimentally measured data are compared with the numerically derived response using the extreme values of tensile strength obtained. Then, the fracture response is analysed for one sample to support the proposed computational model and material parameters.


PUBH 510. Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Global Health. 3 Credits. Explores issues, problems, and controversies in global health through an interdisciplinary perspective; examines the complex tapestry of social, economic, political, and environmental factors that affect global health; analyzes global health disparities through a social justice and human rights lens; and exposes students to opportunities in global health work and research. Repeat rules: May be repeated for credit. Grading status: Letter grade.


In this article, we explore the nature of identity in the contemporary transnational family. To do this we extend lifecourse scholarship by considering Bauman's liquid modernity thesis and introducing the concept of a liquid life path. Original empirical examples drawn from our work among South American migrants and their families living in London and northern England illustrate diverse patterns of identification; everyday practices and social norms associated with maintaining split families, including parenting and remitting, coalesce around liquid life paths. We describe how these life paths turn on and reproduce a set of spatial and temporal imaginaries. We also reflect on the implications of these fluid imaginaries for our
understanding of transnational familyhood.


ABSTRACT An engagement with the senses is essential to the creation of closeness and intimacy between people and their environment. It follows then that the development of this way of thinking about the built environment should be prominently addressed in the training of future architects. If an architect has the opportunity—or responsibility—to encourage haptic engagement between people and space, then that process would benefit from the introduction of a multi-sensory experience during the design process itself. Critical thinking, or the reflective practice of reasoning, is frequently employed in the university classroom to assist students in solving problems. However, within the design professions, amongst others that have a close relationship with the manipulation of matter, there is another construct to utilize in the process of problem solving: Critical making. Critical making is positioned at the intersection of the "scholarly" work of thinking and the material work of making; it serves as a catalyst for design, embedded in a process of craft, material, and exploration. This article outlines the pedagogical basis for the use of critical making in the educating of novice architecture students and demonstrates its applicability in the architectural design studio. Through this reflective process, students are presented the opportunity to gain insight into both their work and the materials of design and construction.


Abstract. The hydroxyl (OH) radical is an important oxidant in the troposphere, which controls the lifetime of most air quality- and climate-related trace gases. However, there are still uncertainties concerning its atmospheric budget, and integrated measurements of OH sinks have been valuable to improve this aspect. Among the analytical tools used for measuring total OH reactivity in ambient air, the comparative reactivity method (CRM) is spreading rapidly in the atmospheric community. However, measurement artifacts have been highlighted for this technique, and additional work is needed to fully characterize them. In this study, we present the new Mines Douai CRM instrument, with an emphasis on the corrections that need to be applied to ambient measurements of total OH reactivity. Measurement artifacts identified in the literature have been investigated, including (1) a correction for a change in relative humidity between the measurement steps leading to different OH levels, (2) the formation of spurious OH in the sampling reactor when hydroperoxy radicals (HO2) react with nitrogen monoxide (NO), (3) not operating the CRM under pseudo-first-order kinetics, and (4) the dilution of ambient air inside the reactor. The dependences of these artifacts on various measurable parameters, such as the pyrrole-to-OH ratio and the bimolecular reaction rate constants of ambient trace gases with OH, have also been studied. Based on these observations, parameterizations are proposed to correct ambient OH reactivity measurements. On average, corrections of 5.2 ± 3.2, 9.2 ± 15.7, and 8.5 ± 5.8 s−1 were respectively observed for (1), (2) and (3) during a field campaign performed in Dunkirk, France (summer 2014). Numerical simulations have been performed using a box model to check whether experimental observations mentioned above are consistent with our understanding of the chemistry occurring in the CRM reactor. Two different chemical mechanisms have been shown to reproduce the magnitude of corrections (2) and (3). In addition, these simulations reproduce their dependences on the pyrrole-to-OH ratio and on bimolecular reaction rate constants of gases reacting with OH. The good agreement found between laboratory experiments and model simulations gives us confidence in the proposed parameterizations. However, it is worth noting that the numerical values given in this study are suitable for the Mines Douai instrument and may not be appropriate for other CRM instruments. It is recommended that each group characterize its own instrument following the recommendations given in this study. An assessment of performances for the Mines Douai instrument, including a propagation of errors from the different corrections, indicates a limit of detection of 3.0 s−1 and total uncertainties of 17–25 % for OH reactivity values higher than 15 s−1 and NOx mixing ratios lower than 30 ppbv.


Coastal dunes are prominent features along many of the world's sandy shorelines. They are valued for their contributions to flood protection, biodiversity, fresh water supply and recreation. The most seaward dune ridge or foredune is the most dynamic part, showing fluctuations in size and morphology in response to erosion by the sea and subsequent recovery by interactions between wind-blown sand and vegetation. Given their dependency on multiple natural processes, coastal dunes may be particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change, including sea-level rise (SLR) and changes in temperature and precipitation. To mitigate anticipated coastal erosion in the next decades, the Dutch sand nourishment regime will be intensified to raise the beach profile proportionally to the SLR. However, it is not clear how the added sand is distributed within the foredune system and whether this enables foredunes to keep up with sea-level rise. In addition, possibilities for dune re-mobilisation are investigated to enhance landward transport and biodiversity. However, effects of this intervention on foredune dynamics and the dune landscape are not entirely clear. This thesis has examined yearly to decadal scale foredune dynamics and the impacts of climate change and management options on these dynamics. Which factors control year-to-year variations in dune growth on the Dutch coast? Dunes depend on aeolian transport for sand supply. While measurements of aeolian transport show complex spatio-temporal variations, we find that the yearly sand supply to dunes along the Dutch coast is relatively constant, between 10-20 m3/m irrespective of the beach width (Chapter 2). This means that a wider beach does not necessarily provide more sand to dunes and beach width is not a limiting factor in sand supply to the dunes. In contrast to the sand input, the amount of sand lost during a storm surge does depend on the beach width. Wider beaches are able to dissipate more of the incoming wave energy and thus protect the dune better than narrow beaches. On a term of decades, this gives rise to steady dune growth on wider beaches and irregular, frequently interrupted growth on narrow ones. How do biogeomorphic interactions control foredune shape? The distribution of sand over the foredune, and therefore the morphological evolution, is strongly tied to vegetation patterns (Chapter 3). It was found that deposition patterns across foredunes show a characteristic distribution, starting with a sharp increase upon crossing the seaward vegetation limit, reaching a maximum between 5-20 m further landward and then gradually decreasing inland of the crest. The deposition pattern is further modified by the general vegetation pattern. On a timescale of years, there is no correlation between density of vegetation cover and the amount of accretion. However, by accounting for the gradual depletion of the sand load over the foredune, an empirical relationship can be defined between vegetation cover and its sand trapping efficiency. For fully covered surfaces, sand trapping efficiency is around 50%, indicating that sediment can pass densely covered foredunes. Although literature suggests a relation between the level of plant burial and plant growth, we found no evidence for enhanced vegetation growth in high-deposition zones. A gain in vegetation cover was found to occur for burial between 0 m/year and 1 m/year, which indicates that lower and upper tolerance limits of burial have not been exceeded. Other growth limiting factors are likely to be of similar importance, masking any possible dependency of vegetation growth on sand accretion. What are the effects of climate change on meso-scale evolution of coastal dunes? The results on yearly erosion/accretion and sedimentation patterns were implemented in a computer for dune evolution called DUBEVEG, developed in Wageningen (Chapter 4). Algorithms for aeolian transport and vegetation growth were taken from existing models and combined with a new module for wave action and dune erosion. The model was calibrated and validated against field measurements. The good agreement between observations and predictions indicates that the model successfully incorporates the suite of biogeomorphic and marine processes involved in dune building. Model simulations show that the evolution of a dune strongly depends on the sequence of storms and quiet periods. During quiet periods, dunes are able to build seaward at several metres per year as vegetation colonises the area near the dune foot, leading to dune accretion. Following the dune-foot position through time, we find an irregular pattern of seaward advance and regression. However, the average of a large number of runs with varying storm sequences reveals a clear trend. For a given wave climate and beach profile, we find that the model predicts a certain seaward limit to which the foredunes may build, or equilibrium position at which erosion and accretion are balanced. If the momentary position of the dune foot is seaward of this limit, seaward movement can be rapid. If, in contrast, the momentary position is at or seaward of the limit, periods of minor seaward growth are followed by periods of landward retreat, resulting in an oscillation around the equilibrium. Climate scenarios, consisting of SLR and a gradual change in vegetation growth, were developed to examine climate-change effects on dune dynamics. Sea-level rise largely determines the direction of dune evolution by forcing the dune-foot landwards. The rate of rising controls whether dunes are able to preserve their height or sand volume while migrating landwards. The effect of changing vegetation growth rates, resulting from climate change, is most manifest in dune response to large disturbances. If vegetation is removed halfway into the simulation, vegetation growth rate determines whether a foredune will re-vegetate and re-stabilise: a value below the threshold will preclude complete recovery and the dune remains bare. What management options are available to mitigate climate-change effects on coastal dune evolution? Sand nourishments are effective to mitigate the effect of SLR on coastal dunes. Model results show that by raising the beach proportionally to SLR, dunes are able to preserve their dunefoot position, height and volume. sHowever, the associated landward retreat is often not feasible. A reduction in vegetation cover, related to either (1) artificial remobilisation, (2) dunefoot erosion or (3) climate change promotes landwards transport and therefore contributes to the long-term preservation of a wider dune zone. If vegetation growth is reduced as a consequence of increasing summer drought, re-mobilisation becomes more effective, with high rates of landwards transport persisting for several decades. On the long term, it is recommended to use a combination of sand nourishments and remobilisation efforts to preserve the coastline, promote landwards transport and make benefit of a dune's natural self-regenerating capacity. Under the precondition that safety requirements are met, these natural processes enable long-term preservation of flood protection, biodiversity and dynamic landscapes.


Estimation of leaf photosynthetic rate (A) from leaf nitrogen content (N) is both conceptually and numerically important in models of plant, ecosystem, and biosphere responses to global change. The relationship between A and N has been studied extensively at ambient CO2 but much less at elevated CO2. This study was designed to (i) assess whether the A–N relationship was more similar for species within than between community and vegetation types, and (ii) examine how growth at elevated CO2 affects the A–N relationship. Data were obtained for 39 C3 species grown at ambient CO2 and 10 C3 species grown at ambient and elevated CO2. A regression model was applied to each species as well as to species pooled within different community and vegetation types. Cluster analysis of the regression coefficients indicated that species measured at ambient CO2 did not separate into distinct groups matching community or vegetation type. Instead, most community and vegetation types shared the same general parameter space for regression coefficients. Growth at elevated CO2 increased photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency for pines and deciduous trees. When species were pooled by vegetation type, the A–N relationship for deciduous trees expressed on a leaf‐mass basis was not altered by elevated CO2, while the intercept increased for pines. When regression coefficients were averaged to give mean responses for different vegetation types, elevated CO2 increased the intercept and the slope for deciduous trees but increased only the intercept for pines. There were no statistical differences between the pines and deciduous trees for the effect of CO2. Generalizations about the effect of elevated CO2 on the A–N relationship, and differences between pines and deciduous trees will be enhanced as more data become available.


To be admitted at trial, an eyewitness identification resulting from a police-conducted procedure must be "reliable" notwithstanding any suggestivity in the identification process, a point emphatically reaffirmed by the Court in Perry v. New Hampshire. While great attention has been focused on what factors are to be weighed in determining reliability, little discussion has been had regarding the level of reliability, i.e., how sure a reviewing judge must be that the identification claim of "that's the man" is indeed accurate. While the Court in the past has identified this as an "evidentiary" claim, to be evaluated on whether the identification has possible validity, it has simultaneously linked that determination to two criteria – that what must be avoided are "irreparable" mistaken identifications and that the evidence must be such that a jury can intelligently weigh it. Because DNA exonerations and ample research have shown that factfinders – both jurors and judges – often are incapable of discerning when an identification is erroneous, this Article proposes a sliding scale Due Process test for quantifying reliability. Even where a reviewing court must apply the traditional reliability criteria, the sliding scale test requires a suppression court judge to assess – in light of the jurisdiction's safeguards such as expert testimony and science-based jury instructions – whether a jury will have enough information to intelligently weigh the identification testimony and avoid an irreparable mistaken identification. The fewer tools available to the jury, the more stringent the reliability determination must be to ensure the Due Process mandate.


This paper presents a formulation of self-similar mixed boundary-value problems of elastodynamics that is a natural extension of one already developed by the writer for elastostatic problems. By thus exposing the analytical structure that is common to both the dynamic and static problems, the existence of properties common to certain static and dynamic problems is explained, and further such properties are derived. Common features of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems are brought out by reducing them to Hilbert problems, directly in two dimensions and by introducing the Radon transform in three dimensions. Several applications of the theory are presented, typical problems involving the indentation of a half-space by a conical or wedge-shaped indentor, and cracks expanding under the influence of a non-uniform applied stress. More difficult problems, that have not before been formulated, include dynamic indentation problems with adhesion, and problems of cracks expanding on interfaces between dissimilar materials. A method of solution of such problems is presented and an example of each type is worked out in detail. The method of analysis hinges upon representations of the solutions of ' unmixed ' self-similar problems for half-spaces, which are obtained by use of an alternative to Cagniard's technique whose application is routine, even for an anisotropic half-space. The representations provide more general solutions of the unmixed problems than were available previously. The main singularities, or ' arrivals ', of the stress fields are extracted from the representations; these expressions are new and should be useful for certain problems in seismology. It is predicted, for instance, that a crack expanding on an interface can generate a 'conical wave', that is, a region in which the singularity has a logarithmic component as well as a step function, even in its P-wave arrival, which could not occur for a crack in a homogeneous medium. The properties of the equations of elastodynamics that are employed are that they are linear, homogeneous and self-adjoint and the methods that are developed are equally applicable to any other system with these properties.


The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), located in the Central Rocky Mountains of western North America, is one of the largest nearly intact temperate-zone ecosystems on Earth. Here, Lactarius is an important component of ectomycorrhizal communities in many habitat types, from low elevation riparian areas to high elevation conifer forests and alpine tundra. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of ITS and RPB2 gene sequences along with detailed morphological examination confirm at least 20 Lactarius species, as well as three varieties, and one unresolved species group in the GYE. Eight taxa are reported from the GYE for the first time, and nearly every major ectomycorrhizal host plant in the GYE appears to have at least one Lactarius species associated with it. Broad intercontinental distributions are suggested for alpine Salix and Betula associates, and for certain subalpine Picea and aspen (Populus spp.) associates. Some species appear to be restricted to western North America with Pinus, Pseudotsuga or Abies. The distribution and/or host affinities of others is not clear due in part to ambiguous host assignment, taxonomic problems or the relative rarity with which they have been reported.


'Convocation' was an artist residency and exhibition of works created in response to the legacy of 6th-century Irish monk Colm Cille. This interdisciplinary project involved historians and practitioners from contemporary art, design and architecture. The aim was to create new knowledge through making contemporary responses to the extreme past. 'Convocation' was one of six projects taking place at locations across UK and EIRE, as part of 'Colm Cille's Spiral'. 'Convocation' was curated by Jenny Brownrigg.

Researchers, artists and curators participated in a week-long residency on Raasay, off Skye, contemplating the island as the centre of thinking, beyond which lay 'the peripheral imagination'. The format of the event itself echoed the dynamic of the 'spiral' rather than a circle or cycle, with the group gathering on Raasay, Skye (Ruminatio), then dissipating (Meditatio), then re-gathering in Glasgow (Revelatio). During the Raasay residency the group was asked to respond to a series of questions delivered by Medievalists Professor Clare Lees and Kathryn Maude (King's College London). It was felt important that the questions could lead to 'open creative acts', allowing space for those involved to interpret and misinterpret. The questions looked at: aspects of time; the monastery; spirit and landscape; 'The Life of St Columba' by Abbot Adomnan; 'Peregrinatio' (Latin for pilgrimage); and The Spiral.

The project found a new interdisciplinary model for bringing together academics, arts organisations and practitioners at all stages of their career to respond to a historical subject. The project as well as being interdisciplinary, was also a new collaboration of organisations, including Higher Education Institutions, public institutions and contemporary arts organisations.

Following the Raasay residency, a symposium event was held at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow which included new sound work by Emma Balkind, and talks by Professor Clare Lees, and Thomas Clancy and Dr Katherine Forsyth of University of Glasgow. Colm Cille's Spiral was held in the Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow School of Art from 12 Oct–1 Nov 2013, and as part of the Derry–Londonderry City of Culture project in the London Street Gallery from 30 November–14 December 2013.

Participants: Emma Balkind, Susan Brind, Ceara Conway, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Caroline Dear, Prof Clare Lees (Kings College London), Kathryn Maude (King's College London), Francis McKee, Michail Mersinis, Emma Nicolson (ATLAS ARTS), Hardeep Pandhal, Edwin Pickstone, Jessica Ramm, Johnny Rodger, Augustus Veinoglou


Megalin is an endocytic receptor contributing to protein reabsorption. Impaired expression or trafficking of megalin increases urinary renin and allowed the detection of prorenin, which normally is absent in urine. Here, we investigated (pro)renin uptake by megalin, using both conditionally immortalized proximal tubule epithelial cells and Brown Norway Rat yolk sac cells (BN16). To distinguish binding and internalization, cells were incubated with recombinant human (pro)renin at 4°C and 37°C, respectively. (Pro)renin levels were assessed by immunoradiometric assay. At 4°C, BN16 cells bound 3× more prorenin than renin, suggestive for a higher affinity of prorenin. Similarly, at 37°C, prorenin accumulated at 3- to 4-fold higher levels than renin in BN16 cells. Consequently, depletion of medium prorenin (but not renin) content occurred after 24 hours. No such differences were observed in conditionally immortalized proximal tubule epithelial cells, and M6P (mannose-6-phosphate) greatly reduced conditionally immortalized proximal tubule epithelial cells (pro)renin uptake, suggesting that these cells accumulate (pro)renin largely via M6P receptors. M6P did not affect (pro)renin uptake in BN16 cells. Yet, inhibiting megalin expression with siRNA greatly reduced (pro)renin binding and internalization by BN16 cells. Furthermore, treating BN16 cells with albumin, an endogenous ligand of megalin, also decreased binding and internalization of (pro)renin, while deleting the (pro)renin receptor affected the latter only. Exposing prorenin's prosegment with the renin inhibitor aliskiren dramatically increased prorenin binding, while after prosegment cleavage with trypsin prorenin binding was identical to that of renin. In conclusion, megalin might function as an endocytic receptor for (pro)renin and displays a preference for prorenin. Megalin-mediated endocytosis requires the (pro)renin receptor.


Background: Urinary stones are one of the major health problems worldwide and a significant part of referrals to physicians. Also, growing antibiotics resistance is an important concern. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of urinary stones and bacterial strains with antibiotic resistance in women admitted to shiraz, southwest of Iran, from 2014 to 2019. Methods: In this period, all women admitted to the Zeinabieh Hospital were evaluated. The frequency of urinary stones and bacterial strains and antibiogram patterns of bacterial isolates were investigated from 2014 to 2019.Antibacterial susceptibility testing was done by disk diffusion method, fulfilling the standard criteria of "Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility". Results: Out of 101 isolates, the identified gram-negative bacteria were E. coli (68.3%), Klebsiella (6.9%), Enterobacter (6.9%), Pseudomonas (5%), Proteus (1%), and Acinetobacter (1%).  Of gram-positive strains, Coagulase-positive Staphylococci (5.9%), coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CONS) (3%) and Non-Hemolytic Streptococci (2%) were identified. Also, the frequency of urinary tract stones was about 5%. Four cases of kidney stones were associated with E. coli and one case with Klebsiella. All isolates had the highest resistance to co-trimoxazole (62.5%), Ampicillin and Nalidixic acid. Conclusion: In this study, no association was found between the type of bacteria and urinary stone. From the variable bacteria isolated, the highest rate of E. coli (as an important pathogen) was confirmed.  Also, most of the bacterial isolates were resistant to multiple antibiotics, although Amikacin and nitrofurantoin (as the empirical therapy in our hospital) were dominated.


Abstract The ITER environment imposes many challenges for the various diagnostic systems. At the one hand diagnostic functionalities are required that go well beyond those at present devices. This is because there is a need to actively control (the profiles of) multiple plasma parameters, implying that measurement systems should be accurate and reliable. At the other hand the application of diagnostics at ITER is strongly hampered by constraints arising from the relatively harsh environmental conditions that give rise to phenomena that are new to the diagnostic designs. The nuclear environment puts stringent demands on the engineering and robustness of diagnostics, while the long pulse lengths require high stability of all systems. This paper will present an overview of the diagnostics for ITER with an additional glance in the further future.


Gastrulation in the amphibian embryo is driven by cells of the mesoderm. One of the genes that confers mesodermal identity in Xenopus is Brachyury (Xbra), which is required for normal gastrulation movements and ultimately for posterior mesoderm and notochord differentiation in the development of all vertebrates. Xbra is a transcription activator, and interference with transcription activation leads to an inhibition of morphogenetic movements during gastrulation. To understand this process, we have screened for downstream target genes of Brachyury (Tada, M., Casey, E., Fairclough, L. and Smith, J. C. (1998) Development 125, 3997-4006). This approach has now allowed us to isolate Xwnt11, whose expression pattern is almost identical to that of Xbra at gastrula and early neurula stages. Activation of Xwnt11 is induced in an immediate-early fashion by Xbra and its expression in vivo is abolished by a dominant-interfering form of Xbra, Xbra-En(R). Overexpression of a dominant-negative form of Xwnt11, like overexpression of Xbra-En(R), inhibits convergent extension movements. This inhibition can be rescued by Dsh, a component of the Wnt signalling pathway and also by a truncated form of Dsh which cannot signal through the canonical Wnt pathway involving GSK-3 and (beta)-catenin. Together, our results suggest that the regulation of morphogenetic movements by Xwnt11 occurs through a pathway similar to that involved in planar polarity signalling in Drosophila.


The work of Nobel Laureates Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer has centered around the use of randomized control trials to help solve development problems. To date, however, few field experiments have been undertaken to evaluate the effects of humanitarian assistance. The reasons may lie in challenges related to logistics, fragility, security and ethics that often loom large in humanitarian settings. Yet every year, billions of dollars are spent on humanitarian aid, and policymakers are in need of rigorous evidence. In this paper, we reflect on the opportunities and risks of running experiments in humanitarian settings, and provide, as illustration, insights from our experiences with recent field experiments of large-scale humanitarian aid programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo.


This paper presents the production of xylooligosaccharides from auto-hydrolysis liquors of wheat straw and sunflower stalk, as wells as the antioxidant activity of these autohydrolysis liquors. The autohydrolysis liquors (raw or refined by ultrafiltration) of both wastes were subjected to the action of two different endoxylanase to produce xylooligosaccharides with low degree of polymerization that are potentially useful as food additives. Trichoderma reseei xylanase led to the highest proportion of oligomers with degree of polymerization values in the range 1–3, while Aspergillus niger xylanase gave mainly oligomers with polymerization degree in the range 2-3. T reseei xylanase gave a higher increase in equivalent xylose concentration and produced more monosaccharide than A.niger xylanase. Membranes with a nominal MWCO 1 kDa did not reject antioxidant-related and other low molar mass compounds, and most of these compounds were recovered with monosaccharides in the permeate of the membrane.


Background Weight loss is common in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and it could be a marker of impending AD in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and improve prognostic accuracy, if accelerated progression to AD would be shown. Aims To assess weight loss as a predictor of dementia and AD in MCI. Methods One hundred twenty-five subjects with MCI (age 73.8 ± 7.1 years) were followed for an average of 4 years. Two weight measurements were carried out at a minimum time interval of one year. Dementia was defined according to DSM-IV criteria and AD according to NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. Weight loss was defined as a ≥4% decrease in baseline weight. Results Fifty-three (42.4%) MCI progressed to dementia, which was of the AD-type in half of the cases. Weight loss was associated with a 3.4-fold increased risk of dementia (95% CI = 1.5–6.9) and a 3.2-fold increased risk of AD (95% CI = 1.4–8.3). In terms of years lived without disease, weight loss was associated to a 2.3 and 2.5 years earlier onset of dementia and AD. Conclusions Accelerated progression towards dementia and AD is expected when weight loss is observed in MCI patients. Weight should be closely monitored in elderly with mild cognitive impairment.


Objective: to determine whether prolactin levels are independently associated with disease damage in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Methods: these cross-sectional analyses were conducted in SLE patient members of the Almenara Lupus Cohort who were seen between January 2012 and June 2013. Disease damage was ascertained with the System Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology (SLICC/ACR) damage index (SDI). Prolactin was measured in ng/ml. The association between prolactin levels and the SDI (total and its domains) was evaluated using Spearman's correlation. Subsequently, adjusted Poisson regression models were performed to evaluate these associations. Results: 160 patients were included. 147 (91.9%) were female; their median age at diagnosis was 33.4 (interquartile range (IQR): 26.0–44.3) years; their disease duration was 5.5 (IQR: 2.6–9.7) years. The median prolactin value was 16.8 (IQR: 11.8–24.5) ng/ml. After adjusting for confounders in the Poisson regression model the estimated rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for each 10 ng/ml increment of prolactin were 1.13 (95% CI 1.60–1.20, p < 0.001) for the total SDI score, 1.15 (1.03–1.28, p = 0.003) for the renal domain and 1.41 (1.11–1.79, p = 0.003) for the cardiac/peripheral vascular domains. Conclusions: there was a positive association between prolactin levels and the SDI (overall and its renal and cardiac/peripheral vascular domains), independently of other well-known risk factors.


Although there is a growing body of research on inferential sentences (Declerck 1992, Delahunty 1990, 1995, 2001, Koops 2007, Pusch 2006), most of this research has been on their forms and functions in written discourse. This has left a gap with regards to their range of structural properties and allowed disagreement over their analysis to linger without a conclusive resolution. Most accounts regard the inferential as a type of it-cleft (Declerck 1992, Delahunty 2001, Huddleston and Pullum 2002, Lambrecht 2001), while a few view it as an instance of extraposition (Collins 1991, Schmid 2009). More recently, Pusch's work in Romance languages proposes the inferential is used as a discourse marker (2006, forthcoming). Based on a corpus study of examples from spoken New Zealand English, the current paper provides a detailed analysis of the formal and discoursal properties of several sub-types of inferentials (positive, negative, as if and like inferentials). We show that despite their apparent formal differences from the prototypical cleft, inferentials are nevertheless best analysed as a type of cleft, though this requires a minor reinterpretation of "cleft construction." We show how similar the contextualized interpretations of clefts and inferentials are and how these are a function of their lexis and syntax.


Eutectic mixtures of the monohydrated form of p-toluenesulfonic acid (pTsOH·H2O) and triethyl phosphate (TEP) in a 1 : 1 molar ratio were used as the medium to disperse previously functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and to catalyse the polycondensation of furfuryl alcohol. Hierarchically structured P-doped carbon–CNT composites were obtained after carbonization. The high surface area, the phosphate functionalization, the hierarchical structure and the good electrical conductivity exhibited by these composites provided remarkable metrics when they were used as electrodes in a supercapacitor cell, with energy densities of around 22.6 W h kg−1 and power densities of up to 10 kW kg−1 for operational voltages of up to 1.5 V. This performance surpasses any performance previously reported for electrodes weighing (at least) 10 mg per cm2 of current collector and using an aqueous electrolyte. Actually, the supercapacitor cell built up with these electrodes provided enough neat energy to turn an IR LED of 30 mW on and emit light over a certain period.


This paper is concerned with the decision-making processes surrounding the adoption of packaged software in organizations. We begin by looking at its increasing utilization and consider some of the strengths and limitations of employing a standardized approach, particularly in relation to its consideration of end-user requirements. We note the highly problematic nature of installing a global standardized product in the local environment. Using a field study concerning the adoption of a customer relationship management package in a small organization, we go on to illustrate the limited amount of end-user involvement in the selection and procurement of the product. We argue that the art of salesmanship by the third party vendor and project team, which focuses on the interests of senior management, ultimately secures the selection and procurement of the software package.


A development is an effort to gain the more and the better life. There are 4 indicators in gaining the development they are economic change, human resources, social inhibition and the high of life needed. A development in the development country likes Indonesia, generally more consider the development of economic sector in the hope of much progressed in production of job vacancy.There are two kinds of economic activities, they are from formal sector and informal one. Formal sector is a sector of educated people inside. The purpose of this study is to the income of the traders from food and beverage enterprises informal sector in Kecamatan Tampan City Pekanbaru and know the problems that are usually faced by food and beverage vendors informal sector businesses. This research method using purposive sampling effort sample size of 30 food and beverage businesses. Results showed revenue traders of food and beverage business is large enough to meet the needs of life and their families, while the problems faced by the traders capital, location and problems of knowledge management is still lacking. Keywords : Informal Sector, Income, Merchant Problems


Iceland was badly hit by a fundamental mismatch between the assets and international liabilities of her banking system, with severe consequences for the welfare of the population. The country now has an International Monetary Fund programme. The paper asks three questions of the programme: Is it too tight? Is the balance of payment's target appropriate? How will the country cope with the potentially huge transfer problem associated with the now frozen external liabilities of the failed Icelandic banks? The paper notes several problems, and argues that an appropriately structured and expanded fiscal policy is needed, together with burden sharing between Iceland and the international community.


Executive function and play skills develop in early childhood and are linked to cognitive and language ability. The present study examined these abilities longitudinally in two groups with autism spectrum disorder—a group with higher initial language (n = 30) and a group with lower initial language ability (n = 36). Among the lower language group, concurrent nonverbal cognitive ability contributed most to individual differences in executive function and play skills. For the higher language group, executive function during preschool significantly predicted play ability at age 6 over and above intelligence, but early play did not predict later executive function. These results suggested that factors related to the development of play and executive function differ for subgroups of children with different language abilities and that early executive function skills may be critical in order for verbal children with autism to develop play. Autism Res 2016, 9: 1274–1284. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


We develop a method to enable collaborative modelling of gravitational lenses and lens candidates, that could be used by non-professional lens enthusiasts. It uses an existing free-form modelling program (glass), but enables the input to this code to be provided in a novel way, via a user-generated diagram that is essentially a sketch of an arrival-time surface. We report on an implementation of this method, SpaghettiLens, which has been tested in a modelling challenge using 29 simulated lenses drawn from a larger set created for the Space Warps citizen science strong lens search. We find that volunteers from this online community asserted the image parities and time ordering consistently in some lenses, but made errors in other lenses depending on the image morphology. While errors in image parity and time ordering lead to large errors in the mass distribution, the enclosed mass was found to be more robust: the model-derived Einstein radii found by the volunteers were consistent with those produced by one of the professional team, suggesting that given the appropriate tools, gravitational lens modelling is a data analysis activity that can be crowd-sourced to good effect. Ideas for improvement are discussed, these include (a) overcoming the tendency of the models to be shallower than the correct answer in test cases, leading to systematic overestimation of the Einstein radius by 10 per cent at present, and (b) detailed modelling of arcs.


The move to the NZ IFRS has been surrounded by complaints of too much information being provided. This is not simply a matter of the cost of providing the information, but the possibility of data overload. Data overload is an important issue as it impacts information search strategies and decision outcomes. This is relevant for assessing whether the NZ IFRS has achieved its goals of reducing the cost of financial analysis. This paper develops a model of information processing capacity and then examines the impact of the move to international financial reporting by New Zealand listed entities on the quantity of data provided in their annual reports. Our analysis shows that the annual report length increased for 92% of our sample firms. The average increase in size was 29% above the prior years' annual report and arose through notes to the accounts and accounting policies. Even after transitional information (e.g. accounting policies and reconciliations) the increase was 15%.


Abstract. To study the seasonal transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) distributions, sedimentation and its impacts on carbon cycle in north Chinese seas, a total of total 56 stations TEP samples and its sinking rate measurements by SETCOL method via water sampling cruise during autumn (2014), summer (2015) and winter (2015) in the Bohai Sea (BS), North Yellow Sea (NYS) and South Yellow Sea (SYS) at three different depths were carried out. Temperature, phytoplankton, chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and salinity with five nutrients, phosphate (DIP), silicate (DSi), dissolved inorganic nitrate (DIN) (including nitrite, nitrate and ammonium) were also collected and measured for correlation analysis to visualize the seasonal effects on TEP concentrations (CTEP) and its sinking. Average of total CTEP (2.13 μg Xeq L−1) was higher in NYS (3.32 μg Xeq L−1) costal currents with highest average CTEP during winter (6.17 μg Xeq L−1) specially in NYS (7.00 μg Xeq L−1) through coastal current mixing zone. Average of total sinking rates (1.03 mD−1) was higher in SYS (1.09 mD−1) through mid-water layer than other seas, especially in autumn (1.13 mD−1) with higher seasonal average sinking rates at summer (1.04 mD−1). Carbon associated with TEP (TEP-C) was averagely distributed (1.47 μg C L−1) at subsurface layer of study areas. Seasonal highest distribution of TEP-C was 4.44 μg C L−1 during winter, mostly in NYS. Dominant phytoplankton species Paralia sulcata, Thalassisira excentrica and Rhizosolenia styliformis maintained average correspondences with CTEP which may indicate the influences of them on TEP concentration. Congregating oceanic stations in other groups, coastal stations were averagely clustered together in multivariate analysis. Average canonical correspondence analysis showed close relation of CTEP with Chl-a during autumn and with nutrient during winter.


Hate content in social media is ever increasing. While Facebook, Twitter, Google have attempted to take several steps to tackle the hateful content, they have mostly been unsuccessful. Counterspeech is seen as an effective way of tackling the online hate without any harm to the freedom of speech. Thus, an alternative strategy for these platforms could be to promote counterspeech as a defense against hate content. However, in order to have a successful promotion of such counterspeech, one has to have a deep understanding of its dynamics in the online world. Lack of carefully curated data largely inhibits such understanding. In this paper, we create and release the first ever dataset for counterspeech using comments from YouTube. The data contains 13,924 manually annotated comments where the labels indicate whether a comment is a counterspeech or not. This data allows us to perform a rigorous measurement study characterizing the linguistic structure of counterspeech for the first time. This analysis results in various interesting insights such as: the counterspeech comments receive much more likes as compared to the noncounterspeech comments, for certain communities majority of the non-counterspeech comments tend to be hate speech, the different types of counterspeech are not all equally effective and the language choice of users posting counterspeech is largely different from those posting non-counterspeech as revealed by a detailed psycholinguistic analysis. Finally, we build a set of machine learning models that are able to automatically detect counterspeech in YouTube videos with an F1-score of 0.71. We also build multilabel models that can detect different types of counterspeech in a comment with an F1-score of 0.60.


This paper presents an ecological perspective on meaning-making, conceptualised as developing
intentionality and exemplified with reference to three international TESOL settings. The paper
draws on philosophical and folk-psychological perspectives on intentionality, including Searle�€™s
(1983) distinction between intrinsic (individual) and derived (social) forms of intentionality and
Young, DePalma and Garrett�€™s (2002) modelling of intentional dynamics in educational settings.
The paper illustrates the analytical affordances of the perspective through sample analyses of
intentional dynamics found in three international TESOL settings. This includes: (i) young
learners�€™ interpretations of love and marriage in a joint writing task in a Norwegian primary L2
classroom, (ii) a Turkish teacher�€™s first experience of teaching English to young learners, and
(iii) the impact of the English as the global language phenomenon on the teaching of English to
young learners in South Korea. The paper concludes that explorations of intentional dynamics on
different levels of language education activities can enhance our ecological understanding of the
cognitive, social and political dimensions of TESOL.


Hypothesis testing and other statistical inference procedures are most efficient when a reliable low-dimensional parametric family can be specified. We propose a method that learns such a family when one exists but its form is not known a priori, by examining samples from related populations and fitting a low-dimensional exponential family that approximates all the samples as well as possible. We propose a computationally efficient spectral method that allows us to carry out hypothesis tests that are valid whether or not the fit is good, and recover asymptotically optimal power if it is. Our method is computationally efficient and can produce substantial power gains in simulation and real-world A/B testing data.


This exploratory study set out to investigate how a group of children, who were identified as underachieving in school, constructed understandings of themselves as learners inside and outside school. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and image-based methods with the children. Interviews were also conducted with their parents and teachers. Findings of this study highlight the centrality of the children's relational world and the richness of their learning experiences and capacity for learning outside school. Significant differences were evident in their descriptions of learning processes inside the classroom and outside the formal school setting. Outside school learning experiences, both structured and less formalised were perceived by the children as being more active, collaborative and challenging. Knowledge and understanding in these contexts seemed to be located within the children. In contrast, learning inside school was characterised by dependence on the teacher. Knowledge and understanding in this context appeared to be located within the teacher.


BACKGROUND: Minimally invasive office - based treatments for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are challenging the traditional surgical and medical management options for symptomatic BPH. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of transurethral microwave therapy (TUMT) on spontaneous voiding, maximum flow rate and residual urine volume in patients with otherwise poor general health and BPH. METHODS: Thirty (30) patients with associated comorbid diseases and retention of urine (acute and chronic) due to BPH were subjected for TUMT as an outpatient procedure, from January 2002 to November 2003. Follow up was performed 10 days post TUMT, and then monthly until 3 months clinically and by assessing, spontaneous voiding, maximal flow rate and residual urine volume. RESULTS: Out of 30 treated patients, 5 were able to void spontaneously (without catheter) at the end of 12 weeks following TUMT. There was a little improvement of maximum urinary flow rate and residual urine volume at the end of the same period. CONCLUSION: TUMT is an alternative choice for the treatment of patients with BPH and chronic medical illnesses or those refusing surgery. However low energy protocol TUMT is not an effective treatment mode for patients with urinary retention due to BPH.


This study explores strategies for building sustainable and competitive organizations with the University of Zululand (UZ) as a case of the study. The problem of the study is uncovering reason/s why the UZ has not developed into a sustainable and a competitive organization. In order to solve the identified problem, two activities were undertaken. These are a review of theory on building sustainable and competitive organizations and collection and analysis of data about the UZ. Systems thinking theory a discipline of a learning organization was used as a framework of the study. Systems thinking theory was used because conventional approaches to organizational development have not been able to offer lasting solutions to the problems that affect sustainability of organizations. Extensive reference was made to the work of Senge (1990, 1994, and 1999). Works of other scholars on this subject were widely consulted. According to Senge (1990) the most successful organizations are what he calls learning organizations. Learning organizations are distinguished by the following disciplines, viz., systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning. In as far as data is concerned, three sets of data were collected and analyzed, namely, in depth-one-on one interviews were conducted with people that are knowledgeable about the UZ; and with representatives of business of the city of Umhlathuze to find out how they view the UZ; and a survey was done to determine attitudes of employees of the UZ towards the institution. The analysis of data showed that the UZ did not meet the criteria of a learning organization, that helped to explain why this institution has not developed into a sustainable and a competitive organization. The study recommended that this institution adopt a living systems framework and thus becomes a learning organization, because it is only by becoming a learning organization that the UZ will be sustainable and competitive.


Hydrologists are often asked what kind of monitoring network can most effectively support science-based waterresources management decisions. Currently (2011), hydrologic monitoring locations often are selected by addressing observation gaps in the existing network or non-science issues such as site access. A model might then be calibrated to available data and applied to a prediction of interest (regardless of how well-suited that model is for the prediction). However, modeling tools are available that can inform which locations and types of data provide the most "bang for the buck" for a specified prediction. Put another way, the hydrologist can determine which observation data most reduce the model uncertainty around a specified prediction. An advantage of such an approach is the maximization of limited monitoring resources because it focuses on the difference in prediction uncertainty with or without additional collection of field data. Data worth can be calculated either through the addition of new data or subtraction of existing information by reducing monitoring efforts (Beven, 1993). The latter generally is not widely requested as there is explicit recognition that the worth calculated is fundamentally dependent on the prediction specified. If a water manager needs a new prediction, the benefits of reducing the scope of a monitoring effort, based on an old prediction, may be erased by the loss of information important for the new prediction. This fact sheet focuses on the worth or value of new data collection by quantifying the reduction in prediction uncertainty achieved be adding a monitoring observation. This calculation of worth can be performed for multiple potential locations (and types) of observations, which then can be ranked for their effectiveness for reducing uncertainty around the specified prediction. This is implemented using a Bayesian approach with the PREDUNC utility in the parameter estimation software suite PEST (Doherty, 2010). The techniques briefly described earlier are described in detail in a U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report available on the Internet (Fienen and others, 2010; http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2010/5159/). This fact sheet presents a synopsis of the techniques as applied to a synthetic model based on a model constructed using properties from the Lake Michigan Basin (Hoard, 2010).


Multivariable DIGE/MS was used to investigate proteins altered in expression and/or post-translational modification in response to activation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β receptors in MCF10A mammary epithelial cells overexpressing the HER2/Neu (ErbB2) oncogene. Proteome changes were monitored in response to exogenous TGF-β over time (0, 8, 24, and 40 h), and proteins were resolved using medium range (pH 4–7) and narrow range (pH 5.3–6.5) isoelectric focusing combined with up to 2 mg of protein to allow inspection of lower abundance proteins. Triplicate samples were prepared independently and analyzed together across multiple DIGE gels using a pooled sample internal standard to quantify expression changes with statistical confidence. Unsupervised principle component analysis and hierarchical clustering of the individual DIGE proteome expression maps provided independent confirmation of distinct expression patterns from the individual experiments and demonstrated high reproducibility between replicate samples. Fifty-nine proteins (including some isoforms) that exhibited significant kinetic expression changes were identified using mass spectrometry and database interrogation and were mapped to existing biological networks involved in TGF-β signaling. Several proteins with a potential role in breast cancer, such as maspin and cathepsin D, were identified as novel molecules associated with TGF-β signaling.


Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is being encouraged as part of a major overhaul of the entire school languages curriculum in New Zealand. However, teachers often struggle with understanding what TBLT is, and how to make TBLT work in classrooms. Using the stories that emerged from a series of interviews with teachers (the curriculum implementers) and with advisors (the curriculum leaders), this book highlights the possibilities for TBLT innovation in schools. It also identifies the constraints, and proposes how these might be addressed. The result is a book that, whilst rooted in a particular local context, provides a valuable sourcebook of teacher stories that have relevance for a wide range of people working in a diverse range of contexts. This book will be of genuine interest to all those who wish to understand more about TBLT innovation, and the opportunities and challenges it brings.


The purpose of this research was to study exemplars of wisdom through a structured, theoretically grounded peer-nomination process. Twenty exemplars were given a variety of quantitative measures that included the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), Spiritual Perspective Scale (SPS), Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), Loyola Generativity Scale (LGS), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), Narcissistic Personality Inventory-16 (NPI-16), Humility Inventory (HI), Big Five Inventory (BFI), and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT). Exemplars also underwent lengthy semi-structured interviews to assess their lives, qualities, and understanding of wisdom. Interviews were analyzed for their significant themes. Results of this study suggest that exemplars of wisdom are humble, spiritual, mindful, insightful, tell the truth, and are open to experiences. They have meaningful, long-term relationships with mentors and loved ones. Exemplars are deeply influential in the lives of others and have very high life satisfaction. The 2 predominant definitions of wisdom given by exemplars were that wisdom is practical and comes from the unknown. Exemplars offered multiple strategies for the cultivation of wisdom-related processes, primarily the relationship with a mentor. Future research may clarify an emerging relationship between transcendent and practical wisdom.