Much discussion has been put forth so far by the academics and religious experts regarding the relationship between religion and politics. The result of all these represents a wide spectrum of ideas ranging from absolute lack of relationship to the complete identicality. What is far from clear, however, is the nature of this relationship. An attempt is made in the present article to clear this issue by surveying critically the three existing theories in this regard, that is separation of religion from politics, the complete identicality of the two, and the common boundary between the two, and coming to the conclusion that: (a) the first two theories are almost indefensible that is given the separation of theoretical and practical politics, the relationship between religion and politics becomes of registration type in the field of theoretical politics and of the institutional type in practical politics. (b) despite the third theory, this relationship is of the absolute universal and subaltern type in the field of practical politics and of the relative universal and subaltern type in the field of theoretical politics.

 Key words: Religion, politics.


Mockup media is a type of learning that is made in its original form. The problems faced by partners are that the learning methods used are still fairly classic, there is no supporting media that can be used by educators to maximize the learning process, it is difficult to find direct learning media. This service activity aims to provide assistance as well as to implement miniature ecosystem learning media as an effective learning medium. The method used in carrying out this activity is using Service Learning (SL) which includes lectures and questions and answers. The results show that students are enthusiastic in participating in learning and students are active in learning both asking and answering questions, educators find it easier in the teaching process, and can innovate in making learning media.


Objective: To explore the clinical effects of free superficial peroneal artery perforator flaps in repairing skin and soft tissue defects of the hallux. Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted. From January 2020 to January 2021, 13 patients with skin and soft tissue defects of the hallux who met the inclusion criteria were admitted to Department of Foot and Ankle Surgery of Ruihua Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, including 12 males and 1 female, aged 26 to 53 years. Before operation, the perforating point of the superficial peroneal artery perforator was located by color Doppler ultrasound on the calf on the same side of the affected hallux and marked on the body surface. The operation was performed under spinal anesthesia combined with continuous epidural anesthesia. The area of skin and soft tissue defect after debridement was 4.5 cm×2.5 cm to 12.0 cm×3.0 cm. According to the size and shape of the wound, the superficial peroneal artery perforator flap was designed with the line between the fibular head and the lateral malleolus tip parallel shifting 2 cm to the tibial side as the flap axis line, and the perforating point of the perforator near the midpoint of the axis line as the center. The cut area of the flap was 5.0 cm×3.0 cm to 13.0 cm×4.0 cm, and part of the deep fascia was cut when the pedicle was freed. The donor site wound was sutured directly. During the operation, the number and type of the perforator and the cutting time of the flap were recorded, and the length of the perforator pedicle and diameter of the perforator were measured. The survival of the flap, the healing time and the healing condition of the donor and recipient areas were recorded after operation. The color, texture, elasticity of the flap, standing and walking functions of patients, the recovery of the donor area, and the patients' satisfaction with the recovery of the donor and recipient areas were recorded during the follow-up. At the last follow-up, the sensation of the flap was evaluated by the British Medical Association sensory function evaluation standard, the function of the affected limb was evaluated by the American Society of Foot and Ankle Surgery scoring system, and the excellent and good rate of the function of the affected limb was calculated. Results: A total of 13 perforators of the superficial peroneal artery were detected during the operation, all of which were septocutaneous perforators, and the perforator diameter was 0.3 to 0.5 mm. The vascular pedicle length was 2 to 5 cm. Flap cutting time was 11 to 26 minutes. The flaps of 13 patients all survived completely. The wounds at the donor and recipient sites healed well 9 to 18 days after operation. During follow-up of 6 to 14 months, the flaps had good color, texture, and elasticity; 11 patients had no obvious bloated appearance, and the other 2 patients underwent flap thinning and plastic surgery in the second stage because of their bloated appearance; all the patients returned to normal walking and standing functions. There was only one linear scar left in the donor site, with no obvious scar hyperplasia or hyperpigmentation. All the patients were satisfied with the recovery of the donor and recipient areas. At the last follow-up, the sensation of the flap was evaluated as grade S3 in 2 cases, grade S2 in 9 cases, and grade S1 in 2 cases; the function of the affected limb was evaluated as excellent in 7 cases and good in 6 cases, with an excellent and good rate of 100%. Conclusions: The free superficial peroneal artery perforator flap has relatively constant vascular anatomy, which is thin and wear-resistant, with less damage to the donor site after flap excision, and can preserve the shape and function of the hallux to the greatest extent. It is an effective method for repairing skin and soft tissue defect of the hallux.


The authors report one case of adenoid cystic carcinoma of the medical canthus of the orbit. This carcinoma is typified by slow but aggressive growth with multiple local recurrences. Surgery is necessary but radical excision with total exenteration is a difficult decision. Radiotherapy associated to surgery might be usefull.


In this paper, we present the results of a comparison of two estimators of the gross vehicle weight (GVW) and the static load of individual axles of vehicles. The estimators were used to process measurement data derived from Multi-Sensor Weigh-In-Motion systems (MS-WIM). The term estimator is understood as an algorithm according to which the dynamic axle load measurement results are processed in order to determine the static load. The result obtained is called static load estimate. As a measure of measurement uncertainty, we adopted the standard deviation of the static load estimate. The mean value and the maximum likelihood estimators were compared. Studies were conducted using simulation methods based on synthetic data and experimental data obtained from a WIM system equipped with 16 lines of polymer axle load sensors. We have shown a substantially lower uncertainty of estimates determined using the maximum likelihood estimator. The results obtained have considerable practical significance, particularly during long-term usage of multi-sensor WIM systems.


We report on a family with the Rapp-Hodgkin ectodermal dysplasia syndrome. Four affected family members are described and a review of the literature is given.


Background and Objectives: There is no consensus regarding the indications for and timing of ventilation tube (VT) insertion in cleft lip and palate (CLP) patients. Our aim was to search for clinical and surgical (i.e., VT insertion) characteristics that influence the hearing status in CLP. Materials and Methods: We reviewed the hearing outcome of consecutive CLP cases operated on at a single referral center. Univariate and multivariate analysis were applied as appropriate. Results: We included 285 consecutive CLP patients, 109 female and 176 male; the mean age at last follow-up was 16.2 years. Unilateral CLP was found in 249 cases and bilateral CLP in 36. Early VTs (i.e., at the time of hard palate surgery) were applied in 75 (26.3%) patients. Late VTs (i.e., after hard palate surgery during follow-up) were applied in 69 (24.2%) children, at a mean age of 6.7 years old. Hearing loss (pure-tone average > 20 dB) was found in 114 (40%) CLP patients at last available follow-up (mild hearing loss in 96 patients, moderate in 18). In univariate and multivariate analyses, we found that only the absence of early VT insertion (p = 0.0003; OR = 18.2) was an independent prognostic factor of hearing loss in CLP patients. Furthermore, when early VTs were not inserted, there was a high risk of late VT (p = 0.002; OR 13.6). Conclusions: According to our results, the absence of VT insertion at the time of hard palate surgery is an independent prognostic risk factor of hearing loss in CLP patients. Early VT placement in CLP patients may prevent hearing loss and related consequences. These findings should be tested in a large, randomized clinical trial.


Background Glioblastoma is a high-grade cerebral tumor with local recurrence and poor outcome. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a local treatment based on the light activation of a photosensitizer (PS) in the presence of oxygen to form cytotoxic species. Fractionation of light delivery may enhance treatment efficiency by restoring tissue oxygenation. Objectives To evaluate the efficiency of light fractionation using MRI imaging, including diffusion and perfusion, compared to histological data. Materials and Methods Thirty-nine "Nude" rats were grafted with human U87 cells into the right putamen. After PS precursor intake (5-ALA), an optic fiber was introduced into the tumor. The rats were randomized in three groups: without illumination, with monofractionated illumination and the third one with multifractionated light. Treatment effects were assessed with early MRI including diffusion and perfusion sequences. The animals were eventually sacrificed to perform brain histology. Results On MRI, we observed elevated diffusion values in the center of the tumor among treated animals, especially in multifractionated group. Perfusion decreased around the treatment site, all the more in the multifractionated group. Histology confirmed our MRI findings, with a more extensive necrosis and associated with a rarified angiogenic network in the treatment area, after multifractionated PDT. However, we observed more surrounding edema and neovascularization in the peripheral ring after multifractionated PDT. Conclusion Fractionated interstitial PDT induced specific tumoral lesions. The multifractionated scheme was more efficient, inducing increased tumoral necrosis, but it also caused significant peripheral edema and neovascularization. Diffusion and perfusion MRI imaging were able to predict the histological lesions.


Late-onset Pompe disease (LOPD) is a rare autosomal recessive glycogen storage disease that results in accumulation of glycogen in muscle cells causing muscular weakness. It causes a progressive proximal myopathy, accompanied by respiratory muscle weakness, which can lead to ventilatory failure. In untreated LOPD, the most common cause of death is respiratory failure. Patients suffering from respiratory compromise may present with symptoms of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) before overt signs of respiratory failure. Diaphragm weakness leads to nocturnal hypoventilation, which can result in sleep disruption. Both subjective and objective sleep quality can be impaired with associated excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). Health-related quality of life worsens as sleep disturbance increases. The mainstay of treatment for SDB and respiratory failure in LOPD is non-invasive ventilation (NIV), which aims to ensure adequate ventilation, particularly during sleep, and prevent acute hypercapnic failure. These patients are at risk of acute deterioration due to lower respiratory tract infections; effective secretion clearance and vaccination against common pathogens is an important facet of care. Whilst disease-modifying enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) delays progression of locomotor dysfunction and prolongs life, its effect on respiratory function and SDB remains unclear. There are no data demonstrating the impact of ERT on sleep quality or SDB.


The growing amount and diversity of functions to be implemented by the current and future embedded applications (like, for example, in automotive electronics) have shown that, in many cases, time-triggered and event-triggered functions have to coexist on the computing nodes and to interact over the communication infrastructure. When time-triggered and event-triggered activities have to share the same processing node, a natural way for the execution support can be provided through a hierarchical scheduler. Similarly, when such heterogeneous applications are mapped over a distributed architecture, the communication infrastructure should allow for message exchange in both time-triggered and event-triggered manner in order to ensure a straightforward interconnection of heterogeneous components. This thesis studies aspects related to the analysis and design optimisation for safety-critical hard real-time applications running on hierarchically scheduled distributed embedded systems. It first provides the basis for the timing analysis of the activities in such a system, by carefully taking into consideration all the interferences that appear at run-time between the processes executed according to different scheduling policies. Moreover, due to the distributed nature of the architecture, message delays are also taken into consideration during the timing analysis. Once the schedulability analysis has been provided, the entire system can be optimised by adjusting its configuration parameters. In our work, the entire optimisation process is directed by the results from the timing analysis, with the goal that in the end the timing constraints of the application are satisfied. The analysis and design methodology proposed in the first part of the thesis is applied next on the particular category of distributed systems that use FlexRay as a communication protocol. We start by providing a schedulability analysis for messages transmitted over a FlexRay bus, and then by proposing a bus access optimisation algorithm that aims at improving the timing properties of the entire system. For all the problems that we investigated, we have carried out extensive experiments in order to measure the efficiency of the proposed solutions. The results have confirmed both the importance of the addressed aspects during system-level design, and the applicability of our techniques for analysing and optimising the studied systems.


Seismic reservoir monitoring has been found to be effective with recent ocean-bottom seismic techniques. The technology of ocean-bottom nodes can be extended to a semipermanent ocean-bottom-node (SPN) acquisition type, which is fixed on the seabed and activated on demand for reservoir monitoring. A newly developed SPN method allows a high-speed underwater optical to communicate with a remotely operated vehicle or an autonomous underwater vehicle to stably harvest seismic data on multiple repeat surveys. Long-term capabilities of deployment life, cumulative recording time, and internal clock characteristics are also key technologies for practical use of SPN acquisition. This is an alternative to fixed ocean-bottom cables that are currently a major tool of permanent reservoir monitoring. SPN acquisition will present more flexibility for receiver spreads, low installation cost, and fewer risks for asset management compared with existing seabed technologies.


Active congestion control (ACC) uses active networking (AN) technology to make feedback congestion control more responsive to network congestion. Current end-to-end feedback congestion control systems detect and relieve congestion only at endpoints. ACC includes programs in each data packet that tell routers how to react to congestion without incurring the round-trip delay that reduces feedback effectiveness in wide area networks. The congested router also sends the new state of the congestion control algorithm to the endpoints to ensure that the distributed state becomes consistent. We present a model for extending feedback congestion control into an active network, apply that model to TCP congestion control, and present simulations that show that the resulting system exhibits up to 18 percent better throughput than TCP under bursty traffic. In simulations without bursty traffic, the systems behaved comparably.


Tourism activities is considered as one of the major sources of economic growth, at International level it is one of the fastest growing industries, accounting for more than 10% of total international trade and almost half of total trade in services, and can be considered as one of the world's largest export earners (WTO, 2010). It regarded as a medium of employment generation Tourism reduces the trade deficit by generating the foreign exchange earnings from foreign tourist arrivals FTAs. It sometimes finances the import of capital goods necessary for the growth of manufacturing sectors in the economy. In many countries, foreign currency receipts from tourism exceeded currency receipts from all other sectors together. Over the past decades, the importance of the tourism sector for the economy has been steadily increasing. At International level it is recognized as a major contributor for long-run economic growth. It plays an important role in spurring investments in infrastructure and stimulates other industries by direct, indirect and induced effects. Tourism in India has shown a phenomenal growth in the past decade. But the growth was not so uniform since the promotional campaigns (Incredible India' and 'Atithi Devo Bhava') focuses on tourism for holiday, recreation and leisure only hence tourism in India has confined its scope to these only but as the time is changing the tourism has evolved itself as a multi dimensional activity. In India tourism has much to offer to travellers and tourists than offering tourism for holiday and recreation only viz. 1. Medical Tourism: Medical Services in India are quiet cheaper in comparison to the developed nations, so we can take the advantage of this to promote medical tourism in order to attract more FTAs. 2. Business Tourism: As India is the fastest growing economy in the world, we can attract more people to do business here in this way promote business tourism which would result more FTAs. 3. Educational Tourism: Indian education system is known for its quality, many doctors, engineers and other professionals who have been educated in India are serving the world and have proved their worthiness. In this way by focusing on our quality education system we should promote educational tourism and attract more students of foreign nationals and consequently increasing the FTAs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 September 2014 launched the 'Make in India' campaign at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. PM Modi has targeted 25 sectors for 'Make in India' programme. Among them hospitality and tourism are also included. Through, 'Make in India' the infrastructure a key driver of the economy highly responsible for propelling countries overall development. Would ensure time-bound creation of world class infrastructure in the country. This sector includes power, bridges, dams, roads and urban infrastructure development etc. Infrastructure of the country would be improved. There would be no dearth of accessing basic amenities, which will ultimately improve the quality of life in India. If investment in hospitality and tourism sector is made then the fertility of this investment will be proved only if we could succeed to attract more foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) towards India. Taking the advantage of changing scenario of improvement in infrastructure and other basic amenities, we need to revitalize the promotional campaigning for promoting tourism as a multi dimensional activity Keeping in mind the above things the concept of "Travel in India" International Advertising Programme for promoting multi dimensional tourism in India is given in order to increase India's global share in tourism by attracting more FTAs.


Malaysia aims to be an information society by the year 2020 can only be achieved if the mass population, that include those who live in the rural area, has the access to use the ICT. This is due to the uneven distribution of the basic telecommunication infostructure between the urban and rural areas in Malaysia that left the rural area to be at the disadvantage to access the ICT. Meanwhile, there are many programs that have been implemented by the government to encourage the rural population to use the Internet, such as 'Kedaikom', a community based telecenter serving the rural population. A questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate how 'Kedaikom' as a community based telecenter could assist in diffusing the usage of the ICT to the rural population. The result from the survey has indicated that the community telecenter could be used to bridge the digital divide between the underserved rural community and the well-accessed urban community. More of the rural population, especially from the younger generation and those with higher education background (irrespective of age) are using the community telecenter to be connected to the Internet. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1852-7.ch023


Continuous variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) is a promising emerging technology for the distribution of secure keys for symmetric encryption. It can be readily implemented using commercial off-the-shelf optical telecommunications components. A key requirement of the CV-QKD receiver is the ability to measure the quantum states at the correct time instance and rate using the correct orthogonal observables, referred to as synchronization. We propose a digital synchronization procedure for a modern CV-QKD system with locally generated local oscillator for coherent reception. Our proposed method is modulation format independent allowing it to be used in a variety of CV-QKD systems. We experimentally investigate its performance with a Gaussian modulated CV-QKD system operating over a 10–20 km span of standard single mode fibre. Since the procedure does not require hardware modifications it paves the way for cost-effective QKD solutions that can adapt rapidly to changing environmental conditions.


Hirundo Wildlife Refuge partnered with the University of Maine Construction Engineering Technology Department to construct the Trail of the Senses, a three-phase universally accessible outdoor trail system totaling a little over half a mile. The ultimate goal of Trail of the Senses is to maximize accessibility to nature while minimizing the negative effect on the environment, in order to provide better connections and experiences for all. This thesis focuses on the second phase, the Lac d'Or Trail. This trail is a quarter mile long and travels across a berm, through a forest, and culminates in an observation deck of the lake. The trail and observation deck are in accordance with the Forest Service Trail Accessibility Guidelines, and the Forest Service Outdoor Recreation Accessibility Guidelines, which are similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations. Besides the physical design and construction of the project, a major focus was the importance of exposing students to community involvement prior to graduation. This project allowed for students to use their specialized skillset learned through classes and apply it to a project that positively influenced the lives of others.


Political assassinations have been the major outcome of political violence in Nigeria. The activities and actions of political individuals and groups are now centered on 'adoption of assassination' in settling political scores. The paper examines the spate of political assassinations in the Nigerian political terrain from 1986 - 2005. The central focus is the continued killing of political actors, with the dismal effort of the security agencies, particularly the police; in bringing culprits to book and attribution of reported cases to armed robbery. Utilizing secondary data, the study reveals that approximately 53% of the deaths took place in the preceding decade (1991 - 2000), while 45% occurred in the present decade and 2% was recorded two decades ago. The paper observes with sadness, the inconclusive state of the various cases of political assassination. The ineffectiveness of the national security outfit, the intra-and inter-party squabbles and the 'bloody' political war that looms in some parts of the country are some of the factors that account for the rising incidence of political assassinations in Nigeria. Finally, the study notes that the era of blood shedding is still on-going and may pose a serious threat to the upcoming polls in 2007.

 Key words: Party squabbles, Political actors, Political violence, Political assassination, Nigeria, Politics, and Assassination.


ABSTRACT Bacterial pathogens Neisseria meningitidis and Brucella abortus pose threats to human and animal health worldwide, causing meningococcal disease and brucellosis, respectively. Mortality from acute N. meningitidis infections remains high despite antibiotics, and brucellosis presents alimentary and health consequences. Superoxide dismutases are master regulators of reactive oxygen and general pathogenicity factors and are therefore therapeutic targets. Cu,Zn superoxide dismutases (SODs) localized to the periplasm promote survival by detoxifying superoxide radicals generated by major host antimicrobial immune responses. We discovered that passive immunization with an antibody directed at N. meningitidis SOD (NmSOD) was protective in a mouse infection model. To define the relevant atomic details and solution assembly states of this important virulence factor, we report high-resolution and X-ray scattering analyses of NmSOD and of SOD from B. abortus (BaSOD). The NmSOD structures revealed an auxiliary tetrahedral Cu-binding site bridging the dimer interface; mutational analyses suggested that this metal site contributes to protein stability, with implications for bacterial defense mechanisms. Biochemical and structural analyses informed us about electrostatic substrate guidance, dimer assembly, and an exposed C-terminal epitope in the NmSOD dimer. In contrast, the monomeric BaSOD structure provided insights for extending immunogenic peptide epitopes derived from the protein. These collective results reveal unique contributions of SOD to pathogenic virulence, refine predictive motifs for distinguishing SOD classes, and suggest general targets for antibacterial immune responses. The identified functional contributions, motifs, and targets distinguishing bacterial and eukaryotic SOD assemblies presented here provide a foundation for efforts to develop SOD-specific inhibitors of or vaccines against these harmful pathogens. IMPORTANCE By protecting microbes against reactive oxygen insults, SODs aid survival of many bacteria within their hosts. Despite the ubiquity and conservation of these key enzymes, notable species-specific differences relevant to pathogenesis remain undefined. To probe mechanisms that govern the functioning of Neisseria meningitidis and Brucella abortus SODs, we used X-ray structures, enzymology, modeling, and murine infection experiments. We identified virulence determinants common to the two homologs, assembly differences, and a unique metal reservoir within meningococcal SOD that stabilizes the enzyme and may provide a safeguard against copper toxicity. The insights reported here provide a rationale and a basis for SOD-specific drug design and an extension of immunogen design to target two important pathogens that continue to pose global health threats.


Through a common set of analogue coefficients and a simple digital coding scheme in the form of ones and minus ones, a previous technique can only multiplex two beams whose directions satisfy a fixed relationship. In this work, two novel designs are proposed, which together with the corresponding inter-subarray coding schemes, can achieve multi-beam multiplexing for arbitrary directions to serve corresponding users. In the first design, based on the relationship of directions between the two required beams, the adjacent antenna spacing is regarded as a variable to be determined, while in the second design, the adjacent antenna spacing is fixed and an alternate optimisation procedure is proposed to solve the problem based on a least-square formulation. Designed examples based on uniform linear arrays and uniform planar arrays are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.


The Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act of 2004 (SPARTA) and the Uniform Athlete Agents Act (UAAA) have helped protect student-athletes and educational nstitutions against the harmful acts of unscrupulous sports agents. Statutory regulations have not adequately enforced agents' duties to all athletes. Furthermore, while aspects of agency law, such as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, player association regulations, and various Bar Association rules have helped fill some of the gaps, there remains a need for increased supervision over the sports agent profession. This article argues that student-athletes should have a statutory right to enforce the duties of sports agents and that all sports agents should have to be licensed under a federal registration system. In addition, it describes the need for a self-regulatory commission of sports agents to help weed out the unscrupulous agents who fail to fulfill their duties in the representation and solicitation of any athlete.


Workshops on clarifying values and transformation of attitudes (CVTA) are useful in eliminating some of the access barriers to quality services for women in situation of abortion, barriers that derive from erroneous information, women and health care providers' stigmatization, negative attitudes, and obstructionist behavior. Access barriers to safe abortion and post abortion services that follow lawful directions in Latin America are well documented. CVTA is one of various strategies used to assure women accessing services to obtain care quality they deserve. CVTA's conceptual framework is based on programmed behavior theory and includes some of its elements: values theory and the three main stages of the clarifying values process. In order to be able to participate efficaciously in the clarifying values process with respect to abortion, one should be able to acquire new information, go into existing or new information knowledge in depth, experimenting empathy for persons that look for or offer integral abortion care, know their current values in relation to abortion, examine alternative values, determine barriers to change and be open to changes. Continuous support to CVTA process is an adequate tool for improving care quality to women in abortion situation.


Cell death is a critically important biological process. Disruption of homeostasis, either by excessive or deficient cell death, is a hallmark of many pathological conditions. Recent research advances have greatly increased our molecular understanding of cell death and its role in a range of diseases and therapeutic treatments. Central to these ongoing research and clinical efforts is the need for imaging technologies that can locate and identify cell death in a wide array of in vitro and in vivo biomedical samples with varied spatiotemporal requirements. This review article summarizes community efforts over the past five years to identify useful biomarkers for dead and dying cells, and to develop molecular probes that target these biomarkers for optical, radionuclear, or magnetic resonance imaging. Apoptosis biomarkers are classified as either intracellular (caspase enzymes, mitochondrial membrane potential, cytosolic proteins) or extracellular (plasma membrane phospholipids, membrane potential, surface exposed histones). Necrosis, autophagy, and senescence biomarkers are described, as well as unexplored cell death biomarkers. The article discusses possible chemotherapeutic and theranostic strategies, and concludes with a summary of current challenges and expected eventual rewards of clinical cell death imaging.


The SmallEiffel compiler makes intensive use of aliasing in order to achieve very good performance both in terms of memory and execution time. This technique is very appropriate for compilation, but can also be applied to a wide range of applications. Thanks to the design by contract capabilities of the Eiffel language, aliasing can be handled very safely. The singleton pattern appears to be crucial in implementing alias provider objects. We propose an efficient implementation of this pattern made easy by some Eiffel idioms.


The new trend on software development is oriented to web services running in collaborative environments. Intelligent planning techniques are very useful to compose complex calls to these web services. However, there are still some issues that need to be improved to use planning and scheduling techniques in dynamic and collaborative contexts like the web service environment. This paper proposes some extensions to our planning system for using it to compose web service calls.


Flowering time is an important agronomic trait in cabbage (Brassica oleracea L. var. capitata), but the molecular regulatory mechanism underlying flowering time regulation in cabbage remains unclear. In this study, transcriptome analysis was performed using two sets of cabbage materials: (1) the early-flowering inbred line C491 (P1) and late-flowering inbred line B602 (P2), (2) the early-flowering individuals F2-B and late-flowering individuals F2-NB from the F2 population. The analysis revealed 9508 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) common to both C491_VS_ B602 and F2-B_VS_F2-NB. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGGs) analysis showed that plant hormone signal transduction and the MAPK signaling pathway were mainly enriched in up-regulated genes, and ribosome and DNA replication were mainly enriched in down-regulated genes. We identified 321 homologues of Arabidopsis flowering time genes (Ft) in cabbage. Among them, 25 DEGs (11 up-regulated and 14 down-regulated genes) were detected in the two comparison groups, and 12 gene expression patterns closely corresponded with the different flowering times in the two sets of materials. Two genes encoding MADS-box proteins, Bo1g157450 (BoSEP2-1) and Bo5g152700 (BoSEP2-2), showed significantly reduced expression in the late-flowering parent B602 compared with the early-flowering parent C491 via qRT-PCR analysis, which was consistent with the RNA-seq data. Next, the expression levels of Bo1g157450 (BoSEP2-1) and Bo5g152700 (BoSEP2-2) were analyzed in two other groups of early-flowering and late-flowering inbred lines, which showed that their expression patterns were consistent with those in the parents. Sequence analysis revealed that three and one SNPs between B602 and C491 were identified in Bo1g157450 (BoSEP2-1) and Bo5g152700 (BoSEP2-2), respectively. Therefore, BoSEP2-1 and BoSEP2-2 were designated as candidates for flowering time regulation through a potential new regulatory pathway. These results provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying flowering time regulation in cabbage.


Commonsense and theorizing about action control agree in assuming that human behavior is (mainly) driven by goals, but no mechanistic theory of what goals are, where they come from, and how they impact action selection is available. Here I develop such a theory that is based on the assumption that GOALs guide Intentional Actions THrough criteria (GOALIATH). The theory is intended to be minimalist and parsimonious with respect to its assumptions, as transparent and mechanistic as possible, and it is based on representational assumptions provided by the Theory of Event Coding (TEC). It holds that goal-directed behavior is guided by selection criteria that activate and create competition between event files that contain actioneffect codes matching one or more of the criteria—a competition that eventually settles into a solution favoring the best-matching event file. The criteria are associated with various sources, including biological drives, acquired needs (e.g., of achievement, power, or affiliation), and short-term, sometimes arbitrary, instructed aims. Action selection is thus a compromise that tries to satisfy various criteria related to different driving forces, which are also likely to vary in strength over time. Hence, what looks like goal-directed action emerges from, and represents an attempt to satisfy multiple constraints with different origins, purposes, operational characteristics, and timescales—which among other things does not guarantee a high degree of coherence or rationality of the eventual outcome. GOALIATH calls for a radical break with conventional theorizing about the control of goal-directed behavior, as it among other things questions existing cognitive control theories and dual-route models of action control. .


Purpose of review Epidemiological data have contributed to the classification in 2009 of the full ultraviolet (UV) radiation spectrum as carcinogenic to humans. We reviewed the epidemiological evidence that UVA could be involved in the genesis of cutaneous melanoma. Recent findings Use of artificial UV tanning devices (sunbeds) consists mainly of repeated exposure to high UVA doses. Epidemiological studies published over the last years confirmed the association between sunbed use and melanoma. Sunbed use is the most probable cause of an epidemic of melanoma that took place in Iceland from 1990 to 2006. The four-fold increase in melanoma incidence was not followed by an increase in melanoma mortality. Sunscreens were primarily devised for the prevention of sunburn, and UVB is the wavelength causing most sunburns. All observational studies and randomized trials show that sunscreen use may extend sun exposure intended for getting a tan, while it does not necessarily decrease sunburn occurrence. Sunscreen use for tan acquisition would thus lead to similar exposure to UVB and greater exposure to UVA, which could explain the slightly higher melanoma risk often found among sunscreen users. Summary UVA could be involved in the occurrence of nonlife-threatening melanoma. The increasing use of sunbeds and of sunscreens may partly explain why melanoma incidence increases in most light-skinned populations without concomitant increase in mortality.


BACKGROUND
Srinagarind Hospital has about 150-200 cases of patients with cleft lip and cleft palate each year. The operating process requires continuity of care involving a multidisciplinary team. When the patients go to hospital to undergo operation, pain is one of the most important symptoms to try and control effectively. During pre and post operative care nurses who work continuously and closely with the patients are the best persons to assist with pain relief. They need to have knowledge, experience and ability to take excellent care about pain control as well as having to have continuing assessment and selection of pain measurement tool. They can then better help to relieve patients pain, decrease parents stress and encourage better cooperation.

OBJECTIVE
To the present study pain score level in patients with cleft lip cleft palate during the 24 hour period after operation.

MATERIAL AND METHOD
This is the retrospective descriptive study. Data was collected from medical records. 86 Medical records of the patients with cleft lip cleft palate who were admitted in 3c ward between January to December 2010. Medical Records were purposively selected for the study and recorded with a data collection form.

RESULT
39% of patients after cheiloplasty and 55.6% of patients after palatoplasty received painkillers before leaving operating room, 29.29% of patients after cheilopalsty and 15.50% of patients after palatoplasty had severe pain immediately in ward. 48.8% of patients after cheiloplasty have moderate to severe pain at the 4th hour. Pain score was less when longer time after operation. Only 7.3% have pain after the 16th hour and pain finish after the 20th hour after operation. 51.1% in patients after palatoplasty have moderate to very severe pain at the 4th hour and 15.6% have moderate to very severe pain still occurring until the 24th hour.

CONCLUSION
Some of the patients with cleft lip and palate after operation received painkillers before leaving operating room. Pain score immediately at ward is severe to very severe pain. 22.09% of patients after cheiloplasty and palatoplasy have moderate to severe pain at the 4th hour. For patients after cheiloplasty pain will continue until the 16th hour after operation, but patients after palatoplasty pain will continue more than 24 hours.


Tensor robust principal component analysis (TRPCA) has received a substantial amount of attention in various fields. Most existing methods, normally relying on tensor nuclear norm minimization, need to pay an expensive computational cost due to multiple singular value decompositions (SVDs) at each iteration. To overcome the drawback, we propose a scalable and efficient method, named Parallel Active Subspace Decomposition (PASD), which divides the unfolding along each mode of the tensor into a columnwise orthonormal matrix (active subspace) and another small-size matrix in parallel. Such a transformation leads to a nonconvex optimization problem in which the scale of nulcear norm minimization is generally much smaller than that in the original problem. Furthermore, we introduce an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) method to solve the reformulated problem and provide rigorous analyses for its convergence and suboptimality. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world data show that our algorithm is more accurate than the state-of-the-art approaches, and is orders of magnitude faster.


Resonant dissociative recombination of the He2+ molecular ion is an important process in the ionosphere as well as in laboratory plasmas. Recently, rate coefficients have been measured for the dissociative recombination of He+2 using the ion storage ring TSR in Heidelberg, Germany. Previously, calculations have been reported for the cross section in the low energy region. We will report results in the 0 to 15 eV energy region, where the cross section is dominated by a series of resonances converging to the first excited state of the molecular ion. We will also discuss the resonances converging to the next series of excited states. The resonance parameters for this system are obtained from electron scattering calculations using the Complex Kohn variational method. These resonance parameters are used as input to a time-dependent wave packet calculation of the dissociation dynamics. The calculated cross sections and rates will be reported and compared to available experiment.


The paper examines the place and significance of the city`s noble manor theaters in the cultural environment of Moscow in the second half of the 18th – early 19th centuries. The priority attention of the study is drawn to the frontier of two centuries, since this historical stage was marked by a final rooting of the hitherto mostly alien Western European theater tradition in the Russian city (primarily metropolitan) society, which led to the further development of theatrical art as an integral part of national culture of Russia. Along with this, the last years of the 18th century became the peak of the manor theater as part of the urban cultural space of Moscow. The noble character of the "old" capital as well as the dense ring of "Moscow" — suburban estates, oriented in all aspects of their life to Moscow — contributed to this momentum. Based on the census of Moscow theaters conducted in the last years of the 18th century, the study provides characteristics of the main types of home stage groups, which are divided into a number of independent types, differing from each other in a degree of openness, main goals of existence, circle of participants and social component of their activities. The paper explains the features and goals of their functioning, analyzing such a phenomenon of the cultural life of Moscow of those years as "noble" performances and "noble" actors. The research also dwells on some of the most notable and characteristic creative groups, stage venues and stage ministers, presenting an assessment of the nature of their work. The author draws special attention to the importance of home city theaters and orchestras in the development of public theater art in the country, formation of the necessary creative personnel, appearance of new talented actors on the Moscow`s imperial stage, including those maintaining their dependent serfdom. The study concludes with an assessment of the subjective and objective reasons of the decay of manor theaters in Moscow and Russia, as well as their transformation on a new "commercial" basis in the first half of the 19th century.


Abstract In October 2009, political scientists learned of a Senate amendment sponsored by Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would eliminate political science funding from the National Science Foundation budget. The American Political Science Association condemned the proposed amendment, and concerned political scientists contacted their senators to urge the amendment's defeat. On November 5, 2009, the amendment was defeated 36-62 after little debate. This article examines the vote on the Coburn Amendment to understand the role that senators' personal, constituency, and institutional characteristics played in their votes. Logit analysis reveals that even after controlling for party, several factors significantly predict the vote, including the number of top-tier political science Ph.D. programs in the senator's state and whether the senator graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science.


The present study investigates dialect contact and linguistic accommodation in the use of verbs expressing obligation (such as MUST, HAVE GOT TO, HAVE TO and GOT TO) among native speakers of English resident in Japan, using a social network approach. Approximately 500 tokens were extracted from conversations between 39 native speakers of English from England, the US and New Zealand, recorded in single-nationality dyads, both immediately upon arrival in Japan and after a period of one year. Statistical analysis revealed that the informants from England actually diverged from the forms typically used by the Americans. The results, however, demonstrate the importance of social network strength in accounting for the consequences of dialect contact and short to medium-term linguistic accommodation.


In this letter, the support vector machine (SVM) regression approach is introduced to model the three-dimensional (3-D) high density microwave packaging structure. The SVM is based on the structural risk minimization principle, which leads to a good generalization ability. With a 3-D vertical interconnect used as an example, the SVM regression model is electromagnetically developed with a set of training data and testing data, which is produced by the electromagnetic simulation. Experimental results suggest that the developed model performs with a good predictive ability in analyzing the electrical performance


A one-dimensional pesticide leaching model, PEARL, in combination with a geographical information system was used to calculate the leaching potential of pesticides into local surface waters and the regional groundwater. Calculations were performed for6405 plots, which are unique combinations of spatially distributed model inputs. To have the seepage and drainage fluxes correctly described, the model was loosely coupled with a regional groundwater model. Simulations were carried out for four pesticides with different properties. Results showed that, generally, the average fluxes of pesticide into local surface waters were higher than the average fluxes of pesticide into the regional groundwater. Discharge by rapid drainage mechanisms (i.e. tube drainage and surface drainage) dominated. For the four pesticides, different spatial patterns of leaching and discharge by drainage water were predicted. It was shown that the spatial pattern was affected by a large number of interacting processes, and that the relative importance of these processes differed between the four example pesticides. This should be kept in mind when applying the USES system, which describes the leaching of pesticides on the basis of a limited number of pesticide parameters. Frequency distributions of the leaching concentration were compared with results from the first tier of the Dutch pesticide registration procedure, which comes down to the application of a single standard scenario. For two pesticides, the first tier was not strict enough. It was shown that it is not possible to find one single standard scenario, which applies to the full range of registered pesticides. This means that the number of standard scenarios should be increased. Direct application of a regional-scalemodel, however, is to be preferred, because it provides the user with frequency distributions and gives information about areas of safe usage.


Organizational innovativeness (OI) is a central concept in academic research and managerial practice. In many cases, OI has been operationalized as the number of innovations organizations adopt. In contrast, this paper conceptualizes OI as a five-dimensional construct (creativity, openness, future orientation, risk-taking, and proactiveness) representing the organizational climate, which refers to the organization's ability to generate ideas and innovate continually over time. The findings support the conceptualization and operationalization of the five-dimensional OI, validated in Norway, Israel, and Spain. These results shed new light on existing findings and can promote new research directions as well as guide strategic managerial decision-making.


! Abstract The intention of this experiment is to show the creation of multifunctional thiols from the reaction between various hydrochlorosilanes and mercaptoethanol in an attempt to utilize their distinct properties for practical applications. Multifunctional thiols have many useful applications including use in high-refractive-index lenses, 1 heavy metal chelation, 2 and degradable plastics. 3 Previous work, 5 in our lab has explored a class of reactions key to the synthesis of these compounds: the reaction between methylated chlorosilanes with mercaptoalcohols. We extended this reaction to include hydrogenated chlorosilanes. This allows us to produce multifunctional thiols with an additional functionalizable position at the hydrogen, allowing for greater flexibility in regards to practical applications. This functionalizable position allows the substituted chlorosilanes to undergo further reactivity with the possibility of forming more complex polymers and other important molecules with more widespread applications. The seemingly simple addition of the hydrogen to the chlorosilane led to unexpected results that differed significantly from those found with the reactions of the previously shown methylchlorosilanes.


The stability of aqueous Zn-ion batteries (AZIBs) is detrimentally influenced by the formation of Zn dendrites and the occurrence of parasitic side reactions at the Zn metal anode (ZMA)-electrolyte interface. The strategic manipulation of the preferential crystal orientation during Zn2+ plating serves as an essential approach to mitigate this issue. Here, Zn aspartate (Zn-Asp), an electrolyte additive for AZIBs, is introduced not only to optimize the solvation structure of Zn2+ , but also to crucially promote preferential Zn2+ plating on the (002) crystal plane of ZMA. As a result, both side reactions and Zn dendrites are effectively inhibited, ensuring an anode surface free of both dendrites and by-products. The implementation of Zn-Asp leads to significant enhancements in both Zn||Zn symmetric and Zn||Ti batteries, which demonstrate robust cyclability of over 3200 h and high Coulombic efficiency of 99.29%, respectively. Additionally, the Zn||NaV3 O8 ·1.5H2 O full battery exhibits remarkable rate capability, realizing a high capacity of 240.77 mA h g-1 at 5 A g-1 , and retains 92.7% of its initial capacity after 1000 cycles. This research underscores the vital role of electrolyte additives in regulating the preferential crystal orientation of ZMA, thereby contributing to the development of high-performing AZIBs.


British American Tobacco has developed a whole smoke exposure system to investigate and assess toxicity of cigarette smoke to human lung epithelial cells exposed at the air-liquid interface. Cigarette smoke is generated and diluted using a Borgwaldt RM20S smoking machine and delivered to a small (188cm), clear PerspexTM exposure chamber, which houses cells supported on commercially available inserts. In this study we have assessed smoke loss/deposition within the tubing of our whole smoke exposure system. An electrical mobility spectrometer was used to measure cigarette smoke particulates at three points in the system: after smoke generation, at delivery to the chamber and at the exhaust from the chamber. We conducted a three-way comparison of different tubing types in the RM20S including polyurethane (conditioned and new) and Viton. Results indicated that 76-90% of particulates reached the chamber with 18-39% being deposited in the chamber. Minimal losses were observed using conditioned polyurethane tubing.


Distributed computing systems are widely used in mission-critical real-time applications like missile defense systems, aircraft control and sonar applications. Designing a low cost distributed computing system which satisfies all the stringent requirements of a given application is a difficult problem. This problem can be alleviated using Computer-Aided Synthesis (CAS) tools. Due to the large number of design alternatives, the CAS tools are compute intensive and can take a considerably long time even for medium sized real-time applications. In this paper we describe a set of parallel synthesis algorithms which dynamically adapt to the number of available processors in a parallel computer system to substantially reduce the total turn-around time of the synthesis process.


Although there is an extensive literature on the market's anticipation of, and short-term reaction to, the bankruptcy event, the longer-term reaction to Chapter 11 filing has not been properly examined to date. We investigate the subsequent performance of the 351 non-financial, non-utility firms entering into bankruptcy protection between 1979 and 2005, and which continue trading on a major exchange. Consistent with previous research, we find negative abnormal and raw returns both before, and at the Chapter 11 date. However, more importantly, we find a strong, negative and statistically significant post-bankruptcy abnormal return of at least -28% over the 12-month period after the event date. Such market underreaction is consistent with research in other domains suggesting that the market has difficulty in dealing appropriately with extreme bad news events. We also find that the post-Chapter 11 drift is distinct from other reported market anomalies. Potential explanations for our anomalous results are presented.


A subcritical water degradation and extraction method was developed to remediate environmental soils contaminated by highly recalcitrant organochlorine pollutants. Hydrogen peroxide was used to effectively decompose organochlorine pollutants under subcritical water conditions. As a method optimization study, the static wet oxidation of chlorophenols was first performed in subcritical water with and without added hydrogen peroxide. Complete oxidation was achieved using an added oxidant, and thus, the oxidation and extraction of chlorophenols from a sand matrix was then attempted. Complete oxidation and extraction with added oxidant were achieved within 30 min at 100 °C. We then investigated the subcritical water degradation and extraction of dieldrin, mirex, and p,p′-DDD. These organochlorine pesticides were not as easily oxidized as the chlorophenols, and the benefit of adding hydrogen peroxide was only clearly observed at 200 °C. Approximately a 20% increase in degradation was noted for each pesticide and insecticide at this temperature. Unfortunately, this difference was not observed with an increase in temperature to 250 °C, except in some cases, where the amount of degradation byproducts was reduced. Dieldrin and p,p′-DDD were essentially destroyed at 250 °C, while all the pesticides and the insecticides were completely removed from the sand at this temperature. The proposed method was then used to remediate a soil sample highly contaminated with DDT. The soil was obtained from the grounds of an old DDT mixing facility in Virginia and has been aging for several decades. Not only was 100% removal of DDT from this soil achieved using the proposed method at 250 °C, but also, the extracted DDT was completely destroyed during the process. The proposed remediation method, therefore, demonstrates a high potential as an efficient and environmentally sound technique for the detoxification of soils.


Cardiac arrest (CA) due to cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in developed countries. It is estimated that over 350,000 people in Europe suffer from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. According to the literature, the longer the episode of cardiac arrest, the greater the risk of cognitive impairment, especially short-term memory, as well as immediate and delayed recall. Other common dysfunctions include attention deficits and executive function disorders. The aim of this systematic review was to summarize current research on cognitive impairment in patients after sudden cardiac arrest. The electronic databases PubMed/MEDLINE, OVID, Web of Science, and EBSCO were searched using the following key words: 'sudden cardiac arrest', 'out-of-hospital cardiac arrest', 'cognitive function', 'cognitive impairment', 'functional outcome', 'cardiopulmonary resuscitation'. The most recent studies from the last 7 years (2011–2018) were included. Cognitive disorders occurred in a broad range of cases: from 13% to even 100%. In one study, cognitive deficits did not occur at all. Amongst the reviewed articles only two studies were carried out on a large group of patients. The remaining studies were conducted on a small group of respondents; therefore there was no possibility to generalize the results to the entire population. The areas in which the most cognitive impairment occurred were memory, executive functions and visual–motor skills. One of the conclusions derived from the reviewed literature is the importance of continuous training of cognitive functions, especially for people with cardiovascular risk.


Most studies of the economies of Eastern Europe by Western analysts depend substantially on Western data and Western attitudes. Usually this dependence is implicit and concealed. An explicit and transparent treatment may yield better results, both for the individual analyst and for the profession overall. This article proposes and illustrates an econometric method for pooling Western and Eastern data. The pooled estimates depend on doubt about the Western attitudes, on the degree of experimental contamination in Western and Eastern data and on the similarity of Western and Eastern structures. The method is illustrated by a study of the determinants of the growth rates of developed and developing countries.


Polypropylene (PP) mesh has been used successfully for a long time in clinical practice as an impressive prosthesis for ventral hernia repair. To utilize a physical barrier for separating mesh from viscera is a general approach for preventing adhesions in clinical practice. However, a serious abdominal adhesion between the mesh and viscera can possibly occur post-hernia, especially with the small intestine; this can lead to a series of complications, such as chronic pain, intestinal obstruction, and fistula. Thus, determining how to prevent abdominal adhesions between the mesh and viscera is still an urgent clinical problem. In this study, a dopamine-functionalized polysaccharide derivative (oxidized-carboxymethylcellulose-g-dopamine, OCMC-DA) was synthesized; this was blended with carboxymethylchitosan (CMCS) to form a hydrogel (OCMC-DA/CMCS) in situ at the appropriate time. The physical and chemical properties of the hydrogel were characterized successfully, and its excellent biocompatibility was presented by the in vitro cell test. The combination of this hydrogel and PP mesh was used in laparoscopic surgery for repairing the abdominal wall defect, where the hydrogel could become fixed in situ on the PP mesh to form an anti-adhesion gel-mesh. The results showed that the gel-mesh could prevent abdominal adhesions effectively in the piglet model. Moreover, the histology and immunohistochemical staining proved that the gel-mesh could effectively alleviate the inflammation reaction and deposition of collagen around the mesh, and it did not disturb the integration between mesh and abdominal wall. Thus, the gel-mesh has superior tissue compatibility.


Leasing is the most common operation on the land market, at least in areas with a high quality agricultural land. The Romanian legislation in post-communist period leasing experienced a special regulation to introduce it in the new Civil Code, thus recognizing the importance it has in the socio-economic rent in Romania. From this perspective, the lease determining role in the Romanian society is a useful approach to determine regulatory requirements and how the current legislation covers the needs of society. Based on statistical data obtained from the National Institute of Statistics in conjunction with the data collected from the performance of contracts of lease rent in the areas where agricultural land is a very common operation (counties Calarasi, Ialomita, Giurgiu. An image was created on the living standard of the rural farming households and the conclusion drawn is that although the leasing company has only a strong economic role, down to the grassroots level in the households examined, the role of leasing also acquires social issues.


We give a domination condition implying good-$\lambda$ and exponential inequalities for couples of measurable functions. Those inequalities recover several classical and new estimations involving some operators in Harminic Analysis. Among other corollaries we prove a new exponential estimate for Carleson operators. The main results of the paper are considered in a general setting, namely, on abstract measure spaces equipped with a ball-basis.


The existence of memes on social media has become a visual culture because it can meet the information and pleasure needs of visual technology users. The meme is considered effective for conveying messages to audiences with humorous visual language. However, meme creativity often also uses visual objects that tend to demean other people, such as exploit a woman's body. This is very contrary to ethics, the moral obligation of humans as social-cultural beings, by carrying out acts of gender discrimination and the tendency to make pornographic photos. This has been regulated in UU No. 7 of 1984 concerning the elimination of discrimination and UU No. 44 of 2008 concerning pornography. Quantitatively, this study presents the results of a survey of design student respondents who showed that most memes on social media tend to display sexual exploitation and demeaning others. Whereas qualitatively, this study discusses the deconstruction of ethics in meme design, according to an ethic of responsibility of the 20th Century from Hans Jonas, using sociology of design approach, that is reading the function of visual signs. The results of this study are expected to be able to invite the audience to better understand the visual language of memes, and be critical of the visualization of memes that connote violating moral norms. This study can also be a reference to the visual culture of memes based on more responsible ethics.


In recent years there has been growing interest in the application of plant-derived substances in agriculture as alternatives to the use of pesticides, in order to obtain healthy crops and more environmentally sustainable crop production systems. The properties of some essential oils as natural fungicides were evaluated, to promote their use in alternative agriculture. Potentially detrimental effects caused by essential oil residues in soil were also assessed by mutagenicity assays to avoid possible adverse effects related to the use of these materials. Trials in a controlled environment were set up, using 'Romanesco' zucchini treated with essential oils, either exclusively or alternated with a synthetic fungicide. The treatments were applied when natural infection by Podosphaera xanthii appeared on test plants, and powdery mildew incidence and severity were assessed after six weeks. Preliminary results indicated that the alternation of natural materials with effective synthetic fungicide maintained effective disease control, and may also assist with management of pesticide resistance in P. xanthii . No relevant mutagenic effects of essential oil residues in soil were revealed, although an appropriate formulation useful under field conditions is required for effective application.


To determine whether Schistosoma mattheei is present in the south-western Transvaal, sixty habitats were searched for the intermediate host snail, Bulinus africanus. Ten populations of this snail were located, 2 of which were infected with S. mattheei. Eggs of one of these isolates, originating from a spring in the Mooi River, were examined with an optical microscope. Scanning electron micrographs of the teguments of adult male worms and the terebratorial membranes of miracidia are described. These parasites are morphologically similar to some previously described from another habitat in the same geographical area and both populations can be regarded as typical S. mattheei.


Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) is an enzyme that reduces dihydrofolate to tetrahydrofolate for the denovo synthesis of purines. DHFR is a well-established and classic drug target used in cancer therapy. Several drugs like Methotrexate (MTX), Trimethoprim, Pemetrexed, Pyrimethamine, etc. are known inhibitors of DHFR and presently used to treat cancer patients. Staphylococcus is a major human pathogen and the causative agent of numerous hospital and community-acquired infections. In the present investigation, DHFR of Staphylococcus aureus (PDB Id: 2W9G) was subjected to molecular docking to evaluate whether the anti-cancer drugs, MTX and Pemetrexed strongly bind to the former. The results of molecular docking indicated that MTX and Pemetrexed strongly interact with Staphylococcal DHFR with the binding energy of -8.3kcal/mol and -9.0kcal/mol respectively. To validate the in silicostudies, the antimicrobial property of MTX and pemetrexed was evaluated in clinical strains of S. arlettae and S.sciuriin vitro and the results indicated that MTX but not pemetrexed possessed antimicrobial activity. But the similar antimicrobial effect of the abovementioned drugs was not found in gram-negative bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), and E. coli (ATCC 25922). The Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of MTX was found to be higher than 2mg/ml for both strains. Even though the MIC values of MTX are high, we propose that structural modification of MTX or its combination with conventional antibiotics may lead to the discovery of the new potential antimicrobial drug.


Over the past few decades, the homeland concept has received an ever-increasing amount of attention by cultural geographers. While the debate surrounding the necessity and applicability of the concept continues, it is more than apparent that no other geographic term (including culture areas or culture regions) captures the essence of peoples' attachment to place better than homeland. The literature, however, provides few examples of the deep-seated loyalty people have for a homeland despite being physically detached from that space. Employing land use mapping and informal interviews, this paper seeks to help fill that gap by exemplifying how the daily lives of Mormons living in Chihuahua, Mexico reflect their connection to the United States and the Mormon homeland. Our research revealed that, among other things, the Anglo residents perpetuate their cultural identity through their unique self-reference, exhibit territoriality links reflected in their built environment, and demonstrate unconditional bonding to their homeland through certain holiday celebrations. It is clear to us, as the Anglo-Mormon experience illustrates, that the homeland concept deserves a place within the geographic lexicon.


Purpose. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into attitudes and perceptions about smoking during pregnancy, passive smoke exposure, barriers to quitting, and program preferences among women in a low-income, ethnically diverse setting. Design. Nine focus group discussions were conducted with African-American, Native American, and white women. Discussions were moderated by local residents who shared the same ethnic background as group participants. Setting. Discussions were held in neighborhood centers and clinics in an urban area. Subjects. A total of 57 women participated. Moderators recruited participants from within their social networks and from neighborhood programs. The informal process of recruitment did not allow calculation of response rates. Measures. A series of open-ended questions with selected probes was used to guide the conversation. Results. Participants were aware that smoking during pregnancy is harmful and were concerned to varying degrees about their smoking behavior. Most women who smoked took active steps to reduce the risks. Actions were frequently accompanied by beliefs that rationalized moderate levels of smoking. While concerned, women were uncertain about what constituted harmful, passive smoke exposure. Personal barriers to quitting included being around others who smoked, feelings of stress and boredom, addiction, and not believing smoking is dangerous enough. Participants tended to value pregnancy-related advice from female friends and relatives over advice from professionals. Conclusions. Results suggest that many women respond to warnings about smoking during pregnancy, but actions are not necessarily measured, in quit rates. Misconceptions about the risks may help to rationalize continued smoking. Subjects lacked knowledge about how best to reduce the risks of passive smoke. Educational efforts may be effective when directed at networks of women who share information. The nature of qualitative data collection prevents extrapolation of these results to a larger population.


BACKGROUND
Nanoscale metal oxide catalysts have been extensively employed in organic reactions because they have been found to influence the chemical and physical properties of the bulk material. The chromene (benzopyran) nucleus constitutes the core structure in a major class of many biologically active compounds, and interest in their chemistry consequently continues because of their numerous biological activities. The xanthene (dibenzopyran) derivatives are classified as highly significant compounds which display a number of various bioactive properties. Pyrimidinones have also gained interest due to their remarkable biological utilization such as antiviral, antibacterial, antihypertensive, antitumor and calcium blockers effects.

OBJECTIVE
Our aim in the work presented herein was to prepare activated carbon/MoO3 nanocomposite and explore its role as a green and recyclable catalyst for the synthesis of chromeno[d]pyrimidinediones and xanthenones under ethanol-drop grinding at room temperature.

METHODS
The activated carbon/MoO3 nanocomposite was prepared successfully via a simple route in which carbonization of gums as new natural precursors was used for the synthesis of activated carbon. This nanocomposite was then effectively used in a reaction of 3,4- methylenedioxyphenol, aromatic aldehydes and active methylene compounds including 1,3-dimethylbarbituric acid and dimedone to synthesize a series of chromeno[d]pyrimidinediones and xanthenones in high yields. The synthesized catalyst was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Powder x-ray diffractometry (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, and also by TGA analysis. Confirmation of the structures of compounds 5(a-g) and 6(a-g) were also established with IR, 1 H NMR and 13C NMR spectroscopic data and also by elemental analyses.

RESULTS
A number of 6,8-dimethyl-10-phenyl-6,10-dihydro-7H-[1,3]dioxolo[4΄,5΄:6,7]chromeno[2,3-d]pyrimidine-7,9(8H)-diones and 7,7- dimethyl-10-(4-methylphenyl)-6,7,8,10-tetrahydro-9H-[1,3]dioxolo[4,5-b]xanthen-9-ones were effectively synthesized using activated carbon/MoO3 nanocomposite (0.05 gr) as catalyst under ethanol-drop grinding at room temperature. The desired products were obtained in high yields (93-97%) within short reaction times (15-20 min).

CONCLUSION
This paper investigates the catalytic potential of the synthesized activated carbon/MoO3 nanocomposite for the prepataion of chromeno[d]pyrimidinediones and xanthenones under ethanol-drop grinding procedure. The mildness of the reaction conditions, high yields of products, short reaction times, experimental simplicity, and avoid the use of harmful solvents or reagents makes this procedure preferable for the synthesis of these compounds.


Abstract In order to identify leech species prevalent in Lake St. Clair, Michigan, U.S.A,. and understand their effect on fish hosts, fish were collected during May 2006 and 2007 from Anchor Bay, Lake St. Clair in the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin. Throughout the study, 2,117 fish from 21 species were examined for the presence of leeches. Overall, 1,064 leeches were collected from 165 individual fish and identified morphologically. Hosts included the channel catfish, freshwater drum, northern pike, northern shorthead redhorse sucker, quillback sucker, rock bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, and yellow perch. Leeches attached to hosts had a prevalence of 7.79%, with a mean intensity of 6.45 leeches/infected fish and an abundance of 0.50 leeches/examined fish. Collected leeches were identified as Actinobdella pediculata (Glossiphonidae), Placobdella montifera (Glossiphonidae), and Myzobdella lugubris (Piscicolidae), which was the most commonly occurring species. The freshwater drum had the highest prevalence, mean intensity, and abundance of leeches as a host for all leech species, as well as for A. pediculata and M. lugubris. Placobdella montifera was rare in occurrence, with little variation in host prevalence, mean intensity, or abundance. This is also the first record of the northern shorthead redhorse sucker as a host for A. pediculata. Leeches were found attached to various sites on the hosts, but occurred primarily on the pectoral fins. Gross inspection showed that leech attachment occurred in high intensities associated with necrotic areas and hemorrhages, and also caused swelling and prevented the opercular flap from closing. Histopathologically, leech attachment caused an extensive inflammatory response, necrosis of the muscle tissue, and edema. Results indicate that there are 3 predominant leech species parasitizing fish hosts in Lake St. Clair, that the leeches have preferred hosts and attachment locations, and that they cause damage to the underlying skin and musculature at the site of attachment.


Abstract In 2021, the Lancet Commission on adolescent nutrition highlighted the need to prioritise the elimination of adolescent malnutrition to tap the human capital potential and break the intergenerational malnutrition trap. The nutritional requirement during adolescence reaches its peak. The present study aims to appraise the prevalence of undernutrition (stunting and thinness) and anaemia among adolescents (10–19 years) in India and the role of socioeconomic, individual-level hygiene behaviour and dietary diversity in nutritional outcomes. We have used the nationally representative Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS-2016–18) that covers children and adolescents (0–19 years) in India. The prevalence of stunting, anaemia and thinness among adolescents was 27⋅2, 28⋅5 and 24⋅1 %, respectively. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression models were applied to estimate the likelihood of undernutrition. The likelihood of stunting was higher for late adolescence (OR 1⋅21, 95 % CI 1⋅15, 1⋅27), low dietary diversity (OR 1⋅37, 95 % CI 1⋅26, 1⋅49) and low hygiene behaviour compliance (OR 1⋅53, 95 % CI 1⋅42, 1⋅64). Adolescents from the poorest quintile were more likely to be stunted (OR 3⋅20, 95 % CI 2⋅94, 3⋅48), anaemic (OR 1⋅66, 95 % CI 1⋅47, 1⋅87) and thin (OR 1⋅68, 95 % CI 1⋅54, 1⋅82). We found that lower hygienic compliance was significantly associated with undernutrition and anaemia. Therefore, promoting hygienic practices should be emphasised to tackle undernutrition and anaemia. Furthermore, dietary diversity and poverty were strong predictors of stunting and thinness, therefore targeting the poor and focusing on improving dietary diversity should be the priority.


MNC's make utilization of teams to oversee and work out their operation or undertakings. Now and then these teams comprises of talents from distinctive nation or society who unite to take a shot at a task. There are two kind of global teams, one is the global virtual group and the other is global co-placed group. Not just do teams shift in their level of heterogeneity and undertakings, yet they likewise differ with respect to the area of their colleagues. At one great, colleagues who are structure distinctive societies and nations are all found in the same place and meet up close and personal to perform the greater part of the assignments. At the other great, colleagues are structure diverse nations and societies and scattered around the globe and at times meet or never meet vis-a-vis .Instead undertakings are refined practically, with the assistance of data and correspondence innovations, for example, email, phone, and feature conferencing .When working in global multicultural virtual teams aggravated crosswise over distinctive work societies, the colleagues may confront social contrasts. This requests social affectability to work effectively in the undertaking environment. One of the paramount difficulties is to make a positive group environment in a practically dispersed group, where the parts a lot of people never meet one another. Heading a global group can be an exceedingly extreme, upsetting and testing knowledge. Some of the time such global appropriated teams may neglect to achieve their targets as a result of the difficulties they confront. There are likewise global multicultural teams which are arranged. This sort of group additionally confront a few difficulties on the grounds that the group may comprise of individuals who are structure distinctive societies. Dealing with a global teams is multidimensional and complex. The virtual and social contrasts make the dealing with the global teams more intricate. Under such circumstances Organization Climate, Emotional Intelligence assume a vital part in the accomplishing the proposed venture execution conclusions i.e. Time, Budget and Quality. This paper will attempt to comprehend the part of authoritative atmosphere, passionate discernment play to attain the expected undertaking results i.e. sticking to the Time timetables, Budget and Quality. Two critical variables Organization atmosphere and Leadership have enormous effect on the general execution of the task. This study is proposed to research the global undertaking situations and effect of the authoritative atmosphere and transformational authority on the colleagues in ventures as a rule and the venture results specifically furthermore the enthusiastic brainpower of the colleagues in meeting expectations firmly in the multicultural task situations


A previously developed mathematical wetting model is generalized and applied to the following two closely related situations: the spreading of a liquid over a prewet solid surface and the receding contact-line motion with a microscopic residual film, remaining behing the contact line. An analytical expression for the velocity dependence of the dynamic contact angle is derived. Macroscopic characteristics (the dynamic contact angle and drag force) and the flow field corresponding to the spreading of a liquid over a wet solid surface differ considerably from those calculated for a dry surface. Under certain conditions the flow in the reference frame fixed with respect to the contact line has a region with closed streamlines. The region appears due to the flow-induced Marangoni effect, the reverse influence of the surface tension gradient along the liquid-solid interface caused by the flow on the flow, which gives rise to the gradient. The results are compared qualitatively with experimental data


This paper describes a synthesis of genuine ethyl 9-methoxy-1H-benz[f]indole-2-carboxylate (6). The genuine synthetic specimen has different physical properties from those of the indole reported as ethyl 9-methoxy-1H-benz[f]indole-2-carboxylate, which was obtained by Fischer indolisation of ethyl pyruvate 2-(1-methoxy-2-naphthylhydrazone)(9) by Goldsmith and Lindwall.Our synthetic method includes the Friedel–Crafts acylation of ethyl pyrrole-2-carboxylate (13) with phthalic anhydride and a new selective N-debenzylation of N-benzylindole derivatives having a methoxy group in their molecule with aluminium chloride in anisole at room temperature.


We propose a chiral metasurface (CMS) that exhibits asymmetric transmission (AT) of double circularly and linearly polarized waves at the same frequency band. In order to realize the manipulation of electromagnetic (EM) waves in the whole space, the unit cell of CMS consists of three layers of dielectric substrate and four layers of metal patches. The Z-shaped chiral micro-structure and a grating-like micro-structure are proposed and designed to achieve AT. The simulated results show that the x-polarized wave that is incident along one direction can be transmitted into the right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP) wave and the left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) wave that is incident along the opposite direction can be reflected as the LHCP wave in the frequency band of 4.69GHz-5.84 GHz. The maximum chirality response can be reflected by AT and circular dichroism (CD) and they can reach up to 0.38 and 0.75, respectively. In addition, we also produced the sample of CMS, and the experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated results.


A key requirement for autonomic (i.e., self-*) management systems is a short adaptation time to changes in the networking conditions. In this paper, we show that the adaptation time of a distributed monitoring protocol can be controlled. We show this for A-GAP, a protocol for continuous monitoring of global metrics with controllable accuracy. We demonstrate through simulations that, for the case of A-GAP, the choice of the topology of the aggregation tree controls the trade-off between adaptation time and protocol overhead in steady-state. Generally, allowing a larger adaptation time permits reducing the protocol overhead. Our results suggest that the adaptation time primarily depends on the height of the aggregation tree and that the protocol overhead is strongly influenced by the number of internal nodes. We outline how A-GAP can be extended to dynamically self-configure and to continuously adapt its configuration to changing conditions, in order to meet a set of performance objectives, including adaptation time, protocol overhead, and estimation accuracy.


We present a synthetic adaptation of the fibrillar adhesion surfaces found in nature. The structure consists of protruding fibrils topped by a thin plate and shows an experimentally measured enhancement in adhesion energy of up to a factor of 9 over a flat control. Additionally, this structure solves the robustness problems of previous mimic structures and has preferred contact properties (i.e., a large surface area and a highly compliant structure). We show that this geometry enhances adhesion because of its ability to trap interfacial cracks in highly compliant contact regimes between successive fibril detachments. This results in the requirement that the externally supplied energy release rate for interfacial separation be greater than the intrinsic work of adhesion, in a manner analogous to lattice trapping of cracks in crystalline solids.


Symptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD) is usually treated with organic nitrates. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are a circulating cell population participating in vascular homeostasis in a nitric oxide-dependent manner. We investigated the effects of the nitric oxide donors isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) on EPC and endothelial function in patients with symptomatic CAD. We randomized 36 patients with angiographically proven CAD to treatment with either ISDN (40 mg retarded release orally two times per day; n = 18) or PETN (80 mg orally two times per day; n = 18) for 14 days (clinical trial number: NCT01030367). PETN treatment substantially increased numbers of circulating CD34(+)/KDR(+) EPCs (p = 0.02), whereas no effects were observed in patients treated with ISDN. EPC function assessed by formation of endothelial colonies was enhanced by twofold (p = 0.04) in patients treated with PETN. No changes were observed after ISDN treatment. Endothelial function, assessed by peripheral arterial tonometry, remained unchanged during PETN treatment, but was significantly impaired in patients treated with ISDN. Treatment of symptomatic CAD patients with PETN for 14 days significantly increased levels of circulating EPC and improved markers for EPC function, whereas ISDN was without effects on EPCs and worsened endothelial function.


BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to evaluate antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation of Staphylococcus aureus strains, isolated from urine samples of patients with urinary tract infection. The samples were collected in the period of 2005-2009 and originated from patients of St. Anne's Teaching Hospital in Brno.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
A total of 128 S. aureus strains from 128 patients with the diagnosis of urinary tract infection were examined. In addition to testing the antibiotic resistance to doxycycline, vankomycin, nitrofurantoin, oxacillin, amoxicillin/clavulanate, cefoxitin and sulfamethoxazol/trimethoprim, biofilm was also detected in 112 strains by the modified Christensen method.

RESULTS
No S. aureus strain resistant to vankomycin and nitrofrantoin was found, 12 strains were resistant to oxacillin (9.4 %), 6 to doxycyklin (4.7 %), 9 to amoxicillin/clavulanate (7.0 %) as well as to cefoxitine, and 2 to sulfamethoxazol/trimethoprim (1.6 %). Out of 20,375 positive urine samples examined in our laboratory between 2005 and 2009, S. aureus was detected as a causative agent of urinary tract infection in 0.6 %, being more frequent in males. Biofilm was produced by 14 (12.5 %) out of 112 S. aureus strains.

CONCLUSIONS
The biofilm formation of urinary S. aureus strains was low. The strains showed higher resistance to beta-lactams, in other cases resistance was low. S. aureus was found to be more frequent in urine of older patients, males and after previous interventions using instrumental.


A novel topological approach for obtaining a family of new molecular descriptors is proposed. In this connection, a vector space E (molecular vector space), whose elements are organic molecules, is defined as a "direct sum" of different ℜi spaces. In this way we can represent molecules having a total of i atoms as elements (vectors) of the vector spaces ℜi (i=1, 2, 3,..., n; where n is number of atoms in the molecule). In these spaces the components of the vectors are atomic properties that characterize each kind of atom in particular. The total quadratic indices are based on the calculation of mathematical quadratic forms. These forms are functions of the k-th power of the molecular pseudograph's atom adjacency matrix (M). For simplicity, canonical bases are selected as the quadratic forms' bases. These indices were generalized to "higher analogues" as number sequences. In addition, this paper also introduces a local approach (local invariant) for molecular quadratic indices. This approach is based mainly on the use of a local matrix [Mk(G, FR)]. This local matrix is obtained from the k-th power (Mk(G)) of the atom adjacency matrix M. Mk(G, FR) includes the elements of the fragment of interest and those that are connected with it, through paths of length k. Finally, total (and local) quadratic indices have been used in QSPR studies of four series of organic compounds. The quantitative models found are significant from a statistical point of view and permit a clear interpretation of the studied properties in terms of the structural features of molecules. External prediction series and cross-validation procedures (leave-one-out and leave-group-out) assessed model predictability. The reported method has shown similar results, compared with other topological approaches. The results obtained were the following: a) Seven physical properties of 74 normal and branched alkanes (boiling points, molar volumes, molar refractions, heats of vaporization, critical temperatures, critical pressures and surface tensions) were well modeled (R>0.98, q2>0.95) by the total quadratic indices. The overall MAE of 5-fold cross-validation were of 2.11 oC, 0.53 cm3, 0.032 cm3, 0.32 KJ/mol, 5.34 oC, 0.64 atm, 0.23 dyn/cm for each property, respectively; b) boiling points of 58 alkyl alcohols also were well described by the present approach; in this sense, two QSPR models were obtained; the first one was developed using the complete set of 58 alcohols [R=0.9938, q2=0.986, s=4.006oC, overall MAE of 5-fold cross-validation=3.824 oC] and the second one was developed using 29 compounds as a training set [R=0.9979, q2=0.992, s=2.97 oC, overall MAE of 5-fold cross-validation=2.580 oC] and 29 compounds as a test set [R=0.9938, s=3.17 oC]; c) good relationships were obtained for the boiling points property (using 80 and 26 cycloalkanes in the training and test sets, respectively) using 2 and 5 total quadratic indices: [Training set: R=0.9823 (q2=0.961 and overall MAE of 5-fold cross-validation=6.429 oC) and R=0.9927 (q2=0.977 and overall MAE of 5-fold cross-validation=4.801 oC); Test set: R=0.9726 and R=0.9927] and d) the linear model developed to describe the boiling points of 70 organic compounds containing aromatic rings has shown good statistical features, with a squared correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.981 (s=7.61 oC). Internal validation procedures (q2=0.9763 and overall MAE of 5-fold cross-validation=7.34 oC) allowed the predictability and robustness of the model found to be assessed. The predictive performance of the obtained QSPR model also was tested on an extra set of 20 aromatic organic compounds (R=0.9930 and s=7.8280 oC). The results obtained are valid to establish that these new indices fulfill some of the ideal requirements proposed by Randić for a new molecular descriptor.


As discussed in Part I of this series, rogue doctors have serious sociopathic behavioral deficiencies which may be the result of a defect of character or a flaw in ethics. Under these circumstances, unacceptable behavior patterns will arise. For years, counseling, coaching, training, supervising, transfers to less critical disciplines, disciplinary warnings, and offering opportunities to resign have been the typical approaches in dealing with rogues; the outright firing of residents and doctors has been relatively taboo. However, preserving a rogue's professional status as a practicing doctor has become increasingly problematic. In Part II of this two-part series, implementation of a performance management system to remove rogues from the system is discussed. This paper will detail exactly how such a system can work.


In 2012, the Lower Mainland Pharmacy Services Residency Program (British Columbia) saw the successful completion of its first residency project involving 2 residents and multiple health authorities. The project was entitled "Atrial Fibrillation Clinics in BC and the Use of Dronedarone: The ABCD Study", and some interesting lessons—for residents, researchers, and residency coordinators—can be gleaned from this endeavour. For the residency program itself, the main advantage of 2 residents working together on a single project is derived from having twice the resident attention to move the project forward. This increase in attention translated into more project weeks, more workload capacity dedicated to the project, and a larger potential study population. In practical terms, a larger, more ambitious project could be undertaken. This situation represents a benefit to the residency project enterprise as a whole, since a larger set of potential projects can be considered, including projects that could not be completed by a single resident during a 12-month residency. For the residents involved, dual-resident projects have many advantages. In addition to having a partner with whom to share the many tasks associated with completing a research project, each resident has a counterpart for brainstorming and assistance in understanding complex research methods. The presence of 2 residents working through the components of the project and sharing their experiences allows for potential efficiencies to be realized and provides a unique learning opportunity for the residents. Collaborating on a year-long project with a resident colleague requires close communication and forces each resident to clearly articulate his or her thoughts on the project. This experience benefits the residents and should serve them well in future research endeavours. In addition, the scope of the project may allow networking with other health care providers. For example, the broad geographic area covered by the ABCD study population drew attention from health care professionals working in that area and led to opportunities for the 2 residents to present preliminary findings to physicians and nurses at conferences and during an online webinar. Despite these advantages, dual-resident projects may also have some disadvantages. The constant communication between residents that is vital for the project's success can be fruitful, but when opinions, communication styles, or visions for the project differ, having 2 residents involved may be unwieldy. The residents' personalities and the need for cooperation between them are 2 more variables to include in an already complicated project equation. In the ABCD project, the 2 residents made a concerted effort to communicate consistently throughout the year, which went a long way to ensuring that both were engaged in the work and that the project itself was relatively well organized. Despite these best efforts, there were a few inevitable breakdowns in communication, but with a voiced focus on cohesiveness, these breakdowns did not derail the project and in fact provided valuable learning opportunities. During any hospital pharmacy residency, the resident must satisfy the standards of the Canadian Hospital Pharmacy Residency Board 2 as they pertain to the project: • "The resident shall be involved in project development, data collection, analysis and interpretation. • "The resident shall prepare a written report of the project in a format suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. • "The resident shall present and defend the outcomes of the project." With multiple residents working on a project, attention is required to ensure that each resident satisfies all of these program requirements. Many of the project components are time-sensitive, and their completion is, by default, primarily the responsibility of the resident with project time available (i.e., according to the designated project week). As noted above, communication between the residents is vital to ensuring that both contribute to each component of the project. Balancing the degree to which both residents are involved at all stages is particularly challenging. Another complication of a dual-resident project is that a degree of inter-rater variability is inevitable in projects that involve data collection and clinical interpretation. This is a potential limitation of the results, which must be controlled for as much as possible through communication and cooperation between the residents involved. In the ABCD Study, inter-rater variability during data collection was not assessed, but this issue is something that future dual-resident projects should consider. When it comes time to evaluate the residents' work on the project, it can be difficult to discern the amount that each resident contributed. Many of the project components are shared, but inevitably the proportion of each component performed by each resident will be unequal. Having the residents record their work and their involvement in specific components could mitigate this difficulty. Another possibility would be to have the residents evaluate each other at the end of the project. Overall, the first dual-resident, multi–health authority residency project in the Lower Mainland Pharmacy Services was a success. As the 2 residents involved in this project, we can say that the benefits of participating in a project that would have been too large for a single person to complete during a 1-year residency program and the opportunity to develop key communication skills outweighed the perceived disadvantages of undertaking such a project. LETTER


Starting in the 1960s, Third World countries organized at the United Nations to achieve full economic independence. The "New International Economic Order" (NIEO) movement drafted charters and declarations, which placed the right to control natural resource industries and foreign direct investment squarely in the hands of newly decolonized nation-states. During the 1973 oil crisis, NIEO influence peaked. When debt and conditional loans followed in the wake of 1973, the NIEO's leverage was removed. Instead of state-based right claims, the 1970s generally saw the triumph of the "last utopia" of individual human rights. It was mirrored by the rise of another anti-statist utopia, neoliberalism.