1128 November 2014 To the Editor: Wagner et al.1 must be congratulated for their robust and interesting work into the effects of a single dose of etomidate on long-term outcomes. Nonetheless, we consider that several elements would benefit from greater information and discussion. First, the doses of etomidate administered were not reported and therefore any dose–response effect remains unclear; it may be that higher doses may induce decrements in long-term outcomes. Ideally, information on drug doses should be included. Perhaps the most important criticism relates to the case mix included in the analysis. When understanding whether etomidate is safe, it is necessary to compare the drug with other induction drugs. Inclusion of patients who did not receive an induction drug, such as those presenting in cardiogenic shock and already intubated, therefore appears inappropriate. The authors have recognized this to some degree: "We also performed a sensitivity analysis in which patients who did not receive any induction drugs were excluded from the analysis. The results from the sensitivity analysis were qualitatively similar to those reported in table 3." However, these are the critical data to report, as it excludes patients who did not receive the induction of anesthesia for surgery. Hence, these data should not be considered supplementary information rather we ask the authors to publish them in full. Other sensitivity analyses that are worth conducting include subgroup analyses for elective and emergency surgery as these factors may affect treatment propensity. Furthermore, although we consider that the authors' use of propensity scoring is appropriate,2 we suggest that a propensity score-matching approach for "etomidate only" with other induction agents such as "propofol only" or "midazolam only" would also be of interest to provide a more direct comparison of the induction agents. This is also important, as midazolam appears to be associated with a shorter duration of mechanical ventilation and length of stay in hospital. Given the deleriogenic effects of midazolam,3,4 this observation appears surprising, but may relate to superior cardiovascular stability with this approach. Nonetheless, this requires further discussion especially because patients with cardiogenic shock were more likely to receive "midazolam only." Of course the data are slightly more complex given the use of coinduction with midazolam and etomidate or propofol. Given that there is a clear clinical preference for coinduction, these two combinations should also be compared with each other by propensity score matching. Finally, the association of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors with prolonged hospital length of stay, but not with mortality (although the point estimate is shifted toward increased mortality), is of interest given a recent meta-analysis suggesting increased mortality and acute kidney injury in cardiac surgical patients administered these drugs.5 Here the authors may wish to consider adjusting for hypertension as a potential confounder by indication. In summary most of these criticisms could be approached by the publication of the sensitivity analysis removing patients with cardiogenic shock, as well as conducting some additional analyses. Despite our critique we applaud the authors for their hard work and robust statistical approach, they have identified an important topic for research and made substantial contributions to clarifying the role of etomidate for induction of anesthesia for cardiac surgery.


The volume of air trapped in the feathers and the body density of 36 species of water bird were determined by water displacement experiments. Body density was higher and the volume of air trapped in plumage was lower in species that were most reliant on diving for foraging. Accordingly, we predict that habitually diving species have substantially reduced energy expenditure while underwater and correspondingly higher aerobic dive limits than infrequent divers. This agrees with field observations. Following Boyle's law, aerobic dive limits are predicted to increase with increasing dive depth due to a reduction in upthrust following volumetric reduction of feather-trapped air caused by hydrostatic pressure. It appears energetically more costly for diving birds to forage near the surface than at greater depths. Reduced plumage air to minimize underwater swimming costs, however, probably increases heat loss. The use of fat for insulation is not compatible with minimized flight costs. Frequent divers have higher flight costs than infrequent divers. We predict that the amount of air in the feathers and the amount of subcutaneous fat in aquatic birds are regulated in such a way as to minimize energy expenditure as a function of the temperature of the environment as well as diving and flying rhythms.


Abstract The last century has witnessed a rapid increase in the population of the elderly people in the developed and industrialized countries. This phenomenon is not restricted to the western world only, but many countries such as ours are now feeling the impact of this transaction. This situation could be attributed to a combination of factors such as increase in age, longevity and decreased death rates due to advancement in the field of medicine, improvement of life expectancy at birth, and enhancement in the average span of life. India ranks 4th in terms of absolute size of elderly population .The country is not adequately equipped to look after their special health needs and the changing traditional value system. A feeling is now growing among the aged persons that the attitude of the younger generation towards them is not as desired. In the above context, a study was conducted to understand the feeling of the elderly residing in the old age homes and within the family setup in Jammu. The sample of elderly women was selected using the "Purposive sampling" technique to select 30 elderly women from the old age home as well as a similar number from the family setups. The data was collected using a specially designed Interview schedule and observation technique through a house-to-house survey for those residing in the families. Non-working status of these women and above 60 years of age was criteria for sample selection. Results of the study revealed that most of the elderly felt the attitude of the younger generation is unsatisfactory towards them especially those who were in old age homes in terms of getting respect, love and affection from the family members instead they were considered as burden for others. Women living in the families had a positive attitude towards old age. The social relationship of the elderly women living in families and those living in old age home also differed. Noticeably; there was a fall in the overall efficiency, sociability, degree of involvement in work and hobbies. On the other hand, better social relations were maintained by the family dwellers because they had regular interaction, expressions of feelings and support from the family.


The starting point of the study is that collectivism has not received rightful attention from scholars. It has been speculated that individualism was associated with the increase of social trust, whereas collectivism has been linked with hierarchical and engulfed social bonds that impede the formation of trust in society. Bearing this in mind, patterns of general and particularized trust among Australian national public officers were explored in relation to cultural value orientations. To measure particularized trust, five sets of social relations, which are considered to be important for our social lives, were employed. According to the result, horizontal collectivism (i.e., HC) was positively associated both with general trust and particularized trust in all five sets of social relations; furthermore, these positive relationships were maintained even when the familiarity of trustees was controlled. Vertical collectivism (i.e., VC) mirrored HC in its relationships with patterns of trust in a lesser degree; that is to say, VC was positively related with general trust and particularized trust in people in a set of social relations. In contrast, horizontal and vertical individualism (i.e., HI and VI, respectively) was not significantly linked with general trust. As for particularized trust, VI was related with trust in the former schoolmates; however, this relationship was diminished when the familiarity of trustees was controlled. Theoretical implications of the study were discussed.


Vitiligo is a common disorder of skin pigmentation resulting from autoimmune destruction of melanocytes. A variety of topical and systemic treatment options have been tried with varying success. Here we describe the case of a man with refractory vitiligo successfully treated with topical crisaborole ointment.Crisaborole ointment is a topical phosphodiesterase (PDE)-4 inhibitor recently FDA-approved for the treatment of atopic dermatitis. Previous literature has discussed the possible role of systemic PDE-4 inhibitors in vitiligo; herein, we discuss the ability of topical crisaborole to accelerate repigmentation in treatment-resistant vitiligo.


Residential self-selection has been reported to be a factor confounding the observed relationship between built environment and travel behavior. By incorporating residential self-selection, studies have generated much insight into the causalities involved in the relationship between built environment and travel behavior. However, most of these studies were conducted in North American cities, where individuals may have the opportunity to realize their preferences in residential and transport mode choices. There are not many similar studies for other parts of the world, such as China, where residential and transport choices are probably more constrained than in North America. This paper aims to partly fill the gap by discussing the specificities of the residential self-selection issue in urban China and suggesting how to cope with this issue when examining the relationship between built environment and travel behavior in the Chinese context. We argue that studies addressing the residential self-selection issue in China need to consider the housing source, which has implications for residential choice, and acknowledge the importance of some travel-related attitudes such as preferences for short commutes, good accessibility to public transport, and proximity to markets for daily goods shopping.


The influence of granular friction on the mechanical behaviors of a granular system is a typical research realm that is still not yet fully understood because of the complexities and the discreteness of the granular system. In this study, a two-dimensional model of a granular system with biaxial compression is established by using the discrete element method (DEM). Using this DEM model, we investigate the macroscopic mechanical behaviors, the microscopic mechanical responses and the force chain distributions of a granular system influenced by granular friction. Simulation results show that the granular friction has a prominent influence on the stress-strain response, dilatancy behaviors, and peak strength of the granular system. The microscopic mechanical behaviors of the coordination number, the sliding fraction, and the mean mobilized friction coefficient of the granular system are also shown to be markedly influenced by the granular friction. The force chains in the granular system form an inhomogeneous distribution, and their intensities increase with increasing granular friction.


Delayed contact allergies and the clinical course of the skin disease were investigated in 14 patients with photosensitivity dermatitis/actinic reticuloid and 145 patients with polymorphous light eruption type eczema. Hypersensitivity to chromium and rubber chemicals was encountered in photosensitivity dermatitis more often than in polymorphous light eruption eczema and in the comparison series of 1714 patients with other types of dermatitis. In the eczema group, delayed contact allergies to chromium, rubber chemicals, neomycin, clioquinol, balsam of Peru, fragrance and colophonium were more frequent than in the comparison group, suggesting that at least delayed contact allergy to chromium and rubber chemicals may be of significance in the development of photosensitivity in many patients who suffer eczematous reaction to sunlight.


In this work the aerobic degradation of phenol by acclimated activated sludge was studied. Results demonstrate that while the phenol removal rate by  acclimated activated sludge follows the Monod model, the oxygen uptake rate obeys a Haldane-type equation. The phenol oxidation coefficient obtained at different intial phenol concentrations ranged from 1.9 to 2.6 mol O2 · mol-1 phenol. A mathematical model based on a simplified version of the catalytic mechanism of the enzyme phenol 2-monooxygenase was developed to  predict transient phenol concentrations and oxygen requirements by phenol-acclimated activated sludge in batch reactors under different initial phenol  concentrations. The proposed model not only adequately represents the  experimental results of the present paper, but also those reported by other authors. Particular cases of the proposed model are discussed. Keywords : oxygen uptake rate; phenol; biodegradation; biokinetic model; respirometry


A coupled-mode formulation is presented for the problem of elastic wave propagation in a waveguide which bends in an arbitrary manner and whose elastic properties vary as a function of axial distance. The method employs `quasimodes' which are adapted to the local nature of the guide. The method is particularly useful when the bends are of large radius of curvature and when the spatial frequency of the guide variations is small compared with the differences in wavenumber of the guided modes involved.


A novel model combined with chaos theory, self-adaptive particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, K-harmonic means (KHM) clustering and radial basis function artificial neural network (RBF ANN) is proposed, hereafter called CSPSO-KHM RBF ANN. Traditional PSO algorithm is modified by chaos theory and self-adaptive inertia weight factor in order to reduce premature convergence problem. The modified PSO algorithm is employed to trim the RBF ANN connection weights and biases, whereas KHM is used to tune the hidden centers and spreads. The CSPSO-KHM RBF ANN model was employed to investigate the solubility of supercritical carbon dioxide in 10 polymers. Compared with other methods, such as RBF ANN, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system and PSO ANN, the proposed model displays optimal prediction performance. Results discover that the CSPSO-KHM RBF ANN model is an effective method for solubility prediction with high accuracy, and is a practicable method for chemical process analyzing and designing.


Wide-angle seismic studies have determined the detailed velocity structure along a 350-km-long profile across the Labrador margin. Combination of this model with a previously published cross section for the southwestern Greenland margin constitutes the first combined conjugate margin study based on seismic velocity structure. The results indicate three distinct zones across the Labrador margin, similar to the structure of the conjugate Greenland margin. Zone 1 represents 27 to 30-km-thick continental crust thinning gradually seaward over ∼100 km distance. Farther seaward, zone 2 is 70–80 km wide, characterized by a distinct lower crust, 4–5 km thick, in which velocity increases with depth from 6.4 to 7.7 km/s. Interpretation for this lower crustal block favors an origin by serpentinized peridotite rather than by magmatic under-plating. Zone 3 represents two-layered, normal oceanic crust. The cross sections from both margins are reconstructed to an early drift stage at Chron 27. This demonstrates that the serpentinites in zone 2 are symmetrically distributed between previous identifications of Chrons 31 and 33 on both margins. Zone 1 shows a marked asymmetry, with a gradual thinning of continental crust off Labrador contrasted with a rapid thinning off Greenland. The abundant serpentinization of upper mantle peridotite in zone 2 and the asymmetric shape of zone 1 are both probably related to a very slow rate of continental rifting which produced little if any melt.


An organosamarium reagent was prepared via the reaction of α -bromoacetophenone with samarium. This organosamarium reagent reacted with aldehydes to give β -hydroxy ketones. A possible reaction process was suggested.


Medical tourism is a viable option for patients who can't obtain care in the U.S. at a price they are able or willing to pay. Medical tourism companies provide valuable advertising, screening, and matching services when bringing together such patients and foreign providers and ancillary companies in a multiplicity of venues offering various packages of services. These services are often paid for by undisclosed broker's fees disbursed by the foreign medical providers. Such fees would be considered illegal and unethical referral fees were they to involve physicians and domestic care. There is no firm theoretical or empirical foundation for the domestic ban and existing mechanisms in both the domestic and medical tourism settings serve as checks on abuses argued to be associated with referral or broker's fees. The unsubstantiated reasons underlying the domestic ban, moreover, have less force when applied to the medical tourism context. A legislative ban – or any formal legislative controls – on broker's fees could only practicably be enforced against U.S.-based companies, and could put them out of business or force them to relocate outside the U.S. Nevertheless, patients have a right to know about broker's fees, and market failure probably explains why there is currently little knowledge about the existence and magnitude of broker's fees. Disclosure of the fact and amount of broker's fees should therefore be encouraged by guidelines of professional bodies to encourage competition and enable patients to bargain with medical tourism companies and foreign medical providers. This would likely enhance rather than undercut patient trust.


We measured extravascular density (EVD) and the pulmonary transcapillary escape rate (PTCER) for 68Ga-transferrin using positron emission tomography in 14 normal volunteers and 29 patients with radiographic infiltrates, including six patients with congestive heart failure (CHF), eight patients with the adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and 15 patients with focal pneumonia. Contralateral, radiographically normal regions were also evaluated in the patients with focal pneumonia. Mean EVD was elevated in the patients with CHF, ARDS, and pneumonia in regions of radiographic infiltrate compared with values from normal subjects (p less than 0.05), but it was not significantly different among the three patient groups. PTCER in normal subjects and in patients with CHF was not significantly different (21 +/- 11 versus 44 +/- 16 x 10(-4) min-1, respectively, p = NS). PTCER was elevated in regions of infiltrate because of either pneumonia (173 +/- 99) or ARDS (170 +/- 79). PTCER was also elevated in regions contralateral to those with focal infiltrate during pneumonia, even though these regions were radiographically normal and had normal EVD values. These results suggest that PTCER is a sensitive but nonspecific index of abnormal pulmonary vascular permeability, which may be useful for classifying patients in clinical studies of pulmonary edema.


Secure coding standards define rules and recommendations to guide the development of secure software systems. Establishing secure coding standards provides a basis for secure system development as well as a common set of criteria that can be used to measure and evaluate software development efforts and software development tools and processes. This paper describes plans by the CERT/Coordination Center at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University to establish, through a coordinated community effort, a set of secure coding standards for commonly used programming languages.


The Culiacan Nursing School of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa as a strategy to diversify the educational offer offered in the 2012-2013 school year the bachelor's degree in nursing mode blended learning under an educational approach of integrated professional skills. Learning styles are the strategies by which students learn a certain knowledge. They include cognitive, emotional, social, physiological and even personality factors. The design that was used is quantitative non-experimental descriptive correlational and cross-sectional. The population was 100% of the students formally enrolled in the bachelor's degree in nursing mode blended learning. The results show that there is statistical evidence to verify the association between learning styles and academic performance (χ2=28.4, p=0.057), students with reflective learning style, presented higher percentages of academic performance, compared to Other styles. Students with a predominance of reflective learning style have a better academic performance in the bachelor's degree in nursing mode blended learning. Keywords: Learning Styles, Academic Performance, Blended Learning.


Although readers have related many biographical factors to Kafka's writing, none has noticed the importance of his long-standing interest in the deleterious effect of modernization on people. Beginning with the train-transported characters of his early writing and moving to the nervously symptomatic bodies of his later work, I argue that we must understand Kafka's well-known poetics of indeterminacy within this framework. I analyze Kafka's writings as an accident-insurance clerk, where he sometimes handled cases of "traumatic neurosis" and "hysteria," together with his short fiction in order to understand how his aesthetics developed in concert with contemporary medical-legal theories. Kafka's "literary" suspicion of these theories emerged especially in his later years, when his characters showed hysterical symptoms fully decapitated from apparent causes at the same time that he "despaired" of language's inability to refer to anything beyond itself. The relation of these "simulating" characters to Kafka's famous anti-mimetic poetic skepticism gives his writing a surprising social-political significance. In both form and content, it outlines the inability to represent in a medical-legal context that demands nothing less. (JZ)


The use of smart antennas in wireless ad hoc networks has garnered attention over the last few years. Given the unique capabilities of smart antennas, and how they can improve performance in a typically constrained ad hoc network environment, the attention is with merit. However, not much light has been shed on wireless ad hoc networks that have nodes with varying antenna capabilities. While homogeneous ad hoc networks with all nodes having the same antenna capabilities will have certain applications, we argue that ad hoc networks with nodes having heterogeneous antenna capabilities are more likely to be the norm due to a variety of motivating factors. In this context, we answer two fundamental questions in this paper: (i) what is the theoretical capacity of an ad hoc network when its nodes have varying antenna capabilitiesq We consider nodes equipped with only omnidirectional antennas to those that are equipped with more sophisticated adaptive-array and MIMO capable antennas. Perhaps more interestingly, we provide insights into what percentage of nodes in an ad hoc network have to be 'smart' to get a certain overall network capacity. (ii) What medium access control (MAC) and routing protocols should nodes use in such a heterogeneous networkq We present MAC and routing protocols for ad hoc networks with heterogeneous antenna capabilities that allow nodes to interact with each other effectively despite their heterogeneity, and in the process deliver considerably improved performance over simplistic strategies. We substantiate our theoretical results, and evaluate the proposed protocols using ns2-based network simulations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A resistively heated W-coil was used as an on-line trap for preconcentration and reatomization of Cd, using chemical reduction by NaBH4. The collected analyte species were reatomized rapidly and sent to an unheated quartz T-tube absorption cell for AAS measurement. Cadmium is revolatilized from the trap surface as atoms. The experimental parameters were optimized for the highest vapor generation, trapping and reatomization efficiencies. The concentration limit of detection calculated by the 3s of blank solution was found to be 4.0 ng l−1 for Cd using a sample volume of 4.2 ml; the enhancement factor in the sensitivity was 31 when compared to conventional HGAAS. These values are comparable with those obtained by in situ trapping in graphite furnaces or even ICP MS found in the literature. Sensitivity can be improved further using larger sample volumes since there are no apparent blank contamination problems. Three different standard reference materials, NIST SRM 1566b Oyster Tissue, NIST SRM 1573a Tomato Leaves and CRM 403 Trace Elements in Sea Water, were analyzed for the assessment of accuracy of developed method for Cd and the results were found to be in agreement with the certified values.


The degree of phosphorylation of c-Jun, Jun-B, Jun-D and Egr-1 transcription factors was examined during normal growth and during a prolonged period of defined transformation of NIH-3T3 cells which conditionally express v-sis [Mercola, D. et al. (1992) Oncogene, 7, 1793-1803]. During the asynchronous growth of normal cells phosphorylation of all factors was low and constant at all stages of growth from low density (c. 25 x 10(3) cells/cm2) through log-phase of growth to saturation density (c. 100 x 10(3) cells/cm2). Upon induction of v-sis, a marked and coordinate increase in phosphorylation occurred for c-Jun, Jun-B and Egr-1 to approximately 320%, 230% and 420% respectively above basal levels which was stable for the 2.5 day transformation period. The phosphorylation of Jun-D increased to over 600% and, after about 20 h, steadily declined to near basal levels at 54 h post-induction. Moreover, at any time phosphorylation and v-sis expression were fully reversible upon removal of the inducer. It appears that increased phosphorylation of the Jun family members and Egr-1 is not necessary for normal growth of NIH-3T3 but is dependent upon the expression of v-sis. Thus, normal and transformed cells may be distinguished. For c-Jun, the v-sis enhanced phosphorylation occurs at serines 63 and 73 and is required for transformation by several oncogenes [Smeal, T. et al. (1992) Mol. Cell. Biol., 12, 3507-3513]. The results described here show that the phosphorylation of additional factors is a stable and specific correlate of transformation which have have regulatory significance during transformation.


Experiments were carried out in four different locations with 14 durum wheat genotypes in two successful seasons of 1999- 2000 and 2000-2001. Black point disease of genotypes was evaluated by interactions of genotypes and environment as well as heritability (h 2 ). It was found that black point disease affected differently in different locations and growing seasons. This indicates that the genotypes have different adaptation ability for traits studied in different locations. Heritability rate that variance analyzes accepted means squares calculated was found as phenotypic variance rate of genotypic variance was found as 49%. Variance of genotype x location x year was bigger than other variance components. Genotype x year variance was bigger than genotype x location variance too. The heritability of black point disease was founded moderate. In addition to one of factors on the black point disease genotype also environment x genotype interactions were found effective. According to evaluation of black point disease, the highest value was obtained from 'Sorgul' (2.7%), 'Dicle-74' (2.56%) and 'Gidara-II' (2.32%) varieties; the least value was obtained from 'Balcali-2000' variety (0.64%). Alternaria spp . , Phoma sp , Fusarium spp. , Helminthosporium spp . , and Stemphylium spp . , fungi were isolated from the grain affected by black point diseases.


People rely on support from others to accomplish mundane and momentous tasks. When asking for assistance, is it beneficial to incentivize a helper by offering a motivated gift (i.e. a gift with the hope of getting support in return)? Six studies (N>2,500) examine the frequency and potential costs of motivated gifts. In Study 1, a third of Americans indicated that they had given a motivated gift at least once, while nearly two-thirds believed they had received one. In Studies 2a-d, most participants who imagined receiving a motivated gift before a favor request reported lower willingness to help and anticipated satisfaction from helping than participants who imagined simply being asked for a favor. Finally, Study 3 replicates these findings with actual help provided among friends in a laboratory setting. Findings suggest that motivated gifts are relatively common but may sometimes undermine the assistance that people hope to receive.


Accurate quantification of the metabolic enzyme uridine diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) UGT2B17 has been hampered by the high sequence identity with other UGT2B enzymes (as high as 94%) and by the lack of a specific antibody. Knowing the significance of the UGT2B17 pathway in drug and hormone metabolism and cancer, we developed a specific monoclonal antibody (EL-2B17mAb), initially validated by the lack of detection in liver microsomes of an individual carrying no UGT2B17 gene copy and in supersomes expressing UGT2B enzymes. Immunohistochemical detection in livers revealed strong labeling of bile ducts and variable labeling of hepatocytes. Expression levels assessed by immunoblotting were highly correlated to mass spectrometry–based quantification (r = 0.93), and three major expression patterns (absent, low, or high) were evidenced. Livers with very low expression were carriers of the functional rs59678213 G variant, located in the binding site for the transcription factor forkhead box A1 (FOXA1) of the UGT2B17 promoter. The highest level of expression was observed for individuals carrying at least one rs59678213 A allele. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the number of gene copies explained only 8% of UGT2B17 protein expression, 49% when adding rs59678213, reaching 54% when including sex. The novel EL-2B17mAb antibody allowed specific UGT2B17 quantification and exposed different patterns of hepatic expression. It further suggests that FOXA1 is a key driver of UGT2B17 expression in the liver. The availability of this molecular tool will help characterize the UGT2B17 level in various disease states and establish more precisely the contribution of the UGT2B17 enzyme to drug and hormone metabolism.


Abstract A first empirical study into group schema therapy in older adults with mood disorders and personality disorder (PD) features has shown that brief group schema therapy has potential to decrease psychological distress and to change early maladaptive schemas (EMS). Effect sizes however were smaller than those found in similar studies in younger adults. Therefore, we set out to adapt the treatment protocol for older adults in order to enhance its feasibility and outcome in this age group. We examined this adapted protocol in 29 older adults (mean age 66 years) with PDs from four Dutch mental health institutes. The primary outcome was symptomatic distress, measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory. Secondary outcomes were measured by the Young Schema Questionnaire, the Schema Mode Inventory, and the short version of the Severity Indices of Personality Problems. Contrary to our expectations, the adapted treatment protocol yielded only a small effect size in our primary outcome, and no significant improvement in EMS, modes and personality functioning. Patients pointed out that they were more aware of their dysfunctional patterns, but maybe they had not been able yet to work on behavioural change due to this schema therapy treatment being too brief. We recommend more intensive treatment for older patients with PDs, as they might benefit from more schema therapy sessions, similar to the treatment dosage in younger PD patients. They might also benefit from a combination of group therapy and individual treatment sessions. Key learning aims (1) How to adapt group schema therapy for older adults. (2) How to explore feasibility and outcome. (3) Treat older personality disorder patients as intensively as younger adults.


per 1000 non psychoticreadmissions7.222.332.78 of collapsed data (abstracted from Table 3 of our paper, p 95), for all age groups by ethnic group. The 95% confidence intervals (Diem & Lentner, 1970) for each rate per year per 100 000 population for first admissions are: European 98.7 (84.3—112.6); Asian 87.4 (48.9—144.2); and Afro-Caribbean 42.7 (email@example.com)*. For readmissions the 95% confi dence intervals are: European 180.5 (161.6—199.9); Asian 58.3 (28.0—l07.2)@; and Afro-Caribbean 69.5 (37.0—1l8.9)@. (5indicates that the 95% confidence intervals are non-overlapping.) Compared with Europeans, the rates of first admission for Afro-Caribbeans and readmission for Afro-Caribbeans and Asians are significantly reduced. Some caution must be exercised when inter preting these results because the number of subjects within each ethnic grouping was small and there were difficulties in estimating the various population denominators. Ifthesefindingsarenotduetomethodologicalerror then it suggests that, in comparison with Europeans, ethnic minorities are either less prone to minor psy chiatric morbidity or underuse or access psychiatric services differently (Brewin, 1980). We agree with Dr Ineichen that further research is necessary to estab lish the level of psychiatric morbidity among ethnic minorities and also that services may have to adapt to meet the needs of these different groups.


This sketch presents a prototype developed as part of the Backseat gaming project. The aim of the project is to explore how to make use of mobile properties for developing compelling and fun game experiences. The prototype is developed for use in a highly mobile situation, that of a car passenger and is realized by the use of mobile devices and the users physical location during speed to merge the virtual content and surrounding road context into an augmented reality game. In this research, in addition to location, we also introduce variables such as speed, direction, timing, changing surrounding, fast movement of manipulative objects and multiple entry and exits.


Food insecurity is often deeply rooted in poverty. Hence, accessibility and the quality of foods consumed may affect the dietary pattern. The study aims to assess the relationship between food insecurity and dietary consumption. This investigation analyzed the data from the 2015 Updating of Nutritional Nutrition Survey. The Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) was used to determine household food security status and the prevalence of food insecurity. Food weighing, food inventory, and food recall were the methods used to collect food consumption data of sampled households. The study revealed poor nutrient quality and a greater likelihood of inadequacy of nutrients among moderate and severe food insecure households. Mild, moderate, and severe levels of food insecurity were found to affect 12%, 32%, and 22% of the population, respectively. The test showed that both moderate and severe food insecure families have significantly lower mean consumption of meat, milk, and fats and oils in contrast to food secure households. In comparison with food secure households, moderate and severe food insecure households consume higher amounts of cereals and cereal products, rice, and vegetables. Moderate and severe food insecure households have higher consumption of total carbohydrates but have significantly lower average intake of vitamin A, riboflavin, niacin, and total fat related to food stable households. Moreover, the results of the multiple logistic regression revealed that food insecure households have a higher likelihood to be deficient in energy, protein, calcium, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin C intakes, but except for iron (p value <0.05). Indeed, household food insecurity was associated with the higher consumption of calorie-dense food among Filipino households. This explains a lower nutrient quality and a higher likelihood of inadequacy of nutrients among moderate and severe food insecure households.


The growing global Internet traffic will inevitably lead to a serious upgrade of the current optical networks' capacity. Instead of upgrading the data rate of each wavelength in every fibre link across the entire optical WDM network infrastructure, it is more efficient and cost-effective to support different data rates within one fibre link (e.g., 10, 40 and 100 Gbps). This is called optical network with mixed line rates (MLR). Moving to higher than 10Gbps data rates that can be used within the same fibre requires the implementation of phase modulation schemes. Nevertheless, the co-existing OOK channels cause a critical physical impairment to the phase modulated channels, namely cross-phase modulation (XPM), that limits the network's performance. In order to mitigate this type of impairment a more sophisticated physical impairment aware routing and wavelength assignment scheme needs to be adopted. In this paper, the critical impairment for each data rate and the way it affects quality of transmission (QoT) is presented. Secondly, a novel dynamic RWA algorithm for a MLR optical network is proposed in order to address this issue. Finally, our proposed method is compared through simulations with the shortest path and minimum hop routing schemes.


Knowledge elicitation (KE) plays a key role in the design and development of human-centered military systems. KE is critical for identifying the information necessary for effective system development, including defining the basic system functionality, user interface design, and human-machine function allocation. Military environments pose special challenges to the KE process, due to the complexity and amount of knowledge being elicited the difficulty of accessing experts, and difficulty of conducting KE in an ecologically-valid manner. In this paper we discuss the theoretical and practical aspects of KE in complex military environment, and outline the available KE techniques and recent computerized KE tools. The paper concludes with a "lessons learned" summary regarding knowledge elicitation in military settings.


Background: Spiritual care is a component of holistic nursing care, and it is a crucial element in providing person-centred care of older people living with dementia. The review aimed to find a deeper meaning and provide a profound interpretation of the role of spirituality from the perspective of older people living with dementia.Methods: The systematic review was conducted using Preferred Reporting for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Four databases: CINAHL, PubMed, Science Direct, EBSCO host and reference lists were searched for studies published by February 2020. The Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument were used to assess the quality of studies, and the data were synthesised using thematic analysis. Results: Ten studies were included in the systematic review. Two main themes: (1) Spirituality as an inner source of power and (2) Spirituality as connectedness described the role and meaning of spirituality in older people living with dementia. Findings show the importance of spirituality as an inner source which gives people with dementia strength in facing dementia and also highlighted the role and meaning of connectedness with self, others and God. Relationships with family and the community is an essential reflection of spiritual life and represent a source of incentive and joy for older people with dementia.Conclusion: These findings provide new insights based on the qualitative perspective of older people living with dementia. This review offers nursing staff a broader and more in-depth insight into the role and meaning of spirituality as experienced by older people living with dementia and thus encourage the implementation of spiritual care as an integral part of providing holistic person-centred care.


The e-learning is an advanced version of traditional education. It is defined as a way of learning by using the communication mechanisms of modern computer networks and multimedia, including voice, image, and graphics and mechanisms to search electronic libraries, as well as web portals, whether in the context of distance learning or in the classroom. The people who engage in the transition to web-supported education are the administrative staff, the faculty, and the students. They all have their needs and they all should meet specific requirements in order to facilitate the transition. The article presents the results of questionnaire research of the students readiness for e-learning in Yemeni universities.


This paper reports the development of attitudes to science and science teaching scales for primary teachers. The investigation is part of a project intended to improve pupil achievement in science in 16 English city schools. The baseline performance of the attitude scales is reported with 76 teachers, half of whom formed a control group. The 49-item attitudes to science teaching scale of Cronbach-alpha reliability 0.96 has sub-scales of practical science teaching and professionalism. The project teachers were less confident of teaching science than teaching the English language. They particularly lacked confidence in teaching physical processes, 'guided discovery' investigations and planning lessons within the National Curriculum as required in English schools. Attitude findings suggest appropriately focused in-service might be successful. Being a promoted teacher with some subject or administrative responsibility tends to lower certain attitudes to effective science teaching. This 'regression upon promotion effect' is speculated to be a consequence of the demands of the English school National Curriculum.


The aim of this study was to find possible relations between behaviour and physiology for puppies during different parts of a puppy test. This work deals mainly with the physiological part of the study. Thirtysix puppies, fran five litters, were tested in a behaviour test where heart rate was measured and saliva samples were collected before and after each part in the test. Saliva and urine samples were analyzed for corisol concentration as an indicatior of stress. The tests were performed during two consecutive days in the breeders' home when the puppies were seven weeks old.

In addition, heart rate and cortisol levels were also measured in the bitch since we were interested in finding out if there were any relations between physiological levels in bitches and puppies. No clear relations in physiological levels between the bitch and her litter were found. However, there were differences in cortisol concentrations in saliva in both bitches and puppies, and heart rate increased significantly in the puppies in several of the test situation indicating a physiological response to the tests. In conclusion, it is obvious that the puppies were affected by the tests both behaviorally and physiologically. However it would have been interesting to repeat the study with blood sampling or with a better saliva sampling technique.


T-cell dependent autoimmunization with nucleosomes appears to be an early event in the induction of lupus anti-chromatin antibodies. We investigated this phenomenon by injecting H1-stripped chromatin polynucleosomes into the thymuses of BXSB male lupus-prone mice. In comparison to uninjected controls, the production of IgG antichromatin, anti-native DNA, and anti-denatured DNA were significantly reduced among the injected animals for a period of 8 to 10 weeks. Peripheral T-cells from intrathymic (i.t.)-treated animals showed decreased proliferative responses to polynucleosomes compared to those from uninjected controls. Treatment did not affect T-cell antigen receptor V beta profiles, excluding the possibility that results were due to superantigen-imposed deletions. In situ staining using the TUNEL method demonstrated that generation and phagocytosis of apoptotic material in thymuses of unmanipulated BXSB mice were similar to normal controls. These findings show that polynucleosomes likely comprise the antigens for helper T-cell engagement and induction of lupus-associated anti-chromatin antibodies. Bypassing the underlying defect of T-cell tolerance for polynucleosomal antigens among BXSB mice, by i.t. administration of exogenous polynucleosomes, results in abrogation of autoantibody production.


Agent-based Social Simulation tools have been developed as one of the applications of agent technology. It constitutes the intersection of three scienti_c _elds, namely, agentbased computing, the social sciences, and computer simulation. Due to its increasingly use in social context, in this thesis, a web interface for its visualization is presented.
The aim of this project is to develop a web application which allows the user to visualize and analyze the results of a simulation. It allows the user to analyze data in real time and launch new simulations which can be con_gured from the web.
For this purpose, a model which tries to simulate the growth of radicalism in a society is developed. The model aims at improving the understanding of the inuence of social
links on radicalism spread. The model consists of two main entities, a spread model and a network model. The network model updates the agent relationships based on proximity and homophily, it simulates information di_usion and updates the agents' beliefs.
The model has been implemented in Python with the agent-based social simulator Soil and it has been evaluated using a sensitivity analysis while the application uses D3.js, which is a powerful JavaScript library, for rendering the results of the simulation and analyze them.
This thesis is divided in three phases: the design and implementation of the visualization module, the analysis and research necessary to acquire the knowledge for modeling radicalism di_usion and the implementation of the model as well as making the application auto-con_gurable to simulate the model from it.


In the past decade,
there has been an increase in the use of natural products in type 2 diabetes
mellitus (T2DM). Several agents, such as guar gum, magnesium, oat bran, blond
psyllium, and soy, have shown efficacy for treatment of T2DM. Objective: To review the scientific literature to identify effects of
natural products (i.e., dietary
supplements) for the treatment of T2DM. Methods: A search of Natural Medicines
Comprehensive Database was performed to identify natural products advocated
for the treatment of T2DM. Natural products categorized as both "possibly effective"
and "likely safe" (guar gum, magnesium, oat bran, blond psyllium, and soy) were
selected for review. A MEDLINE (1950-March 2013) literature review was
performed. Articles published within the last ten years (January 2003-March
2013) and pertinent articles published prior to 2003 were included in this
review. Diabetes prevention studies were not selected for this review. Conclusions: Based on the published information,
there is little evidence to support the use of herbal products for the
treatment of T2DM. Some agents may be useful as adjunctive therapy; however,
patients should be encouraged to speak with their health care practitioner
before starting or stopping any herbal products.


Twenty-two patients with recalcitrant vesiculopustular eruptions of the palms and soles were treated with a series of subcutaneous injections of a sensitized mixed vaccine. In seven cases the skin cleared and remained clear for periods of observation varying from five to sixteen months. In nine there was improvement or clearing but subsequent recurrence. Six patients had no improvement.


In this paper, a test rig for experimentation on a micro gas turbine is presented. The test rig consists of a micro gas turbine Solar T-62T-32, which, coupled with a 50 kVA alternator, can supply electrical energy to a calibrated resistive load bank. Particular attention is paid to the design of the inlet duct for the mass flow rate measurement. The basic issue was to create the intake duct for a micro gas turbine (MGT) test rig, in order to provide precise data about the mass flow rate and the thermodynamic air characteristics in the MGT inlet section. The inlet duct is also designed in order to allow future tests on inlet cooling technologies.The MGT is incorporated in a chassis for noise reduction, the dimensions of which are 540 mm (height), 570 mm (width) and 940 mm (length). These small dimensions lead to problems with the insertion of the duct. Moreover, the intake of the compressor is not axial but radial, and this means that a volute must be foreseen to convey the flux into the MGT.Several shapes of volute are analyzed in this paper, considering the effects on the pressure loss and the induction of turbulence. The challenge was to develop a fluid-dynamically efficient duct with the hindrance of a very small available space between the compressor casing, the gearbox and the fuel pipes inside the narrow noise-reduction chassis.The mass flow rate will be computed by means of the differential static pressure between the upstream and the downstream section of a Venturi tube. The choice of a Venturi was due to the fact that it produces a pressure loss lower than any other device, such as orifice plates or other nozzle shapes. Furthermore, the expected mass flow rate would lead to high fluid speeds and, as a consequence, the diameter ratio between the duct and the throat of the Venturi was chosen to be as high as possible.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Positron emission tomography (PET) is a modality with high temporal resolution but long acquisition times. This can result in blurred images due to subject motion. Respiratory motion in particular is an unavoidable source of degradation, which can cause issues with quantification and clinical interpretation. An important characteristic of respiratory motion is its pseudo-cyclic nature, which has previously been exploited to form mathematical models which describe the motion, driven by a small number of parameters. The aim of this project is to use this form of motion modelling to estimate motion using information acquired from both dynamic magnetic resonance (MR) scans and from the acquired PET data itself to correct for the effects of motion. The use of motion models in this way can overcome the high levels of noise which otherwise characterise the estimation problem. First the feasibility of using motion models is investigated using synthetic data consisting of individual PET gates simulated using real motion information. The PET gates are registered using constraints provided by a motion model derived from MR images. A novelty of this approach is that this is the first time PET data have been used to indirectly drive a parameterised motion model. The next part of the project attempts to formalise the motion estimation process by incorporating the reduced-parameter motion model into the PET image reconstruction. An analytical gradient for a single motion parameter that drives the model is derived from the same objective function used to estimate the image. This results in significant noise averaging, providing robustness to the high level of noise typically found in PET data acquired over short time frames. This is shown to improve robustness to noise well enough that the number of gates can be increased and overall motion correction performance improved. Finally, the formulation is extended further to also model photon attenuation effects. This is shown to improve the performance of the algorithm when dealing with synthetic data that includes attenuation.


The doping method is typically applied to highly flexible graphene fibers to improve their gravimetric energy storage capacity and electrical conductivity. However, the applications of these graphene fibers, used for flexible wearable supercapacitors, are limited because of their poor mechanical performance and uniform phase. We fabricated graphene core, conductive polymer (PEDOT) shell fibers (GF@PEDOT) using a hydrothermal strategy combined with an in situ interfacial polymerization method. The unique cloth-like structure granted the graphene fibers excellent electrochemical performance and greatly enhanced their flexibility. Furthermore, the prepared symmetric fiber supercapacitors based on two intertwined GF@PEDOT electrodes with a poly(vinyl alcohol) PVA/H2SO4 gel electrolyte exhibited high flexibility with a specific capacitance of up to 15.39 mF cm−2 (0.58 mF cm−1) at 0.53 mA cm−2. Combined with the excellent integrated performance, we anticipate this type of core–shell fiber supercapacitors to have promising applications in the next generation of wearable electronics and as highly stretchable supercapacitors.


: It has been demonstrated by the indirect immunofluorescent method that sera of rabbits immunized with nontype-specific (NTS) proteins of the group A streptococcal cell wall react with cultivated fibroblasts. These fibroblasts were explanted from human and guinea-pig lymphoid organs. The same reactions were observed with F(ab')2 fragments of IgG obtained from antisera to NTS-proteins. Fractions containing NTS-antigens inhibited these reactions. A possible role of the cross-reactive streptococcal antigen in common with the antigen of lymphoid organs during thymic damage and the development of the autoimmune process in rheumatic fever is discussed.


BACKGROUND
To test if the critical power (CP) concept can be utilized to determine the critical rest interval (CRI) using repeated sprint ability (RSA) testing with varying work-to-rest ratios.

METHODS
Twelve recreationally trained men (mean±SD; age 24.1±3.6 years) completed a graded exercise test and three RSA protocols with 6-second maximal sprints and varying rest intervals (12-36 s) on a cycle ergometer to determine CRI. Intermittent critical power (ICP) was calculated through the linear total work (TW) and time-to-exhaustion (TTE) relationship, whereas CRI was estimated using average work per sprint and ICP. Validation trials above and below CRI were conducted to evaluate physiological response. Repeated measures analysis of variance were used to analyze variables from RSA trials and changes in blood lactate, oxygen uptake (V̇O2), heart rate (HR), peak power, and TW throughout the validation trials.

RESULTS
Blood lactate, average V̇O2, V̇O2peak, and heart rate were significantly greater below CRI (8.94±4.89 mmol/L, 2.05±0.36 L/min, 2.84±0.48 L/min, and 151.14±18.46 bpm, respectively) when compared to above CRI (6.56±3.45 mmol/L, 1.78±0.26 L/min, 2.61±0.43 L/min, and 138.14±17.51 bpm). Significant interactions were found between above and below CRI for minimal V̇O2 response and maximal HR response, which were consistent with the heavy and severe exercise intensity domains.

CONCLUSIONS
The use of the work-time relationship determined from RSA testing with varying rest intervals can be used to determine CRI and may distinguish between physiological responses related to exercise intensity domains.


While the literature on folklore and traditional culture of the Middle East is quite extensive overall, relatively little has appeared on the Arabian Gulf. Unfortunately, this region has undergone rapid socioeconomic change stimulated by the impact of oil wealth. Much of the traditional way of life in the Gulf, as in the case of pearl diving, has disappeared except in the memories of the older generation. In late 1983 an institution was formed as an initiative of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) to document and preserve the folklore of the region. This is the Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre (Markaz al-Turāth al-Sha'bī li-Duwal al-Khalīj al-Arabīya), located in Doha, Qatar. The center is housed in a complex of five buildings with facilities in support of research projects, documentation, and archives, and a library on the folklore of the region. Several major conferences and a number of small workshops have been sponsored here on issues related to the collection of folklore in the Gulf. The center publishes books in Arabic and English, as well as a quarterly journal, Al-Ma'thūrāt al-Sha'bīya (MS). This article provides an introduction to the AGSFC as the primary resource for research on the folklore of the Arabian Gulf.


Although it is effectively the past 20 years that has seen the greatest change in football, with almost 20 clubs relocating from their traditional homes to brand-new stadia and with others actively pursuing such a route, over the 140 years of League football, a large number of grounds have hosted League matches but, which, for a variety of reasons, no longer do so. Apart from the results of relocation since the Bradford fire and the Hillsborough tragedy, many clubs relocated in the years before 1960. These include both Southend United and Hull City, both of whom relocated shortly after World War 2 and, in the case of Hull, have subsequently relocated again. Other grounds have been lost to the League when the host team either failed to get re-elected, in the days before automatic promotion and relegation from the non-league pyramid, or failed financially (such as Accrington Stanley). Over its almost 90 years' life, the Aerofilms company has been recording Britain from the air. During its flying operations it has recorded, either deliberately or accidentally, countless of these 'lost' grounds. The superb archive of the company, which has inspired earlier books on football grounds such as the popular Football Grounds from the Air: Then and Now (which is now in its third edition), provides some 125 images recording many of these lost grounds. From the White City Stadium, that once played host to Queens Park Rangers, to Bristol Rovers' Eastville, each of these grounds is illustrated with an historic shot recording the ground as it once looked. Alongside each of the photographs, the book provides a detailed caption outlining the history of the ground and its current status. With interest in football growing and with inexorable march of progress resulting in many of the great grounds now becoming history, this pictorial history of the numerous lost Football League grounds will appeal to all those fascinated with the history of the game in particular those who have a special interest in the development of the country's grounds.


This dissertation studies analytical and computational aspects of two types of problems in applied operations research. In the first part of the dissertation, we consider the reliable facility location models in which facilities are subject to unexpected failures. We propose a compact mixed integer programming formulation that is polynomial in size. To compute optimal facility locations that balance the trade-off between normal operation and failure costs, we develop two exact algorithms: one is based on Lagrangian Relaxation, and the other is a hybrid of neighborhood search and cutting plane procedures. To obtain more managerial insights, we further investigate a Continuum Approximation (CA) model that predicts the total system cost without details about facility locations and customer assignments. The CA model is a valuable tool for sensitivity analysis, as well as a fast heuristic for large problem instances.The second part of the dissertation is dedicated to theoretical and applied mechanism design, which consists of two chapters. In the first chapter, we study a problem of allocating limited capacity of a queueing system to serve several segments of customers, who differ in their willingness to pay and their sensitivity to delays, both of which are their private information. We show that probabilistic admission control, randomized priority rule, and strategic idleness can emerge as optimal solutions in a revenue maximizing mechanism.In the second chapter of part two, we revisit the optimal auction design problem and propose a robust formulation based on an uncertainty set that characterizes the conservativeness of the bidders' beliefs, with two special cases being the Bayesian and Ex post formulations. Using the network approach, we identify the necessary and sufficient conditions under which the expected revenues achieved by different formulations are identical. Furthermore, we show that in a multiple-object auction, the auctioneer's expected revenue may strictly decrease as the bidders' beliefs become more uncertain.


We present a new technique that gives a more thorough analysis on Johnson's classical algorithm for the maximum satisfiability problem. In contrast to the common belief for two decades that Johnson's algorithm has performance ratio 1/2, we show that the performance ratio is 2/3, and that this bound is tight. Moreover we show that simple generalizations of Johnson's algorithm do not improve the performance ratio bound 2/3.


O'Brien et al. (Research Article, 24 February 2017, eaag1789) proposed a novel mechanism of primase function based on redox activity of the iron-sulfur cluster buried inside the C-terminal domain of the large primase subunit (p58C). Serious problems in the experimental design and data interpretation raise concerns about the validity of the conclusions.


The Food Expenditure Series tracks annual and monthly trends in the U.S. food system since 1869. Produced by USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS), the Food Expenditure Series quantifies the value of food acquisitions in the United States by type of sales outlet (e.g., grocery stores, warehouse clubs and supercenters, restaurants, recreational facilities, and so on) and product (e.g., packaged products meant for off-premises consumption, and meals and snacks meant for on-premises consumption). These data complement other USDA, ERS datasets that are used to gauge and track developments in consumer food-purchasing behaviors and the food supply. ERS researchers recently updated the methods and data used in the Food Expenditure Series, revising estimates back to 1997. Because of the extent of the changes, the comprehensive revision establishes a break with the previously published Food Expenditure Series. The trends shown in and the magnitude of the revised Food Expenditure Series estimates are comparable to household expenditure data estimated by other Federal Government agencies.


Abstract Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the association of mean and maximum blood glucose (BG) levels with in-hospital mortality and 30-day hospital readmission among patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) undergoing invasive cardiovascular (CV) surgery. Research design and methods: The retrospective database analysis consisted of data from 3132 patients from 17 hospitals who underwent an invasive CV surgery during 1/2000–12/2006. Patients with hyperglycemia were identified based on serum BG levels recorded from 12 hours prior to and 24 hours after ICU admission. Separate logistic regression models were used to examine the association of mean and maximum BG levels to in-hospital mortality and 30-day readmission, adjusting for patient demographics, comorbidities and laboratory values. Results: The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for in-hospital mortality was 1.07 (95% CI: 1.01–1.12; p < .001) for every 0.56-mmol/L increase in mean BG, and OR = 1.06 (95% CI: 1.03–1.08, p < .001) for every 0.56-mmol/L increase in maximum BG. Mean BG was not associated with 30-day readmission while maximum BG had a borderline association: OR = 1.02 (95% CI: 1.00–1.03, p = .06). Limitation: The results are not generalizable to all cardiovascular surgical patients since only those undergoing invasive procedures were included in the study. Conclusions: Higher mean and maximum BG levels were associated with increased risk of in-hospital mortality but not with 30-day readmission. Further research is needed to identify optimal BG targets and the effects of avoiding extreme hyperglycemia on patient outcomes.


Health Care Workers are exposed to numerous biological hazards in the work place. This can occur in hospitals, care centers, laundry facilities, laboratories and other units dealing with the various aspects of health care. Some of these biological hazards can lead to death and the economic and emotional impact can be costly. This burden falls not only on the health care worker and individuals receiving these services but also on industry and government. There is a need to develop methods appropriate for evaluating protective wear against microbial as well as viral hazards. These hazards not only occur through fluid contamination like blood, serum but also through aerosol transmission. A method has been developed to evaluate the biobarrier properties of materials using either a bacterial spore or a bacteriophage. The indicator organism was aerosolized in an acrylic chamber. Filtration cups containing the testing material were exposed to the indicator organism consisting of B. subtilis var. niger spores. The materials were ranked by comparing the number of organisms that penetrated the material to the initial number exposed.


Studying fresh aspiration material from the posterior fornix and cervix, by Interference Contrast Microscopy (Nomarski) is a good method of cytologic examination. It is shown how most cell types can be observed, just as they can be by the classical Papanicolaou staining. Normal and abnormal, even dysplastic and malignant cells can be recognized. This method is also very useful for identifying parasites, fungi and bacteria, by morphology and active movements. While encoraging the use of this method, it is advisable to compare the results with slides examined later by the Papanicolaou technique, for maximum safety of the patient.


We launch the SemDaX corpus which is a recently completed Danish human-annotated corpus available through a CLARIN academic license. The corpus includes approx. 90,000 words, comprises six textual domains, and is annotated with sense inventories of different granularity. The aim of the developed corpus is twofold: i) to assess the reliability of the different sense annotation schemes for Danish measured by qualitative analyses and annotation agreement scores, and ii) to serve as training and test data for machine learning algorithms with the practical purpose of developing sense taggers for Danish. To these aims, we take a new approach to human-annotated corpus resources by double annotating a much larger part of the corpus than what is normally seen: for the all-words task we double annotated 60% of the material and for the lexical sample task 100%. We include in the corpus not only the adjucated files, but also the diverging annotations. In other words, we consider not all disagreement to be noise, but rather to contain valuable linguistic information that can help us improve our annotation schemes and our learning algorithms.


On September 11, 2001, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CDPH) initiated daily, statewide syndromic surveillance based on unscheduled hospital admissions (HASS). The system's objectives were to monitor for outbreaks caused by Category A biologic agents and evaluate limits in space and time of identified outbreaks. Thirty-two acute-care hospitals were required to report their previous day's unscheduled admissions for 11 syndromes (pneumonia, hemoptysis, respiratory distress, acute neurologic illness, nontraumatic paralysis, sepsis and nontraumatic shock, fever with rash, fever of unknown cause, acute gastrointestinal illness, and possible cutaneous anthrax, and suspected illness clusters). Admissions for pneumonia, gastrointestinal illness, and sepsis were reported most frequently; admissions for fever with rash, possible cutaneous anthrax, and hemoptysis were rare. A method for determining the difference between random and systemic variation was used to identify differences of >/=3 standard deviations for each syndrome from a 6-month moving average. HASS was adapted to meet changing surveillance needs (e.g., surveillance for anthrax, smallpox, and severe acute respiratory syndrome). HASS was sensitive enough to reflect annual increases in hospital-admission rates for pneumonia during the influenza season and to confirm an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness. Follow-up of HASS neurologic-admissions reports has led to diagnosis of West Nile virus encephalitis cases. Report validation, syndrome-criteria standardization among hospitals, and expanded use of outbreak-detection algorithms will enhance the system's usefulness.


This paper investigates control surface effectiveness in the transonic flight regime. Linear and nonlinear aeroelastic analyses are performed while including the effects of flow viscosity with an interactive boundary layer in the prediction of this aeroelastic parameter. Transonic small-disturbance theory is employed in the analysis of a simple rectangular wing to study the interactions among control surface deflections, structural flexibility, and embedded shocks in a flow field where a viscous boundary layer exists. Pressure distributions on the wing are examined and control surface reversal calculations are presented. These results are discussed based on the predictions of the pressure coefficients generated by the solution of the transonic small-disturbance equation. A limited number of Euler computational fluid dynamic solutions are presented for purposes of comparison of inviscid transonic smalldisturbance results with a higher order CFD code. Generalizations are offered concerning the effects of including viscosity in the prediction of steady aeroelastic phenomena in the transonic flight regime. The adequacy of using transonic small-disturbance theory in the prediction of transonic airloads as compared to Euler CFD analyses is considered. Finally, the consequences of these findings on the preliminary design of aircraft structures are discussed.


Background: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells that break away from either the primary tumor or metastatic sites and circulate in the peripheral blood. CTCs are increasingly used as an accessible source of tumor cells (i.e. "liquid biopsy"). We are using a CTC capture technology known as the Vortex Chip, which allows for rapid isolation of highly purified CTCs in less than 1 hour. Moreover, because the Vortex Chip isolates CTCs based on their size, this platform does not require antibody based capture that can potentially bias the isolation of CTC subpopulations to cells that express a specific surface marker, like EpCAM. A new version of the Vortex Chip, Vortex HT, has been used for an increased capture of prostate CTCs. Methods: The Vortex HT Chip was fabricated using standard lithographic techniques with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer. Samples were run using a syringe pump setup to deliver blood to the chip at a constant flow rate, with large cells (including CTCs) trapped in the vortices present within each chamber. Trapped cells were released using PBS rinse buffer and available for immunofluorescence staining (CK, PSA, CD45, DAPI) or other downstream analysis. Individual cells could also be isolated for total RNA amplification and RNA sequencing. Results: With the new HT chip design, we achieved greater than 10,000-fold enrichment of the cells and an overall purity of greater than 50%. Individual CTCs from patients with advanced metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) were isolated, immunostained and enumerated: among 13 patients, 100% had more than 1.5 CTCs/mL, while among 9 healthy donors, all had less than 1.5 CTCs/mL; we thus set 1.5 CTC/mL as the cutoff. Proof-of-principle single-cell RNA seq transcriptome analysis was performed on cells isolated from the chip. We isolated three CTCs from two distinct patients and performed RNA sequencing and compared the results to single cell RNA sequencing of three VCaP cell-line cells. Conclusions: The Vortex Chip HT design has been successfully applied to prostate cancer with an increased throughput. CTCs have been collected from patient samples within less than 1 hour. The individual cells have sufficient RNA for individual single cell RNA seq analysis. Further optimization of these techniques will be necessary to validate these methods and to gain additional insight into heterogeneity of prostate cancer as reflected in CTCs. Citation Format: Edward Pao, James Che, Elodie Sollier, Andrew King, Guoping Fan, Jiaoti Huang, Dino Di Carlo, Matthew B. Rettig, Rajan P. Kulkarni. Utilizing Vortex Chip for enumeration and determination of single-cell heterogeneity of circulating tumor cells in prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 631. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-631


Artificial neural network-based analysis has recently been used to predict clinical outcomes in patients with solid cancers, including lung cancer. However, the majority of algorithms were not originally developed to identify genes associated with patients' prognoses. To address this issue, we developed a novel prognosis-related feature selection framework called Cascaded Wx (CWx). The CWx framework ranks features according to the survival of a given cohort by training neural networks with three different high- and low-risk groups in a cascaded fashion. We showed that this approach accurately identified features that best identify the patients' prognoses, compared to other feature selection algorithms, including the Cox proportional hazards and Coxnet models, when applied to The Cancer Genome Atlas lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) transcriptome data. The prognostic potential of the top 100 genes identified by CWx outperformed or was comparable to those identified by the other methods as assessed by the concordance index (c-index). In addition, the top 100 genes identified by CWx were found to be associated with the Wnt signaling pathway, providing biologically relevant evidence for the value of these genes in predicting the prognosis of patients with LUAD. Further analyses of other cancer types showed that the genes identified by CWx had the highest prognostic values according to the c-index. Collectively, the CWx framework will potentially be of great use to prognosis-related biomarker discoveries in a variety of diseases.


The use of thermal analysis as a method for material characterization is increasing, particularly in the development of new materials. This review describes three of the analytical techniques within thermal analysis: differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermomechanical analysis (TMA) and dynamic mechanical spectrometry (DMS). DSC and TMA are the traditional thermal analysis techniques, and have gained wide acceptance for material characterization. Specific heat capacity measurements using the DSC and thermal expansion coefficient measurements using the TMA are discussed. This review also includes a discussion of the DMS as a newly added technique in thermal analysis and its application to polymers.


The oxidation time based on the fitting of experimental data was taken out. Drawing of the Absorbance (λmax=265 nm) vs. oxidation time (sec) of Vitacid C by K2 CrO4 were studied. Energy consumed during oxidative degradation of vitamin-C(Vit-C) Tablets in aqueous potassium chromate (K2CrO4) medium was studied spectrophometrically at 25°C. The reduction of the absorbance at~ 265 nm with increasing time was scanned. A good linearity (R-square ≥ 0.99). The slope (EC/ppm) vs reductant (Vit-C/ppm) at constant oxidant is about 1.218, while, the slope of EC vs. oxidant (K2CrO4 /ppm) is about 3.653. Calculations suggest that the EC during reduction of Cr (VI) to Cr (III) is about three times of magnitude faster than the oxidation of the Vit C sample.


To date the effectiveness of inducing lower-calorie choices by providing consumers with calorie information has yielded mixed results. Here four controlled experiments show that adding dish-specific calorie information to menus (calorie posting) tends to result in lower-calorie choices. However, additionally grouping low-calorie dishes into a single "low-calorie" category (calorie organizing) ironically diminishes the positive effects of calorie posting. This outcome appears to be caused by the effect that grouping low-calorie options has on consumers' consideration sets. When choosing from a calorie-organized menu, consumers are more likely to filter out low-calorie options in the early noncompensatory screening stages of the decision process and, consequently, are less likely to choose low-calorie options. This result disappears when consumers deliberate longer before choosing. These results are important for consumer welfare as well-intentioned restaurateurs (policy makers) may be tempted to institute (mandate) the calorie organization of menus, inadvertently resulting in consumers choosing higher-calorie meals.


SCCRO/DCUN1D1/DCN1 (squamous cell carcinoma-related oncogene/defective in cullin neddylation 1 domain containing 1/defective in cullin neddylation) serves as an accessory E3 in neddylation by binding to cullin and Ubc12 to allow efficient transfer of Nedd8. In this work we show that SCCRO has broader, pleiotropic effects that are essential for cullin neddylation in vivo. Reduced primary nuclear localization of Cul1 accompanying decreased neddylation and proliferation in SCCRO−/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts led us to investigate whether compartmentalization plays a regulatory role. Decreased nuclear localization, neddylation, and defective proliferation in SCCRO−/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts were rescued by transgenic expression of SCCRO. Expression of reciprocal SCCRO and Cul1-binding mutants confirmed the requirement for SCCRO in nuclear translocation and neddylation of cullins in vivo. Nuclear translocation of Cul1 by tagging with a nuclear localization sequence allowed neddylation independent of SCCRO, but at a lower level. We found that in the nucleus, SCCRO enhances recruitment of Ubc12 to Cul1 to promote neddylation. These findings suggest that SCCRO has an essential role in neddylation in vivo involving nuclear localization of neddylation components and recruitment and proper positioning of Ubc12.


Conventionally, a radial basis function (RBF) network is constructed by obtaining cluster centers of basis function by maximum likelihood learning. This paper proposes a novel learning algorithm for the construction of radial basis function using sensitivity analysis. In training, the number of hidden neurons and the centers of their radial basis functions are determined by the maximization of the output's sensitivity to the training data. In classification, the minimal number of such hidden neurons with the maximal sensitivity will be the most generalizable to unknown data. Our experimental results show that our proposed sensitivity-based RBF classifier outperforms the conventional RBFs and is as accurate as support vector machine (SVM). Hence, sensitivity analysis is expected to be a new alternative way to the construction of RBF


Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy has been widely applied to characterize the high-resolution structures of β-amyloid (Aβ) fibrils. While these structures provide crucial molecular insights on the deposition of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's diseases (AD), ssNMR structures have been rarely used so far as the basis for designing inhibitors. It remains a challenge because the ssNMR-based Aβ fibril structures were usually obtained with sparsely isotope-labeled peptides with limited experimental constraints, where the structural models, especially the side-chain coordinates, showed restricted precision. However, these structural models often possess a higher accuracy within the hydrophobic core regions with more well-defined experimental data, which provide potential targets for the molecular design. This work presents an ssNMR-based molecular design to achieve selective inhibition of a particular type of Aβ fibrillar structure, which was formed with the Iowa mutant of Aβ with parallel-in-register β-sheet hydrophobic core. The results show that short peptides that mimic the C-terminal β-strands of the fibril may have a preference in binding to the parallel Aβ fibrils rather than the antiparallel fibrils, mainly due to the differences in the high-resolution structures in the fibril elongation interfaces. The Iowa mutant Aβ fibrils are utilized in this work mainly as a model to demonstrate the feasibility of the strategy because it is relatively straightforward to distinguish the parallel and antiparallel fibril structures using ssNMR. Our results suggest that it is potentially feasible to design structure-selective inhibitors and/or diagnostic agents to Aβ fibrils using ssNMR-based structural models.


We consider the density of a fermionic system as a functional of the potential, in one-dimensional case, where it is approximated by the Thomas–Fermi term plus semiclassical corrections through the gradient expansion. We compare this asymptotic series with the exact answer for the case of the harmonic oscillator and the Morse potential. It is found that the leading (Thomas–Fermi) term is in agreement with the exact density, but the subdominant term does not agree in terms of the asymptotic behavior because of the presence of oscillations in the exact density, but their absence in the gradient expansion. However, after regularization of the density by convolution with a Gaussian, the agreement can be established even in the subdominant term. Moreover, it is found that the expansion is always divergent, and its terms grow proportionally to the factorial function of the order, similar to the well-known divergence of perturbation series in field theory and the quantum anharmonic oscillator. Padé–Hermite approximants allow summation of the series, and one of the branches of the approximants agrees with the density.


THE author of this eloquent lecture is Professor at the University of Freiburg, Director of its exceptionally well-equipped Institute for Foreign and laternational Criminal Law and—last but by no means least—judge at the Court of Appeal at Karlsruhe. He reports here on his recent experiences as guest Professor at the New York University School of Law and tries to draw conclusions from them on possible reforms of German teaching methods. The latter are at present the object of many attacks—most of them utterly illconceived and some plainly politically motivated. Few will disagree with the learned author's claim that numbers, not methods, are at fault: a studentteacher relationship of 98 to 1 now exists at some German universities: this is the root of the evil. The learned author stresses—again rightly—that the American case method is, as such, not transferable to a codified system. English readers will note with particular pleasure that he suggests that the model of Cambridge rather than that of New York should be followed in regard to the manner in which the teaching of law may embrace the results of social sciences. He urges an improvement of the German library facilities. The famous Harvard Law Library numbers 1,000,000 volumes, Yale 500,000, the New York School of Law 300,000. Those who know the German facilities which Professor Jescheck wishes to see further improved, and who compare them with those of our English redbrick universities and most 'of our London colleges, will perhaps be tempted not merely to envy the learned author for what he and his colleagues have.already got. He will also admire him for his courage in desiring further far-reaching improvements in the interest of students who do not pay the fabulous law school fees which the parents of their American contemporaries are still apt'and willing to contribute.


A temporary resource reservation mechanism can enhance the performance of a stateless PCE in situations when the TED might not be up-to-date. This paper examines the benefits of such a mechanism by means of simulation.


Gastric cancer is the fifth type of neoplasia most frequently diagnosed and the fourth cause of death among other cancers. Prevalence is around two times higher for males than females. Chitotriosidase and neopterin are two molecular biomarkers with potential diagnostic and prognostic use in malignant pathology. We conducted a longitudinal prospective cohort study on thirty-nine patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.78 and an average age of 64.3 ± 9.97 years. No statistically significant differences in biomarker levels at presentation were observed between curative-intent surgery (28 patients) and advanced cases, suited only for palliative procedures (11 patients). Biomarker values were not significantly different for the advanced T stage and the presence of metastasis (p > 0.05—Mann Whitney test). The patients that died in the first 30 days after surgery did not present significantly different values at baseline, in comparison with those that had longer survival times, though a significant cut-off value was observed for chitotriosidase activity at 310 nmol/mL/h [AUC (area under the curve) = 0.78; 95% CI (0.61–0.92)]. The cut-off values corresponding to death after the first year, tumor invasion, and metastasis were not statistically significant. In the COX multivariate model, neopterin did not validate itself as a prognostic biomarker, however, chitotriosidase activity before surgery was significantly associated with overall survival (HR = 1.0038, p = 0.03). We conclude that chitotriosidase may have the potential to improve the prognostic model for gastric adenocarcinoma.


Evidence-based medicine (EBM) teaches physicians to base their decisions and actions on the best available scientific evidence in conjunction with their own expertise and the patient's values and preferences; however, this can be very time consuming as a one has to stay current and up-to-date with the most recent evidence. Several point-of-care databases, such as UpToDate and Dynamed, have been developed that distill the contents of medical journals into summaries with guidelines for practice in order to aid in EBM approach, but these also come with various limitations. Due to this, tools specific to surgical specialties are now beginning to be developed that systematically collect, appraise and summarize top quality evidence. One such tool is OrthoEvidence, which is an openaccess tool for orthopedic surgeons, researchers and allied healthcare professionals.


There is a poetic parallel between Brazilian orthopedics and music in the world. In the mid-1960s, rock became popular and, to improve individual performances, bands emerged in groups of four or five youngmusicians. They formed brilliant quartets, like the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival, or amazing quintets, such as the Rolling Stones. As in music, this renovation occurred in several areas of knowledge, and Brazilian orthopedics witnessed the formation of several centers of excellence. At the Santa Casa de São Paulo, a group of recently arrived young doctors packed themselves with modern concepts and believed in the reformations proposed by the competent talent scout José Soares Hungria Filho. With enviable serendipity, Prof. Hungria established the "full-time"workload, terminating the comfort zone for most of the oldest staff and injecting new blood into the Pavilhão. Under a new philosophy and with great enthusiasm, a fantastic quartet of young, hard-working, talented professionals emerged: Andrea Sérgio Aristide Rudelli, Elio Consentino, José Carlos Lopes Prado, and Roberto Attilio Lima Santin. Coming from various parts of the state of São Paulo, they stood out in the beginnings of the Faculdade de Ciências Médicas of the Santa Casa de São Paulo. They conquered space and respectability, first in Brazilian orthopedics, and then around the world, under the name Pavilhão. As in an orchestra ready to perform, in which scores had been distributed, each one of these young doctors was prepared to play. They had different styles but only one goal: the scientific growth of the Service. Prof. Santin stoodoutwith his expertise initially focusedon foot disorders; at the same time, he was a pioneer in the surgical approach to the pelvis and acetabulum due to his surgical dexterity. Among other achievements, he was a founder and president of the Sociedade Brasileira de Fixadores Externos (Brazilian Society of External Fixation Devices). As president of the regional office from Sociedade Brasileira de Ortopedia e Traumatologia in São Paulo (SBOT-SP, in the Portuguese acronym), Prof. Santin created successful itinerant courses in the subregions of the state. As president of the national SBOT, he joined his deputy Gilberto Camanho in an altruistic, unpretentious way to establish the SBOT headquarters in Rua Lorena, with great political-administrative merit. He was as skilled in surgery as in dealing with colleagues. Elegant, he could easily teach how to operate and brought people together. Ethical and well-prepared, he was happy to teach and knew exactly how to potentiate and leverage young professionals' talents. Both in his private life and in his orthopedics practice, Prof. Santin was socially skillful, with a remarkable aggregating style. He was a true orthopedics ambassador at the Pavilhão Fernandinho Simonsen due to his contacts inside and outside the institution. Prof. Santin added a lot of value to the concept of the Pavilhão! In his honorable career, Prof. Santin composed the music of his lifetime with diplomacy and elegance. His score was written in the inflexible letter of orthopedic medical knowledge and his surgical ability. His harmony, light and free, was lavished humbly upon teaching and dealing with people. Goodbye, Commendatory Santin! From your colleagues and friends from Pavilhão Fernandinho Simonsen! Dr. Roberto Santin


Engineering labs provide an environment for both conceptual inquiry and procedural/practical skill and knowledge acquisition. Student performance in both areas can vary depending on their prior competencies and knowledge of basic concepts of the lab, motivation, and expectations. And when insufficient resources are available for students to learn how to perform routine lab procedures, students and lab instructors often spend the entire lab period addressing procedural issues and not enough time spent on conceptual inquiry and discussion. A study at Vanderbilt University explored the potential of providing "just in time, in context" Web-based learning resources during before-lab and during-lab access to determine if student procedural queries that predominantly occupy TA time can be reduced and increase conceptual discussions. This paper describes the study and presents statistics on conceptual and procedural deficiencies in individual students and the class, results showing positive outcomes in student self-correction of misconceptions using Web-based resources, and improvement in the quality of student and TA interaction in the lab


The article presents and summarizes the current state of knowledge about the management and treatment of allergic diseases in children during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic Patients with allergic diseases do not show different symptoms of COVID-19 Children with atopy, like most children, undergo this infection mildly Current recommendations of Polish and international societies recommend continuing the therapy of allergic diseases to minimize the adverse effects of discontinuing treatment Continuing treatment with inhaled and oral glucocorticosteroids, antihistamines and anti-leukotriene drugs is not a risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection and should not be stopped Effective treatment of allergic rhinitis may have a positive effect on reducing the transmission of the virus For children with atopic dermatitis it is essential to use barrier preparations to care atopic skin more often to minimize side effects of excessive use of soaps and disinfectant fluids It is not recommended to start immunotherapy with inhaled allergens during a pandemic If there are conditions for epidemiologically safe continuation of specific immunotherapy, the sublingual form is preferred To minimize the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection in medical facilities, telemedicine is the preferred method for continuing specialist care


A number of issues are relevant to the development and use of levo-alpha-acetylmethadol (LAAM) as a treatment alternative to methadone. A brief history of methadone maintenance treatment is provided and variants of standard methadone treatment are discussed. The history and current status of LAAm are discussed, as well as its advantages over methadone. In addition, relevant clinical, research, and policy issues are addressed. LAAm has advantages over methadone specifically with regard to thrice-weekly dosing, potential to reduce HIV/AIDS risk, possible cost savings, and possible improved clinic-community relations. The effective and cost-effective implementation of LAAM as a new treatment for opioid addiction requires attention to a number of issues: (1) LAAM as an HIV prevention measure through its potential risk-reduction effects, (2) the sue of LAAM with specific high-risk subgroups, (3) causes of differential rates of treatment dropout and their amenability to intervention, (4) the role fo patient choice in long-term maintenance treatment, (5) the impact of LAAM on clinic operations, (6) the potential for LAAM as a take-home medication, and (7) the costs of implementing and sustaining LAAM maintenance services.


An immobilized form of Candida antarctica lipase (Chirazyme L-2) catalyzed enantioselective hydrolysis (E > 1000) of N-Boc-indoline-2-carboxylic acid methyl ester. The reaction proceeded efficientl...


In England, post - compulsory education is separated by the binary divide of
the Further and Higher Education Act (1992), which established different
funding and inspection bodies for the respective sectors. However, there are
institutions which offer both further and higher education, styling themselves
`dual-sector' or mixed-economy' institutions. Such institutions are situated
within a continuum of collaborative arrangements, operating across the
sectoral boundaries of further and higher education, ranging from full
institutional merger to the franchising of qualifications.
This thesis investigates the impact of institutional merger upon a specific
institution, using a case - study approach to explore whether combining further
and higher education within a single institution, can create a unified
organisation that improves student progression. In doing so, it is situated
within the field of higher education policy and explores the historical origins of
the university and its contemporary purpose, together with the development
and current function of further education. The methods of enquiry include
document analysis and primary research, in the form of interviews with
students progressing from further to higher education (Level 3 to Level 4), and
from Level 5 (HND and Foundation Degree) to Level 6, together with
interviews with academic — managers in the merged institution, exploring their
perceptions of working in a dual-sector institution.
I argue that full institutional merger produced some unintended
consequences, which were in conflict with the rationale for merger, in some
instances, but which also resulted in some unexpected benefits. The
espoused objectives of the merger, in line with policies to widen participation
in, and improve access to, higher education were predicated upon increased
progression and cost reductions.
The key themes of this research are widening participation, student
progression and organisational transition. The emergent issues of boundaries,
identities, transitions and organisational cultures, provide the framework for
the presentation of research findings.


Though the typical scintigraphic appearance in adrenal cortical carcinoma is bilateral nonvisualization of the adrenal glands, we report a case with simultaneous visualization of both an adrenal cortical carcinoma and its skeletal metastasis using 6-beta-[131I]iodomethyl-19-norcholesterol.


This chapter examines the legal regime governing the admissibility of claims in international adjudication. Particular attention is paid to the modalities of establishing legal interest in respect of claims brought by States in their own right and on behalf of their nationals. The role of nationality is examined and the problems posed by competing claims in relation to multiple nationalities are explored. The unique nature of the problems raised in extending diplomatic protection to corporations and shareholding interests is considered in light of the jurisprudence of international tribunals. The final section considers the ambit of the rule on exhaustion of local remedies and its effect on the admissibility of claims. The parameters of the rule are explored and circumstances when, as a matter of policy, it ought to be regarded as inapplicable are discussed.


Successfully storing CO2 underground requires a good understanding of the subsurface at the storage site, and its robust representation in geological models. Geological models, and related simulations, provide important quantitative information on critical parameters for the optimal utilisation of the subsurface, such as storage capacity, fracturing pressure, optimal injection rates and drilling strategy. In the majority of cases, such models are constructed on the basis of seismic and well data, and history matched using production and injection data. On the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, however, a siliciclastic unit ca. 700-1000 m deep is considered for CO2 storage, and its outcrop equivalents are exposed 15-20 km from the planned injection site. These outcrops provide an important insight into the structural and sedimentological heterogeneity of the target reservoir. The use of modern tools such as photogrammetric digital outcrops enhances our ability to obtain relevant quantitative data for the geomodel. We here present an integrated characterization of the UNIS CO2 project target reservoir, combining well, core, seismic, EM and outcrop data, to build a realistic model of the planned CO2 storage site.