This study sought to determine whether third line therapy with capecitabine (cap.) could provide any clinical benefit in patients with advanced colorectal cancer who have progressed on 5-Fu combination therapy with both irinotecan and oxaliplatin. Twenty patients who were pretreated with and had progressed on irinotecan+Nordic FLv (5-Fu/leukovorin) and oxaliplatin+c.i. 5-Fu/leukovorin were studied. Cap. was administered at 1000–1250 mg/m2 bid d1-14 q 3 w. Time to progression (TTP) (either radiological or clinical) and overall survival (OS) were estimated with the Kaplan-Meier actuarial method. The median number of administered cap. courses was four. No radiological or biochemical responses were observed. Three patients were classified as having stable disease at three months. Two of these patients had, however, minor radiological progression and a ≥100% increase in CEA compared to base line. Seventeen patients were classified as having progressive disease during the first three months period. Median TTP and OS were 2.8 months and 6.1 months, respectively. A response rate of ≥15% for third line cap. in metastatic CRC can be ruled out. Median PFS was limited in the study population. This observation and the few cases with SD at three months, lead us to believe that little or no clinical benefit can be expected from single drug cap. in patients with irinotecan- and oxaliplatin-combination resistant advanced colorectal cancer.


Introduction : As in any developing countries state of West Bengal in India has a huge burden of cancer patients in advanced stage coming from rural area where awareness regarding the usefulness of palliative care in rather poor. Objective : Our goal is to give a pain free good quality of life in these advanced stage cancer patients. Objective of this study is to identify the main difficulties in achieving the above goal in a rural village setting in India. Method :  Advanced cancer patients in need of palliative care in various villages in of rural India were selected for this study. Their symptoms and managements in that rural surroundings were evaluated by an NGO (under the guidance of a senior palliative care specialist) working in that area. An attempt was made to identify the main obstacles in getting proper palliative care in a rural setting. Results : Pain, fatigue are the main symptoms effecting these patients. In most patients pain and other symptoms control were grossly inadequate due to lack of properly trained manpower in the rural India. However regular homecare visits by a group of social workers were of immense help in the last few months of life. NGO team was well guided by a palliative care specialist. Conclusion : There is a wide gap of trained manpower in this filled in rural areas of India. Dedicated groups from rural area itself need encouragement and proper training, so that difficult symptoms can be managed locally along with necessary social and psychological support to these patients.


This paper presents a cost-effective rehabilitation system based on videogames and multimodal recordings of physiological signals. The system targets patients with sensory-motor impairments resulting from lesions of the central nervous system (e.g., due to stroke or traumatic injuries). It relies on a wireless low-cost hybrid interface combining a consumer-level electroencephalographic (EEG) device and the Kinect sensor to record the motion capture information. Thus providing quantitative physiological measures to support medical evaluations and improve the personalization of health service. Furthermore, through the design of specialized videogames for rehabilitation, this approach aim at increasing the patient's motivation, potentially improving the service quality and the recovery process. The system is currently being used in a rehabilitation center in Colombia by patients with upper limb paralysis and balance disorders after stroke or traumaticuries. Initial results show significant improvements in the mobility of affected joints, improved adherence to treatments by patients, and high acceptability by therapists and end-users.


Abstract. In this paper, a FETI-DP formulation for the three dimensional elasticity problem on non-matching grids over a geometrically conforming subdomain partition is considered. To resolve the nonconformity of the finite elements, a mortar matching condition on the subdomain interfaces (faces) is imposed. By introducing Lagrange multipliers for the mortar matching constraints, the resulting linear system becomes similar to that of a FETI-DP method. In order to make the FETIDP method efficient for solving this linear system, a relatively large set of primal constraints, which include average and momentum constraints over interfaces (faces) as well as vertex constraints, is introduced. A condition number bound C(1 + log(H/h)) for the FETI-DP formulation with a Neumann-Dirichlet preconditioner is then proved for the elasticity problems with discontinuous material parameters when only some faces are chosen as primal faces on which the average and momentum constraints will be imposed. An algorithm which selects a quite small number of primal faces is also discussed.


Prior to the subprime-initiated financial crisis, there was a trend within the alternative investment industry towards the convergence of certain private equity and hedge fund strategies and structures. This brief article suggests that although the financial crisis will slow the process of convergence, the trend toward convergence will ultimately continue and strengthen, albeit in some ways along a different trajectory than before the crisis and with some important variations across national boundaries.


Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah tells the chronological story of the modern pop era, from its beginnings in the fifties with the dawn of the charts, vinyl, and the music press, to pop's digital switchover in the year 2000, from Rock Around the Clock to Crazy In Love. It was more than just music - it could be your whole life. Yeah Yeah Yeah covers the birth of rock, soul, punk, disco, hip hop, indie, house and techno. It also includes the rise and fall of the home stereo, Top Of The Pops, Smash Hits and "this week's highest new entry". Yeah Yeah Yeah is the first book to look back at the entire era: what we gained, what we lost, and the foundations we laid for future generations. There have been many books on pop but none have attempted to bring the whole story to life, from Billy Fury and Roxy Music to TLC and Britney via Led Zeppelin and Donna Summer. Audacious and addictive, Yeah Yeah Yeah is essential reading for all music lovers. It will remind you why you fell in love with pop music in the first place.


Intra-cardiac catheterization is an effective procedure for diagnosis and treatment of many cardiac disorders such as arrhythmia. The objective of the catheter manipulation is to accurately position the catheter tip at the target tissue on the endocardium and provide a stable contact force for a specific duration to the region of interest. However, this is a challenging task due to the high flexibility of the catheter, ineffective visualization and dynamic environment of the heart. Additionally, the catheter-tissue interaction force, that the procedure outcome highly depends on, is not known to the interventionalist during the catheterization.

This thesis deals with improving the safety and effectiveness of the catheterization by making contributions to two main areas; catheter contact force estimation and automatic force/position control of a robotic catheter system. First, a quasi-static model of the planar catheter that predicts the catheter pose for the given actuation variables and external forces in the plane of catheter motion, is proposed. In the next step, the computational efficiency of the proposed model is utilized to develop an online approach for the estimation of the external force at the tip of a catheter based on the pose measurement. The proposed force estimation approach is also extended to 3D by developing an efficient model of the catheter that is derived by coupling the classical Cosserat rod model with a new model of the pull-wire actuation. Experiments performed using electromagnetic sensors verify the feasibility of the proposed schemes in medical applications.

In the control area, a position control scheme for a robotic assisted manipulation system is proposed, using the experimentally obtained inverse kinematics that compensates for the non-smooth dynamics of the distal shaft bending mechanism. Compensation of the backlash behavior of the catheter due to its interaction with the surrounding veins is also incorporated in the control scheme. The proposed position controller is then adopted as the internal loop of a hybrid position/force controller that positions the catheter tip to the target tissue and simultaneously, regulates the contact force to a desired value. The viability of the proposed controllers is then
verified through simulations and experiments.


The world trade has been p olitically framed towards liberalism and "openness". It is evident that this openness has its own grades and interests that command it. Developing countries have been directed, and pushed towards a playing ground they fear and ignore. But some would argue that even developed countries have to go through such stages. The whole difference here is the gap between where the latter stood when they decided to move toward openness and where developing countries do stand today. A simple and obvious proof of that is the increasing number of regional trade agreements (RTAs in following papers for convenience) that most countries have adopted. If we agree that regional networking should serve coordinating interests, RTAs came to answer a multilateral dilemma: multilateral negotiations are asking different and diversified countries, economies and cultures, to melt into a single frame defined by the "Triade", the world powers. In this paper we will examine the regional trade in the context of world trade (part 1) and contrast regionalism and multilateralism. My conclusion that regional agreements hinder the progress of a fair and dynamic multilateral governance and reduce its institutional progress.


Abstract. The net rate of freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean has been calculated in the past by two methods: directly, as the sum of precipitation, evaporation and runoff, an approach hindered by sparsity of measurements, and by the ice and ocean budget method, where the net surface freshwater flux within a defined boundary is calculated from the rate of dilution of salinity, comparing ocean inflows with ice and ocean outflows. Here a third method is introduced, the geochemical method, as a modification of the budget method. A standard approach uses geochemical tracers (salinity, oxygen isotopes, inorganic nutrients) to compute "source fractions" that quantify a water parcel's constituent proportions of seawater, freshwater of meteoric origin, and either sea ice melt or brine (from the freezing-out of sea ice). The geochemical method combines the source fractions with the boundary velocity field of the budget method to quantify the net flux derived from each source. Here it is shown that the geochemical method generates an Arctic Ocean surface freshwater flux, which is also the meteoric source flux, of 200±44 mSv (1 Sv=106 m3 s−1), statistically indistinguishable from the budget method's 187±44 mSv, so that two different approaches to surface freshwater flux calculation are reconciled. The freshwater export rate of sea ice (40±14 mSv) is similar to the brine export flux, due to the "freshwater deficit" left by the freezing-out of sea ice (60±50 mSv). Inorganic nutrients are used to define Atlantic and Pacific seawater categories, and the results show significant non-conservation, whereby Atlantic seawater is effectively "converted" into Pacific seawater. This is hypothesized to be a consequence of denitrification within the Arctic Ocean, a process likely becoming more important with seasonal sea ice retreat. While inorganic nutrients may now be delivering ambiguous results on seawater origins, they may prove useful to quantify the Arctic Ocean's net denitrification rate. End point degeneracy is also discussed: multiple property definitions that lie along the same "mixing line" generate confused results.


This study determined the lutein level in various green leafy vegetables (GLVs) and the influence of olive and sunflower oils on the postprandial plasma and eye response of dietary lutein in adult rats, previously induced with lutein depletion (LD). Fresh GLVs (n = 35) were assessed for lutein (L) and its isomer zeaxanthin (Z) levels by high-performance liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Among GLVs analyzed, Commelina benghalensis L. contained a higher level of L + Z (183 mg/100 g dry wt) and was used as a lutein source for feeding studies. Rats with LD were fed a diet containing powdered C. benghalensis (2.69 mg lutein/kg diet) with either olive oil (OO group), sunflower oil (SFO group), or groundnut oil (GNO group) for 16 days. The L + Z levels of the OO group were markedly (p > 0.05) higher than those of SFO and GNO groups, in plasma (37.6 and 40.9%) and eyes (22.7 and 30.8%), respectively. These results suggest that oleic acid or OO can be used as a suitable fat source to modulate the absorption of dietary lutein to manage age-related macular degeneration.


Over the last several decades a number of economists, particularly in North America, have questioned the extent of government regulation and intervention in many economic sectors, claiming that the government often has gone far beyond what is necessary to protect the public and in the process seriously impaired efficiency. These concerns have actually stimulated significant reforms in certain countries, as the recent deregulation of the airline and banking industries in the United States illustrates.

In this study, Stephen Dresch moves further down this path by arguing that the government should leave to the private sector the stockpiling of strategic materials needed in the event of war. He contends that the private sector will be more efficient at this activity, and more likely to accumulate the optimal level of stacks. In addition, he suggests that reliance on private stockpiling may actually reduce the likelihood of war. These conclusions, as the analysis makes clear, depend on a number of assumptions, whose validity many will want to question. But then, the purpose of a working paper is to stimulate discussion and debate, and thereby help the author and others understand their differences and clarify their own thinking.


Traditional graphic design tools emphasize the grid for structuring layout. Interviews with professional graphic designers revealed that they use surprisingly sophisticated structures that go beyond the grid, which we call graphical substrates. We present a framework to describe how designers establish graphical substrates based on properties extracted from concepts, content and context, and use them to compose layouts in both space and time. We developed two technology probes to explore how to embed graphical substrates into tools. Contextify lets designers tailor layouts according to each reader's intention and context; while Linkify lets designers create dynamic layouts based on relationships among content properties. We tested the probes with professional graphic designers, who all identified novel uses in their current projects. We incorporated their suggestions into StyleBlocks, a prototype that reifies CSS declarations into interactive graphical substrates. Graphical substrates offer an untapped design space for tools that can help graphic designers generate personal layout structures.


Meteorites potentially record the magnetic fields present during the nascent formation of the early solar system. However, the interpretation of the magnetic records contained within them is complicated by a myriad of variables including poorly understood magnetic minerals and events occurring after the lock-in of the original magnetization such as shock, decompression and low-temperature cycling from space to the Earth's surface. This dissertation attempts to place constraints on how some of these factors influence paleomagnetic recording in meteorites. Through the development of a pressure cell, we show that even low pressures (< 2 GPa) will lower the remanent magnetization intensity in rocks. The magnetic field strength determined from shocked or decompressed material can be appreciably underestimated and should only be taken as a lower limit. Monoclinic pyrrhotite is is commonly found in certain achondritic meteorites, especially those from Mars. Monoclinic pyrrhotite undergoes a magnetic phase transition at ca. 30 K, called the Besnus transition, whose mechanism is poorly understood and highly debated. We provide evidence that this magnetic phase transition is due to a crystallographic reorientation in symmetry. Furthermore, our experiments show that low temperature cycling from their thermal equilibrium temperature in space to ambient surface temperatures on Earth will not significantly alter the paleointensity value recorded in pyrrhotite-bearing meteorites. The most common magnetic mineral in meteorites are body centered cubic iron-nickel alloys; however, the magnetic properties of these alloys as a function of grain size is virtually unknown. As grain size bears drastically on the ability to carry and retain magnetic remanence, filling this gap in our knowledge is crucial to properly interpret the paleomagnetic recording of FeNi alloys that are so ubiquitous in nature. For this reason, we initiated a research program to synthesize FeNi alloys with well constrained compositions and grain size distributions through mechanical alloying. Mechanically alloyed powders show similar magnetic properties to published results on metal bearing meteorites, but the size threshold for stable single domain particles-- the domain state essential for paleomagnetism-- was never identified. Finally, the design, building and implementation of a unique paleomagnetic thermal demagnetizing oven is presented.


Plasma edge turbulence plays a fundamental role in determining the performance of fusion devices. In the Scrape-Off-Layer (SOL), the plasma dynamics is the result of the interplay between the plasma outflow from the core, perpendicular transport and parallel losses at the limiter, with the high collisionality that makes possible the use of a fluid model. This work presents Scrape-Off-Layer 3D global fluid simulations using the GBS code [1], that evolves the drift-reduced Braginskii equations [2] for a collisional plasma with cold ions in open field-line geometry. Originally written using the s-α geometry, the code is now extended to a circular geometry model that retains aspect ratio effects. The basic electrostatic and electromagnetic instabilities, such as Ballooning Modes and Drift Waves, are investigated. By looking at the aspect ratio dependence of the various operators, the effects of the geometry are identified. Then, nonlinear simulations are carried out. First, some convergences studies are presented and the steady state is discussed. Second, basic characteristic of turbulence in the presence of finite aspect ratio effects are illustrated and compared with simulations where those terms are neglected. Finally, the various features of the model, such as electromagnetic perturbations, magnetic shear and self-consistent boundary conditions are discussed.


A large literature has documented a significant increase in the return to college over the past 30 years. This increase is typically measured using nominal wages. I show that from 1980 to 2000, college graduates have increasingly concentrated in metropolitan areas that are characterized by a high cost of housing. This implies that college graduates are increasingly exposed to a high cost of living and that the relative increase in their real wage may be smaller than the relative increase in their nominal wage. To measure the college premium in real terms, I deflate nominal wages using a new CPI that allows for changes in the cost of housing to vary across metropolitan areas and education groups. I find that half of the documented increase in the return to college between 1980 and 2000 disappears when I use real wages. This finding does not appear to be driven by differences in housing quality and is robust to a number of alternative specifications. The implications of this finding for changes in well-being inequality depend on why college graduates sort into expensive cities. Using a simple general equilibrium model, I consider two alternative explanations. First, it is possible that the relative supply of college graduates increases in expensive cities because college graduates are increasingly attracted by amenities located in those cities. In this case, higher cost of housing reflects consumption of desirable local amenities, and there may still be a significant increase in well-being inequality even if the increase in real wage inequality is limited. Alternatively, it is possible that the relative demand of college graduates increases in expensive cities due to shifts in the relative productivity of skilled labor. In this case, the relative increase in skilled workers' standard of living is offset by higher cost of living. The empirical evidence indicates that relative demand shifts are more important than relative supply shifts, suggesting that the increase in well-being inequality between 1980 and 2000 is smaller than the increase in nominal wage inequality.


Neonatologists often feel helpless in the management of procedural pain. While we acknowledge that our patients are more frequently and chronically exposed to tissue damaging procedures than any other hospital population, and that they are more vulnerable both in the short and long term, it is not certain that we have any techniques that are proven to be effective. Although we have developed numerous guidelines1 2 they are not reliably applied in clinical practice.3

It is widely recognised that newborns undergoing intensive care are necessarily subjected to numerous painful procedures.4 Despite the availability of clinical guidelines the majority of painful procedures on neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are still carried out without any form of analgesia. Even outside the NICU term neonates are subjected to multiple procedures such as blood tests and insertion of nasogastric tubes. Surgical procedures such as circumcision, tendonotomy and division of tongue tie are routinely carried out without analgesia because they are 'quick'. The extra vulnerability of newborns to repeated noxious stimulation, arising from both their clinical instability and their developmental immaturity, makes this a situation that needs urgent solutions. This review will explore the options for managing procedural pain, and the limitations of the clinical evidence for their effectiveness.

### Controlling chronic pain

The newborn may experience both acute procedural pain and chronic pain. It is recognised in adults that uncontrolled chronic pain increases the intensity of additional acute painful experiences. Therefore the first step towards managing procedural pain is to minimise chronic pain, which may be due to intensive care support apparatus, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease or tissue damage. Although the evidence base for treating these conditions is weak, careful observation and developmental care should also be used to enhance comfort and stability.

### Reducing the number of painful procedures

Avoiding painful procedures is an obvious goal. For example, blood sampling can be …


The extent of the East German Ministry for State Security's involvement with militant left-wing terrorist organizations that operated in West Germany remains one of the most contentious issues with respect to the legacy of left-wing terrorism in Germany. Fueled by new archival evidence and much speculation, the topic has been the subject of many unfounded and sensationalist assertions. This article seeks to provide a chronological reassessment based on the current state of knowledge, and thus seeks to make a contribution to a growing literature on state involvement with terrorist groups. While the East German spy agency at times colluded with terrorist groups, the degree of support fluctuated considerably and there is no evidence that a state actor "created" the armed groups or "directed" their activities.


This research represents an investigation into user acceptance of computer systems. It starts with the premise that existing systems do not fully meet user requirements, and are therefore rejected as 'difficult to use'. Various problems and influences affecting user acceptance are identified, and improvements are suggested. Although a broad range of factors affecting user acceptance are discussed, emphasis is given to the impact of actual computer software.Initially, both general and specific user interface software influences are examined, and it is shown how these needs can be met using new software technology. A new Intelligent Interface architecture model is presented, and comparisons are made to existing interface design approaches.Secondly, the role of empirical work within the field of Human Computer Interaction is highlighted. An investigation into the usability and user. acceptance of a large working library database system is described, and the results discussed. The role of Systems Analysis and Design and its effect upon user acceptance is also explored. It is argued that despite improvements in interface technology and related software engineering techniques, a software application is also a product of the Systems Analysis and Design process. Traditional Systems Design approaches are examined, and suitable improvements suggested based upon experience with emerging separable software architectures.Thirdly, the research proceeds to examine the potential of Quantitative User Modelling, and describes the implementation of an example object oriented Quantitative User Model. This is then evaluated in order to determine new knowledge, concerning the major issues surrounding the potential application of user modelling to interface design.Finally, attention is given to the concept of interface and application separation. An object oriented User Interface Management System is presented, and its implementation in the Smalltalk 80 programming language discussed. The proposed User Interface Management System utilises a new software architecture which provides explicit user interface separation, using the concept of a Pluggable View Controller. It also incorporates an integrated design Tool-set for Direct Manipulation interfaces. The proposed User Interface Management System and software architecture represents the major contribution of this project to the growing body of Human Computer Interaction research. In particular, the importance of explicit interface separation is established, and the proposed software architecture is critically evaluated to determine new knowledge concerning the requirements, constraints, and potential of proper user interface separation. The implementation of an object oriented Part Hierarchy mechanism is also presented. This mechanism is related to the proposed User Interface Management System, and is critically evaluated in order to add to the body of knowledge concerning object oriented systems.


This paper revisits burst contention resolution problems in optical burst switching (OBS) networks from the viewpoint of network utility maximization. Burst collision occurs when two or more bursts access the same wavelength simultaneously, and the occurrence becomes more frequent as the offered load increases. In particular, when the network is overloaded, no contention resolution scheme would effectively avoid the collision without the help of congestion control. We formulate a joint optimization problem where two variables, the length and the time at which each burst is injected into the network, are jointly optimized in order to maximize aggregate utility while minimizing burst loss. A distributed algorithm is also developed, which explicitly reveals how burst contention resolution and congestion control must interact. The simulation results show that the joint control decouples throughput performance from burst loss performance so that burst loss ratio does not increase as network throughput increases. This is not the case in conventional contention resolution schemes where burst loss ratio increases as network throughput increases so that achievable network throughput is limited. Our work is the first attempt to the joint design of congestion and contention control and might lead to an interesting development in OBS research.


Land is a natural resource that is valued for many reasons. Farmers utilize land to earn their livelihood and as a store of wealth for future retirement. Potential rural residents have increasingly sought open space for a home site and pursuit of a lifestyle. Developers seek financial opportunities to invest in and develop it for non-farm uses. Recreational needs such as hunting are often met through use of land. For some, land is viewed as an investment and a hedge against inflation. This myriad of demands for land combined with its fixed supply continually alters its market price, which is a monetary measure of its perceived value.


The earthquake spatial distribution is being studied, using catalogs for different recent aftershock series. The quality of the available data, taking into account the completeness of the magnitude, is examined. Based on the analysis of the catalogs, it was determined that the probability densities of the inter-event distance distribution collapse into a single curve when the data were rescaled. The collapse of the data provides a clear illustration of aftershock-occurrence self-similarity in space.


Softmax GAN is a novel variant of Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). The key idea of Softmax GAN is to replace the classification loss in the original GAN with a softmax cross-entropy loss in the sample space of one single batch. In the adversarial learning of $N$ real training samples and $M$ generated samples, the target of discriminator training is to distribute all the probability mass to the real samples, each with probability $\frac{1}{M}$, and distribute zero probability to generated data. In the generator training phase, the target is to assign equal probability to all data points in the batch, each with probability $\frac{1}{M+N}$. While the original GAN is closely related to Noise Contrastive Estimation (NCE), we show that Softmax GAN is the Importance Sampling version of GAN. We futher demonstrate with experiments that this simple change stabilizes GAN training.


In a society characterised by high levels of consumption that result in high levels of debt, saving sufficiently for retirement represents a major challenge, especially in light of the steadily increasing cost of living and the cost associated with healthcare. Questions regarding the extent to which retirees have accumulated sufficient money during their working years to support them are being raised. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the behaviour of young adults in relation to retirement provision. A web-based survey was conducted in a single large organisation. The findings revealed that young adults tend to have a wide range of debt. Although they are aware that the funds accumulated in their retirement funds would not provide sufficient cover during retirement, they tend not to save over and above the minimum contribution to their employing organisation's retirement fund. Organisations should encourage young adults to reduce their debt and voluntarily save for retirement.


OBJECTIVE: To estimate the associations between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses and service use, caregiver time, and cost outcomes. METHODS: We used national data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey linked to the National Health Interview Survey and a study-specific survey to estimate the annual utilization and costs for health care, school, ASD-related therapy, family-coordinated services, as well as caregiver time in children aged 3 to 17 years, with and without parent-reported ASD. Regression analyses estimated the association between ASD diagnosis and cost, controlling for child gender, age, race/ethnicity, insurance status, household income, country region and urban/rural classification, and non–ASD-related illnesses. RESULTS: Children with parent-reported ASD had higher levels of health care office visits and prescription drug use compared with children without ASD (P < .05). A greater proportion of children in the ASD group used special educational services (76% vs 7% in the control group, P < .05). After adjusting for child demographic characteristics and non–ASD-associated illnesses, ASD was associated with $3020 (95% confidence interval [CI]: $1017–$4259) higher health care costs and $14 061 (95% CI: $4390–$24 302) higher aggregate non–health care costs, including $8610 (95% CI: $6595–$10 421) higher school costs. In adjusted analyses, parents who reported that their child had ASD did not have significantly higher out-of-pocket costs or spend more time on caregiving activities compared with control parents. CONCLUSIONS: The economic burden associated with ASD is substantial and can be measured across multiple sectors of our society. Previous analyses that focused on health care underestimated this economic burden, particularly for school systems.


INTRODUCTION
No data describing certified professional midwives (CPMs) currently exist in the literature, although CPMs attend the majority of home births in the United States. This study addresses this gap by assessing the demographics, education levels, routes to certification, and practice characteristics of currently practicing CPMs.

METHODS
Data were collected from a survey of CPMs conducted by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) between July and October 2011. In order to assess generalization to the entire population of practicing CPMs, we also completed a nonresponse bias analysis. We examined midwives' demographic, education, certification, and practice characteristics using descriptive and nonparametric, bivariable statistics.

RESULTS
More than 90% of the 568 respondents attended at least some college, and 47.1% hold a bachelor's degree or greater. CPMs spent a median of 3 years (interquartile range, 2-5 years) in training before attending births as a primary midwife. However, 38.9% of currently practicing CPMs had less than 3 years of training. Regarding pathways to certification, 48.5% utilized the portfolio evaluation process (PEP); 36.9% graduated from a Midwifery Education and Accreditation Council (MEAC)-accredited school; 14.5% were already licensed by a state as a direct-entry midwife; and 0.7% were already a certified nurse-midwife or certified midwife, although many CPMs reported a blended education pathway. One-fifth (21%) of respondents identified as midwives of color. Whereas nearly one-third (31.8%) of CPM respondents reported that 95% or more of their clients were white, 5.2% serve populations that are 90% or more nonwhite. CPMs of color are significantly more likely to serve clients of color (P < .001).

DISCUSSION
Training and nonmidwifery education levels of most CPMs practicing in the United States align with the Global Standards for Midwifery Education established by the International Confederation of Midwives, although there are still clear areas for improvement.


The development of alkali-activated binders with superior engineering properties and longer durability has emerged as an alternative to ordinary portland cement (OPC). It is possible to use alkali-activated natural pozzolans to prepare environmentally friendly geopolymer cement leading to the concept of sustainable development. This paper presents a summary of an experimental work that was conducted to determine mechanical strength, modulus of elasticity, ultrasonic pulse velocity, and shrinkage of different concrete mixtures prepared with alkali-activated Iranian natural pozzolans—namely Taftan andesite and Shahindej dacite, both with and without calcining. Test data were used for Taftan pozzolan to identify the effects of water-binder ratios (w/b) and curing conditions on the properties of the geopolymer concrete, whereas the influence of material composition was studied by activating Shahindej pozzolan both in the natural and calcined states. The results show that alkali-activated natural pozzolan (AANP) concretes develop moderate-to-high mechanical strength with a high modulus of elasticity and a shrinkage much lower than with OPC.


Patient: Female, 44 Final Diagnosis: Acral peeeling skin syndrome Symptoms: Recurrent skin exfoliation Medication: — Clinical Procedure: Skin biopsy Specialty: Dermatology Objective: Rare disease Background: Acral peeling skin syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder in which skin exfoliation is limited to the hands and feet. While it typically manifests from early childhood, in this first reported case from South Africa, the patient did not manifest clinically until the fourth decade of life. Case Report: A 44-year-old woman of African descent, 1 of a set of non-identical twins, presented with recurrent episodes of skin peeling of the upper and lower limbs. The first episode occurred 4 years prior, followed by perennial skin peeling during the spring seasons. She was not on treatment for any chronic disease and reported no exposure to chemicals or other irritants. The family, including the non-identical twin sister, has no history of skin disorders and the patient's HIV antibody test was negative. At presentation, physical examination revealed ongoing exfoliation with new skin formation on the palms and soles. The mucous membranes and nails were spared. Other systems were normal. Skin biopsy taken from the palms confirmed peeling skin syndrome. The patient was managed with topical aqueous cream and analgesics. She was briefly counseled on the nature and prognosis of the disease, and referred for genetic testing and counseling. On follow-up, she continues to have skin peeling once or twice a year. Conclusions: This first reported case of this rare disease in South Africa contributes to the growing body of literature on the disease and highlights the need for clinicians to be aware of its variable clinical onset.


Queuing theory is a major topic of applied mathematics that deals with phenomenon of waiting and arises from the use of powerful mathematical analysis to describe production processes. This study examines the use of production capacity of facilities in Fujitsu Components (M) Sdn. Bhd. based on queuing theory. The aim of this study is to achieve an appropriate queuing analytical model and determine its performance measures by analyzing the capacity requirements and estimating manufacturing cycle times. Field study has been conducted in several production departments in Fujitsu Components (M) and production data has been collected through selftiming, past collected data and recorded data approach. The production processes has been simplified into seven independent series of stations, which are Stamping, Riveting, Cutting, Bending, Packing and two Inspection stations. The capacity requirement has been determined by utilization factor where the benchmark equal to one. This study then represents the data in form of queuing analytical model to analyze the performance measures. The queuing analytical model later identified that all stations having enough capacity (uj <1) to achieved the production planned with slightly higher utilization occur in stamping and riveting stations. Several suggestions have been discussed in order to improve the performance measures. Results for this study clearly show that queuing theory is very useful and practical in evaluating the capacity requirement of the production system facilities.


The nature and theoretical underpinnings of ethics have been an intellectual driving force animating the pursuits of great scholars. In "The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals" (1785), Immanuel Kant, one of the most powerful philosophical minds of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, inquires into the true nature of morality. In rejecting the results or consequences of action as the foundation of moral judgements, he denies that good or bad effects have any relevance in the moral evaluation of human behaviour. Instead, we must rely upon the Good Will for guidance. What is this Will upon which so much emphasis is placed, and how does it act as the foundation for behaviour that can be assessed as truly moral? In this groundbreaking work, Kant outlines an ethical perspective that has been a vital force in the Western world.


Summary
 In 2010, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first indentured labourers from India brought across the Indian Ocean – the kala pani – on the SS Truro in 1860, was marked in a variety of ways by the descendants of those original pioneers. One of the many letters to the press during last year asked whether cultural organisations should be "celebrating" or "commemorating" this anniversary given the harsh conditions under which indentured labour was carried out. This article picks up on this point – to "celebrate" or "commemorate"? – by seeking to assess how the topic of indenture is handled in the local press and also in fictional works of selected contemporary South African writers of Indian descent; for example, Neelan Govender's Girrmit Tales (2008), Rubendra Govender's Sugar Cane Boy (2008), Aziz Hassim's Revenge of Kali (2009) among others. These titles are all recent additions to what could be called a South African plantation literature which is flourishing at present in local writing circles, given perhaps the 150th anniversary mentioned above, but also given a coming of age for South African Indian fiction post apartheid.


The Bradford chromatic adaptation transform, empirically derived by Lam, models illumination change. Specifically, it provides a means of mapping XYZs under a reference light source to XYZs for a target light source such that the corresponding XYZs produce the same perceived color. One implication of the Bradford chromatic adaptation transform is that color correction for illumination takes place not in cone space but rather in a 'narrowed' cone space. The Bradford sensors have their sensitivity more narrowly concentrated than the cones. However, Bradford sensors are not optimally narrow. Indeed, recent work has shown that it is possible to sharpen sensors to a much greater extent than Bradford. The focus of this paper is comparing the perceptual error between actual appearance and predicted appearance of a color under different illuminants, since it is perceptual error that the Bradford transform minimizes. Lam's original experiments are revisited and perceptual performance of the Bradford transform and linearized Bradford transform is compared with that of a new adaptation transform that is based on sharp sensors. Perceptual errors in CIELAB E, ECIE94, and ECMC(1:1) are calculated for several corresponding color data sets and analyzed for their statistical significance. The results are found to be similar for the two transforms, with Bradford performing slightly better depending on the data set and color difference metric used. The sharp transform performs equally well as the linearized Bradford transform: there is no statistically significant difference in performance for most data sets.


George W. Knight III has continued the scholarly inquiry into the word αὐθεντέωand its use in 1 Tim 2. 12 with his well researched 1984 NTS article 'ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ in Reference to Women in 1 Timothy 2. 12'. It is a study using what scholars have used until now as their main reference tools, that is, Greek lexicons and their referenced citations. Since that time, however, there has opened up an additional tool for linguistic scholarship, the computer database. The 'Thesaurus Linguae Graecae' computer database project (developed and housed at the University of California – Irvine) is presently becoming available for scholarly use and it has been consulted on the strange philological development of this same Greek word αὐθεντέω (with its cognates αὐθέντης and αὐθεντία and its solitary NT usage in 1 Tim 2. 12.


• The employment-based health benefits system is the most common form of health coverage in the United States, covering 167 million people under age 65 in 2017. Between 2013 and 2017, the percentage of individuals with employment-based coverage has been growing. The increase in employment-based health insurance among workers and their dependents may be due to the increase in the percentage of employers offering such benefits, which may in turn be due to a combination of the strengthening economy, lower unemployment rates, and relatively low premium increases.

• According to the 2018 EBRI/Greenwald & Associates Health and Workplace Benefits Survey (WBS), nearly 60 percent of workers are satisfied with their current mix of health benefits and wages, and most individuals with employment-based health benefits are satisfied with their coverage.

• The employment-based health benefits system has a number of advantages over various alternatives. These advantages may make it difficult to completely move away from the employment-based system. For instance, when it comes to insuring a group of individuals, employment-based groups are often considered "natural groups" in the sense that they were formed for reasons other than the purchase of health insurance. Insurers are more willing to provide insurance for a naturally formed group than for a group that was formed solely for the purpose of buying health insurance because the risks of adverse selection are mitigated. Employers also often act as an advocate for workers during coverage disputes between the insured and insurer, and they frequently involve themselves in matters of quality assessment of care and influencing health care matters in the policy development arena.

• The employment-based health benefits system is far from perfect. One of the shortcomings is that it does not guarantee universal coverage, which a Medicare-for-all system could do. Many employers, especially smaller employers, choose not to offer coverage. Employers that offer coverage also need to continuously justify whether to offer coverage to workers. The percentage of employers offering health benefits ebbs and flows with the economy and other factors. De-linking health insurance from employment may address the shortcomings of the current system.

• Public policies related to the Cadillac tax; Medicare-for-all; proposals that would allow insurance to be purchased in the individual market using employer funding; and market developments, such as the gig economy and high-priced medical advances like specialty medications, may all affect whether there is an employment-based health benefits system in the future.

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that employer and employee contributions toward health coverage will account for $282 billion in forgone tax revenue during FY 2019 and nearly $3.7 trillion over 2019‒2028. In contrast, the FY 2019 mortgage interest deduction is expected to account for $75 billion in forgone tax revenue, while contributions to workplace retirement plans for that same time period are expected to be about $196 billion. The large dollar amounts associated with the tax exclusion of employment-based health benefits makes it an almost inescapable target for policymakers from both a budgetary and a political perspective.

• While employment-based coverage is the largest tax expenditure in the U.S. budget, it is also the least per person when compared to other health-coverage-related subsidies. The average per capita subsidy tax expenditure was $1,722 for individuals with employment-based coverage, compared with an average subsidy of $6,111 among those getting a subsidy in the non-group market and $4,418 among those receiving either Medicaid or coverage through the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

• Capping, reducing, or eliminating the tax preference could generate additional tax revenue to reduce the budget deficit and/or pay down the federal debt. Or it could be used to pay for a new round of health reform. For instance, during the 2018 election, many democrats noted their support for "Medicare-for-all," and reiterated such support with the introduction of the "Medicare for All Act of 2019" on February 27, 2019. In various single-payer or Medicare-for-all bills, employment-based health insurance would cease to exist as we know it. However, in various Medicare and Medicaid buy-in proposals, employers could continue to offer health coverage. Even the administration's own proposal to expand the use of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) could seriously undermine employment-based health benefits.


The fungal disease smut (causal agent: Ustilago scitaminea H. & P. Sydow) and stalk borer Eldana saccharina Walker place major constraints on sugarcane agriculture in South Africa. The best approach for management is the introduction of resistant cultivars; however, conventional field-based screening for pest and disease resistance is a lengthy process. This study evaluated in vitro techniques combined with artificial inoculation of 12 week old in vitro plantlets and 8-10 week old embryogenic calli as rapid screening methods. Preliminary investigations were conducted on cultivars with known field ratings to smut and E. saccharina: NCo376, N26 and N39; and 5 "test" cultivars, whose identities were undisclosed until completion of experiments, were used to assess the accuracy of protocols. Infective U. scitaminea sporidia generated from teliospores, were used as inocula. Development of a callus protocol was unsuccessful due to sporidial and mycelial overgrowth, despite addition of a contact fungicide, Dithane M-45® (0.025 g/l) and a biocide/fungicide, PPMTM (5 ml/l), to media. Plantlet inoculation by injection, 1 cm above the apical meristem, resulted in 12% and 20% of smut susceptible NCo376 plantlets producing smut whips after 5 weeks when inoculated with 1 x 106 and 1 x 109 sporidia/ml, respectively. Smut whip production in 5 of the 8 (63%) cultivars inoculated with the lower sporidial concentration correlated with their field resistance ratings. In addition, whips harvested from in vitro plantlets were a valuable source of aseptic teliospores for future research. Ongoing work involves inoculation of NCo376 calli with such teliospores and maintenance on medium with PPMTM - emergence of whips from plantlets remains to be assessed. The E. saccharina screening protocol involved surface decontamination of eggs with 1% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) for 15 min. Feeding bioassays were conducted by placement of first instar larvae on in vitro plantlets and calli for 3 and 2 weeks, respectively. Larval mass, length and percentage infestation were recorded. Although greater larval size was expected in susceptible compared with resistant cultivars, the results did not support this. Significant differences in plantlet infestation were observed between susceptible (94-98%) and resistant (72-86%) lines. No significant differences were found in the callus feeding bioassay. However, a 24 h callus choice bioassay which investigated larval preference between callus genotypes compared with NCo376, showed significant differences and correctly discerned cultivar susceptibility according to field ratings.


We study optical solitons in chirped periodic optical lattices whose amplitude or frequency changes in the transverse direction. We discover that soliton propagation in such lattices can be accompanied by the progressive self-bending of the soliton trajectory, and we show that the soliton bending rate and output position can be controlled by varying the lattice depth, the chirp amplitude, and the frequency modulation rate. This effect has potential applications for controllable soliton steering and routing.


Alice Munro's territory is the farms and semi-rural towns of south-western Ontario. In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.


During the last decade, a number of hysteretic models have been developed to simulate complex deteriorating mechanisms observed in steel components such that earthquake-induced collapse risk can be reliably assessed. Such models are typically calibrated with experimental data on components subjected to symmetric cyclic loading histories. Based on shake table collapse tests as well as collapse simulation studies, the latter loading history does not necessary reflect the actual hysteretic behavior of steel component prior to structural collapse. This paper presents loading histories that can be directly employed for experimental testing of steel columns in order to examine their behavior prior to structural collapse. Such loading histories reflect the ratcheting behavior that a member experiences as part of a building prior to structural collapse. The loading histories can be utilized to investigate the hysteretic behavior of interior steel columns within a steel moment-resisting frame (MRF) in which the applied axial load remains more or less constant during the loading history. The same loading histories can be used in cases that the axial load applied to a column varies due to dynamic overturning effects. Finally, the proposed loading histories can be employed for both unidirectional and bidirectional column testing. The proposed loading histories are utilized to characterize experimentally the hysteretic behavior of steel columns near collapse. It is shown that routinely used symmetric cyclic loading protocols provide insufficient information for modeling the steel column deterioration in flexural strength and stiffness.


ABSTRACT This literature review engages with a diverse and sometimes contradictory body of work, employing an analytic stance rooted in policy scholarship. It discusses rhetorical constructions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4th IR), locating these in understandings of the economy rooted in a neo-liberalism which rests upon a capitalist terrain. The 4th IR is an ideological construct which reflects specific material interests and has particular implications for education and training. The 4th IR's association with digitalisation and artificial intelligence is ambivalent. For some writers, this leads to technological unemployment while for others, even though there is labour market disruption, there is no employment crisis that cannot be resolved. The strong connection between the 4th IR and labour market requirements is softened by those writers who adopt a qualitative analysis of advanced manufacturing work. These scholars suggest that the relationship between technology and skill is rather more complex than the protagonists of technological unemployment describe. Neo-Marxist writers develop a qualitatively different account of the current conjuncture to the imaginary of the 4th IR. In this instance, the analysis turns towards the elimination of labour from paid employment, together with the falling rate of profit and bypasses the former arguments. This review concludes by arguing that technology and artificial intelligence are entwined with social relations, being sites of class struggle. How this is played out is an outcome of the balance of power, not only within the social formation but also globally. How far the development of the forces of production is compatible with capitalist relations is a moot point, as this is also a site of struggle. The paper draws out the implications for VET and considers progressive educational responses. However, such a practice needs to be set within a broader politics that is committed to the development of a socially just society.


In the time-domain, symbol by symbol transmission multiuser DS-UWB systems are considered. We first investigate a generic reduced-rank scheme based on the concept of joint and iterative optimization (JIO) that jointly optimizes a projection vector and a reduced-rank filter by using the minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) criterion. A low-complexity scheme, named Switched Approximations of Adaptive Basis Functions (SAABF), is proposed as a modification of the generic scheme, in which the complexity
reduction is achieved by using a multi-branch framework to simplify the structure of the projection vector. Adaptive implementations for the SAABF scheme are developed by
using least-mean squares (LMS) and recursive least-squares (RLS) algorithms. We also develop algorithms for selecting the branch number and the model order of the SAABF
scheme. Secondly, a novel linear reduced-rank blind adaptive receiver based on JIO and the constrained constant modulus (CCM) design criterion is proposed that offers higher spectrum efficiency. Adaptive implementations for the blind JIO receiver are developed by using the normalized stochastic gradient (NSG) and RLS algorithms. In order to obtain a low-complexity scheme, the columns of the projection matrix with the RLS algorithm are updated individually. Blind channel estimation algorithms for both versions (NSG and RLS) are implemented. Assuming the perfect timing, the JIO receiver only requires the knowledge of the spreading code of the desired user and the received data.

In the frequency-domain, we propose two adaptive detection schemes based on singlecarrier frequency domain equalization (SC-FDE) for the block by block transmission multiuser DS-UWB systems, which are termed structured channel estimation (SCE) and direct adaptation (DA). Both schemes use the MMSE linear detection strategy and employ
a cyclic prefix. In the SCE scheme, we perform the adaptive channel estimation in the frequency-domain and implement the despreading in the time-domain after the FDE. In
this scheme, the MMSE detection requires the knowledge of the number of users and the noise variance. For this purpose, we propose low-complexity algorithms for estimating
these parameters. In the DA scheme, the interference suppression task is fulfilled with only one adaptive filter in the frequency-domain and a new signal expression is adopted to simplify the design of such a filter. LMS, RLS and conjugate gradient (CG) adaptive algorithms are then developed for both schemes. Another strand of investigation considers adaptive detectors and frequency domain
equalization for multiuser DS-UWB systems with block transmissions and biased estimation methods. Biased estimation techniques can provide performance improvements
to the existing unbiased estimation algorithms. In this work, biased adaptive estimation techniques based on shrinkage estimators are devised and incorporated into RLS-type algorithms. For the SCE scheme, automatic shrinkage factor mechanisms are proposed and incorporated into RLS estimators, obtaining a lower MSE of the channel estimation. For the DA scheme, the automatic shrinkage factors are incorporated directly to the adaptive
receiver weights. The results show that a shorter data support is required by the proposed biased DA-RLS technique. An analysis of fundamental estimation limits of the proposed frequency domain biased estimators is included along with the derivation of appropriate Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLB).


The nitrate contamination of groundwater is an important issue in rural areas. In this study, an electrolytic method for the denitrification of groundwater was investigated in a laboratory reactor. We used an ion-exchange membrane, employing a titanium oxide anode and five kinds of cathode for the investigation. The nitrate removal efficiencies with Cu, Pb, Ti/Ir/Ru, Ti/Ir/Ta, and Zn cathode were 30.0%, 59.9%, 73.8%, 23.3%, and 80.6%, respectively. A cation-selective membrane was employed to separate the electrode compartments, and only the proton produced in the anode side was permitted to the cathode side in order to avoid reversible reactions. In terms of the nitrate removal, good experimental results were obtained by using the membrane reactor equipped with the Zn cathode. The nitrate concentration level dropped from 30 to 6 mg/L, which is below the limit for drinking water. The pH was not affected significantly by the current density and it increased up to 9.0 at 100 mA/cm 2 . The nitrate removal efficiency showed the highest value with 1 mM of NaCl as an electrolyte. The impression was that the membrane electrolysis made it possible to avoid the re-oxidation problem. It clearly appears that electrolytic denitrification with ion exchange membrane are a very effective process with a mean energy consumption of only between 26.9 and 112.9 kWh/kg-NO 3 .


A simple laser-diode pumped acoustic-optic Q-switched fiber laser is reported by using China-made large-mode-area ytterbium-doped fiber. Q-switched pulses with a beam quality factor of M2 about 2 and several hundred nanoseconds pulse duration are achieved at the repetition rate of 1-50 kHz. When the repetition rate is 1 kHz, the pulse energy is 0.93 mJ with the pulse duration of 132 ns. Meanwhile, the profile of laser pulses shows some mode-locking phenomena, the mechanism of the phenomena is discussed.


Understanding gas hydrate inhibitor distribution in hydrocarbon phases is essential for the economic design of process equipment. In order to build a clear image of the inhibitor's distribution in various phases, three experimental investigations were devised; solubility in liquid and vapour phase as well as saturation pressure measurements. These data will contribute significantly to the understanding of the partitioning of these components as the data in the open literature are fairly limited. Aiming at filling the experimental gap found in the literature, the solubility of methane in pure methanol and ethanol as well as 70 and 50 wt% aqueous solutions at 238.15 – 298.15 K and 0.3 – 47 MPa were measured. The data from the ethanol/solution solubility measurements were used to optimise the methane-ethanol Binary Interaction Parameters (BIPs) of the CPA-SRK72 Equation of State (EoS). The model calculations showed an absolute average deviation of 5.3% over the full pure data range. To improve the CPASRK72 EoS predictions for aqueous solutions, new methane-ethanol BIPs were regressed showing significant improvement for both solubility and quaternary bubble point predictions. In order to determine the inhibitor loss to the vapour phase, the inhibitor content of methane was measured using Gas Chromatography (GC) between 0.7 – 62 MPa and 273.15 – 298.15 K. Additionally, a number of bubble point measurements were conducted for binary, ternary and quaternary systems containing methane, a liquid hydrocarbon phase (C7 – C12), methanol/ethanol and water. This was to investigate the effect of the inhibitor phase in the ternary, and the dominant excess water phase in the quaternary system, on the bubble point pressure as well as evaluating the CPA-SRK72 predictions. The saturation pressures were measured at 253.15 – 313.15 K. The solubility of CO2 in Mono-ethylene glycol (MEG), Di-ethylene glycol (DEG) and Tri-ethylene glycol (TEG) and their aqueous solutions (90, 60 and 40 wt%), at pressures and temperatures ranging from 0.2 – 43.4 MPa and 263 – 343 K, were measured. The solubility of CO2 in pure MEG, DEG and TEG were predicted using the CPASRK72 EoS, using a single binary interaction parameter, showing an absolute average deviation of 5.13%, 9.51% and 2.55% respectively. Correlations for the solubility of CO2 in MEG, DEG and TEG aqueous solutions, using aqueous solution regressed BIPs, showed an overall absolute average deviation of 17.5%, 18.2% and 25.16% respectively, a significant improvement from the non-aqueous solution BIP optimised predictions. I would like to dedicate this thesis to my parents and little sister I will always appreciate your support and sacrifice


On 7 February 2022, Professor Yi Lijun passed away in Beijing. She was the most outstanding Chinese Polish scholar, and was known as the ambassador of Polish literature in China. She was closely linked with the University of Gdańsk. In 2007, she received an honorary doctorate from the University, and she was a member of the Academic Council of the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Gdańskand of the scholarly bi-annual journal Gdańsk East Asian Studies.
Yi Lijun was born on 4 December 1934 in the Huang Gang administrative district of Hu Bei Province. She studied in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Wuhan University, and studied Polish at the University of Warsaw from 1954 to 1960. After returning to China, Yi Lijun worked for two years as a journalist for Radio Beijing. In 1962, she started work at Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she remained to the end of her academic career.
For many years, she was director of the Department of Polish Language in the Faculty of European Languages of BFSU. She taught several generations of Chinese Polish scholars, who today work at universities, in foreign trade, in culture, in the tourist industry, and in diplomacy. She contributed hugely to the cause of Polish culture in China as a translator, scholar, and promoter of Polish literature. She translated into Chinese the writings of over forty Polish authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her list of publications includes more than seventy works in prose and verse, including: Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady (Forefathers' Eve), parts III and IV; Henryk Sienkiewicz's Krzyżacy (The Knights of the Cross), Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword ), and Potop (The Deluge); Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke; Olga Tokarczuk's Prawiek i inne czasy (Primeval and Other Times) and Dom dzienny, dom nocny (House of Day, House of Night); and Wybór klechd i baśni polskich. She also brought to Chinese readers poems by Polish winners of the Nobel Prize, Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska, and also those of many other poets. Her publications include scores of articles on Polish writers. She edited more than 300 entries on Polish writers and Polish literature for Chinese encyclopedias. Professor Yi Lijun received many Polish state awards in recognition of her achievements, including the Medal for Services to Polish Culture – Gloria Artis, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and the Medal of the Commission for National Education.


We introduce a generalization of the conventional renormalization schemes used in dimensional regularization, which illuminates the renormalization scheme and scale ambiguities of pQCD predictions, exposes the general pattern of nonconformal {βi} terms, and reveals a special degeneracy of the terms in the perturbative coefficients. It allows us to systematically determine the argument of the running coupling order by order in pQCD in a form which can be readily automatized. The new method satisfies all of the principles of the renormalization group and eliminates an unnecessary source of systematic error.


INTRODUCTION Poultry meat production has been very dynamic over the last decade with an annual increase in the world production of 8.3% between 1987 and 1997 (Mandava and Hoogenkamp, 1999). At the same time, the marketing of poultry has been greatly diversified with a significant increase in joints and processed products. The success of poultry production has been strongly related to improvements in growth and carcass yield, mainly through the increase in breast proportion and reduction in abdominal fatness. Recently, researches have been intensified in order to precise the effect of this selection on the processing quality of meat and the possibilities of including meat quality as a criteria of selection in poultry breeding schemes. Indeed, as the proportion of processed products is growing, meat quality will have a major impact on the development of poultry production, especially for high-quality products in which supply of food additives is limited. As in pork, pH variations significantly affect the storage and the processing qualities of poultry meat, by modifying its water-holding capacity and rheological properties. Low pH in the early stage of rigor onset decreases water-holding capacity and the technological quality of meat. These quality defects are usually referred to as pale, soft and exudative (PSE) meat (Kijowski and Niewiarowicz, 1978 ; Barbut, 1997). High pH meat known as dry, firm and dark (DFD) presents a poor storage quality. In contrast to pork, until recently, very little was known in poultry on the impact of genetics on the post-mortem pH fall and its genetic relationship with meat quality. First estimates of the genetic parameters of meat quality traits have been thus estimated in chicken (Le Bihan-Duval et al., 2001) and turkey (unpublished results). Because of the paucity of results in poultry, and because different slaughtered conditions (experimental or industrial) were used for these genetic studies, the results obtained in both species will be presented in this paper.


Purpose Despite the advent of FDA-approved therapeutics to a limited number of available targets (kinases and mTOR), PFS of kidney cancer (RCC) has been extended only one to two years due to the development of drug resistance. Here, we evaluate a novel therapeutic for RCC which targets the exportin-1 (XPO1) inhibitor. Materials and Methods RCC cells were treated with the orally available XPO1 inhibitor, KPT-330, and cell viability and Annexin V (apoptosis) assays, and cell cycle analyses were performed to evaluate the efficacy of KPT-330 in two RCC cell lines. Immunoblotting and immunofluorescence analysis were performed to validate mechanisms of XPO1 inhibition. The efficacy and on-target effects of KPT-330 were further analyzed in vivo in RCC xenograft mice, and KPT-330-resistant cells were established to evaluate potential mechanisms of KPT-330 resistance. Results KPT-330 attenuated RCC viability through growth inhibition and apoptosis induction both in vitro and in vivo, a process in which increased nuclear localization of p21 by XPO1 inhibition played a major role. In addition, KPT-330 resistant cells remained sensitive to the currently approved for RCC multi-kinase inhibitors (sunitinib, sorafenib) and mTOR inhibitors (everolimus, temsirolimus), suggesting that these targeted therapeutics would remain useful as second line therapeutics following KPT-330 treatment. Conclusion The orally-available XPO1 inhibitor, KPT-330, represents a novel target for RCC whose in vivo efficacy approaches that of sunitinib. In addition, cells resistant to KPT-330 retain their ability to respond to available RCC therapeutics suggesting a novel approach for treatment in KPT-330-naïve as well as -resistant RCC patients.


Learning from multi-view multi-label data has wide applications. There are two main challenges of this learning task: incomplete views and missing (weak) labels. The former assumes that views may not include all data objects. The weak label setting implies that only a subset of relevant labels are provided for training objects while other labels are missing. Both incomplete views and weak labels can lead to significant performance degradation. In this paper, we propose a novel model (iMVWL) to jointly address the two challenges. iMVWL simultaneously learns a shared subspace from incomplete views with weak labels, the local label structure and the predictor in this subspace, which can not only capture cross-view relationships but also weak-label information of training samples. We further develop an alternative solution to optimize our model, this solution can avoid suboptimal results and reinforce their reciprocal effects, and thus further improve the performance. Extensive experimental results on several real-world datasets validate the effectiveness of our model against other competitive algorithms.


Educational practices, including religious education in Aceh so far, still oriented to the chase and collect scientific information as much as possible, but not the fundamental aspects of education. Which is how the next generation is able to live a full life and life to lean towards the values of the Divine. Aceh province with special education, customs and culture and have the Qanun on Islamic education should immediately formulate or searching the threads of how real the concept of cultured Islamic school in accordance with the nature and purpose of Islamic education. In the context of this study, core values that will be the focus of study in the development of Islamic school culture is the internalization of Islamic values derived from the Quran and Sunnah and the core values that became a national education goals and strategic vision of education in the province.


The concept of SDN has emerged as a way to address numerous challenges with traditional network architectures by decoupling network control and forwarding. So far, the use cases for SDN mainly targeted data-center applications. This article considers SDN for network carriers, facing operation of large-scale networks with millions of customers, multiple technologies, and high availability demands. With specific carrier-grade features such as scalability, reliability, flexibility, modularity, and virtualization in mind, the SPARC EU project has developed the SPARC SplitArchitecture concept. The SplitArchitecture control plane allows hierarchical layering of several control plane layers which can be flexibly mapped to data plane layers. Between control layers open interfaces are used. Furthermore, SplitArchitecture proposes an additional split of forwarding and processing functions in data path elements, enabling switch based OAM functionality and handling of tunneling techniques. The SplitArchitecture concept is evaluated in a prototype demonstrating an SDN version of BRAS: the floating BRAS. The floating BRAS allows creation of residential Internet access services with dynamically managed BRAS instances. The demo is based on a controller enabling protected MPLS transport connections spanning SDN-controlled aggregation and IP/MPLS-based core domains. The prototype showcases how SplitArchitecture enables virtualization of service nodes in an SDN-controlled network, leading to increased flexibility in configuration and placement of service creation functions. Overall, the results show that it is technically and economically beneficial to apply SDN, and specifically the SplitArchitecture concept, to the carrier domain.


We introduce a formal definition of a pattern poset which encompasses several previously studied posets in the literature. Using this definition we present some general results on the Möbius function and topology of such pattern posets. We prove our results using a poset fibration based on the embeddings of the poset, where embeddings are representations of occurrences. We show that the Möbius function of these posets is intrinsically linked to the number of embeddings, and in particular to so called normal embeddings. We present results on when topological properties such as Cohen-Macaulayness and shellability are preserved by this fibration. Furthermore, we apply these results to some pattern posets and derive alternative proofs of existing results, such as Björner's results on subword order.


This research has been carried out by the author at the Materials and Engineering Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University in collaboration with Chapmans Agricultural Ltd. Abrasive wear is a significant issue in many industries but is of particular significance in
agriculture. This research is being carried out due to the demand for a hard wearing, economical coating for use in the agricultural industry. A primary objective has been to review and develop an in depth understanding of the type of
wear suffered by metal shares in agricultural soils. The affect of soil properties and abrasive wear environments on the amount of wear that occurs, and the way in which material properties can be used to reduce or prevent this has also been investigated. A review of the diverse range
of soil properties, such as the mineral content, moisture content, soils strengths has been carried out in order to create an appropriate wear test procedure. The coatings developed for testing were modifications to an existing powder metallurgy coating. The modifications were made by the addition of selected hard phases to the powder prior to sintering. The resulting materials were characterised in terms of sinterability, hardness and abrasive wear resistance. Prior to commencing this work little or no data existed on the wear performance of the pre-existing coating.
Wear resistance has been measured using a fixed ball micro-scale abrasive wear test (also known as the ball-cratering wear test) with SiC and SiO2 abrasives and also using a modified version of the ASTM G65 abrasive wear test which allowed testing in dry and wet modes. Limited field trials were performed to determine the abrasive wear resistance in real soil. Results from wear testing have determined that the optimum modification to the coating can improve performance compared to the unmodified coating. Detailed scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been performed on the wear scars and has revealed the resultant wear mechanisms and role that the hard phase additions play in improving the wear resistance. The influence of the hard phase addition on the microstructure has also been studied.
The wear volume and corresponding wear coefficient from laboratory studies have been used to determine the optimum level of addition that can be added to produce an improved wear resistance. The results show the optimum hard phase addition to be 100μm WC/WZC particles at around IOwt.% with 15 μm WC at 5wt.% also providing improved wear resistance.


The space–time dynamical behavior of multistripe index-guided semiconductor laser arrays is studied by using an extension of the usual phenomenological laser model to include transverse diffraction of the counterpropagating optical fields and transverse diffusion of the excited carriers. Our results confirm that evanescently coupled multistripe lasers are a fascinating manifestation of spatiotemporal complexity in spatially extended nonlinear systems. Stabilization of the laser output can be achieved by injection locking the array with a weak external injected signal, and we show that the stability of the externally driven array depends on the transverse profile of the injected signal. A numerical algorithm is presented that takes advantage of high-performance parallel computing architectures to solve the coupled partial differential equations describing the light–matter interaction in the laser structure. Both the model and the numerical algorithm are sufficiently flexible and modular to support arbitrary laser geometries and to allow for inclusion of important many-body semiconductor effects in future studies.


The majority of electrode materials in batteries and related electrochemical energy storage devices are fashioned into slurries via the addition of a conductive additive and a binder. However, aggregation of smaller diameter nanoparticles in current generation electrode compositions can result in non-homogeneous active materials. Inconsistent slurry formulation may lead to inconsistent electrical conductivity throughout the material, local variations in electrochemical response, and the overall cell performance. Here we demonstrate the hydrothermal preparation of Ag nanoparticle (NP) decorated α-AgVO3 nanowires (NWs) and their conversion to tunnel structured β-AgVO3 NWs by annealing to form a uniform blend of intercalation materials that are well connected electrically. The synthesis of nanostructures with chemically bound conductive nanoparticles is an elegant means to overcome the intrinsic issues associated with electrode slurry production, as wire-to-wire conductive pathways are formed within the overall electrode active mass of NWs. The conversion from α-AgVO3 to β-AgVO3 is explained in detail through a comprehensive structural characterization. Meticulous EELS analysis of β-AgVO3 NWs offers insight into the true β-AgVO3 structure and how the annealing process facilitates a higher surface coverage of Ag NPs directly from ionic Ag content within the α-AgVO3 NWs. Variations in vanadium oxidation state across the surface of the nanowires indicate that the β-AgVO3 NWs have a core-shell oxidation state structure, and that the vanadium oxidation state under the Ag NP confirms a chemically bound NP from reduction of diffused ionic silver from the α-AgVO3 NWs core material. Electrochemical comparison of α-AgVO3 and β-AgVO3 NWs confirms that β-AgVO3 offers improved electrochemical performance. An ex situ structural characterization of β-AgVO3 NWs after the first galvanostatic discharge and charge offers new insight into the Li+ reaction mechanism for β-AgVO3. Ag+ between the van der Waals layers of the vanadium oxide is reduced during discharge and deposited as metallic Ag, the vacant sites are then occupied by Li+.


In the past two decades, numerous political theorists have taken up the question of how constitutional design should respond to the fact of minority nationalism. Just as important as that question is the way in which these theorists have responded to it. Some, rather than deriving constitutional strategies and models from abstract principles of political morality, have turned to real-life models to buttress their proposed solutions. It is precisely in this context that Canada has attained considerable prominence. The prominence of Canada is twofold. On the one hand, Canadian political theorists - Joseph Carens, Will Kymlicka, Margaret Moore, Wayne Norman, Allen Patten, Charles Taylor, James Tully, Daniel Weinstock, and others - have set the agenda for normative reflection on the various problems generated by minority nationalism. Yet the importance of Canada is more than just a by-product of national academic excellence. The real story is the considerable attention devoted to Canada itself. Not only are Canadians at the forefront of normative reflection on the problems of minority nationalism but, in the work of these scholars, the Canadian case plays a pivotal role. And critics of constitutional strategies to accommodate the demands of minority nationalism have attacked Canada itself. For example, although Brian Barry's critique of multiculturalism, in Culture and Equality, draws on examples from a wide range of jurisdictions and on the work of political theorists of many nationalities, only Canadians and Canada are singled out for opprobrium. The purpose of this article is to complicate and contextualize the discussion of the Canadian model in political theory. For, contemporaneously with the rise of the Canadian model, Canada went through a period of profound constitutional introspection. Since the 1960s, the country has struggled with the constitutional accommodation of Quebec nationalism. During the early 1990s, these debates reached a crisis point that nearly occasioned the breakup of the country. Because the Canadian example draws on Canada's own national experience, I want to revisit this model, viewing it against the backdrop of the constitutional politics of the last few decades. Not only did the emergence of the Canadian model coincide with Canada's worst constitutional crisis but, as it turned out, promoting Canada's success abroad also was an important intervention in domestic constitutional politics, in an attempt to shore up support for the Canadian model at home. The question is whether this model has worked as well as has been claimed. I will argue that Canada provides a cautionary tale on the limits of constitutional design and its ability to cope with the threat of extralegal secession by minority nations.


Experimental analysis of thin flat plates to determine moments and deflections using the method of reflected light and the particular technique developed by Ligtenberg is investigated. Circular plates of two thicknesses and two methods of loading are used to evaluate the method. The experimental results obtained for moments and deflections are compared with analytical solutions in each case using the usual thin plate theory. It was concluded that the Ligtenberg method can be used to advantage by engineers in analyzing plates which because of their shape support conditions, or method of loading are not easily analyzed using purely analytical methods.


Despite the various views on voluntourism around the world (mostly in the West) and potential problems (especially considering orphanage voluntourism) raised by many, the heat around it has never been seriously challenged. Chinese short-term international voluntourism has gained its popularity among Chinese volunteers in the last decade, with orphanage volunteering programs as one of its most demanded type of programs. This research is aimed at understanding what are the underlying dynamics that contribute to the constant demand of Chinese short-term international orphanage volunteering programs through the ways it was portrayed by the main actors involved: Chinese sending organizations, Chinese volunteers, and host communities. Ethnography was adopted in a combination with covert participant observation (in a two-week Chinese orphanage volunteering program in Phuket, Thailand) as the main methodology.
With the observation from the fieldwork, Chinese volunteers from Chinese short-term international orphanage volunteering programs were only one type of the many actors who help to reproduce and participate in the commodification of helping the vulnerable children experience at the care centers. Motivated by or trying to evoke the emotional bond generated from humanitarian imaginary vulnerability of the children, the volunteers, the sending organization, the care center director and the donors presented intimacy (care and love) as the main way to contribute as individual. And by consuming or selling the experience, they each benefited in different ways. The various way to for people to engage in helping experiences, including voluntourism, reflects the essence of the neoliberalisation of development where responsibility of social change is placed on each individual; meanwhile, they help to expand the neoliberalisation of development by transforming new areas into the market.


This paper aims at investigating the fundamental characteristics of energy efficiency for power split electronic-continuously-variable-transmission (e-CVT) hybrid systems under the operation of electric circulation, i.e., circulating part of the engine power through the generator and motor in form of electric energy to improve system efficiency as well as perform the continuously-variable-transmission (CVT) functionality. The relations of kinematics and energy conservation for each power component are constructed and analyzed to classify how the operating points of the engine in term of torque and rotational speed may vary under different degrees of electric circulation indicated by a parameter called ratio of circulating power. Thereby, power split e-CVT hybrid systems can be classified into three types: upward circulation, downward circulation, and neutral circulation. Accordingly, two power split e-CVT hybrid systems, one of input split type and the other of output split type, are selected to be analyzed regarding their operating characteristics and simulated on their performances of energy efficiency. As a result, the former is a type of downward circulation in favor of driving at low speed and high driving load, while the latter is a type of upward circulation with an advantage of driving at high speed and low driving load. Thereby, applying this analysis to investigate the effects of electric circulation on power split e-CVT systems may help the developers implement suitable energy management and control strategy in accordance with their corresponding operating characteristics of energy efficiency.


Background: Early prostate cancer antigen 2 (EPCA-2), a kind of nuclear matrix protein, may relate to prostate cancer. However, the association of EPCA-2 level in serum with prostate diseases has not been clarified in Chinese Han population. Methods: EPCA-2 and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in serum were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in 116 patients with prostate cancer (PCa), 342 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and 174 healthy controls (Control) in Chinese population. Associations of serum EPCA-2 and PSA level with prostate diseases were analyzed by ANOVA. Comparison of diagnostic effect for prostate cancer between EPCA-2 and PSA was evaluated by Receiver Operator Curve, Chi-square test, and others. Results: Serum EPCA-2 and PSA levels in PCa group were significantly higher than BPH and Control group (EPCA-2: F=200.05, P<0.01; PSA: F=210.65, P<0.01). However, EPCA-2 levels in the prostate cancers with different pathological grade were no sig- nificant difference. Furthermore, for detection of prostate cancer, EPCA-2 had a sensitivity of 81.9% and a specificity of 87.6%. Conclusions: Serum EPCA-2 could be used as a potential serological marker to diagnose prostate cancer in Chinese Han population, which was more specific than PSA and did not associate with pathological grades of prostate cancer.


Many have used the principles of statistics and Bayesian decision theory to model specific learning problems. It is less common to see models of the processes of learning in general. One exception is the model of the supervised learning process known as the "Extended Bayesian Formalism" or EBF. This model is descriptive, in that it can describe and compare learning algorithms. Thus the EBF is capable of modeling both effective and ineffective learning algorithms.
We extend the EBF to model un-supervised learning, semi-supervised learning, supervised learning, and empirical function optimization. We also generalize the utility model of the EBF to deal with non-deterministic outcomes, and with utility functions other than 0-1 loss. Finally, we modify the EBF to create a "prescriptive" learning model, meaning that, instead of describing existing algorithms, our model defines how learning should optimally take place. We call the resulting model the Unified Bayesian Decision Theoretical Model, or the UBDTM. WE show that this model can serve as a cohesive theory and framework in which a broad range of questions can be analyzed and studied. Such a broadly applicable unified theoretical framework is one of the major missing ingredients of machine learning theory.
Using the UBDTM, we concentrate on supervised learning and empirical function optimization. We then use the UBDTM to reanalyze many important theoretical issues in Machine Learning, including No-Free-Lunch, utility implications, and active learning. We also point forward to future directions for using the UBDTM to model learnability, sample complexity, and ensembles. We also provide practical applications of the UBDTM by using the model to train a Bayesian variation to the CMAC supervised learner in closed form, to perform a practical empirical function optimization task, and as part of the guiding principles behind an ongoing project to create an electronic and print corpus of tagged ancient Syriac texts using active learning.
Keywords: Machine Learning, Supervised Learning, Function Optimization, Empirical Function Optimization, Statistics, Bayes, Bayes Law, Bayesian, Bayesian Learning, Decision Theory, Utility Theory, Unified Bayesian Model, UBM, Unified Bayesian Decision Theoretical Model, UBDTM, Learning Framework, No-Free-Lunch, NFL, a priori Learning, Extended Bayesian Formalism, EBF, Bias, Inductive Bias, Hypothesis Space, Function Class, Active Learning, Uncertainty Sampling, Query by Uncertainty, Query by Committee, Expected Value of Sample Information, EVSI.


NIH's, PLoS's, the Wellcome Trust's and now the UK MRC's unreflective support for PubMed Central (PMC), a Central Repository (CR), as the locus for direct self-archiving by authors is very unfortunate for Institutional Repositories (IRs), for self-archiving, and for Open Access (OA) progress in general. Alma Swan has published key papers on both OA self-archiving policy and institutional versus central self-archiving (IRs vs. CRs) analysing the reasons. (a) Institutional self-archiving and central self-archiving are at odds in the quest for a universal self-archiving policy solution that will cover all OA research output. (b) It would be awkward and inefficient to have a different external cross-institution CR as the locus of primary deposit for every funding area, subject area, combination of subject areas, or nation. (c) Researchers' own IRs are the most natural and efficient way to scale up to covering all of OA space from all disciplines, institutions and nations. (d) Direct central self-archiving is already obsolete in the OAI era of interoperable OAI-compliant IRs. (e) The optimal solution is for researchers to self-archive their own papers in their own OAI-compliant IRs and for CRs to be harvested from those distributed IRs. (f) Universities are in the best position to mandate self-archiving and monitor and reward compliance. (g) Mandating self-archiving in CRs instead simply creates an unsystematic and incoherent policy that does not scale up to covering all research output from all research institutions. (h) What the NIH, Wellcome Trust and MRC should be mandating is not direct depositing in PMC, but universal depositing in the fundee's own IR, from which PMC can then harvest collections.


Daylighting strategies in building design can lead to reduce of the energy consumption for electric lighting. However, the potential energy saving for electric lighting is highly dependent on user's behaviour. While in office buildings the standardized user's behaviour reveals a robust correlation between daylight availability and the electric lighting energy use, in residential buildings this relationship is not so straightforward. The aim of this study is to investigate if the availability of natural light is related to a decreasing of the electric energy use for lighting, analysing the actual users' behaviour in three different rooms of a single family house in Trondheim (Norway). The investigation is based on a set of data collected during a monitoring experiment that took place in the ZEB Living Lab. The ZEB Living Lab is a single family house located in Trondheim at the NTNU Campus. It is equipped with a monitoring system that keeps track of the electric and thermal energy use as well as the outdoor boundary conditions. During the winter 2016, six different users' groups lived alternatively in the house. In this occasion, the complete users' behaviours were monitored. These data include information about the use of electric lighting as well as the outdoor daylight condition. Experimental and numerical analyses were carried out in order to compare the use of artificial lighting against daylight availability. Through experimental and numerical analyses, it was possible to estimate the actual electric energy use and the indoor daylight illuminance in the interiors of the house and therefore determine the correlation using the Pearson's coefficient. The results show weak correlation between daylight availability and the electric energy use. A different users' behaviour in the sleeping and the living area was found. The former is generally unoccupied during the day, since no use of electric lighting was recorded in most of the cases, showing a degree of carefulness in user. However, in residential context, the use of electric lighting weakly depends on the indoor daylight availability.


In this paper, the effects of two major design choices on the performance of an isolated word speech recognition system are examined in detail. They are: 1) the choice of a warping algorithm among the Itakura asymmetric, the Sakoe and Chiba symmetric, and the Sakoe and Chiba asymmetric, and 2) the size of the warping window to reduce computation time. Two vocabularies were used: the digits (zero, one,..., nine) and a highly confusable subset of the alphabet (b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v, z). The Itakura asymmetric warping algorithm appears to be slightly better than the other two for the confusable vocabulary. We discuss the reasons why the performance of the algorithms is vocabulary dependent. Finally, for the data used in our experiments, a warping window of about 100 ms appears to be optimal.


Community-based Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects are usually self-organized and dynamic, receiving contributions from distributed volunteers. These communities' survival, long-term success, and continuity demand a constant influx of newcomers. However, newcomers face many barriers when making their first contribution to an OSS project, leading in many cases to dropouts. Therefore, a major challenge for OSS projects is to provide ways to support newcomers during their first contribution. In this paper, our goal was to provide a set of guidelines to communities that want to support and foster the participation of newcomers. The guidelines were proposed based on the analysis of data collected from: semi-structured interviews with 36 developers from 14 different projects; 24 answers to an open questionnaire conducted with OSS developers; feedback from 9 graduate and undergraduate students after they tried to join OSS projects; and 20 primary studies gathered via a systematic literature review.