Conservation biology is a relatively new (began in the 1980s), value-based discipline predicated on the belief that biological diversity-from genes to populations to species to communities to ecosystems-is good and extinction is bad. Conservation biology grew from the recognition that the Earth has entered its sixth great extinction event, one that differs from previous great extinctions in that a single species-Homo sapiens-has caused this biodiversity crisis. A diverse, interacting set of variables drive current extinctions. As such, to succeed, conservation efforts usually require broad-based, interdisciplinary approaches. Conservationists increasingly recognize the importance of contributions by veterinary science, among many other disciplines, to collaborative efforts aimed at stemming the loss of biodiversity. We argue that, to improve success rates, many wildlife conservation programs must incorporate veterinarians as part of an interdisciplinary team to assess and address problems. Ideally, veterinarians who participate in conservation would receive specialized training and be willing to work as partners as part of a larger team of experts who effectively integrate their work rather than work independently (i.e., work as interdisciplinary, as opposed to multidisciplinary, teams, respectively). In our opinion, the most successful and productive projects involve interdisciplinary teams involving both biological and nonbiological specialists. Some researchers hold multiple degrees in biology and veterinary medicine or the biological and social sciences. These experts can often offer unique insight. We see at least 3 major areas in which veterinarians can immediately offer great assistance to conservation efforts: (1) participation in wildlife capture and immobilization, (2) leadership or assistance in addressing wildlife health issues, and (3) leadership or assistance in addressing wildlife disease issues, including using wildlife as sentinels to identify new and emerging diseases or epidemics of old diseases. We cover each of these main topics in detail.


In France and in Germany, the labour share income has recorded during the last thirty years some strong fluctuations. Those fluctuations could be linked to movements in price wedge and in interest rate and to increasing unemployment rate. After a theoretical examination of labour share income equation and its potential explanatory variables, we investigate the robustness of those explanatory variables on the sample 70-96. Unemployment rate and price wedge seem to be the relevant explanatory variables. At the opposite, there is no evidence of a significant impact of interest rate on labour share income.


Addition of plant residue into soils improves soil physiochemical properties and its fertility. Rapeseed residue is an emerging N source to paddy soils via rice-rape double-cropping practice. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of rapeseed residue and eggshell waste on chemical changes and enzyme activity in the rice paddy soil. The powdered eggshells at 0, 1, 3, and 5% were applied once to 7.0 kg paddy repacked soils in each pot treated with the rapeseed residue or the conventional N, P, and K fertilisers. Eight rice seedlings (Oriza sativa L. cv. Ilmibyeo) (40 days after sowing) were transplanted to the treated each pot. The contents of total C (TC) and N (TN), and organic matter (OM) were significantly increased in soils treated with the rapeseed residue compared to the N, P, and K fertilisers. With the addition of eggshell containing ∼92% CaCO3, a considerable increase of soil pH was observed in soils treated with the rapeseed residue and the N, P, and K fertilisers, compared to the untreated soil. Activities of β-glucosidase, urease, and arylsulfatase enzymes were higher in soils treated with the rapeseed residue than soils treated with the N, P, and K fertilisers. The eggshell additions at 1, 3, and 5% into soils treated with the rapeseed residue increased enzyme activity mainly resulting from N mineralisation, whereas no change in enzyme activity was observed in the soils treated with the NPK fertiliser. The combined use of the rapeseed residue and the eggshells can be beneficial to improve soil environment.


Abstract Up to now, snow cover on Antarctic sea ice and its impact on radar backscatter, particularly after the onset of freeze/thaw processes, are not well understood. Here we present a combined analysis of in situ observations of snow properties from the landfast sea ice in Atka Bay, Antarctica, and high-resolution TerraSAR-X backscatter data, for the transition from austral spring (November 2012) to summer (January 2013). The physical changes in the seasonal snow cover during that time are reflected in the evolution of TerraSAR-X backscatter. We are able to explain 76-93% of the spatio-temporal variability of the TerraSAR-X backscatter signal with up to four snowpack parameters with a root-mean-squared error of 0.87-1.62 dB, using a simple multiple linear model. Over the complete study, and especially after the onset of early-melt processes and freeze/thaw cycles, the majority of variability in the backscatter is influenced by changes in snow/ice interface temperature, snow depth and top-layer grain size. This suggests it may be possible to retrieve snow physical properties over Antarctic sea ice from X-band SAR backscatter.


Would-be forecasters have increasingly extolled the
predictive potential of Big Data and artificial intelligence. This
essay reviews the career of Sherman Kent, the Yale historian
who directed the CIA's Office of National Estimates from
1952 to 1967, with an eye toward evaluating this enthusiasm.
Charged with anticipating threats to U.S. national security,
Kent believed, as did much of the postwar academy, that
contemporary developments in the social sciences enabled
scholars to forecast human behavior with far greater
accuracy than before. The predictive record of the Office of
National Estimates was, however, decidedly mixed. Kent's
methodological rigor enabled him to professionalize U.S.
intelligence analysis, making him a model in today's "post-truth"
climate, but his failures offer a cautionary tale for those
who insist that technology will soon reveal the future.


This selected bibliography lists critical studies of Muriel Spark's literary work not included in the 2002 volume Theorizing Muriel Spark, edited by Martin McQuillan and published by Palgrave Macmillan. McQuillan's text provides a very full bibliography; the present bibliography serves as an update some six years later while also identifying several studies that do not appear in McQuillan's list. The bibliography attempts to suggest the scope and diversity of recent scholarship on Spark as well as provide a resource for future research. The bibliography is organized as follows: I. Journal Articles, Interviews, and Book Chapters II. Monographs III. Ph.D. Dissertations


ment. T he reaso ns for discontinuation were patient unconvinced about the need for treatment (32'1'0), poor efficacy (32%) and adverse events (7%) . In 1999, a larger, Australia-wide assessment of discontinuation rates in pat ients newly prescribed lipid-mo difying drugs was reported.' Of 32 384 patients who commenced a lipid-modifying drug (statins in 92 %), 30% had stopped taking the drug by 6-7 months . The significant predictors of discontinuation were age (patients below the median age of 68 years had higher discontinuation rat es) and not living in a capital city.'


IETF has specified Mobile IPv4 and Mobile IPv6 in RFC3344 and RFC3775 respectively, but not yet discussed Mobile IPv4/v6 in any published RFC. This paper proposes a scheme to solve one of Mobile IPv4/v6 problems which Home Agent (HA) locates in IPv6 network and Correspondent Node(CN) locates in IPv4 network, while Mobile Node (MN) moves within IPv6 network. In the solution, a gateway called Mobile IPv4/v6 translation gateway (MIPv4/v6-TG) is introduced to bridge between IPv4 network and IPv6 network, which is made up of a traditional NAT-PT gateway and a Mobile IP application level gateway (MIP-ALG) built upon the NAT-PT gateway. MIP-ALG maintains a MIP table, a data structure, which is formed by entries. We use the MIP table to realize the communication between the IPv4 entities and the IPv6 entities. The creation, usage and update processes of MIP table are described in this paper. Through the experiment we find it can realize the basic communication in IPv4/v6 mixed network. The measurement of performance test proves the solution's efficiency. And it can work compatibly with RFC3344 and RFC3775.


Road traffic accidents are among the principal causes of traffic congestion, causing human losses, damages to health and the environment, economic losses and material damages. Studies about traditional road traffic accidents in urban zones represents very high inversion of time and money, additionally, the result are not current. However, nowadays in many countries, the crowdsourced GPS based traffic and navigation apps have emerged as an important source of information to low cost to studies of road traffic accidents and urban congestion caused by them. In this article we identified the zones, roads and specific time in the CDMX in which the largest number of road traffic accidents are concentrated during 2016. We built a database compiling information obtained from the social network known as Waze. The methodology employed was Discovery of knowledge in the database (KDD) for the discovery of patterns in the accidents reports. Furthermore, using data mining techniques with the help of Weka. The selected algorithms was the Maximization of Expectations (EM) to obtain the number ideal of clusters for the data and k-means as a grouping method. Finally, the results were visualized with the Geographic Information System QGIS. Keywords—Data mining, K-means, road traffic accidents, Waze, Weka.


Protracted innovation is an essential activity of every organization in the modern global marketplace and is fueled by a continuous stream of fresh ideas. Contemporary business literature decries the innovation antibody, employees who intentionally thwart the acquisition and dissemination of crucial new ideas. The business press posits but one uniform type of innovation antibody often unwittingly encouraged by corporate actions, and should be quickly and effectively neutralized. This paper asserts that, like biological antibodies in the human body, the work of innovation antibodies in the corporate body can be either positive or negative. It is true that recalcitrant negative innovation antibodies determined to slow or eliminate innovation must be excised from the organization. Positive innovation antibodies are important to organizational sensemaking and innovation activities, and should not be suppressed or overcome. A revised innovation sequencing model is put forth to guide the activities of positive innovation antibodies, as are specific actions recommended for organizations to encourage the appropriate growth and use of positive innovation antibodies to effect corporate innovation success.


This study evaluated the effects of three transport media i.e., well water (WW), pond water (PW) and mixture of the two (WPW; 1 : 1) and durations (1, 3, 6 and 9 hrs) on the mortality and physiological responses in silver carp, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix fingerlings in a transport simulation at 400 g/l loading density. While the total mortality was lower than 9% until 6 hrs of transport, it was very high (49 60%) at 9 hrs across all three treatment media. The highest level of cortisol was measured in the fingerlings simulated using WPW while the lowest level was detected in the fingerlings sampled form WW. The level of cortisol observed in the fingerlings simulated using PW was not different from other two media. Between durations, the levels of cortisol observed were significantly different. The highest chloride level was measured in the fingerlings simulated using WW while the lowest level was observed in the fingerlings sampled from WPW. PW did not result in different chloride level from those of WW and WPW. Among duration treatments, while 9 hrs resulted in the lowest level of chloride, the highest level was detected at 1 hr. The results suggest that WW, PW and WPW can be used as medium in transporting well conditioned silver carp fingerlings for 6 hrs with little mortality and less stress effects.


Gradient methods have become mainstream techniques for Bi-Level Optimization (BLO) in learning fields. The validity of existing works heavily rely on either a restrictive Lower-Level Strong Convexity (LLSC) condition or on solving a series of approximation subproblems with high accuracy or both. In this work, by averaging the upper and lower level objectives, we propose a single loop Bi-level Averaged Method of Multipliers (sl-BAMM) for BLO that is simple yet efficient for large-scale BLO and gets rid of the limited LLSC restriction. We further provide non-asymptotic convergence analysis of sl-BAMM towards KKT stationary points, and the comparative advantage of our analysis lies in the absence of strong gradient boundedness assumption, which is always required by others. Thus our theory safely captures a wider variety of applications in deep learning, especially where the upper-level objective is quadratic w.r.t. the lower-level variable. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our method.


Groups at MIT and NYU have collected a dataset of millions of tiny colour images from the web. It is, in principle, an excellent dataset for unsupervised training of deep generative models, but previous researchers who have tried this have found it dicult to learn a good set of lters from the images. We show how to train a multi-layer generative model that learns to extract meaningful features which resemble those found in the human visual cortex. Using a novel parallelization algorithm to distribute the work among multiple machines connected on a network, we show how training such a model can be done in reasonable time. A second problematic aspect of the tiny images dataset is that there are no reliable class labels which makes it hard to use for object recognition experiments. We created two sets of reliable labels. The CIFAR-10 set has 6000 examples of each of 10 classes and the CIFAR-100 set has 600 examples of each of 100 non-overlapping classes. Using these labels, we show that object recognition is signicantly improved by pre-training a layer of features on a large set of unlabeled tiny images.


All countries are addressing the drastic climate changes as high priority issues. The impact of climate change on coastal land use in Taiwan has been especially severe due to the country's long coastline. As such, developing strategies to promote the protection of coastal land is critical for the sustainable development of the land. At present, even though the central government has developed the relevant adaptation strategies and implementation plans in response to climate change. Due to the limited resources, determining which protection strategy should be implemented as a top priority will require a strategic evaluation for planning and reference purposes.
While most of the existing literature on coastal land use has been focused on the establishment of a vulnerability index along with an analysis of adaptation strategies very little of the existing literature discusses research that has been conducted in relation to an in-depth analysis of climate change and coastal land use. Therefore, this study uses the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to conduct an exploration of coastal land use and protection strategy. The study compiled the literature and related data to establish five major assessment dimensions and 16 protection strategy evaluation indicators. After the empirical investigation and analysis, the findings demonstrated that the designation of coastal conservation areas is the most important aspect in terms of strategies to protect coastal land, followed by land subsidence control and the establishment of land disaster warning systems.


Improved and more continuous condition assessment of bridges has been demanded by our society to better face challenges presented by aging civil infrastructure. In the last two decades, bridge condition assessment techniques have been developed in order to improve the maintenance of bridges in a systematic way. The Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has given the ability to provide information, in real time, about the performance of the structural system. However, the reliability of that information depends highly on the quality of the data analysis, as the operational and environmental variability introduces changes into the system that can mask those changes related with damage. Therefore, this paper intends to evaluate the performance of several algorithms for clustering strategies in vibration-based damage detection under operational and environmental effects. For statistical modeling and feature classification are proposed K-means, Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM), Support Vector Clustering (SVC) and Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) algorithms. The study is performed on standard data sets from the Tamar Suspension Bridge, in England, and the Z-24 Bridge in Switzerland. The contribution of this work is the applicability of the proposed algorithms for clustering strategies in damage detection as well as the comparison of the classification performance between these algorithms. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/146


Providing meaningful and actionable explanations to end-users is a fundamental prerequisite for implementing explainable intelligent systems in the real world. Explainability is a situated interaction between a user and the AI system rather than being static design principles. The content of explanations is context-dependent and must be defined by evidence about the user and its context. This paper seeks to operationalize this concept by proposing a formative architecture that defines the explanation space from a user-inspired perspective. The architecture comprises five intertwined components to outline explanation requirements for a task: (1) the end-users mental models, (2) the end-users cognitive process, (3) the user interface, (4) the human-explainer agent, and the (5) agent process. We first define each component of the architecture. Then we present the Abstracted Explanation Space, a modeling tool that aggregates the architecture's components to support designers in systematically aligning explanations with the end-users work practices, needs, and goals. It guides the specifications of what needs to be explained (content - end-users mental model), why this explanation is necessary (context - end-users cognitive process), to delimit how to explain it (format - human-explainer agent and user interface), and when should the explanations be given. We then exemplify the tool's use in an ongoing case study in the aircraft maintenance domain. Finally, we discuss possible contributions of the tool, known limitations/areas for improvement, and future work to be done.


Crystallization of metformin hydrochloride by solvent evaporation method was carried out in the presence of hydrophilic and hydrophobic polymers to investigate the influence of polymer in the agglomeration of the crystallites in–vitro. Transparent, prismatic shaped crystals (of size: 7 × 2 × 1.5 mm 3 ) were crystallized in hydrophilic polymer hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and long rod shaped crystal (of size: 20 × 2 × 1.5 mm 3 ) habits in hydrophobic polymer polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP K30). The crystal structures were determined using single crystal X–ray diffraction method. Morphology studies revealed that the growth is prominent along a– axis and the prominent face is {001} for both the habits. Prismatic crystal habit is bounded by side faces {020} and corner faces {110}. FTIR spectral assignments were made and the fingerprint absorption band was identified. Thermal stability and thermal decomposition were analyzed using thermo calorimetry in the temperature range 30 -700°C.


A Review of:
Holden, I. I. (2010) Science literacy and lifelong learning in the classroom: A measure of attitudes among university students. Journal of Library Administration, 50:3, 265-282.  https://doi.org/10.1080/01930821003635002
Abstract
Objective – Investigate student attitudes to science literacy and lifelong learning as outlined in Standard Five of the Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology (ILSTE): The information literate student understands that information literacy is an ongoing process and an important component of lifelong learning and recognizes the need to keep current regarding new developments in his or her field (2006).
Design – Survey.
Setting – A large public American R1 university.
Subjects – Undergraduate students in two classes: Information Literacy in the Sciences (Science group) and Information Literacy (Non-Science group).
Methods – A 13 question survey was administered to students by a colleague of the author.  Three categories of questions were asked: students' perceptions of the important of science literacy, students' assessment of their own science literacy skills and students' perceptions of lifelong learning in relation to Standard Five.
Main Results – Survey participation included 13 students from the Science group and 18 students from the Non-Science group. Students agreed that science literacy is an important part of civic literacy and responsibility, and should be taught to undergraduates in the United States.  Students from the Science group frequently had more positive responses to statements than the students in the Non-Science group.  For example, 81% of Science students either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "Every responsible citizen should be aware of the latest scientific discoveries" compared to 61% of Non-science students.  Students felt that their science literacy skills had improved since high school.  Most students were confident in their research skills including using emerging communication technologies. Students believed that life-long learning and staying current contribute to good information literacy and science literacy.
Conclusion – Students think science literacy is an important part of being a responsible citizen. They also believe being a lifelong learner improves science literacy.


To evaluate heterosis, reciprocal effect, general and specific combining abilities for bodyweight, a diallel crossing experiment was conducted using three genotypes of Nigerian indigenous chickens: normal (N), frizzle (F) and naked-neck (Na). A total of 601 chicks was hatched from all possible matings between the three genotypes. The chicks used in this study were hatched from a foundation stock of 90 chickens comprising 25 hens and 5 cocks for each of the three genotypes. A mating ratio of 1 male : 5 females was employed. Furthermore, data on bodyweight were scrutinized with complete diallel analysis after they had been corrected for significant effects of hatch of birds using least squares constants. The results revealed that bodyweight (BWT) was significantly influenced by genetic groups with the frizzle-naked (FNa) having the best performance at all ages (4 - 20 weeks) except at hatch, with a mean final BWT of 1173 g at 20 weeks old. The next best performing was its reciprocal, the naked-frizzle (NaF), with a mean final BWT of 1162 g. Furthermore, the FNa gave the best estimates for heterosis and specific combining ability, while the F and NNa gave the best estimates for general combining ability and reciprocal effect, respectively. Therefore, the F genotype as sire and the Na as dam provided the most suitable combination for improved BWT. Furthermore, the use of the Na genotype as dam was more suitable owing to the significant reciprocal effect.


Author(s): Jones, Jenna | Advisor(s): Needleman, Jack | Abstract: Introduction: Due to advances in medical knowledge and technology, life expectancy has increased for many child-onset complex chronic conditions including sickle cell disease (SCD). As a result of living longer and reaching age-dependent cut-offs for insurance eligibility, a greater number of young adult SCD survivors may experience insurance loss, loss of access to health care and consequently have higher adverse health events and greater utilization of hospital services. This is a possible consequence for individuals dependent on public programs such as the California Children's Services (CCS) program in which eligibility ends on the 21st birthday.Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to examine variation in hospital and emergency care use between youth (ages 14-17 years) and young adults (ages 18-20 years and ages 21-26 years). Secondarily, the purpose was to examine variations in utilization by social disadvantage as defined by community poverty level, insurance status, and travel distance from home to nearest hospital.Data and Methods: This retrospective quantitative analysis utilized confidential patient level discharge data (PDD) and emergency department (EDD/ASCD) patient encounter data collected by the Office of Statewide Planning a Development (OSHPD) from 2006-2011. Patients were included in the study population if they had either a primary or secondary ICD-9 code of sickle cell anemia, sickle cell thalassemia with crisis, and sickle cell thalassemia without crisis. Some of these patients had hospitalizations that were not coded for SCD. Hospitalizations with matching patient identifiers to hospitalizations selected with SCD were also included. Patients were categorized according to age group based upon age and relative eligibility to CCS/Medicaid services. Multi-level zero-truncated negative binomial regressions, generalized estimating equations with negative binomial link, and multilevel logistic regressions were performed to assess the association of age and socio-economic factors on count of index hospitalizations, readmissions within 30 days, length of stay (LOS), and count of ED visits after controlling for patient demographics, hospital level characteristics, or zip code level poverty status. Results: 1,825 patients were identified accounting for 13,257 hospitalizations in the PDD dataset and 27,001 ED visits representing 2,314 patients in the EDD dataset. Twenty-five percent of index hospitalizations were followed by at least one readmission within 30 days of last discharge. The population hospitalized had a mean LOS of 6.2 days. The number of hospitalizations and visits steadily increased between age groups 14-17 and 18-20 with the greatest increase occurring after age 21. Over half of all SCD hospitalizations (56%) and ED visits (66%) during the six year period were for patients ages 21-26. Statistically significant differences in number of index admissions were observed between patients aged 21-26 [IRR=1.60; 95% CI: 1.34-1.95; p value=0.00] and 14-17 when adjusting for individual and contextual factors. Age group 21-26 was associated with higher odds of readmission [OR= 1.14; 95% CI: 0.93-1.40; p value=0.02], longer LOS [IRR=1.02; 95% CI: 1.01-1.03; p value=0.00], and increased number of ED visits [IRR=2.27; 95% CI: 1.88-2.75; p value=0.00] relative to (which age group). Some SES factors were significantly associated with all outcomes. Lack of insurance was associated with significantly lower predicted index hospitalizations [IRR =0.34; 95% CI: 0.27-0.44; p value=0.00], readmission [OR= 0.64; 95% CI: 0.48-0.88; p value=0.05], LOS [IRR= 0.96; 95% CI: 0.94-0.98, p value=0.00], and ED visits [IRR =035; 95% CI: 0.30-0.44; p value=0.00] than those with Medicaid/other government insurance. Residing in zip codes with a higher concentration of poverty was associated with higher odds of a readmission [OR= 0.80; 95% CI: 0.65-0.99; p value=0.05]. Conclusions: Hospitalizations, ED visits and LOS increases with age among SCD patients. Lack of insurance was associated with decreased hospitalizations, ED visits and shorter LOS. Understanding drivers that influence higher hospitalization rates, longer LOS, and greater ED care seeking behavior as youth grow older should be further explored. Drivers may include increasing severity of illness, delays in accessing primary care, growing difficulties in self-management as an adolescent enters into adulthood, and changes in access to care resulting in losing insurance coverage for specialists.


Multiple and counterstereotypic categorization of outgroup members reduces prejudice towards them. The present research addresses, for the first time, the role of political orientation in moderating the impact of these strategies on prejudice reduction. Given that right-wingers have very likely a higher need for cognitive closure compared to left-wingers and thus may be less tolerant to social diversity, for them, increasing the complexity of outgroup members through counterstereotypic versus stereotypic or multiple versus simple categorizations should be a less effective strategy of prejudice reduction than it is for left-wingers and moderate individuals. Results using Romanians and immigrants as outgroup targets for Italian participants supported our prediction. Further, we found that the effect of prejudice reduction was explained by the sequential mediation of increased individuation of immigrants and reduced sense of threat from them. Implications of the interplay between multiple categorization and political orientation are discussed.


A technique is proposed for implementing BIST (built-in self-test) in a CMOS arithmetic and logic unit (ALU). The approach covers single stuck-open faults and all functional faults that do not induce memory effects. The specific fault set covered by the test includes: (1) all single stuck-open faults on n and p transistors anywhere in the ALU (F1 faults); and (2) all functional faults that affect any single-bit slice of the (F2 faults), a functional fault being any fault that changes one combinational function into another. Functional faults in multiple slices are also detectable, as long as they do not generate identical responses in all even-numbered or odd-numbered ALU slices. With common techniques for test vector generation and response-verification, this BIST implementation provides higher fault coverage with only a small increase in surface area.<<ETX>>


Integrated modulators are being intensely investigated and became potential candidates for the fundamental building blocks of next generation silicon-based front-end transceivers. Although suitable optical performance has been demonstrated in several works, theoretical models for the appropriate driving conditions of the micro-ring modulators are rarely explored. The carrier concentration fundamentally determines the refraction index of the pn junction of the modulator and to accelerate charge injection/extraction a pre- and de-emphasised driving voltage technique has been widely and successfully applied. Here we present a mathematical model where shooting amplitude and duration are considered with an optimised power consumption analysis. The model can be applied for both NRZ and RZ modulation formats.


Abstract Significance The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering a very low nicotine content (VLNC) product standard to substantially reduce nicotine in cigarettes. We examined whether learning about a potential VLNC standard increased smokers' interest in illicit purchases of cigarettes with regular nicotine content if such a standard were adopted. Methods Participants were a national convenience sample of 1712 US adult smokers. In an online experiment, we randomly assigned smokers to view information about a new VLNC standard (experimental condition) or no information (control condition). The experimental condition explained that a VLNC standard would remove 95% of the nicotine in cigarettes and would require stores to only sell VLNC cigarettes. Then, the survey assessed smokers' interest in purchasing regular cigarettes from three illicit sources. Results Smokers who learned about the VLNC standard were more likely to be very or extremely interested in purchasing regular cigarettes illicitly from a Web site compared to smokers in the control group (24% vs. 16%, p < .001). They were also more interested in illicitly buying cigarettes from a street vendor (19% vs. 13%, p < .001) and a store on an Indian reservation (28% vs. 22%, p < .05), compared to the control. The impact of learning about the VLNC standard on interest in illicit purchases did not differ by smoking frequency or current e-cigarette use. Conclusions A VLNC standard could increase smokers' interest in illicit purchases of regular nicotine cigarettes. To prevent VLNC-induced illicit trade from undermining public health, FDA should consider proven measures such as track and trace for these products. Implications Little is known about how a VLNC cigarette standard would affect consumer interest in regular content cigarettes purchased from illicit sources (eg, the Internet). We found that smokers informed about a potential VLNC product standard had greater interest in illicit cigarette purchases, compared to controls. This suggests the importance of proactive measures accompanying a VLNC standard, such as track-and-trace cigarette packaging regulations and communication campaigns, in order to maximize the standard's public health impact.


Parallelizability of an algorithm is nowadays a highly desirable property as computer hardware is becoming increasingly parallel. In this paper, a formulation of the particle filtering algorithm, suitable for parallel or distributed computing, is proposed. From the particle set, a series expansion is fitted to the posterior probability density function. The global information expressed by the particles can in this way be compressed to a few informative coefficients that can be efficiently communicated between the local processing units. Experiments on a shared-memory multicore processor using up to 8 cores show that linear speedup in the number of used cores is achieved.


Abstract The use of partial least-squares spectrophotometric calibration for the simultaneous determination of suppositories in a multicomponent formulation is presented. This method is applied to the deternination of acetaminophen and phenobarbital in suppository preparations. The results show that these components in a molar ratio of about 61:1 in suppositories have been determined simultaneously with high precision.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the approach of Frederick Winslow Taylor and an early shop management proponent and Harvard Business School instructor, Henry Hallowell Farquhar, to how management education should connect to business practice. Such analysis has implications both for understanding the philosophical underpinnings of Taylor's work on shop management and for important dilemmas facing contemporary management curricula.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology involves analyzing published and unpublished historical sources including books, articles, letters, memoranda, syllabi and other items on shop management education from Taylor, Farquhar and other Progressive Era educators.

Findings

The paper provides evidence that Taylor and some early shop management supporters had strong concerns about whether university management programs would help graduates succeed under actual working conditions. The evidence shows that Taylor and Farquhar believed that effective management education required students to have actual plant experience and contact with practicing managers. The interest in educational links to practice related at least in part to whether programs could install proper character in their students. The concern with manager disposition and attitudes related to a contemporary re-evaluation of Taylorism because it shows a humanist tendency to shop management thought that much literature on Taylor neglects.

Originality/value

The analysis uses a wide variety of published and unpublished sources. It discusses early use of shop management insights in engineering and business programs which are generally analyzed in separate literatures. The discussion focuses attention on the need for contemporary management programs to expand opportunities for practitioner participation in educational development.


Methane hydrates represent an enormous carbon and energy source in many low temperature deep marine sediments. However, little information is available concerning the nature of the microbial communities associated with these structures. Here, we describe a phylogenetic analysis based on ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences obtained from sediment and fluid samples present in a region of gas hydrate formation in shallow sediments within the Cascadia margin in and around Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 892B. Our studies detected diverse sulfur-utilizing microbes, methanogens, methanotrophs, and non-thermophilic members of the kingdom Crenarchaeota. This is the first culture-independent phylogenetic analysis of a gas hydrate habitat.


Background The population of patients with cancer requiring palliative care (PC) is on the rise in India. Family caregivers will be essential members of the care team in the provision of PC. Objective We aimed to characterize provider perspectives of the challenges that Indian families face in taking on a palliative caregiving role. Method Data for this analysis came from an evaluation of the PC-PAICE project, a series of quality improvement interventions for PC in India. We conducted 44 in-depth semi-structured interviews with organizational leaders and clinical team members at seven geographically and structurally diverse settings. Through thematic content analysis, themes relating to the caregivers' role were identified using a combination of deductive and inductive approaches. Result Contextual challenges to taking up the PC caregiving role included family members' limited knowledge about PC and cancer, the necessity of training for caregiving responsibilities, and cultural preferences for pursuing curative treatments over palliative ones. Some logistical challenges include financial, time, and mental health limitations that family caregivers may encounter when navigating the expectations of taking on the caregiving role. Strategies to facilitate family buy-in for PC provision include adopting a family care model, connecting them to services provided by Non-Governmental Organizations, leveraging volunteers and social workers to foster PC awareness and training, and responding specifically to family's requests. Conclusion Understanding and addressing the various challenges that families face in adopting the caregiver role are essential steps in the provision and expansion of PC in India. Locally initiated quality improvement projects can be a way to address these challenges based on the context.


Recent research on soft-biometrics showed that more information than just the person's identity can be deduced from biometric data. Using face templates only, information about gender, age, ethnicity, health state of the person, and even the sexual orientation can be automatically obtained. Since for most applications these templates are expected to be used for recognition purposes only, this raises major privacy issues. Previous work addressed this problem purely on image level regarding function creep attackers without knowledge about the systems privacy mechanism. In this work, we propose a soft-biometric privacy enhancing approach that reduces a given biometric template by eliminating its most important variables for predicting soft-biometric attributes. Training a decision tree ensemble allows deriving a variable importance measure that is used to incrementally eliminate variables that allow predicting sensitive attributes. Unlike previous work, we consider a scenario of function creep attackers with explicit knowledge about the privacy mechanism and evaluated our approach on a publicly available database. The experiments were conducted to eight baseline solutions. The results showed that in many cases IVE is able to suppress gender and age to a high degree with a negligible loss of the templates recognition ability. Contrary to previous work, which is limited to the suppression of binary (gender) attributes, IVE is able, by design, to suppress binary, categorical, and continuous attributes.


This research sought to establish what teacher mentoring stakeholders might learn from successful and effective practice in other sectors – in the UK and internationally. The research team thus set out to identify: 1. effective employee mentoring and coaching practice in private and public sector organisations (excluding teacher mentoring schemes); 2. the impact of those employee mentoring and coaching schemes identified; 3. the various factors contributing to the effectiveness and success of the selected mentoring and coaching schemes. 1 On the other hand, research into the relatively rare phenomenon of 'external mentoring' for teachers in secondary schools found this to have significant benefits for the (predominantly early career) teachers supported (Hobson et al., 2012; Hobson & McIntyre, 2013; McIntyre & Hobson, 2016). 2 THE MENTORING ACROSS PROFESSIONS PROJECT We use the term teacher to refer to those formally tasked to facilitate learning in early years, primary, secondary and further education (FE)2 settings. We use the term mentoring to describe 'the support given by one (usually more experienced) person for the growth and learning of another, and for their integration into and acceptance by a specific community' (Malderez, 2001, p. 57). We take coaching to refer to one of a number of (potential) aspects of mentoring, and as having a narrower focus, notably relating to specific support for an individual's skill development (Finn, 1993; Malderez & Bodoczky, 1999; Hopkins-Thompson, 2000). Given this, we normally use the term mentoring, in this report, to encompass mentors' potential use of coaching. Nonetheless, we recognise that other scholars and practitioners use the terms mentoring and coaching differently. We thus use the term coaching, in this report, when it relates to a particular programme (notably the Sussex Police Leadership Coaching Programme – Chapter 9) or where it is used, by others, in a different way. With respect to the scope and contextual boundaries of the study, we did not seek to explore (for example) cross-cultural mentoring, cross-national mentoring, or the concept of reverse mentoring (Marcinkus Murphy, 2012).


SIR,-Dr Stella Lowry made passing reference to "sick building syndrome," describing it as an "occupational health problem"; the rest of her article on indoor air quality confined itself to the quality of air in homes. Referring to it in this way simply serves to underline one of the difficulties with the issue of sick building syndrome, for the standards and acceptable levels of potential indoor air pollutants are set by the various occupational health agencies to protect workers mainly in industrial settings, where the presence of specific potential pollutants associated with particular processes is known. In commercial office buildings we enter a "twilight zone" between industry and the homeonly comparatively recently have we discovered a mare's nest of potentially harmful pollutants, many of which only rarely reach levels that would be considered by industry standards to be hazardous. We know little of their synergistic effects. The population exposed to these pollutants varies widely in age, general health, and resistance-especially if included in the building group along with commercial offices are schools, hospitals, universities, hotels, and leisure centres-all of which (at least in North America) have been incriminated as sick buildings. Dr Lowry acknowledges the difficulty of assessing indoor air quality, and I agree that this is indeed the case and that accurate methods must be developed to measure the levels of the increasing number of indoor air pollutants being identified. Basic remedial steps can, however, be taken immediately. These steps follow a generic engineering approach and apply particularly to mechanically ventilated buildings (most sick buildings fall into this category). If properly integrated they will accomplish three main goals. Firstly, all buildings should allow adequate ventilation by mixing outdoor air with building air, and they should be operated in this way at all times of building occupancy, regardless of outdoor temperatures. (Adequate ventilation for offices in the United States is defined as being 10 litres of outdoor air per second per person, assuming a maximum occupancy of seven people per 93 square metres.2 This value was chosen to control carbon dioxide and other contaminants with an adequate margin of safety and to take into account health variations in people, varied activity levels, and a moderate amount of smoking.) Secondly, the air that is to be supplied to the occupied areas should be passed through well fitting filters to remove at least 20% of particles of a respirable size (3 5 microns in diameter or less). Tfhirdly, the heating and ventilating systems must be accessible for regular inspection and cleaning, and ideally there should be an air monitoring programme. Such an approach is designed to remove or adequately dilute all types of airborne pollutants in indoor air and attacks the root causes of indoor air pollution. The less effective alternative is to treat the symptoms by attempting to eliminate specific pollutants such as carbon monoxide, tobacco smoke, or formaldehyde-but this would not solve the overall problem. In any case, known sources of indoor air pollution such as photocopiers and laser printers should have dedicated exhaust or similar systems. From our experience there is no doubt that a clean, well maintained air supply system using effective air filters and providing adequate ventilation results in a happier and more productive work force with reduced absenteeism.


Human reliance on water has led to water issues globally. Although extension professionals have made efforts successfully to educate the general public about water conservation to enhance water resource sustainability, difficulty has been found in reaching high water users, defined as residents irrigating excessively to their landscape irrigation needs without awareness of the environmental impacts. This study sought to identify differences in water conservation behavior engagement between the general public and high water users to facilitate the development of extension programs targeting high water users. Florida residents (N = 516) and high water users in Florida (N = 512) were surveyed for this descriptive and comparative study. Respondents were asked to indicate their current engagement in water use behavior, water conservation strategies, and the likelihood of engaging in water conservation and related societal behaviors. Compared to the general public, high water users reported a higher frequency of engagement in water use behaviors, and were less likely to engage in water conservation and related societal behaviors. Based on the findings it is recommended that extension professionals segment the high water users from the general public as a specific clientele and develop educational programs relevant to their specific needs and behavioral patterns.


Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the possible differences between adolescents with an acute alcohol intoxication living in high- and low-population-density areas. Data were used from the Dutch Pediatric Surveillance System, which monitors acute alcohol intoxication among treated adolescents. During treatment, questionnaires are completed by the pediatricians involved, covering socio-demographic characteristics and circumstantial and treatment data. Adolescents eligible for inclusion in the current study had to be under the age of 18 years and have a positive blood alcohol concentration, and the living region was known. This resulted in analyzing data from the years 2007 until 2015, with a total of 4,895 questionnaires. This study shows that treated adolescents who are living in a high-population-density area are significantly younger (15.3 versus 15.5 years) and have a lower blood alcohol concentration at admittance (1.86 versus 1.90 g/l). The patients in the high-population-density areas are less from an autochthonous Dutch origin (86.0% versus 90.7%) and are more often enrolled in a higher educational level (45.4% versus 38.1%). Adolescents in urban areas drink more on the streets (27.7% versus 16.3%), in contrast to those living in a lower-population-density area, who drink in a bar or comparable place. Adolescents living is urban areas are overrepresented in the intoxication sample. This article is the first to describe the differences between alcohol-intoxicated adolescents in high- and low-population-density areas in the Netherlands. These findings are important for the awareness of alcohol abusers, and the design of future prevention strategies. Key messages Demographic, drinking, and intoxication characteristics during alcohol intoxication treatment differ for youngsters coming from high- and low-population-density areas. Youngsters from low-population areas turn out to be older, lower educated, more often Dutch, and drink more in bars, than their counterparts from high-population-density areas. Youngsters from lower density areas have higher blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels, and more often have parental approval to drink. Hospitalization periods are equal for both groups.


The relationship between microstructure and mechanical properties has been investigated in Argiope trifasciata dragline silk fibers (major ampullate silk, MAS) by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and tensile testing. We have analyzed three fractions of the material, i.e. amorphous, highly oriented nanocrystals and weakly oriented material, for different values of the macroscopic alignment parameter α, calculated as the relative difference between the length of the fiber and its length when supercontracted. Two distinct regimes have been identified: for low values of the alignment parameter α, microstructural changes are dominated by the reorientation of the nanocrystals; however, at high values (α > 0.5) of the alignment parameter, an increase in the fraction of the crystalline phase is revealed. The two regimes are also reflected in the mechanical behaviour, which can be explained by microstructural changes. This finding of the two distinct regimes in the microstructural evolution, which separates the reorientation and the increase in the crystalline phase, will be valuable to develop and validate molecular models of natural and artificial silk fibers, as well as to deepen our present knowledge of the origin of the outstanding properties of MAS fibers. In addition, we have analyzed the characteristics of the crystal lattice, and discussed the relationship between the percentage of short side-chain residues and the unit cell dimensions in different silks.


Service-learning is a form of community engagement deemed beneficial to both students and community members. However, while there is a large and growing body of research investigating whether service-learning does indeed advance student learning, there has been paucity of research on whether service-learning benefits community partners, and in what way. This study is based on interviews with community partners at a South African university, to explore how community partners experience service-learning. The findings suggest that community partners value service-learning partnerships and believe that the presence of students does, for the most part, meet a need in the community. However, the findings also show that service-learning partners long for greater commitment and attention from the university partner, and that few partners feel empowered to initiate and drive service-learning partnerships, which are instead typically set up by the university. These findings also suggest that service-learning partnerships are of value to partners, but that more needs to be done to address the power relations inherent in partnerships between universities and community partners.


The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has standards and regulations that are intended to protect aircraft occupants in the event of a crash. However, side-facing seats were not specifically addressed when aircraft seat dynamic test standards were developed in the late 1980s. Since then, considerable research has been conducted to increase knowledge about injury risks and mitigation technologies for automotive and aviation applications. Some injury risks such as those to the head, chest, and pelvis are common to both automotive and aviation side-impact scenarios. FAA research has determined that typical side-facing seat configurations could pose additional neck and flailing injury risks. To address these identified risks, the FAA sponsored research to develop neck injury criteria applicable during lateral impacts. This research also evaluated the overall injury risks of the seat configurations identified as having the greatest injury potential. The research included impact tests using postmortem human subjects and the ES-2 test dummy. In this report, the latest advancements in side-facing seat impact testing technology and biomechanical knowledge are used to identify new testing and injury assessment methods intended to ensure fully side-facing aircraft seat designs provide the same level of safety afforded occupants of forward- and aft-facing seats. The methods identified include: use of the ES-2re test dummy and the injury criteria cited in the automotive safety standards to assess injury, adapting test procedures related to test dummy seating, clothing and instrumentation, applying injury criteria originally applicable to forward-facing seats, reducing flailing injuries by limiting occupant excursion and contact, and applying the new neck injury criteria developed by the FAA-sponsored research. To determine the effect that implementation of the new criteria could have on approval of typical side-facing seats, the results of research tests with those seat configurations were evaluated using the pass/fail criteria outlined in this report. This evaluation showed that configurations permitting excessive lateral flailing do not pass, and those that limit it by combining effective restraint system geometry with a barrier or inflatable restraint, pass readily. This result indicates that the criteria described in this report can be met by applying current technology.


Fault diagnosis based on graph theory has been widely studied. Matrix graph representation is commonly used as the basic data structure, but this technique is time consuming because it requires numerous matrix multiplications. As such, applying traditional graph algorithms into large-scale complex electronic systems is difficult because of the huge time requirement and space complexity of matrix operations. In this study, a new hierarchical graph algorithm was established to improve the efficiency of fault diagnosis. The algorithm was then tested in Radar systems. First, a new indegree representation was proposed to reduce data storage space. Second, a new hierarchical graph searching strategy of indegree diffusion was used to avoid complex operation. Finally, the entropy-based degree of node was applied to improve the speed of graph search. The proposed method was validated through experiments using a radar system. Results demonstrated the efficiency and simplicity of the proposed algorithm in hierarchical graph of fault propagation; hence, the algorithm is important for fault diagnosis of electronic systems.


Potential based reward shaping is a powerful technique for accelerating convergence of reinforcement learning algorithms. Typically, such information includes an estimate of the optimal value function and is often provided by a human expert or other sources of domain knowledge. However, this information is often biased or inaccurate and can mislead many reinforcement learning algorithms. In this paper, we apply Bayesian Model Combination with multiple experts in a way that learns to trust a good combination of experts as training progresses. This approach is both computationally efficient and general, and is shown numerically to improve convergence across discrete and continuous domains and different reinforcement learning algorithms.


This critical commentary is based on four research studies and associated publications. The studies are all concerned with researching service users' perspectives and with service user involvement in the research process. Two of the studies examined adults' perspectives on adoption, focusing on support for birth relatives and on post-adoption contact. Two of the studies focused on the perspectives of children and young people on seeking help with abuse and neglect, and on their experiences of child protection services.
The commentary begins with a literature review which sets the context for the studies. It covers the development of service user participation in social work practice and in research, and existing research on the perspectives of service users on child protection and adoption services. The second chapter explores methods of involving service users as participants in research and as co-researchers in child protection and adoption research.
The final chapter discusses the contribution of the studies, focusing both on the subject matter and the process of research. It is argued that service users' perspectives can address a need identified within relationship-based practice to pay attention to power differentials in social work relationships. Service users' perspectives highlight the value service users accord to the relationships they form with social workers, and suggest ways in which practice could be improved to avoid the experience of child protection and adoption services compounding the effects of a difficult life history.
Involving service users in the research process can allow service users a distinctive platform. It is argued that building collaborative relationships between academic and service user researchers can enable service users' perspectives to contribute to the construction of social work knowledge, in a manner that contrasts with the inevitable constraints in service user involvement in child protection and adoption practice.


Background Fentanyl-induced cough (FIC) has a reported incidence of 13–65% on induction of anesthesia. Incentive spirometry (IS) creates forceful inspiration, while stretching pulmonary receptors. We postulated that spirometry just before the fentanyl (F) bolus would decrease the incidence and severity of FIC. Methods This study enrolled 200 patients aged 18–60 years and with American Society of Anesthesiologists status I or II. The patients were allocated to two groups of 100 patients each depending on whether they received preoperative incentive spirometry before fentanyl administration. Patients in the F+IS group performed incentive spirometry 10 times just before an intravenous bolus of 3 µg/kg fentanyl in the operating room. The onset time and number of coughs after fentanyl injection were recorded as primary outcomes. Any significant changes in blood pressure, heart rate, or adverse effects of the drug were recorded as secondary outcomes. Results Patients in the F+IS group had a significantly lower incidence of FIC than in the F group (6% vs. 26%) (P < 0.05). The severity of cough in the F+IS group was also significantly lower than that in group F (mild, 5 vs. 17; moderate 1 vs. 7; severe, 0 vs. 2) (P < 0.05). The median onset time was comparable in both groups (9 s [range: 6–12 s] in both groups). Conclusions Preoperative incentive spirometry significantly reduces the incidence and severity of FIC when performed just before fentanyl administration.


Two design problems at different levels in the control hierarchy are considered; optimization of robust low-level controllers with constrained control signal activity and optimization of economical high-level polyethylene grade changes.

As for the first design problem, a constraint on control signal activity due to measurement noise is presented and used when optimizing and comparing PI/PID controllers with measurement filters of different orders. The results show increased performance when roll-off is present in the feedback loop and that similarities exist between PID and high-order Youla-parametrized controllers.

Robustness margins separating the dead-time uncertainty from other process uncertainties are presented. Methods to compute the margins, posed as optimization problems based on Nyquist diagram interpretations, are given.

PID and predictive PI (PPI) controllers with measurement filters are optimized and compared using the presented control signal activity constraint and robustness margins. The two controllers show similar performance on industrially representative processes, with a few exceptions where the PID controller outperforms the PPI controller.

Concerning the second design problem mentioned above, a cost function for optimization of economical polyethylene grade changes is proposed. It considers inflow costs, on- and off-grade polymer production revenues and polymer quality variable intervals to define on-grade production as well as economical incentives for on-target production.

Using the JModelica.org platform, several stationary operating points and dynamic grade changes are optimized with regards to economy. The optimizations are based on Modelica models of both a gas-phase polyethylene reactor and the polyethylene plant PE3 at Borealis AB. The results show that economically optimal grade changes can be divided into three phases with distinguishing features, and that the synchronization of control flows and the usage of recycle area off-gas flows are important.

A Modelica library for the plant PE3 at Borealis AB, including three reactors and three distillation columns, is presented.


We focus in this paper the temperature variation effects on the current – voltage ( I-V) characteristics of n-GaN schottky diode. The diode was doped with carrier concentration 1*1013cm-3 and Pt electrode was used. The simulated current were obtained at temperatures from 50K to 500K and voltage up to 2Volt. We use the Srh (Schokley read hall), Cvt (Lombardi Model), Auger (Auger), Fermi (Fermi Dirac), Impact, Bgn (Bandgap Narrowing), Complete ioniz model to get the schottky rectifying current – voltage (I-V) characteristics.. We find that by increasing the temperature from 50K to 500K, the forward schottky rectifying current decreases from 2.7187 Amp to 0.383 Amp. while the forward turn – on voltage decreases. In reverse bias at low temperature the current is high and we increase the temperature the current decreases. The breakdown voltage decreases at higher temperature.


Big data trends in biomedical and public health research hold promise for improving prevention, enabling earlier diagnosis, optimizing resource allocation, and delivering more tailored treatments to patients with specific disease trajectories. At the same time, due to their methodological novelty, algorithmic complexity and reliance on data mining for knowledge generation, big data approaches raise ethical challenges. This talk presents an overview of the major ethical challenges associated with health-related big data research. These include demarcating the boundary between personal health data and non-health data, re-defining the notion of private information, sustaining trust in health data sharing, preventing data-driven discrimination and ensuring a fair distribution of benefits and burdens among all stakeholders. Case studies from dementia research and public mental health will be discussed to illustrate these challenges and provide an ethical assessment. Furthermore, this talk will provide an overview of the normative proposals that have been recently advanced to align health-related big data research with established regulatory frameworks such as data protection regulation, regulation on human subject research and ethics review. Based on this analysis, suggestions will be made on how to maximise the benefits of big data for public health while minimizing ethical risks.


This paper presents analysis and implementation of Exact Model Knowledge (EMK) and Direct Adaptive control schemes on the 4th order ball and beam system in which the dynamics of the ball position and the dynamics of the beam angle are cascaded. For the controller analysis the error dynamic equations for ball position and the beam angle are derived for both cases. Following, experimental studies are conducted based on the proposed control approaches and it is presented that constant and sinusoidal references for the ball position are tracked asymptotically.


To better understand Laramide deformation, deep seismic reflection data have been depth migrated (focused or imaged) in order to more clearly reveal structural features associated with the Wind River thrust, Wyoming. Major structural features displayed in the migrated data are the Wind River fault zone and the Pacific Creek anticline. The Wind River fault zone is seen to a depth of at least 25 km and interpretively to 32 km. It is a complex zone that includes numerous splays flattening with depth. The Wind River Range was tilted along these arcuate splays as it was compressionally thrust up. The Pacific Creek anticline is asymmetric and thrust cored, with the top of basement offset 600 m. The Pacific Creek thrust is viewed as an embryonic Wind River thrust.


Background/Aims: Increase in vascular permeability is a cardinal feature of all inflammatory diseases and represents an imbalance in vascular contractile forces and barrier-restorative forces, both of which are highly dependent on actin cytoskeletal dynamics. In addition to the involvement of key vascular barrier-regulatory, actin-binding proteins, such as nmMLCK and cortactin, we recently demonstrated a role for a member of the Ena-VASP family known as Ena-VASP-like (EVL) in promoting vascular focal adhesion (FA) remodeling and endothelial cell (EC) barrier restoration/preservation. Methods: To further understand the role of EVL in EC barrier-regulatory processes, we examined EVL-cytoskeletal protein interactions in FA dynamics in vitro utilizing lung EC and in vivo murine models of acute inflammatory lung injury. Deletion mapping studies and immunoprecipitation assays were performed to detail the interaction between EVL and cortactin, and further evaluated by assessment of changes in vascular EC permeability following disruption of EVL-cortactin interaction. Results: Initial studies focusing on the actin-binding proteins, nmMLCK and cortactin, utilized deletion mapping of the cortactin gene (CTTN) to identify cortactin domains critical for EVL-cortactin interaction and verified the role of actin in promoting EVL-cortactin interaction. A role for profilins, actin-binding proteins that regulate actin polymerization, was established in facilitating EVL-FA binding. Conclusion: In summary, these studies further substantiate EVL participation in regulation of vascular barrier integrity and in the highly choreographed cytoskeletal interactions between key FA and cytoskeletal partners.


Abstract Upon exposure, TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) have been recovered in internal organs such as the liver, and are proposed to cause cellular/organ dysfunction, particularly in the liver and lungs. We hypothesized that despite being considered "inert" as bulk material, TiO2 NPs may impair insulin responses in liver-derived cells, either indirectly by inflammatory activation of macrophages, and/or by directly interfering with insulin signaling. Using qRT-PCR and conditioned medium (CM) approaches, we show that exposure to TiO2 NPs activates macrophages' expression of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8, IL-1α and IL-1β and the resulting CM induces insulin resistance in Fao cells. Furthermore, direct exposure of Fao cells to TiO2 results in activation of the stress kinases JNK and p38MAP kinase, and in induction of insulin resistance at the signaling and metabolic levels. Collectively, our findings provide a proof-of-concept for the ability of man-made NPs to induce insulin resistance in liver-derived cells, an endocrine abnormality underlying some of the most common human diseases.


This paper provides an introduction to real options, as well as highlighting some important issues that are often neglected by real options analysts. While many books and surveys have been written on real options, there are some ubiquitous concepts that are not well-understood by many authors and practitioners. The objective of this paper is to redress this shortfall. The paper discusses organizational issues that impede adoption of real options strategies. It discusses modeling and analytic techniques for real options.


Author(s): Grosse, Corrie Jane | Advisor(s): Bhavnani, Kum-Kum | Abstract: In mid-2017, oil and gas extraction is expanding, particularly in the United States, even as average global temperatures reach all-time highs, and countries embark on the Paris Agreement, the global treaty to mitigate climate change. Much of this extraction is facilitated by extreme extraction techniques (such as fracking and tar sands development) that have negative health effects, contaminate water, and exacerbate climate change. How do everyday people respond to this contradiction? This study examines how activists organized resistance to fracking and tar sands development––extreme energy extraction––in the U.S. states of Idaho and California between 2013 and 2016. The research relies on ethnographic participant observation with activist groups in both California and Idaho and 106 in-depth interviews with anti-extraction and climate justice activists. In this resistance, activists work across lines of political ideologies, social identities, and organizational forms.Through investigation of group dynamics, strategies, tactics, and campaign outcomes within diverse geographic and political contexts, this study traces how activists practice working across lines. My data illustrate that working across lines is a method for creating inclusive and diverse organizations and social movements. Working across lines embraces different practices in different locations, according to the social characteristics and cultures of particular communities. It relies on building relationships and finding common ground.In southwest Idaho, residents of a rural, predominantly white region work across political lines to build nonpartisan opposition to Idaho's nascent natural gas industry. In the oil extraction county of Santa Barbara, California, college students explore how to make activism accessible to participants across lines based on configurations of identities and political commitments. Campaigns against the transportation of tar sands machinery via trucks and trailers known as megaloads in central and northern Idaho from 2011 to 2014, and the 2014 campaign against fracking in Santa Barbara County, California illustrate how success or failure in working across racial and ethnic lines shape social movement outcomes in legal, electoral, and movement-building realms. Finally, my interviews with activists who organize through staffed and funded organizations ("grasstops"), and with activists who are volunteers and rely on horizontal leadership structures ("grassroots"), reveal that working across organizational lines is also critical to cultivating a strong climate justice movement.In sum, the dissertation demonstrates how activists in Idaho and California are developing creative ways to resist extreme energy extraction, deepening understanding of social responses to climate change and how social movements can build inclusive collective identities. I find that common values of justice, community wellbeing, integrity, and accountability, and an array of practices that people have developed to enact those values enable them to work across lines of difference––to build unlikely alliances, coalitions, and broad-based movements that are vital to realizing social justice within a changing climate.


Although grandfamilies are consumers of a variety of mental health services, less is known about what these families, particularly the grandchildren, want from practitioners. To gain insight into how practitioners can best meet the needs of grandfamilies, 40 custodial grandmothers and their adolescent grandchildren were interviewed. Results of a qualitative analysis indicated that grandmothers and grandchildren did not make clear distinctions between various types of services and service providers. Grandchildren emphasized the need for mental health professionals to facilitate mentoring and to provide opportunities for grandchildren to socialize with other grandchildren who have been through similar circumstances. Grandmothers and grandchildren both recommended promoting problem solving, offering services for grandchildren, and being responsive to their families' unique needs. Participants also suggested that practitioners avoid making judgments, educate themselves about grandfamilies, advocate for their families, and attend to the experiences of both grandmothers and grandchildren. Implications of the findings for mental health practitioners


provisions of services and production activities in the business which enable them to meet market situation. The main objective for this study is to assess production strategies and firm performance in bottlers firms in Equator in Kisumu. The study employed correlation design with target population of 845 employees chosen through stratified sampling and simple techniques. The sample of 387 employees was chosen by stratified random sampling and simple sampling techniques. The major research instruments were the question - naire for primary data. The study conducted pilot study from Eldoret bottler's limited using Cronbach alpha value of above 0.7. The study adopted both inferential and descriptive statistics using mean, and percentage presented by tables for interpretations. Correlation and regression analysis was chosen to establish relationship of variables. The findings showed that production strategy was mostly applied resulted to improve cost of re - turns for firm performance. Further, it was noted that strategic management of equator bottlers can review firm performance of 5 years and above.


Despite the advances associated with the introduction of PET technology, reasons to consider that SPECT, particularly with 99mTc radiopharmaceuticals will continue playing an important role in Nuclear Medicine, are presented. The details examined are the following ones. An improvement of the technology SPECT is appreciated with the development of new detection systems and the advantages of the appearance of the hybrid systems SPECT / TAC. The biggest half-life of the main SPECT radionuclides like 123I and 99mTc in comparison with PET radionuclides, facilitates its transportation at larger distances, allow the realization of studies with radiopharmaceuticals with different radionuclides in the same patient, and the possibility of the detection of lesions of low tracer accumulation. Finally the main base core for 99mTc complex formation with different ligands are reviewed, as a background that assure the appearance of new radiopharmaceuticals of practical interest. The oncological and cardiological potential applications are examined with emphasis in these last ones. It is clear that 99mTc radiopharmacy will continue playing an important role in nuclear medicine.


Feeling stressed and want to learn how to relax? Here are 1001 easy-to-follow ways to unwind.

Follow bite-sized advice on kicking back and relaxing: pick up simple ideas for managing anger and keeping calm, massage techniques and yoga poses to help you de-stress and tips to cope with work and other stressful situations that would normally have you tearing your hair out. Plus find 100% natural recipes for relaxing, including bath oils and herbal teas.

No drugs or expensive therapy required: cope with your packed schedule, feel great and survive life in a busy world!


Indian news media is dominated by male journalists and always present women gender's stereotyping identity in its widespread space. This has culminated to a quest of alternate media platforms that will give larger entree to the media outlets and allow the concerns of marginalized groups to be addressed at their own experiences and terms, specifically women from rural areas. India today presents the rapid rise in the number of Internet users in the world. Women journalists from rural India have started to use independent (based on internet) media effectively to support sustainable development and gender equality in this context. They are reporting and showing their stories not only on electronic and print news media but also on internet (social media and online web based news channels). These medium of communication allow women from rural India to discuss and strengthen their rights over knowledge of various political, social, environmental policies and economic programs. Therefore, aim of this paper is to study and analyze the impact and use of technology by women journalists from rural India. This will enable to further study the engagement of women in upbringing of women taking part in news media world, be in news gathering or news creation and broadcasting. The data is collected via group discussions, interviews, and questionnaires with the women journalists. The study conducted in the paper shows that technology is playing a very significant role in empowering women in rural areas of our country.


DNA cytosine methylation is an epigenetic mechanism involved in regulation of plant responses to biotic and abiotic stress and its ability to change can vary with the sequence context in which a cytosine appears (CpG, CHG, CHH, where H = Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine). Quantification of DNA methylation in model plant species is frequently addressed by Whole Genome Bisulfite Sequencing (WGBS), which requires a good-quality reference genome. Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing (RRBS) is a cost-effective potential alternative for ecological research with limited genomic resources and large experimental designs. In this study, we provide for the first time a comprehensive comparison between the outputs of RRBS and WGBS to characterize DNA methylation changes in response to a given environmental factor. In particular, we used epiGBS (recently optimized RRBS) and WGBS to assess global and sequence-specific differential methylation after insect and artificial herbivory in clones of Populus nigra cv. 'italica'. We found that, after any of the two herbivory treatments, global methylation percentage increased in CHH, and the shift was detected as statistically significant only by epiGBS. As regards to loci-specific differential methylation induced by herbivory (cytosines in epiGBS and regions in WGBS), both techniques indicated the specificity of the response elicited by insect and artificial herbivory, together with higher frequency of hypo-methylation in CpG and hyper-methylation in CHH. Methylation changes were mainly found in gene bodies and intergenic regions when present at CpG and CHG and in transposable elements and intergenic regions at CHH context. Thus, epiGBS succeeded to characterize global, genome-wide methylation changes in response to herbivory in the Lombardy poplar. Our results support that epiGBS could be particularly useful in large experimental designs aimed to explore epigenetic changes of non-model plant species in response to multiple environmental factors.


Using Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations, we investigate the insulator-metal transition observed in liquid hydrogen at high pressure. Below the critical temperature of the transition from the molecular to the atomic liquid, the fundamental electronic gap closure occurs abruptly, with a small discontinuity reflecting the weak first-order transition in the thermodynamic equation of state. Above the critical temperature, molecular dissociation sets in while the gap is still open. When the gap closes, the decay of the off-diagonal reduced density matrix shows that the liquid enters a gapless, but localized phase: there is a cross-over between the insulating and the metallic liquids. Compared to different DFT functionals, our QMC calculations provide larger values for the fundamental gap and the electronic density of states close to the band edges, indicating that optical properties from DFT potentially benefit from error cancellations.


The aim of this research was to determine the relationships between runoff, soil loss and soil properties and the erodibilities of soils. For this purpose, soil samples were taken in the city of Bursa and vicinity from sloping agricultural lands belonging to the major soil groups: Red Brown Medditernean, Brown Forest, Noncalcareous Brown Forest and Rendzina. This study was carried out in laboratory conditions. Soil samples were used after sieving with 8 mm sieves, and taken from tillage depth from 68 different places in the research area. The samples were put into plots sized 50 x 100 x 15 cm. Simulated rainfall was applied at about 65 -70 mm/h intensity for one hour on plots with 9% slope by the Rainfall Simulator. Thus, runoff and soil losses were obtained from these plots after testing under simulated rainfall conditions. At the end of this research, double and multiple regression equations were determined between runoff and soil losses with soil properties for each major soil group. Thus, runoff and soil losses are calculated by applying the results of soil analysis to the equation. When considering the soil losses in each major soil group, the resistivity of the major soil groups to erosion were determined in the following order: Noncalcareous Brown Forest > Brown Forest > Red Brown Medditernean > Rendzina.


BACKGROUND
It is debated whether intra-articular viscosupplementation with hyaluronic acid (HA) can lead to improvements in subjects with osteoarthritis (OA) undergoing physical and rehabilitative interventions.

AIM
To assess the effects of intra-articular viscosupplementation on disability in subjects with OA undergoing physical and rehabilitative interventions. Information on pain and quality of life were also collected.

METHODS
The databases of PubMed, Medline, EMbase and CINAHL were searched for English language full-text randomized controlled trials comparing intra-articular viscosupplementation alone or associated with physical and rehabilitative interventions to viscosupplementation alone, shame treatment, waiting lists, and any type of rehabilitative interventions. Methodological quality of each study was assessed by using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) Scale.

RESULTS
A total of 115 references were retrieved, and 8 studies were selected. Three trials compared HA injection and physical therapy in knee OA, with disability and pain improvements in all studies, and between-group differences in favor of physical therapy in two studies; two trials compared HA injection and home exercises in knee OA, with improvements in pain, disability and quality of life in all studies, without between-group differences; two trials compared HA injection plus physical therapy agents and exercises to exercises plus physical therapy agents in knee OA, with improvements in disability and pain in both studies, and between-group differences in favor of the inclusion HA in one study; one trial compared HA injection and home exercises in ankle OA, with improvements in disability and pain in both arms without between-group differences.

CONCLUSION
Physical therapy agents seemed to have greater effects than intra-articular viscosupplementation on disability and pain. In the other cases both intra-articular viscosupplementation and physical and rehabilitative interventions seemed to be equally effective in improving disability, pain, and quality of life in subjects with knee and ankle OA.

CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT
A treatment model associating intra-articular viscosupplementation to physical and rehabilitative interventions seems promising but more high quality RCTs are needed before it can be suggested.


SUMMARY Motion sickness and spatial disorientation represent two outstanding challenges in aviation medicine. In both cases, the vestibular system plays a fundamental role in their genesis. One of the most common ground-based simulations utilised in aero-physiological training is the sense of vertigo and tilt generated by the cross-coupled stimulation of the semicircular canals, while exposed to rotation in the yaw axis (Coriolis' Phenomenon: CP). However, the complex stimulus induced on the two labyrinths by this manoeuvre still deserves investigation. Nine male subjects sitting on a rotatory chair were asked to tilt their head back and forth during a yaw – axis clock – (CW) or counter-clock-wise (CCW) rotation at a constant speed of 70°/sec, generating the CP. Eye movements were recorded via Video-Oculo-Scopy and qualitatively analysed. A second camera simultaneously recorded the subject's and chair's movements. The observed nystagmus (Ny) was then analysed and related to the actual head/chair position and motion. A clear relationship was detected between Ny, head movements and direction of chair rotation. During CW rotation, backward head tilts systematically induced a CW-Ny, while a CCW-Ny was observed while returning to the upright position, or during forward head tilt. Opposite patterns were detected during CCW chair rotation. Minor lateral eye movements were also observed, due to the activity of horizontal semicircular canals, but no vertical ones. Due to the neural connections between extra-ocular muscles and each labyrinth sensor, the semicircular canals involved in the genesis of the Ny during this form of stimulation could be identified. In agreement with the third Ewald's law, our results indicated a dominant left labyrinth during backward tilt and CW motion, or forward tilt and CCW rotation. On the contrary, during forward tilt and CW rotation, or backward tilt and CCW rotation, the right vertical canals produced the main contribution to ocular response.


The aim of this book is to re-establish custom in economics. Current economic theorizing largely neglects the customary forces that underpin market exchange. Economic sociologists have stressed this repeatedly by referring to the 'embeddedness' of all kinds of economic processes. It is true that market processes do hinge on elements of custom, but custom is in turn moulded by economic processes. This other causal direction needs more attention than it has hitherto received. The way modern institutional economics has developed points to the same deficiency. Institutional economics initially tried to analyse economic institutions as arising from market processes and competition whilst avoiding reference to all elements of custom, but it became increasingly clear that answers obtained in this fashion were critically dependent on tacit underlying assumptions about the customary infrastructure. Another current strand of thought, notably originating with game theory, has tried to understand the emergence of customs by viewing them as routines that have been adopted because of their success. This approach views customs essentially as conventions that solve coordination problems. It is driven by the economic paradigm that interprets behaviour as fully reducible to the interplay of (given) preferences and constraints whilst neglecting the direct motivational impact of custom. The second aim of the book is thus to systematically harmonize the motivational significance of custom with institutional theorizing. The re-establishment of custom in economics will provide foundations for institutional economics which reduce the arbitrariness of current thinking.


Tutte initiated  the study of nowhere-zero flows and proved the following fundamental theorem: For every graph $G$ there is a polynomial $f$ so that for every abelian group $\Gamma$ of order $n$, the number of nowhere-zero $\Gamma$-flows in $G$ is $f(n)$. For signed graphs (which have bidirected orientations), the situation is more subtle. For a finite group $\Gamma$, let $\epsilon_2(\Gamma)$ be the largest integer $d$ so that $\Gamma$ has a subgroup isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}_2^d$. We prove that for every signed graph $G$ and $d \ge 0$ there is a polynomial $f_d$ so that $f_d(n)$ is the number of nowhere-zero $\Gamma$-flows in $G$ for every abelian group $\Gamma$ with $\epsilon_2(\Gamma) = d$ and $|\Gamma| = 2^d n$. Beck and Zaslavsky [JCTB 2006] had previously established the special case of this result when $d=0$ (i.e., when $\Gamma$ has odd order).


Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), 500 men and 500 women, aged 40 years and over, together with a control population matched by age and sex, were observed over a 10 year period. The overall mortality was significantly higher in both men and women with rheumatoid arthritis than in the controls due to an excess mortality from infections and cardiovascular and renal diseases. During the follow up 31 patients with RA (12 male, 19 female) and one male control subject died from amyloidosis and 42 RA patients (19 male, 23 female) and one male control from renal diseases. The most important causes of renal deaths were chronic nephritis and renal infections.


This study aims to develop a cost-effective atrial fibrillation detection service that improves outcomes for patients. The service offers continuous Atrial Fibrillation (AF) detection which might help to address the real-world problem of stroke prevention. AF is the most common sustained heart rhythm disorder in adults. AF is either intermittent (paroxysmal) or permanent. Both types increase the risk ischemic stroke around fivefold. An accurate diagnosis of AF is mandatory for treatment initiation. AF treatment reduces the stroke risk and for individual patients prevent stroke. Unfortunately, current AF detection methods often fail to detect paroxysmal AF cases, because the observation duration is too short. We propose to address this problem with real time monitoring and artificial intelligence for AF detection. We developed two distinct deep learning models to detect irregular heartbeats. For the first experiment, a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) classifier was used to detect and differentiate AF beats and Normal beats. The data were collected from MIT-BIH Atrial Fibrillation Database. This database incorporates 10-hour Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from 23 participants. The second experiment was based on using a ResNet algorithm to detect common arrhythmias, namely, AF, and Atrial Flutter (AFL), as well as Normal Sinus Rhythm (NSR). The algorithm was trained with data from 4051 subject. The LSTM model achieved 98.51% accuracy with 10-fold cross-validation (20 subjects) and 99.77% with blindfold validation (3 subjects). Whilst, the ResNet model achieved, the following results: accuracy = 99.98%, sensitivity = 100.00%, and specificity = 99.94%. In addition, the LSTM model was validated with five independents benchmark databases to establish the robustness and maturity through more and more varied datasets. With the LSTM validation, we established trust which enabled us to conduct a clinical trial study with Sheffield Teaching Hospital. As part of this work, an AF detection service validation tool was built for hybrid decision support where machine learning decisions are verified by a stroke consultant. This detection method makes economic sense because Heart Rate (HR) signals are costeffective to measure, transmit, and process. Having such a cost-effective solution might lead to widespread long-term observation, which can help detecting arrhythmia earlier. Detection improves the outcomes for patients and reduces healthcare cost.


REPORT OF CASE A woman, aged 59 years, complained of symptoms typical of duodenal ulcer, which had been present for only a few months and were gradually increasing in intensity. She had been constipated for years. She was of medium stature, well nourished, but not obese. Her weight had remained constant for several years. She had had the ordinary diseases of childhood and had borne three children. Fifteen years before the present complaint, while living in one of the Southern states, she had had amebic dysentery and had been treated in a hospital for six weeks with apparent cure. The clinical diagnosis of duodenal ulcer was confirmed by roentgenogram and later at operation. These roentgenograms have since been carefully studied, but they show no evidence of jejunal diverticula. At the operation, Jan. 24, 1917, in picking up the jejunum, preparatory to performing a posterior gastrojejunostomy, five diverticula of the jejunum


A simplified diffusive predator-prey model of the Lotka-Volterra type  is considered for annular habitat which is used for description of predator and prey coexistence at habitats surrounding lakes, mountains at particular heights,etc. The model is formulated as a system of two partial differential equations in which unknown populations of the predator and prey are described by  functions depending on time and polar angle. A mixed problem is formulated so that the boundary conditions are $2\pi$-periodic and in the initial conditions is assumed that populations of the predator and prey are completely separated on the annular habitat. The problem is solved by the method of lines by means of which the original system of partial differential equation is converted to the system of several hundred nonlinear ordinary differential equations. It's shown that predator and prey start slowly propagating through the annular habitat and their interaction commences after a time interval in the course of which the population of the predator is decreasing and the population of the prey is increasing. An intensive interaction of the predator and prey occurs after their meeting. The dynamics of the transient populations of predator and prey and the tendency of their  steady state is analyzed.


A 17 month old girl with tricuspid atresia, ventricular septal defect, subvalvar and valvar pulmonary stenosis, and increasing cyanosis had angiographic evidence ofproximal stenosis of a right modified (5 mm diameter) Blalock-Taussig shunt. She underwent palliative balloon angioplasty with a 6 mm Schneider balloon catheter. Successful dilatation was achieved without complication. Four months later there was subjective clinical improvement with a rise in systemic arterial saturation. Repeat angiography showed patency of the shunt without restenosis or formation of an aneurysm.


Abstract This article presents the virtual prototype of the tracking system used for improving the energetic efficiency of a photovoltaic panel. From the point of view of the efficiency and safety, a polar dual-axis system has been designed. Both motions (daily and seasonal) are driven by rotary actuators, which are coupled with worm gears for blocking the system in the stationary positions. The tracking system is approached in mechatronic concept, by integrating the mechanical structure of the solar tracker and the electronic control system at the virtual prototype level. The tracking strategy aims at reducing the angular field of the daily motion and the number of actuating operations, without significantly affecting the incoming solar energy. At the same time, an algorithm for determining the optimal actuating time for the step-by-step tracking is developed. For performing the energy balance, the incident solar radiation is obtained using a method based on the direct radiation and the angle of incidence, while the energy consumption for accomplishing the tracking is determined by simulating the dynamic behaviour of the solar tracker. Finally, the validation of the simulation results is performed by comparing the virtual prototype analysis with the data achieved by experimental measurements.


Starting from the material turn of cultural sociology, this paper focuses on the constructivist value of Cultural Heritage. The concept of iconic power is reinforced through a new interpretation of the artworks, within a theoretical framework that sees communication as the basic unit for the social system construction. In particular, in this study Cultural Heritage is considered not merely as artistic and historical objects, or as a tourist attraction, or a simple symbolic icon, but as a mass medium. In the short term, artworks can become a means of communication for political goals, whereas in the long term they may serve as a means of communication of social identity. To demonstrate this thesis, this article deals with a significant case study: the gilt bronzes from Cartoceto di Pergola. Their vicissitudes cover two thousand years but can be summarized as production, destruction by invaders, discovery, restoration, and the current administrative dispute. Each of these events, through comparative analysis and inductive demonstration, allows us to generalize our reflections to all of Cultural Heritage, to provide a synthesis between the traditional structuralist focus on discursive codes and the material turn of the cultural sociology


In general, as the number of program/erase cycles increases over time, number of errors also increases in NAND flash memories. Hence, these memories suffer from write/read disturbs, data retention errors, bad block accumulation. Also, reliability of MLC memory is lower due to reduced gap between adjacent threshold levels. This causes for continuous scaling down of NAND flash memories. In order to improve the unwavering quality and performance of the chip, combinations of techniques are proposed in the paper. The aim of the paper is to prevent the data from being stored in a block that is bad to reduce power consumption and to place the data in the exact location rather than being stored in an equivalent address according to the mapping table to improve the performance of the memory using coding theory(Error Correction Code).Thereby, realizing higher efficiency, reliability and support longer lifetimes of NAND flash memory.