Many state-of-the-art recommendation systems leverage explicit item reviews posted by users by considering their usefulness in representing the users' preferences and describing the items' attributes. These posted reviews may have various associated properties, such as their length, their age since they were posted, or their rating of the item. However, it remains unclear how these different review properties contribute to the usefulness of their corresponding reviews in addressing the recommendation task. In particular, users show distinct preferences when considering different aspects of the reviews (i.e. properties) for making decisions about the items. Hence, it is important to model the relationship between the reviews' properties and the usefulness of the reviews while learning the users' preferences and the items' attributes. In this paper, we propose to model the reviews with their associated available properties. We introduce a novel review properties-based recommendation model (RPRM) that learns which review properties are more important than others in capturing the usefulness of reviews, thereby enhancing the recommendation results. Furthermore, inspired by the users' information adoption framework, we integrate two loss functions and a negative sampling strategy into our proposed RPRM model, to ensure that the properties of reviews are correlated with the users' preferences. We examine the effectiveness of RPRM using the well-known Yelp and Amazon datasets. Our results show that RPRM significantly outperforms a classical and five existing state-of-the-art baselines. Moreover, we experimentally show the advantages of using our proposed loss functions and negative sampling strategy, which further enhance the recommendation performances of RPRM.


Organizations of all types struggle with information. Millions of dollars are spent on ERP applications to integrate data and yet this data still isn?t accessible or relevant. Emails contain hidden liabilities. Safety manuals endanger workers. Worse, there is data and information being created and handled in every nook and cranny of large organizations, well out of view of formal oversight, but within view of customers and regulators. Thus far, any efforts to wrestle the "data-beast" to the ground have failed, and there exists a profound need for all levels of business management, not just IT, to understand the risks, challenges, and subsequent remediation value of treating information as a real asset.

Making Enterprise Information Management (EIM) Work for Business educates executives and middle management in a way that speaks to business issues and solves business problems. The book is divided into two parts, the first of which defines EIM, addresses why it is required, and identifies the business issues surrounding it. The second part acts as a field guide, or "how-to" that explains how EIM can be worked into any organization via various methodologies, techniques, templates, and business case studies.

*Organizes information modularly, so you can delve directly into the topics that you need to understand *Based in reality with practical case studies and a focus on getting the job done, even when confronted with tight budgets, resistant stakeholders, and security and compliance issues. *Includes applicatory templates, examples, and advice for executing every step of an EIM program.

Table of Contents

Part 1 ? The Executive?s Guide to Enterprise Information Management: The Road to Managing

Chapter 1 - Introduction and Background

Chapter 2 - EIM the business program

Chapter 3 - Application of EIM

Chapter 4 - Executing EIM

Chapter 5 - Sustaining EIM

Chapter 6 ? Summary

Part 2 ? The Manager?s Field Guide for Managing Information Assets: A Program for Enterprise Information Management

Chapter 7 ? Introduction and Background

Chapter 8 ? Designing EIM - Translating business alignment into a roadmap for success

Chapter 9 ? Sustaining EIM

Chapter 10 ? The Process to the Programs


In this paper, we are applying the 0-1 test for detection of chaotic of dynamical systems. Also, my purpose is synchronization of the chaotic systems with an arbitrary different order system, by applying an appropriate control signal, so that it follow behavior a chaotic system that parameters are unknown. The main feature of the reduced-order synchronization is that the order of the slave system is less than the master system. A widely variety of approaches have been proposed for chaos synchronization, such as: adaptive control, linear and nonlinear feedback control, active control.In this paper, we after detection chaos of two chen and lu systems applying of the 0-1 test , synchronize they by the reduced-order method. Also, by choosing appropriate positive definite Lyapunov function, the stability of the system were investigated for the various parameters. The advantage of this controller design is the time variable its coefficients.


We propose the use of conversational GPT models for easy and quick few-shot text classification in the financial domain using the Banking77 dataset. Our approach involves in-context learning with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, which minimizes the technical expertise required and eliminates the need for expensive GPU computing while yielding quick and accurate results. Additionally, we fine-tune other pre-trained, masked language models with SetFit, a recent contrastive learning technique, to achieve state-of-the-art results both in full-data and few-shot settings. Our findings show that querying GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 can outperform fine-tuned, non-generative models even with fewer examples. However, subscription fees associated with these solutions may be considered costly for small organizations. Lastly, we find that generative models perform better on the given task when shown representative samples selected by a human expert rather than when shown random ones. We conclude that a) our proposed methods offer a practical solution for few-shot tasks in datasets with limited label availability, and b) our state-of-the-art results can inspire future work in the area.


Health literacy (HL) is a measure of a patient ability to read, understand and to take decisions on medical instructions. Patients with inadequate HL have poorer health outcomes than those with adequate HL. There is little information on HL levels in diabetic patients in Argentina. The aim of this study was to explore the association between HL and glycemic control in diabetic patients from a university hospital in Argentina. HL was assessed with the Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish-speaking Adults (SAHLSA), glycemic control through glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c); 156 patients (58% women) took part in the study. Average SAHLSA score was 35 (range: 11-50). Patients with inadequate values of HL had HbA1c of 8.15% vs. 7.15% among those with adequate HL (p = 0.0001). The multiple linear regression shows that inadequate HL was significantly associated with poorer glycemic control (β = -0.05 IC 95% -0.07; -0.02, p < 0.001). Efforts should focus on developing interventions to improve glycemic control among patients with inadequate HL.


We present a new approach to sample from generic binary distributions, based on an exact Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm applied to a piecewise continuous augmentation of the binary distribution of interest. An extension of this idea to distributions over mixtures of binary and possibly-truncated Gaussian or exponential variables allows us to sample from posteriors of linear and probit regression models with spike-and-slab priors and truncated parameters. We illustrate the advantages of these algorithms in several examples in which they outperform the Metropolis or Gibbs samplers.


There have been debates and a lack of understanding about the complex effects of urban-scale urban form on air pollution. Based on the remotely sensed data of 150 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei agglomeration in China from 2000 to 2015, we studied the effects of urban form on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations from multiple perspectives. The panel models show that the elastic coefficients of aggregation index and fractal dimension are the highest among all factors for the whole region. Population density, aggregation index, and fractal dimension have stronger influences on air pollution in small cities, while area size demonstrates the opposite effect. Population density has a stronger impact on medium/high-elevation cities, while night light intensity (NLI), fractal dimension, and area size show the opposite effect. Low road network density can enlarge the influence magnitude of NLI and population density. The results of the linear regression model with multiplicative interactions provide evidence of interactions between population density and NLI or aggregation index. The slope of the line that captures the relationship between NLI on PM2.5 is positive at low levels of population density, flat at medium levels of population density, and negative at high levels of population density. The study results also show that when increasing the population density, the air pollution in a city with low economic and low morphological aggregation degrees will be impacted more greatly.


Attitudes Towards Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are preconceived beliefs about influence of the ICT tools in the process of learning. Studies carried out in this area shows that attitudes may influence cognitive and learning processes and also motivation of students. Despite its importance, very few instruments have been proposed to measure student attitudes, and none analyzes the factor structure or the factorial invariance of the scores, for that reason, the a im of the present study is to analyze the factor structure of SATICT, a new instrument proposed to measure the attitudes towards ICT on distance university students. A second aim is to test the factorial invariance across gender and educational level in a sample of 1080 university students of Madrid Open University using multi-group CFA. The results provide high support of the proposed factor structure with significant loadings and adequate model fit, however, the results also showed that factor structure couldn't be considered invariant across groups.


Many temporal processes can be naturally modeled as a stochastic system that evolves continuously over time. The representation language of continuous-time Bayesian networks allows to succinctly describe multi-component continuous-time stochastic processes. A crucial element in applications of such models is inference. Here we introduce a variational approximation scheme, which is a natural extension of Belief Propagation for continuous-time processes. In this scheme, we view messages as inhomogeneous Markov processes over individual components. This leads to a relatively simple procedure that allows to easily incorporate adaptive ordinary differential equation (ODE) solvers to perform individual steps. We provide the theoretical foundations for the approximation, and show how it performs on a range of networks. Our results demonstrate that our method is quite accurate on singly connected networks, and provides close approximations in more complex ones.


The aim of this essay is to present a novel line of
argument in support of Ludwig Wittgenstein's view of philosophy of
language. It consists in three parts. First, it explores a family
of referential theories of meaning belonging to the tradition of
Millian semantics – a family dubbed 'Millian externalism.' Second,
it draws on the work of both Wittgenstein and Noam Chomsky to
undermine the tenability of Millian externalism, all the while
generating insights into the nature of an adequate semantic theory
as it proceeds. And third, from the fact that Millian externalism
fails insofar as it purports to be a scientific theory of meaning,
the essay concludes that philosophy of language must give in to a
theory of meaning which endorses Wittgensteinian quietism. If it
refuses, then it must conform to the methodology of
linguistics.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand the lived experiences of the international students using their university's social media, through a lens of customer engagement (CE) in the services marketing literature.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study was conducted in an Australian university. Three semi-structured focus groups with ten international students, along with a preliminary netnographic analysis of the university's social media account, provided a rich description of the phenomenon in the real-world context.

Findings

The results suggest that these students are likely to engage in their university's social media as part of their acculturation and social identity construction strategy. Their engagement was cognitive and emotional, being influenced by the instrumental value of the social media page, engagement with campus rituals and artefacts, social identity and bonds with other students and perceptions of the page administrator. Furthermore, these students' engagement influenced their identification with the university and its student community, manifested in a sense of belonging and pride.

Research limitations/implications

The paper contributes to the higher education literature by offering relationship implications of social media CE. Limitations include small sample size and the single institutional context.

Practical implications

The paper informs student communication practice, especially the design of university-initiated social media content and policy.

Originality/value

Universities and faculties today use social media to engage with students outside classrooms. However, little has been known about how international student sojourners view and respond to such initiatives. The paper addresses this gap by offering insight into how they engage with their university on social media and its relationship implications.


The St. Johns River, located in Northeast Florida, USA, is a large watershed characterized by relatively flat topography, porous soils, and increasing urbanization. The city of Jacksonville, Florida is located near the downstream terminus of the river near the Atlantic Ocean. The lower portion of the watershed located downstream of Lake George is subjected to tidal exchange and storm surge from tropical storms and hurricanes as well as extra-tropical winter storms. Extreme flood events in the Lower St. Johns River can be caused by rain-driven runoff, high tide, storm surge or any combination of the three. This study examines the range of potential extreme flood discharges caused by rain-driven runoff within six larger sub-basins located in the Lower St. Johns River. The study uses multiple methods including published flood insurance data, two statistical hydrology methods, and model simulations to estimate an array of flood discharges at varying return frequencies. The study also examines the potential effects on flood discharges from future land use changes and the temporal distribution of rainfall. The rain-driven flood discharge estimates are then fit to a normal distribution to convey the overall risk and uncertainty associated with the flood estimates. The study also proposes a new methodology to estimate rain-driven flood discharges using existing numerical models of each the six sub-basins prepared by the Saint Johns River Water Management District. Overall, the study revealed a wide range of reasonable rainfall-driven flood estimates are possible using the same data sets. The wide range of estimates will help inform future resiliency projects planned in the study area by providing a more realistic set of bounds with which planning can proceed. The estimates derived herein can be combined with the independent or dependent effects of tide and storm surge in order to characterize the total flood resiliency risk of the region.


Changes to benthic infauna caused by scallop dredging at a site in Port Phillip Bay, southeastern Australia, were examined experimentally using a BACl (before, after, control, impact) design. The experimental dredging was undertaken by commercial fishermen and was typical of normal commercial operations in its spatial extent, intensity and duration Changes to benthic community structure following dredging were monitored using grab samples taken on 3 occasions pre-dredging and 6 occasions post-dredging. The significance of changes was assessed using ANOVA for the more abundant species and, for pooled groups of species, Bray-Curtis community dissimilarities and multidimensional scaling (MDS). The abundance of 7 of the 10 most common species changed significantly (ANOVA p < 0.10) after dredging; 6 species decreased in abundance while 1 species increased. The size and persistence of dredging impacts varied between species, but most species decreased in abundance by 20 to 30%. Dredging impacts became undetectable for most species following their next recruitment. Most species recruited within 6 mo of the dredging impact, but a small number of species still had not recruited after 14 mo. These latter species appeared to cause a persistent change in community structure which was still detectable after 14 mo using Bray-Curtis dissimilarities. MDS ordination indicated that changes to community structure caused by dredging were smaller than those that occur between seasons and years. K E Y WORDS: BACl . Benthic community . Environmental impact . Scallop dredging Fishing Impact


This work introduces the multispace Karhunen-Loeve (MKL) as a new approach to unsupervised dimensionality reduction for pattern representation and classification. The training set is automatically partitioned into disjoint subsets, according to an optimality criterion; each subset then determines a different KL subspace which is specialized in representing a particular group of patterns. The extension of the classical KL operators and the definition of ad hoc distances allow MKL to be effectively used where KL is commonly employed. The limits of the standard KL transform are pointed out, in particular, MKL is shown to outperform KL when the data distribution is far from a multidimensional Gaussian and to better cope with large sets of patterns, which could cause a severe performance drop in KL.


Self-assembled crystalline organic nanostructures containing electron donor and acceptor materials hold promise as building blocks for photovoltaic devices. We show that coupled crystallization of poly(3-hexyl thiophene) (P3HT) and perylene tetracarboxydiimide (PDI) induced by solvent evaporation, wherein both components modify crystallization of the other, gives rise to donor/acceptor "shish-kebabs" with tunable nanostructures. P3HT kinetically stabilizes supersaturated solutions of PDI and modifies the growth of PDI crystals, leading to formation of extended PDI shish nanowires that in turn serve as heterogeneous nucleation sites for fibrillar P3HT kebabs during solvent casting. The dimensions of these nanostructures can be tailored through variations in donor/acceptor ratio or solvent quality, and the method is shown to be general to several other poly(3-alkyl thiophenes) and perylene derivatives, thus providing a simple and robust route to form highly crystalline nanophase separated organic donor/acceptor assemblies.


This study describes the various techniques used in fabricating standard and complex Bragg grating structures in optical fibers. The objective here is to review a detailed outlook on the technology for inscribing Bragg grating structures. The fiber Bragg grating represents a periodic variation of the refractive index of the fiber core along the length of the fiber. Writing a fiber grating optically in the core of an optical fiber requires irradiating the core with a periodic interference pattern. Depending on the fabrication technique employed, Bragg gratings may be labeled as internally or externally written. Although internal Bragg gratings may not be considered are very practical or useful, nevertheless it is important to consider them, thus obtaining a complete historical perspective. Far more useful, Bragg gratings are inscribed using external techniques such as the interferometric, point-by-point and phase mask which overcome the fundamental limitation of internally written gratings. Although, these processes were initially considered difficult due to the requirements of submicron resolution and thus stability, today they are well controlled and the inscription of Bragg gratings using these techniques is considered routine. One of these methods (phase mask) has been used to fabricate the fiber Bragg grating for the sensitivity application such as temperature and strain sensor. The main aim of this article is to compare these methods and the selection of the optimal method for the fabrication of required fiber Bragg grating.


BACKGROUND Spasticity in patients with infantile cerebral palsy may lead to progressive subluxation and/or hip dislocation. MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospective, cross-sectional trial of a cohort of patients with infantile cerebral palsy who underwent subtrochanteric osteotomy of the hip at the Shriner's Hospital for children in Mexico City, with a 5-year follow-up. X-ray evaluation was conducted pre- and postoperatively and at the 5-year follow-up using the Settecerri classification. RESULTS Twenty cases were analyzed; mean age was 8.8 years. They included spastic quadriplegia, spastic diplegia, spastic paraplegia. Good results accounted for 50%, fair 30% and poor 20%. Good results in patients with quadriplegia represented 50%, with diplegia 25%, and with paraplegia 75%. Among patients undergoing single osteotomy, good results were 28%, fair 57%,and poor 14%; among those undergoing osteotomy plus cotyloplasty, good results were 63%, fair 9%, and poor 27%. Results with osteotomy plus soft tissues were good and fair in 50% of patients. DISCUSSION Spasticity and its effects are always present, regardless of surgery, treatment or no treatment; this is the reason for the recurrence of deformities or articular problems of the hip. The benefit of treatment cannot be denied despite spasticity. CONCLUSIONS The best results were seen among the youngest patients with spastic diplegia and spastic paraplegia. Osteotomy as a single procedure is insufficient and therefore cotyloplasty is recommended.


Acute and chronic inflammatory pathologies involve misregulation of macrophage functions. Physiologically, macrophages are immune sentinels that initiate inflammatory responses via the transcription factor NFκB. The temporal pattern of NFκB activity determines which genes are expressed, suggesting that a temporal signaling code specifies a stimulus-appropriate immune response. To identify the signaling codewords, we developed tools to enable high-throughput analysis of live, primary macrophages responding to host- and pathogen-derived stimuli. An information-theoretic workflow identified six dynamical features that constitute codewords that convey stimulus information to the nucleus. In particular, "oscillatory" trajectories are a hallmark of the responses to host cytokine TNF. Remarkably, examining macrophages derived from a systemic autoimmune disease model suggests that confusion of two NFκB signaling codewords, and thus miscoding of TNF as a pathogen-derived stimulus, may underlie sporadic inflammatory pathology. Overall, this study identifies six codewords of the temporal NFκB signaling code for classifying immune threats and demonstrates their biological significance.


Abstract Empirical research, summarized here, clearly establishes that racial and ethnic minorities continue to experience substantial discrimination in employment. However, this discrimination is often subtle and unconscious. Because discriminatory practices are so intertwined with apparenth-neutral employment practices, affirmative action remains an important means of combating them. Properly designed, affirmative action can benefit employers and non-protected employees as well as the minorities directly covered. ********** Acknowledgment An earlier version of this paper was presented as testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary, California State Assembly, on May 4, 1995. It is based on research supported by the Rockefeller Ford, John D. and Catherine D. MacArthur, Nor-man, Russell Sage, and Public Welfare foundations. However, all findings and conclusions are those of the author. This paper reviews research on racial/ethnic discrimination in employment conducted by my colleagues and myself at the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington in Washington, D.C. and other non-profit, non-partisan research organizations. It makes five key points relevant to debate on the controversial issue of affirmative action: * A substantial amount of racial/ethnic discrimination still operates in the American labor market today; * "Reverse" discrimination against non-minorities occurs relatively rarely; * Much of today's discrimination involves subtle cognitive and interpersonal processes; * When properly implemented, affirmative action remains an important too for addressing these problems; and * Affirmative action can represent a "win-win" development which benefits employers and white males as well as women and minorities. This paper discusses each of these points in turn. Despite Great Progress, Employment Discrimination Has Not Been Eliminated The first question our research has addressed is: To what extent does racial/ethnic discrimination still operate in the American labor market in the 1990s? During the past decades, literally thousands of research studies have been conducted on this question by labor economists and other social scientists.(1) The clear consensus of this literature is that a tremendous amount of progress has been made since the days, prior to passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. when "Jim Crow" laws, personal prejudice, and social custom firmly maintained widespread segregation of employment by race and ethnicity. These studies also reach consensus (although not unanimously) that the job of erasing the present impacts of these past patterns is not finished. Specifically, racial/ethnic minorities: * remain under-represented in higher-level occupations and over-represented in lower-level occupations; (2) * often do not command the same wages as non-minorities for performing the same work; (3) * often do not receive the same payoffs for acquiring educational credentials; (4) * on average experience greater unemployment than equally-qualified nonminorities; (5) and * experience higher rates of job dismissal. (6) In the statistical studies underlying such conclusions, researchers are careful to consider differences between minority and non-minority workers in education, experience, skills, and other job-relevant qualifications, which account for some of the observed differences between minorities and non-minorities in labor market success. However, technical and data problems often limit researchers' ability to control such factors, so that estimates of the extent of remaining discrimination remain controversial. To avoid such problems by examining discrimination directly, my colleagues and I employ a research method called "testing" or "auditing." We send out pairs of research assistants to apply for actual job openings listed in the "help wanted" section of newspapers or at a random sample of companies listed in the telephone "Yellow Pages. …


Using NH4HCO3 solution as precipitant, the ultrafine 3Y-ZrO2/Al2O3 precursors were prepared by the liquid-phase precipitation method. The well-dispersible ZrO2/Al2O3 composite nanopowders with particle size 10nm were obtained by calcining the precursor at 1000°C. The XRD patterns show no γ-Al2O3 and θ-Al2O3 formed during calcination. The powders have excellent sinterability and the relative density of specimen is up to 99% after sintering the green compacts at 1550°C. Microstructural analysis of the sintered bodies reveals the uniform distribution of the zirconia grains in the alumina matrix.


Image captioning models depend on training with paired image-text corpora, which poses various challenges in describing images containing novel objects absent from the training data. While previous novel object captioning methods rely on external image taggers or object detectors to describe novel objects, we present the Attentionbased Novel Object Captioner (ANOC) that complements novel object captioners with human attention features that characterize generally important information independent of tasks. It introduces a gating mechanism that adaptively incorporates human attention with self-learned machine attention, with a Constrained Self-Critical Sequence Training method to address the exposure bias while maintaining constraints of novel object descriptions. Extensive experiments conducted on the nocaps and Held-Out COCO datasets demonstrate that our method considerably outperforms the stateof-the-art novel object captioners. Our source code is available at https://github.com/chenxy99/ANOC.


BACKGROUND
Despite the many reports attesting to the efficacy of intraoperative somatosensory evoked potential monitoring in reducing the prevalence of iatrogenic spinal cord injury during corrective scoliosis surgery, these afferent neurophysiological signals can provide only indirect evidence of injury to the motor tracts since they monitor posterior column function. Early reports on the use of transcranial electric motor evoked potentials to monitor the corticospinal motor tracts directly suggested that the method holds great promise for improving detection of emerging spinal cord injury. We sought to compare the efficacy of these two methods of monitoring to detect impending iatrogenic neural injury during scoliosis surgery.

METHODS
We reviewed the intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring records of 1121 consecutive patients (834 female and 287 male) with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (mean age, 13.9 years) treated between 2000 and 2004 at four pediatric spine centers. The same group of experienced surgical neurophysiologists monitored spinal cord function in all patients with use of a standardized multimodality technique with the patient under total intravenous anesthesia. A relevant neurophysiological change (an alert) was defined as a reduction in amplitude (unilateral or bilateral) of at least 50% for somatosensory evoked potentials and at least 65% for transcranial electric motor evoked potentials compared with baseline.

RESULTS
Thirty-eight (3.4%) of the 1121 patients had recordings that met the criteria for a relevant signal change (i.e., an alert). Of those thirty-eight patients, seventeen showed suppression of the amplitude of transcranial electric motor evoked potentials in excess of 65% without any evidence of changes in somatosensory evoked potentials. In nine of the thirty-eight patients, the signal change was related to hypotension and was corrected with augmentation of the blood pressure. The remaining twenty-nine patients had an alert that was related directly to a surgical maneuver. Three alerts occurred following segmental vessel clamping, and the remaining twenty-six were related to posterior instrumentation and correction. Nine (35%) of these twenty-six patients with an instrumentation-related alert, or 0.8% of the cohort, awoke with a transient motor and/or sensory deficit. Seven of these nine patients presented solely with a motor deficit, which was detected by intraoperative monitoring of transcranial electric motor evoked potentials in all cases, and two patients had only sensory symptoms. Somatosensory evoked potential monitoring failed to identify a motor deficit in four of the seven patients with a confirmed motor deficit. Furthermore, when changes in somatosensory evoked potentials occurred, they lagged behind the changes in transcranial electric motor evoked potentials by an average of approximately five minutes. With an appropriate response to the alert, the motor or sensory deficit resolved in all nine patients within one to ninety days.

CONCLUSIONS
This study underscores the advantage of monitoring the spinal cord motor tracts directly by recording transcranial electric motor evoked potentials in addition to somatosensory evoked potentials. Transcranial electric motor evoked potentials are exquisitely sensitive to altered spinal cord blood flow due to either hypotension or a vascular insult. Moreover, changes in transcranial electric motor evoked potentials are detected earlier than are changes in somatosensory evoked potentials, thereby facilitating more rapid identification of impending spinal cord injury.


The following document presents an investigation based on the idea of improving the value of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems by adding a discrete event simulation application to the ERP framework. First, I conducted a brief investigation to assess whether discrete event simulation is alread included in most (or an ) ERP applications. I found that this type of simulation is not common to ERP systems, and is particularly lacking in systems designed for small- and mid-sized organizations. Perceiving an opportunit to enhance the functionalit of existing ERP systems, I decided to develop a simulation prototype for an ERP application. This project is the subject of my Master thesis. To achieve the goal of developing a simulation tool, I conducted research on the structural and functional requirements for my protot pe, placing emphasis on ease of use and the interaction between the data-fitting and modeling phases of simulation. I chose to develop this simulation prototype for The Microsoft Navision ERP software solution, with which I have several ears of experience as a software developer. In the course of developing the prototype, I found that Navision lacked certain desired functions for performing statistical operations and designing graphical models. I solved this problem by creating external components that can be used within the Navision development environment. Basic testing was performed in order to provide reasonable assurance that the external components would function correctly. In the end, my efforts to develop simulation capabilities within the Navision ERP system proved successful. As often occurs during the development process, I was inspired to create new functionality that I had not included in my original requirements. I attribute this creative inspiration, in part, to the wide scope of simulation modeling as a concept. I found that my simulation prototype has the potential to add value to man areas of the modular and integrated framework of an ERP s stem for a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. In conclusion, I believe that simulation modeling can add significant value to existing ERP systems, and that future research should be done in order to automate the data analysis process so as to enhance the adoption of simulation techniques for the current users of ERP applications.


Abstract Using the test-field method for nearly irrotational turbulence driven by spherical expansion waves it is shown that the turbulent magnetic diffusivity increases with magnetic Reynolds numbers. Its value levels off at several times the rms velocity of the turbulence multiplied by the typical radius of the expansion waves. This result is discussed in the context of the galactic mean-field dynamo.


A single vaccination of mice with a complex of porin and smooth lipopolysaccharide (porin-S-LPS) extracted from virulent Brucella abortus 2308 provided significant protection (P less than 0.01 to P less than 0.001) against challenge with the same strain, equivalent to that achieved by vaccination with living attenuated B. abortus 19. The porin-S-LPS vaccine given without adjuvant or in several adjuvants (trehalose dimycolate and muramyl dipeptide; the pluronic polymer L-121 and muramyl dipeptide; or complexed with Quil A in immunostimulating complexes) provided equivalent protection. In contrast, one vaccination with porin complexed with rough LPS (porin-R-LPS) from a rough mutant of strain 2308 provided no protection with any adjuvant tested. In one experiment, two inoculations with the porin-R-LPS resulted in a low level of protection, probably owing to priming of the animals for production of O-polysaccharide-specific antibodies. However, one vaccination with rough-strain porin covalently bound to purified O polysaccharide conferred protection equal to that obtained with natural complexes of porin-S-LPS or with living strain 19. A synthetic vaccine containing long chains of O polysaccharide was more effective than one prepared with short chains. Protective vaccines caused the formation of increased concentrations of circulating O-polysaccharide-specific antibodies, although there were individual exceptions to the quantitative association between O-polysaccharide-specific antibodies and protection. Antibodies specific for porin or R-LPS were found in negligible quantities in vaccinated mice. These results provide additional evidence that the O polysaccharide will constitute an essential component of an effective subcellular vaccine against B. abortus and that O-polysaccharide-specific antibodies play an important role in protective immunity in brucellosis.


The world over, e-government is increasingly becoming an important means of delivering public service due to the numerous benefits associated with it. Despite this however, low uptake and use of the available e-government services has been witnessed in many developing countries. This occurrence is being attributed to the fact that existing technology adoption models don't take into consideration the unique setting of developing countries leading to complete failures or partial successes of e-government projects. To address this problem, the research sought to establish the critical success factors that influence Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector in Kenya to adopt and use e-government services. The study findings are intended to help designers, developers and implementers of e-government projects or G2B platform designers recognize strategic areas of focus that will ensure increased uptake and use of e-government services. To realize the main objective of this study, an exploratory approach using a descriptive survey design was used. Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using statistical package for social science (S.P.S.S). From the findings of the survey conducted from a sample of 124 SMEs, usefulness, ease of use, quality of the website, government regulations and incentives, organization competitiveness due to use of e-government services, faster broadband connectivity, affordable connectivity, network security and data protection and e-government awareness/training were found to be the most critical success factors that influence the adoption and use of e-government services by SMEs.


Spatial cueing has been used by many different groups under multiple forms to study spatial attention processes. We will present evidence obtained in brain-damaged patients and healthy volunteers using a variant of this paradigm, the hybrid spatial cueing paradigm, which, besides single-target trials with valid and invalid cues, also contains trials where a target is accompanied by a contralateral competing stimulus (competition trials). This allows one to study invalidity-related processes and selection between competing stimuli within the same paradigm. In brain-damaged patients, lesions confined to the intraparietal sulcus result in contralesional attentional deficits, both during competition and invalid trials, according to a pattern that does not differ from that observed following inferior parietal lesions. In healthy volunteers, however, selection between competing stimuli and invalidity-related processes are partially dissociable, the former relying mainly on cytoarchitectonic areas hIP1-3 in the intraparietal sulcus, the latter on cytoarchitectonic area PF in the right inferior parietal lobule. The activity profile in more posterior inferior parietal areas PFm and PGa, does not distinguish between both types of trials. The functional account for right PF and adjacent areas is further constrained by the activity profile observed during other experimental paradigms. In a change detection task with variable target and distracter set size, for example, these inferior parietal areas show highest activity when the stimulus array consists of only one single target, while the intraparietal sulcus show increased activity as the array contains more targets and distracters. Together, these findings lead us to the hypothesis that right PF functions as a target singleton detector, which is activated when a target stands out from the background, referring both to the temporal background (expectancy) and the momentaneous background (stimulus-driven saliency).


Author(s): Cardace, Amy Elizabeth | Advisor(s): Wilson, Mark | Abstract: The National Research Council (NRC) has published multiple reports in recent years that describe potential improvements to elementary science instruction, and call for higher standards for the development of related assessments. To meet this charge, the Development of the Conceptual Underpinnings of Evolution (CUE) project was funded by the National Science Foundation and produced the data analyzed with item response theory in this dissertation. The CUE project team designed curricula for introducing concepts of micro-evolution to second- and third-grade students to engage young learners in reasoning about complex scientific phenomena. The team studied student capacities for understanding concepts in micro-evolution, while investigating the interplay of cognitive development, learning, and instruction. The team also developed one-on-one interview assessments, based on a learning progression that describes children's pathways to more sophisticated types of reasoning about micro-evolution. The design of this progression was a novel attempt to model early learning in this context, informed by cognitive development theory, classroom experiences, and assessment activities in an iterative process. Throughout this work, the CUE team examined the complexity of children's conceptualization of the concepts under study, especially with respect to the differentiation and order of conceptual levels within the learning progression and their multidimensional nature. This dissertation examines the affordances of Item Response Theory (IRT) in investigating and validating the hypothetical learning progression and representing the range of student thinking, while enabling the quantitative assessment of learning gains. The empirical findings address practical questions about item function, multidimensionality, open-ended items, and pre-post effects, and ultimately support the use of this complex learning progression to model student thinking. This dissertation presents an uncommon case where IRT is applied to interview data, and complementary outcome measures were chosen to best represent the complex phenomenon under study. This work provides a model for strengthening validity arguments by examining assumptions about how items, responses, and coding schemes relate to the theoretical construct, and how the scores they yield inform what we know about student reasoning and learning gains.


Over the years, cultural mapping methods have been used in several applications and contexts, for diverse cultural assets and to create new conditions for the development of local and regional resources. These methods were inspired by the development of big urban centres and regions, which have been the great engine of cultural mapping growth. The main objectives of the present paper are to provide a literature review on cultural mapping methodologies and to develop exploratory research on crowdsource tools on creative tourism which were applied to one Portuguese municipality in 2017. The research was supported by the implementation and integration of geographic information systems (GIS) and web mapping, which will become part of the solution for the growth of less developed territories and to make more interactive tourist activities. Web mapping's contribution to enhance crowd participation was measured via analysis of 12 digital photos shared through crowdsourcing. The originality of this research lies in the attempt to develop a new model for creative tourism, trying to extend the implementation of Web Mapping crowdsourcing to deprived low density territories. Results show how public participation can be amplified for the tourism market by crowdsourcing tools. These tools look very promising since they can help several members of the public at different ages to contribute to territorial knowledge, engage in activities, and collaborate through digital tools. It is a step to fulfil the lack of studies in this subject and it contributes to the way we think about future studies


Little is known about how individual signs that occur in naturally produced signed languages are recognized. Here we examine whether sign understanding may be grounded in sensorimotor properties by evaluating a signer's ability to make lexical decisions to American Sign Language (ASL) signs that are articulated either congruent with or incongruent with the observer's own handedness. Our results show little evidence for handedness congruency effects for native signers' perception of ASL, however handedness congruency effects were seen in non-native late learners of ASL and hearing ASL-English bilinguals. The data are compatible with a theory of sign recognition that makes reference to internally simulated articulatory control signals — a forward model based upon sensory-motor properties of one's owns body. The data suggest that sign recognition may rely upon an internal body schema when processing is non-optimal as a result of having learned ASL later in life. Native signers however may have developed representations of signs which are less bound to the hand with which it is performed, suggesting a different engagement of an internal forward model for rapid lexical decisions.


Actinopolyspora iraqiensis IQ-H1 is a novel strain of actinobacteria isolated from extremely halophilic soil samples in Iraq. The whole-genome sequence of this strain is deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank under the accession number NZ_AICW01000000. In this study, the genome features and the molecular phylogenetic tree of Act. iraqiensis IQ-H1are analyzed. The RAST tool was used for genome annotation. The genomic features were elucidated using QUAST tool. The circular genome map, and the core and pan-genome map of Act. iraqiensis IQ-H1 was generated using CGView and the GView tools respectively. The JSpeciesWS server was used for the tetranucleotide signature analysis and the REALPHY server was utilized for the construction of the whole genome sequence based phylogenetic tree. The genome size of the strain was around 4.0 Mpb and the number of contigs was 110 with a GC content of 70.46%. The core genome of Act. iraqiensis IQ-H1 was estimated to be 2.2 Mpb. Based on z-scores of the tetranucleotide signature analysis, Act. halophila DSM 43834, Act. mortivallis DSM 44261 and Act. saharensis DSM 45459 were the most relative strains to Act. iraqiensis IQ-H1with z-scores 0.99784, 0.98943 and 0.99789 respectively. Based on the phylogenetic tree constructed from the whole genome sequences, Act. iraqiensis IQ-H1 was the most closely related to Act. saharensis DSM 45459, Act. halophila DSM 43834 and Act. mortivallis DSM 44261. The results suggest that the web-based bioinformatics tools such as QUAST, CGView, GView, JSpeciesWS and REALPHY can be utilized for the analysis of the genomic features of Act. iraqiensis IQ-H1 and other species of the genus Actinopolyspora.


The recent emergence of cloud computing is making the vision of utility computing realizable, i.e., computing resources and services from a cloud can be delivered, utilized, and paid for in the same fashion as utilities like water or electricity. This, however, creates new resource provisioning problems. Because of the pay-as-you-go model, resource provisioning should be performed carefully. Resource provisioning can be particularly challenging for adaptive applications, where there can be a tradeoff between the application Quality of Service (QoS), or accuracy, and the resource costs incurred. In this paper, we consider adaptive streaming applications where a user wants to achieve the minimum resource costs while maintaining a specified accuracy goal. We present a dynamic and automated framework which can adapt the adaptive parameters to meet the specific accuracy goal, and then dynamically converge to near-optimal resource allocation. Our solution can handle unexpected changes in the data distribution characteristics and/or rates. We evaluate our approach using two streaming applications and demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework.


Five cases of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis associated with swimming in freshwater lakes have been recorded in Florida over the past 14 years. The present study demonstrated that pathogenic Naegleria, the causative agent, is relatively widespread. Twelve of 26 lakes sampled only once yielded the amoeba. Populations in three of five lakes sampled routinely reached levels of one amoeba per 25 ml of water tested during the hot summer months. Overwintering in freshwater lake bottom sediments was demonstrated, showing that thermal-discharge pollution of waters plays a miniscule, if any, role in the maintenance of pathogenic Naegleria in nature in this semitropical area.


Several comorbid measures demonstrates the predictive ability for children's health. The association of body mass index (BMI) categories with comorbidities studied in 317 children of 7-15 year old. Body mass index and presence of chronic condition were assessed. Comorbidity index was estimated in subgroup of children with BMI ±1SD, ±2SD, ±3SD. Children with normal weight had comorbidity index of 3.2. Increase or decrease of BMI is associated with rise of comorbidity index. Obesity as well as protein-energy malnutrition increases comorbidity index more than to 4 in children. Impaired nutritional status can be considered as an independent risk factor for concomitant pathology in children. Increase of comorbidity in obesity and underweight is predominantly nonspecific in nature. Obesity in children is characterized by the formation of a specific set of diseases, which together can be considered as a single characteristic polypathy.


Objectives: To correlate the ultrasound appearance of highly vascularised uterine myomas to the histopathological diagnosis. Methods: This retrospective study included patients presenting with an ultrasound diagnosis of uterine myoma characterised by a circumferential and intralesional vascular pattern with a colour score assessment of 3 or 4, according to the Morphological Uterus Sonographic Assessment (MUSA). All the patients underwent myomectomy or hysterectomy after the ultrasound examination. The ultrasound appearance of the myomas was analysed and described using the terms and definitions of the MUSA paper. The echogenicity of each myoma, the presence of cystic areas and the total myoma volume were recorded. The ultrasound characteristics were compared with the histological diagnosis. Results: 52 patients were included in this study. Mean patient age was 42.5 years, 45 (86%) were in premenopause, 26 (50%) showed symptoms (pelvic pain, menorrhagia). At histological examination 25 (48%) myomas were compatible with a diagnosis of atypical leiomyoma (76% (19) hypercellular leiomyoma, 16% (4) myxoid leiomyoma, 8% (2) apoplectic leiomyoma). 25 (48%) were typical leiomyomas and 2 (4%) were adenomyomas. Cystic areas within the lesion were found in 32% (8/25) of atypical leiomyomas and in 16% (4/25) of typical leiomyomas. Conclusions: Ultrasound features such as circumferential and intralesional vascularity with a colour score of 3 or 4 and the presence of cystic areas may be predictive of atypical leiomyomas. Such features may be used to differentiate typical uterine myomas from the atypical variants in a pre-operative setting and to identify patients that may benefit from a conservative medical treatment rather than a radiological treatment.


The book's early chapters give a description of the syndrome, its prevelence and its clinical assessment. It continues with a discussion of the various theories, eg., biological, environmental and behavioural, contributing to the assorted aetiological models. There follows a description of the various methods of treatment tried over the years, including drug therapy, surgery , psychotherapy, relaxation and hypnosis, and gives an assessment of their usefulness. The book continues with more detailed documentation of behavioural techniques all of which lead to an alleviation of the anxiety symptoms. The remainder of the book is a description of the authors' evolved method of treatment, with hefty appendixes giving detailed manuals for the patient, patient's partner, the therapist and also assessment charts, and questionnaires.


This article considers two visual cultures of America's deterrent state in the Cold War, the cinematic and cybernetic, by following the history of the 600th Photographic Squadron of the United States (US) Air Force in Vietnam and its 1950s progenitor, the 1352nd Motion Picture Squadron, or Lookout Mountain Laboratory. We argue that cinematic and cybernetic visual cultures were at the heart of a Cold War visual alliance that was also a Cold War visual contest, and cameras were situated at the centre of the contest. Specifically, the cinematic and the cybernetic represent two distinct visualities of vision, as the Cold War cameras of the Air Force assumed either transcendental or transcendent positions. The former, in keeping with a cinematic visuality, was oriented towards casting America as a sight to see in the context of its war on communism, with cameras operating as a condition of possibility for the construction of the 'image', whereas the latter, in keeping with a cybernetic visuality, was oriented towards the American appetite to see, to monitor and survey the world over, with cameras operating as processors of 'information'. The history of the 600th Photographic Squadron and its progenitor, Lookout Mountain Laboratory, suggests that the transition from cinematic to cybernetic visualities of vision was part of a broader transformation in the US Cold War state from a nuclear deterrent state to a supra-nuclear deterrent state.


The role of beach profile configuration in facies modeling of coarse clastic (pebble) beaches is investigated because of the lack of primary sedimentary structures. Classification of 402 profiles gathered from two South Wales beaches is undertaken using a graphical standardization procedure which gives rise to 10 morphological types. A one dimensional expression is derived for each profile using the concepts of hypsographic curves and hypsometric integrals. The resulting 402 integrals are subjected to a non parametric test which confirms that the methodology can distinguish between concave and linear profile macro-forms, both with and without berm development, at the 99.9%, confidence level. The importance of berm development and position in relation to differing nearshore depositional environments is indicated by previously published work. Use is made of this information in applying the above methodology to elucidate beach morphological changes on the two study beaches. A number of original graphical methods are used to identify patterns of morphological change. Although time-related stochastic modeling is not attempted on the data, the methodology is presented as the best means of deriving information for this purpose. As the beach profile provides a finger-print of previous wash/backwash action, the development of a procedure sensitive enough to take account of berm formation means that an analytical tool is now available which can effectively discriminate between nearshore depositional environments, as a first step towards fuller textural analysis of facies type.


Establishment of an excess number of nodules markedly affects plant growth and development due to overconsumption of photosynthates for nitrogen fixation. Hence, the total root nodule number must be tightly controlled via a negative feedback mechanism (AON) to maintain an optimal nitrogen and carbon  balance in chickpea plants. Chickpea genes whichplay important regulatory roles in root nodulation in chickpea (Cicer arietinum) were identified by aligning these genes with known genes of legumes available at phytozome through BLAST search. Chickpea nodulation genes identified and characterized in this study include CaNFR1/5, CaENOD40, CaNARK, CaRIC1, CaRIC2, CaNIC1, CaRDN1, CaRDN2, CaRDN3, CamiRNA172 and CaNNC1. These genes were orthologous to Medicago truncatula nodulation genes and were significantly expressed by inoculating chickpea plants with Mesorhizobium ciceri analysed by qRT-PCR using RNA isolated from the root and leaf tissues of inoculated chickpea plants at 0, 2, and 6 days after inoculation. Non-inoculated plants served as control. CaNARK genes were expressed in roots and leaves while the rest of the nodulation genes were expressed only in the roots. The nodulation ability of chickpea may be controlled by an internal AON mechanism which involves several genes that are orthologues with other legumes.


The positive criminology perspective looks at positive life influences that distance individuals from offending, and enable the growth of personal and social strengths. Within a recovery model for alcohol and drug addiction, as part of a strengthsbased approach to understanding sustainable change, 'recovery capital' is the currency for measuring the personal and social resources available to achieve and sustain change, and the community factors that help or hinder these efforts (sometimes referred to as community capital). However, it has been argued that adverse experiences, particularly chronic mental health and serious criminal recidivism, are barriers to change, and constitute 'negative recovery capital'. Based on secondary analysis from the Glasgow Recovery Study, and two other studies of pathways to recovery, this chapter examines the impact of prison history on recovery outcomes. The paper concludes that a 'better than well' model of change can explain the 'rebound effect' from serious adverse life events. This is embedded within a social identity model of recovery transformation, which fits well with the positive criminology perspective of personal transformation in developing a new 'non-offending' identity.


This paper explains how specialized constitutional courts navigate between the demands of two different external audiences, the political and the judicial. The political audience expects constitutional court judges to respond to political pressures and to vote ideologically. Such voting, however, might undermine the constitutional court's ability to influence the judicial audience, which necessarily views cases as apolitical in character. We argue that the need to achieve supremacy over other higher courts constrains the ability of constitutional judges to pursue ideological goals. We examine patterns of consensus and fragmentation to demonstrate our proposition. We find empirical evidence that the existence of conflict between supreme and constitutional courts is positively related to the stability of court majorities.


In order to understand the mechanical characteristics of shenqiu Zhidian Bridge considering the influence of pavement, On the basis of installing steel mesh in rigid bridge or consecution to enhance the bonding performance between the pavement and girder, the load test is conducted. According to the test result and the calculations result the bearing capacity and work performance of bridge are evaluated. The results show that in the design of bridge, by enhancing the bonding performance between the pavement and girder, considering the overlaid pavement participating in force corresponds with the actual stress structure.


ABSTRACT Few studies have examined police interrogation strategies from suspects' perspectives, yet assessing suspects' views about interviewer approaches could provide important insights regarding confession decision making. The current study is the first American survey to assess a diverse sample of adult jail inmates' views on police interrogation tactics and approaches. The study explored US jail inmates' (N = 418) perspectives about how police should conduct interrogations. Potential dimensionality among 26 survey items pertaining to police tactics was examined using exploratory factor analysis. Group differences according to demographic and criminological variables were also explored. Four factors emerged, conceptualized as Dominance/Control, Humanity/Integrity, Sympathy/Perspective-Taking, and Rapport. Respondents most strongly endorsed Humanity/Integrity and Rapport strategies and were unsupportive of approaches involving Dominance/Control. Gender differences emerged for Dominance/Control and Humanity/Integrity, and Black respondents were more likely to value strategies related to Sympathy/Perspective-Taking. Suspects endorsed interrogation strategies characterized by respect, dignity, voice, and a commitment to the truth; they reported aversions to the false evidence ploy and approaches involving aggression. Overall, results from this incarcerated sample suggest that interviewees may be more responsive to rapport-building, non-adversarial strategies.


Weather derivatives are contingent claims with payo based on a pre-speci ed weather index. Firms exposed to weather risk can transfer it to nancial markets via weather derivatives. We develop a utility-based model for pricing baskets of weather derivatives in over-the-counter markets under counterparty default risk. In our model, agents maximise the expected utility of their terminal wealth, while they dynamically rebalance their weather portfolios over a nite investment horizon. Via partial market clearing, we obtain semi-closed forms for the equilibrium prices of weather derivatives and for the optimal strategies of the agents. We give an example on how to price rainfall derivatives on selected stations in China in the universe of a nancial investor and a weather exposed crop insurer.


In 1996, a concept was proposed by the UK Ministry of Defence with the intention of making the field of reliability more useful to the end user, particularly within the field of military aerospace. This idea was the Maintenance Free Operating Period (MFOP), a duration of time in which the overall system can complete all of its required missions without the need to undergo emergency repairs or maintenance, with a defined probability of success. The system can encounter component or subsystem failures, but these must be carried with no effect to the overall mission, until such time as repair takes place. It is thought that advanced technologies such as redundant systems, prognostics and diagnostics will play a major role in the successful use of MFOP in practical applications. Many types of system operate missions that are made up of several sequential phases. For a mission to be successful, the system must satisfactorily complete each of the objectives in each of the phases. If the system fails or cannot complete its goals in any one phase, the mission has failed. Each phase will require the system to use different items, and so the failure logic changes from phase to phase. Mission unreliability is defined as the probability that the system fails to function successfully during at least one phase of the mission. An important problem is the efficient calculation of the value of mission unreliability. This thesis investigates the creation of a modelling method to consider as many features of systems undergoing both MFOPs and phased missions as possible. This uses Petri nets, a type of digraph allowing storage and transit of tokens which represent system states. A simple model is presented, following which, a more complex model is developed and explained, encompassing those ideas which are believed to be important in delivering a long MFOP with a high degree of confidence. A demonstration of the process by which the modelling method could be used to improve the reliability performance of a large system is then shown. The complex model is employed in the form of a Monte-Carlo simulation program, which is applied to a life-size system such as may be encountered in the real world. Improvements are suggested and results from their implementation analysed.


While there has been extensive research exploring the quality of caregiver–child interactions in programmes for preschool children, comparatively less international research has explored the nature of caregiver–child interactions in centre-based infant-care programmes. Nine caregivers in six Singapore infant-care settings were observed and interviewed in this study to explore the qualitative nature of caregiver–child interactions and the caregivers' talk about the education and care of infants. Some of the caregivers expressed beliefs that infants learn through quality interactions. However, not all caregivers were observed to provide interactions, especially during routine care. Some caregivers held the view that their primary role was providing physical care rather than education. Such differences in views and practices could have been influenced by the cultural backgrounds of individual caregivers. Implications for professional development of infant caregivers are discussed.


Characterized by their low modulus and high stretchability, soft composites have recently attracted great interest from researchers in related areas. The main objective of the present study is on the fracture property and toughening mechanism of soft composites. Two types of soft composites will be studied: soft elastic foam and the double-network (DN) composite. A theoretical/numerical study is carried out over soft elastic foams. By using the analogy between the cellular structure of foams and the network of rubbery polymers, a scaling law for the fracture energy is proposed for soft elastic foams. A phase-field model for the fracture processes in soft elastic structures is further developed to study the crack propagation in an elastic foam, and results have all achieved good agreement with the scaling law. Simulations have shown that an effective fracture energy one order of magnitude higher than the base material can be reached by using the soft foam structure. To further enhance the fracture and mechanical toughness, the second part of the thesis presents a combined experimental and theoretical study of the DN soft composite, which consists of stacked layers of fabric mesh and 3M VHB tapes. The composite exhibits a damage evolution process very similar to that in the well-known DN hydrogels. The testing results show that the strength and toughness of the DN composite is highly dependent on the composition, and in certain range, the DN composite exhibits much higher mechanical strength and toughness compared with the base materials. A 1D shear-lag model is developed to illustrate the damage-distribution toughening mechanism of the double network composite. The prediction of the model agrees well with the measured properties of the composite in various compositions. The DN composite may also be regarded as a macroscopic model of the DN gel for understanding its structure-property relation.


Immune‐mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) causes severe anemia in dogs and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Treatment with various immunosuppressive and antithrombotic drugs has been described anecdotally and in previous studies, but little consensus exists among veterinarians as to the optimal regimen to employ and maintain after diagnosis of the disease. To address this inconsistency and provide evidence‐based guidelines for treatment of IMHA in dogs, we identified and extracted data from studies published in the veterinary literature. We developed a novel tool for evaluation of evidence quality, using it to assess study design, diagnostic criteria, explanation of treatment regimens, and validity of statistical methods. In combination with our clinical experience and comparable guidelines for humans afflicted with autoimmune hemolytic anemia, we used the conclusions of this process to make a set of clinical recommendations regarding treatment of IMHA in dogs, which we refined subsequently by conducting several iterations of Delphi review. Additionally, we considered emerging treatments for IMHA in dogs and highlighted areas deserving of future research. Comments were solicited from several professional bodies to maximize clinical applicability before the recommendations were submitted for publication. The resulting document is intended to provide clinical guidelines for management of IMHA in dogs. These guidelines should be implemented pragmatically, with consideration of animal, owner, and veterinary factors that may vary among cases.


BACKGROUND
The visual and mental development of preterm infants improved after feeding them milk enriched with docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in amounts matching the fetal accretion rate.

OBJECTIVE
The objective was to evaluate whether feeding preterm infants milk with a higher DHA content than that used in current practice influences language or behavior in early childhood.

DESIGN
This was a follow-up study in a subgroup of infants enrolled in the DINO (Docosahexaenoic acid for the Improvement in Neurodevelopmental Outcome) trial. In a double-blind randomized controlled trial, infants born at <33 wk of gestation were fed milk containing 1% of total fatty acids as DHA (higher-DHA group) or approximately 0.3% DHA (control group) until reaching full-term equivalent age. The longer-term effects of the intervention on language, behavior, and temperament were measured by using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) at 26-mo corrected age, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and the Short Temperament Scale for Children (STSC) between 3- and 5-y corrected age.

RESULTS
Mean (+/-SD) MCDI scores did not differ significantly (adjusted P = 0.8) between the higher-DHA group (308 +/- 179, n = 60) and the control group (316 +/- 192, n = 67) per the Vocabulary Production subscale. Composite scores on the SDQ and STSC did not differ between the higher-DHA group and the control group [SDQ Total Difficulties: higher-DHA group (10.3 +/- 6.0, n = 61), control group (9.5 +/- 5.5, n = 64), adjusted P = 0.5; STSC score: higher-DHA group (3.1 +/- 0.7, n = 61), control group (3.0 +/- 0.7, n = 64), adjusted P = 0.3].

CONCLUSIONS
Feeding preterm infants milk containing 3 times the standard amount of DHA did not result in any clinically meaningful change to language development or behavior when assessed in early childhood. Whether longer-term effects of dietary DHA supplementation can be detected remains to be assessed. This trial was registered with the Australia and New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry at www.anzctr.org.au as 12606000327583.


Bridge is an important part of transport system, especially for the long-span bridges of important route. And it belongs to the lifeline project. It is an important measure for reducing the secondary disaster to ensure bridge's normality in traffic after the earthquake. Currently, the isolation seismic design of long-span bridges with the special structure is used to reduce damage of bridges by the reason of the earthquake. Based on damping principle of the viscous dampers, the calculation and analysis of what the effect of shock absorption done by damper in decorate position of long-span cable-stayed bridge to structure of bridges are formulated in this paper.


Political scientists have long been interested in how indiscriminate violence affects the behavior of its victims, yet most research has focused on short-term military consequences rather than long-term political effects. We argue that large-scale violence can have an intergenerational impact on political preferences. Communities more exposed to indiscriminate violence in the past will—in the future—oppose political forces they associate with the perpetrators of that violence. We document evidence for this claim with archival data on Soviet state violence in western Ukraine, where Stalin's security services suppressed a nationalist insurgency by deporting over 250,000 people to Siberia. Using two causal identification strategies, we show that communities subjected to a greater intensity of deportation in the 1940s are now significantly less likely to vote for "pro-Russian" parties. These findings show that indiscriminate violence systematically reduces long-term political support for the perpetrator.


Barium titanate (BaTiO3) ceramics with a high-density were fabricated by two-step sintering method from hydrothermally synthesized 100 nm BaTiO3 nano-particles. The best specimen with an average grain size of 1.6 μm and a density of 5.91 g/cm3 (98.3% of the theoretical value). The dielectric constant was 4500 and electromechanical coupling factor kp was 45%. Large piezoelectric constants d33 = 460 pC/N and d31 = -185 pC/N were observed in the specimens. This was an important practical result towards obtaining a high d33 in non-lead-based BaTiO3 ceramics manufactured by a low-cost process. These results also indicated the possibility of using BaTiO3 ceramics in piezoelectric devices at room temperature. Temperature dependence of dielectric constant showed two peaks located at 24 and 126 oC, corresponding to orthorhombic-to-tetragonal phase transition temperature Tot and Curie temperature Tc, respectively. Owing to the size effect of nanocrystals, Tot shifted to 24 oC. The maximum of electromechanical coupling factor kp appeared close to the phase transition temperature. It also caused a very large temperature coefficient of resonance frequency from room temperature to 60 oC. Hysteresis curve measurement showed a very low coercive field Ec = 115 V/mm. A large Poisson's ratio, about 0.38, was determined from the ratio of overtone frequency and resonant frequency in the planar mode. The high Poisson's ratio and the large dielectric constants are most likely the origin of the high piezoelectric constants in the ceramics.


The roundtable took place on May 18, 2018 within the International forum MARX—XXI in commemoration of Karl Marx 200th birth anniversary. The event gathered leading Russian economists representing Lomonosov Moscow State University, Higher School of Economics, Financial University, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. The participants of the roundtable assessed the role of Karl Marx's heritage studies in the intellectual development of contemporary Russian economists, shared their personal experience in Karl Marx's "Capital" studies during the special seminar at the economic faculty of Moscow State University, determined the most challenging problems of today, which were raised by Marx, and presented their recommendations on Karl Marx's works studies in Russian universities.


The maritime sector is providing many particular issues, not only in operational sector but in training processes as well, developing a standardization framework (STCW) in spite of territorial activities dispersion, this standards being focused first off all on personnel competencies and abilities conformity, in the maritime fleet, all over the world. This paperwork is approaching the potential for higher education standards development in case of deck officers onboard on merchant and navy ships, through the modern techniques, based on simulators training, and navigation scenarios in varied conditions and unpredictable environment. Starting from the e-learning benefits in case of cadets training particularities, the authors are following to study in what manner as quality and quantity, through provided facilities, through its dynamic style of the training classes and through diversified methods of knowledge transfer, the e-learning environment is able to facilitate a continuously forming ascendant pathway, based on permanent participation and cooperation of students, capable to aim toward an individual and organizational performance increasing. As the maritime area is inquiring, the deck simulators education is a proper way to provide a virtual training in terms of gaining onboard standard routines for seafarers, in order to improve the safety exploiting of merchant and navy ships. The proposed solutions can contribute to the efficiency increasing of professional competences and abilities development processes, as these standards were established on international level, through IMO legal framework and other international convention (e.g. navigation, cargo handling and stowage, control of the ship and persons and goods security and safety on board at the operational level).


A pulsed laser photolysis-pulsed laser induced fluorescence technique has been employed to measure rate coefficients for the OH initiated oxidation of methylethyl sulfide (MES) and diethylsulfide (DES). In the absence of oxygen and at low sulfide concentrations we measure rate coefficients that are independent of pressure and temperature. At high sulfide concentrations and a temperature of 245 K, we observed the equilibration of MESOH and DESOH adducts over the pressure range 100-600 Torr. In the presence of O(2) the observed rate coefficients show a dependence on the O(2) partial pressure. We measured the dependence of the overall rates of oxidation on the partial pressure of O(2) over the temperature range 240-295 K and at 200 and 600 Torr total pressures. All observations are consistent with oxidation proceeding via a two channel oxidation mechanism involving abstraction and addition channels, analogous to that observed in the OH initiated oxidation of dimethylsulfide (DMS). Structures and thermochemistry of the MESOH and DESOH adducts were calculated and all results compared to those for DMS. Calculated bond strengths of adducts increase with alkyl substitution but are comparable to that of the DMSOH adduct and are consistent with experimental observations.


An adaptive flicker controller (AFC) device is developed and field tested. The AFC control strategy is described for systems with large and rapidly varying loads connected to a weak feeder. The control algorithm does not require knowledge of system parameters such as line impedance. The algorithm is fast and adaptive to system variations. The AFC is tested in a utility distribution system having a severe voltage flickering problem. The hardware and software required to implement the AFC is discussed. The results of a field test are presented and analyzed. >


The article tackles the issue of personal data protection in case of tracing (looking for) individual persons who have been exposed to health risks pursuant to the EU Decision 1082/2013 on Serious, Cross-border Health Threats. This problem exemplifies just one among many challenges of the health-security nexus in the EU. That is, it regards a certain trade-off between the limitation of individual rights and securing populations' safety. The text appraises the safeguards for the (lawful) limitation of the right to data protection after an in-depth examination of the provisions of the Health Threats Decision, its implementing measures, the reports on its operation, and in light of the general EU data protection laws. In conclusion, it claims that a number of improvements are needed because of the incompleteness, and the insufficient coherence and transparency of the EU regime for health threats. The established shortcomings are, at least in part, caused by the new EU "integrated approach" to health and security. In effect, an overall philosophy of reforms of public health policy in the name of "all-hazards security" applied in the Health Threats Decision can result in a reduction of the adequate level of protection of individuals' personal data.


The addition of 0.001% bromocresol purple and 0.001% bromothymol blue to buffered charcoal-yeast extract agar allowed differentiation between members of the family Legionellaceae. On this medium, Legionella pneumophila grew as relatively flat, pale green colonies, whereas Tatlockia micdadei (gen. nov., comb. nov., Pittsburgh pneumonia agent) produced blue-gray colonies. Fluoribacter spp. (gen. nov., atypical Legionella-like organisms) developed glistening colonies which were brighter green than those of L. pneumophila.


Radiation-induced changes may cause a non-malignant high 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-d-glucose (FDG)-uptake. The 3′-deoxy-3′-[18F]fluorothymidine (FLT)-PET/CT performs better in the differential diagnosis of inflammatory changes and lung lesions with a higher specificity than FDG-PET/CT. We investigated the association between post-radiotherapy FDG-PET-parameters, FLT-PET-parameters, and outcome. Sixty-one patients suspected for having a relapse after definitive radiotherapy for lung cancer were included. All the patients had FDG-PET/CT and FLT-PET/CT. FDG-PET- and FLT-PET-parameters were collected from within the irradiated high-dose volume (HDV) and from recurrent pulmonary lesions. For associations between PET-parameters and relapse status, respectively, the overall survival was analyzed. Thirty patients had a relapse, of these, 16 patients had a relapse within the HDV. FDG-SUVmax and FLT-SUVmax were higher in relapsed HDVs compared with non-relapsed HDVs (median FDG-SUVmax: 12.8 vs. 4.2; p < 0.001; median FLT-SUVmax 3.9 vs. 2.2; p < 0.001). A relapse within HDV had higher FDG-SUVpeak (median FDG-SUVpeak: 7.1 vs. 3.5; p = 0.014) and was larger (median metabolic tumor volume (MTV50%): 2.5 vs. 0.7; 0.014) than the relapsed lesions outside of HDV. The proliferative tumor volume (PTV50%) was prognostic for the overall survival (hazard ratio: 1.07 pr cm3 [1.01–1.13]; p = 0.014) in the univariate analysis, but not in the multivariate analysis. FDG-SUVmax and FLT-SUVmax may be helpful tools for differentiating the relapse from radiation-induced changes, however, they should not be used definitively for relapse detection.


There exists an abysm between market prices and traditional valuation approaches such as Discounted Cash Flows (DCF), a fact that neither academics nor practitioners could continue ignoring. Recently, a complementary approach has taken a foothold into the valuation world. Building on the DCF approach yet going further in the sense of incorporating flexibility in management investment decisions, and taking advantage of the advances in option pricing theory, the real options approach (ROA) has become the alternative to capital budgeting and, lately, to corporate valuation. Empirical evidence shows that ROA explains actual prices better than DCF approaches and nowadays there is no question that from a theoretical point of view, ROA is a much more appealing concept than passive NPV. However, its acceptance by practitioners has been very slow due to the complexity of real options pricing.


A new circuit to compute a continuous-time derivative is introduced. Comprising only one capacitor and six to eight transistors, this derivative circuit occupies very little real estate and consumes limited power, making it particularly well suited to low-power and array applications such as imager systems and sub-banded audio-processing applications. A description of the operation of this circuit is provided along with results from a circuit fabricated in a standard 0.5 μm CMOS process.


Introduction To speak very generally, there are two kinds of left apostate: there are those who break with the left in order to move elsewhere (usually to the right, though not always) and there are those who repudiate certain beliefs or modes of thinking within the left in order to strengthen other competing traditions within the left, which they see as more authentic and valuable. Among the former, one can instance Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, Paul Johnson and, more recently, Christopher Hitchens. Among the latter, Rosa Luxemburg, Victor Serge, Arthur Koestler, C.L.R. James, and George Orwell are prominent. Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the ranks of this latter group have swelled markedly. In America, Michael Walzer, Paul Berman and Mitchell Cohen, among others, spoke out against the left's reluctance or refusal to properly confront the menace of global Islamism, while in Britain a similar charge was spearheaded by, most prominently, David Aaronovitch, Norman Geras and Nick Cohen. Then, in April 2006, The Euston Manifesto was launched [1]. Authored by Geras and Alan Johnson, the Manifesto declared a commitment to democratic, egalitarian, humane, and libertarian values; registered its opposition to all forms of terrorism, political tyranny, ideological dogma, racist sentiment and cultural bigotry; reaffirmed the principle of a responsibility to protect the innocent from grave human rights violations; and expressed a profound impatience with elements of the left that have abandoned, or shown contempt for, the best aspirations of the progressive and democratic tradition. The appearance of the Manifesto, and the mass of interest it generated, seems to have been a galvanizing moment.


nature of early Germanic society. While he admits that on occasion free farmers might have grouped together to build a defence, for him the 'Burg' is a sign of nobility, but this idea is based on nonsense statements such as the evidence for industry on a defended site indicates it is a noble residence (PP. 155-6) ! The major reason for treating hillforts together as a class, as with all typological studies, is to classify them in chronological and functional terms, using both surface, excavation, and locational data (the latter is hardly touched upon in this volume), but too wide an area and time span can, and does in chapter IV, lead to the most banal of generalizations, for instance the statistics on size, siting, etc. More useful would be to accept that there is no such thing as 'German society' (or indeed 'Celtic'), and so to study hillforts and their functions within their regional contexts without preconceived ethnic or social ideas. For instance, a wide range of different hillfort 'systems' are indicated in the book-urban settlements in the Mittelgebirge in the first century BC (Altenburg bei Niedenstein), decentralized enclosed farmsteads in the Netherlands during the Roman Iron Age, centralized production centres, perhaps under a chieftain, in the fourth and fifth century Alamannic forts on the Rhine and Danube (Gelbe Burg, Runden Berg, Glauberg), and many others, which should form a study of contrast rather than all be lumped together as Germanic. The theoretical approach to hillfort studies in the German school lags 3 0 years behind that of its British counterpart. J O H N C O L L I S


Strong fluctuations of lower hybrid waves (LHW) amplitudes inside the plasma have been observed in experiments with different types of launchers. The fluctuation frequency is much higher than the frequency of plasma density fluctuations. This effect is explained by the presence of plasma fluctuations along the whole ray path. LHW spectrum broadening has been found by means of a double radiofrequency probe. This experimental result supports the assumption of spectral gap filling between the electron velocity distribution function and the spectrum launched into the plasma.


The design, synthesis and physicochemical properties of a new phosphorescent fluoride probe 1 are described. The probe consists of a stable Eu(iii) complex of a DO3A macrocycle on one side and a 2,5-di(thien-2-yl)pyrrole (SNS) scaffold on the other. They were linked together with a 1,2,3-triazole ring as a reliable connection unit, which was formed by Huisgen type copper-catalyzed [3+2] cycloaddition between the corresponding azide and alkyne. This novel material can be used as a turn-on phosphorescent fluoride probe. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of the combination of an SNS unit with a clicked Eu(iii) complex of DO3A scaffold, which can induce a prominent luminogenic response to fluoride ions among other anions. Finally, its behavior as a two-input OR logic gate was also demonstrated using OH− and OAc− anions.


In this study we demonstrate that stimulation with platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) leads to a marked reorganization of the vimentin filaments in porcine aortic endothelial (PAE) cells ectopically expressing the PDGF beta-receptor. Within 20 minutes after stimulation, the well-spread fine fibrillar vimentin was reorganized as the filaments aggregated into a dense coil around the nucleus. The solubility of vimentin upon Nonidet-P40-extraction of cells decreased considerably after PDGF stimulation, indicating that PDGF caused a redistribution of vimentin to a less soluble compartment. In addition, an increased tyrosine phosphorylation of vimentin was observed. The redistribution of vimentin was not a direct consequence of its tyrosine phosphorylation, since treatment of cells with an inhibitor for the cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase Src, attenuated phosphorylation but not redistribution of vimentin. These changes in the distribution of vimentin occurred in conjunction with reorganization of actin filaments. In PAE cells expressing a Y740/751F mutant receptor that is unable to bind and activate phosphatidylinositol 3'-kinase (PI3-kinase), the distribution of vimentin was virtually unaffected by PDGF stimulation. Thus, PI3-kinase is important for vimentin reorganization, in addition to its previously demonstrated role in actin reorganization. The small GTPase Rac has previously been shown to be involved downstream of PI3-kinase in the reorganization of actin filaments. In PAE cells overexpressing dominant negative Rac1 (N17Rac1), no change in the fine fibrillar vimentin network was seen after PDGF-BB stimulation, whereas in PAE cells overexpressing constitutively active Rac1 (V12Rac1), there was a dramatic change in vimentin filament organization independent of PDGF stimulation. These data indicate that PDGF causes a reorganization of microfilaments as well as intermediate filaments in its target cells and suggest an important role for Rac downstream of PI3-kinase in the PDGF stimulated reorganization of both actin and vimentin filaments.


ABSTRACT Contamination of soils by heavy metals due to urbanization increases various environmental concerns. The objective of this research was to determine the potential sources of heavy metals in agricultural soils in the vicinity of a small-scale industrial area and to assess their environmental impacts. Soil samples were obtained from 15 different locations near a small industrial area in the Çanakkale province of Turkey. Heavy metal (Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) contents of soil samples were determined with four different geochemical fractions via a sequential extraction procedure. The results revealed that pseudo-total heavy metal concentrations were ordered in decreasing order as Zn > Pb > Cu > Ni > Co > Cd. Considering the results, Cd (1.95 ± 0.12 µg/g), Pb (39.21 ± 2.14 µg/g) and Zn (64.99 ± 8.16 µg/g) values were above the normal values specified for agricultural lands. The findings obtained from sequential extraction procedure showed that Cd (78%) and Pb (65%) existed mostly in mobile phases. Such mobile phases originated mostly from anthropogenic sources. These findings were also supported by chemometric analyses. Risk assessments pointed out that while Pb and Zn have moderate risks on the environment, Cd creates high risks.


289 patients at Port Moresby General Hospital's Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) Clinic were interviewed over the January-March 1985 period to evaluate the level of knowledge about STDs shown by people attending the clinic. The questionnaire used included open-ended and precoded questions and had been translated into the 2 major languages spoken in this area of Papua New Guinea. The data were processed by the Prime computer using the BMDP statistical package. There were 231 (80%) males and 58 females; their ages ranged from 15-47 years with a mean of 24.8 and a mode of 20 years. The patients came from all provinces except West Sepik and North Solomons. 85% of the patients had heard about gonorrhea, 38% about syphilis, and 11% about donovanosis. Of those who had heard about gonorrhea, only 25 (10%) knew a corresponding local name for gonorrhea. In general, the patients knew the symptoms of gonorrhea but not of syphilis or donovanosis. A large number responded affirmatively that they had ever suffered with, had sex with someone suffering with, or had sex with someone they suspected of having gonorrhea; a few responded affirmatively to these questions in regard to syphilis and donovanosis. There was considerable variation in the replies to the causes of gonorrhea, syphilis, and donovanosis. The older patients with a mean age of 29.7 years tended to believe the cause was sorcery (puripuri); the younger patients did not. Among the 256 patients that responded to the question about what they considered to be the worst consequences of STD, 39% thought it was death. 66% responded that there was no treatment for STD in their local area; 3 identified the use of leaves, bark of trees, and ashes. The plant most commonly mentioned was the "budowai" plant. The study results indicate that even among those individuals who attend a clinic for STDs the knowledge about the major 3 STDs of the country remains limited. Ignorance of causes, symptoms, and complications is common.


Political tolerance—the willingness to extend civil liberties to traditionally stigmatized groups—is pivotal to the functioning of democracy and the well-being of members of stigmatized groups. Although political tolerance has traditionally been more common among American elites, we argue that as tolerance has increased, it has also diffused to less educated and less affluent segments of the population. The relative stability of political attitudes over the life course and the socialization of more recent birth cohorts in contexts of increased tolerance suggest that this diffusion of tolerance occurs across birth cohorts rather than time periods. Using age-period-cohort models and more than three and a half decades of repeated cross-sectional survey data, we find persistent and robust across-cohort declines in the importance of both income and higher education in determining levels of political tolerance. Declines in the effects of socioeconomic status are evident with tolerance toward all five out-groups in the analysis—anti-religionists, gays and lesbians, communists, militarists, and racists—but to varying degrees. These findings fit with a model of changes in public opinion, particularly views of civil and political rights, through processes of cultural diffusion and cohort replacement.


Abstract The ancient Indo-European languages, such as early Vedic or (Homeric) Greek, are usually considered to be characterized by a high degree of lability. According to the communis opinio, they had a considerable number of labile verbs or verbal forms that could be labile, cf. rudrā॔ r̥tásya sádaneṣu vāvr̥dhuḥ 'Rudras have grown [intransitive] in the residences of the truth' ~ índram ukthā॔ni vāvr̥dhuḥ 'The hymns have increased [transitive] Indra'. This paper offers a general overview of the Vedic verbal forms for which labile patterning is attested. I will argue that, for most of these forms, the secondary character of lability can be demonstrated. Thus, for many labile forms with middle inflection (in particular, forms belonging to the present system), labile patterning results from the polyfunctionality of the middle diathesis (self-beneficent / anticausative). The secondary transitive usages of some fundamentally intransitive verbs such as puṣyati 'prospers; makes prosper' originates from the syntactic re-analysis of content accusative constructions of the type 'X prospers (in) Y'→'X makes Y prosper'. I will further demonstrate that, within the Old Indo-Aryan period, we observe the decline of the labile type. Already in the second most ancient Vedic text, the Atharvaveda, we find very few labile forms. Thus, most of the active perfects which show labile syntax in the Rgveda are either attested in intransitive usages only, or in transitive usages only, or do not occur at all. I will also discuss the main mechanisms of the loss of labile pattern in Old Indo-Aryan.


Section 1 Principles of perioperative care. 1 Metabolic response to injury, fluid and electrolyte balance and shock 2 Transfusion of blood components and plasma product 3 Nutritional support in surgical patients 4 Infections and antibiotics 5 Ethics, pre-operative considerations, anaesthesia and analgesia 6 Principles of the surgical management of cancer 7 Trauma and multiple injury 8 Practical procedures and patient investigation 9 Post-operative care and complications 10 Day surgery Section 2 Gastrointestinal surgery. 11 The abdominal wall and hernia 12 The acute abdomen and intestinal obstruction 13 The oesophagus, stomach and duodenum 14 The liver and biliary tract 15 The pancreas and spleen 16 The small and large intestine 17 The anorectum Section 3 Surgical specialties. 18 Plastic and reconstructive surgery 19 The breast 20 Endocrine surgery 21 Vascular and endovascular surgery 22 Cardiothoracic surgery 23 Urological surgery 24 Neurosurgery 25 Transplantation surgery 26 Ear, nose and throat surgery 27 Orthopaedic surgery