Objective: This pilot project examined the mental health and quality of life outcomes achieved by 17 OIF/OEF (Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom) veterans who participated in the first cohort of the Veterans Conservation Corps (VCC) green jobs training program at Green River Community College in Auburn, Washington. Methods: The VCC is an innovative, 10-month educational program which provides academic and vocational training to OIF/OEF veterans who are interested in pursuing environmental careers or green jobs. All subjects successfully completed a 10-month full-time training program that required adherence to a rigorous schedule of classroom academics and outdoor field work. An assessment battery measuring depression, anxiety, PTSD, physical health, and perceived quality of life was administered at baseline, mid-point, and at the end of the training program. Results: Improvements were found in two of the measures (improvement in social functioning and ability to perform daily tasks) which is noteworthy with such a small sample size (n= l 7). Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest that participation in the VCC may help to improve the social and physical functioning of OIF/OEF veterans. Addressing readjustment issues for all returning veterans through vocational training in the emerging field of green jobs is discussed and considered.


The Intelligent Transportation Institute at the University of Minnesota is developing a Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance System - Stop Sign Assist (CICAS-SSA) for rural intersections as an alternative to signalized intersections. When deployed, the system will provide a driver stopped at a thru-stop intersection information about the available gaps in the mainline road traffic stream. The system uses surveillance sensors alongside the major road to determine the state1 of the intersection; this state information is used to determine whether the gaps that exist are unsafe, thereby triggering a warning to a driver not to initiate the desired maneuver. The system is capable of sending intersection state information to the vehicle (I2V) so that gap information can be displayed in the vehicle. Low cost automotive radar/laser sensors form the basis of the surveillance system. Described herein is a performance evaluation of a Delphi ESR radar sensor (ESR), an Ibeo Lux laser sensor (LUX), and a Smartmicro Umrr9 radar sensor (UMRR9). Each sensor was mounted adjacent to the shoulder on US 52 while a probe vehicle equipped with dual frequency, carrier phase DGPS was driven past. The accuracy of the position and speed measurements for each sensor were determined by comparison with the DGPS position and speed measured at the probe vehicle. An analysis was conducted to determine which sensor provided the best performance:cost ratio when used as a CICAS-SSA mainline sensor.


Characteristics of woodpecker nest trees have been widely studied in some regions of North America. However, there is little research from the Upper Midwest. Forest managers need information on woodpecker nest tree characteristics so they can recommend leaving during harvest trees that meet the needs of cavity-dwelling wildlife. Information specific to the Upper Midwest is especially important given that declines in several species of cavity nesting birds have been predicted by an environmental analysis of timber harvest in Minnesota. Our purpose was to identify attributes of nest trees used by primary cavity-nesting birds. We compared nest trees to unused trees and examined differences in nest trees among woodpecker species. We found 166 active woodpecker nests in upper midwestern oak forests in 1997 and 1998. For each nest tree, we recorded height, diameter, status, and aspects of tree decay. We also measured four potential nest trees (non-nest trees, within size requirements of cavity-nesting birds, with at least 2 indicators of heartwood decay) closest to each active nest tree. Additionally, we recorded these measurements for 137 randomly selected potential nest trees. Using paired t-tests and chi-square analysis, we found each woodpecker species had a unique set of characteristics that separated nest trees from potential nest trees. Using an extension of the McNemar test for related samples, we found woodpeckers as a group used trees that were larger, both in diameter and height, more often elm ( Ulmus americana , U. rubra ) or aspen ( Populus tremuloides , P. grandidentata ), more likely to have old cavities present, and with more decay indicators than adjacent potential nest trees. The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker ( Sphyrapicus varius ) differed from the other woodpecker species by nesting in living Trembling Aspens ( Populus tremuloides ) with intact tops, complete bark cover, and heartwood fungus. Diameters of nest trees differed significantly among woodpecker species, but unlike findings from other studies, the height of nest hole and nest tree did not. Woodpecker nest entrances faced south or southeast significantly more often than by chance alone, even when excluding leaning trees. This study suggests that generic forest management for all woodpecker species may not be adequate because individual species have specific nest tree requirements. Management recommendations for cavity-nesting birds need to be tailored to meet the needs of a diversity of species.


Alveolar macrophages (AM) from the majority of human volunteers are defective antigen presenting cells (APC) in T cell proliferation assays despite the display by the cells of HLA-D region antigens. We have confirmed that AM secrete relatively little interleukin 1 (IL 1), but addition of exogenous IL 1 did not improve the capacity of AM to initiate antigen-induced T cell proliferation. Thus, the presence of HLA-D region antigens and IL 1 is not sufficient to enable an accessory cell to act as an APC. We developed a T cell-accessory cell binding assay to investigate early events in T cell activation. AM demonstrated a diminished capacity as compared with monocytes to bind antigen-specific T cell clones. Nevertheless, AM often induced proliferation of T cell clones as effectively as monocytes, indicating that antigen display was intact. The inefficiency of AM in bind T cell clones correlated with their reduced capacity to induce resting T cells to express IL 2 receptors, secrete IL 2, and proliferate in response to antigen. Indirect immunofluorescence established that similar percentages of AM and monocytes expressed LFA molecules, but the density of the molecules was greater on monocytes than AM. A role for LFA antigens in the physical binding of T cells to monocytes was demonstrated by blocking antigen-specific binding with a monoclonal antibody to LFA-1 antigen. LFA-1 antibody also blocked the low levels of specific binding between AM and T cell clones, indicating that LFA-1-ligand interactions were operative between these two cell types. These studies indicate that there are critical cell membrane characteristics that promote binding of T cells to APC in addition to T cell receptor-antigen interactions. This combination of nonspecific and specific interactions leads to avid T cell-APC binding that may be essential for activation of resting T cells. Furthermore, we postulate that the failure to AM to act as effective APC results from an inability to bind T cells efficiently.


In this increasingly globalized world, ever more software projects originating in high-cost countries are being undertaken by third-party organizations in low-cost countries. These projects, known as offshore-outsourced software development (OOSD) projects, exhibit offshore-specific risks that cause them to be more prone to failures than other types of projects. We investigated 19 failed OOSD projects using the ground theory methodology and analyzed why project managers fail to act on the early warning signs (EWS) of failure. Managers based in India and Switzerland from both the client and vendor sides participated in this research to explore the early stages of project failure. Our analysis of the perception of EWSs of failure has resulted in a four-stage model that explains the process by which issues are resolved between clients and vendors. The stages are: monitoring EWSs, detecting EWSs, acknowledging issues, and addressing issues. We further examined, for each stage, the reasons behind project managers' inability to manage the issues. We have contributed to the information systems literature on failure and on outsourcing by exploring the early failure stages in OOSD projects.


When Andrew John Wiles was 10 years old, he read Eric Temple Bell's The Last Problem and was so impressed by it that he decided that he would be the first person to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. This theorem states that there are no nonzero integers a, b, c, n with n > 2 such that an + bn = cn. The object of this paper is to prove that all semistable elliptic curves over the set of rational numbers are modular. Fermat's Last Theorem follows as a corollary by virtue of previous work by Frey, Serre and Ribet.


Taking Jiyu Bridge Station of Wuhan Metro Project as example, the deformation characteristics of supporting system of deep foundation pit was studied by means of numerical simulation (FLAC3D) in consideration of construction order. The deformation fields of different excavation depths of diaphram wall were obtained and analyzed in order to gain the maximum horizontal displacement value and settlement value. By comparison with the monitoring data, the simulation results can basically reflect the deformation characteristics. Moreover, the simulation results showed that the application of diaphram wall was feasible for foundation pit supporting in Jiyu Bridge Station, meanwhile, the results can be based on to guide the construction.


Multi-lingual language models (LM), such as mBERT, XLM-R, mT5, mBART, have been remarkably successful in enabling natural language tasks in low-resource languages through cross-lingual transfer from high-resource ones. In this work, we try to better understand how such models, specifically mT5, transfer *any* linguistic and semantic knowledge across languages, even though no explicit cross-lingual signals are provided during pre-training. Rather, only unannotated texts from each language are presented to the model separately and independently of one another, and the model appears to implicitly learn cross-lingual connections. This raises several questions that motivate our study, such as: Are the cross-lingual connections between every language pair equally strong? What properties of source and target language impact the strength of cross-lingual transfer? Can we quantify the impact of those properties on the cross-lingual transfer? In our investigation, we analyze a pre-trained mT5 to discover the attributes of cross-lingual connections learned by the model. Through a statistical interpretation framework over 90 language pairs across three tasks, we show that transfer performance can be modeled by a few linguistic and data-derived features. These observations enable us to interpret cross-lingual understanding of the mT5 model. Through these observations, one can favorably choose the best source language for a task, and can anticipate its training data demands. A key finding of this work is that similarity of syntax, morphology and phonology are good predictors of cross-lingual transfer, significantly more than just the lexical similarity of languages. For a given language, we are able to predict zero-shot performance, that increases on a logarithmic scale with the number of few-shot target language data points.


Rapid quenching of thin horizontal platinum wires (0.3 and 0.5mm in diameter) was studied experimentally using pure water as a quenching liquid. The cooling curve was measured in the ranges of water temperature of 0 to 50°C, falling velocity of the wire of 0.1 to 1.5 m/s, and initial wire temperature of 600 to 1400°C. The boiling curve for the rapid quenching process was obtained from the cooling curve. The degree of superheat at the minimum heat flux point was around 350 K irrespective of the water temperature, the falling velocity and the wire diameter. The heat flux in the film, transition and nucleate boiling regions increased with increasing degree of subcooling and falling velocity. A numerical analysis of transient film boiling on a horizontal cylinder with upward liquid flow was performed. The measured heat flux was about 30% higher than the calculated value at the forward stagnation point.


Social stress in urban life has been proposed as an environmental risk factor associated with the increased prevalence of schizophrenia in urban compared to rural areas. However, the potential genetic contributions to this relationship have been largely ignored. Using a community-based sample of 15,544 adults living in Australia, we found higher genetic loading for schizophrenia in participants living in more densely populated (p-value=5.69*10-5) or less remote areas (p-value=0.003). Mendelian Randomization suggested that high schizophrenia genetic risk is a causal factor in chosing to live in denser (p-value=0.046) and less remote areas (p-value=0.044). Our results support the hypothesis of selective migration to more urban environments by people at higher genetic risk for schizophrenia and suggest a need to refine the social stress model for schizophrenia by including genetic influences on where people choose to live.


Korean genealogies are commonly read for information about individuals and lineages recorded therein. They may be read also for content, themes, and contrasts that inform the writing of the constructed ancestors. The T'aean Yi ssi descent group fared poorly in the higher civil service examinations throughout the Chosŏn period, but entered numerous members into government service through the technical specializations, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By contrast, the first generations—which the genealogy compiler(s) placed in China from the tenth century into the early twelfth century—not only excelled at the higher civil service examinations, but also married members of the imperial family and produced daughters or descendants of some of the most famous men in Northern Song history. The social status of the first generations and their political status in the genealogy added a stature that the descent group had not achieved in the Chosŏn period.


This article contributes to a thriving line of research that examines issue interpretation and social accounts in order to study the adoption and diffusion of organizational concepts and management practices. It employs the empirical example of the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Austria between 1990 and 2005 to investigate the complex role institutional pressures and social positions of actors play in the local adoption of globally theorized ideas. More specifically, the study reveals distinct patterns in rhetorical CSR adoption that illustrate the initial hesitation and reluctance of an established elite in the Austrian business community towards the Anglo-American notion of 'explicit' CSR, while non-elite actors who were less favourably positioned in the social order readily embraced the concept. It is in such a sense that CSR is nevertheless instrumentalized to challenge, reinterpret, or explicitly evoke the autochthonous idea of institutionalized social solidarity. Conceptually, this research takes into account social structure, actors' positions in the social order, and resulting divergent adoption motivations - i.e. the individual, yet socially derived, relevance systems of actors - and relates them to mechanisms and processes of institutional change. (author's abstract)


Vincristine, a major player in front line combination chemotherapy of cancer reduces testosterone levels contributing to reproductive toxicity. Much is known about testicular toxicity of vincristine as compared to its effect on epididymis; hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the epididymal toxicity associated with vincristine treatment, which also contributes to the overall reproductive toxicity associated with vincristine. Vincristine was intraperitoneally injected to adult male Wistar rats of proven fertility with a dose of 40 mg/kg/day dissolved in 0.5 ml of physiological saline for 30 days. The epididymal weight was found to be unaltered after treatment whereas sperm count was reduced significantly. Significant changes were noted in ion concentrations of cauda and caput of epididymis with changes in protein profile of the tissue, sperm and luminal protein from cauda and caput region, which plays a significant role in sperm maturation and sperm transport. Infertility associated with vincristine could be attributed to its effects on various epididymal proteins involved in sperm protection and various stages of sperm development such as cytoplasmic extrusion and membrane stabilization, which had contributed to the abnormal sperm count and impaired function.


Dahl sodium-sensitive and resistant rats were fed low and high sodium diets. Renal plasma membrane alpha 2-adrenergic receptor concentrations were greater (p less than .05) in sensitive than in resistant rats while ingesting a low sodium diet. On a high sodium diet the alpha 2 receptor concentration increased (p less than .01) in sensitive but not in resistant rats. Since alpha 2 receptors are located in proximal tubules at sites where norepinephrine induces sodium reabsorption, we postulate that this genetically determined abnormal receptor regulation could lead to exaggerated sodium retention and possibly high blood pressure.


Abstract This essay examines how the US government intelligence community (IC) as well as the public and commercial sectors contributed demand-pull, in different ways, for an unregulated, privatized Internet. Demand-pull entails more demand than supply, or a shortage in supply (such as a shortage in networks and thus a demand-pull for them). It is argued that an excessive supply of Cold War era IC spy data, which required high-speed data processing, incentivized ARPANET expansion. In the public sector, people wanted expanded networks for personal computing and in the commercial sector there was demand-pull for unregulated networks that bootlegged and gifted PROMIS derived software could be harnessed to. The IC demand pulled for their own cloned and separate networks, while the public demand pulled for their own networks and commercial interests demand pulled for unregulated, privatized and expanded networks. Together these different demand-pull scenarios incentivized a speedy and unchallenged privatization of an Internet that was neither owned nor regulated by any one government or company.


We propose a novel approach to modeling salvation that does not deny the basic principles of belief in God and adherence to the divine moral code traditionally tied to salvation eligibility. Rather, it opens up salvation to a wider spectrum of believers who do not necessarily follow the divine moral law but other secular moral systems. Using basic principles of economics to understand commodities markets along with the assumption that the religious realm behaves as any other market, salvation is analyzed as a commodity offered. The rules of engagement, namely who gets this commodity and at what price, would have to be dictated by the market based on interaction between the supplier and the buyer of the commodity. Within the monotheistic religious traditions, God, the single agent supplier responsible for the distribution of salvation, behaves as a monopolist and also considers for salvation those buyers/believers practicing secular moral codes.


In the gene bank variety collection, 15 plum varieties were examined based on morphogenetic and pomological traits. Most cultivars of self-fertilizing or pollinating partners were well-cultivated. In addition to Queston, Stanley, Valor and Verity, towards 11 new cultivars have been experienced in this paper.
From the observations, it seems that the growth and plantation of Valor, Presenta, Topfive and Bellamira can increase. However, the Top Sugar and Valor fruit sizes are best suited to market requirements. The role of Stanley may be reduced, but there is no reason to replace it. However, the questions of local varieties of domestic origin fall into a different category, and raw materials for quality products are difficult to replace with other varieties.


Congenital and acquired bony abnormalities of the cranio-vertebral junction may result in compression and distortion of the neural structures, vertebro-basilar vascular system, and cerebrospinal fluid channels. Ninetyeight human skulls of both sexes were examined for occipitalization of atlas. Two crania showed various degrees of assimilation of the atlas to the basicranium. One of the skulls showed complete fusion of the atlas with the occipital bone. Whereas, in the other skull atlas was partially fused to the occipital bone. Even though assimilation of the atlas is the most common anomaly found in cranio-cervical junction, head and neck surgeons should be aware that such an anomaly may exist without any typical symptomatic presentation, and thus, serious consequences of upper cervical spinal manipulative therapy may arise when a complete and adequate clinical assessment is missed. Neuroanatomy; 2007; 6: 32–33.


Most large corporations developed in an era of abundant raw materials, cheap energy, and limitless sinks for waste disposal. It has become increasingly clear that many technologies developed during this earlier period contribute to the destruction of the ecological systems on which the global economy depends. In the absence of dramatic change, few would dispute that the world is destined to devolve toward environmental degradation, social upheaval, and mass migration.

Hart and Milstein argue that the emerging challenge of global sustainability will catalyze a new round of "creative destruction" that innovators and entrepreneurs will view as one of the biggest business opportunities in the history of commerce. In this article, the authors propose a framework to help managers look beyond continuous, incremental improvement of existing products and processes to see the business world differently and make sustainable opportunities more apparent.

To better understand sustainability-driven creative destruction, managers must evaluate business opportunities on the basis of three types of markets or economies that exist in all countries or geographical regions: developed (nearly 1 billion global customers), emerging (estimated at roughly 2 billion people), and surviving (roughly half of humanity or 3 billion customers). The authors discuss the different strategies required to achieve sustainable development in each economy.

To compete in the consumer economy, managers must focus on reducing the life-cycle ("cradle to grave") impacts ? that is, the "ecological footprint" of their firms' activities ? by reinventing their products and processes. The combination of large footprint and technological maturity widens the gap between price and life-cycle cost, producing the technological and environmental forces that drive creative destruction.

Because it is unlikely that senior managers will commit resources without a clear understanding of how sustainability-driven creative destruction can improve a firm's economic payoff, the authors offer ideas for sustainability metrics tied to the three economies discussed and show how they relate to key business and financial payoffs.

Managers who treat sustainable development as an opportunity will drive the creative destruction process and build the foundation to compete in the twenty-first century.


Summaries Masculinity and its impact on gender relations and the institutionalisation of power exercised by men have been critically commented upon on by activists and academics working on issues related to gender relations. The failure of the early 'developmentalist' approach to population control programmes, the increase in violence against women, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic has pushed to the fore, amongst others issue, the question of male sexuality and male culture. The Save the Children (UK) South and Central Asia Regional Office and UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia is proposing to make a series of films on masculinities, which deconstructs and reconstructs patriarchy within South Asia. The film‐making project involves the production of films on masculinities by male film‐makers from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, within their own countries. This film‐making project, is intended to increase and extend the impact of SCF's and UNICEF's country programmes in tackling the problems of increasing violence against girls. The intent is to try and explore the broad patterns of masculinities without ignoring the particularities of each category of men (in terms of class, caste, sexual preference, etc.). The way men negotiate between duties and dreams, dominance and love, anxiety and pleasure, power and insecurity are the kernels around which the stories are to be constructed.


The performance of automatic building detection techniques can be significantly impeded due to the presence of same-height objects, for example, trees. Consequently, if a building detection technique cannot distinguish between trees and buildings, both its false positive and false negative rates rise significantly. This paper presents an improved automatic building detection technique that achieves more effective separation of buildings from trees. In addition to using traditional cues such as height, width and colour, the proposed improved detector uses texture information from both LIDAR and orthoimagery. Firstly, image entropy and colour information are jointly applied to remove easily distinguishable trees. Secondly, a voting procedure based on the neighbourhood information from both the image and LIDAR data is employed for further exclusion of trees. Finally, a rule-based procedure using the edge orientation histogram from the image is followed to eliminate false positive candidates. The improved detector has been tested on a number of scenes from three different test areas and it is shown that the algorithm performs well in complex scenes.


Doxorubicin (DOX) is a chemotherapeutic agent, and is widely used in cancer treatment. The most common side effect of DOX was indicated on cardiovascular system by experimental studies. There are some studies suggesting oxidative stress‐induced toxic changes on liver related to DOX administration. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether antioxidant N‐acetylcysteine (NAC) relieves oxidative stress in DOX‐ induced liver injury in rat. Twenty‐four male rats were equally divided into three groups. First group was used as a control. Second group received single dose of DOX. NAC for 10 days was given to constituting the third group after giving one dose of DOX. After 10 days of the experiment, liver tissues were taken from all animals. Lipid peroxidation (LP) levels were higher in the DOX group than in control whereas LP levels were lower in the DOX + NAC group than in control. Vitamin C and vitamin E levels were lower in the DOX group than in control whereas vitamin C and vitamin E levels were higher in the DOX + NAC group than in the DOX group. Reduced glutathione levels were higher in the DOX + NAC group than in control and DOX group. Glutathione peroxidase, vitamin A and β‐carotene values were not changed in the three groups by DOX and NAC administrations. In histopathological evaluation of DOX group, there were mononuclear cell infiltrations, vacuolar degeneration, hepatocytes with basophilic nucleus and sinusoidal dilatations. The findings were totally recovered by NAC administration. In conclusion, N‐acetylcysteine induced modulator effects on the doxorubicin‐induced hepatoxicity by inhibiting free radical production and supporting the antioxidant vitamin levels. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


: The effects of social class and delivery system on admission and behavioral variables, diagnosis, treatment, and length of hospitalization were studied by comparing patients admitted over a one-year period to the psychiatric services of a public and a private general hospital, staffed by the same Department of Psychiatry. Patients were of similar age and sex and were matched by social class. Crisis-precipitated admissions and affective-disorder diagnoses varied with social class irrespective of treatment facility. Patients diagnosed as schizophrenic were more common in the upper classes at the private facility and the lower classes at the public facility. Somatic treatments and length of hospitalization also varied according to social class as well as delivery system. The results of this study imply that economic differences between public and private delivery systems operate to select patients for admission and affect expeditiousness of treatment, perhaps to the detriment of patients in both systems.


OBJECTIVE
To determine if menopause increases the risk of developing bladder hyperactivity or stress urinary incontinence.

METHODS
A case control study was conducted on 111 women, 57 with bladder hyperactivity and 54 controls without hyperactivity, and 55 cases with stress urinary incontinence and 55 controls without stress urinary incontinence. The results were analyzed by multivariant logistic regression for the influence of age.

RESULTS
A relationship was found between age and menopause and the risk of developing stress urinary incontinence. No relationship was found between bladder hyperactivity and age or menopause. Age was found to be a negative factor of menopause in regard to the risk of developing stress urinary incontinence.

CONCLUSIONS
The risk of developing stress urinary incontinence in menopausal women decreases with age and disappears after age 52.


Cervical carotid stenosis is one of the main causes of ischemic stroke. Carotid endarterectomy is a safe procedure for treatment of moderate and severe symptomatic and asymptomatic carotid stenosis. Regional anesthesia allows neurological evaluation of the patient during the surgery. We reviewed the results of 104 patients operated on at our institution under regional anesthesia during the period of April 1996 and May 2002. 64 patients were symptomatic (61.54%) and 40 asymptomatic (38.46%). All patients had carotid stenosis over 70%. The patients were followed from one to 72 months (Mean: 29.5). Three patients had cervical hematoma, that required surgical drainage. Two patients had minor stroke at the same side of the endarterectomy at the post-operative period and another two during the follow-up (1.92%). Two patients died due to complications related to the surgery (1.92%). Our results, compared with the literature, show that endarterectomy is a safe procedure to treat moderate or severe carotid artery stenosis.


In Figure 3 of the above article [Franklin RK, Marcus SA, Talaat AM, KuKanich BK, Sullivan R, KrugnerHigby LA, and Heath TD (2015)Drug Metab Dispos 43:1236–1245], recalculation of the scale bar, based on subsequent calibrated images, indicates that the original scale bar calibrations should have been reported as approximately two fold greater. This scaling error had no impact on the data or conclusions of the paper. The authors apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.


Abstract The prevalence of antibiotic resistant coliform bacteria and enterococci in fresh raw cow milk obtained from four vending machines in Slovakia was assessed. Also, differences in the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in milk according to season (winter and summer) were compared. Number of total coliform bacteria ranged from 2.45 to 4.18 log CFU/mL. Majority of them were resistant to ampicillin. This was expected due to their intrinsic resistance apart from Escherichia coli which is sensitive to ampicillin. In addition, we observed also tetracycline and gentamicin resistance. Each of our samples contained E.coli. Number of total enterococci ranged from 1.95 to 3.78 log CFU/mL. We have observed predominantly vancomycin resistance in all tested samples. In samples taken during winter we have found higher number of total and resistant coliforms as well as total enterococci compared to those taken during summer.


The role of the future engineers and technicians in these technically developed societies is becoming more challenging because of the globalisation of manufacturing industry and engineering practices. In addition, the advancement of technology has greatly influenced the delivery system of technological and, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) worldwide. The development of curricula has stressed the need for flexibility in structure and modes of delivery of TVET programmes. Our society today faces significant challenges including international competition, the global environment, an increasingly diverse population, and a rapid growth in the population. As a result, the engineering education and TVET colleges for the future should be broad-based engineering programmes for easy mobility, flexibility and adaptability to the new changing technology and environment. Therefore, a more dynamic curriculum delivery for the engineering education is needed. Realizing the importance of producing a highly competence engineers of the future, the Libyan Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) should put a considerable pressure to the universities and TVET institutions to produce engineers and technicians who are competitive in the marketplace. The aim of this paper is to examine to describe the results of a survey which was conducted in Libya (the perceptions of university engineering students to the curriculum delivery). To achieve this goal a questionnaire has been designed, and distributed to students at higher education to explore their views in this regard. Conclusion points out that the delivery of the curriculum is mostly based on traditional classroom fashion and very little has been done to promote new innovative delivery methods.


The unbiased expectations hypothesis states that forward rates are unbiased estimates for future short rates. Cox, Ingersoll and Ross [1] conjectured that this hypothesis should be inconsistent with the absence of arbitrage possibilities. Using the framework of Heath, Jarrow and Morton [4] we show that this is not always the case. The unbiased expectations hypothesis together with the existence of an equivalent martingale measure is equivalent to a certain condition on the volatilities of the forward rates.


In this work structural properties of TiO2 thin films doped with different amounts of Nd have been presented. Thin films were deposited on silicon substrates using high energy reactive magnetron sputtering process and for the measurements TiO2 doped with 0.84 at. % and 8.51 at. % of Nd have been selected. Diversification of the thin film surface was investigated using atomic force microscope. The results have shown that distribution of grains size the thin films was dependent on the amount of neodymium dopant. Moreover structural characterization of the thin films with use of X-Ray Diffraction method has shown that different structure of the TiO2 thin films was received with selected amount of Nd (0.84 and 8.51 at. %) and by additional annealing.


The forward displacement analysis of the 6-SPS Stewart mechanism can be transformed into solving complicated nonlinear equations and it is a very difficult process. Taking chaotic sequences as the initial values of damp least square method, all the solutions of equations can be found quickly and making use of existing chaos system and discovering new chaos system to generate chaotic sequences with good properties is the key to the Chaos sequences-based damp least square method. Based on the connection topology of chaotic neural network composed of the four chaotic neurons, hyper-chaos exists in the chaotic neural network system. Combining hyper-chaos with damp least square method, a new method to find all solutions of nonlinear questions was proposed, in which initial points are generated by utilizing hyper-chaotic neural network. Based on direction cosine matrix and Euler parameters, the model of the forward displacements of 6-SPS parallel mechanism with seven variables is built up. The result is verified by a numerical example.


The automatic health monitoring system for home health care was designed and practically used. The system consisted of automatic data acquisition instruments and communication devices. The electrocardiogram (EGG) in bed, the ECG in the bath tub and the body and urinary weight in a lavatory were monitored automatically and transferred to the personal computer.


Three hundred and fourteen strains of group D streptococci were studied by means of a number of tests. The majority of the strains were identified as Streptococcus faecalis (83 strains), Streptococcus faecium (131 strains), or Streptococcus bovis (32 strains). Several strains (47 or nearly 15%) either shared characteristics of two species or were completely atypical. S. faecalis and S. bovis were more easily identified than S. faecium, which is not sharply defined from the other species and could be subdivided into several fermentative types on the basis of fermentation of arabinose, mannitol, sorbitol, glycerol, and sucrose. The value of some characteristics in species identification is discussed. Growth in the presence of potassium tellurite 1:2,500 and in the presence of 6.5% NaCl and fermentation of arabinose, glycerol, and raffinose are very important tests for the identification of the three species. The reduction of tetrazolium salts, the reduction of litmus milk, and the fermentation of sorbitol may serve as complementary tests for the same purpose. For the differentiation of these three species the "pattern of reactions" is more important than single tests.


Ultrafast laser inscription has been used to produce channel waveguides in Ge22As20Se58 glass (GASIR-1, Umicore N.V). The mode field diameter and waveguide losses at 2.94 μm were measured along with the waveguide dispersion in the 1 to 4.5 μm range, which is used to estimate the zero-dispersion wavelength. Z-scan measurements of bulk samples have also been performed to determine the nonlinear refractive index. Finally, mid-IR supercontinuum generation has been shown when pumping the waveguides with femtosecond pulses centered at 4.6 μm. Supercontinuum spanning approximately 4 μm from 2.5 to 6.5 μm was measured which, to the best of the authors' knowledge, represents the broadest and the deepest IR supercontinuum from an ultrafast laser inscribed waveguide to date. This work, combined with the long wavelength transmission of GASIR-1 up to 15 μm, paves the way for realizing further ultrafast laser inscribed waveguide devices in GASIR-1 for mid-IR integrated optics applications.


This paper presents the algorithms and experimental results for template-based shell clustering when the datasets are represented by line segments. Compared with point datasets, such representations have several advantages, which include better scalability and noise immunity, as well as the availability of orientation information. Using both synthetic and real-world image datasets, we have experimentally demonstrated that line-segment-based representations result in both better accuracy and better efficiency in shell clustering.


The English Civil War was a time of disruption, suffering and persecution for many people, not least the clergy of the established church, who found themselves ejected from their livings in increasing numbers as Parliamentarian forces extended their control across the country. Yet, historians have tended to downplay their suffering, preferring in most cases to concentrate instead upon the persecution suffered by dissenters after the Restoration. Drawing upon an impressive array of sources - most notably the remarkable set of family and parish memories collected by John Walker in the early years of the eighteenth century - this book refocuses attention on the experiences of the sequestered loyalist clergy during the turbulent years of the 1640s and 1650s. The study highlights how the experiences of the clergy can help illuminate events in wider society, whilst at the same time acknowledging the unique situation in which Church of England ministers found themselves. For although the plundering, imprisonment and personal loss of the clergy was probably indicative of the experiences of many ordinary people on middle incomes, the ever present religious dimension to the conflict ensured particular attention was paid to those holding religious office. During the war and interregnum, zealous religious reformers attacked every aspect of established religion, targeting both existing institutions and those who supported them. Clergy were ejected on an unprecedented scale, suffering much violence and persecution and branded as 'malignants' and 'baal's priests'. By re-examining their history, the book offers a balanced assessment of the persecution, challenging many preconceptions about the ejected loyalists, and providing new insights into the experiences and legacies of this influential group.


This article reports the results of an investigation performed on the Gottlob Schuster guitar made available by the owner (Marco Bazzotti). The purpose of this investigation is twofold: at first to demonstrate how a limited number of key parameters can proficiently be used to assess an existing instrument, eventually to replicate its sounding characteristic; secondly to gain an understanding of the design criteria that guided a luthier in designing an instrument of its production, and how certain criteria (and the underlying physical and geometrical parameters) evolved in the course of the years. The features and performances of the Gottlob Schuster guitar have been compared with the features of some other ancient and modern instruments:

1. A replica of the Torres guitar with cardboard back and sides (1862) by Luthier Zontini.
2. A Fleta guitar, 1921 (considered the first built by this Luthier).
3. A Simplicio guitar, 1931 (the last production period of this Luthier).
4. A Gallinotti guitar, 1974 (the latest period of production).
5. A Jose Ramirez guitar, 1970.
6. A Garrone guitar, 2011.


Assuming perfect channel state information (CSI), linear precoding/decoding for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems has been considered in the literature under various performance criteria, such as minimum total mean-square error (MSE), maximum mutual information, and minimum average bit error rate (BER). It has been shown that these criteria belong to a set of reasonable Schur-concave or Schur-convex objective functions of the diagonal entries of the system mean-square error (MSE) matrix. In this paper, assuming only the knowledge of channel mean and transmit correlation at both ends, a general theoretical framework is presented to derive the optimum precoder and decoder for MIMO systems using these objective functions. It is shown that for all these objective functions the optimum transceivers share a similar structure. Compared to the case with perfect CSI, a linear filter is added to both ends to balance the suppression of channel noise and the additional noise induced from channel estimation error. Simulation results are provided.1


BY SHARING our clinical experience on a direct one— to-one basis, practicing physicians in the United States can make a substantial difference in medical care throughout the world. The concerned physician can make a unique contribution through the proposed Doctor-to-Doctor International Medical Education Exchange mobilizing two-way medical communication between physicians in developing countries and the United States. Although appreciated by few, our country's diminished support of international medical education presents a problem to world health. Threatened by an overabundance of physicians in the United States, our federal policymakers have raised stringent immigration barriers against aspiring physicians from foreign lands who wish to study in the United States, largely for fear they will not return home but remain to practice medicine in the United States. No longer is there an abundance of training slots or even good will for foreign students of medicine. In fact, the plight of foreign physicians is


Abstract: This article suggests a way of building a comprehensive program that can effectively eliminate unemployment using the employer-of-last-resort (ELR) scheme, which comes from the Minskyan tradition. According to this scheme, the state offers a job to everyone who is willing to work. In response to the many critiques the ELR program has received, we show that it is the best alternative to eliminating unemployment, instituting sound public finance, ensuring social and financial stability, and achieving long-term growth and international economic balances. We also make suggestions with a view of ensuring the efficiency of the ELR institutional design. In this context, we highlight the accountability issue that is largely ignored in the relevant literature, but that is paramount given the state of public finances after the 2008 crisis. We argue that accountability and efficiency should be taken as the core of the ELR project if it is to be politically viable, and they can be addressed alongside the analogy of lending of last resort. In particular, ELR projects should be supervised by a state bank that is set up to ensure the cost-effectiveness of the scheme, along with controls from below. We conduct a simulation of how much such an ELR program would cost for Italy, showing that its gross cost would be less than 2.0 percent of Italian GDP and its net cost would be negative.


In the ever changing world of healthcare, hospitals are experiencing shorter stays, and increased patient throughput. Spiritual care has also seen a marked rise in profile and chaplains are increasingly seeing fewer patients for more in depth work, often in a crisis, and find themselves increasingly responding to referrals from other members of staff. Add to that increasing opportunities to teach and its not surprising new approaches need to be developed Gillian Munro explains the development of a chaplaincy volunteer visitor service as one approach to change, and three visitors tell us of their experiences.


Conducting polymers, such as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxy thiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), have gained significant interest for their use in organic and organic–inorganic electronic device applications. Further enhancement in the conductivity of this polymer could accelerate its widespread use in electronic device applications. In addition, hybrid solar cells made of this p-type conducting polymer on Si have attracted a lot of attention in the fabrication of low-cost high-efficiency devices. Here, we demonstrate the effect of adding a mixed co-solvent of ethylene glycol and methanol in PEDOT:PSS to improve its conductivity and hence to enhance the performance of a hybrid planar Si solar cell. Based on our results, we establish a morphological model to explain the microstructure modification of PEDOT and PSS that contributes to the enhanced properties. We are able to engineer a thinnest PSS layer around individual PEDOT grains by adding a mixed co-solvent in PEDOT:PSS and achieve a highly conducting PEDOT:PSS film and a PEDOT:PSS/planar-Si cell with the highest photoconversion efficiency of 14.6% reported to date. Our present approach to generate highly conductive PEDOT:PSS by mixed co-solvent addition can also be used to improve the performance of other organic electronic devices based on PEDOT:PSS.


Abstract Genomic tools are lacking for invasive and native populations of sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus). Our objective was to discover single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci to conduct pedigree analyses to quantify reproductive contributions of adult sea lampreys and dispersion of sibling larval sea lampreys of different ages in Great Lakes tributaries. Additional applications of data were explored using additional geographically expansive samples. We used restriction site‐associated DNA sequencing (RAD‐Seq) to discover genetic variation in Duffins Creek (DC), Ontario, Canada, and the St. Clair River (SCR), Michigan, USA. We subsequently developed RAD capture baits to genotype 3,446 RAD loci that contained 11,970 SNPs. Based on RAD capture assays, estimates of variance in SNP allele frequency among five Great Lakes tributary populations (mean F ST 0.008; range 0.00–0.018) were concordant with previous microsatellite‐based studies; however, outlier loci were identified that contributed substantially to spatial population genetic structure. At finer scales within streams, simulations indicated that accuracy in genetic pedigree reconstruction was high when 200 or 500 independent loci were used, even in situations of high spawner abundance (e.g., 1,000 adults). Based on empirical collections of larval sea lamprey genotypes, we found that age‐1 and age‐2 families of full and half‐siblings were widely but nonrandomly distributed within stream reaches sampled. Using the genomic scale set of SNP loci developed in this study, biologists can rapidly genotype sea lamprey in non‐native and native ranges to investigate questions pertaining to population structuring and reproductive ecology at previously unattainable scales.


: The association of well-di ff erentiated gastro-entero-pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (WD GEP-NETs) with metabolic syndrome (MetS), abdominal obesity, and fasting glucose abnormalities was recently described. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the presence of MetS or any MetS individual component was also influenced by GEP-NET characteristics at diagnosis. A cohort of patients with WD GEP-NETs ( n = 134), classified according to primary tumor location (gastrointestinal or pancreatic), pathological grading (G1 (Ki67 ≤ 2%) and G2 ( > 3 ≤ 20%) (WHO 2010), disease extension (localized, loco-regional, and metastatic), and presence of hormonal secretion syndrome (functioning / non-functioning), was evaluated for the presence of MetS criteria. After adjustment for age and gender, the odds of having MetS was significantly higher for patients with WD GEP-NET grade G1 (OR 4.35 95%CI 1.30–14.53) and disseminated disease (OR 4.52 95%CI 1.44–14.15). GEP-NET primary tumor location or secretory syndrome did not influence the risk for MetS. None of the tumor characteristics evaluated were associated with body mass index, fasting plasma glucose category, or any of the individual MetS components. Patients with GEP-NET and MetS depicted a higher risk of presenting a lower tumor grade and disseminated disease. The positive association between MetS and GEP-NET characteristics further highlights the potential link between the two conditions.


Here, we describe the case of a patient with pretibial dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (PDEB) with amyloid deposition. The patient was a 40‐year‐old Japanese woman who presented a blistering eruption in the pretibial area with flat violaceous‐brown lichenoid papules. The histology of the blister revealed a subepidermal bulla with antibodies bound to basement membrane antigens on the blister roof by immunoflourescent mapping. Electron microscopy revealed a blister cleavage plane below the lamina densa. The histology of the lichenoid papules showed amyloid deposition in the papillary dermis. Because it was confined to just beneath the bulla base of the blister specimen, the amyloid deposition may have been derived from degenerated keratinocytes induced by damage to the epidermal–dermal junction due to blister formation in PDEB in this case. PDEB, in general, is often misdiagnosed as lichen amyloidosis; however, some PDEB cases could actually be associated with amyloid deposition.


From first principle calculations, we demonstrate that LiXS2 (X = Ga, In) compounds have potential applications as cathode materials for Li ion batteries. It is shown that Li can be extracted from the LiXS2 lattice with relatively small volume change and the XS4 tetrahedron structure framework remains stable upon delithiation. The theoretical capacity and average intercalation potential of the LiGaS2 (LiInS2) cathode are 190.4 (144.2) mAh/g and 3.50 V (3.53 V). The electronic structures of the LiXS2 are insulating with band gaps of 2.88 eV and 1.99 eV for X = Ga and In, respectively. However, Li vacancies, which are formed through delithiation, change the electronic structure substantially from insulating to metallic structure, indicating that the electrical conductivities of the LiXS2 compounds should be good during cycling. Li ion migration energy barriers are also calculated, and the results show that Li ion diffusions in the LiXS2 compounds can be as good as those in the currently widely used electrode materials.


Abscisic acid (ABA) is a plant hormone involved in growth, development, and stress adaptation. It acts via multiple pathways including rapid closure of stomatal pores by ion efflux from guard cells (thereby decreasing water loss) and by slower changes in gene expression. The Wilty2, Wilty3, and Wilty-2445 mutants are nonallelic members of a class of dominant mutants whose top leaves wilt when plants are subjected to drought conditions. We investigated the ABA responses of the Wi2 mutant by analysis of leaf transpiration rates and RAB17 (Responsive to ABA) gene expression. Wi2 leaves transpired less than those of wild-type siblings, but the slopes of Wi2 and wild-type ABA dose-leaf transpiration curves were identical, suggesting that Wi2 guard cell sensitivity to ABA is normal. Based on total RNA blot analysis, RAB17 transcripts in unstressed and drought-stressed Wi2 leaves were elevated relative to wild-type tissue. Wi2 ABA concentrations were also elevated relative to wild type in both unstressed and drought-stressed leaves. Similar to the Wi2 phenotype, Wilty3 and Wi-2445 mutants transpired less than their wild-type siblings and had normal ABA and ABA-conjugate levels, as measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Despite lower leaf transpiration rates, Wi2 mutants lost a greater percentage of fresh mass over time compared to the wild type. The previously characterized recessive mutant wilty1, which has a defect in vascular element development, also had reduced transpiration rates. It is concluded that the dominant Wi2, Wi3, and Wi-2445 mutants are not impaired in ABA metabolism or signaling. It is hypothesized, based on preliminary data, that the dominant mutants described here are impaired in vascular element development, analogous to the wilty1 mutant.


We read with great interest a recent article published in this journal by Tsuchiya et al. In this study the authors investigated all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) effects in different mouse models to explore its anti-insulin resistance activities and inspected mechanisms engaged in this condition and associated hepato-metabolic disorders. Tsuchiya et al. found that ATRA improved insulin sensitivity and activated the leptin signaling pathway in C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat, high-fructose (HFHFr) diet and in genetically insulin resistant KK-A mice. Furthermore, ATRA retrieved metabolic derangements in both models, counteracting liver steatosis and ballooning in HFHFr animals. The authors suggested a possible interaction between the leptin-mediated pathway and retinoic acid receptor (RAR)-mediated transcriptional regulation to explain ATRA-dependent insulin sensitivity improvement. However, the role of the RAR/leptin network in regulating the antisteatotic effect of ATRA remains to be verified. We recently reported that high fructose-enriched diets may promote phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) phosphorylation/ inactivation inducing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Therefore, we hypothesized that retinoids might have a positive effect on liver steatosis affecting PTEN signaling, a complex PI3K/ AKT regulatory pathway involved in the control of hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism. The role of PTEN in mediating the antisteatotic effect of ATRA is supported by our preliminary data. We studied the effect of ATRA in an in vitro model of hepatic steatosis using HepG2 cells supplemented with combined oleic acid (OA) and palmitic acid (PA) (molar ratio 2:1) at 1 mM final concentration. As shown in Fig. 1A, after 24 hours OA/ PA supplementation induced an increase of intracellular lipid accumulation that was significantly reduced by treatment with 5 lM ATRA for 5 hours. Moreover, neither OA/PA nor ATRA treatments influenced cell viability (Fig. 1B). Importantly, ATRA reduced fatty acid-dependent PTEN phosphorylation/inactivation (Fig. 1C). All these findings suggest that retinoids are potential appropriate therapeutic agents to resolve both metabolic alterations and liver-damage triggered by genetically or a diet-induced insulin resistant state. Tsuchiya et al. demonstrated that the leptin pathway may be crucial for the anti-insulin resistance action of ATRA, and we proposed PTEN as a mediator of its antisteatotic effect. However, due to the multiple interactions between retinoids and different signaling networks, further studies are necessary to identify mechanisms involved in ATRA-mediated transcriptional regulation of relevant metabolic and liver genes.


This present work is focused firstly on an experimental investigation for the optimum design of water jet pumps to be used in the hydrotransport of solid particles through pipeline systems. Experiments were conducted in a closed test loop using five types of jet pumps with various dimensions of the driving nozzle, suction nozzle, mixing chamber, and diffuser employing water as driving and suction fluid. The efficiency of each water jet pump element was analyzed and interpretations of results related to each water jet pump were made about the parts to be considered in the optimum design of a water jet pump. From the experimental results, the water jet pump having the optimum mixing chamber, suction nozzle, driving nozzle location, and cross-sectional dimensions produced a maximum efficiency of about 33%. In the second part of the study, the solid particle carrying capacity of water jet pumps in a pipeline system was studied under saltation, moving bed, and heterogeneous flow regimes by introducing seven different types of solid particles having various concentrations into the closed test loop. The effect of jet pumps on separating solid particles from flow in a region was investigated. A curved form of a by-pass system called the 'flow division unit' was added to the main pipeline system and through the flow division unit, then most of the solid particles in the flow were forced to flow towards the suction pipe of the jet pump. As a result of this, only water with very small particle concentrations passed through the centrifugal pumps, and in this way, the wear risk of the centrifugal pump was reduced considerably.


A secondary analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study–2 (NLTS2) was conducted to examine predictors associated with improved postschool community participation of young adults with severe disabilities. Multidimensional item response theory was used to establish criterion and predictor constructs and examine predictive relationships between these constructs. Results identified two outcome constructs (community involvement, social engagement) and four predictors (functional skills, classroom behaviors, participation in social networks, access to vocational programs) establishing good model fit. Participation in social networks while in school was a strong predictor of both community involvement and social engagement. Functional skills of young adults predicted postschool community involvement. Implications for future research and practice promoting and supporting community participation are discussed.


Chromosome banding patterns are very important features for karyotyping, based on which cytogenetic diagnosis procedures are conducted. Due to cell culture, staining, and imaging conditions, image enhancement is a desirable preprocessing step before performing chromosome classification. In this paper, we apply a family of differential wavelet transforms (Wang and Lee, 1998), (Wang, 1999) for this purpose. The proposed differential filters facilitate the extraction of multiscale geometric features of chromosome images. Moreover, desirable fast computation can be realized. We study the behavior of both banding edge pattern and noise in the wavelet transform domain. Based on the fact that image geometrical features like edges are correlated across different scales in the wavelet representation, a multiscale point-wise product (MPP) is used to characterize the correlation of the image features in the scale-space. A novel algorithm is proposed for the enhancement of banding patterns in a chromosome image. In order to compare objectively the performance of the proposed algorithm against several existing image-enhancement techniques, a quantitative criteria, the contrast improvement ratio (CIR), has been adopted to evaluate the enhancement results. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method consistently outperforms existing techniques in terms of the CIR measure, as well as in visual effect. The effect of enhancement on cytogenetic diagnosis is further investigated by classification tests conducted prior to and following the chromosome image enhancement. In comparison with conventional techniques, the proposed method leads to better classification results, thereby benefiting the subsequent cytogenetic diagnosis.


Do voters in white districts systematically obstruct minority representation? Despite a great deal of public and scholarly attention, this question remains largely unresolved. We demonstrate that the narrow focus on the relationship between white voters and minority representation is inadequate to understand why we do not see more minority-elected officials in the United States. We use a matching technique to investigate three theoretical perspectives of descriptive representation using a unique dataset from the 2012 general elections for state legislative seats in 14 states, the first elections after the 2010 redistricting process. Our findings challenge the venerable notion that minority candidates consistently underperform in white districts, and complicate our understanding of the political expression of bigotry in the voting booth.


Recent theoretical analyses reveal that existing Stochastic Gradient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) methods need large mini-batches
of samples (exponentially dependent on the dimension) to reduce the mean square error of gradient estimates and ensure non-asymptotic convergence guarantees
when the target distribution has a nonconvex potential function.
In this paper, we propose a novel SG-MCMC algorithm, called Hybrid Stochastic Gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HSG-HMC) method, which needs merely one sample per iteration and possesses a simple structure with only one hyperparameter.
Such improvement leverages a hybrid stochastic gradient estimator that exploits historical stochastic gradient information to control the mean square error.
Theoretical analyses show that our method obtains the best-known overall sample complexity to achieve epsilon-accuracy in terms of the 2-Wasserstein distance for sampling from distributions with nonconvex potential functions.
Empirical studies on both simulated and real-world datasets demonstrate the advantage of our method.


Consumer search and product variety have been studied extensively in both the marketing and economics literature for the past 50 years. The idea that consumer have heterogenous search costs which lead some consumers to become more informed about product information than others has been used to explain a number of phenomenon. However, past theoretical models assume that consumers make a single purchase at each shopping occasion and their budget and search costs are all absorbed by that single product purchase. Our paper extends the current literature by allowing for the observation that consumers may make multiple purchases as well as single product purchases. We find that their is an optimal number of products for which the consumer would chose to search, which is critically dependent on the degree to which the consumer becomes satiated by the products, and their preference for variety. What's more, we develop this in a framework amenable to empirical work which directly allows for the estimation of the consumer's satiation and preference for variety parameters.


Abstract Lateritic weathering profiles developed on serpentinized peridotites of Murrin Murrin (Western Australia) exhibit thick smectite zones (10-15 m). The smectites from plasma and fissures were characterized by XRD, chemical analyses (ICP-AES, SEM-EDX and TEM-EDX) and Mössbauer spectroscopy. These Fe-rich smectites, previously described as nontronites, are in fact more complex. Their layer charges originate from both the tetrahedral and octahedral sheets. Plasma and notably fissure smectites exhibit, from the bulk sample scale to the particle scale, large and continuous Al for (Fe+Cr) substitutions, covering a chemical gap previously described for dioctahedral smectites ranging between nontronite and beidellite end-members. Lastly, they exhibit an octahedral occupancy slightly above 2, due to a low (Mg+Ni) trioctahedral contribution. Thus, the smectites occurring in weathering profiles of ultrabasic rocks can have actual chemistries intermediate between four dioctahedral end-members (beidellite, nontronite, montmorillonite and previously rarely described ferric-montmorillonite) and a trioctahedral one ((Mg+Ni)-saponite).


The Ago2 component of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) is an endonuclease that cleaves mRNAs that base pair with high complementarity to RISC-bound microRNAs. Many examples of such direct cleavage have been identified in plants, but not in vertebrates, despite the conservation of catalytic capacity in vertebrate Ago2. We performed parallel analysis of RNA ends (PAREs), a deep sequencing approach that identifies 5′-phosphorylated, polyadenylated RNAs, to detect potential microRNA-directed mRNA cleavages in mouse embryo and adult tissues. We found that numerous mRNAs are potentially targeted for cleavage by endogenous microRNAs, but at very low levels relative to the mRNA abundance, apart from miR-151-5p-guided cleavage of the N4BP1 mRNA. We also find numerous examples of non-miRNA-directed cleavage, including cleavage of a group of mRNAs within a CA-repeat consensus sequence. The PARE analysis also identified many examples of adenylated small non-coding RNAs, including microRNAs, tRNA processing intermediates and various other small RNAs, consistent with adenylation being part of a widespread proof-reading and/or degradation pathway for small RNAs.


Ozone concentration in Tokyo Metropolitan area is one of the most serious issues of the local air quality. Tropospheric ozone is formed by radical reaction including volatile organic compound (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NO x ). Reduction of the emission of reactive VOC is a key to reducing ozone concentrations. VOC is emitted from anthropogenic sources and also from vegetation (biogenic VOC or BVOC). BVOC also forms ozone through NO x and radical reactions. Especially, in urban area, the BVOC is emitted into the atmosphere with high NO x concentration. Therefore, trees bordering streets and green spaces in urban area may contribute to tropospheric ozone. On the other hand, not all trees emit BVOC which will pro-duce ozone locally. In this study, BVOC emissions have been investigated (terpenoids: isoprene, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes) for 29 tree species. Eleven in the 29 species were tree species that did not emit BVOCs. Three in 12 cultivars for future planting (25 %) were found to emit no terpenoid BVOCs. Eight in 17 commonly planted trees (47%) were found to emit no terpenoid BVOC. Lower-emitting species have many advantages for urban planting. There-fore, further investigation is required to find the species which do not emit terpenoid BVOC. Emission of reactive BVOC should be added into guideline for the urban planting to prevent the creation of sources of ozone. It is desirable that species with no reactive BVOC emission are planted along urban streets and green areas in urban areas, such as Tokyo.


BACKGROUND
Urinary incontinence is a common and potentially debilitating problem. Open retropubic colposuspension is a surgical treatment which involves lifting the tissues near the bladder neck and proximal urethra in the area behind the anterior pubic bones to correct deficient urethral closure.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the effects of open retropubic colposuspension for the treatment of urinary incontinence.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Incontinence Group Specialised Register (searched 13 March 2012), which contains trials identified from the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE and CINAHL, and handsearching of journals and conference proceedings, and the reference lists of relevant articles. We contacted investigators to locate extra studies.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials in women with symptoms or urodynamic diagnoses of stress or mixed urinary incontinence that included open retropubic colposuspension surgery in at least one trial group.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Studies were evaluated for methodological quality or susceptibility to bias and appropriateness for inclusion and data extracted by two of the review authors. Trial data were analysed by intervention. Where appropriate, a summary statistic was calculated.

MAIN RESULTS
This review included 53 trials involving a total of 5244 women.Overall cure rates were 68.9% to 88.0% for open retropubic colposuspension. Two small studies suggested lower incontinence rates after open retropubic colposuspension compared with conservative treatment. Similarly, one trial suggested lower incontinence rates after open retropubic colposuspension compared to anticholinergic treatment. Evidence from six trials showed a lower incontinence rate after open retropubic colposuspension than after anterior colporrhaphy. Such benefit was maintained over time (risk ratio (RR) for incontinence 0.51; 95% CI 0.34 to 0.76 before the first year, RR 0.43; 95% CI 0.32 to 0.57 at one to five years, RR 0.49; 95% CI 0.32 to 0.75 in periods beyond five years).Evidence from 20 trials in comparison with suburethral slings (trans-vaginal tape or transobturator tape) found no significant difference in incontinence rates in all time periods assessed.In comparison with needle suspension, there was a lower incontinence rate after colposuspension in the first year after surgery (RR 0.66; 95% CI 0.42 to 1.03), after the first year (RR 0.48; 95% CI 0.33 to 0.71), and beyond five years (RR 0.32; 95% CI 15 to 0.71).Patient-reported incontinence rates at short, medium and long-term follow-up showed no significant differences between open and laparoscopic retropubic colposuspension, but with wide confidence intervals. In two trials incontinence was less common after the Burch (RR 0.38; 95% CI 0.18 to 0.76) than after the Marshall Marchetti Krantz procedure at one to five year follow-up. There were few data at any other follow-up times.In general, the evidence available does not show a higher morbidity or complication rate with open retropubic colposuspension compared to the other open surgical techniques, although pelvic organ prolapse is more common than after anterior colporrhaphy and sling procedures.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Open retropubic colposuspension is an effective treatment modality for stress urinary incontinence especially in the long term. Within the first year of treatment, the overall continence rate is approximately 85% to 90%. After five years, approximately 70% of patients can expect to be dry. Newer minimal access procedures such as tension-free vaginal tape look promising in comparison with open colposuspension but their long-term performance is not known and closer monitoring of their adverse event profile must be carried out. Laparoscopic colposuspension should allow speedier recovery but its relative safety and long-term effectiveness is not known yet.


Testing remains a fundamentally important way to check that a software program behaves as required, but a weakness of testing is that successful testing only leads to informal quality statements. Even where quantitative methods are employed, it is not clear how the objective statements (e.g. 100% code coverage has been achieved) relate to the statements that are really useful such as " the software is correct, " or " the software is reliable. " This inconclusive nature of testing is at the heart of Dijkstra's famous comment " Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence! " (ref. 1) This paper argues that Dijkstra's comment is not as important as it might seem, and that software reliability estimates produced by new component-based statistical software testing (CBSST) models provide a testing framework for software quality that is thoroughly formal, but in a different sense to that envisaged by Dijkstra. A significant benefit of these models is that they offer a new verification method for software built with component re-use, based on " proven-in-use " components.


This study explores the presence of gender bias in public grants for science and technology (S&T) activities known as the Matilda effect in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in Argentina. The empirical analysis is based on the Scientific and Technological Research Projects program (PICT in Spanish) for the period 20032015 and found that female researchers are less likely to be awarded the first time they apply for a research grant than their male counterparts (-6.2 percentage points, or p.p.). Even for follow-on applications after the first one, without having been awarded before, female researchers remain less likely to be awarded (-3.8 p.p.). However, the probability of being recurrently awarded known as the Matthew effect is the same for both male and female researchers. This paper concludes that female researchers in STEM suffer disadvantages in the allocation of public funds to finance their research projects. Only those female researchers that overcome the initial barriers and obtain their first grant can take advantage, as their male counterparts do, of the Matthew effect that makes them more likely to obtain further awards. These results suggest the need for policies aiming at reducing the initial gender gap in accessing public grants for female researchers in STEM.


Working memory refers to the temporary retention of information that has just arrived to the senses or has been retrieved from long-term memory. While internal representations of external stimuli have a natural tendency to decay over time or with interference, they can be kept "in mind" through the action of memory rehearsal strategies, and can be subjected to various operations that manipulate information in the service of ongoing behavior. A fundamental debate about the neural basis of working memory for linguistic information is whether it is supported by a dedicated brain system in its own right, or whether it emerges from the same neural circuitry that underpins basic online language processing. While the answer to this question remains a matter of debate, recent cognitive neuroscience research suggests that verbal working memory can be viewed as a functional adaptation of core neural substrates that enable the perception, comprehension, and production of speech.


Barrier coverage, which guarantees that every movement crossing a barrier of sensors will be detected, is known to be an appropriate model of coverage for moving detection and boundary guard. The related problems about barrier coverage with stationary sensors are extensively studied. When sensors are randomly deployed, we require much more sensors to achieve barrier coverage than deterministic deployment. In this paper we study barrier coverage with mobile sensors, in which the sensors can be relocated after deployment, and we are able to utilize much fewer mobile sensors than stationary sensors to achieve barrier coverage with random deployment. We study the energy-efficient relocation problem for barrier coverage, and propose a centralized barrier algorithm, which computes the relocated positions based on knowing the initial positions of all sensors. For practicability and scalability, we further design a distributed barrier algorithm based on our proposed virtual force model. We conduct extensive simulations to study the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.


In the present study, it has been investigated whether parental attachment predicts academic selfefficacy and it's sub-dimensions which are 'cognitive application', 'social status', and 'technical skills. Parental alienation, communication with trust factors and gender variable has also been examined. Participants of this study has been randomly selected from a private university, 64 of them being female, and 85 male, a total of 149 university students. "Inventory Short Form of Attachment to Parents and Friends" and "Academic Self-Efficacy Skill" has been used in the study. In the data analysis, t-test, correlation, and multiple regressions were carried out. It has been found out that female participants have a higher academic self-efficacy than male participants. Results show that, alienation to mother and gender predicted academic self-efficacy; and also alienation to mother, communication with father and gender predicted cognitive application.


: Patients with chronic hepatic disease have higher superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and lower erythrocytic glutathione levels. There was a decrease in plasma SOD activity in cirrhosis, a feedback between the dismutase and oxidase activities of ceruloplasmin in cholestatic damages to the liver. Drug therapy resulted in positive dynamics in the levels of SOD, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione, ceruloplasmin, which is likely to be associated with the control of the enzymatic mechanisms of antioxidative protection. It is suggested that the enhanced erythrocytic SOD activity in hepatic diseases might trigger free radical oxidation.


Abstract Small, widely separated outliers of latest Triassic and Early Jurassic rocks in and around the East Irish Sea are preserved in the hangingwall blocks of faults that were active during post-Pliensbachian-pre-Cenomanian times. The successions preserved in the outliers comprise the Penarth and Lias groups, in typical facies and with characteristic microfloras and macrofaunas, and are vestiges of a formerly extensive cover of those rocks to the northwest of their main outcrops in England. The Penarth Group, of Rhaetian (Late Triassic) age, comprises the Westbury Formation and the succeeding Lilstock Formation; the latter is represented largely, or entirely, by the Cotham Member. Lias Group successions preserved in the outliers include, above the basal ('pre-planorbis') beds, of latest Triassic age, Early Jurassic beds ranging in age from Hettangian (planorbis Zone) to Pliensbachian (spinatum Zone) and are considerably thicker than their correlatives in eastern England, indicating that subsidence was slower there than in western Britain in Hettangian, Sinemurian and Pliensbachian times.


Forecast reconciliation involves adjusting forecasts to ensure coherence with aggregation constraints. We extend this concept from point forecasts to probabilistic forecasts by redefining forecast reconciliation in terms of linear functions in general, and projections more specifically. New theorems establish that the true predictive distribution can be recovered in the elliptical case by linear reconciliation, and general conditions are derived for when this is a projection. A geometric interpretation is also used to prove two new theoretical results for point forecasting; that reconciliation via projection both preserves unbiasedness and dominates unreconciled forecasts in a mean squared error sense. Strategies for forecast evaluation based on scoring rules are discussed, and it is shown that the popular log score is an improper scoring rule with respect to the class of unreconciled forecasts when the true predictive distribution coheres with aggregation constraints. Finally, evidence from a simulation study shows that reconciliation based on an oblique projection, derived from the MinT method of Wickramasuriya, Athanasopoulos and Hyndman (2018) for point forecasting, outperforms both reconciled and unreconciled alternatives.


The trust of the customers in adherence to their expectation to a transport service determines the modal split of the passenger transport. Therefore it has to be a goal for each public transport operation company to maintain and to improve the customer's trust. An important service criteria by a customer accepted public transport offer is the travel time. The travel time depends on the running time, the dwell time, etc., but also on the number of transfer procedures and the transfer waiting time. One of the essential research problems in the surroundings of the connection planning is the question under which condition it is appropriate for the planning of a connection. An important aspect to answer this question is the evaluation of the additional total travel time for all involved passengers in consideration of an achieved (additional travel time for transit passengers in the connecting vehicle) or not achieved (additional travel time for transfer passengers in the feeder vehicle) connection. This paper develops a new method of an optimized passenger orientated connection management during the planning process (scheduled timetable). The goal is to minimize the additional travel time in consideration of a planned or not planned connection based on the number of all involved passengers. At first it is necessary to identify all influencing variables. After that all boundary conditions will be modeled by using the graph theory. With an adequate shortest path algorithm it is possible to generate connection strategies specific for stations, lines or the whole networks. Particularities of railway operation (e.g. turn around times, operating fleet, timetable interval, conflicts, infrastructure bottlenecks) also can been considered in the model. For the practical use was developed the software tool ANPLA which is helpful for operating companies or for the timetable construction to solve the set of problems in the surroundings of the connection management. Furthermore the paper includes approaches for a web based application.


In the past decade, there has been significant increase on the incidents of inter-religious violence in numerous Muslim-majority countries. The increased incidents of inter-religious conflicts in both societies received plenty of attention from scholars and policymakers alike. What are the underlying causes of these conflicts? How does past political alignment and alliances of different religious groups contribute to these conflicts? The rise of inter-religious violence in the Islamic World has often been attributed to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and revivalist Islamic social movements in the political realm of these countries. However, this study argues that Islamic fundamentalism is not sufficient in explaining the rise of inter-religious conflict in Muslim-majority countries. Instead, they occurred due to the coalitional pacts and alliances between Christian minorities to support authoritarian rulers that suppressed Muslim political activists in these countries. A new theoretical framework to analyze the cause of inter-religious violence in the Islamic World is introduced in this essay. The theory proposes that religious minorities are making alliances with authoritarian regimes because they believe the regime could better protect its interests than a regime dominated by members of the dominant religion. However, their decision to ally with the ruling authoritarian regime will worsened its relations with the dominant majority religion in this society. As the authoritarian regime collapses, the likelihood of inter-religious conflict between religious minorities and the majority religion in this society will also increase as well. This study uses a comparative historical analysis of two Muslim-majority countries, Indonesia and Egypt, to find the empirical data to support the above theoretical arguments.


Cambridge, U.K.—With a relatively cheap prototype ground-based telescope, a British team has created an image of the cosmic microwave background—the faint echo of the big bang—that is many times sharper than those obtained from balloons and satellites. The secret of the instrument's sharp vision is interferometry: combining the signals from separate antennas into a single image. And while the image is largely a proof of principle, it is tantalizing astronomers by showing hot spots—peaks in the density of the primordial universe—that may mark the origins of present-day galaxy clusters.


Summary
Properties of a new general transducing phage, PSA68, isolated from a commercial digestive are described in comparison with other transducing phages, L, MG40, and P22. The morphology, the latent period, and the average burst size of PSA68 were indistinguishable from those of P22. This phage most resembled L serologically and MG40 in immunity properties; P22 was dominant over the other three phages, and PSA68 and MG40 over L. The buoyant density of PSA68 was 1.510 g./cm.3, identical to L and MG40, that of P22 being 1.520 g./cm3. The relative number of abortive transductants produced by the nonmotile double mutants was not significantly different among the four phages, though the transduction frequencies per p.f.u. were different from each other, implying the presence of genetically identical lengths of chromosome fragments.


Internationally, performance in school Mathematics has been found to be a reliable predictor of performance in commerce courses at university level. Based on the predictive power of school-leaving marks, universities use results from school-leaving Mathematics examinations to rank student applicants according to their predicted abilities. However, in 2008 the structure and scope of school-leaving examinations changed in South Africa from the former Senior Certificate (SC) to the new National Senior Certificate (NSC). This structural break seems to create fluctuations in the signalling ability of the school-leaving marks. South African universities are unsure about how well the current NSC Mathematics marks reflect the underlying numerical competence of students, given that a high number of the 2009 student intake failed their first-year core courses across faculties. This paper estimates a deflator for the new NSC Mathematics marks relative to the former Higher Grade (HG) Mathematics marks, by comparing performance in similar first tests of two commerce subjects, Economics 1 and Computational Mathematics, between the 2008 and 2009 first-year cohorts. The results indicate that the signalling ability of the NSC Mathematics marks is reduced significantly. Instead of differentiating students according to their abilities, the new NSC Mathematics marks compress students with a wide range of abilities and disabilities into a very narrow range of percentage marks.


A new avian taxon is described from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany. This bird closely resembles the Lower Eocene North American Fluvioviridavis platyrhamphus Mayr and Daniels, 2001. Eurofluvioviridavis robustipes n. gen. et sp. and F. platyrhamphus are classified in the new taxon Fluvioviridavidae. These birds exhibit a bauplan that is unknown among modern birds in combining a flycatcher-like beak with greatly abbreviated legs. Eurofluvioviridavis is distinguished from Fluvioviridavis by its much stronger toes, indicating that the new Messel species occupied a different ecological niche from its North American relative and that the Fluvioviridavidae were an ecologically diversified group in the Eocene. Despite their morphological distinctness, however, the phylogenetic affinities of the Fluvioviridavidae are still uncertain. Their phylogenetic affinities are evaluated in a cladistic analysis of 96 morphological characters, but the resulting position basal to a cluster of several modern higher leve...


This chapter explores the complex and multifaceted relationship between international trade and environmental protection. The global trade regime's normative principles, legal rules, and real-world consequences often contradict environmental governance. For example, there is tension between trade and environmental governance with respect to the commercialisation of endangered species, export of hazardous wastes, emissions involved in transporting goods, and patentability of living organisms. However, there are also synergies, which enable trade liberalisation and environmental protection to reinforce one another. For example, trade forces were key drivers in the reduction of ozone-depleting substances and the affordability of pollution abatement technologies. The chapter explores these conflicts and synergies by first discussing the literature that examines the positive and negative impacts that trade has on the environment. It goes on to look at the trade dimensions of various environmental regimes, and then environmental dimensions of the trade regime, within both the World Trade Organization and preferential trade agreements.


Objective
To determine whether local infiltration using short-acting local anesthetic lidocaine in different concentrations before the surgical incision could reduce pain postoperatively in patients undergoing bilateral video- assisted thoracoscopic sympathectomy.
 Methods
A total of 72 patients who underwent bilateral video-assisted thoracoscopic sympathectomy were included in this controlled double blind prospective study which was conducted at King Hussein Medical Center, Amman, Jordan from January 2009 to January 2011. The study enrolled patients of both genders (males 41 and females 31), aged 18-44 years, and with American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class I- II. They were consecutively randomized into two groups with 36 patients in each group. All patients received pre-incision lidocaine local infiltration on one side with different concentrations and volumes (1% group A, 2% group B), and on the other side we used normal saline solution. Verbal rating scale (VRS) was used to assess the intensity of postoperative pain. Intensity of pain and the duration of analgesia were compared between the two groups. Data collection was done using a questionnaire and was analyzed by student t-test. P


Deep reinforcement learning primarily focuses on learning behavior, usually overlooking the fact that an agent's function is largely determined by form. So, how should one go about finding a morphology fit for solving tasks in a given environment? Current approaches that co-adapt morphology and behavior use a specific task's reward as a signal for morphology optimization. However, this often requires expensive policy optimization and results in task-dependent morphologies that are not built to generalize. In this work, we propose a new approach, Task-Agnostic Morphology Evolution (TAME), to alleviate both of these issues. Without any task or reward specification, TAME evolves morphologies by only applying randomly sampled action primitives on a population of agents. This is accomplished using an information-theoretic objective that efficiently ranks agents by their ability to reach diverse states in the environment and the causality of their actions. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that across 2D, 3D, and manipulation environments TAME can evolve morphologies that match the multi-task performance of those learned with task supervised algorithms. Our code and videos can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/task-agnostic-evolution.


Magnetically actuated microrobot in a liquid media is faced with the problem of head-tilting reaction caused by its hydrodynamic structure and its speed while moving horizontally. When the instance microrobot starts a lateral motion, the drag force acting on it increases. Thus, the microrobot is unable to move parallel to the surface due to the existence of drag force that cannot be neglected, particularly at high speeds such as >5 mm/s. The effect of it scales exponentially at different speeds and the head-tilting angle of the microrobot changes relative to the reference surface. To the best of our knowledge, there is no prior study on this problem, and no solution has been proposed so far. In this study, we developed and experimented with 3 control models to stabilize microrobot motion characteristics in liquid media to achieve accurate lateral locomotion. The microrobot moves in an untethered manner, and its localization is carried out by a neodymium magnet (grade N48) placed inside its polymer body. This permanent magnet is called a carrier-magnet. The fabricated microrobot is levitated diamagnetically using a pyrolytic graphite placed under it and an external permanent magnet, called a lifter-magnet (grade N48), aligned above it. The lifter-magnet is attached to a servo motor mechanism which can control carrier-magnet orientation along with roll and pitch axes. Controlling the angle of this servo motor, together with the lifter-magnet, allowed us to cope with the head-tilting reaction instantly. Based on the finite element method (FEM), analyses that were designed according to this experimental setup, the equations giving the relation of microrobot speed with servo motor angle along with the microrobot head-tilting angle with servo motor angle, were derived. The control inputs were obtained by COMSOL® (version 5.3, COMSOL Inc., Stockholm, Sweden). Using these derived equations, the rule-based model, laser model, and hybrid model techniques were proposed in this study to decrease the head-tilting angle. Motion control algorithms were applied in di-ionized water medium. According to the results for these 3 control strategies, at higher speeds (>5 mm/s) and 5 mm horizontal motion trajectory, the average head-tilting angle was reduced to 2.7° with the ruled-based model, 1.1° with the laser model, and 0.7° with the hybrid model.


Realizing high sulfur loading while ensuring high sulfur utilization holds the key to enhancing the practical energy density of Li–S batteries. Inspired by the reinforced concrete structure in buildings, a facile route for the synthesis of a lightweight and binder-free electrode, composed of lignin fibers@carbon nanotubes as sulfur hosts and graphene as the current collector, was reported. Benefiting from the efficient polysulfide-anchoring performance of lignin fiber, 3D conductive frameworks of CNTs and the depolarization effect of graphene, the Li–S batteries using this electrode exhibited an unprecedented discharge capacity as high as 1632 mA h g−1 at 0.1C and enhanced capacity of 987 mA h g−1 after 500 cycles at 1.0C. Furthermore, even up to a sulfur loading of 9.2 mg cm−2, this electrode still maintained a highly reversible capacity of 668.8 mA h g−1 at 0.5C after 100 cycles, corresponding to 91.5% capacity retention. This lightweight and flexible electrode appears to be a scalable solution for obtaining high energy density Li–S batteries.


BACKGROUND
To systematically review the benefits of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in heart failure patients with narrow QRS (< 120 ms) who have baseline mechanical asynchrony.

METHODS
We searched the MEDLINE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and reference lists of retrieved articles for relevant trials through October 2007. Studies were included if they were clinical trials in heart failure patients with narrow QRS complex, had at least 3 months of duration and measured baseline mechanical dyssynchrony. Weighted mean difference (WMD) for changes in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), New York Heart Association (NYHA) class and 6 minute walk distance (6MWD) at the end of follow up period were estimated using fixed effects meta-analysis.

RESULTS
Three relevant clinical trials (enrolling 98 patients) out of 80 identified studies were included in the final analysis. When compared to baseline, CRT in heart failure patients with narrow QRS complex significantly improved mean LVEF (WMD 7.98%, 95% CI 5.94, 10.03) and 6MWD (WMD 67 m, 95% CI 39.12, 94.98) at the end of follow up period with no significant heterogeneity between the included studies (I(2) < 50%). Similarly, there was a significant reduction in NYHA at the end of follow-up (WMD -0.87, 95% CI -1.01, -0.74) but there was significant heterogeneity between the included studies.

CONCLUSIONS
In patients with narrow QRS complex and baseline mechanical asynchrony, who underwent CRT after optimal medical management, there was a significant reduction in NYHA class, improvement in LVEF and increase in 6MWD during follow up. Further data from large randomized trials are warranted to explore the role of CRT in heart failure patients with narrow QRS complex.


Purpose of review To describe the risk factors, clinical course, and complications related to anterior segment migration of a dexamethasone (DEX) intravitreal implant, and review over potential management strategies. Recent findings Recent reports have demonstrated that migration of a DEX implant into the anterior chamber may occur in patients with higher risk ocular characteristics. Although a relatively rare occurrence, DEX implant migration carries the possibility of inducing potentially vision-threatening corneal endothelial decompensation and edema. Summary Any combination of previous pars plana vitrectomy, an open/defective lens capsule, and/or iris defects may increase the risk of DEX implant migration into the anterior chamber. In the setting of a DEX implant that has moved into the anterior segment with corneal edema already present, urgent removal of the implant is warranted to reduce the risk of permanent visual compromise.


During the Peruvian economic crisis of the late 1980s, infant mortality significantly increased. This paper investigates the long-term consequences on health and education for infants who survived this period. Because no longitudinal data are available, the estimation of causal effects is performed combining a difference-in-differences estimator with a two-sample instrumental variable approach. Results indicate that the detrimental health conditions associated with an additional percentage point in infant mortality makes children who survived the crisis 2.36 percentage points more likely to suffer a chronic illness and 2 percentage points less likely to complete primary education by age 15. A partial identification approach suggests that the attenuation bias due to selection for survival is relatively small.