A model of selecting the best of the research and development (R&D) projects is proposed. In many organizations, there is a considerable amount of distributed decision making. In the mission of a technical committee, for instance, entrusted with the assessment of the decision alternatives under certain pre-specified criteria, the relative importance of the criteria may have been formulated in vague verbal terms. Both quantitative criteria, e.g., costs and benefits terms as well as qualitative criteria, e.g., response to competition, are considered in the decision process. In this paper, linguistic terms and triangular fuzzy numbers describe decision-makers' opinions. A new algorithm is developed based on fuzzy measures to deal with such types of ranking problems. One of these problems is R&D project selection issue. Finally, an illustrative example is given to demonstrate the procedure of the proposed methodology.


In recent years, the advent of new CAD technologies worldwide have raised questions on whether a developing nation like Nigeria can keep up with the current trend in CAD technological advancement. As there exists limited literature on the of usage of CAD in Town Planning practice in Nigeria, this book sheds more light on the application of Computer Aided Design (CAD) to the Town Planning practice within a selected study area in the country. This was carried out to examine the contributions of these newly introduced computer aided design packages to the productivity of various firms making use of them in comparison to the techniques formerly used for design in the profession years back. For the achievement of the goal of this work, both primary and secondary data were used; to this end, over 60% of all the planning firms in Ikeja Metropolis were randomly selected for this research. The conclusions of this book should help professionals in the Town Planning and Architectural industry in determining which CAD application the employers could invest upon and which one the employees as well as recent graduates should aspire to acquire its skills so as to be employable and marketable.


Many small municipalities are involved in big sport events from time to time. This article describes the planning and organisation of health services in connection with the annual National Rifle Shooting Championship in 1993 in Oppdal, Norway. The health services of this municipality are dimensioned for 6,200 inhabitants. The shooting championship involved over 7,000 participants and 20,000 companions for ten days. During the event, all contacts with the health services were recorded. Analyses of this material and comparisons with other similar events provided strong support for the hypothesis that good planning and organisation of the preventive health services can reduce the need for curative and acute medicine. Emphasis must be placed on prevention of infectious diseases, fire, and accidents. The number of participants, age of companions, and the type of sport must also be taken into consideration. It is essential for the quality of the preventive health service that the Public Health Officer is involved and takes the right initiatives during the planning process. It is also vital to collaborate with personnel responsible for other sectors than the health sector, but of major importance for prevention of illness and disease.


Achieving successful projects is critical and the project manager's role is beyond dispute. Hence, successful recruitment processes that put critical competence requirements in focus could facilitate successful project coutcomes. It is fundamental that a certain project supports the organization's core product, because that is the basis for the organization's success in the first place. Therefore it is important that the project core product is viewed since it is supposed to support the core product. Further, it would be helpful to distinguish between general competences and core competences in order to avoid focusing on more or less insignificant general qualificaion requirements while missing to elucidate the core qualificaion requirements that should be decisive for the outcome. This paper aims at shedding light on the necessity of paying careful attention to project core product and project core competence as basic conditions for project success. Implications for practice and research are discussed.


Similar to other Black men, Haitian men are at risk for prostate cancer. However, little is known about prostate cancer in Haitian American men. To address this gap in the literature, the purpose of this study was to assess the prostate cancer knowledge and misconceptions of Haitian American men. The research questions were: (1) What is the level of prostate cancer knowledge among Haitian men? (2) What are the common myths and misconceptions associated with prostate cancer among Haitian men? (3) Which demographic factors are associated with prostate cancer knowledge, myths, and misconceptions? The inclusion criteria for participants were men of Haitian ancestry, 40 – 70 years old, with ability to speak, read and write in English. Data collection took place in Orlando and Miami (Florida); and was by self-administered survey. A total of 95 men were recruited during two health forums and at a church. T-shirts or a bag was provided as incentives for participation in the study. Descriptive analyses and simple regression was employed to analyze the data. Prostate cancer knowledge was found to be low among the participants. In addition, prostate cancer myths and misconceptions was low. Citation Format: Olivia M. Moline. Prostate cancer knowledge, myths, and misconceptions among Haitian men. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Sixth AACR Conference: The Science of Cancer Health Disparities; Dec 6–9, 2013; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2014;23(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B56. doi:10.1158/1538-7755.DISP13-B56


Drosophila melanogaster have a myriad of applications in biological research. However, it is the ease of maintenance and availability of their fully sequenced genomes that make them a practical and constructive tool for undergraduate experiential learning. Using these organisms allows students to apply routine laboratory techniques to develop independent protocols, rather than following a pre‐derived approach. Students receive preliminary training in Drosophila husbandry as well as molecular and genetic lab techniques early in the semester in the form of short inquiry based labs and then apply learned techniques to independently developed questions. This setting recapitulates the environment of a research‐intensive lab and provides valuable experience for scientific careers. The abstraction of such an assignment forces independent thinking and practice with multiple techniques; thus, it directly engages students in the learning process by allowing them to take ownership of the project and incorporate individuality into their approaches. Further, students are immersed in a situation where they must apply themselves, think critically, and extrapolate from limited information in order to devise an appropriate course of action. Since there is no correct answer for this type of exercise, students are more willing to vary their approaches, take risks with techniques, and leave the lab with a better understanding for problem solving methods. Such skills are not specific to science, as all careers require critical thinking and troubleshooting. Early exposure to such conditions provides a basis for approaching challenging situations. Students that have successfully completed the course have been able to secure positions in competitive internships, co‐ops, and go on to research‐based careers.


Preface. Acknowledgements. 1. An Introduction to Economic Psychology. What is Economic Behaviour? Approaches to Economic Behaviour. Optimality - the Economist's Approach. Extensions of the Optimality Approach to the Whole Life Time. The Household Life Cycle. Developmental Psychology. Expressive/communicative. Economic Psychology. How We Can Study the Economic Psychology of Everyday Life. Experimental Approaches. Survey Research. The Comparative Approach. Psychology, Economics and the Economic Psychology of Everyday Life. 2. The Early Years: The Economic Problems of Childhood. Economic Socialisation. Children and comerce - An Uneasy Relationship. The Child as a Consumer of Goodssssd Services. Making Sense of Commercial Communications. The 'Wherewithal'. Getting Hold of the Wherewithall. Children's Understanding and Use of Money. Saving. Autonomous Economies Picture. How Children Understand the Institutional Arrangements That Constitute the Economy at Large. Summary and Conclusions. 3. Becoming an Economic Adult. Four Paths to Economic Independence. From School to Adulthood: Workers, Students, Claimants and Marginals. New Households - Individuals, Couples, Communes. Class, Gender and Race. Challenges and Resources. A First Job. Attitudes and Work. Career Choice. The Work/ Study Choice. Looking for Work. Youth Unemployment: Introduction. Causes of Youth Unemployment. Effects of Youth Unemployment. A First Income. Learning Money Management. Student and Non-Student Debt. Degrees of Independence: Hypothecation of Parental Support. First Purchases. Are Young Consumers Different? Consumable Goods and Services. Consumer Durables and Setting Up Home. Buying a House. Discussion. 4. Economic Behaviour in the Family. Introduction. The Family as a Dynamic System. Changing Families. Interacting Families. Interacting Systems: 'Public' and 'Private'. The Central Importance Of Gender. Micro-Economic Accounts of the Family. Gender Inequalities. Financial Organisation. Decision-Making. Divorce, Lone Parenthood and Remarriage. Future Research Problems. Economic and Social Exchange. Trading Processes Within the Family. New Problems in the Future. 5. Economic Behaviour in Maturity. Expectations. Consumer Sentiment. Rational and Adaptive Expectations. Real Expectations and Saving. Individual Differences and Economic Behavior. Typologies of Consumers. Economically- Relevant Individual Differences. Individual Differences that May Be Plausibly Related to Economic Behaviour. Personality Theory and Economic Behaviour. Buying: The Mature Consumer. Consumer Durables - When are They Acquired and When Are They Replaced? Ownership in the Laboratory. 'Special' Ownership, Collecting in Maturity. Work and Unemployment. The Changing Nature of Work? Time Spent Working. Unemployment in Mid-Life. Unemployment - Individual Risk Factors. Unemployment - Consequences and Coping. Unemployment and Self Employment. Discussion. 6. The Golden Years. Introduction: The Economic Nature of Old Age. Defining Old Age. The Economic Characteristics of Older People. The Retirement Event. The State of Retirement. The Sources of Pensioners' Income. Pensions as Uncontrollable Income. The Levels of Pensions. Economic Activity After Retirement. Paid Work. Unpaid Work. Consumption and Leisure. Saving. Giving. Frailty. Medical Care. Social Care. The Impacts of Frailty. Reconstructing the Past. Economic Life After Death. Death Services. Wills and Inheritance. Obituaries. Concluding Remarks. 7. Conclusions. Common Features of Economic Problems Across the Life Span. Common Features of Solutions to Problems. The New Millenium and the Post-modern Consumer. The Economic and the Social. A Surfeit of Choice? Specific Economic Psychological Problems. The Future of Economic Psychology.


Together with the Foundation for Overcoming Poverty and with appreciation to the Research Project No. 091312YR DICYT at the University of Santiago, working on the concept of Social vulnerability closely related to urban areas and the problems they present. Once defined the concept of Territorial Social Vulnerability, territory is zoned in Macro- study areas and by administrative and political divisions in order to identify determining factors and variables that serve as input to generate the methodological proposal for diagnosis and identify the different levels of social vulnerability to regional and municipal level, considering territory effects. This would help more efficiently to the current methods of targeting and improved policies, plans and / or government programs that are aimed at the more vulnerable and poor population.


Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is considered the archetypal systemic autoimmune disease. Clinically characterized by multisystem involvement and varied serologic abnormalities, no two patients present or have disease that evolves in exactly the same way. Viewed histologically, SLE is characterized by some combination of inflammation and fibrosis, and the clinical phenotype is dictated by the relative contributions of each and the organs affected. Tissue injury appears to be mediated by characteristic autoantibody production, immune complex formation, and their organ-specific deposition. As expected in a multisystem disease, the entire pulmonary system is vulnerable to injury. Any of its compartments-airways, lung parenchyma, vasculature, pleura, or the respiratory musculature-may be independently or simultaneously affected. This article offers the reader a comprehensive review of the numerous pulmonary and thrombotic manifestations of SLE and suggests approaches to their management.


We investigated the mechanisms of presynaptic inhibition of GABAergic neurotransmission by group III metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) and GABA(B) receptors, in dopamine (DA) neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). Both the group III mGluRs agonist L-(+)-2-amino-4-phosphonobutyric acid (AP4, 100 microM) and the GABA(B) receptor agonist baclofen (10 microM) reversibly depressed the frequency of spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSCs) to 48.5 +/- 2.7 and 79.3 +/- 1.6% (means +/- SE) of control, respectively. On the contrary, the frequency of action potential-independent miniature IPSCs (mIPSCs), recorded in tetrodotoxin (TTX, 1 microM) and cadmium (100 microM) were insensitive to AP4 but were reduced by baclofen to 49.7 +/- 8.6% of control. When the contribution of voltage-dependent calcium channels (VDCCs) to synaptic transmission was boosted with external barium (1 mM), AP4 became effective in reducing TTX-resistant mIPSCs to 65.4 +/- 3.9% of control, thus confirming a mechanism of presynaptic inhibition involving modulation of VDCCs. Differently from AP4, baclofen inhibited to 58.5 +/- 6.7% of control the frequency mIPSCs recorded in TTX and the calcium ionophore ionomycin (2 microM), which promotes Ca2+-dependent, but VDCC-independent, transmitter release. Moreover, in the presence of alpha-latrotoxin (0.3 nM), to promote a Ca2+-independent vesicular release of GABA, baclofen reduced mIPSC frequency to 48.1 +/- 3.2% of control, while AP4 was ineffective. These results indicate that group III mGluRs depress GABA release to DA neurons of the SNc through inhibition of presynaptic VDCCs, while presynaptic GABA(B) receptors directly impair transmitter exocytosis.


In this study, the virtual fixed point analysis and 3D fully modeling analysis for bent pile structures are conducted by considering various influencing factors and the applicability of the virtual fixed point theory is discussed. Also, the optimized column-pile length ratio is analyzed for supplementing virtual fixed point design and examining a more exact behavior of bent pile structures by taking into account the major influencing parameters such as pile length, column and pile diameter, reinforcement ratio and soil conditions. To obtain the detailed information, the settlement and lateral deflection of the virtual fixed point theory are smaller than those of 3D fully modeling analysis. On the other hand, the virtual fixed point analysis overestimates the axial force and bending moment compared with 3D fully modeling analysis. It is shown that the virtual fixed point analysis cannot adequately predict the real behavior of bent pile structures. Therefore, it is necessary that 3D fully modeling analysis is considered for the exact design of bent pile structures. In this study, the emphasis is on quantifying an improved design method (optimized column-pile length ratio) of bent pile structures developed by considering the relation between the column-pile length ratio and allowable lateral deflection criteria. It can be effectively used to perform a more economical and improved design of bent pile structures.


The authors employ a structural time series modelling approach to investigate the presence and significance of unobserved components within the Australian housing finance data. More precisely, the objectives of the paper are to: (i) establish whether or not the cyclical and seasonal variations exist; and (ii) whether seasonality, if present, is stochastic or deterministic. In doing so, the authors deviate from conventional regression analysis by employing a state space smoothing algorithm to extract these unobserved components allowing them to test for the presence of stochastic versus deterministic seasonal and cyclical components. The results of the empirical analysis confirm presence of the end of financial year seasonal effect. The value of transactions and hence demand for housing finance is greatest during the end of financial year season. The paper also points to some suggestions for future research.


Background: Self-reported cognitive difficulties are common among adolescents with POTS. The few studies including objective measurement of neurocognitive functioning suggest orthostatic challenge negatively affects patients' attention and working memory. However, findings don't differentially support an explanatory mechanism (inadequate cerebral perfusion, perceived threat of POTS symptoms interrupting attention, or co-occurring depression/anxiety). This study will determine the prevalence of objectively measured neurocognitive weaknesses among adolescents with POTS and evaluate the effects of physiological/psychological contributors to neurocognitive functioning.
Methods: We are conducting a retrospective medical record review of 100 adolescents (ages 12-18) with POTS. Eligibility criteria include tilt table test confirmation of POTS, and completion of neurocognitive assessment (WASI/WASI-II, WRAML-2, CAVLT-2) and self-report measures of POTS symptom severity (COMPASS-31), depression (CES-DC), and anxiety (SCAS). Percentages of patients demonstrating objective weaknesses in working memory, visual-spatial memory, and/or verbal memory will be reported. Multiple regression analyses will determine the unique abilities of tilt table results, COMPASS-31, CES-DC, and SCAS to predict performance on neurocognitive tasks.
Expected results: The majority of patients will demonstrate objectively measured neurocognitive weaknesses. Comparing the relative contributions of tilt table results, COMPASS-31, CES-DC, and SCAS to the prediction of neurocognitive performance will provide an empirical basis for evaluating the three mechanisms proposed to explain patients' worsened neurocognitive performance.
Current stage of work: Conducting medical record reviews.
Discussion: Characterising the prevalence and domains of neurocognitive weaknesses experienced by adolescents with POTS can inform health/paediatric psychologists' recommendations regarding home and school accommodations. Understanding physiological/psychological factors contributing to neurocognitive weaknesses can inform interdisciplinary interventions.


Much of the research in health care plan and provider selection has focused on the patient's selection process. The authors report on the increasing need to understand the corporation's decision process in selecting health care plans and providers. Managed care marketers need to understand this process in order to design and market such plans successfully.


Although the equations describing the longitudinal motions of autonomous underwater vehicles are typically nonlinear, the linearized equations are still employed to design the depth controller by the traditional analysis methods in engineering for the sake of simplicity. The reduction of the nonlinearity losts the dynamics near the singular points which may be responsible for the sudden climb or dive. The nonlinear systems limited in the longitudinal plane of the autonomous underwater vehicles are analyzed on center manifold through the bifurcation theory. It focuses on the case that single zero root in Jacobi matrix occurs at equilibrium points corresponding to normal trajectory with varied angles of the elevator or the direction change of the flows. The center manifolds are calculated and one-dimensional bifurcation equations on the center manifolds are obtained and analyzed. Based on the transcritical bifurcation diagram, we have found the mechanism of the attitude stability loss as well as the abnormal trajectory of autonomous underwater vehicles. It gives a good explainations to the practical climbing jump and diving fall and delivers the theoretical tools to design the controller and to design dynamics. Numerical simulation verifies the results.


reimbursed on how well they deliver patient experience. In an effort to increase their scores, many healthcare organizations have focused on renovated or redesigned patient rooms or clinical spaces. But they've overlooked critical spaces like waiting areas, unwittingly undermining their other efforts to deliver better experiences by coming up short from the beginning of the patient journey. As empowered patients have more choices about where to receive care, every facet of their experience must be maximized – including transition spaces. So we wondered: Can improved transition spaces positively influence patients' experience? Turns out is the answer is yes.


A Fourier-based Library of Unbounded Poisson Solvers (FLUPS) for 2-D and 3-D homogeneous distributed grids is presented. It is designed to handle every possible combination of periodic, symmetric, semi-unbounded and fully unbounded boundary conditions for the Poisson equation on rectangular domains with uniform resolution. FLUPS leverages a dedicated implementation of 3-D Fourier transforms to solve the Poisson equation using Green's functions, in a fast and memory-efficient way. Several Green's functions are available, optionally with explicit regularization, spectral truncation, or using Lattice Green's Functions, and provide verified convergence orders from 2 to spectral-like. The algorithm depends on the FFTW library to perform 1-D transforms, while MPI communications enable the required remapping of data in memory. For the latter operation, a first available implementation resorts to the standard all-to-all routines. A second implementation, featuring non-blocking and persistent point-to-point communications, is however shown to be more efficient in a majority of cases and especially while taking advantage of the shared memory parallelism with OpenMP. The scalability of the algorithm, aimed at massively parallel architectures, is demonstrated up to 73 720 cores. The results obtained with three different supercomputers show that the weak efficiency remains above 40% and the strong efficiency above 30% when the number of cores is multiplied by 16, for typical problems. These figures are slightly better than those expected from a third party 3-D FFT tool, with which a 20% longer execution time was also measured on average. From the outside, the solving procedure is fully automated so that the user benefits from the optimal performances while not having to handle the complexity associated with memory management, data mapping and Fourier transform computation.


From the retrospective study of 47 children who presented with portal hypertension and gastro-intestinal bleeding before 3 years of age, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1) The cause of portal hypertension was extrahepatic portal obstruction in 35 children, cirrhosis in 10 and congenital hepatic fibrosis in 2. 2) Endoscopic signs of major portal hypertension were present in 26 of 27 children in whom a thorough endoscopic examination was carried out. 3) Most children experienced several episodes of bleeding. One or several hematemeses occurred in 36 children, one or several episodes of melaena in 23, one or several proctorrhagia in 5 and anemia alone in 2. Two children with liver failure died during a gastrointestinal bleeding episode. 4) Transthoracic direct ligation of esophageal varices was performed in 8 children ; all but one experienced one or more episodes of bleeding within one year after surgery. One child died during one of these episodes. 5) A surgical portosystemic shunt was carried out in 37 rated on before the age of 3. Shunts were successful in 7 of 11 children who were ope children. Patency of the shunt was demonstrated in 32. These results show that early shunt surgery can provide a permanent solution to the life-threatening problems of gastrointestinal bleeding in young children with portal hypertensions.


Thirty-nine cases of traumatic perforation of the oesophagus or stomach have been studied. Thirty-two of the perforations followed oesphagoscopy, five were `spontaneous,' and two were due to damage by a foreign body. Eight of the perforations occurred in the cervical oesophagus, 22 in the thoracic portion, and nine were in either the abdominal oesophagus or the stomach. Treatment was of two types—either operative closure of the perforation or a conservative routine of intravenous fluids, parenteral antibiotics, and cessation of oral feeding. In some patients treated conservatively, drainage procedures were also carried out. Five patients with terminal carcinoma, in whom oesophageal intubation after prolonged dysphagia caused perforation, had no treatment apart from analgesics and sedatives. Several of the patients treated by surgical closure had a concurrent definitive operation (resection of carcinoma in four cases and myotomy for achalasia in two cases). Fourteen of the 21 patients treated by repair or resection of the perforation survived. Ten of the 13 treated conservatively also survived. The good results of conservative treatment for cervical perforations appear to make it the treatment of choice. Only an occasional case of thoracic perforation is suitable for conservative treatment, and as a general rule perforations in this area and in the peritoneal cavity should be treated surgically.


In the first part of the thesis we focus on a hierarchical analysis on multiple, single cell, Nrf2 reporter levels in nucleus and cytoplasm, observed in human endothelial HMEC-1 in vitro cells (Xue et al., 2015a). Nrf2 is a transcription factor that regulates the expression of several defensive genes protecting against various cellular stresses and forms of oxidation. This analysis aims to gain an insight into this essential cellular protective mechanism. We propose a reaction network based on five reactions, including a distributed delay and a non-linear term, for longitudinal measurements of the amount of Nrf2 in nucleus and cytoplasm. The diffusion approximation (DA) is used to approximate this Markov jump process with a stochastic delay differential equation (SDDE). Since this continuous process is only observed at discrete time points, a second approximation, the Euler-Maruyama approximation (EMA) of the DA, is needed to obtain an approximate likelihood for this bivariate process. Furthermore, to make use of multiple single cell data, we embed the model in a Bayesian hierarchical framework. Moreover, a measurement equation, which involves a proportionality constant and a bivariate normal error, for the nuclear and cytoplasmic measurements, is necessary to relate the original unobserved population levels, X, to the observations, Y. This introduces a hidden Markov process for X and a Bayesian analysis is performed, via a data augmentation procedure, to explore the high dimensional posterior space which includes a bivariate latent process X for every cell. We show results obtained on simulation studies, proving the validity of the methodology, and on a real data application, composed of 35 single cell fluorescent xvi levels under the basal condition, and of 36 under the induction by a stimulant, both observed every two minutes for 1.5-7 hours.

In the second part of the thesis we describe the analysis of a switch gene model for mRNA populations. We consider a gene that switches, with exponential waiting times, between a more active ON state and a less active OFF state, where the gene transcribes mRNA at a higher and a lower rate, respectively. We observe, via a measurement equation, the mRNA level in each cell, which is assumed to have reached a steady state. We analytically derive the stationary distribution of such a model and infer its parameters from experimental data, again via hierarchical Bayesian inference. The mRNA populations are only observed up to a proportionality constant and with a second source of white noise attributed to the measurement process. As in the previous case, we use a data augmentation procedure to explore the posterior space of the latent data. The analysis is repeated for different levels of induction by tetracycline, a stimulant, which results in increased gene expression. We particularly focus on studying how the stimulation affects the system.


Acknowledgements. Introduction Part 1: The Problem with Contemporary Capitalism 1. Individualism and Rights: The Basis of the Problem 2. Social Responsibility 3. Stakeholder Theory 4. Public Policy 5. Ethics Part 2: A Theoretical Framework for New Directions in Capitalism 6. The Social Self and Community: The Foundation of the Framework 7. The Capitalist System 8. The Market System 9. The Natural Environment Part 3: Implications of the Framework for the Corporation 10. The Corporation and Community 11. Globalization 12. Science and Technology 13. Governance 14. Management. Selected Bibliography. Index


Creating plasmonic nanostructures with controllable Fano resonances is of great interest for a number of important applications including metamaterials and biosensors. Realizing double Fano resonances is even more challenging but may become favorable to the applications such as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and second harmonic generation (SHG). Here we have developed plasmonic metasurfaces consisting of a nanoring array and a metallic film separated by a dielectric spacer for the generation of double Fano resonances. The double Fano resonances are realized by the strong plasmonic coupling between the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) mode of the nanoring array and the cavity modes of the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure, and consequently exhibit large electric field enhancements at double frequencies. The resonance wavelength, the linewidth and the wavelength separation of double Fano resonances can be well tailored by changing the cavity length of the structure and the parameters of the top array pattern including the diameter, periodicity, and shape. In addition, we develop a far-field coupling model to efficiently determine the cavity length of metasurface structures with double Fano resonances at specific wavelengths with much ease and acceptable accuracy compared to the time-consuming and computing resource-needed numerical simulations.


This paper presents a study on reliability assessment and new contribution function development of power system including Wind Turbine Generator(WTG) combined with Battery Energy Storage System(BESS). This paper develops and proposes new reliability contribution function of BESS installed at wind farms. The methodology of reliability assessment, using Monte Carlo Simulation(MCS) method to simulate sample state duration, is proposed in detail. Forced Outage Rate(FOR) considered probabilistic approach for conventional generators is modelled in this paper. The penetration of large wind power can make risk to power system adequacy, quality and stability. Although the fluctuation of wind power, BESS installed at wind farms may smooth the wind power fluctuation. Using small size system as similar as Jeju island power system, a case study of reliability evaluation and new proposed contribution function of power system containing WTG combined with BESS is demonstrated in this paper, which would contributes to BESS reliability contribution and assessment tools of actual power system in future.


Many governments around the world acknowledge the role and value of design and have formulated design policies that include national business support programs in design, and that invest in building the capacity of their design sectors. These policies, however, heavily depend on national political and economic contingencies, and thus are subject to change and revision with the advent of each new administration. The alternative-leaning more heavily on nongovernmental organizations and regional design bodies-has its benefits but would also be subject to economic and political turns of fate. This paper reports on an investigation of national design policies in the UK and South Korea and explores some alternative models for developing and implementing these policies. The authors, who hail from Brunel, Loughborough, and Lancaster universities, presented the models to roughly a dozen participants from the design communities in several nations. They found that although no single model was chosen by a majority of respondents, most felt that there had to be some government involvement and endorsement of the policy for it to achieve any success.


The emerging pollutants antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are prevalent in aquatic environments such as estuary. Coastal mangrove ecosystems always serve as natural wetlands for receiving sewage which always carry ARGs. Currently, the research considering ARG distribution in mangrove ecosystems gains more interest. In this work, we investigated the diversity of ARGs in an urban estuary containing mangrove and nonmangrove areas of the South China Sea. A total of 163 ARGs that classified into 22 resistance types and six resistance mechanisms were found. ARG abundance of the samples in the estuary is between 0.144 and 0.203. This is within the general range of Chinese estuaries. The difference analysis showed that abundances of total ARGs, six most abundant ARGs (mtrA, rpoB, rpoC, rpsL, ef‐Tu, and parY), the most abundant resistance types (elfamycin, multidrug, and peptide), and the most abundant resistance mechanism (target alteration) were significantly lower in mangrove sediment than that in nonmangrove sediment (p < 0.05). Network and partial redundancy analysis showed that sediment properties and mobile genetic elements were the most influential factors impacting ARG distribution rather than microbial community. The two factors collectively explain 51.22% of the differences of ARG distribution. Our study indicated that mangrove sediments have the capacity to remove ARGs. This work provides a research paradigm for analysis of ARG prevalence and proliferation in the subtropical marine coastal mangrove ecosystem.


The results of a research project on the heating of simulated human tissue in the induction field of portable radios at VHF are summarized. The investigation was initiated because measurements made with commercially available field probes indicated that, in some cases, apparent power levels higher than 10 mW/cm2are incident on the operator. Two phantom models have been built for RF heating tests. The first is a parallelepiped of simulated muscle material 26 in long, 9 in wide, and 6.5 in high, topped by a 0.5 in layer of fat and bone composition. The other phantom is a human-size head and shoulders. This "dummy" is a 1/3-in thick shell of bone composition containing simulated brain material. The measurements of temperature increment due to radiation were performed with a digital thermometer having a sensitivity of 0.01°C. Temperature measurements on the parallelepipedal phantom have shown that the penetrating power densities in the simulated tissue are substantially lower than what could be expected from an incident plane wave with the same E-field intensity. The physical reason for this apparent discrepancy is that the strong fields of static nature emanating from a VHF helical antenna (commonly used with portable radios) are normally rather than tangentially directed to the surface of the phantom. These fields practically collapse at the air-body interface because of the high complex dielectric constant of human flesh. The results of the measurements performed on the head phantom have shown that a 6-W portable radio with a helical antenna held at 0.2 in from the operator's mouth causes very little heating of the simulated biological tissue (less than 0.1°C is highest temperature increase for one minute exposure). The maximum power density penetrating the dummy is less than 1 mW/cm2in the middle forehead. No detectable temperature increase is present in the immediate eye area. This is because in normal use, the eyes of the operator are exposed to the relatively low fields at the base of the antenna. A health hazard is present if the user places the tip of the antenna in the immediate vicinity of the eye (less than a 0.2-in distance) and then operates the transmitter. In this case, the possibility of damage is greatly reduced by a thick insulating cap at the tip of the antenna.


The safety of statin therapy is considered. In particular the reasons of a complication such as myopathy are discussed in detail. The molecular mechanisms of statin myopathy , as well as its risk factors are presented. The role of coenzyme Q10 in the myopathy development and coenzyme Q10 application for the prevention of this complication are considered.


Constant-pressure molecular dynamics simulations and an analysis of the local atomic structures have been performed to study the cooling rate dependence of some macroscopic and microscopic quantities in aluminium glass. Macroscopic quantities, enthalpy and density, see an observable but small dependence on the cooling rate. Icosahedral ordering units exhibit strong cooling rate dependence, which is responsible for the dependence of the enthalpy and the density on the cooling rate; while the almost independence of some microstructural units such as the 1541, 1431 and 1421 pairs of the cooling rate may lead to a small dependence of the enthalpy and the density on the cooling rate.


Mathematical models can be used to describe the transmission of disease. Dengue disease is the most significant mosquito-borne viral disease of human. It now a leading cause of childhood deaths and hospitalizations in many countries. Variations in environmental conditions, especially seasonal climatic parameters, effect to the transmission of dengue viruses the dengue viruses and their principal mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti. A transmission model for dengue disease is discussed in this paper. We assume that the human and vector populations are constant. We showed that the local stability is completely determined by the threshold parameter, 0 B . If 0 B is less than one, the disease free equilibrium state is stable. If 0 B is more than one, a unique endemic equilibrium state exists and is stable. The numerical results are shown for the different values of the transmission probability from vector to human populations. Keywords—Dengue disease, mathematical model, season, threshold parameters.


Tympanometry was performed in 151 healthy children at birth and at 3 and 6 months of age. At birth 10.5% of the ears had a pressure of -100 mmH2O, and 0.3% a pressure of -125 mmH20. The pressure in most of these ears later became normalized. At 3 months of age 17.9% had a pressure of -100 mmH2O or less, and at 6 months of age 39.2%. At 6 months of age 1.3% of the ears had flat curves and middle ear effusion, and 9.6% had a pressure between -200 and -300 mmH2O. The pressure changes and their cause were analysed. Catarrhalia occurred in 23% of the infants before 3 months of age and in 60% in the 3-6 month period. This is an important though not the only etiological factor for the reduced ventilation in the middle ear, which probably occurs via oedema of the tubal mucosa and mild internal tubal occlusion. Ventilation was significantly reduced at 3 months of age in catarrhal girls, and in catarrhal boys at 6 months of age.


In December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly is due to adopt a "Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration" and a "Global Compact on Refugees". These initiatives are intended to give new momentum to the international cooperation in refugee and migration policy. The first drafts are promising, but the "Zero Draft" for the Refugee Compact is not yet ambitious enough. With regard to the ongoing negotiations on the Refugee Compact, the German government should, in particular, submit proposals on how to strengthen the implementation of the Compact, how to improve the resettlement of refugees, and how to provide sustainable financial support to host countries.


Pediatric epilepsy can be caused by various conditions, including specific syndromes. 1p36 deletion syndrome is reported in 1 in 5,000–10,000 newborns, and its characteristic clinical features include developmental delay, mental retardation, hypotonia, congenital heart defects, seizure, and facial dysmorphism. However, detection of the terminal deletion in chromosome 1p by conventional G-banded karyotyping is difficult. Here we present a case of epilepsy with profound developmental delay and characteristic phenotypes. A 7-year- and 6-month-old boy experienced afebrile generalized seizure at the age of 5 years and 3 months. He had recurrent febrile seizures since 12 months of age and showed severe global developmental delay, remarkable hypotonia, short stature, and dysmorphic features such as microcephaly; small, low-set ears; dark, straight eyebrows; deep-set eyes; flat nasal bridge; midface hypoplasia; and a small, pointed chin. Previous diagnostic work-up, including conventional chromosomal analysis, revealed no definite causes. However, array-comparative genomic hybridization analysis revealed 1p36 deletion syndrome with a 9.15-Mb copy loss of the 1p36.33-1p36.22 region, and fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis (FISH) confirmed this diagnosis. This case highlights the need to consider detailed chromosomal study for patients with delayed development and epilepsy. Furthermore, 1p36 deletion syndrome should be considered for patients presenting seizure and moderate-to-severe developmental delay, particularly if the patient exhibits dysmorphic features, short stature, and hypotonia.


This article presents and compares optimized implementations of two optical flow algorithms on several target boards comprising multi-core SIMD processors and GPUs. The two algorithms are Horn-Schunck (HS) and TV-L1, and have been chosen because they are both well-known, and because of their different computational complexity and accuracy. For both algorithms, we have made parallel optimized SIMD implementations, while HS has also been implemented on GPUs. For each algorithm, the comparison between the different versions and target boards is carried out in a two-dimensional fashion: in terms of computing speed-in order to achieve real-time computation-and in terms of energy consumption since we target embedded systems. The results show that for HS, the GPUs are the most efficient in both dimensions, able to process in realtime performances (25 frames per second) up to 8Mpix images for 0.35J per image, against 1.8Mpix images for 0.24J per image on CPU. The results also highlight the impact of optimizations on TV-L1: far slower than HS without optimization, it can almost match its performance after optimization on CPU, and can achieve real-time performances with 0.25J for 1.4Mpix images. We hope these results will help developers design optical flow embedded systems.


We develop and test a neoinstitutional model of Senate roll call voting on nominees to the Supreme Court. The statistical model assumes that Senators examine the characteristics of nominees and use their roll call votes to establish an electorally attractive position on the nominees. The model is tested with probit estimates on the 2,054 confirmation votes from Earl Warren to Anthony Kennedy. The model performs remarkably well in predicting the individual votes of Senators to confirm or reject nominees. Senators routinely vote to confirm nominees who are perceived as well qualified and ideologically proximate to Senators' constituents. When nominees are less well qualified and are relatively distant, however, Senators' votes depend to a large degree on the political environment, especially the status of the president.


The outcome of Casualty care in surgical emergencies is critical to assessing not only the preparedness to handle emergencies but also the quality of care a hospital renders since the Casualty is a major entry point for patients into the hospital especially emergencies.
The purpose of this study was to ascertain the outcome of casualty room care for surgical emergencies presenting to the University Teaching Hospital.
METHODS: A prospective cross-sectional observational study in which consecutive patients with surgical emergencies presenting to University Teaching Hospital between July 2016 and Feb 2017 were recruited and data entered in a structured proforma. Data sought included: age, sex, occupation, level of education, religion, marital status, nature of surgical emergency and outcome of casualty room care.
RESULTS: 390 patients were admitted in Casualty within the study period. 72.3% were males; 27.7%, females. 55.9% were in the third and fourth decade of life. Fractures and traumatic brain injur constituted majority of the cases with 130 (33%). Time between presentation and review by both the casualty officer and the subspecialty team on-call ranged from 1-55 minutes and 2-4 hours respectively. 57.7% were discharged from the Casualty either to the Surgical Out-Patient Department or home. 19.7% Left against Medical Advice (LAMA); mortalities constituted 6.7%; 4.4% were referred out either on request or to regional sub-speciality centres; while 1.8% had emergency surgeries.
CONCLUSION: Trauma was the leading cause of surgical emergencies. A good number of the patients were discharged from the Casualty; a good number left against medical advice while the mortalities were within the reported figures for similar studies in the region. A few had emergency surgeries.


Dr Easton makes two relevant comments regarding North American and United Kingdom quality control results in prothrombin time testing. The first is his surprise at the better precision of manual versus automated results in the United Kingdom surveys. The long established proficiency in the manual technique in the United Kingdom is well recognised and may relate to the centralisation of coagulation procedures in the United Kingdom in district general hospitals and other large laboratories. The second point concerns the relative precision (CV) in prothrombin time testing obtained in recent United Kingdom and College of American Pathologists' (CAP) surveys. The CV is influenced by the difference in sensitivity of reagents used in the United Kingdom compared with those in North America. The former, with ISI values close to 10, give considerably longer prothrombin times on Coumarin treatment and hence higher CV. For meaningful comparison of precision, however, the results must be expressed on a uniform scale using INR. We have shown that the CV of the INR approximates to the CV of the PT ratio x ISI. For example, with a thromboplastin with an ISI of 2-0 (most North American reagents have even higher ISI values), a CV of 4% for a prothrombin time expressed in seconds, quoted for the North American surveys by Dr Easton, increases to 8% when expressed as INR. In contrast, as most hospitals in the United Kingdom use a thromboplastin with an ISI of 1 1 the effect is relatively insignificant. Thus when results are reported as INR precision with this thromboplastin is at least as good as with American reagents. Responsive thromboplastins with an ISI close to 1 0 have been shown to give greater safety in anticoagulant dosage.3 They also provide at least equal precision in testing to high ISI reagents using the INR system, irrespectiive of whether a manual or automated technique is used.


Pigs housed in commercial barns with slatted floors cannot fully perform their natural behavioral needs such as rooting or exploring. Enrichment materials can stimulate these behaviors in pigs. Here, we investigated whether exploration can be stimulated by offering additional enrichment material, i.e., chopped straw, once compared to four times daily. In two replicates each with four rearing and eight fattening pens, a total of 192 pigs with undocked tails continuously received chopped straw from a dispenser, while a stimulus to explore was given by filling the rooting area of the dispenser either once (R1) or four times (R4) daily with additional chopped straw. The dispensers were equipped with an ultra-high-frequency radio-frequency-identification (UHF-RFID) system in order to record the exploration durations of each individual pig at the dispenser. At four times throughout rearing and fattening, pigs were weighted and tail injuries and length losses were assessed. This resulted in three temporal sections within each replicate, for each of which the difference in tail length to the previous section (Δ-tail length) was calculated. Exploration durations did not change in long-term but increased from rearing throughout fattening. The refillings in which additional chopped straw was offered (R1 vs. R4) did not affect the overall exploration duration during rearing (linear mixed effects model (LME), P = 0.85) or fattening (LME, P = 0.66). However, descriptive evaluations showed that exploration durations decreased within the first 10-min sequences within the hour after refilling the rooting area with additional chopped straw in both treatments (R1 and R4). Exploration durations were affected by week, day, and hour within day during rearing (LME, all factors, P < 0.0001) and fattening (LME, all factors, P < 0.0001). Neither tail injuries nor length losses were affected by the refilling treatment (R1 vs. R4) during rearing (GLMM, both P > 0.1) or fattening (GLMM, both P > 0.1). Offering additional straw four times compared to once a day had no advantage in the present setting with regard to exploration duration and tail damages of pigs. However, refilling the rooting area with additional chopped straw triggered a short-term increase of exploration that decreased within 1 h, thus, exploration was more spread over the day.


Volatile secondary metabolites emitted by plants contribute to plant–plant, plant–fungus, and plant–insect interactions. The C16-homoterpene TMTT (for 4,8,12-trimethyltrideca-1,3,7,11-tetraene) is emitted after herbivore attack by a wide variety of plant species, including Arabidopsis thaliana, and is assumed to play a role in attracting predators or parasitoids of herbivores. TMTT has been suggested to be formed as a degradation product of the diterpene alcohol (E,E)-geranyllinalool. Here, we report the identification of Terpene Synthase 04 (TPS04; At1g61120) as a geranyllinalool synthase (GES). Recombinant TPS04/GES protein expressed in Escherichia coli catalyzes the formation of (E,E)-geranyllinalool from the substrate geranylgeranyl diphosphate. Transgenic Arabidopsis lines carrying T-DNA insertions in the TPS04 locus are deficient in (E,E)-geranyllinalool and TMTT synthesis, a phenotype that can be complemented by expressing the GES gene under the control of a heterologous promoter. GES transcription is upregulated under conditions that induce (E,E)-geranyllinalool and TMTT synthesis, including infestation of plants with larvae of the moth Plutella xylostella and treatment with the fungal peptide alamethicin or the octadecanoid mimic coronalon. Induction requires jasmonic acid but is independent from salicylic acid or ethylene. This study paves the ground to address the contribution of TMTT in ecological interactions and to elucidate the signaling network that regulates TMTT synthesis.


A low-altitude endoatmospheric interceptor, which is steered by aerodynamic lift and divert thruster, is investigated in this paper. The divert thrust is provided by a solid rocket engine with a single public combustion chamber and a group of nozzles around the missile. As a result, it can be used only once. To utilize the divert thruster effectively and to determine the width of the divert thruster pulse, a logic-based guidance strategy is proposed. Moreover, the decomposition of the game space is employed to analyze the appropriate initiating time of the divert thruster. Finally, the validity of the guidance strategy is tested using a realistic 2-D ballistic missile defense scenario. It is shown that, due to the sufficient utilization of the divert thruster, there is a significant improvement in the homing performance.


Background: A recent World Health Organization estimate shows a burden of worldwide psychoactive substance use of around 2 billion alcohol users, 1.3 billion smokers, and 185 million drug users. Due to this increased trend of substance and alcohol abuse, it is necessary that healthcare providers catering to the needs of such an area take measures to help curb the menace by spreading awareness regarding negative effects of chemical dependency and to prevent overdose harm.

Objectives: The objective of this study is to gain an insight into the perception of an Urban Primary Health Center (PHC) medical and paramedical staff on substance abuse prevalent in the community.

Materials and Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study conducted among the staff of an urban non-governmental organization PHC - Doctors for You situated in Mankhurd. A total of 61 staff members were included in the study which was decided by means of convenient sampling. Staff was handed over a standard pre-tested questionnaire translated into Hindi.

Results: 51% agreed that substance abuse was a common problem in the community, whereas 47% strongly agreed that it was a common problem. 44% perceived that substance abuse is most common in the age group of 18–30 years, while 28% felt that the age group of 30–45 is common. Alcohol (97%) and tobacco (87%) were the most commonly abused substances. 74% perceived that men had a higher tendency to lean toward substance abuse while 23% felt that gender did not matter. Depression, poverty, and peer pressure were found to be the major predisposing factors for substance abuse.

Conclusion: There should be an integrated approach taken up by various health-care providers to curb the menace, by helping addicts in de-addiction and providing counseling services as well. In addition, we should also focus on skill development of these individuals to economically and socially rehabilitate them so as to not only provide means of income generation but also uplift their quality of life.


The paper deals with nature-society relationships with a view to enlarge the scope of available socio-environmental theories. It makes a review and critical evaluation of traditional economic thought in front of the environmental dimension of the economic process. It shows the effort to incorporate the environment into the economic model and explores the perspective of the economy under environmental restrictions. It introduces the notion of ecological economics and its transdisciplinary approach, examining some implications of its integrating view. It closes with an appreciation of tendencies in economic-ecological thinking, suggesting some names that represent them, with an emphasis on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.


Solid films consisting of nanoparticles of salient nonlinear optical chromophores, alpha,alpha'-di(p-dimethylaminobenzylidene)cycloalkanones, were fabricated by a method based on the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. Obtained films were highly transparent and showed optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) activity even when the bulk crystal of the employed chromophore is not SHG active. We performed SHG measurements of films consisting of SHG active and inactive chromophores in various polarization geometries. As a result, SHG response from a film consisting of a SHG inactive chromophore was found to be mainly due to the surface SHG of particles in the film. On the one hand, a film consisting of a SHG active chromophore exhibited bulk SHG responses.


Smooth integration of domain-specific languages into a general purpose host language requires absorbing of domain code written in arbitrary syntax. The integration should cause minimal syntactical and semantic overhead and introduce minimal dependency on external tools. In this paper we discuss a DSL integration technique for the C++ programming language. The solution is based on compile-time parsing of the DSL code. The parser generator is a C++ template metaprogram reimplementation of a runtime Haskell parser generator library. The full parsing phase is executed when the host program is compiled. The library uses only standard C++ language features, thus our solution is highly portable. As a demonstration of the power of this approach, we present a highly efficient and type-safe version of printf and the way it can be constructed using our library. Despite the well known syntactical difficulties of C++ template metaprograms, building embedded languages using our library leads to self-documenting C++ source code.


The threshold of the jaw-jerk reflex to electrical stimulation of the hard palate was measured in a cross-sectional design using C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice at 2, 8, 20, 25, and 30 mo of age, in order to assess CNS sensitivity as a function of increasing age. The thresholds of DBA/2J mice were higher than those of C57BL/6J mice at all ages tested. No age-related changes in threshold were observed in mice of either strain.


Crayfish have well developed sense organs, but clear-cut relationships with their behavioural use have hardly been established. We studied the possible use of vision, olfaction, and touch during agonistic behaviour, assuming that the outcome of agonistic interactions primarily depends on the input from one of these sensory organs. Agonistic encounters were studied in triads of crayfish, intact and with reversible blockage of vision, olfaction, or touch. Tension actions (threat, strike, fight, or avoidance) categorized as positive or negative depending on the crayfish initiating them, allowed us to identify the dominant and submissive animals. The contribution of sense organs to the outcome of interactions was tested during agonistic behaviour by blocking them (one at a time) after the establishment of a hierarchy (after-experiments) of before it (before-experiments). Under control conditions, a large number of contacts allowed animals to establish a dominance order on the first day of agonistic interactions, and the number of positive contacts between animals diminished in subsequent days. Visual or chemical blockage in after-experiments did not change the dominance order, but positive contacts decreased or increased, respectively. Blinded-before animals established a dominance order in the first 3 days of agonistic interactions showing an elevated number of positive contacts during the observation period. A similar result occurred in anosmic-before animals. Results from crayfish in which antennae were immobilized were similar to those from controls. Results suggest that at least two sensory modalities are necessary to gather information about conspecifics. Once the order is established (learned) any one of the senses is sufficient to maintain it. We speculate that if a chemical compound is involved in the maintenance of the dominance order, it is released after localization of a conspecific by vision or touch, a manoeuvre that could minimize expenditure of a costly resource.


The present study aims to explore Nearpod as a tool to promote active learning in higher education. In this study, Nearpod is regarded as a tool that can be used to enhance teaching and learning for those lectures provided by male instructors to female students at Sharoura College of Science and Arts, Najran University. Hence, the Nearpod is integrated with video-conference learning system which is used as distance learning system to provide lectures by male lecturers to female students who study at a separate campus. Consequently, students' own devices have been used to fulfil learning activities during classes. The author utilized the mainly quantitative research method and designed an electronic learning questionnaire applied to (74) female students. The findings of the study showed that the affordances of Nearpod and the BYOD model have promoted active learning in the classroom. Students were very satisfied with integrated learning environment, and they commended Nearpod in all courses specially those ones taught by video-conference learning system.


The case study presented in this article illustrates an example of value-based teaching in the context of sustainable tourism. Specifically, the five TEFI core values of mutuality, stewardship, knowledge, ethics and professionalism were integrated in an innovative learning environment that involved students from two universities in Finland and the United States who built a collaborative knowledge base via Facebook, worked on group reports, and produced a video reflecting on their learning experience. The article discusses the structure of the learning experiment and some of its outcomes while reflecting on the importance of value-based teaching in tourism.


Abstract:The twelve novels Reginald Turner (1869–1938) published between 1901 and 1911 are among the least known of the Edwardian years, an era rich in forgettable fiction. Thousands of other novels were commercial or artistic failures during the years Reggie struggled to make his mark in fiction, and they are now equally rare. Why then the unique value of a Turner book? Primarily because of their association interest, for he was a member of the Oscar Wilde circle, and at his bedside when Oscar died; and he later became a part of the flourishing English expatriate colony in Florence, and a friend of Somerset Maugham, Norman Douglas, and D. H. Lawrence, who fictionalized him in two of his own novels. Turner's novels also have an interest in themselves, as they look back upon the fading late-Victorian world Reggie could only view from self-exile.


Pain was one of the issues debated between Julian of Aeclanum and Augustine of Hippo. For Augustine pain was an evil caused by original sin. Julian argued that, in the context of creation as a whole, pain can be treated as a good, since its moderate forms are creational. Only in excess are they evil. This article aims at presenting Julian's position in detail, not only in the context of the debate with Augustine, but in the wider context of late ancient philosophy and early Christian doctrine. Julian is well acquainted with philosophical and medical texts and with the biblical and patristic tradition. He rejects Augustine's attempt to work all these into a universal theological theory of pain and thereby deny, in Julian's view, philosophy and medicine their relative autonomy. Julian's plea—as a theologian—for a rational and empirical approach to pain draws as much upon ancient sources as it anticipates an attitude towards natural science and philosophy usually associated with much later periods in history.


Background: People with Parkinson's disease (PD) present deficits of the active range of motion (ROM), prominently in their trunk. However, if these deficits are associated with axial rigidity, the functional mobility or health related quality of life (HRQoL), remains unknown. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between axial ROM and axial rigidity, the functional mobility and HRQoL in patients with mild to moderate PD. Methods: An exploratory study was conducted. Non-probabilistic sampling of consecutive cases was used. Active trunk ROM was assessed by a universal goniometer. A Biodex System isokinetic dynamometer was used to measure the rigidity of the trunk. Functional mobility was determined by the Get Up and Go (GUG) test, and HRQoL was assessed with the PDQ-39 and EuroQol-5D questionnaires. Results: Thirty-six mild to moderate patients with PD were evaluated. Significant correlations were observed between trunk extensors rigidity and trunk flexion and extension ROM. Significant correlations were observed between trunk flexion, extension and rotation ROM and GUG. Moreover, significant correlations were observed between trunk ROM for flexion, extension and rotations (both sides) and PDQ-39 total score. However, these correlations were considered poor. Conclusions: Trunk ROM for flexion and extension movements, measured by a universal goniometer, were correlated with axial extensors rigidity, evaluated by a technological device at 30°/s and 45°/s, and functional mobility. Moreover, trunk ROM for trunk flexion, extension and rotations were correlated with HRQoL in patients with mild to moderate PD.


Ms. B's fifth grade class was discussing what they knew about Malcolm X prior to reading a biography of the civil rights activist--part of an on-going study of the '60s. One student asked, "Did he know Abraham Lincoln, JFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?" Quickly, the teacher sketched parallel time lines on the board, indicating that while the lives of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X overlapped, Abraham Lincoln had died long before any of the others were born. The students gazed with interest at the impromptu time lines until one student raised his hand, "Yes, but did Malcolm X know Abraham Lincoln?" Questions that Reveal To the teachers present, the time lines clearly indicated the possible relationships among the biographies in question. To several students this was not obvious at all. For our group of informal teacher-researchers, this episode raised several questions. In what ways do students understand--and misunderstand--time lines? How are time lines used and taught in textbooks and history-related materials? What potential do time lines offer for helping students make sense of history? Time lines abound in social studies and other textbooks, in biographies, and occasionally in juvenile historical fiction. Adult authors assume that time lines clarify information and events and help students develop accurate chronology and even a sense of cause and effect. But do they? Our work as teacher researchers indicates that there are often gaps between what adults assume students know and understand and how students actually make sense of, and assimilate, information. As teachers and teacher educators, we have long believed that quality teaching demands an in-depth knowledge of student thinking, development, and learning. To be most effective in our teaching, we must plan instruction and select resources that meet students at their point of need. Teachers must be consistently aware of how students perceive information. As practitioners, we look for broad trends as well as individual idiosyncrasies in student understanding. After observing the student responses described above in one fifth-grade classroom, we wondered if these responses were unique to this particular group of students or if they represented broader patterns of thinking among fifth- and sixth-grade students. Therefore, we designed some simple activities allowing us, as practitioner-researchers, to gather information about student conceptions and misconceptions regarding time lines. Our activities, which included student reading of time lines, interviews, and construction of time lines, were implemented in four middle grade classrooms representing the varied socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds that comprise our community. Understanding Student Thinking In four fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms, we asked students to read and respond to questions about a simple time line summarizing the career of baseball legend Sammy Sosa (adapted from a DRA booklet) (1) and a complex time line illustrating the cultural and political events of an era (The History of Us). (2) We also asked them to create time lines that merged personal information with world events that had a clear beginning and end (discrete in time) as well as events that are ongoing. We conducted whole-class discussions and lessons, as well as small group interviews, to help us understand what and how students think. With a few exceptions, we found that fifth and sixth grade students understood the chronology of time lines. They read left to right along the horizontal or top to bottom on the vertical axis and did not have difficulty identifying what happened first, next, before or after. Beyond these basics, however, their understanding was often incomplete or confused due to * limited background knowledge about events and people depicted, and * a lack of knowledge of certain graphic conventions used in time lines (see example, page 16). …


Traumatic hemothorax is a common disease in chest trauma. If it is not treated properly and effectively, it will lead to continuous blood loss, clotted hemothorax, empyema and other life-threatening conditions. Because of no universally accepted guide or consensus in the treatment of traumatic hemothorax, clinicians often choose different ways to treat different degrees and types of traumatic hemothorax according to their habits and experience. This article focus on recent studies on the treatment of traumatic hemothorax, summarize the latest achievements in the field of traumatic hemothorax, provide evidence for clinicians' clinical decision-making, and find the current insufficiency of traumatic hemothorax and the direction for further research.


Ever since osteomyelitis of the skull was first discussed and written about, there has been marked difference of opinion concerning the proper treatment for the best results. This, of course, is usually the case when the results of therapy are inadequate and unsatisfactory. The literature on the subject is fairly comprehensive considering the comparative rarity of this serious disease. However, only a few really comprehensive articles have appeared. Many otorhinolaryngologists, and by far the greater number of other physicians, have but a hazy idea of the pathologic picture, symptomatology, prophylaxis and treatment of osteomyelitis of the skull. The purpose of this paper, then, is to reemphasize the importance of this disease, to discuss its various aspects, to stress its insidious onset and the disproportion between the external symptoms and its real gravity and to ask for earlier recognition and adequate treatment of the rapidly progressive type. The plan is: (1)


Fault tolerance is essential to the further development of desktop grid computing system in order to guarantee continuous and reliable execution of tasks in spite of failures. In a desktop grid computing environment, volunteers are often susceptible to volunteer autonomy failures such as volatility failure and interference failure in the middle of execution of tasks because a desktop grid computing maximally respects autonomy of volunteers. The failures result in an independent livelock problem (i.e. the delay and blocking of the entire execution of a job). Therefore, the failures should be considered in a scheduling mechanism. In This work, in order to tolerate volunteer autonomy failures, we propose a new fault tolerant scheduling mechanism. First, we specify a volunteer autonomy failures and an independent livelock problem. Then, we propose a volunteer availability which reflects the degree of volunteer autonomy failures. Finally, we propose a fault tolerant scheduling mechanism based on volunteer availability (which is called VAFTSM).


Trunk-movement involves coordinated activity of different lumbar muscles. By assessing the lumbar muscles activity, the pathogeny of some neuromuscular disease might be revealed. Surface electromyography (sEMG) could be used to measure the muscle activity, but for assessing lumbar muscles coordinated activity, there lacks of an accurate and comprehensive application of sEMG. High-density (HD) sEMG provides a potential to assess lumbar muscles coordinated activity more accurately. Thus, in this pilot study, the objective was to assess the lumbar muscles coordinated activity based on HD sEMG. By placing a 5×15 array (75 channels) of HD sEMG electrodes to the surface of the low back area, the sEMG signal from four healthy subjects could be collected. In order to analyze the lumbar muscles coordinated activity, the sEMG signal during different trunk-movements was recorded. Through calculating the root-mean-square (RMS) of each channel and interpolating the RMS value between channels, the sEMG topography could be obtained. The high activity area in the topography showed a regular distribution during different trunk-movements. It might be useful for further assessment of lumbar disease such as low back pain.


The effect of land use changes on the woody cover and patchiness of the Orinoco lowlands was analyzed from 1951 to 1997 by using a stretched exponential model in terms of the patch size distribution. We selected five production systems on the basis of the following components: policy option, technology and environment. They are: (a) high-input pasture in deep soil, (b) low-input cropping in deep soil, (c) high-input cropping in deep soil, (d) low-input cropping in shallow soil and (e) extensive cattle grazing in shallow soil. For comparison, stands with similar soil depth and woody density were selected at the protected Biological Reserve in the Calabozo region. Results indicate that the distribution of the patches was described by the stretched exponential distribution model with c as the exponent distribution. The magnitude of c reflected the effect of land use changes over time. Thus, the parameter c for human impacted stands was higher than that for the fallow stands. The stretched exponential model implies that the human impact had a multiscalar effect on the Orinoco mosaic, in terms of the multiplicative processes. There is a generic mechanism exhibiting an anomalous distribution of the patches such as has been proposed for physical systems. Therefore, the number of generation of the multiplicative processes (i.e. inverse of c) for impacted stands was lower than that in the fallow stands. As the time from fallow establishment proceeded, there was a tendency to patch re-organization by biotic effects.


The fundamentals of formation of aluminum carbide were studied by aluminum-carbon diffusion couple experiment. The diffusion couples consisted of liquid aluminum and graphitized carbon, and the diffusion couple experiments were performed at temperatures 1000–1200°C in stagnant argon atmosphere. The formation of aluminum carbide layer at the solid-liquid interface was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and electron and optical microscopy. The kinetics of the formation of the carbide layer was investigated in detail and formation of carbide by solid-gas reactions is discussed.


On Leg 19 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, basaltic volcanic rocks were recovered from Site 183 in the western Gulf of Alaska, Site 191 on the floor of Kamchatka Basin, and Site 192 atop Meiji Guyot, the northernmost of the Emperor Seamounts. At Site 183, alkali-olivine basalt was recovered underlying the thick sedimentary sequence of the Aleutian Abyssal Plain. The rocks strongly resemble Hawaiian alkali basalts, have high K, Sr, Zr, and Ba contents, and may be associated with the formation of nearby Derickson Seamount. They are inferred to postdate the basement age estimated from magnetic anomalies and to be extrusive onto oceanic crust. Tholeiitic basalt recovered at Site 191 beneath the sedimentary fill of Kamchatka Basin has low K2O, Ba, and Sr-87/Sr-86 values similar to midocean ridge tholeiites, but has higher Rb, Sr, and Zr values which follow patterns established for other inter-arc basin basalts. The basalt is probably part of a regionally developed basaltic basement which may have intruded and enveloped older basin deposits in middle Oligocene time. A series of at least five extrusive alkali basalt flows was recovered from near the crest of Meiji Guyot. The rocks are striking in having potassium feldspar cores in most Plagioclase phenocrysts, and in their coarse grain size, reaching sub-gabbroic textures in some flow interiors. Theoretical and experimental data indicate the almost pure potassium feldspar could not crystallize in equilibrium with associated labradorite. Origin as xenocrysts derived from late-stage plutonic differentiation and later inclusion in basaltic lavas is not possible as glassy rinds containing no potassium feldspar xenocrysts. The mineralogy probably results from secondary replacement of calcic Plagioclase cores by potassium-rich alkaline solutions produced during alteration of the basalts. INTRODUCTION Basaltic basement rocks were recovered from three sites on Leg 19, each of which was located in a different structural and tectonic setting within the North PacificBering Sea region (see Figure 1). Recovered material includes samples of alkali-olivine basalt from the Aleutian Abyssal Plain (Site 183); tholeiitic basalt from Kamchatka Basin, a back-arc marginal basin (Site 191); and alkali basalt from atop Meiji Guyot, the northernmost of the Emperor Seamounts (Site 192). Relatively complete descriptions of megascopic features and the thin section petrography of rocks from each site are included in the respective site chapters. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize these descriptions, provide preliminary chemical and electron microprobe analyses, and interpret their petrology along with their lithologic, structural, and tectonic framework. Additional studies on seismic velocity determinations by N.I. Christensen and magnetic properties by R. T. Merrill are reported in separate papers in this volume. RESPONSIBILITY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The rocks discussed in this report were described on ship by Stewart and Natland. Additional thin section descriptions were done on shore by Stewart, microprobe analyses were done by Glassley, and X-ray mineralogic studies compiled, by Natland. We are indebted to L. Shapiro, P. Elmore, R. Moore, H. Smith, J. Kelsey, and J. Glenn of the United States Geological Survey Rapid Rock Analysis Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, for major element geochemistry on three basalt samples, and to R. E. Mays of the same laboratory for minor element concentration data. Analytical work connected with isotopic age dating was performed by Teledyne Isotopes and was funded by a grant


Testing of VLSI circuits are normally a tedious process due to the test data volume. It leads to extra power dissipation along with minimum fault coverage.This project presents a test data volume (TDV) reduction method for designs utilizing extremely high compression configurations, and it enables reducing the pin count interfacing with the Automatic Test Equipment. Based on the encoding requirements for every test cube, the proposed test compression method changes the number of shift cycles used to load the test stimuli dynamically. No additional pins or modification of the existing scan chains is needed, making the proposed method work with standard benchmark sequential circuits. A modification is proposed to reduce the test access time ,that is single cycle access with hold mode and single cycle access without hold mode. Instead of a long scan chain ,if each of the scan cells are tested separately in a single clock will reduce the access time and hence the effective testing time of sequential circuits.


We studied the effects of acute smoke exposure on lung and alveolar macrophage (AM) function in New Zealand white rabbits. Six rabbits were exposed to smoke (SE, N = 6) and a control group of rabbits (SS, N = 6) were exposed to sham smoke. The smoke exposure consisted of 60 tidal volume breaths of air and smoke which were aspirated by syringe from a sampling port of a smoke chamber. The smoke was generated by the combustion of 20 ml diesel fuel and 0.2 g polycarbonate plastic shavings. The smoke was administered in 8-9 min. The rabbits were then killed and the lungs were removed for lavage. Acute smoke exposure caused a significant (p = 0.037) increase in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid levels of leukotriene B4 in the SE rabbits; 643 (+/- 30, SEM) pg/ml compared to 539 (+/- 43, SEM) pg/ml for SS rabbits at 3-4 min post-exposure. Lung surfactant, measured as mumoles/kg phosphatidylcholine, was decreased (p = 0.039) in SE rabbits' bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, 1.07 (+/- 0.12, SEM) -vs- 1.45 (+/- 0.15, SEM) for SS. Furthermore, cultured SE alveolar macrophage superoxide secretion after stimulation with phorbol myristate acetate was significantly decreased versus SS alveolar macrophage superoxide values at 40 min in culture. We conclude that acute smoke exposure causes immediate increases in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid levels of LTB4, and decreases in alveolar macrophage superoxide production and lung surfactant. These changes in chemical mediators may contribute to the lung injury caused by the smoke insult.


The 2010 reform of the legal regime regulating Palestinians' access to the labour market in Lebanon ignited a heated debate among Lebanese, Palestinians, and international political actors. This article analyses the advocacy initiatives preceding the reform to answer the following question: what signifiers of Palestinian-ness have Palestinian political entrepreneurs mobilised? In a nutshell, it shows how a group of non-governmental organizations working with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon re-shaped the references to "Return" and "Dignity" in order to create an intellectual environment favourable to their demands for legal reform. However, these two signifiers not only concern the issue of the work-related rights of Lebanon's Palestinians, but they also envisage a specific form of emplacement of the Palestinian community in that country. From this perspective, they are the constitutive elements of a "diasporic project" of emplacement in which Palestinians collectively exist in an in-between (imagined) space situated somewhere between their host society and their homeland.


The emergence of serine-threonine small molecule, multi-targeted kinase inhibitors over the past decade is greatly impacting the therapeutic armamentarium for numerous malignancies, especially thyroid carcinoma. Chief among them are a class of agents referred to as vascular endothelial growth factor signal pathway inhibitors. Sorafenib is a lead compound that has been recently approved by the US FDA for radioactive iodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Sorafenib clearly is altering the natural history of DTC. In the largest randomized Phase III study ever conducted in DTC, sorafenib significantly improved progression-free survival compared to placebo (10.8 vs 5.8 months) and had an acceptable and manageable safety profile, though commonly attributed side effects of hand-foot skin reaction, diarrhea and hypertension were more frequent than in other settings. This agent represents a new treatment option for patients with progressive radioactive iodine-refractory DTC.


In power electronic based energy conversion, the high-frequency transformer (HFT) is usually excited with a high-frequency (HF) square wave voltage generated from a power electronic converter circuit (PEC). A PEC needs a reasonable dead-band (DB) and the inclusion of the DB changes the shape of the square wave. In this paper, for the characterization of the core, the DB is varied to produce different non-sinusoidal excitation voltages and an optimized excitation voltage is identified. The effect of the DB on the hysteresis loop of the HFT is also demonstrated. The mathematical analysis shows that the inclusion of the DB causes the core loss to decrease for a fixed excitation voltage and frequency. However, an increased DB produces a higher distortion at the output voltage and the current of HFT. Therefore, an optimized DB is mandatory to minimize the core loss and the distortion at the same time. Additionally, the specific loss scenario of the core under the HF triangular and trapezoidal wave voltage excitation is investigated. To validate the findings, an optimized core is simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics software and a prototype core is developed in the laboratory using the amorphous magnetic material.In power electronic based energy conversion, the high-frequency transformer (HFT) is usually excited with a high-frequency (HF) square wave voltage generated from a power electronic converter circuit (PEC). A PEC needs a reasonable dead-band (DB) and the inclusion of the DB changes the shape of the square wave. In this paper, for the characterization of the core, the DB is varied to produce different non-sinusoidal excitation voltages and an optimized excitation voltage is identified. The effect of the DB on the hysteresis loop of the HFT is also demonstrated. The mathematical analysis shows that the inclusion of the DB causes the core loss to decrease for a fixed excitation voltage and frequency. However, an increased DB produces a higher distortion at the output voltage and the current of HFT. Therefore, an optimized DB is mandatory to minimize the core loss and the distortion at the same time. Additionally, the specific loss scenario of the core under the HF triangular and trapezoidal wave voltage exci...


Strategic 4D trajectory conflict-free planning is recognized as one of the core technologies of next-generation air traffic control and automation systems. To resolve potential conflicts during strategic 4D conflict-free trajectory planning, a protection-zone conflict-control model based on air traffic control separation constraints was proposed, in which relationships between expected arrival time and adjusted arrival time at conflicting waypoints for aircraft queues were built and transformed into dynamic linear equations under the definition of max-plus algebra. A method for strategic deconfliction of 4D trajectory was then proposed using two strategies: arrival time adjustment and departure time adjustment. In addition, departure time and flight duration perturbations were introduced to analyze the sensitivity of the planned strategic conflict-free 4D trajectories, and a robustness index for the conflict-free 4D trajectories was calculated. Finally, the proposed method was tested for the Shanghai air traffic control terminal area. The outcomes demonstrated that the planned strategic conflict-free 4D trajectories could avoid potential conflicts, and the slack time could be used to indicate their robustness. Complexity analysis demonstrated that deconfliction using max-plus algebra is more suitable for deconfliction of 4D trajectory with random sampling period in fix air route.


In this paper I comment on Inan's notions of propositional and objectual curiosity. Even though Inan offers an interesting and intuitive distinction between propositional and objectual curiosity, I want to question two aspects of his theory of curiosity. One aspect concerns his thesis that propositional curiosity is interdependent on epistemic attitudes such as belief, certainty and interest. Another aspect of his theory that I discuss is his thesis that objectual curiosity is not reducible to propositional curiosity. In more detail, in the fi rst part, I start off by explaining what propositional curiosity is according to Inan and I bring up two worries that I call: (i) over-complexity as a result of subjectivity and (ii) overcomplexity as a result of dynamics for the above mentioned epistemic attitudes. Both worries stress the problem of over-complexity of Inan's theory of propositional curiosity. In the second part, I argue that objectual curiosity is, contrary to Inan's hypothesis, reducible to propositional curiosity. I further argue that the object of whquestions that, according to Inan, express objectual curiosity can either be about the truth value of general or singular proposition. In addition, I suggest that only the reading where whquestions express curiosity in a form of de re reading and have a singular proposition as their content is the one that is compatible with Inan's notion of objectual curiosity.


Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used among patients experiencing many different types of pain, including inflammatory, acute pain (eg, injury, low back pain, headache, postoperative pain), and chronic pain (eg, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis). However, both traditional NSAIDs and second-generation NSAIDs (cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors) can lead to very expensive and serious adverse events. Gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and renal complications associated with NSAIDs have been shown to be dose-dependent. In 2005, to help minimize these risks, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a public health advisory stating that "NSAIDs should be administered at the lowest effective dose for the shortest duration consistent with individual patient treatment goals." This article reviews the undue clinical and economic burden associated with NSAID-related serious adverse events.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of pigment epithelium derived factor (PEDF) on the growth of lung cancer cells and the cancer-related neovascularization.

METHODS
The full length of human PEDF gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Human lung cancer cells of the line SKEMS1 were cultured and transfected with PEDF(exp), An eukaryotic expression vector constructed by recombinant DNA technology, so as to construct the SKMES1(PEDFexp) cells over-expressing PEDF protein. RT-PCR and Western blotting were used to confirm the mRNA and protein expression of PEDF in these cells. Another SKMES1 lung cancer cells were transfected with blank plasmids (SKMES1(pEF/His) cells). The SKMES1 cells not transfected were called SKMES1(WT) cells. The 3 kinds of SKMES1 cells were inoculated in the chorio-allantoic membrane (CAM) of chick embryo hatched for 7 days respectively. The size and weigh of the tumor were measured. The vessels density was examined.

RESULTS
The tumor volume of the SKMES1(PEDFexp) group was (0.10 +/- 0.05) cm(3), significantly smaller than that of the control group [(0.17 +/- 0.07) cm(3), P = 0.016], and the mass of the SKME(SPEDFexp) group was (0.008 +/- 0.004) mg, significantly smaller than that of the control group too [(0.024 +/- 0.009) mg, P = 0.006]. The amount of first class neo-vessels of the SKMES1(PEDFexp) group was (15 +/- 3), significantly fewer than that of the control group [(41 +/- 9), P < 0.001]. The amount of second class neo-vessels of the SKMES1(PEDFexp) group was (75 +/- 22), also significantly fewer than that of the control group [(175 +/- 39), P = 0.001].

CONCLUSION
Inhibiting the growth of lung cancer cells and neovascularization, PEDF protein may be used as a potential biological drug to treat lung cancer.


Electricity consumed by residential consumers counts for a significant part of global electricity consumption and utility companies can collect high-resolution load data thanks to the widely deployed advanced metering infrastructure. There has been a growing research interest toward appliance load disaggregation via nonintrusive load monitoring. As the electricity consumption of appliances is directly associated with the activities of consumers, this paper proposes a new and more effective approach, i.e., activity disaggregation. We present the concept of activity disaggregation and discuss its advantage over traditional appliance load disaggregation. We develop a framework by leverage machine learning for activity detection based on residential load data and features. We show through numerical case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of the activity detection method and analyze consumer behaviors by time-dependent activity modeling. Last but not least, we discuss some potential use cases that can benefit from activity disaggregation and some future research directions.


Abstract. The black carbon (BC) deposition on the ice
core at Muztagh Ata Mountain, northern Tibetan Plateau, was analyzed. Two
sets of measurements were used in this study, which included the air
samplings of BC particles during 2004–2006 and the ice core drillings of BC
deposition during 1986–1994. Two numerical models were used to analyze the
measured data. A global chemical transportation model (MOZART-4) was used to
analyze the BC transport from the source regions, and a radiative transfer
model (SNICAR) was used to study the effect of BC on snow albedo. The results
show that during 1991–1992, there was a strong spike in the BC deposition at
Muztagh Ata, suggesting that there was an unusual emission in the upward
region during this period. This high peak of BC deposition was investigated
by using the global chemical transportation model (MOZART-4). The analysis
indicated that the emissions from large Kuwait fires at the end of the first
Gulf War in 1991 caused this high peak of the BC concentrations and
deposition (about 3–4 times higher than other years) at Muztagh Ata
Mountain, suggesting that the upward BC emissions had important impacts on
this remote site located on the northern Tibetan Plateau. Thus, there is a
need to quantitatively estimate the effect of surrounding emissions on the BC
concentrations on the northern Tibetan Plateau. In this study, a
sensitivity study with
four individual BC emission regions (Central Asia, Europe, the Persian Gulf,
and South Asia) was conducted by using the MOZART-4 model. The result
suggests that during the "normal period" (non-Kuwait fires), the largest
effect was due to the Central Asia source (44 %) during the Indian
monsoon period, while during the non-monsoon period, the largest effect was
due to the South Asia source (34 %). The increase in radiative forcing
increase (RFI) due to the deposition of BC on snow was estimated by using the
radiative transfer model (SNICAR). The results show that under the fresh snow
assumption, the estimated increase in RFI ranged from 0.2 to
2.5 W m−2, while under the aged snow assumption, the estimated
increase in RFI ranged from 0.9 to 5.7 W m−2. During the Kuwait fires
period, the RFI values increased about 2–5 times higher than in the "normal
period", suggesting a significant increase for the snow melting on the
northern Tibetan Plateau due to this fire event. This result suggests that
the variability of BC deposition at Muztagh Ata Mountain provides useful
information to study the effect of the upward BC emissions on environmental
and climate issues in the northern Tibetan Plateau. The radiative effect of
BC deposition on the snow melting provides important information regarding
the water resources in the region.


Genetic counseling is viewed as a therapeutic interrelationship between genetic counselors and their clients. In a previous relational ethics research project, various themes were identified as key components of relational ethics practice grounded in everyday health situations. In this article the relational ethics approach is further explored in the context of genetic counseling to enhance our understanding of how the counselor-client relationship is contextually developed and maintained. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six adult clients undergoing genetic counseling for predictive testing. Engagement, dialogue and presence were revealed as relevant to genetic counselor-client relationships. A relational ethics approach in genetic counseling challenges the concept of nondirectiveness and may enhance the outcome of counseling for both counselor and client.


Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are important drivers of vegetation composition in nature. Whole-soil inoculations can help to steer plant-community assembly for nature restoration success. However, it is unclear how subsequent colonization by ruderal and late-successional plant species influences PSFs. Here we test the direction and strength of the PSFs for ruderal and target plant species on differently inoculated soils. We hypothesize that inoculation with late-successional field soil promotes positive and negative PSFs for late-successional and ruderal plants respectively. We conducted a glasshouse experiment with three plant-growth phases. First, we inoculated a common nutrient-rich ex-arable soil with either a heathland, grassland or an arable soil and grew mixtures of three ruderal and three late-successional target species in all soils. Subsequently, we divided the experimental units over four new pots and planted half with mixtures of three ruderal and half with mixtures of three late-successional plant species, to simulate local colonization by these species groups. After nine weeks, we removed the plants and replanted the pots with ruderal and late-successional species mixtures in a full factorial design to quantify the induced PSFs, after a further nine weeks of growth. We found that ruderal plants developed positive PSF on soils inoculated with arable soil and neutral feedback when soils were inoculated with grassland or heathland inoculum. The positive PSF was most pronounced for Myosotis arvensis, although all ruderal species showed the most positive PSFs on arable-inoculated soils. There was no significant effect of inoculation on the PSF of late-successional species. As a result of changing PSFs, the relative performance of ruderal and late-successional target species became more similar on soils inoculated with grassland or heathland inoculum, leading to higher evenness. We conclude that soil inoculation on nutrient-rich ex-arable soils can affect PSFs. Inoculation with grassland or heathland inoculum prevented ruderal species from developing positive PSF and shifted the competitive balance in favour of late-successional plants. Future studies need to address the longer-term dynamics of soil inoculation-induced shifts in PSFs, particularly because these are expected to develop over longer timescales in the slow-growing late-successional target species, as well as the impact of competitive plant-plant interactions.