Developing a suitable framework for real-time optimal power flow (RT-OPF) is of utmost importance for ensuring both optimality and feasibility in the operation of energy distribution networks (DNs) under intermittent wind energy penetration. The most challenging issue thereby is that a large-scale complex optimization problem has to be solved in real-time. Online simultaneous optimization of the wind power curtailments of wind stations and the discrete reference values of the slack bus voltage which leads to a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, in addition to considering variable reverse power flow, make the optimization problem even much more complicated. To address these difficulties, a two-phase solution approach to RT-OPF is proposed in this paper. In the prediction phase, a number of MINLP OPF problems corresponding to the most probable scenarios of the wind energy penetration in the prediction horizon, by taking its forecasted value and stochastic distribution into account, are solved in parallel. The solution provides a lookup table for optional control strategies for the current prediction horizon which is further divided into a certain number of short time intervals. In the realization phase, one of the control strategies is selected from the lookup table based on the actual wind power and realized to the grid in the current time interval, which will proceed from one interval to the next, till the end of the current prediction horizon. Then, the prediction phase for the next prediction horizon will be activated. A 41-bus medium-voltage DN is taken as a case study to demonstrate the proposed RT-OPF approach.


Abstract Captopril (D-3-mercapto-2-methylpropanoyl-L-proline) has recently been approved for the treatment of refractory systemic hypertension. Administration of this agent has been shown experimentally to decrease circulating levels of angiotensin II and to increase levels of bradykinin and prostaglandins. In order to examine the effect on the pulmonary vasculature of the neonate, captopril was administered to rabbits from the middle of pregnancy to term, at doses comparable to those used in man. Fetal death in 20 treated rabbits was 86%, in contrast to 1% in 12 control rabbits. Some of the rabbits were made hypoxic in a hypobaric chamber (522 mm Hg pressure) during the period of captopril administration. Under these conditions, captopril administered to the maternal rabbits had a demonstrable cardiopulmonary effect in the neonates, as demonstrated by a significant reduction in pulmonary arteriolar medial thickness and both left and right ventricular weights compared to the hypoxic untreated controls. In view of these observations it would be prudent to avoid using captopril for the treatment of hypertension during pregnancy, until the mechanism of fetal death and the reasons for species variation are known.


Reports linking human malarial illness and pathology with serum tumor necrosis factor (TNF) levels are now common, although the association is not always precise. Possible reasons for this discrepancy include the reported variation in levels of interleukin-1 (IL-1), a cytokine known to synergize with TNF. We have examined the extent of synergy between recombinant human TNF and either recombinant human IL-1 alpha or recombinant human IL-1 beta in producing hypoglycemia and increasing plasma levels of nitric oxide in malaria (Plasmodium vinckei)-infected CBA mice. Very low concentrations of either IL-1 alpha or IL-1 beta, with negligible effects on their own, greatly enhanced the effectiveness of TNF in bringing about these changes. In particular, synergy in generating nitric oxide, a mediator argued to induce cerebral malaria, was profound. Thus, variation in generation of IL-1 during infection provides one explanation for the poor correlation sometimes encountered between serum TNF levels and clinical condition.


In radiology, image quality excellence is a balance between system performance and patient dose, hence x-ray systems must be designed to ensure the maximum image quality is obtained for the lowest consistent dose. The concept of detective quantum efficiency (DQE) is widely used to quantify, understand, measure, and predict the performance of x-ray detectors and imaging systems. Cascaded linear-systems theory can be used to estimate DQE based on the system design parameters and this theoretical DQE can be utilized for determining the impact of various physical processes, such as secondary quantum sinks, noise aliasing, reabsorption noise, and others. However, the prediction of DQE usually requires tremendous efforts to determine each parameter consisting of the cascaded linear-systems model. In this paper, practical DQE formalisms assessing both the photoconductor- and scintillator-based flat-panel detectors under quantum-noise-limited operation are described. The developed formalisms are experimentally validated and discussed for their limits. The formalisms described in this paper would be helpful for the rapid prediction of the DQE performances of developing systems as well as the optimal design of systems.


Direct methanol fuel cells are excellent power sources due to their high energy density, low pollutant emission and easy handling. However, commercial applications are limited by the high cost related to noble metal catalysts. Recent findings have proved that appropriate catalyst support, which improves the utilization of the noble metals in great depth, may be one breakthrough. Graphene nanosheet (GNS), a new two-dimensional carbon material with a single (or a few) atomic thickness, as the combination of its high surface area, high conductivity and unique graphitized basal plane structure, has recently attracted an enormous amount of interest from both theoretical and experimental scientists. It has been proved that catalysts supported on GNSs show improved activity than those supported on carbon black. Furthermore, alloying Pt with other metal is widely approved as a practical method to relieve the CO-poisoning of the catalyst, which can be ascribed to both a bi-functional mechanism and a ligand (electronic) effect. In this experiment, PtCo/graphene (GN) composite catalysts were synthesized on an indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate by the potentiostatic method. Catalyst samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) and electrochemical methods. SEM results showed that the addition of graphene could enhance the dispersion of the catalytic particles and reduce the particle size, especially when the molar ratio of Pt and Co is 1∶2.93, the particles had the smallest size and the best dispersion. Electrochemical tests demonstrated that graphene as the catalytic support could improve the CO-tolerance of the catalysts, which was determined by the outstanding electric conductivity and rich oxygen-containing species of graphene, resulting in good performance for electrocatalytic methanol oxidation. Furthermore, owing to the special electronic effect of Co, its addition also influenced the catalytic activity. It was found that when the molar ratio of Pt and Co was 1∶2.93, the composite catalyst exhibited the most excellent catalytic performance for electrocatalytic methanol oxidation with the forward anodic peak current density of 662 A•gpt -1 and the If/Ib of 2.34 which was nearly 1.8 times that of the traditional PtCo/C catalyst (If/Ib=1.32).


The linear algorithm for two-dimensional least square approximation in the frequency domain (2D-FD-LS) is wellestablished and has been applied successfully to 2D signal representation and image noise cancellation. But it does not give any explicit model order selection method. In this paper, two approaches for model order selection for the 2D-FD-LS algorithm are proposed. One is a rank-checking method, and the other is a grouping measure based method. Analysis and simulation results demonstrate the applicability of these new approaches. The first approach is recommended for deterministic (known spectrum) applications, while the second approach is more suitable for the random case.


– The purpose of this empirical research is to attempt to explore the effect of information security initiatives (ISI) on supply chain performance, considering various intra- and inter-organization information security aspects that are deemed to have an influence on supply chain operations and performance. , – Based on extant information security management and supply chain security management literature, a conceptual model was developed and validated. A questionnaire survey instrument was developed and administered among supply chain managers to collect data. Data were collected from 197 organizations belonging to various sectors. The study used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for data analysis. Further, to test the hypotheses and to fit the theoretical model, structural equation modeling techniques were used. , – Results of this study indicate that ISI, comprising technical, formal and informal security aspects in an intra- and inter-organizational environment, are positively associated with supply chain operations, which, in turn, positively affects supply chain performance. , – This study provides the foundation for future research in the management of information security in supply chains. Findings are expected to provide the communities of practice with better information security decision-making in a supply chain context, by clearly formulating technical, formal and informal information security policies for improving supply chain performance. , – In today's global supply chain environment where competition prevails among supply chains, this research is relevant in terms of capability that an organization has to acquire for managing internal and external information security. In that sense, this study contributes to the body of knowledge with an empirical analysis of organizations' information security management initiatives as a blend of technical, formal and informal security aspects.


The present study examines loanwords in Ciluba from both a phonological and a morphological point of view. Two large categories of loanwords can be distinguished: on the one hand those which are entirely integrated and on the other hand more recent loanwords which retain a large number of their original phonological features. On the phonological level, loanwords (1) introduce new phonemes such as [R] and [g], (2) increase the proportion of low tones, and (3) introduce new combinations of phonemes (e.g. in the sequence C 1 C 2 V, in which consonants C 1 and C 2 are respectively a nasal and a semivowel, loanwords allow the presence of any consonant). On the morphological level, one notices the appearance not only of forms whose plural is no longer predictable, but also of forms whose plural can be realized in different classes. This phenomenon has important implications in lexicography. As a matter of fact, it is no longer possible to mention in a Luba dictionary only the singular form and let the reader infer the plural. For nouns the concept of "gender" must therefore be introduced. Gender is defined as a pair of classes whose left and right poles which generally represent the singular and the plural respectively, are chosen in relation to the syntactic concords for the different class affixes (nominal, pronominal, verbal and object prefixes; enclitics), the possessive and the demonstratives, and no longer only in relation to the nominal prefix. Thus, the gender of a noun appears to play a fundamental role in the macrostructure of a noun lemma. Finally, the study of the processes which are intuitively applied by the speakers to integrate foreign words will be a useful source of stimulation for the coinage of neologisms.


We report on our long-term observational campaign to characterize and monitor a select sample of 75 dynamically selected dormant comet candidates and six near-Sun asteroids. Both asteroid subpopulations can be considered likely to display comet-like activity. Dormant comets are currently inactive comet nuclei that can still harbor volatiles in subsurface layers, whereas near-Sun asteroids have extremely low perihelion distances and are thus prone to catastrophic disruption. As a result of our 4 yr long observing campaign, we find only dormant comet 3552 Don Quixote to show activity during our program. We furthermore find that (51 ± 10)% of dynamically selected dormant comet candidates in near-Earth space have comet-like physical properties, as well as (56 ± 16)% of dynamically selected dormant comet candidates in other parts of the solar system. All of our near-Sun asteroid sample targets are of nonprimitive nature, suggesting that primitive near-Sun asteroids are more likely to disrupt than nonprimitives. We furthermore find a significant fraction of our near-Sun asteroid sample to display extremely blue V–I color indices, potentially hinting at physical alterations of surface material close to the Sun.


This guide highlights resources and services available to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual communities at SAU and the Quad Cities Area as well as agencies and organizations nationwide.


The article analyses the jurisprudence of international tribunals on the education and housing of Roma and Travellers to understand whether positive obligations can change the hearts and minds of the majority and promote minority identities. Case law on education deals with integration rather than cultural specificities, while in the context of housing it accommodates minority needs. Positive obligations have achieved a higher level of compliance in the latter context by requiring majorities to tolerate the minority way of life in overwhelmingly segregated settings. Conversely, little seems to have changed in education, where legal and institutional reform, as well as a shift in both majority and minority attitudes, would be necessary to dismantle social distance and generate mutual trust. The interlocking factors of accessibility, judicial activism, European politics, expectations of political allegiance and community resources explain jurisprudential developments. The weak justiciability of minority rights, the lack of resources internal to the community and dual identities among the Eastern Roma impede legal claims for culture-specific accommodation in education. Conversely, the protection of minority identity and community ties is of paramount importance in the housing context, subsumed under the right to private and family life.


The composition of the car fleet with respect to age, fuel consumption and fuel types plays an important role on environmental effects, oil dependency and energy consumption. In Sweden, a number of different policies have been implemented to support CO2 emission reductions. In order to evaluate effects of different policies, a model for the evolution of the Swedish car fleet was developed in 2006. The model has been used in a number of projects since then, and it is now possible to compare forecasts with actual outcomes. Such evidence is relatively rare, and we think it may be useful to share our experience in this respect. We give a brief overview of the Swedish car fleet model. Then we describe policies that have been implemented in recent years and the evolution of the Swedish car fleet. We then focus on two projects which enable comparison with actual outcomes, and analyse the differences between forecasts and outcomes. We find that the model has weaknesses in catching car buyers' preferences of new technology. When this is not challenged too much, the model can forecast reasonably well on an aggregate level. We also find that he model is quite sensitive to assumptions on future supply. This is not so much related to the model, but to its use. Depending on the use of the forecasts – be it car sales, emissions or fuel demand – it may be necessary to use different supply scenarios to get an idea of the robustness of the forecast result.


Up to now, the role of particle sizes on deformation features of ceramic particles in aerosol deposition (AD), is not fully understood. For distinguishing general features, two-dimensional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are applied to study associated phenomena. The nanoparticles are assumed to have original sizes of 10-300 nm and to impact the substrate at velocities of 100-800 m/s. The applied Lennard-Jones potential for the modelled nanoparticles were adjusted to mimic the mechanical properties of TiO2-anatase. For small particles, the simulations reveal three different impact behaviors of (i) rebounding, (ii) bonding and (iii) fragmentation based on initial size and impact velocity, whereas, the larger ones do not show the bonding behavior. The upper limit of the bonding regime shrinks with increasing particle sizes, the field then diminishing for the largest ones. The different impact phenomena were analyzed by evolution of the stress, strain and temperature fields. Stress and strain field results showed that "localized inelastic deformation" occurred at particle sites spreading from the interface to the substrate to the particle core. Calculated temperature fields show a local rise of around 1200 Kelvin due to the inelastic deformation, which is probably sufficient for thermal activation of further deformation features.


A second-generation pulse-burst laser system for high-speed flow diagnostics is described in detail. The laser can produce a burst of high-energy pulses (of the order of hundreds of millijoules per pulse) with individual pulse durations of less than 10 ns and pulse separations as short as 1 micros. A key improvement is the addition of a phase-conjugate mirror, which effectively isolates the high-intensity, short-duration pulses from the low-intensity, long-duration background illumination. It allows for more-efficient amplification and harmonic generation, with efficiencies exceeding 50% for second-harmonic and 40% for third-harmonic generation. Characteristics of the laser system, including gain narrowing, pulse-burst energy distribution, pulse narrowing, and overall pulse-burst energy, are described. In addition, the applicability of the laser for spectroscopic-based flow diagnostics is demonstrated through the presentation of megahertz-rate planar Doppler velocimetry results.


Wolbachia is a genus of parasitic alphaproteobacteria found in arthropods and nematodes, and represents on of the most common, widespread endosymbionts known. Wolbachia affects a variety of reproductive functions in its host (e.g., male killing, cytoplasmic incompatibility, parthenogenesis), which have the potential to dramatically impact host evolution and species formation. Here, we present the first broad-scale study to screen natural populations of native Hawaiian insects for Wolbachia, focusing on the endemic Diptera. Results indicate that Wolbachia infects native Hawaiian taxa, with alleles spanning phylogenetic supergroups, A and B. The overall frequency of Wolbachia incidene in Hawaiian insects was 14%. The incidence of infection in native Hawaiian Diptera was 11% for individuals and 12% for all species screened. Wolbachia was not detected in two large, widespread Hawaiian dipteran families—Dolichopodidae (44 spp screened) and Limoniidae (12 spp screened). Incidence of infection within endemic Hawaiian lineages that carry Wolbachia was 18% in Drosophilidae species, 25% in Caliphoridae species, > 90% in Nesophrosyne species, 20% in Drosophila dasycnemia and 100% in Nesophrosyne craterigena. Twenty unique alleles were recovered in this study, of which 18 are newly recorded. Screening of endemic populations of D. dasycnemia across Hawaii Island revealed 4 unique alleles. Phylogenetic relationships and allele diversity provide evidence for horizontal transfer of Wolbachia among Hawaiian arthropod lineages.


The 'field' is an integral part of international education at the tertiary level. Students are taken to the field in order to experience, first hand, the themes, processes and people that they learn about in the classroom. Despite the critical importance of the fieldtrip mode of teaching and the positive impact it has on learning, budget constraints mean that fieldtrips are becoming less common in tertiary curricula, especially when they involve learning about international topics. One potential way to counteract this is to identify how we might construct a 'virtual' field. This article reflects on this process in general and presents two case studies that attempt to bring the field to the classroom.


Background: NOM is considered a treatment option for all hemodynamically stable patients without peritoneal signs and many recent reports reveal success rates of 80%. In this study we evaluated the feasibility and safety of NOM of BAT in our hospital. Methods: This retrospective study comprises 86 patients with BAT who were admitted over a 3 year period. NOM was applied in 82.93% (34 patients) of all BATs with a failure rate of 17.07% (7 patients). Of these 7 patients of NOM failure were clubbed with OM group in order to perform statistical comparison. Finally comparison was done between NOM (n=64) and OM (n=22) group. The comparison was done between NOM and OM group in terms of demographic, medical history (co-morbidities), mode of injury, hemodynamic status, and organs injured, injury grading, length of hospital stay, morbidity and mortality. Results: Most of the patients were young adults (2045 years) with mean age being 32.45 years and age ranging between 16-62 years. The commonest cause of BAT (n=78, 90.69%) was Road traffic accident (RTA). No significant differences were observed between NOM and OM group in relation with age, sex, time of presentation (hours), co-morbidities and mechanism of injury. Injury severity score (ISS), hematocrit, hemodynamic status and blood transfusion were significantly different between NOM and operative group. NOM has a significant decrease in length of hospital stay, ICU admission and morbidity compared to patients who underwent surgery. NOM failure occurred in 4 patients with splenic injury and 1 patient with liver injury and 2 patients with hollow viscous perforation.6 patients were died in OM group. The success rate of NOM was 95.3%. Conclusion: NOM for BAT was found to be highly successful and safe. The patient with hemodynamically stable or easily stabilized trauma may be admitted to a non-ICU unit, with close monitoring of vital signs and regular clinical examinations.


The defective Suppressor-mutator (dSpm)-induced allele bronze1-mutable 13 (bz1-m13) and many of its derivative alleles are leaky mutants with measurable levels of flavonol O3-glucosyltransferase activity. This activity results from splicing at acceptor site-1, one of two cryptic 3' splice sites within the dSpm insertion in bz1-m13. In this study, splicing in bz1-m13 change-in-state (CS) alleles CS-3 and CS-64 was shown to be altered from bz1-m13; previous work found altered splicing in CS-9. CS-64 is a null allele and lacks the acceptor site-1-spliced transcript because this site is deleted. CS-3 and CS-9 had increased levels of the acceptor site-1 transcript relative to bz1-m13 and increased enzymic activities. A deletion in CS-9 altered splicing by eliminating acceptor site-2. Both acceptor sites were intact in CS-3, but a deletion removed most of a 275-bp GC-rich sequence in dSpm. This suggests that GC-rich sequences affect splicing and is consistent with models postulating a role for AU content in the splicing of plant introns. Splicing does not necessarily occur, however, at the junction of AU-rich intron sequences and GC-rich exon sequences.


ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a member of the β subgroup of the family Herpesviridae, causes serious health problems worldwide. HCMV gene expression in host cells is a well-defined sequential process: immediate-early (IE) gene expression, early-gene expression, DNA replication, and late-gene expression. The most abundant IE gene, major IE (MIE) gene pre-mRNA, needs to be spliced before being exported to the cytoplasm for translation. In this study, the regulation of MIE gene splicing was investigated; in so doing, we found that polypyrimidine tract binding proteins (PTBs) strongly repressed MIE gene production in cotransfection assays. In addition, we discovered that the repressive effects of PTB could be rescued by splicing factor U2AF. Taken together, the results suggest that PTBs inhibit MIE gene splicing by competing with U2AF65 for binding to the polypyrimidine tract in pre-mRNA. In intron deletion mutation assays and RNA detection experiments (reverse transcription [RT]-PCR and real-time RT-PCR), we further observed that PTBs target all the introns of the MIE gene, especially intron 2, and affect gene splicing, which was reflected in the variation in the ratio of pre-mRNA to mRNA. Using transfection assays, we demonstrated that PTB knockdown cells induce a higher degree of MIE gene splicing/expression. Consistently, HCMV can produce more viral proteins and viral particles in PTB knockdown cells after infection. We conclude that PTB inhibits HCMV replication by interfering with MIE gene splicing through competition with U2AF for binding to the polypyrimidine tract in MIE gene introns.


In India, the rate of fatality due to accidents cases increases year by year. This problem becomes more serious and need all concerns to immediately take the following urgent actions in order to save precious human life. Therefore, this paper attempts to present a technique based on video and image processing for lane guidance warning system as an alternative way to reduce the accident rate due to lane departure. This system is capable to identify two lane markings from the video captured through a webcam. Warning system will automatically "switch on" once lane departure occurs either to the right or to the left side of the road. The input video will first undergo threshold process and binary conversion. Then, lane marking detection is done using Hough transform, Hough line detection and local maxima finder. Finally, a decision-making algorithm is applied in the system to detect lane departure. It is found that, this system is able to identify straight lane markers, highlighting both markers with colour lines and able to give appropriate warning when lane crossing happen. For future enhancement, distance measuring function should be applied in the system so that the distance from one vehicle in front with another one at the back can be measured automatically.


Objective: Within the knowledge based economy, talents are known as a strategic talent in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage as well as a criterion for growth in different organizational and social level. Thus, in recent studies, talent management architecture has emphasized on exploring and identifying talents in different fields. Accordingly, the present study aimed to provide a model of talent identifying process at the Iran National Elite Foundation (INEF). Methods: This study is conducted based on a descriptive-exploratory study with a developmentalapplied approach. The statistical population of the research includes the scientific lasting faces of the country as well as top managers of the INEF. The statistical sample was selected through a purposeful judgment of 25 people. Data collection tools were library studies and semi-structured interviews with experts. Data were analyzed based on qualitative approach and based on a hybrid algorithm of the soft system methodology and cognitive mapping. Results: The findings proposed a model to identify talents in INEF including two methods of elite selection as active and passive manner. Conclusion: The results showed that the active process of elite selection includes two nominating and searchable methods and the passive process of elite selection includrs two selective and selfassertive methods.


Cognitive decline in aging is a pressing issue associated with significant healthcare costs and deterioration in quality of life. Previously, we reported the successful use of a novel brain-computer interface (BCI) training system in improving symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Here, we examine the feasibility of the BCI system with a new game that incorporates memory training in improving memory and attention in a pilot sample of healthy elderly. This study investigates the safety, usability and acceptability of our BCI system to elderly, and obtains an efficacy estimate to warrant a phase III trial. Thirty-one healthy elderly were randomized into intervention (n = 15) and waitlist control arms (n = 16). Intervention consisted of an 8-week training comprising 24 half-hour sessions. A usability and acceptability questionnaire was administered at the end of training. Safety was investigated by querying users about adverse events after every session. Efficacy of the system was measured by the change of total score from the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) before and after training. Feedback on the usability and acceptability questionnaire was positive. No adverse events were reported for all participants across all sessions. Though the median difference in the RBANS change scores between arms was not statistically significant, an effect size of 0.6SD was obtained, which reflects potential clinical utility according to Simon's randomized phase II trial design. Pooled data from both arms also showed that the median change in total scores pre and post-training was statistically significant (Mdn = 4.0; p<0.001). Specifically, there were significant improvements in immediate memory (p = 0.038), visuospatial/constructional (p = 0.014), attention (p = 0.039), and delayed memory (p<0.001) scores. Our BCI-based system shows promise in improving memory and attention in healthy elderly, and appears to be safe, user-friendly and acceptable to senior users. Given the efficacy signal, a phase III trial is warranted. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01661894


This paper aims to estimate efficiencies of input use and its determinants using a two step methodology. First, to estimate the efficiency of conventional and organic date farms in Saudi Arabia, with special reference to the Riyadh province. Second, to show the impacts of relative input use, as an indicator of technology level and specialization degree, as efficiency determinants. Riyadh Province has the main date production and date area, it reaches 23% and 25% of total production and area of dates respectively. It is also a province which is characterized by most of the organic date farms in the Kingdom. Technical, cost, and scale efficiencies are estimated using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach, for 82 conventional and 49 organic date farms. The study results show that 22% of conventional date farm technical efficiency have a range of 50–59%, while 32% of them have a cost efficiency range of 40–49%. Technical and cost efficiency ranges were 50–59% and 20–29% for 29% and 39% of organic date farms respectively. The efficiency measures are regressed, using Tobit Model, on a set of explanatory variables which includes efficiency determinants such as water, labor, per hectares. The significant relationship between farm use of water per hectare, as the most scarce resource, and scale efficiency is negative in the case of conventional and organic date farms, i.e. less water use increases scale efficiency. Date farm area relative to total farm area has a positive impact on date farm efficiency. A negative impact of labor, per hectare, on efficiency reflects the importance of applying modern agriculture which required less labor and more technology.


A detonation engine can detonate a mixture of fuel and oxidizer within a cylindrical detonation region to produce work. The detonation engine can have a first and a second inlet having ends fluidly connected from tanks to the detonation engine. The first and second inlets can be aligned along a common axis. The inlets can be connected to nozzles and a separator can be positioned between the nozzles and along the common axis.


While a large amount of scholarship about Milan Kundera's work exists, in Liisa Steinby's opinion, his work has not been studied within the context of (European) modernity as a sociohistorical and a cultural concept. Of course, he is considered to be a modernist writer (some call him even a postmodernist), but what the broader concept of modernity intellectually, historically, socially, and culturally means for him and how this is expressed in his texts has not been thoroughly examined. Steinby's book fills this vacuum by analysing Kundera's novels from the viewpoint of his understanding of the existential problems in the culture of modernity. In addition, his relation to those modernist novelists from the first half of the twentieth century who are most important for him is scrutinised in detail. Steinby's Kundera and Modernity is intended for students of modernism in literary and (comparative) cultural studies, as well as those interested in European and Central European studies. Key Points: Offers new insights into the work of the popular modern writer Milan Kundera. Expands the reader's understanding of the meaning of the concept of "modernity." Widens the literature available in English about Central European culture.


Decreasing the energy consumption of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems is becoming increasingly important due to rising cost of fossil fuels and environmental concerns. Therefore, finding novel ways to reduce energy consumption in buildings without compromising comfort and indoor air quality is an ongoing research challenge. One proven way of achieving energy efficiency in HVAC systems is to design systems that use novel configurations of existing system components. Each HVAC discipline has specific design requirements and each presents opportunities for energy savings. Energy efficient HVAC systems can be created by re-configuring traditional systems to make more strategic use of existing system parts. Recent research has demonstrated that a combination of existing air conditioning technologies can offer effective solutions for energy conservation and thermal comfort. This paper investigates and reviews the different technologies and approaches, and demonstrates their ability to improve the performance of HVAC systems in order to reduce energy consumption. For each strategy, a brief description is first presented and then by reviewing the previous studies, the influence of that method on the HVAC energy saving is investigated. Finally, a comparison study between these approaches is carried out. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 6, Issue 12, December-2015 ISSN 2229-5518 IJSER © 2015 http://www.ijser.org 106


Background and aims Many economic factors are associated with diet, yet the evidence is generally cross-sectional. Older people are considered especially vulnerable to poor diets from negative changes to varied economic factors. This review extends current knowledge on known correlates to decipher actual economic determinants of diet in older adults. Methods Eight bibliometric databases were searched between May and December 2012, supplemented by hand-searches, with no restrictions on publication date or country. Longitudinal studies, or reviews, were eligible when examining diet as a function of change in an economic factor in non-institutionalised adults ≥60 years. Data were extracted using a standardised evidence table and quality assessed before narrative synthesis. Results We found nine original studies for inclusion, of which eight examined change from work to retirement and one evaluated a food price intervention. Designs were generally pre-post without controls and varying in follow-up. Studies reported mixed impact on food spending and/or food intake. Retirement was shown to both reduce and have no impact on food spending and to have either positive and negative, or positive and no impact on food intake. Subgroup differences were observed, especially between men and women. Conclusions Despite ample research on economic correlates of older adults' diets, little is still known about actual economic determinants of diet in this population. Studies of retirement suggest divergent effects in some but not all older people. Robust high-quality longitudinal studies to decipher economic drivers of diet must be prioritised in research and policy as firm conclusions remain elusive.


This research investigated the efficacy of psycho-educational expressive arts therapy groups in equipping and empowering adults over the age of 55 for optimal functioning. Postulating that creative explorations of thought, action, and perception might enhance cognition, strengthen self-efficacy, and stimulate engagement, the researcher targeted 24 aptitudes associated with creativity and cognitive health. These are fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, abstracting, openness, emotional awareness, synthesis, proprioception, visualization, contextualizing, curiosity, investigating, confidence, extending, optimism, fantasy, humor, collaboration, decentrism, perception, critical thinking, metaphoric understanding, and metacognition. Participants (N=119) at five locations in the greater New York area were solicited from the public through senior center newsletters. Data was culled from those with perfect or near-perfect attendance (N=42) and a control group from the same population (N=40). The exercises combined movement/dance, visualization, improvisation, music-making, psychodrama, storytelling, breathing techniques, critical thinking, sensory enhancement, collaborative problemsolving, positive psychology, and creative immersion within an atmosphere of socialization and support. Structured as the "Five A's of Creating Wellness," the intervention targeted each aptitude (e.g., flexibility) and its associated attitude ("what if"), through application (consider alternatives) of an activity (imagining and repurposing), for a resultant outcome action (mental dexterity). Assessments were the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Flourishing Scale, and the Life Engagement Indicator Scale. Results indicated a significant difference in pre and post scores for creativity measures (p<0.0001), but no significant


"Steps for Skills" is a government appointed, multi-year national initiative to support municipalities' long-term quality and skills development in health and social care for older people. The purpose of the Steps for Skills is to improve the internal quality of health and social care. This will be achieved by developing the skills of the staff working close to older people. In the period 2005-2007 a total of more than one billion kronor will be awarded to municipalities that want to enhance staff skills and improve services. Awards will be made on the basis of applications from municipalities.


Crack propagation behavior prior to flaking in rolling contact fatigue (RCF) tests has been analyzed by microscopic observation to gain insight into the mechanism for final spall of specimen. Balls-on-flat RCF tests under constant and stepwise load were carried out for three bearing grade silicon nitrides and one general purpose one at several stress levels. Detailed observations of crack propagation on a contact track during tests under constant load reveal that a linear crack, which shows up just outside of the track, grows at both ends of the crack with an increase in stress cycles. This growth, opposite to the rolling direction, eventually leads to the formation of hook-like cracks. Immediately before spalling, a major hook-like crack and associated arc-like cracks are formed. From the surface and section views of spalled regions of the specimens tested under stepwise load, we found supporting evidence for the hypothesis that major crack growth inclined toward the rolling direction forming at the bottom surface of the spall, with subsequent upward crack growths from the major crack and associated arc-like ones on the specimen surface, eventually developing into a crack network leading to the dislodging of fragments.


We present Diversity-Aware Meta Visual Prompting (DAM-VP), an efficient and effective prompting method for transferring pre-trained models to downstream tasks with frozen backbone. A challenging issue in visual prompting is that image datasets sometimes have a large data diversity whereas a per-dataset generic prompt can hardly handle the complex distribution shift toward the original pretraining data distribution properly. To address this issue, we propose a dataset Diversity-Aware prompting strategy whose initialization is realized by a Meta-prompt. Specifically, we cluster the downstream dataset into small homogeneity subsets in a diversity-adaptive way, with each subset has its own prompt optimized separately. Such a divide-and-conquer design reduces the optimization difficulty greatly and significantly boosts the prompting performance. Furthermore, all the prompts are initialized with a meta-prompt, which is learned across several datasets. It is a bootstrapped paradigm, with the key observation that the prompting knowledge learned from previous datasets could help the prompt to converge faster and perform better on a new dataset. During inference, we dynamically select a proper prompt for each input, based on the feature distance between the input and each subset. Through extensive experiments, our DAM-VP demonstrates superior efficiency and effectiveness, clearly surpassing previous prompting methods in a series of downstream datasets for different pretraining models. Our code is available at: https://github.com/shikiw/DAM-VP.


This study aims to combine the philosophical perspective and the practical ethics of ecology in the everyday with a more pragmatic concept of corporate social responsibility. The importance of the latter is shown to be based in the abandonment of the distinction of subject and object and the development of personal as well as cultural ecological consciousness embedded in the notion of unity between man and nature. This philosophical shift in the consciousness is also reflected in terms of utility. Hence, the study examines whether the relationship between corporate social responsibility and firm's sales growth is mediated by competitive advantage, and whether employees' individual perception in the everyday and beliefs of social responsibility can play a moderating role on CSR-sales growth relationship. The analysis revealed that there is the link between CSR and sales growth and that there is a positive effect of CSR on sales growth which is positively moderated by employees' individual beliefs of social responsibility which has been implied by the ecological consciousness.


While much recent progress has been made in research on fact-based question answering, our work aims to extend question-answering research in a different direction ─ to handle multi-perspective question-answering tasks, i.e. question-answering tasks that require an ability to find and organize opinions in text. In particular, this paper proposes an approach to multi-perspective question answering that views the task as one of opinion-oriented information extraction. We first describe an annotation scheme developed for the low-level representation of opinions, and note the results of interannotator agreement studies using the opinion-based annotation framework. Next, we propose the use of opinion-oriented "scenario templates" to act as a summary representation of the opinions expressed in a document, a set of documents, or an arbitrary text segment. Finally, we outline an approach for the automatic construction of opinion-based summary representations and describe how they might be used to support a variety of multi-perspective question answering tasks.


Objectives To report on fatigue in patients from the United Kingdom primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) registry identifying factors associated with fatigue and robust to assignable causes such as comorbidities and medications associated with drowsiness. Methods From our cohort (n = 608), we identified those with comorbidities associated with fatigue, and those taking medications associated with drowsiness. We constructed dummy variables, permitting the contribution of these potentially assignable causes of fatigue to be assessed. Using multiple regression analysis, we modelled the relationship between Profile of Fatigue and Discomfort physical and mental fatigue scores and potentially related variables. Results Pain, depression and daytime sleepiness scores were closely associated with both physical and mental fatigue (all p ≤ 0.0001). In addition, dryness was strongly associated with physical fatigue (p ≤ 0.0001). These effects were observed even after adjustment for comorbidities associated with fatigue or medications associated with drowsiness. Conclusions These findings support further research and clinical interventions targeting pain, dryness, depression and sleep to improve fatigue in patients with pSS. This finding is robust to both the effect of other comorbidities associated with fatigue and medications associated with drowsiness.


This paper examines the dynamics of the Indonesian government's debt during the period of 1988-2001, its estimation and the impact on the government budget until 2007, by using the Branson model and the Present Value Constraint for the budget.Based on the evaluation, it can be concluded that after the crisis in 1997-1998, public debt movements tended to be explosive and, consequently, caused the budget condition to be relatively unsustainable. The discussion also concludes that at least for the medium-term, there should be a serious effort to reduce the budget deficit to achieve a sustainable fiscal condition. Even though the analysis covers only the period up to 2007, some lessons to be learned and strategic steps for the future are presented, both for the revenues and expenditures side.


We report a preliminary value for the zero magnetic field Na 2S(f = 1, m = − 1) + Na 2S(f = 1, m = − 1) scattering length, a1,−1. This parameter describes the low-energy elastic two-body processes in a dilute gas of composite bosons and determines, to a large extent, the macroscopic wavefunction of a Bose condensate in a trap. Our scattering length is obtained from photoassociative spectroscopy with samples of uncondensed atoms. The temperature of the atoms is sufficiently low that contributions from the three lowest partial waves dominate the spectrum. The observed lineshapes for the purely long-range 0g− molecular state enable us to establish key features of the ground state scattering wavefunction. The fortuitous occurrence of a p-wave node near the deepest point (Re = 72 a0) of the 0g− potential curve is instrumental in determining a1,−1 = (52 ± 5) a0 and a2,2 = (85 ± 3) a0, where the latter is for a collision of two Na 2S(f = 2, m = 2) atoms.


The dissociative adsorption and electrooxidation of glycine on Pt electrode in 0.1 mol/L NaOH solutions were studied using cyclic voltammetry and in situ FTIR spectroscopy. The results demonstrated that a strong interaction exists between glycine and Pt surface, leading to dissociate easily glycine on Pt surface at potentials below 0.2 V to form cyanide and carboxylate ions. The strongly adsorbed cyanide species on the electrode surface can inhibit the oxidation of glycine, and are considered as poison species for the reaction. The oxidation of glycine at potentials above 0.2 V yielded solution species of cyanate and carboxylate. The cyanide species derived from dissociative adsorption of glycine can be isolated on electrodes of smooth Pt and nanometer thin Pt film supported on glassy carbon(nm Pt/GC), and has been determined by in situ FTIRS as showing a band at around 2 100 cm -1 . The intensity of IR absorption band of cyanide on nm Pt/GC surface is 14 times larger than that on a smooth Pt surface, and the IR band is in the opposite direction to that obtained on Pt surface, confirming the adsorption of cyanide species and the abnormal IR effects. The IR absorption of cyanate and carboxylate produced in the oxidation of glycine yields infrared bands at around 2 169 and 1 390 cm -1 , respectively. The present study revealed the interaction between glycine and Pt electrode surface, and suggested the adsorption modes and oxidation mechanism of glycine on Pt electrode as well.


This paper reflects on the convergence of design and power in the emerging trend of design being used within policymaking processes. The author's personal experience of working as a design consultant in this field in the UK is used to surface questions about the role design is playing in contemporary politics and governance, and how this might be understood. The paper reviews the growing body of literature around 'design for policy' and highlights the extent to which it is preoccupied with a purely instrumental account which neglects a broader political interpretation. Three possible alternative analytical approaches are then discussed – a critical design history, Foucault's governmentality lens, and Latour's account of the different political stages in the trajectory of issues – all of which have the potential to deepen our understanding of the present.


Previous research into young people's drinking behaviour has studied how social practices influence their actions and how they negotiate drinking-related identities. Here, adopting the perspective of discursive psychology we examine how, for young people, social influences are bound up with issues of drinking and of identity. We conducted 19 focus groups with undergraduate students in Australia aged between 18 and 24 years. Thematic analysis of participants' accounts for why they drink or do not drink was used to identify passages of talk that referred to social influence, paying particular attention to terms such as 'pressure' and 'choice'. These passages were then analysed in fine-grained detail, using discourse analysis, to study how participants accounted for social influence. Participants treated their behaviour as accountable and produced three forms of account that: (1) minimised the choice available to them, (2) explained drinking as culture and (3) described resisting peer pressure. They also negotiated gendered social dynamics related to drinking. These forms of account allowed the participants to avoid individual responsibility for drinking or not drinking. These findings demonstrate that the effects of social influence on young people's drinking behaviour cannot be assumed, as social influence itself becomes negotiable within local contexts of talk about drinking.


The cysteine proteinases of Leishmania mexicana have long been suspected of being important in the virulence of the parasite. This was recently confirmed using analysis of the in vitro and in vivo infectivity of mutant lines lacking in different cysteine proteinase genes (Mottram et al., 1996; Alexander et al., 1998). One component of my study was an investigation of the effect of peptidyl cysteine proteinase inhibitors on L. mexicana. None of the inhibitors tested had any effect on the growth of promastigotes in vitro. However, analysis of the effects on axenic amastigotes demonstrated that cysteine proteinase inhibition reduced growth. The inhibitors were also effective at reducing the cysteine proteinase activity and prevented the complete processing of the pro-enzymes of the cysteine proteinases encoded by CPA and different genes within the CPB array. These effects were consistent with the autocatalytic nature of the processing, although the results also suggested a partial role for CPA in CPB maturation. The loss of mature enzyme and the resultant increase in the number and abundance of precursor enzyme forms manifested itself as the appearance of large matrix-filled vacuoles, indicating a perturbation of intracellular protein trafficking. Analysis of the effect of cysteine proteinase inhibition upon intracellular infection demonstrated that it was possible to reduce the survival of the amastigotes. Interestingly, removal of the CPB array did not reduce the parasite's susceptibility, indicating that other cysteine proteinases are important targets of these inhibitors. My findings, in conjunction with the work of others, confirm the potential of cysteine proteinases as targets for the design of chemotherapeutic agents. An understanding of the mechanisms by which cysteine proteinases are important for the intracellular survival of L. mexicana is essential if these enzymes are to be effectively exploited through chemotherapy. Other components of my study addressed this issue; an investigation of the role of the CPB enzymes in parasite virulence being undertaken. This part of my investigation involved an analysis of the effect of loss of the CPB enzymes using a CPB null mutant (DeltaCPB). An analysis of the response of macrophages to infection with wild-type parasites or DeltaCPB indicated that comparable levels of reactive nitrogen and oxygen intermediates were produced. This suggested that other factors within the host cell were responsible for the reduced virulence of DeltaCPB. The CPB enzymes were shown to have a role in the turn-over of cellular proteins; loss of these enzymes was demonstrated to cause a reduction in the rate of protein turn-over from the cell surface. Furthermore, analysis of the kinetics of attachment and internalisation of wild-type and DeltaCPB promastigotes demonstrated that loss of the CPB array resulted in a prolonged period of interaction of the parasite with the surface of the macrophage. The mechanisms of attachment were investigated and it was demonstrated that promastigotes of both wild-type parasites and DeltaCPB/g2.8 (DeltaCPB re-expressing a single gene copy from the CPB array; this mutant line had been previously demonstrated to have wild-type virulence) rely heavily on attachment to complement receptors, CR3 and CR4, during interaction with the macrophage surface. DeltaCPB, however, was shown to attach via different receptor-ligand interactions. Therefore, loss of the CPB array was shown to alter the surface architecture of promastigotes such that they could no longer enter macrophages via the route utilised by wild-type promastigotes. This alteration in the mechanism of uptake is hypothesised to be important in the poor intracellular survival of the mutants, in that it results in the parasites encountering a different and more hostile intracellular environment.


The resilience of Deep Learning (DL) training and inference workloads to low-precision computations, coupled with the demand for power-and area-efficient hardware accelerators for these workloads, has led to the emergence of 16-bit floating point formats as the precision of choice for DL hardware accelerators. This paper describes our optimized 16-bit format that has 6 exponent bits and 9 fraction bits, derived from a study of the range of values encountered in DL applications. We demonstrate that our format preserves the accuracy of DL networks, and we compare its ease-of-use for DL against IEEE-754 half-precision (5 exponent bits and 10 fraction bits) and bfloat16 (8 exponent bits and 7 fraction bits). Further, our format eliminated sub-normals and simplifies rounding modes and handling of corner cases. This streamlines floating-point unit logic and enables realization of a compact power-efficient computation engine.


Over the past decade, modeling of cable-harnessed space structures has received special attention due to the need for better accuracies than the existing models. As these structures become more lightweight upon the advancements in the materials science, it is imperative to further consider accurate models in which the dynamic effects of the added cables are better accounted for. Researchers have heavily focused on creating models for cable-harnessed beam-like structures, while very few studies have considered plate-like structures. The proposed research aims at the development of an analytical model for cable-harnessed plate-like structures. Cables are assumed to be periodic in geometry to allow for the application of an energy-equivalent homogenization technique. To begin with, a linear displacement field and a second-order Green-Lagrange strain tensor for strain–displacement relationships are considered. The strain and kinetic energies of the fundamental element are found using these relations. The repeated pattern of the fundamental element over the area of the plate structure allows for the employment of the homogenization approach in which the kinetic and strain energies per area of the fundamental element are found and assumed to remain the same as an equivalent homogenized solid plate-like element. The governing dynamic partial differential equations (PDEs) are found using the Hamilton's principle. The results are validated using the finite element analysis. A detailed parametric analysis is also performed to investigate the effects of various cable parameters and wrapping patterns on the dynamics of the host structure.


Large-scale fiscal consolidations and the implementation of structural reforms should help southern European countries resolve the crisis. But recent studies indicate that in conjunction with the low interest rate in the euro area, the austerity measures that has been imposed could have the opposite effect, leading to an increase in sovereign debt and economic slowdown. For this reason, a more balanced policy mix consisting of less restrictive spending measures and more investment incentives is preferable to an austere savings policy.


The adaptability to cement pastes and fresh concretes of aminosulphonic acid-based superplasticizer (ASP) and its water reducing ratio and compatibility with Naphthalene based superplasticize (FDN) have been investigated at a given content of ASP. The adaptability to cement pastes was determined by measuring the fluiditiy with time of superplasticized cement pastes, and the adaptability to fresh concretes and compatibility with FDN was evaluated by measuring the fluidity, bleeding, and hardening and mechanical property et.al. of fresh concretes with ASP. The results show that the fluidities at 120 min of cement pastes, with 1.6% of ASP, are over 140 mm, and it increases with the increase of ASP. There is a positive relationship between the water reducing ratios of ASP and its content, and the highest of the water reducing ratio(the highest value is 28%). Moreover, the simultaneous addition of ASP and FDN can effectively decrease the bleeding of concrete.


The aim of this thesis was two-fold. First, - part I of the dissertation -, to explore ILuP with melphalan and hyperthermia followed by pulmonary metastasectomy in patients with resectable pulmonary metastases. Second, - part II -, to investigate the feasibility and pharmacokinetics of SPAP with gemcitabine, studied in a tumor-free porcine model.


The optimization of pass parameters is an important step in skew rolling design. In order to meet the demands of secondary refining process in continuous casting, on the basis of the practical experience of two-groove skew rolling for steel ball, and by means of the theory of two-groove skew rolling design ,the optimization of two-groove pass parameter for Φ21.6 mm Aluminum ball, a kind of additive in secondary refining process, is realized. The optimized pass parameters are used in the rolling die design, and the corresponding experiments indicate that the projects of optimized pass parameters are feasible, and the efficiency of two-groove skew rolling is twice as large as that of one-groove.


Introduction: Mutations in the SLC26A4 gene in the DFNB4 locus is responsible for syndromic (Pendred syndrome) and non-syndromic hereditary hearing loss (HHL). In many populations, mutations in this gene have been reported as a second cause of HHL. The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of SLC26A4 mutations in our HHL consanguineous families. Material and Methods: After completing clinical evaluation and obtaining signed consent forms from each family, we included 80 families with two or more affected individuals, referred to the Genetics Research Center (GRC). All families that previously tested negative for the DFNB1 locus were candidates for homozygosity mapping using STRs for DFNB4 locus. Families localized to this region were subjected to complete DNA sequencing. Results: Twelve out of 80 families were mapped to DFNB4. Sequence analysis of 12 linked families revealed 10 mutations in 8 families. (T420I, 1197delT, G334V, R409H, T721M, R79X, S448L, L597S, 965insA, and L445W). The T420I, G334V, L597S and R79X were novel mutations; we did not find any mutation in the four linked families, nor did we detect any nonsyndromic families with mutation in the SLC26A4 gene. Conclusion: We have been able to identify mutation in the SLC26A4 gene in only 8 of 80 families. In 12 families, we detected some degree of diffuse or nodular goiter; three out of 12 families showed thyroid function impairment and in five of 12 families there were positive prechlorate discharge tests. Eight families that showed mutation had normal temporal bone scan. This investigation, demonstrated that the SLC26A4 gene mutation is the most prevalent syndromic hereditary hearing loss in Iran, a finding in accordance with reports from other countries.


The primary purpose of this study was to enhance students' class participation in the case of second year tourism management students registered for 'research methods in tourism'. In order to accomplish research objectives, data were collected from the second year tourism management students. All second yeartourism management students registered for the course research method in tourism were the participants of the study; the total numbers of the students are 65 but out of this 51 questionnaires were correctly filled and returned. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed with descriptive research design. Self-administered questionnaire, 5 FGD having 12 members and observations for some sessions were used to collect the data. The reported instruments were prepared in English and they include both open ended and close ended type of questions; open ended questionnaires were prepared not to limit respondent's idea. Once the data collection stage was over, collected responses were organized in the form of tables by using percentage and Chi-square analysis. The result revealed that student's level ofparticipation is highly affected by different factors such as in advance preparation, delivery of teaching material in advance, applying different active teaching methods by the instructor, availability of different rewarding means, mixing low achievers with medium and high achievers, language and student self-confidence. As a result, majority of the students (86.3%) have positive attitude on active participation since they believed that active participation will help them to share new ideas with their friends. Though some students are still inactive perhaps due to different psychological and personal factors that need further investigation; the actions implemented also bring some important changes that enhanced students' class participation.


This study examines the relationship between export involvement/performance and domestic market performance of pharmaceutical enterprises in Iran, an area which has remained largely unresearched. The study seeks to address the following three research objectives: first, to assess the export performance of Iranian pharmaceutical companies; second, to assess the performance of Iranian pharmaceutical companies in the domestic market; and third, to examine the relationship between export involvement/performance and domestic market performance. Although existing literature claims that local performance (rivalry) leads to export performance, this study reveals that in the Iranian pharmaceutical industry, export involvement and performance enhance local market performance. The study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between export performance and domestic market performance, and adds depth to the understanding of the reasons why the traditional views did not explain the situation. A comprehensive literature review was used to build our conceptual and analytical framework upon the Export Performance (EXPERF) model for export performance evaluation. The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model and assessment indicators of Innovativeness, Learning and Lean indices were used for measuring domestic performance. By using clustering, six clusters of similar companies were identified and the centroids of the six clusters chosen to verify the relationship between export performance and domestic performance. Correlation analyses confirmed that there was a significant positive relation between export performance and domestic performance. This means that export performance results in better domestic performance, and vice versa.


Typhoid fever is a systemic illness caused by the gram-negative bacillus Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. typhi). It is estimated that 3% of patients with fever reporting for treatment at hospitals in Kenya are infected with the pathogen. Serological diagnosis based on the Widal agglutination test is widely used to support clinical diagnosis of typhoid fever in many areas in Kenya because it is considered affordable and easy to use. A Widal result above 1:80 for the anti-O antibody has been recommended to support the diagnosis of typhoid fever in this country. The objectives of this cross sectional study were to establish the Widal result level at which a significant majority of clinicians diagnose typhoid fever, their level of knowledge of the limitations of the Widal test and whether laboratories correctly interpreted the Widal test results in Migori District, Kenya. 250 patients referred for Widal test, clinicians and laboratory personnel were interviewed using pre-tested questionnaires. Sera from the patients were obtained and analyzed at the reference laboratory using 2 commonly used test kits and following the manufacturer's instructions and Typhidot M®. The study established that laboratory personnel in the heath facilities do not perform the Widal test as is recommended leading to variability of results between laboratories. Cross reactivity between antibodies against malaria parasites and Widal antigens appeared to influence the outcome of results at these laboratories. This influence was eliminated when tube dilution was performed (p<0.01). Only 1 patient tested IgM positive using Typhidot M®. Clinicians in this area diagnosed typhoid fever in patients withWidal results reported above 1:40 for anti-O as opposed to the recommended titre levels above 1:80 (p<0.001). Nurses returned the least overall mean score on knowledge of limitations of the test (50.6%) compared to the other clinicians while doctors' performance (86.1%) was significantly better than all the other cadres (p<0.001). The reporting of antigens against other Salmonella species in sample Widal results caused uncertainty amongst the clinicians leading to the mis-diagnosis of typhoid fever. The nurses returned the least mean score (56.8%) as regards decision to treat the correct cases for typhoid fever (p<0.001) The study demonstrated that the test as performed and interpreted by the health workers in this area is leads to the over reporting of typhoid fever. There is need to establish a Standard Operating Procedure as regards the interpretation of the test by laboratory personnel and clinicians (nurses, doctors and clinical officers) in Migori district. The Ministry of health should undertake a study to assess whether Typhidot M® can be adapted as a serological method in the diagnosis of typhoid fever in Kenya because of its ease of interpretation. This study did not undertake isolation of the causative organism to confirm the diagnosis of typhoid fever and also isolate oher organisms that are known to cross react with Widal antigens because of the financial and time constraints. The number of clinicians interviewed, although exhaustive, was low thereby limiting the generalizability of the results of this study.


The human and chimpanzee X chromosomes are less divergent than expected based on autosomal divergence. This has led to a controversial hypothesis proposing a unique role of the X chromosome in complex human-chimpanzee speciation. Here, we study incomplete lineage sorting patterns between humans, chimpanzees and gorillas to show that this low divergence is entirely due to megabase-sized regions comprising one-third of the X chromosome, where polymorphism in the human-chimpanzee ancestral species was severely reduced. Background selection can explain 10% of this reduction at most. Instead, we show that several strong selective sweeps in the ancestral species can explain these patterns. We also report evidence of population specific sweeps of a similar magnitude in extant humans that overlap the regions of low diversity in the ancestral species. These regions further correspond to chromosomal sections shown to be devoid of Neanderthal introgression into modern humans. This suggests that these X-linked regions are directly involved in forming reproductive barriers.


This paper introduces a novel approach to representing and learning tool affordances by a robot. The tool representation described here uses a behavior-based approach to ground the tool affordances in the behavioral repertoire of the robot. The representation is learned during a behavioral babbling stage in which the robot randomly chooses different exploratory behaviors, applies them to the tool, and observes their effects on environmental objects. The paper shows how the autonomously learned affordance representation can be used to solve tool-using tasks by dynamically sequencing the exploratory behaviors based on their expected outcomes. The quality of the learned representation was tested on extension-of-reach tool-using tasks.


Native and modified with ammonium ions alpha(2)-macroglobulin forms exhibit similar abilities to influence proliferative activity and secretion of immunoglobulins in cultures of human blood mononuclear cells in vitro. Effects of modified with ammonium ions alpha(2)-macroglobulin were more significant than those of native alpha(2)-macroglobulin. Revealed properties of native alpha(2)-macroglobulin could be conditioned by a partial modification of its structure with endogenous proteinases or cytokines, some of which were shown to be common affinants for both forms.


In many real scenarios, data are often divided into a handful of artificial super categories in terms of expert knowledge rather than the representations of images. Concretely, a superclass may contain massive and various raw categories, such as refuse sorting. Due to the lack of common semantic features, the existing classification techniques are intractable to recognize superclass without raw class labels, thus they suffer severe performance damage or require huge annotation costs. To narrow this gap, this paper proposes a superclass learning framework, called SuperClass Learning with Representation Enhancement(SCLRE), to recognize super categories by leveraging enhanced representation. Specifically, by exploiting the self-attention technique across the batch, SCLRE collapses the boundaries of those raw categories and enhances the representation of each superclass. On the enhanced representation space, a superclassaware decision boundary is then reconstructed. Theoretically, we prove that by leveraging attention techniques the generalization error of SCLRE can be bounded under superclass scenarios. Experimentally, extensive results demonstrate that SCLRE outperforms the baseline and other contrastive-based methods on CIFAR-100 datasets and four high-resolution datasets.


Machine learned models often must abide by certain requirements (e.g., fairness or legal). This has spurred interested in developing approaches that can provably verify whether a model satisfies certain properties. This paper introduces a generic algorithm called Veritas that enables tackling multiple different verification tasks for tree ensemble models like random forests (RFs) and gradient boosting decision trees (GBDTs). This generality contrasts with previous work, which has focused exclusively on either adversarial example generation or robustness checking. Veritas formulates the verification task as a generic optimization problem and introduces a novel search space representation. Veritas offers two key advantages. First, it provides anytime lower and upper bounds when the optimization problem cannot be solved exactly. In contrast, many existing methods have focused on exact solutions and are thus limited by the verification problem being NP-complete. Second, Veritas produces full (bounded suboptimal) solutions that can be used to generate concrete examples. We experimentally show that Veritas outperforms the previous state of the art by (a) generating exact solutions more frequently, (b) producing tighter bounds when (a) is not possible, and (c) offering orders of magnitude speed ups. Subsequently, Veritas enables tackling more and larger real-world verification scenarios.


The production of reactive oxygen species is a normal part of cell physiology, but many internal and external stimuli are able to trigger the production of excess levels of oxidants that are potentially damaging. The threat of oxidative damage is particularly significant to DNA, as damaged bases can interfere with replication to generate lasting mutations. Signalling through the JNK pathway is a key cellular response to oxidative damage. Depending on the intensity and duration of the damage signal, JNK signalling can lead to distinct alternative responses including DNA repair, anti-oxidant production or cell death. These responses are highly relevant to cancer therapy, as tumours are often under oxidative stress that produces elevated JNK levels and therapy often involves inducing DNA damage with the intention of driving cell death. In this review we examine the causes and consequences of JNK activation that relate to oxidative DNA damage, with a focus on the potential therapeutic implications.


A 44-year-old woman presented in her second pregnancy following a cavaterm balloon endometrial ablation three years earlier. Antenatal scans showed a fibroid measuring 11 × 7.5 × 8.2 cm in the lower segment. The placenta was fundal positioned and the baby's growth was normal. At 32 weeks, a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan excluded placenta percreta but was unable to exclude placenta accreta. At 37 weeks, she was in labour with a transverse presentation. The baby was born with good apgars and weighed 2970 g. The fibroid was removed. She recovered well and histology described a leiomyoma and myometrial hyperplasia. There was no evidence of placenta accreta.

 Key words: Pregnancy, endometrial ablation, antenatal scans, fibroid.


This dissertation concerns two problems from computational algebra, the word problem for semigroups and the ideal membership problem for noncommutative polynomial rings. Historically, the word problem provided one of the first examples of an algorithmically unsolvable problem from outside of logic and computability theory. In terms of solvability, the word problem is equivalent to a restricted version of the membership problem. For ideals whose membership problem is solvable, computational techniques such as Grobner basis methods often can be used to solve the problem, but not always. In Chapter two, we develop a method which can be used to solve the membership problem for every ideal of a certain class whose membership problem is solvable. In addition, we obtain useful characterizations of those semigroups having a solvable word problem and certain finitely generated ideals having a solvable membership problem. This characterization is extended to a larger class of ideals in Chapter three. Finally, we investigate the word problem for one-relator semigroups in Chapter four. In particular, we show that if there is a one-relator semigroup having an unsolvable word problem, then there is such a semigroup M satisfying (1) the defining relation for M must satisfy certain restrictions concerning the number of occurrences of each generator, and (2) the problem of determining whether or not two words having the same number of occurrences of each generator are equivalent in M is not solvable.


This chapter provides an introduction to the history, uses, methods, strengths, and limits of law and economics. It begins by examining the role of positive and normative approaches to law and economics. To examine the positivist thesis - that the law does in fact tend toward efficiency - the chapter discussed and analyzes the famous Hand Formula developed by Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Carroll Towing. As one of the only traditional cases in which a judge arguably made efficiency his explicit goal, the case presents an excellent opportunity to assess whether, even an efficiency-oriented judge will or can identify the efficient result. The chapter reviews the possible liability rules that might have been applied in Carroll Towing, and uses that review to introduce many of the core concepts and methods of law and economics, including game theory. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that, although the Hand Formula may have led to one of the possible efficient results, there is little reason to be confident, and some reason to doubt, that Judge Hand reached the most efficient outcome. The difficulties inherent in selecting the efficient rule through litigation present a significant challenge to the positivist case for legal economics. The second part of the chapter considers both the normative support for efficiency and the range of challenges to, and refinements of, the normative position that have developed in recent years. The chapter highlights some of the trade-offs inherent in the law and economics approach and concludes that law and economics has, like any legal theory, both costs and benefits.


We have demonstrated previously that mouse and human islets express ECS (endocannabinoid system) elements, and that short-term activation of islet cannabinoid CB1r and CB2r (cannabinoid type 1 and 2 receptors respectively) stimulates insulin secretion in vitro. There is evidence that the ECS is overactive in Type 2 diabetes, impairing glucose homoeostasis, but little is known about whether it is implicated in islet dysfunction. Therefore the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of chronic exposure of isolated mouse islets to cannabinoid receptor agonists on islet gene expression and function. Quantitative RT-PCR (reverse transcription-PCR) indicated that mRNAs encoding synthesis [NAPE-PLD (N-acyl-phosphatidyl ethanolamide-hydrolysing phospholipase D)] and degradation [FAAH (fatty acid amide hydrolase)] of the endocannabinoid AEA (anandamide) were the most abundant ECS elements in mouse islets, with much lower levels of CB1r, CB2r, DAGL (diacylglycerol lipase) and MAGL (monoacylglycerol lipase) mRNAs. Maintenance of islets for up to 7 days in the presence of the CB1r agonist ACEA [N-(2-chloroethyl)-5Z,8Z,11Z,14Z-eiscosatetraenamide] or the CB2r agonist JWH015 [(2-methyl-1propyl-1H-indol3-yl)-1-napthalenylmethanone] did not compromise islet viability, as assessed by islet morphology and caspase activities, but there were some changes in mRNAs encoding ECS components. Neither glucose-stimulated insulin secretion nor acute insulin secretory responses to ACEA or JWH015 at 16 mM glucose were substantially modified by a 48 h or 7 day pre-exposure to these cannabinoid receptor agonists, but the stimulation of secretion at 3 mM glucose by 100 nM ACEA was significantly reduced after prolonged treatment with ACEA. Despite JWH015-induced reductions in islet glucagon content at 48 h and 7 days, there were no reductions in arginine-induced glucagon secretion from islets pre-exposed to JWH015 or ACEA. These data indicate that treatment of islets with agonists of CB1r and CB2r for up to 7 days does not have any major impact on islet function, suggesting that the impairments in glucose homoeostasis observed following overactivation of the ECS should be sought in relation to insulin resistance rather than β-cell dysfunction.


Background The therapeutic effects of exercise resistance and endurance training in the alleviation of muscle hypertrophy/atrophy should be considered in the management of patients with advanced neuromuscular diseases. Patients with progressive neuromuscular diseases often experience muscle weakness, which negatively impact independence and quality of life levels. Mutations in the valosin containing protein (VCP) gene lead to Inclusion body myopathy associated with Paget's disease of bone and frontotemporal dementia (IBMPFD) and more recently affect 2% of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-diagnosed cases. Methods/Principle Findings The present investigation was undertaken to examine the effects of uphill and downhill exercise training on muscle histopathology and the autophagy cascade in an experimental VCP mouse model carrying the R155H mutation. Progressive uphill exercise in VCPR155H/+ mice revealed significant improvement in muscle strength and performance by grip strength and Rotarod analyses when compared to the sedentary mice. In contrast, mice exercised to run downhill did not show any significant improvement. Histologically, the uphill exercised VCPR155H/+ mice displayed an improvement in muscle atrophy, and decreased expression levels of ubiquitin, P62/SQSTM1, LC3I/II, and TDP-43 autophagy markers, suggesting an alleviation of disease-induced myopathy phenotypes. There was also an improvement in the Paget-like phenotype. Conclusions Collectively, our data highlights that uphill exercise training in VCPR155H/+ mice did not have any detrimental value to the function of muscle, and may offer effective therapeutic options for patients with VCP-associated diseases.


The thermomechanical reliability of SiC power devices and modules is increasingly becoming of interest especially for high-power applications, where power cycling performance is critical. Press-pack assemblies are a trusted and reliable packaging solution that has traditionally been used for high-power thyristor-based applications in FACTS/HVDC, although press-pack IGBTs have become commercially available more recently. These press-pack IGBTs require antiparallel PiN diodes for enabling reverse conduction capability. In these high-power applications, paralleling chips for high current conduction capability is a requirement, hence, electrothermal stability during current sharing is critical. SiC Schottky diodes not only exhibit the advantages of wide bandgap technology compared to silicon PiN diodes, but they have significantly lower zero temperature coefficient (ZTC), meaning they are more electrothermally stable. The lower ZTC is due to the unipolar nature of SiC Schottky diodes as opposed to the bipolar nature of PiN diodes. This paper investigates the implementation and reliability of SiC Schottky diodes in press-pack assemblies. The impact of pressure loss on the electrothermal stability of parallel devices is investigated.


OF DISSERTATION EXAMINING CHRONIC NON-CANCER PAIN AMONG A SAMPLE OF INDIVIDUALS IN OPIOID TREATMENT PROGRAMS National rates of chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) are rising alongside increasing reports of prescription opioid abuse and mortality. Associations between the rise in CNCP and in opioid abuse seem logical, yet research on CNCP among individuals with opioid dependence is currently limited due to the complicated nature of comorbid conditions in research and treatment. This study aims to expand the CNCP knowledge base by responding to the question: Do individuals with CNCP participating in an opiate treatment program have better or worse treatment outcomes than individuals without CNCP? This study used a secondary dataset including 483 adults from Kentucky's Opiate Recovery Treatment Outcome Study. Individuals in the sample met DSM-IV-TR criteria for opioid dependence and were in treatment at a licensed opiate treatment program (OTP). Analysis compared cases with and without CNCP on national treatment outcome measures including substance use, recovery support, education, employment, mental health symptoms, and criminal justice system involvement. Results indicated no differences at follow-up between the CNCP (n=163) and non-CNCP (n=320) individuals on substance abstinence, recovery supports, education level, or criminal justice system involvement. At baseline and follow-up there were more unemployed individuals and individuals receiving disability benefits in the CNCP group than the non-CNCP group. Reported anxiety and depression symptoms increased at follow-up, while use of prescription medicine for mental health symptoms declined for both groups (non-significant differences). The only predictors for CNCP cases in this sample were tobacco use and presence of a chronic medical condition. Recommendations include expansion of smoking cessation programs in substance abuse treatment settings. Future research might examine integrated treatment and medical home health models to better address biopsychosocial components of clients with comorbid conditions like opioid dependence and CNCP.


In August 2006, a pitch-over maneuver was performed on NOAA-14 in order to characterize the asymmetry in the Microwave Sounding Unit. Approximately seven weeks later, the spacecraft tumbled when a hydrazine thruster leaked. This tumble permitted a second characterization of the asymmetry. The analysis of the data collected during the tumble event revealed that, while three of the four channels had similar response and asymmetry, one channel changed its response either as a result of the tumble or due to another cause in the seven weeks after the pitch-over maneuver. This letter summarizes the results of the maneuver and gives the results from the tumble event.


In this paper «land take» and its drivers within the urbanization process is studied with a focus on recent developments in Italy. Several sources of information, recently made available by national and European agencies, are used to highlight the main characteristics of land take, its determinants, its spatial pattern and its evolutionary trends. Finally, after a short review of initiatives, actions and policies designed and implemented at different institutional levels (local, national, European) to tackle the question of urban sprawl and land take, we focus on some critical issues such as: reliability of measurement, scale of spatial planning, policy coordination and re-distributional aspects arising from the regulation of land property and rent.


Thin films of MBi4Ti4O15 (M = Ca and Sr) with preferential crystal orientation were fabricated using underneath perovskite layers on various substrates. One-axis BLSD films on (100)LaNiO3/(111)Pt/Ti/(100)Si and epitaxial BLSD films on (100)SrRuO3//(100)SrTiO3 were fabricated by chemical solution deposition (CSD). Dielectric constants of the CaBi4Ti4O15 and SrBi4Ti4O15 films on (100)LaNiO3/(111)Pt/Ti/(100)Si were approximately 250, while those on (100)SrRuO3//(100)SrTiO3 were 220, respectively. The temperature coefficients of capacitance (TCCs) of these films were below 10% in atmospheric temperature range between R.T. and 300°C, which is significantly smaller than those of conventional (Ba,Sr)TiO3-based capacitors.


Abstract When bitcoin was released by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, few could have predicted that it would attract as much attention as it has today. It has spawned a veritable host of other cryptocurrencies, including ether on the upstart Ethereum network, which boasts smart contract functionality. The underlying blockchain technology has also attracted attention, with some within the blockchain community suggesting that it can solve such diverse problems as secured digital voting to tracking food provenance. In the legal context, blockchains have been envisaged as capable of revolutionising registries for assets ranging from land to intellectual property, modernising clearing and settlement, and even fundamentally transforming the contracting process. This article critically evaluates the popular claims surrounding the potential of blockchain technologies to disrupt the legal system by separating hype from fact.


Canine leptospirosis is perceived to be underdiagnosed due to non-specific clinical signs (Prescott and others 1991, Sarkar and others 2012). In the UK, it is routinely diagnosed by serological testing via the microscopic agglutination test (Faine and others 1999), or immunofluorescent antibody test (Torten and others 1966, Appassakij and others 1995, Naigowit and others 2000). More recently, several PCR assays have been published for diagnosing suspected leptospirosis (Ahmed and others 2012, Picardeau 2013).

Close vicinity, or frequent contact with water or woodland, put canines at higher risk of contracting leptospirosis (Tangkanakul and others 2000, Ward and others 2004, Meeyam and others 2006, Raghavan and others 2012), as asymptomatic shedding from rodent reservoirs contribute to environmental loading of Leptospira .

This study aimed to investigate perceived and confirmed canine leptospirosis cases within UK vet-visiting dogs, along with details regarding vaccination habits, by surveying small animal veterinary practices.

A questionnaire survey targeted 472 practices randomly chosen from 23 stratified mainland UK regions (see online supplementary material for full questionnaire and covering letter). One vet per practice was targeted and sent reminder cards (with repeat questionnaires) two weeks following initial contact.

Suspected or confirmed cases within the past 12 months were investigated, including the last date a practice witnessed a case. To establish practice, vaccination habits, the number of Leptospira vaccine doses administered over the same 12 months, and estimation of what percentage of their case load were currently vaccinated was surveyed. Practice size was determined …


: A 34-year-old woman 22 weeks pregnant suffered cerebral hemorrhage, requiring admission to the intensive care unit and mechanical ventilation. She recovered without sequelae. The diagnosis was moyamoya disease and she was scheduled for elective cesarean delivery at 38 weeks of gestation. After appropriate preoperative study and complementary testing (echocardiogram, computerized axial tomography of the brain and determination of anti-cardiolipin and other antibodies, which were normal) the patient was given intradural anesthesia with 15 mg of 0.5% bupivacaine and 24 micrograms of fentanyl, with continuous monitoring of blood pressure, tympanic temperature and neurological variables. Warm intravenous fluids and ephedrine (100 to 250 micrograms/min) were perfused. No noteworthy neurological events or hemodynamic changes occurred during or after surgery. Postoperative analgesia was provided with 2 mg/12 h of morphine through an epidural catheter.


There has been considerable progress identifying biomarkers in thyroid tumors that improve the accuracy of fine-needle aspiration biopsy and also help predict tumor aggressiveness or behavior. In this review we address both the clinical potential of molecular biomarkers and their usefulness, based on the most recent literature. We describe the current best clinical staging systems and the common somatic mutations in thyroid cancer. The BRAF mutation is the most common mutation in papillary thyroid cancer and has recently been reported to be associated with disease aggressiveness; it is also an independent predictor of tumor behavior. Combined testing of RET/PTC, NTRK, RAS and PAX8-PPARgamma, which are mutually exclusive mutations, helps improve the accuracy of fine-needle aspiration biopsy. Gene-expression profiling studies have identified a variety of potential molecular markers to help distinguish benign from malignant thyroid neoplasms. Expression analysis of differentially expressed microRNAs also appears to be a promising diagnostic approach for distinguishing benign from malignant thyroid neoplasm. It is especially useful for indeterminate nodules by fine-needle aspiration biopsy.


Abstract Quality products at competitive prices is the key to winning the competition, which in turn will be able to give higher satisfaction to the customers. Customers now have demands much greater value and diverse because the customers are faced with a wide selection of products, goods or services that they buy. In this case the seller must provide a quality product that is acceptable, because if not, the customer will immediately switch to another similar product (brand switching), but basically brand switching behavior of consumers that do occur due to certain reasons such as: post-consumer dissatisfaction, pricing, advertising and looking for variations. The development of mobile phone business lately has shown a symptom, ie the abundance and diversity of products offered by mobile phone companies and mobile product development is getting faster. Rapid development of mobile products which are mainly located on the shape, size and amenities. The longer form of mobile phones more attractive, the smaller size and more complete utility facilities. Consumer buying process that involves decision-making , especially under conditions of limited decision making , will be positioned on the situation for the consumer variety seeking behavior . At the time of the low level of consumer involvement , consumers will tend to switch brands. RIM is the manufacturer of the Blackberry mobile phone , a mobile phone brand , which until recent years in Indonesia dominate mobile phone sales , but its dominance for some time began to decline , many consumer who did switching to another brand , especially when pricking the android operating system used , Blackberry It seems clear that a significant sales decline . From this background, which is the topic of this research are : Analysis Of Brand Switching On Blackberry Phone Salatiga ( Case Study On Blackberry mobile phone users in STIE AMA Salatiga ).The samples obtained in this research  were 88 people and to obtain a more in-depth analysis, factor analysis is needed to determine what factors that makes Blackberry mobile phone users in Salatiga AMA STIE brand switch to another brand of phone. From the analysis can be concluded that there are six factors causing the Blackberry mobile phone users in Salatiga AMA stie to switch to another brand of mobile phones, these factors are:(1) Comparison between the price and the benefits / features derived from Blackberry users are not comparable, (2)Curiosity to try other brands besides Blackberry phones.(3)Weariness to the Blackberry brand mobile phone, because there is no innovation and standard features.(4)Blackberry yet have maximum performance, frequent hangs and slow performance.(5) Blackberry has a lack of good quality hardware.(6) Blackberry mobile phone price comparison with other, more affordable brands but nicer features. Keywords : Brand Switching, Consumer Behaviour


Second language (L2) speech fluency has usually been studied as a function of a set of measurable temporal features of speech, but it has seldom been researched in relation to learner or situational factors in performance such as willingness to communicate (WTC), definable as readiness to engage in communication at a specific time and with specific interlocutors. The present study is an attempt to directly examine the fluid relationship between WTC and L2 fluency from a dynamic systems perspective. The exploratory case study presents an examination of the interrelationships between WTC and fluency in Japanese learners of English L2, in communication with a non-Japanese interlocutor. Speech samples produced by the learners in narrative and description tasks were analyzed for markers of fluency. The learners produced WTC profiles for their speech samples by creating bitmaps during stimulated recall, and also provided retrospective self-analysis of WTC in stimulated recall. The fluency profiles and WTC profiles were matched and analyzed to explore the interrelationship between fluency and WTC. The results illuminate the relationship between fluency and WTC, particularly the fluidity and possible directionality of the relationship, i.e. whether fluency breakdowns lead to lowered WTC or vice versa.


Entrepreneurs and everyday businessmen and women have long engaged in different kinds of civic-minded activities. This study explores ways that urban entrepreneurs and managers engage in civic activities while pursuing business growth. In this preliminary analysis of owners and managers who have participated in a technical assistance program geared for entrepreneurs who are ready to take their existing venture "to the next level", we identify a kind of entrepreneur whose business model incorporates a social mission. These are not "social entrepreneurs" who engage in business practices in order to push their social agenda. Nor are they mimicking businesses that follow a "corporate social responsibility" model because they were shamed into it or believe it will be good for their bottom line. These are people whose ventures must make a profit if their social mission is to be achieved. They run what we call a "civic enterprise". Their behavior reflects a kind of "civic-minded capitalism".