Large mainshocks in the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF) catalog (1850–2011) appear to have been nonrandom in time in the northern California region. Magnitude ( M )≥6.4 earthquakes clustered significantly in the half‐yearly solar declination cycle. The most likely explanation appears to be natural earthquake periodicity, because the semiannual bias (1) persists in historical and instrumental catalog subsets, regardless of foreshocks or aftershocks, (2) is not contradicted by pre‐1850 data for northern California, and (3) is replicated in southern California subregions, other plate‐tectonic settings, and global seismicity. Alternatively, the UCERF catalog has overlooked many M ≥6.4 mainshocks that occurred outside of the observed semiannual clustering phase or contains systematic errors that bias the distribution of large earthquakes in the semiannual cycle. The semiannual clustering in northern California shifted abruptly after the great 1906 earthquake from a phase during the month after equinox to a phase near solstice, with large earthquakes returning to the postequinox phase since about 1980. In some other regions where semiannual clustering is evident, a similar phase shift occurred after a great earthquake. Correspondence between the semiannual phase and the tectonic regime of the clustered earthquakes suggests those two parameters may be related. I speculate that the apparent periodicity is a response of the regional fault network to the semiannual solid‐earth tide and explore possible explanations for the shift in its net phase after a great earthquake.

Online Material: Case studies for various regions, tables of earthquake parameters, and figures showing maps and distributions of mainshocks in various regions.


The ATLAS pixel detector is the innermost layer of the ATLAS tracking system and will contribute significantly to the ATLAS track and vertex reconstruction. The detector consists of identical sensor-chip-hybrid modules, arranged in three barrels in the centre and three disks on either side for the forward region. The position of the pixel detector near the interaction point requires excellent radiation hardness, mechanical and thermal robustness, good long-term stability, all combined with a low material budget. The detector layout, results from production modules and the status of assembly are presented.


Hyptis capitata Jacq. (common name: Knobweed or False Ironwort) belongs to Lamiaceae family and is among known traditional medicine. The Anak Dalam Tribe of Jambi Province uses the leaves of H. capitata to cure external and internal wounds. This study was aimed at identifying and analyzing secretory structure, histochemistry and phytochemical content of H. capitata leaves. The results showed that H. capitata leaves have secretory structures in the form of peltate, capitate and uniseriate glandular trichomes on the upper and lower leaf surfaces, with idioblast cells scattered throughout the leaf mesophyll. Histochemical tests indicated that the peltate trichomes have four head cells, containing alkaloids and terpenoids. This study classified capitate trichomes into two types: 1. type I has one stalk cell and two head cells, all containing alkaloids, terpenoids and lipophilic compounds; 2. type II has long stalk cells consisting of seven to ten cells with one head cell, all containing alkaloids and terpenoids. Uniseriate glandular trichomes of H. capitata leaves consist of four to eight cells containing alkaloids and terpenoids. The idioblast cells are round-shaped and contain lipophilic compounds. GC-MS analysis showed that H. capitata leaves contain terpenoid compounds assumed to serve as anti-infective agents, including l-limonene, eugenol, farnesol isomers A, d-nerolidol, hexahydrofarnesol and neophytadiene.


We propose a semiparametric approach to fundamental frequency estimation of an unknown periodic signal in additive white noise based on model selection. Our estimator maximizes a penalized version of the cumulated periodogram and is proved to be consistent and asymptotically efficient under very general conditions. When the number of observations is fixed, an implementation of this estimation method is proposed and illustrated on specific synthetic signals which arise in laser vibrometry. We extend this method for estimating the fundamental frequencies of two periodic functions having different fundamental frequencies when the data consist of their sum and additive white noise. We also compare the performances of our procedure with the so-called microdoppler technique, which is commonly used for laser vibrometry signals analysis. We show on simulated data that the penalized cumulated periodogram yields an accurate estimation of the frequencies at very low signal-to-noise ratios.


The paper discusses data from an open distance learning programme 'Supporting women into teaching in rural Malawi' funded by the Scottish Government and designed and led by the Open University UK in partnership with FAWEMA ( Forum for African Women Educationalists in Malawi). Recruiting more women into teaching is seen as supporting girls' continued participation in primary schooling, particularly in rural areas. This access programme offers participants distance learning study to achieve the qualifications necessary for application to a formal primary teacher training course combined with practical experience as a 'learning assistant' in their local primary school. Support is provided by a local tutor, usually a secondary school teacher.

Programme materials adopt a participatory approach to learning recognising learning as a transformation of identity, where identity is the pivot between the individual and the collective. This focuses attention on the affordances made available to learners to negotiate ways of being a student within the systems of relations in the programme. Hence the tutor –learner relationship is crucial. School subjects have values attached to them that reflect their gendered sociocultural legacies. These influence tutors and learners and mediate their interactions shaping the possibilities for female learners to develop identities as successful students. Tutor mediation thus poses critical challenges to achieving programme aspirations. Interview and workshop data indicate that for many tutors the approach is in tension with their 'teacher –centred' pedagogic practice and reveal how they attribute learners' previous lack of success to particular behaviours and innate abilities that reflect gendered beliefs. The discussion considers how to disrupt tutor beliefs and practices so that identities of competency and belonging as subject learners and novice teachers are extended to, and experienced by learners. The implications for tutor induction and practice on distance learning programmes to advance gender equality are also drawn out.


BACKGROUND
The anterolateral thigh (ALT) flap was described as the fasciocutaneous flap. It can be harvested as a pedicled and/or free flap. Majority of the free flaps are harvested as a fasciocutaneous flap. Their use in head and neck reconstruction and limb trauma is well established. Apart from these advantages, this flap has various applications which are less utilized. ALT flap can be used as a myocutaneous flap along with vastus lateralis muscle. When muscle and fasciocutaneous flaps are required, both can be harvested as a chimeric flap which can cover two different regions of the wound. Moreover, harvest of the pedicled flap procedure is less time-consuming than that of a free flap. Since it has a long vascular pedicle, when used as pedicled flap, it can reach up to the gluteal region. To evaluate these less applied advantages of pedicled ALT flap, our study was undertaken. This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of ALT flap in terms of the surface area of coverage, arc of rotation and the advantages of including vastus lateralis muscle as part of the flap.

METHODS
A retrospective record analysis of all pedicled ALT flap reconstruction of trochanteric, upper thigh, gluteal and flank regions from 2016 to 2018 was undertaken; 7 patients with 8 defects were included.

RESULTS
All the flaps healed successfully. There was no major necrosis of the flap and minor complications like wound gapping were found in three patients.

CONCLUSION
The ALT-vastus lateralis flap dimensions can be very large and can be easily harvested in a very short time. Vastus lateralis muscle harvested can be used to fill the defect or can be used as chimera to cover the defect. The use of muscle over long standing infective pressure sores can sterilize the wound bed and help in preventing recurrence. The vascularity of this flap is robust and highly reliable. Even after a maximum arc of rotation (up to 170°) all the flaps survived without any major complications.


Room temperature magnetic skyrmions in magnetic multilayers are considered as information carriers for future spintronic applications. Currently, a detailed understanding of the skyrmion stabilization mechanisms is still lacking in these systems. To gain more insight, it is first and foremost essential to determine the full real‐space spin configuration. Here, two advanced X‐ray techniques are applied, based on magnetic circular dichroism, to investigate the spin textures of skyrmions in [Ta/CoFeB/MgO]n multilayers. First, by using ptychography, a high‐resolution diffraction imaging technique, the 2D out‐of‐plane spin profile of skyrmions with a spatial resolution of 10 nm is determined. Second, by performing circular dichroism in resonant elastic X‐ray scattering, it is demonstrated that the chirality of the magnetic structure undergoes a depth‐dependent evolution. This suggests that the skyrmion structure is a complex 3D structure rather than an identical planar texture throughout the layer stack. The analyses of the spin textures confirm the theoretical predictions that the dipole–dipole interactions together with the external magnetic field play an important role in stabilizing sub‐100 nm diameter skyrmions and the hybrid structure of the skyrmion domain wall. This combined X‐ray‐based approach opens the door for in‐depth studies of magnetic skyrmion systems, which allows for precise engineering of optimized skyrmion heterostructures.


Background: In the skin, under influence of ultraviolet radiation, 7-dehydrocholesterol is photoconverted to provitamin D3, which is converted to Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). In the serum, bound to a Vitamin D binding protein (VDBP), Vitamin D3 is transported to the liver, where it is hydroxylated to 25(OH)D3. In the kidneys, 25(OH)D3 is further metabolized to 1α,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3 [1,25(OH)D3], the biologically active form of Vitamin D.Vitamin D (Cholecalciferol) is known to contribute to muscular function. Material and Methods: In this comparative study, Two groups were formed, First group as a case in which vitamin D was supplemented and second group as control in which Vitamin D was not supplemented, both the group had 25 number of post- menopausal women who had Vitamin D level between sufficient range (30-100ng/ml) and were treated with same mode of treatment (closed reduction and Percutaneous K-wire fixation) for Distal end radius fracture. Grip strength recovery (in %) was compared in both the group after a period of 6 months. Results: Final grip strength recovery of all patients came out to be 67%, out of which, in supplemented group it came out to be 73% while in non-supplemented group came out to be 60% with p value of statistically significance proving major difference in grip strength recovery in % at 6 months in both the groups. Conclusion: We concluded with our series that vitamin D supplementation significantly helps in improving the grip strength recovery in Post-menopausal women after a Distal End Radius fracture.


Male growing pigs were fed a diet containing 250 g/kg of native corn starch (CS; 26% amylose, 74% amylopectin) or 250 g/kg of raw potato starch (RPS), as examples of digestible starch and resistant starch (Type II), respectively. Whole-tract digestibilities of organic matter, crude protein and starch were greater in pigs fed CS than in those fed RPS through at least d 23 of the study. However, the values progressively increased in the RPS-fed pigs up to d 38, at which time the groups did not differ in organic matter and starch digestibility. The digestive tract and colonic digesta were heavier and colon length longer in pigs fed the RPS diet. Digestibility of starch in the ileum on d 38 was significantly lower in RPS-fed pigs, but rose from ileum to rectum; most starch was extensively fermented in the cecum and proximal colon. Purine base (PB) and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations in feces initially increased and then decreased beginning on d 4 for PB and on d 21 for SCFA. PB concentration in feces was greater in pigs fed RPS than in those fed CS. In the large bowel digesta, PB and SCFA concentrations increased from the ileum to the cecum and proximal colon and then fell in the distal colon. Pigs fed the RPS diet had a higher PB concentration in the middle colonic digesta and a greater SCFA concentration in the proximal colonic digesta than the CS-fed group. Adaptation of growing pigs to supplementary RPS required 5 wk, as reflected by whole-tract digestibility and PB and SCFA fecal excretion data.


Background & Aim: Recently, the current behavioral approach in nursing education has been critiqued by many nurse authors and leaders. One of the important reasons for this critique is that while caring is the core and the nature of nursing, teaching caring in nursing education has been overlooked. This article aims to propose an approach to integrating caring in nursing education curriculum through a comprehensive review of the related literature and exploration of the historical background of nursing education. Material & Methods : A comprehensive review of literature was performed in databases of IranMedex, Irandoc, PubMed, ScienceDirect, ERIC, ProQuest and Ovid by keywords of clinical scholar model, critical-explanatory model and ethical care in education during 1950- 2011. Results: The review indicated that the traditional and behavioral nature of nursing education has not been able to create caring behaviors in nursing students. The curriculum proposed by nursing scholars incorporates ethics of care in nursing education and changes the relationship between student and teacher while it improves innovation and caring elements. It also teaches students to see from others' perspective as a requirement for nurse-client relationship. Conclusion: Caring curriculum by challenging the behavioral approach to nursing education emphasizes on caring concept and its integration into nursing education, nursing service and nursing administration. y


This is the first book on the acquisition of Spanish that provides a state-of-the-art comprehensive overview of Spanish morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual situations. Its content is organized around key grammatical themes that form the empirical base of research in generative grammar: nominal and verbal inflectional morphology, subject and object pronouns, complex structures involving movement (topicalizations, questions, relative clauses), and aspects of verb meaning that have consequences for syntax. The book argues that Universal Grammar constrains all instances of language acquisition and that there is a fundamental continuity between monolingual, bilingual, child and adult early grammatical systems. While stressing their similarities with respect to linguistic representations and processes, the book also considers important differences between these three acquisition situations with respect to the outcome of acquisition. It is also shown that many linguistic properties of Spanish are acquired earlier than in English and other languages. This book is a must read for those interested in the acquisition of Spanish from different theoretical perspectives as well as those working on the acquisition of other languages in different contexts.


Background Proprioception (joint position sense (JPS), kinaesthesia, force sense (FS)) is of interest in knee injury prevention. Recent work reports existing knee proprioception tests are inadequate relative to gaining better understanding of knee functional joint stability and injury aetiology. Objective To determine critical psychometric properties of a new knee extension FS test in uninjured, adult, male football players. Hypotheses: 1. the test would demonstrate good reliability; 2. there would be no between-limb significant differences. Design Between-day (D1/D2) repeated measures. Setting University sensorimotor control laboratory. Participants Twelve university team players (age (mean±SD) 21.1±1.5 years; height 177.5±9.3 cm; mass 77.1±15.4 kg) participated. Interventions Players were seated on an isokinetic dynamometer set to isometric mode, the knee flexed 45°. A knee extension target trial-reproduction trial sequence was repeated five times, FS measured in Newtons (N), between-trial differences designated absolute error (AE), average AE used for analyses. Limb order was randomized for D1 and repeated D2. Main Outcome Measures Systematic error (paired t-test; Cohen's d (d)); relative reliability (ICC 2,k); absolute reliability (standard error of measurement (SEM)); measurement change needed to detect true physiological differences (minimal detectable difference (MDD)); between-limb differences (D2 values; paired t-test). Results There were no significant differences between D1 and D2 values for either limb (P>0.90; d<0.03). The ICC (2,k), SEM and MDD were: right=0.81, 3.3N, 9.1N; left=0.78, 3.8N and 10.4N. There were no significant between-limb differences (P=0.75). Conclusions There was no systematic error. The FS test demonstrated good reliability. The measurement error and change needed to detect true physiological change were established. There were no between-limb differences. The knee extension FS test offers a new knee proprioception test that can be used in studies of knee functional joint stability and injury aetiology in adult male football players.


This thesis describes the physical chemistry of softwood kraft lignin in aqueous alkaline solutions. Both fundamental and applicational aspects are discussed. Kraft lignin originates either from pulp fibres or from black liquor produced by kraft cooking. In wood, the lignin is an anionic macromolecular colloid of relatively high molecular mass that is gradually depolymerised under the kraft cook. From UV-spectrophotometric measurements, the dissociation of phenolic functional groups was shown to decrease by increasingly higher temperatures. By theoretical considerations, applying the Poisson-Boltzmann cell model, it was shown that high molecular weight macromolecules attribute higher apparent pKa values due to an increased electrostatic attraction of hydrogen ions. From 1H PFG NMR self-diffusion measurements, it was further seen that high molecular weight kraft lignin also expresses lower colloidal stability than low molecular weight fragments. Coagulation caused by kraft lignin self-aggregation could be qualitatively described by the DLVO-theory. It was also shown that the solution conditions at the end of conventional kraft cooking are dangerously close to the stability threshold of high molecular weight kraft lignin. In the kraft process this could be detrimental for the rate of delignification. The kinetics of kraft lignin self-aggregation, determined by light scattering, was shown to be universal and followed reaction-limited cluster-colloid aggregation (RLCA) or diffusion-limited cluster-colloid aggregation (DLCA), depending on the solution conditions. The structures of the formed aggregates, found to be cluster like and to attribute fractality, were shown by cryo-TEM analysis. Fractal dimensions in the range of df = 1.9 – 2.5, were determined for the aggregates. Anions belonging to the Hofmeister series were shown to affect the stability of kraft lignin solutions very differently. Anionic surfactant – kraft lignin interactions were also studied. Among the tested surfactants, the group of bile acid salts was found especially efficient in stabilising kraft lignin solutions also at elevated temperatures. Furthermore, even after that self-aggregation had occurred, the aggregates could be re-dissolved by additions of sodium taurodeoxycholate. (Less)


Following the Canadian government's adoption of the multicultural policy in 1971, the means of achieving the ideal that it established soon emerged as a most perplexing concern. The federal government had acted without a detailed plan, having been prompted either by outright political motives, or by prevailing liberal thought, or by truly humanistic sensibilities or some combination of all three, depending upon which commentator one wishes to believe. Rhetoric prescribed the goal and the legislation empowered some of the means, yet there were no blueprints, no precedents to consider and no exemplars against which to measure results. Even advisory groups did not exist for some years (the Ontario Multicultural Advisory Council, for instance, came into being only in 1979). It would appear that the people's representatives were operating on the premises that multiculturalism was a good idea, that Canadians were good people, that they would make a good thing happen. For many, though, the question remained, how? One of the means employed -- and the one I wish to explore in the following essay -- was the enlistment of children's literature. My reason for focusing on this area derives not only from the fact that children's culture is a virtually unexplored topic in general theorizing about multiculturalism but also from the way that an appreciation of how children's literature functions to colonize and politicize "minors" can shed considerable light on the dynamics that inform the treatment of other "minorities." In focusing on Canadian children's literature, moreover, and especially by tracing its evolution since the official implementation of multiculturalism, one can see the way that literature functions as a cultural product that both reflects and shapes the culture of those who live it -- and the way that "consumers" or beneficiaries can in turn play a role in the production of culture and its literary artifacts. Like any other religious, ethnic, regional, linguistic or otherwise identifiable group, children can be seen to share some artifacts, traditions, beliefs, behaviors and the like that effectively constitute a culture -- distinctive though neither entirely isolable nor independent from the larger culture within which it exists. As folklorist Sylvia Grider puts it: children are separated from the larger society by their age and general ignorance of adult traditions. In order to become fully functioning, competent adults they must learn these traditions; or, as we say, they must become enculturated. But before and during the enculturation process, children have more in common with each other than they do with the adults who control them. The response to their shared traditions bonds them together as a significant folk group within the larger society. (12) Children's culture thus refers to the dynamic matrix of processes and products that to varying degrees young people experience and share simply by virtue of their being children. This culture comprises three aspects: 1) tangible and intangible artifacts and activities specifically produced for or considered appropriate to children by the surrounding adult world; 2) ideas about children and childhood, particularly as they define child-rearing practices as well as the roles, behaviors and cultural expectations for young people; and 3) children's own culture, being the "secret" or "subversive" world of children (see discussions by Opie & Opie; Knapp & Knapp; McDonnell). The first two aspects constitute a culture of childhood, as distinct from culture produced and/or adapted, manipulated and transmitted by children. Children's literature comprises part of any literate society's culture of childhood -- the only culture many adults view children as having. Since this literature is primarily produced and bought by adults, the way it interfaces with children's own culture will always be problematic, especially when it is intentionally directed at achieving particular ends. …


Thixoforming offers the possibility of forming complex aluminum parts with a superior quality and a reduction of processing steps. The production of a fine, equiaxed, globular microstructure is essential for thixoforming. Strain Induced Melt Activation (SIMA) and the Cooling Slope (CS) casting processes were employed to produce AA6082 thixotropic feedstock in the present work.. SIMA process produces such a microstructure through recrystallization of heavily deformed billets and a subsequent heat treatment in the mushy zone. Molten metal with a suitable superheat is cast over a water-cooled, inclined metal plate into a permanent mould to produce the thixotropic billet in the CS casting route. The effect of cold work and heating temperature and time were investigated for the SIMA process where as the effect of CS length, casting temperature on the final microstructures were investigated for a fixed set of heating conditions in the CS casting route.


The rat acute oral LD50 value of PSCl3 is 750 mg per kg body weight. A rat 90-day oral feeding study at dose levels of 7.5 mg (P1) and 37.5 mg (P5) per kg resulted in increased body weight gain. Other responses inconsistently varied between dose levels. At 7.5 mg kg-1, a trend towards enhancement of relative weight of liver, spleen, kidney and adrenals was noted; at 37.5 mg kg-1, decreasing relative spleen and adrenal weights were observed. The most of the hematological and biochemical changes in blood serum cannot be believed to be transitory adaptive changes, but valid toxic effects. On the other hand, there are some indicators that suggest a possible trophic effect of this compound. However, the reversible dystrophic changes in liver, as well as the histochemical and histoenzymical results, require us to take into account that inactive chronic hepatitis could be reactivated by further toxic insult. A teratology study demonstrated increased number, body weight and length of fetuses, without apparent pathological events (tumors, external malformations). A mutagenicity test performed on rat femoral bone marrow after 30-days feeding of 37.5 mg kg-1 did not indicate any significant change in the incidence of chromosomal aberrations, compared with the control group. The recommended maximum allowable concentration in the working zone for thiophosphoryl chloride in air was set at 3 mg m-3.


Psychophysical and physiological evidence shows that sound localization of acoustic signals is strongly influenced by their synchrony with visual signals. This effect, known as ventriloquism, is at work when sound coming from the side of a TV set feels as if it were coming from the mouth of the actors. The ventriloquism effect suggests that there is important information about sound location encoded in the synchrony between the audio and video signals. In spite of this evidence, audiovisual synchrony is rarely used as a source of information in computer vision tasks. In this paper we explore the use of audio visual synchrony to locate sound sources. We developed a system that searches for regions of the visual landscape that correlate highly with the acoustic signals and tags them as likely to contain an acoustic source. We discuss our experience implementing the system, present results on a speaker localization task and discuss potential applications of the approach.


Obesity and its associated complications have reached epidemic proportions in Western-type societies. Concomitantly, the obesity incidence in developing countries is increasing. One hallmark of obesity is the differentiation of pre-adipocytes into mature triglyceride-loaded adipocytes present in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue depots. This may ultimately lead to dysfunctional adipose tissue together with detrimental changes in the profiles of (pre-)adipocyte-secreted proteins, known as adipokines. Obesity-induced alterations in adipokine profiles contribute to the development of obesity-associated disorders. Consequently, the interest in the molecular events responsible for adipose tissue modifications during weight gain and weight loss as well as in the aetiology of obesity-associated disorders is growing. Molecular mechanisms involved in pre-adipocyte differentiation and alterations in adipokine profiles have been examined at the gene and protein level by high-throughput technologies. Independent proteomics studies have contributed significantly to further insight into adipocyte biology, particularly with respect to adipokine profiling. In this review novel findings obtained with adipo-proteomics studies are highlighted and the relevance of proteomics technologies to further understand molecular aspects of adipocyte biology is discussed.


Abstract The complete integral solution is found for the convectively unstable and oscillatory-forced linear Klein–Gordon equation as a function of spatial variable, $x$, and time, $t$. A comparison of the integral solution with series solutions of the Klein–Gordon equation elucidates salient features of both the transient and long-time spatially growing solutions. A rigorous method is developed for identifying the key $x/ t$ rays associated with saddle points that can be used to characterize the transition between transient temporally growing and long-term spatially growing waves. This method effectively combines the procedure given by Gordillo & Pérez-Saborid (Phys. Fluids, vol. 14, 2002, pp. 4329–4343) for determining the $x/ t$ ray at which the forced spatial growth response affects the observed waveform and competes with the transient response, with an established methodology for identifying the leading and trailing edge rays of an impulse response. The method is applied to a linearized system describing an oscillatory-forced liquid sheet and asymptotic predictions are obtained. Series solutions are used to validate these predictions. We establish that the portion of the solution responsible for spatial growth in the signalling problem is correctly identified by Gordillo & Pérez-Saborid (Phys. Fluids, vol. 14, 2002, pp. 4329–4343), and that this interpretation is in contrast with the classical literature. The approach provided here can be applied in multiple ways to study a convectively unstable oscillatory-forced medium. In cases where numerical or series solutions are readily available, the proposed method is used to extract key features of the solution. In cases where only the forced long time behaviour is needed, the dispersion relation is used to extract: (i) the time required to see the forced solution; (ii) the amplitude, phase and spatial growth of the forced solution; and (iii) the breadth of the transient.


Trifala is one of the most popular herbal formulations, marketed either as powder or a tablet and is used in all parts of India. It is an effective laxative, antioxidant, anticancer and antidiabetic agent, and is used to refresh the eyes. In order to understand the therapeutic uses of trifala, the powder and tablet forms from Zandu Pharmaceuticals, Mumbai, were analyzed for six minor (Na, K, Mg, Ca, Cl and P) and 23 trace (AI, Ba, Br, Cd, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Fe, Eu, Hf, Hg, La, Mn, Ni, P, Pb, Rb, Sb, Se, Th, V and Zn) elements. The elements were determined by employing instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). A comparison of the elemental contents in the powder and tablets showed wide variations. The powder was rich in Cr, Fe, Se and Zn, whereas the tablet contained a four-fold higher Mn compared to the powder. Column and thin layer chromatography (TLC) in ethyl acetate/methanol (7:3) were used for the separation of gallic acid in ethanolic extract. It was further confirmed by elemental analysis and spectral methods and quantitatively estimated to the extent of −2%. Thermogravimetric decomposition studies show a three stage process, first a slow process with −20% wt loss at temperatures up to 200°C followed by a fast process losing another 30-35% wt at ∼300°C for both the powder and tablets. At 700°C metal oxide residue of 7.5 and −16% were left for powder and tablets, respectively.


In-migration embodies the liberal-democratic paradox: the tension between the right of an individual and the collective will of a polity. This is well illustrated by escalating conflicts over admission of the "special category" of international migrants: refugees. Taking Japan as a notoriously difficult case, this paper analyzes recent developments in Japan's embattled refugee policy and argues that grassroots efforts by civil society provide a way to move beyond the current gridlock of the state-centric paradigm of refugee admission. Specifically, empirical evidence available to date suggests that private refugee sponsorship that enables individuals and community organizations to voluntarily sponsor the resettlement of UN-recognized refugees offers a viable policy instrument in Japan's context. While retaining the democratic communitarian outlook on admission of foreigners, the model injects liberal universalist qualities into immigration policy that are capable of motivating positive change domestically and, potentially, across East Asia at large.


Comprehensive biological characteristics of pulmonary adenocarcinomas with signet ring cell features (SRC+) are not well known. Herein, we systematically evaluated clinical and molecular features of SRC+ cases with particular attention to smoking status. Surgically treated lung adenocarcinomas (n=763) with follow-up ≥5 years in 3 cohorts were reviewed: all patients in 2006 to 2007 ("all-comers," n=222; 168 ever-smokers), a never-smoker cohort (n=266), and a cohort of ever-smokers (n=275). SRC+ tumors had ≥10% of SRCs agreed by 2 pathologists. SRC+ cases were tested for rearrangement of ALK and ROS1, as well as 187 known mutations in 10 oncogenes including EGFR, KRAS, BRAF, ERBB2, JAK2, AKT1, AKT2, KIT, MET, and PIK3CA. Overall, 53 of 763 cases (7%) were SRC+. In the 2006 to 2007 "all comer" cohort, 9% were SRC+. In the never-smoker cohort, 9% were SRC+. In the smoker cohort, 3% were SRC+. Univariable analysis showed that SRC+ never-smokers had shorter overall and disease-free survival (P=0.006 and 0.0004, respectively), but the significance faded in the multivariable analysis. For the other 2 cohorts, crude 5-year survival was decreased by 6% to 27% in SRC+ cases without reaching statistical significance. In SRC+ tumors, KRAS mutation was most common (29%), followed by ALK (26%), EGFR (18%), ROS1 (6%), BRAF (6%), and PIK3CA (3%). In summary, SRC+ tumors in never-smokers had a worse survival by univariable analysis only. SRC+ cases seemed enriched for ALK+ and ROS1+, and other mutations were generally in keeping with the patient's smoking status.


: Biosimilar insulins, also known as follow-on biologics, are modifications of an originator insulin that are intended to be clinically equivalent to the licensed product. For injectable insulins, or other peptides used in the management of diabetes, regular use of an insulin pen injector or other device to administer therapy is part of the patient's self-management regimen. By definition, the biosimilar product should have comparable pharmacokinetic and pharmacody-namic properties to the reference product. However, the device is the initial interaction for the patient rather than the product contained within. We consider the regulatory aspects of insulin device development. The options for manufacturers bringing a biosimilar insulin to market, including whether to outsource development of delivery devices, are explored. The structure of a device development program is outlined and issues of accuracy, safety, ease of use, and attractiveness of modern insulin delivery devices are discussed.


With respect to the new Common Market Organisation (CMO) for fruit and vegetables, the present paper focuses on societal developments that influence the demand for fruits and vegetables, provides some basic information on fruit and vegetable production in Austria and, finally, describes the roles of Producer Organisations (PO) and retailers in Austria. The study is based on a literature review as well as on interviews with representatives of the POs. The results reveal that six Austrian POs face an increasing concentration process in the Austrian retail industry, which is important since roughly 90% of all fruits and vegetables are distributed in retail and discount outlets. Furthermore, during the last ten years the overall consumption of fruits and vegetables per capita has increased to 94 kg and 106 kg, respectively, whereas regional and organic produce have gained increasing importance.


LONGDOM proffers our immense pleasure and honour in extending you a warm invitation to attend World NO Diabetes and Obesity Congress on March 23-24, 2020 in London, UK . It is focusing on 'Commitment to Excellence in the Field of Diabetes and Obesity' to enhance and explore knowledge among the Medical community and to establish corporations and exchanging ideas. Providing the right stage to present stimulating Keynote talks, Plenary sessions, Discussion Panels, B2B Meetings, Poster symposia, Video Presentations and Workshops.


In this paper, we present an exact analytical expression to evaluate the higher order statistics of the channel capacity for amplify and forward (AF) multihop transmission systems operating over Rayleigh fading channels. Furthermore, we present simple and efficient closed-form expression to the higher order moments of the channel capacity of dual hop transmission system with Rayleigh fading channels. In order to analyze the behavior of the higher order capacity statistics and investigate the usefulness of the mathematical analysis, some selected numerical and simulation results are presented. Our results are found to be in perfect agreement.


The amount of information raises billions of databases every year and there is an urgent need to search for that information by a specialize tool called search engine. There are many of search engines available today, but the main challenge in these search engines is that most of them cannot retrieve meaningful information intelligently. The semantic web technology is a solution that keeps data in a readable format that helps machines to match smartly this data with related information based on meanings. In this paper, we will introduce a proposed semantic framework that includes four phases crawling, indexing, ranking and retrieval phase. This semantic framework operates over a sorting RDF by using efficient proposed ranking algorithm and enhanced crawling algorithm. The enhanced crawling algorithm crawls relevant forum content from the web with minimal overhead. The proposed ranking algorithm is produced to order and evaluate similar meaningful data in order to make the retrieval process becomes faster, easier and more accurate. We applied our work on a standard database and achieved 99 percent effectiveness on semantic performance in minimum time and less than 1 percent error rate compared with the other semantic systems.


The past decade has been particularly difficult for the tourism industry worldwide, and in Asia/Australasia in particular, as crises have followed in rapid succession, starting with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Severe flooding in Central Queensland in early 2011, was followed soon after by Cyclone Yasi, again revealing the vulnerability of communities to the forces of nature. The tourism industry, due to the discretionary nature of the consumption activity, is particularly vulnerable to crises and the fragmented nature of the industry can make it difficult to prepare for and quickly respond to crises. This paper investigates the impacts of the 2011 flooding and Cyclone Yasi on Central Queensland tourism operators and the degree of implementation and effectiveness of the Tourism Queensland Crisis Management Plan Template to prepare regional tourism organisations and businesses for crises such as these. This research has found that whilst only a small number of Central Queensland tourism operators were directly affected by Cyclone Yasi and the flooding, the impacts and outcomes appear very similar for both those directly and indirectly affected: (i) loss of business revenue, downsizing the operation due to the decrease in the number of tourists; (ii) medium term impacts due to ongoing negative media coverage; and (iii)lack of compensation from insurance companies and the Queensland Government. All these have led to a very slow recovery for the tourism industry within Central Queensland.


IntroductionIdentifying strategies to prevent hospital readmissions remains elusive since the reasons for returning to hospital can include a number of interlinked patient, health provider and system level factors. The impact of patient medications are of significant interest since a large proportion of re-admissions are related to adverse drug events.
Objectives and ApproachThe objective was to determine which factors are associated with non-adherence to in-hospital medications and the impact of non-adherence on re-hospitalization, emergency department visits and death in the 30-days post discharge for patients admitted at two tertiary care academic hospitals in Montreal, Quebec between October 2014 and May 2016. Non-adherence to in-hospital changes was measured by comparing patient discharge prescriptions (patient chart) to medications filled in community 30-days post-discharge (dispensing data) and included i) community medications stopped in-hospital and filled post-discharge, ii) community medications modified in-hospital but not filled at the modified daily-dose, and iii) new medications not filled post-discharge.
ResultsAmong 2,895 included patients, mean age was 70 (SD 15) and 58% were males. A median of 4 in-hospital medication changes were made (IQR:3-6) and 54% of patients were non-adherent to at least one change. Multivariable Poisson models suggested that the most important factor associated with the number of new medications not filled post discharge was out of pocket cost; for each additional $10 increase in costs there was a 20% increase in the number of new medications not filled. Multivariable time-varying Cox models suggested that in patients who filled medications post-discharge, selective non-adherence to new and discontinued medications reduced the risk adverse health outcomes in 30-days, while not filling any medications post discharge more than doubled the risk of an adverse event in 30-days.
Conclusion/ImplicationsNot only did the majority of patients not follow all medication changes that were made during hospitalization, the extent to which this occurred significantly impacted the risk of hospital re-admissions and ED visits. Policy and patient level interventions should be developed specifically targeting barriers for adherence to medication changes.


A number of studies, internationally, have established a relationship between family structures and environment with juvenile delinquency (Harper and McLanahan, 1998; Larson, Swyers and Larson, 1995; Anderson, 2002). Not many studies have been conducted in Malaysia to link juvenile delinquency with the context of juveniles' families, especially of their parents or people assuming the role of their parents. This paper is an early attempt at understanding the experiences of juveniles with their parents in order to explore the relationship between their experiences and their involvement in crime or juvenile behaviour. For this purpose, a qualitative research approach was adopted by conducting in-depth interviews with seven (7) male juvenile offenders from a rehabilitation centre in Penang and five (5) female juvenile offenders from a rehabilitation centre in Kedah, Malaysia. The interviews provide an insight into the male and female juveniles' personal feelings about their experiences and relationships with their parents or persons whom they identify as people have parental guardianship over them. The study finds that adolescents who are involved in delinquencies expressed much unhappiness with their parents due to reasons such as their parents having divorced, not receiving love from their parents, feeling uncared by their parents and families, having strained relationships with their family and experiencing violence from their parents and/ or family. The narratives of the juveniles are hoped to be able to inform us about specific areas to explore further in understanding the criming and delinquent behaviour of juveniles.


The Visual Paired Comparison task (VPC) is an established methodology for measuring
infant recognition memory. The standard index ofmemory in this task is the novelty
preference - longer looking at a new stimulus. However, a growing number ofstudies
report a preference for the familiar stimulus. This thesis explores the parameters within
which the VPC task produces a novelty preference, examining the variables of
movement, interaction and emotion at learning.
In Experiment I, infants were habituated to a moving, colourful puppet held by an
experimenter. Six-, 9- and l2-month-olds demonstrated an attenuated novelty
preference; 18 and 24 months demonstrated a familiarity preference. Removing the
human experimenter from view attenuated the novelty preference at 6-, 12- and 18 months
when the habituation was live, and attenuated the novelty preference at 6- and 18 months
when the habituation was on pre-recorded video.
In experiments 2-4, adults exhibited a novelty preference in the traditional VPC
procedure and an attenuated novelty preference when there was social interaction with
the stimulus. A static habituation face displaying emotion attenuated the novelty
preference; a neutral habituation face and emotion displaying test stimulus resulted in a
novelty preference.
Experiment 6 introduced the importance ofaccounting for cortisol levels in infant
memory research. The relationship between cortisol, emotion and memory was
examined, with emphasis on the regulatory role of the amygdala in the developing
memory system.


Objective – At the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), researchers compared how well the library collections supported doctoral research in the three related disciplines of education, psychology, and social welfare. The goal of this project was to gather empirical data to answer questions about materials cited in dissertations, including ownership, age of materials and disciplinary usage.

Methods – Researchers analyzed the bibliographies of doctoral dissertations from three academic departments at UCB: education (2009-2010), psychology (2009-2010), and social welfare (2009-2011). The sampling methodology used a systematic sample with a random start. To achieve a 95% (+/-4%) confidence interval, the sample included a total of 3,372 citations from 107 dissertations. Researchers consulted with a statistician to determine the statistical significance of the results. The test for the age of citation used a signed ranks test, which is typical for ordinal data or skewed interval data. The test for ownership was a chi-square test, which is typical for nominal data or dichotomous data.

Results – Researchers determined that a very high percentage of the cited journals were owned or licensed by the Library. The ownership rate for cited journals was 97% for both education and social welfare, and 99% for psychology. There was a statistically significant difference between the three disciplines, with psychology better supported than either education (p=.02) or social welfare (p=.01). However, since ownership rates for journals in all three disciplines were extremely high, this was not a meaningful difference. For books, the researchers found a significantly smaller percentage of books owned in social welfare compared to either education (p=.00) or psychology (p=.00). We found no significant difference between the percentages of books owned in psychology versus education (p=.27). Psychology students cited the highest percentage of journals while education students cited the highest percentage of books. Psychology students cited almost no free web resources, but education and social welfare students did cite free web resources (primarily government documents, working papers, or non-governmental organization reports). All three disciplines cited older material than anticipated.

Conclusions – The citation analysis, while time-consuming, provided new and important information about the use of the Library's collections and the level of support the collections afford doctoral students in the three related disciplines of education, psychology and social welfare. This data has informed collections-related decisions including format purchases and fund allocations.


Modal estimation of wave-front phase from phase derivatives is discussed. It is shown that it is desirable to minimize the number of modes estimated and the number of measurements used to maintain the quality of the estimates of low-order modes. It is also shown that mode cross coupling occurs when one tries to estimate modes higher than astigmatism.


This paper provides an in-depth case study of the ink-jet printing (IJP) technology that emerged from the ceramic industry in a Spanish region (Castellon) in the first decade of 2000. We propose an analytical framework that combines the theoretical perspectives of Industrial Districts and Innovation Systems, and exploit a qualitative methodology that includes information from patent and scientific article databases and 21 in-depth interviews. Our results show that IJP is a major innovation that breaks with the tradition of machinery innovations in this industry in Spain. Micro-level evidences show the complex external and internal relationships in the sharing of knowledge and innovation process, being the role of internal ties, trust, secrecy and strong in-house R&D strategies determinants of the IJP innovation.


OBJECTIVE
Efficient, effective health care requires rapid availability of patient information. We designed, implemented, and assessed the impact of a primary care electronic medical record (EMR) in three rural Kenyan health centers.

METHOD
Local clinicians identified data required for primary care and public health reporting. We designed paper encounter forms to capture these data in adult medicine, pediatric, and antenatal clinics. Encounter form data were hand-entered into a new primary care module in an existing EMR serving onsite clinics serving patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Before subsequent visits, Summary Reports were printed containing selected patient data with reminders for needed HIV care. We assessed effects on patient flow and provider work with time-motion studies before implementation and two years later, and we surveyed providers' satisfaction with the EMR.

RESULTS
Between September 2008 and December 2011, 72 635 primary care patients were registered and 114 480 encounter forms were completed. During 2011, 32 193 unique patients visited primary care clinics, and encounter forms were completed for all visits. Of 1031 (3.2%) who were HIV-infected, 85% received HIV care. Patient clinic time increased from 37 to 81 min/visit after EMR implementation in one health center and 56 to 106 min/visit in the other. However, outpatient visits to both health centers increased by 85%. Three-quarters of increased time was spent waiting. Despite nearly doubling visits, there was no change in clinical officers' work patterns, but the nurses' and the clerks' patient care time decreased after EMR implementation. Providers were generally satisfied with the EMR but desired additional training.

CONCLUSIONS
We successfully implemented a primary care EMR in three rural Kenyan health centers. Patient waiting time was dramatically lengthened while the nurses' and the clerks' patient care time decreased. Long-term use of EMRs in such settings will require changes in culture and workflow.


Exhaustively listing the software and hardware components of an information system is non-trivial. This makes it even harder to analyze the risk created by a vulnerability disclosure in the context of a specific information system. Instead of basing the risk analysis of a newly disclosed vulnerability on a possibly obsolete list of components, we focus on the security team members tasked with protecting the information system, by studying how Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and their subordinates actually react to vulnerability disclosures. We propose to use active learning to extract the conscious and unconscious knowledge of an information system's security team in order to automate the risk analysis of a newly disclosed vulnerability for a specific information system to be defended.


A program devoted to perform the first in-vivo monochromatic breast computed tomography (BCT) is ongoing at the Elettra Synchrotron Facility. Since the synchrotron radiation provides high energy resolution and spatial coherence, phase-contrast (PhC) imaging techniques can be used. The latest high resolution BCT acquisitions of breast specimens, obtained with the propagation-based PhC approach, are herein presented as part of a wider framework, devoted to the optimization of acquisition and reconstruction parameters towards the clinical exam. Images are acquired with a state-of-the-art dead-time-free single-photon-counting CdTe detector with a 60 µm pixel size. The samples are imaged at 32 and 38 keV in continuous rotating mode, delivering 5-20 mGy of mean glandular dose (MGD). Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and spatial resolution performances are evaluated for both absorption and phase-retrieved images considering tumor/adipose tissue interfaces. We discuss two different phase-retrieval approaches, showing that a remarkable CNR increase (from 0.5 to 3.6) can be obtained without a significant loss in spatial resolution. It is shown that, even if the non-phase-retrieved image has a poorer CNR, it is useful for evaluating the spiculation of a microcalcification: in this context, absorption and phase-retrieved images have to be regarded as complementary information. Furthermore, the first full volume acquisition of a mastectomy, with a 9 cm diameter and 3 cm height, is reported. This investigation on surgical specimens indicates that monochromatic BCT with synchrotron radiation in terms of CNR, spatial resolution, scan duration and scan volume is feasible.


We study the motion of a polar tracer, having a concave surface, immersed in a two-dimensional suspension of active particles. Using Brownian dynamics simulations, we measure the distributions and auto-correlation functions of force and torque exerted by active particles on the tracer. The tracer experiences a finite average force along its polar axis, while all the correlation functions show exponential decay in time. Using these insights we construct the full coarse-grained Langevin description for tracer position and orientation, where the active particles are subsumed into an effective self-propulsion force and exponentially correlated noise for both translations and rotations. The ensuing mesoscopic dynamics can be described in terms of five dimensionless parameters. We perform a thorough parameter study of the mean squared displacement, which illustrates how the different parameters influence the tracer dynamics, which crosses over from a ballistic to diffusive motion. We also demonstrate that the distribution of tracer displacements evolves from a non-Gaussian shape at early stages to a Gaussian behavior for sufficiently long times. Finally, for a given set of microscopic parameters, we establish a procedure to estimate the matching parameters of our effective model, and show that the resulting dynamics is in a very good quantitative agreement with the one obtained in Brownian dynamics simulations.


This dissertation explores the topics of parameter estimation and model reduction in the context of quantum filtering. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a review of classical and quantum probability theory, stochastic calculus and filtering. Chapter 4 studies the problem of quantum parameter estimation and introduces the quantum particle filter as a practical computational method for parameter estimation via continuous measurement. Chapter 5 applies these techniques in magnetometry and studies the estimator's uncertainty scalings in a double-pass atomic magnetometer. Chapter 6 presents an efficient feedback controller for continuous-time quantum error correction. Chapter 7 presents an exact model of symmetric processes of collective qubit systems.


BACKGROUND
The wearable artificial kidney (WAK) has been a holy grail in kidney failure for decades. Described herein are the breakthroughs that made possible the creation of the WAK V1.0 and its advanced versions V 1.1 and 1.2.

DESIGN
The battery-powered WAK pump has a double channel pulsatile counter phase flow. This study clarifies the role of pulsatile blood and dialysate flow, a high-flux membrane with a larger surface area, and the optimization of the dialysate pH. Flows and clearances from the WAK pump were compared with conventional pumps and with gravity steady flow.

RESULTS
Raising dialysate pH to 7.4 increased adsorption of ammonia. Clearances were higher with pulsatile flow as compared with steady flow. The light WAK pump, geometrically suitable for wearability, delivered the same clearances as larger and heavier pumps that cannot be battery operated. Beta(2) microglobulin (beta(2)M) was removed from human blood in vitro. Activated charcoal adsorbed most beta(2)M in the dialysate. The WAK V1.0 delivered an effective creatinine clearance of 18.5 +/- 3.2 ml/min and the WAK V1.1 27.0 +/- 4.0 ml/min in uremic pigs.

CONCLUSIONS
Half-cycle differences between blood and dialysate, alternating transmembrane pressures (TMP), higher amplitude pulsations, and a push-pull flow increased convective transport. This creates a yet undescribed type of hemodiafiltration. Further improvements were achieved with a larger surface area high-flux dialyzer and a higher dialysate pH. The data suggest that the WAK might be an efficient way of providing daily dialysis and optimizing end stage renal disease (ESRD) treatment.


The recent development of high-quality colour Doppler instruments allows flow detection in small vessels below the resolution of B-mode imaging. Therefore, Doppler is now frequently used for flow detection in tumours. For breast examinations, CW Doppler has been in use for many years, which allows a sufficient definition of diagnostic criteria. Nevertheless, it is surprising that new studies using colour Doppler try to define different diagnostic criteria. To characterise the vascularity of breast lesions by colour Doppler we investigated 127 symptomatic patients. In 54 carcinomas the average flow velocity was 32 cm/s and 12.6 cm/s in 73 benign conditions (p > 0.0001). Total tumour vascularisation was characterised by a new parameter: the sum of all flow velocities in all tumour vessels. In carcinomas the mean total flow as 197.9 cm/s, and 52.7 cm/s in benign pathologies (p > 0.0001). Mean RI (resistance index) and PI (pulsatility index) were calculated to describe the flow profiles. The wide variation did not allow for a differentiation between benign and malignant lesions.


A density-functional theory is established for inhomogeneous superfluids at finite temperature, subject to time-dependent external fields in isothermal conditions. After outlining parallelisms between a neutral superfluid and a charged superconductor, Hohenberg-Kohn-Sham-type theorems are proved for gauge-invariant densities and a set of Bogolubov-Popov equations including exchange and correlation is set up. Earlier results applying in the linear-response regime are recovered.


OBJECTIVES
We describe results from year 1 of a surveillance system to monitor body mass index in children at the state level.

METHODS
A sample of 6630 children attending Texas public schools, weighted to represent 4th, 8th, and 11th grades within race/ethnic subpopulations, was assessed. Body mass index was calculated from measured height and weight; demographic information was obtained from a questionnaire.

RESULTS
Prevalence of overweight was 22.4%, 19.2%, and 15.5% for 4th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade students, respectively. Overweight prevalence was highest among Hispanic boys (29.5%-32.6%), fourth-grade Hispanic girls (26.7%), and fourth- and eighth-grade African American girls (30.8% and 23.1%, respectively). Eleventh-grade White/other girls had the lowest prevalence of overweight (5.5%).

CONCLUSIONS
These data confirm the increasing prevalence of overweight among US children, especially among Hispanic and African American students compared to White/other students and fourth-grade students relative to 8th- and 11th-grade students.


The purpose of this research is to examine the level of organizational flexibility in Turkish universities. The institutional evaluation reports of the European University Association (EUA) related to Turkish universities were used as the data sources. The EUA's reports of 14 universities were selected by taking the locations and dates of their reports into consideration. The research was then designed in a case study pattern, as a qualitative inquiry. During the analysis of the EUA's reports, descriptive thematic analysis was carried out. According to the findings, it can be said that the general level of organizational flexibility in Turkish public universities is not high, as in their institutional autonomy level calculated by the EUA. It seems that financial autonomy initiates the formation of strategy flexibility in universities, and conformable rules and regulations of national higher education provide room to universities for precept and managerial flexibility. The stronger organizational flexibility will then provide a greater university autonomy in terms of financial, managerial, employment, and academic autonomy. Based on these results, several recommendations are proposed to higher education policy makers, as well as to university managers in Turkey.


Studies on the adsorption of three acidic and three basic drugs on wheat bran and rice bran have been reported. Rice bran was found to be a better adsorbent than wheat bran. Basic drugs were adsorbed to a much larger extent compare to acidic drugs. Amongst acidic drugs adsorption of paracetamol was highest. Amongst basic drugs adsorption of promethazine was lowest. Data obeyed Freundlich adsorption isotherm. Acid/base treatment increased the adsorption capacity of bran but the increase was more for wheat bran than rice bran. The possible application of adsorption data in pharmacy has been explored. For the basic antipsychotic drugs, rice bran was found to be a good adsorbent and thus can be effectively used as a safe antidote with no side effects.


Gene therapy is an active research area in The Netherlands and Dutch scientists involved in fundamental and clinical gene therapy research significantly contribute to the progresses made in this field. This ranges from the establishment of the 293, 911 and PER.C6 cell lines, which are used worldwide for the production of replication‐defective adenoviral vectors, to the development of targeted viral vectors and T lymphocytes as well as of non‐viral vectors. Several milestones have been achieved in Dutch clinical gene therapy trials, including the first treatment worldwide of patients with adenosine deaminase deficiency with genetically corrected hematopoietic stem cells in collaboration with French and British scientists. Until now, about 230 patients with various diseases have been treated with viral and non‐viral gene therapy in this country. Ongoing and upcoming Dutch clinical trials focus on the translation of new developments in gene therapy research, including the restoration of genetic defects other than SCID, and the use of oncolytic adenoviruses and targeted T cells for the treatment of cancer. The growing commercial interest in Dutch clinical gene therapy is reflected by the involvement of two Dutch companies in ongoing trials as well as the participation of Dutch clinical centres in large phase III international multicenter immuno‐gene therapy trials on prostate cancer sponsored by an American company. Translational gene therapy research in The Netherlands is boosted at a governmental level by the Dutch Ministry of Health via a dedicated funding programme. This paper presents an overview on milestones in Dutch basic gene therapy research as well as on past, present and future clinical gene therapy trials in The Netherlands. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria have emerged as a serious threat to human and animal health. Bdellovibrio spp. and Micavibrio spp. are Gram-negative bacteria that prey on other Gram-negative bacteria. In this study, the ability of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus and Micavibrio aeruginosavorus to prey on MDR Gram-negative clinical strains was examined. Although the potential use of predatory bacteria to attack MDR pathogens has been suggested, the data supporting these claims is lacking. By conducting predation experiments we have established that predatory bacteria have the capacity to attack clinical strains of a variety of ß-lactamase-producing, MDR Gram-negative bacteria. Our observations indicate that predatory bacteria maintained their ability to prey on MDR bacteria regardless of their antimicrobial resistance, hence, might be used as therapeutic agents where other antimicrobial drugs fail.


This cumulative dissertation investigates the topic of consumption decisions in the food sector by means of conceptual and empirical studies. Following the principles of inter- and intradisciplinary research, the dissertation is situated at the intersection sensory marketing, health marketing, and sustainability marketing. Moreover, it takes aspects of neighboring (e.g., psychology) and distant disciplines (e.g., food science) into account.
One objective is to summarize the existing body of prior research activities with close consideration of relevant predictors of food choice, scientific domains, and the amount of research over time. The first conceptual article is the first one that systematically reviews quantitative studies in the field of food decision making across disciplines. Although this field is tackled from different angles in single disciplines, the results of the article stresses that research lacks of interdisciplinarity. The second conceptual article extensively addresses the need for interdisciplinary research from a conceptual point of view. It provides an overview of methods used to investigate extrinsic and intrinsic product attributes in consumer and sensory research.
Considering the empirical studies, the first article for example, portrays how consumers react to light-colored packaging of different products at different parts of the purchase process and suggests a theoretical underpinning of the boundary conditions under which this health cue operates (e.g., availability of sensory information). With a total of six studies, this article provides insights into consumer behavior at the frontier of health and sensory marketing. Against the background of food waste reduction, the second and third empirical article demonstrate the importance of a food product's visual appearance in attracting attention, and influencing choice behavior and sensory experience.


Bacteriophage exclusive (BREX) system is a novel prokaryotic defense system against bacteriophages. To our knowledge, no study has systematically characterized the function of the BREX system in lactic acid bacteria. Lactobacillus (L.) casei Zhang is a koumiss-originated probiotic bacterium. By using single-molecule real-time sequencing, we previously identified N6-methyladenine (m6A) signatures in the genome of L. casei Zhang and a putative methyltransferase (MTase), namely pglX This work further analyzed the genomic locus nearby the pglX gene and identified it as a component of the BREX system. To decipher the biological role of pglX, L. casei Zhang pglX mutant (ΔpglX) was constructed. Interestingly, m6A-methylation of the 5'-ACRCAG-3' motif was eliminated in ΔpglX The wild type and mutant strains exhibited no significant difference in morphology or growth performance in MRS medium. Significantly higher plasmid acquisition capacity was observed in ΔpglX compared with the wild type if the transformed plasmids contained pglX recognition sites (i.e. 5'-ACRCAG-3'). In contrast, no significant difference was observed in the plasmid transformation efficiency between the two strains when plasmids lacking pglX recognition sites were tested. Moreover, ΔpglX had lower capacity in retaining the plasmids compared with the wild type, suggesting decrease in genetic stability. Since the Rebase database predicted that the L. casei PglX protein was bifunctional, both as an MTase and a restriction endonuclease, the PglX protein was heterologously expressed and purified but failed to show restriction endonuclease activity. Taken altogether, the L. casei Zhang pglX gene is a functional adenine MTase that belongs to the BREX system.Importance Lactobacillus (L.) casei Zhang is a probiotic that confers beneficial effects to the host, and it is thus increasingly used in dairy industry. The possession of an effective bacterial immune system that can defend against invasion of phages and exogenous DNA is a desirable feature for industrial bacterial strains. The bacteriophage exclusive (BREX) system is a recently described phage resistance system in prokaryotes. This work confirmed the function of the BREX system in L. casei and that the methyltransferase (pglX) is an indispensable part of the system. Overall, our study characterizes a BREX system component gene in lactic acid bacteria.


Carefully managing the presentation of self via technology is a core practice on all modern social media platforms. Recently, selfies have emerged as a new, pervasive genre of identity performance. In many ways unique, selfies bring us full-circle to Goffman — blending the online and offline selves together. In this paper, we take an empirical, Goffman-inspired look at the phenomenon of selfies. We report a large-scale, mixed-method analysis of the categories in which selfies appear on Instagram — an online community comprising over 400M people. Applying computer vision and network analysis techniques to 2.5M selfies, we present a typology of emergent selfie categories which represent emphasized identity statements. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large-scale, empirical research on selfies. We conclude, contrary to common portrayals in the press, that selfies are really quite ordinary: they project identity signals such as wealth, health and physical attractiveness common to many online media, and to offline life.


This paper investigates and analyzes the performances of several types of tuned mass damper (TMD) including common single TMD(STMD), multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) and dual tuned mass dampers (DTMD) on the machining chatter control. Considering the special nature of the machining stability problem, the optimal design parameters of the dampers are defined as those that minimize the magnitude of the real part of the FRF of the damped machining system. This paper demonstrates the performance of the optimally designed different TMDs for machining stability improvement by calculating the stability diagrams for the turning processes. The calculation results show that a more than 60% improvement in the critical limiting cutting depth can be obtained for the optimally designed MTMD (2 TMDs) compared to the optimally designed STMD, and a more than20% improvement for the optimally designed DTMD compared to the optimally designed MTMD(2 TMDs).


This study was carried out in the context of participation in decision-making in the Barzan sub-district in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It focused on women's participation in decision-making from the perspective of gender and development. Democratic governance and decentralisation served as the main theoretical framework and precondition for analyzing participation. Though the Kurdistan region has been moving towards democracy, decentralisation and participatory governance since 1992, there is a clear disparity between the involvement of men and women in the process. The involvement of women in the decision-making process at the local level in Kurdish society is limited. Based on this, the study explored and analyzed women's access to decision-making, their influence on the decision-making process, and their constraints and opportunities in the process. The study investigated and assessed a number of critical issues including socio-economic, political culture and institutional factors that influenced women's participation in decision-making. Based on these, the study sought to find answers as to how the participation of women in decision-making can be promoted for enhanced development to ensure maximum efficiency in pursuing development goals; and also how the participation of women at the local level can lead to changes in strategies for development at the local level. The study was conducted in the villages of Shri and Zorgvan in the Barzan subdistrict of Kurdistan Region in the Federal Republic of Iraq. The research was largely qualitative in nature also made use of a combination of inductive and deductive methods. The case study research approach was adopted in this study. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources. The required data was gathered through questionnaire, interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations and relevant documents from government, and civil society organizations institutions. Data was collected from multiple sources and with multiple methods to ensure triangulation and assure the quality of data. The study revealed that, the triangle of traditional cultural structure namely tribalism, religious and patriarchal issues integrated in a complex scheme and paralleled with long centralized mindset, has weakened the process of women's participation in the decision-making process. Also, limit capacity of civil society, lack internal democracy of political parties, and decentralized power absorbed by the regional government have created power centres instead of power trickling down to the local level. It again came to light that decentralisation as a strategy changes structures and power relations among levels of government and key stakeholders and that negative aspects of traditional culture and the tenets of democracy do not jointly work together. In reality, it is difficult to bring them together to ensure harmony. These findings reconfirm Bernard Lewis's assertion that, implementing democracy within strong negative aspects of a traditional cultural system is like attempting to sow the seeds of 21 st century political institutions in the soil of 15 th century political culture. Based on these findings, two sets of recommendations are offered. As a key recommendation, there is the need to formulate a comprehensive development and gender-aware policy and as well as restricting and reorganizing the functions of regional, provincial, district, and sub-district level institutions. Finally, there is also the need to graft democratic decentralisation tenets on the best aspects of traditional cultural practices at the local level, creating and implementing quota strategies, building the capacity of staff of civil society organisations and government at different levels and democratizing the practices of multi-party coalition government to improve the participation of women in the decision-making process.


HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) employs the latest digital technology to develop an innovative methodology to the study of spatial data in Herodotus??? Histories. Using a digital text of Herodotus, freely available from the Perseus on-line library, to capture all the place-names mentioned in the narrative, we construct a database to house that information and represent it in a series of mapping applications, such as GIS, GoogleEarth and GoogleMap Timeline. As a collaboration of academics from the disciplines of Classics, Geography, and Archaeological Computing, HESTIA has the twin aim of investigating the ways geography is represented in the Histories and of bringing Herodotus??? world into people???s homes.


One-hundred male broiler chickens (Cobb500) were assigned randomly in a completely randomized design (CRD) into four dietary treatment groups to determine the effects of various components (whole kernel, kernel oil, kernel defatted) of candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) kernel on growth performance, carcass yield, and proximate and fatty acid composition in meat during the grower-finisher stage. Each treatment consisted of 5 replicates with 5 birds for each replications. From 21 to 42 days of age, the birds  were offered either one of the following dietary treatments namely;  Basal diet containing no candlenut kernel (T1), Basal diet containing 2.5% whole candlenut kernel (T2), Basal diet containing 2.5% candlenut kernel oil (T3), and Basal diet containing 2.5% candlenut kernel defatted (T4). The significant difference was determined when the probability level was p<0.05. Birds fed the experimental diets showed no significant difference on growth performance, carcass yield, and proximate and fatty acid compositions in meat. However, birds fed diets containing various components of candlenut had small effect on reducing feed intake, decreasing crude protein and crude fat contents in meat, and increasing total C18:2n-6 and n-6 PUFA. In conclusion, supplementation of various components of candlenut kernel in broiler diet did not improve growth performance, carcass yield, and proximate and fatty acid compositions in meat.


In the corporate university, a capitalist enterprise, the fact of contingent academic labor should not be seen as an aberration, a scandalous (but perhaps temporary) anomaly that could be solved within and by the very system that produces it. Rather, the ever-increasing number of contingent academic workers, and the consequent reduction in the number and power of full-timers, is the norm. Not only is it the norm, but it is the coherent, logical consequence of the corporatization process. That is, there could be no corporatization without the logic of sovereignty and domination whereby contingent labor in the first place, and all other labor in the second, must be, as is, superexploited. The originary idea of the university as a place for learning (perhaps even disinterested learning) is gone.  To have faith in that idea at this point in time would be having faith in a romantic past, it would be a useless, if not politically dangerous, nostalgia. Yet, if the past is barred, the future is not. What must be made clear, however, is that the transformation of the university is not possible if society itself is not transformed. If the university has become a capitalist enterprise, if the relationship between the university as such (its administrators) and its workforce (including the often reluctant full-timers) is the relationship between capital and labor, then the antagonism within the university is the antagonism present in capitalist society as a whole.


We describe a multiresolution, dynamic, and adaptive image quantization methodology with automation being the goal of our research. To improve the robustness of the approach, we incorporate dynamic local thresholding and multiresolution peak detection. The first strategy extracts bisector values from local regions of the image and builds a histogram based on those values. The second strategy maps the derived histogram into multiple levels of resolution, allowing peaks be scored for their significance and localized. We conduct several experiments to analyze different versions of our quantization methodology and to compare it with the equal probability quantization. We also investigated the relationships between image attributes and the key parameters in our quantizers. Based on the findings, we developed a fully automated quantizer called QTR0.5. We have applied QTR0.5 to a variety of images—aerial, photographic, and satellite images—and have also used it as a preprocessor in an image segmentation software tool.


Abstract. In this paper, inflow information is extracted from a measurement database and used for
aeroelastic simulations to investigate if using more accurate inflow
descriptions improves the accuracy of the simulated wind-turbine fatigue
loads. The inflow information is extracted from nearby meteorological masts (met masts) and a
blade-mounted five-hole pitot tube. The met masts provide
measurements of the inflow at fixed positions some distance away from the turbine, whereas the
pitot tube measures the inflow while rotating with the rotor. The met mast measures the free-inflow velocity; however the measured
turbulence may evolve on its way to the turbine, pass beside the
turbine or the mast may be in the wake of the turbine. The inflow measured
by the pitot tube, in comparison, is very representative of the wind
that acts on the turbine, as it is measured close to the blades and also includes
variations within the rotor plane. Nevertheless, this inflow is
affected by the presence of the turbine; therefore, an aerodynamic model
is used to estimate the free-inflow velocities that would have occurred at the
same time and position without the presence of the turbine. The inflow information used for the simulations includes the mean wind speed
field and trend, the turbulence intensity, the wind-speed shear profile,
atmospheric stability-dependent turbulence parameters, and the azimuthal
variations within the rotor plane. In addition, instantaneously measured wind
speeds are used to constrain the turbulence. It is concluded that the period-specific turbulence intensity must be used in
the aeroelastic simulations to make the range of the simulated fatigue loads
representative for the range of the measured fatigue loads. Furthermore, it
is found that the one-to-one correspondence between the measured and
simulated fatigue loads is improved considerably by using inflow
characteristics extracted from the pitot tube instead of using the
met-mast-based sensors as input for the simulations. Finally, the
use of pitot-tube-recorded wind speeds to constrain the inflow turbulence is
found to significantly decrease the variation of the simulated loads due to
different turbulence realizations (seeds), whereby the need for multiple
simulations is reduced.


Bukittinggi is one of city in West Sumatra that is potentially flooded and happen at the highest rainfall periods. Only three from 24 urban villages in Bukittinggi have low sanitation risk and it increases the flood-following disease. This research was done with quantitative approach to identified sanitation behavior among flood affected people as many as 47 respondents taken by proportional random sampling. The result showed the frequency distribution and percentage of each variable. Most flood-affected people in the Bukittinggi have toilets, but half of them use disposable diapers for their children and end up in trash cans. A small percentage of people dispose their waste water through toilets and their sewers are in poor condition. Most people do not segregate their solid waste and almost all of the solid waste have been dumped to the temporary dump site. Most people wash their hands with soap, but only small number do it before cooking. It is suggested to government to socialize the importance of sanitation and strengthen the role of community leaders to increase community awareness to have clean and healthy lifestyle.


This paper investigates the effects of connectivity charges (communication costs) on bilateral exports in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). Data from 19 exporter countries was used together with communication costs data in a gravity model of trade setup. The export data derive from the IMF Direction of Trade and the COMTRADE databases, while the communication cost data was collated from a variety of sources including direct contact with service providers. We find that communication cost is an important factor in bilateral trade in the region. Communications have a significant negative effect on export intensity. The study also reveals that countries with high communication costs generally have lower export intensity than countries with low communication costs. The results suggest that investment in ICT infrastructure that brings down international communication costs will have a positive effect on regional trade in the long run.


Eosinophilic otitis media is actually a recent introduction. These patients may manifest with sudden hearing loss. There may be associated bronchial asthma and allergic rhinitis. Diagnostic criteria of this condition are rather vague. A review of literature shows that demonstration of eosinophils in the middle ear secretion of these patients could be considered to be pathognomonic of this condition.


Torture does need to be defined if we are to know exactly what we are seeking to ban; but no single definition will do, because there are many possible ones, and we may want to treat different practices that might be called torture differently. Compare the case of homicide; we do not want to punish manslaughter as severely as murder, and may not want to punish killing in self-defence at all. There are degrees of torture as of murder. Unclarities simply play into the hands of would-be torturers. Downie is unsuccessful in deriving the duty of doctors not to be involved in torture from an analysis of the word `doctor'. It may be contrary to the role-duty of doctors to participate in torture; but there might be other duties which overrode this role-duty. The right approach is to ask what principles for the conduct of doctors have the highest acceptance-utility, or, as Kant might have equivalently put it, what the impartial furtherance of everyone's ends demands. This approach yields the result that torture (suitably defined) should be banned absolutely. It also yields prescriptions for the conduct of doctors where, in spite of them, torture is taking place.


Background and purpose As previously demonstrated, the recanalization rate and clinical outcome in patients with anterior circulation stroke treated with IV thrombolysis (IVT) depend on clot characteristics such as thrombus length and thrombus density. In patients with basilar artery occlusion (BAO) treated with IVT, the recanalization rate has also been shown to depend on thrombus length, although no cut-off value beyond which recanalization would seem impossible has been determined. We aim to evaluate the correlation of clot characteristics with recanalization rate and outcome in patients with BAO treated with endovascular therapy (EVT). Methods We retrospectively assessed 51 consecutive patients with BAO treated with EVT. Thrombus length and thrombus density (in Hounsfield units, HU) were measured on thin slice non-enhanced cranial CT scan before treatment. Thrombolysis In Myocardial Infarction grade 2–3 was considered successful recanalization and 3-month modified Rankin Scale score 0–2 was considered a favorable outcome. To evaluate the correlation of clot characteristics with recanalization rate and outcome, a binary logistic regression test was computed. Results Neither thrombus length nor thrombus density correlated with recanalization rate (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.11, p=0.58 and OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.23, p=0.13, respectively). Thrombus density and thrombus length were not significantly different in patients with (n=41, 80.4%) or without (n=10, 19.6%) successful recanalization (52.3 HU vs 48.4 HU, p=0.07 and 8.2 mm vs 7.5 mm, p=0.91). However, higher clot density was correlated with a favorable outcome (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.59, p=0.006) whereas thrombus length was not correlated with clinical outcome (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.03, p=0.20). Conclusions Successful recanalization does not depend on thrombus length in patients with BAO treated with EVT. Recanalization can therefore be achieved despite high clot burden. Additionally, a high density of thrombi was a strong predictor of a favorable outcome.


Previous studies have shown that the predictive accuracy of fast and frugal decision trees (FFTs) is comparable to decision trees generated by machine-learning (Martignon et al., 2008). FFTs are thought to be useful decision tools that are cognitively plausible to internalise, as opposed to complex machine-learning algorithms. Nonetheless, there seems to be a lack of behavioural studies in the literature to support such a claim. In this between-group experiment, we examined the human use of an FFT versus a C4.5 algorithm tree when completing a car evaluation task. Participants had to learn the rules of their given tree before making evaluations based on their memory. Preliminary results show that FFTs may indeed be easier to use, even when the number of cues for both trees are the same. Interestingly, participants who were successful in using the C4.5 tree exhibited tree pruning strategies, resulting in a heuristic similar to an FFT.


First, the term "tomography" in this work is used as a general term to describe the process of determining the subsurface structure. This is accomplished either by finding the density distribution or by exploring a set of interfaces in the underground. This can be done either in 1D, 2D, or 3D. It is a current problem in the community that there is no clear nomenclature, as words such as "tomography", "radiography", or even "muography" are used. In our understanding the term "radiography" is equivalent to an X-ray image, i.e. a transmission "photograph" that can be obtained at various angles. "Tomography" is then the process of combining these radiographs into a coherent 3D model, as in a CTscan. We, however, see that in the latter only 2D slices are being made, thus the comment of the reviewer is justified. In order to resolve this issue we adapt the suggestion of the reviewer by using the notion of "imaging" when we specifically address the type of reconstruction. However, we left the term "muon tomography" as it stands, because it is a well-known term in the community and we have used it throughout multiple works to refer to that technology.


Out-diffusion nitrogen profiles measured by SIMS after annealing at 850 and 800oC, have a peculiar minimum at a depth of about 5 m. The profiles are well reproduced by simulations assuming that there is a considerable fraction of nitrogen stored in substitutional clusters VN4. Upon annealing, these clusters lose nitrogen and convert into a stable high-temperature form VN1. This reaction involves a preliminary attachment of a fast-diffusing interstitial trimer, N3. Accordingly, the conversion occurs only in the bulk but not at the surface (due to out-diffusion loss of N3), and the substitutional component decreases from the surface towards the bulk. By fitting the profiles, the two basic parameters of the N2/N1 transport are deduced: P = D1K1/2 (a combination of the monomeric diffusivity D1 and the dissociation constant of dimers, K), and the dissociation time of dimers. With these data, D1(T) and K(T) are specified.


Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex endocrine disorder that affects multiple organ systems within the female body, hallmarked by infertility, the possibility of androgen excess, and the possibility of ovulatory dysfunction. Along with a myriad of physiological symptoms, PCOS is also associated with many psychological issues, including an increased incidence of depression, anxiety, and lower reported quality of life among women diagnosed with PCOS. The need for treatment directed to attenuate any psychological implications of the syndrome has become increasingly important are of research. While some researchers have focused on PCOS in a psychosocial perspective, including analysis on depression, anxiety, and quality of life, more research is needed on how women with PCOS experience stress. This study examined how 16 women with PCOS physiologically responded to a brief stressor, the Social Competence Interview (SCI), as compared to a healthy control population (n=64). Saliva samples were collected at 5 time points (S0S4) before, during, and after the interview to measure cortisol reactivity to the stressor. Further, the participants were asked to fill out questionnaires to gather information about their perceived stress, their psychiatric symptoms, and their physiological health. Results indicated that women with PCOS reported significantly more somatic complaints than healthy controls. Women with PCOS also had a higher baseline cortisol level than healthy controls. Future research should examine other psychological and physiological factors that could contribute to the experience of stress in women with PCOS. Formatted: Line spacing: single


In this paper, we analyze biological effects produced by magnetic fields in order to elucidate the physical mechanisms, which can produce them. We show that there is a chierarchy of such mechanisms and that the mutual interplay between them can result in the synergetic outcome. In particular, we analyze the biological effects of magnetic fields on soliton mediated charge transport in the redox processes in living organisms. Such solitons are described by nonlinear systems of equations and represent electrons that are self-trapped in alpha-helical polypeptides due to the moderately strong electron-lattice interaction. They represent a particular type of disssipativeless large polarons in low-dimensional systems. We show that the effective mass of solitons in the is different from the mass of free electrons, and that there is a resonant effect of the magnetic fields on the dynamics of solitons, and, hence, on charge transport that accompanies photosynthesis and respiration. These effects can result in non-thermal resonant effects of magnetic fields on redox processes in particular, and on the metabolism of the organism in general. This can explain physical mechanisms of therapies based on applying magnetic fields.


The first hurdle after installing VIVO is to fill it with an initial set of data about an institution, its researchers and their publications. Done manually it is a cumbersome and time-consuming process. One approach to overcome this is to use open-data containing a persistent identifier(PID) like ROR, ORCID or DOI. The advantage lies in the reduced processing of input data: since data does not need to be disambiguated, the data ingestion process can be reduced to mapping the data to the VIVO ontology. While several tools exist that are able to import one PID-identified object into VIVO, the release of Datacite Commons takes this approach to the next level. Datacite Commons offers an interface to a so-called PID-Graph: a structure of multiple connected data objects each identified by a PID. It makes queries possible that take advantage of the connections between several PIDs like e.g. querying an organization (identified by a ROR iD) and its affiliated persons (identified by their ORCID iD) and subsequently their publications (identified by a DOI), and thus providing a quick data basis for an empty Research Information System.

In this talk, we will present a microservice importing data from the Datacite Commons PID-Graph and the ROR API into VIVO ( https://github.com/vivo-community/generate2vivo ). This microservice is based on lifting rules defined using the SPARQL-Generate RDF transformation language, which we will overview beforehand. SPARQL-Generate is an expressive template-based language to generate RDF streams or text streams from RDF datasets and document streams in arbitrary formats (for more information see website https://w3id.org/sparql-generate/ )


Six decades of Old Testament theology (1952–2012): From hearing only One Voice to hearing many human voices. This article took a look at what has transpired in the field of Old Testament theology during the past six decades. The year 1952 saw the publication of G. Ernest Wright's book God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital which is regarded as reflecting a new approach to Old Testament theology. However, the years 1970 and 1989 were also deemed to be important years in the study of the Old Testament, reflecting major changes. The six decades were thus divided into three periods (1) 1952–1970, (2) 1970–1989, and (3) 1989–2012. It was argued that the theologies which were published during the respective periods share a few common trends. This article identified and reflected on these. At the beginning of the six decades revelation through history was an important conviction and impacted on the theologies of the first period. Literary and religious studies during the seventies and nineties of the previous century had little impact on the theologies of the second and third periods. However, during the third period an Old Testament theology which set a new trend, saw the light. This theology has the title Theologies in the Old Testament and reflected a shift from hearing only One Voice in the Old Testament to hearing many human voices.


Optimizing the cellular network's cell locations is one of the most fundamental problems of network design. The general objective is to provide the desired QoS with the minimum system cost. In order to meet a growing appetite for mobile data services, heterogeneous networks have been proposed as a cost- and energy-efficient method of improving local spectral efficiency. While unarticulated cell deployments can lead to localized improvements, there is a significant risk posed to network-wide performance due to the additional interference. The first part of the article focuses on state-of-the-art modelling and radio planning methods based on stochastic geometry and Monte Carlo simulations, and the emerging automatic deployment prediction technique for low-power nodes, or LPNs, in heterogeneous networks. The technique advises an LPN where it should be deployed, given certain knowledge of the network. The second part of the article focuses on algorithms that utilize interference and physical environment knowledge to assist LPN deployment. The proposed techniques can not only improve network performance, but also reduce radio planning complexity, capital expenditure, and energy consumption of the cellular network. The theoretical work is supported by numerical results from system-level simulations that employ real cellular network data and physical environments.