This article is about the pharma patent litigation sparked by Lundbeck's blockbuster drug for 'escitalopram', a well-known anti-depressant drug used for treating depression and generalized anxiety disorder. The litigation was triggered by the various efforts by generic pharmaceutical companies to invalidate Lundbeck's patent for 'escitalopram' on the grounds that it lacked inventive step as it was directly derived from its predecessor 'citalopram'. According to Lundbeck, this was merely a case of generic competitors trying to 'clear the way' into their lucrative market, free-riding on its R&D efforts. Conversely, Tiefenbacher c.s. alleged that this was a case of making 'new drugs from old', as 'escitalopram' was merely a purified clone, consisting of the separated (+) enantiomer of Lundbeck's existing non-separated (±) racemic compound citalopram. The article focuses on the trials and tribulations before the Dutch Patent Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, while also briefly contrasting and comparing this with the decisions in Germany and the United Kingdom. From a policy perspective, the article focuces on the legal debate surrounding pharmaceutical patents, balancing the need of the patentee for fair protection, amidst alleged concerns voiced by generic companies of 'ever-greening' (extending patent monopolies by making 'new' drugs from old) with all the drawbacks and expenditure on public health systems this entails. Particular attention is given to novel substances which can be fully envisaged but not yet made. Under the doctrine, set out by the Technical Boards of Appeal, such envisaged substance can still be considered to be non-obvious and therefore patented if the claimed method for preparing such substance is the first to achieve this in an inventive manner. The Dutch Supreme Court follows this doctrine and therefore held Lundbeck's patent for 'escitalopram' to be valid. The author criticizes the lack of explanation provided by the Supreme Court in reversing the decision of the Court of Appeal. By merely referring to foreign precedent, the Supreme Court violates its (own) duty to state (its own) reasons. The article concludes by outlining the practical impact of the decision of the Supreme Court: inventors developing a (novel and) inventive process for obtaining a (novel) product which can be fully envisaged but not yet made, can obtain not only a process claim for inventing the process, but also monopolize the substance under a product claim. Following independent peer-review, a slightly revised version of this article also appeared in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice 2014, available at SSRN here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2451438


Natural Protected Areas (NPA's) constitute fundamental instruments in the enforcement of environmental policies and are considered essential to preserve biodiversity. NPA's are also perceived as an important engine for sustainable development. Mexico is one of the countries with the highest levels of biodiversity in the world, ranking as high as fourth in the global biodiversity scale by country but also some of the most threatened and with highest erosion rate. Within this scenario, the Mexican government is currently promoting NPA's as mechanisms to protect and encourage the sustainable development of many regions of environmental importance over the nation. Among these, the Peninsula of Baja California is a privileged geographical area with a high natural, historical and cultural value, which importance has been recognized not only by the Mexican government, but on an international scale. A great percentage of the peninsula's territory (42%) is currently under protection. Baja California Sur is the Mexican state with the longest coastal line, and both the highest annual population growth rate with a huge pressure from tourist development. It is also the Mexican state with the highest proportion of NPA's in its territory. In this context, this study presents the description of these NPA's, and elaborates on their importance, their major perceived challenges, and finally, as a result of two workshops and Delphi method development, the main threats and some recommendations for the sustainable development of the NPA's in the state of Baja California Sur.


The evaluation of a climate model's capability to simulate trends in extreme events is not straightforward. This is due to the role of internal climate variability, the simulated phases of which are unique to each individual model realization. We undertake an assessment of the 21‐member Community Earth System Model (CESM) on the basis of its ability to simulate heat wave days frequency over Australia. We employ the extreme heat factor definition to measure heat waves and study events for all summers (November–March) between 1950 and 2005. The spatial pattern, magnitude, and significance of trends in CESM were found to be reasonable since the corresponding observed trends were within the CESM ensemble range. There is a suggestion that the model produces higher interannual variability than what is observed. The trends between realizations of the same model differ strongly, which suggest that internal climate variability can strongly amplify or mask local trends in extreme events.


This paper puts forward a design of artificial-neural-network-based (ANN-based) application-oriented grid resource discovery service to enable users to dynamically discover the grid resources which are suitable for their applications. The core of this service is an ANN-based grid resource classifier, which periodically accesses the metacomputing directory service and dynamically classifies the grid resources into application-oriented categories according to the real-time state of grid computing environment Users can invoke this service and pass the application type as a parameter to discover the current most suitable grid resources. Grid resource allocation manager also can interact with this service to improve its practicability and efficiency.


Currently, there are several urban communities that have implemented trolley/circulators or are in the process of developing such services. In general, proponents of central business development and smart growth have been some of the supporters of circulator systems in downtown cores. Because of nostalgia and their historical experiences, one of the most favored modes has been the trolley (fixed and non-fixed guideway). However, while several urban communities have recently implemented trolley services, or are in the process of developing one, currently there are no such guidelines to use in the implementation and operation of the service. Therefore, the case studies in this report identifying key elements of successful practices can be an important resource for these entities. This study develops a synthesis of existing circulator systems in Florida and other select systems around the country. The study further identifies key characteristics for developing an effective circulator system as well as critical operating strategies. Finally, general guidelines are provided from which individual Florida communities and others across the country or elsewhere can develop systems unique to their needs.


Harvest weed seed control is an alternative non-chemical approach to weed management that targets escaped weed seeds at the time of crop harvest. Relatively little is known on how these methods will work on species in the US. Two of the most prominent weeds in soybean production in the midsouthern US are Palmer amaranth and barnyardgrass. Typically, when crop harvesting occurs the weed seed has already either shattered or is taken into the combine and may be redistributed in the soil seedbank. This causes further weed seed spread and may contribute to the addition of resistant seeds in the seedbank. There is little research on how much seed is retained on different weed species at or beyond harvest time. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the percentage of total Palmer amaranth and barnyardgrass seed production that was retained on the plant during delayed soybean harvest. Retained seed over time was similar between 2015 and 2016, but was significantly different between years for only Palmer amaranth. Seed retention did not differ between years for either weed species. Palmer amaranth and barnyardgrass retained 98 and 41% of their seed at soybean maturity and 95 and 32% of their seed one month after soybean maturity, respectively. Thus, this research indicates that if there are escaped Palmer amaranth plants and soybean is harvested in a timely manner, most seed will enter the combine and offer potential for capture or destruction of these seeds using harvest weed seed control tactics. While there would be some benefit to using HWSC for barnyardgrass, the utility of this practice on mitigating herbicide resistance would be less pronounced than that of Palmer amaranth because of the reduced seed retention or early seed shatter. Nomenclature: Barnyardgrass, Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv.; Palmer amaranth, Amaranthus palmeri (S.) Wats.; soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr.


Background PE has significant mortality risk particularly in "PE with haemodynamic instability" or "massive PE" where blood pressure, attributable to PE, is sustained below 90mmHg.[1,2] Thrombolysis in this patient group is associated with reduced mortality and faster restoration of lung perfusion with approval by NICE [1,2] Another important group of patients with apparent haemodynamic stability but documented right ventricular (RV) compromise or myocardial injury (e.g. echocardiogram evidence of RV strain or raised Troponin) is recognised ("sub-massive" PE) where considerable debate remains as to reliable prognostication and appropriateness of thrombolysis. Aims Recognising a tendency in our district general hospital to treat PE aggressively, we sought to assess our own practise with regards to thrombolytic therapy in PE to better understand our interpretation of NICE guidance and the wider literature. Objective Assess routine quantification of haemodynamic instability of the acutely unwell patient in the clinical environment and the extent with which knowledge of right ventricular compromise and cardiac biomarkers influenced decision to thrombolyse. Methods Retrospective review of case records. Data was extracted from the medical records by one of the authors followed by joint scrutiny by all authors. Results From June 2010 over 24 months, 17 patients (6 males, 11 females) have been thrombolysed. Median age 62 (range 24–90). Of these one patient died 4 days later of sepsis and multi organ failure, and one developed a haematoma in her arm which resolved with conservative management. Of these patients only two Massive i.e. haemodynamically unstable with one thrombolysed on the ITU. In the submassive PEs, supporting evidence for thrombolysis was CT in 5 cases, and echo 5, both in 2, and lab (troponin rise) in 9 cases. Conclusion Thrombolysis in PE especially in submassive PEs remains an area of controversy and clinically a dilemma at times. Our case series shows that patient selection supported by relevant investigations, appropriate patients can benefit without any untoward events. References NICE CG144 Venous thromboembolic diseases: full guideline. Jaff MR et al. Management of massive and submassive pulmonary embolism, iliofemoral deep vein thrombosis, and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation 2011.


Experiments carried out at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) in Newport News, Virginia, and other national labs, require the use of solid polarized targets that are used to study the internal structure of either the proton or neutron. The most common target materials used in such experiments include ammonia, butanol, pentanol, lithium hydride and their deuterated versions. A technique called Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) is used to polarize these materials at low temperatures and high magnetic fields. This method requires the introduction of paramagnetic radicals. These radicals are most commonly introduced either chemically or through irradiation. Historically, irradiations have been done at several different national laboratories with varying parameters at each laboratory. These parameters: incident electron energy, irradiation dewar geometry and cryogenic liquid, can have a significant effect on the dose deposited into the material. This thesis uses EGS4, a Monte Carlo simulation tool, to simulate and normalize irradiations done at the National Institute for Science and Technology's Medical and Industrial Radiation Facility. The results of these investigations, which are consistent with experimental polarization measurements, indicate that the above parameters have a significant effect on the dose deposited. A secondary aim of this thesis is to simulate the target beam heating for experiments carried out at the Stanford Linear Accelerator and the High Intensity Gamma-Ray Source at Duke University. Such predictions are necessary to estimate the cooling power necessary to overcome the target heating due to the presence of the beam. Lastly, the results of a series of polarization measurements are given. These measurements indicate that d-butanol, irradiated with a dose of 2-3×10 electrons/cm, can achieve a polarization of up to +62.5%.


. Bike-sharing systems have been implemented in multiple major cities, offering a low-cost and environmentally friendly transportation alternative to vehicles. Due to the stochastic nature of customer trips, stations are often unbalanced, resulting in unsatisfied demand. As a remedy, operators employ trucks to rebalance bikes among unbalanced stations. Given the complexity of the dynamic rebalancing planning, this topic has received significant attention from the Operations Research community. However, the planning problem requires significant simplifications such that optimization models remain computationally tractable. As a result, existing models have used a large variety of modeling assumptions and techniques regarding decision variables and constraints. Unfortunately, the impact of such assumptions on the solutions' performance in practice remains generally unexplored. Indeed, existing simulation models to evaluate the performance of planning strategies also rely on simplifications, such as the aggregation of trips within the same time-period, therefore ignoring the original chronological sequence of trip demand. In this paper, we first systematically survey the literature on rebalancing problems and their modeling assumptions. We then propose a general modeling framework for multi-period dynamic rebalancing problems that can be easily adapted to different assumptions, including trip modeling, time discretization, trip distribution, and event sequences. We develop an instance generator to synthesize realistic station networks and customer trips, as well as a more realistic simulator to evaluate the operational performance of rebalancing strategies. Finally, extensive numerical experiments are carried out to analyze the effectiveness of various modeling assumptions and techniques. In this way, we identify the assumptions that empirically provide the most effective rebalancing strategies in practice. In particular, a set of specific trip distribution constraints as well as event sequences ignored in the previous literature seem to provide particularly good results.


Modern gas turbine development continues to move toward increased overall efficiency, driven in part by higher firing temperatures that point to a need for more cooling air to prevent catastrophic component failure. However, using additional cooling flow bled from the upstream compressor causes a corresponding detriment to overall efficiency. A primary candidate for cooling flow optimization is purge flow, which contributes to sealing the stator–rotor cavity and prevents ingestion of hot main gas path (MGP) flow into the wheelspace. Previous research has identified that the external main gas path flow physics play a significant role in driving rim seal ingestion. However, the potential impact of other cooling flow features on ingestion behavior, such as vane trailing edge (VTE) flow, is absent in the open literature. This paper presents experimental measurements of rim cavity cooling effectiveness collected from a one-stage turbine operating at engine-representative Reynolds and Mach numbers. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was used as a tracer gas in both the purge flow and vane trailing edge flow to investigate flow migration into and out of the wheelspace. Results show that the vane trailing edge flow does in fact migrate into the rim seal and that there is a superposition relationship between individual cooling flow contributions. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations using unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) were used to confirm VTE flow ingestion into the rim seal cavity. Radial and circumferential traverse surveys were performed to quantify cooling flow radial migration through the main gas path with and without vane trailing edge flow. The surveys confirmed that vane trailing edge flow is entrained into the wheelspace as purge flow is reduced. Local CO2 measurements also confirmed the presence of VTE flow deep in the wheelspace cavity.


The flows of people, goods and capital, which have considerably increased in recent history, are leading to crises (e.g., migrants, tax evasion, food safety) which reveal the failure to control them. Much less visible, and not yet included in economic measurements, data flows have increased exponentially in the last two decades, with the digitisation of social and economic activities. A new space – Datasphere – is emerging, mostly supported by digital platforms which provide essential services reaching half of the world's population directly. Their control over data flows raises new challenges to governance, and increasingly conflicts with public administration.In this paper, we consider the need and the difficulty of regulating this emerging space and the different approaches followed on both sides of the Atlantic. We distinguish between three situations. We first consider data at rest, which is from the point of view of the location where data are physically stored. We then consider data in motion, and the issues related to their combination. Finally, we investigate data in action, that is data as vectors of command of legal or illegal activities over territories, with impacts on economy and society as well as security, and raise governance challenges.The notion of 'Datasphere' proposes a holistic comprehension of all the 'information' existing on earth, originating both in natural and socio-economic systems, which can be captured in digital form, flows through networks, and is stored, processed and transformed by machines. It differs from the 'Cyberspace', which is mostly concerned with the networks, the technical instruments (from software and protocols to cables and data centers) together with the social activities it allows, and to what extent they could/should be allowed.The paper suggests one – out of the many possible – approach to this new world. Clearly it would be impossible to delve in depth into all its facets, which are as many as those of the physical world. Rather, it attempts to present how traditional legal notions could be usefully managed to put order in a highly complex environment, avoiding a piecemeal approach that looks only at details.


OBJECTIVE
This research studied the effects of a community alcohol prevention program on violent crimes. Starting in 1996, a 10-year multicomponent program based on community mobilization, training in responsible beverage service for servers and stricter enforcement of existing alcohol laws has been conducted in Stockholm, Sweden. The project has been led by an action group consisting of members from the hospitality industry and the authorities.

METHOD
We used a time-series quasi-experimental design that included a control area. Data on police-reported violence during the period of January 1994 to September 2000 were analyzed through ARIMA modeling.

RESULTS
During the intervention period, violent crimes decreased significantly by 29% in the intervention area, controlled for the development in the control area.

CONCLUSIONS
The intervention seems to have been successful in reducing violent crimes. This effect is most likely due to a combination of various policy changes initiated by the project. The findings support the notion that community action projects working on a local basis can be effective in decreasing alcohol-related problems at licensed premises.


Neuroblastoma IV-S (IV-Special) stage has been reviewed according to the current concepts as stated by Evans et al. Biological and clinical features of such a stage of disease are presented. These data suggest that the occurrence of different sites of involvement can be observed in addition to those definided previously. General views of treatment also described.


In this paper, we address two questions that emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial/banking crisis. First, did the financial statements of bank holding companies provide an early warning of their impending distress? Second, were the actions of four key financial intermediaries (short sellers, equity analysts, Standard and Poor's credit ratings, and auditors) sensitive to the information in the banks' financial statements about their increased risk and potential distress? We find a significant cross-sectional association between banks' 2006 Q4 financial information and bank failures over 2008–2010, suggesting that the financial statements reflected at least some of the increased risk of bank distress in advance. The mean abnormal short interest in our sample of banks increased from 0.66 percent in March 2005 to 2.4 percent in March 2007 and the association between short interest and leading financial statement indicators also increased. In contrast, we observe neither a meaningful change in analysts' recommendations, Standard and Poor's credit ratings, and audit fees nor an increased sensitivity of these actions to financial indicators of bank distress over this time period. Our results suggest that actions of short sellers likely provided an early warning of the banks' upcoming distress prior to the 2008 financial crisis.


Determining if a claim is accepted given judge arguments is an important non-trivial task in court decisions analyses. Application of recent efficient machine learning techniques may however be inappropriate for tackling this problem since, in the Legal domain, labelled datasets are most often small, scarce and expensive. This paper presents a deep learning model and a methodology for solving such complex classification tasks with only few labelled examples. We show in particular that mixing one-shot learning with recurrent neural networks and an attention mechanism enables obtaining efficient models while preserving some form of inter-pretability and limiting potential overfit. Results obtained on several types of claims in French court decisions, using different vectorization processes, are presented.


With the booming of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the speedy advancement of Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs), Point-Of-Interest (POI) recommendation has become a vital strategy for supporting people's ability to mine their POIs. However, classical recommendation models, such as collaborative filtering, are not effective for structuring POI recommendations due to the sparseness of user check-ins. Furthermore, LBSN recommendations are distinct from other recommendation scenarios. With respect to user data, a user's check-in record sequence requires rich social and geographic information. In this paper, we propose two different neural-network models, structural deep network Graph embedding Neural-network Recommendation system (SG-NeuRec) and Deepwalk on Graph Neural-network Recommendation system (DG-NeuRec) to improve POI recommendation. combined with embedding representation from social and geographical graph information (called SG-NeuRec and DG-NeuRec). Our model naturally combines the embedding representations of social and geographical graph information with user-POI interaction representation and captures the potential user-POI interactions under the framework of the neural network. Finally, we compare the performances of these two models and analyze the reasons for their differences. Results from comprehensive experiments on two real LBSNs datasets indicate the effective performance of our model.


The 'molding hypothesis' (Elwood et al. 1979. Anim Behav 27:940-946) predicts that shell-species selection by hermit crabs may be influenced by past experience in shell use through shell-imposed alterations in crab morphology. The present study was designed to test this hypothesis and to further the understanding of plasticity in the shell-species selection in hermit crabs. Shell use was demonstrated to influence crab growth and morphology. Individuals reared in shells of Tegula viridula attained larger sizes than individuals in shells of Morula nodulosa. Crab growth was also dependent on crab sex, since males reached larger sizes and presented longer intermolt periods than females. The most conspicuous influence of shell utilization on crab morphology was in dorso-ventral flattening, which occurred on a decreasing scale with the shell species, as follows: M. nodulosa > Cerithium atratum > T. viridula. Crabs from all treatments and those collected in nature in shells of Olivella minuta chose mainly shells of C atratum, but the previous experience of crabs strongly influ- enced their shell-species selection pattern. Individuals maintained in M. nodulosa shells selected M. nodulosa shells more frequently than individuals reared in T. viridula or C. atratum. The influence of past experience was demonstrated to depend on shell type, since patterns of shell-species selection of individuals reared in T. viridula or C. atratum were identical. These differences in the shell-species selection pattern directly reflected the differences in crab dorso-ventral flattening, i.e. dorso-ven- trally compressed individuals (those in shells of M. nodulosa or O. minuta) showed a higher proba- bility of selecting narrow-aperture shells than did 'rounded' individuals (those in shells of T. viridula or C. atratum). The weight of the selected shells at the end of the experiment depended on crab size instead of previous experience with different shell architectures.


Abstract In nanocrystalline anatase coarsened under hydrothermal conditions (250 ℃, Psat), the anatase- to-rutile phase transformation is nucleated at anatase {112} twin boundaries formed by oriented attachment. The anatase twin boundary is constructed from structural elements common to rutile. Specifically, rutile nucleation involves displacement of only one half the titanium cations within the twin slab. Subsequent transformation of bulk anatase involves rupture of 7 of the 24 Ti-O bonds per unit cell and cooperative displacement of Ti and O. As the transformation advances into the bulk material, adjacent slabs of anatase octahedra are destabilized, resulting in rapid progression of the transformation of bulk anatase to rutile. The implied chain reaction, scarcity of partly reacted crystals, absence of multiply twinned rutile, and the importance of nucleation at anatase twins indicate a rate law based on slow nucleation and rapid growth. The displacements are comparable to those proposed previously for macroscopic anatase at much higher temperatures, indicating the atomic mechanism is not modified by particle size or temperature, despite the rapid kinetics in finely crystalline aggregates. In addition to the formation of twins, clusters with rutile-like character may occur at some fraction of random anatase-anatase particle contacts. Such interfaces should result in decreased activation barriers for rutile nucleation and, thus, contribute significantly to the observed faster transformation rates in nanocrystalline compared to coarsely crystalline materials.


Wars, insurgent groups, dictatorships, and economic crises are the main reasons for forced migration. Displaced persons, asylum seekers, and refugees often face public stigmatization, as they are treated by the media as a social problem and, in many cases, seen as economic and social threats. This article presents the results of in-depth interviews with expert journalists and researchers from different Latin American countries on the phenomenon of forced migration and its journalistic coverage. Their recommendations are complemented by Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) of international guides on migration journalism. The findings highlight the need for training and awareness-raising in critical skills and social analysis for journalists to understand the complexity of human mobility and approach it from a human rights perspective, as well as to project the positive contributions of migrants to the host society. Findings suggest the need to avoid disseminating and magnifying hate speech, which may be used to justify discrimination and violence against migrants. This highlights the fact that migration issues must be dealt with under slow journalism schemes, with an emphasis on research, thus avoiding falling into xenophobic discourse due to the very immediacy that the digital ecosystem demands.


Individuals with human immunodeficiency virus infection who commence antiretroviral therapy when they are very immunodeficient are susceptible to immune reconstitution disorders. The most common disorders are the various forms of immune restoration disease (IRD) that appear to result from the restoration of a dysregulated immune response against pathogen-specific antigens. Essentially, any pathogen that can cause an opportunistic infection as a result of cellular immunodeficiency can provoke IRD when pathogen-specific immune responses recover during antiretroviral therapy. In resourcepoor countries, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Cryptococcus neoformans are the most significant pathogens, because the former causes substantial morbidity and the latter causes substantial mortality. IRD associated with these pathogens is characterized by severe inflammatory responses and is often referred to as immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. Prevention and treatment strategies for IRD are being developed, but preliminary data have demonstrated the efficacy of corticosteroid therapy in severe cases. Immune reconstitution after antiretroviral therapy may also be associated with autoimmune disease or sarcoidosis, both of which appear to have an immunopathogenesis that is different from that of IRD.


Perinatal asphyxia (PA) still constitutes a common complication involving a large number of infants with or without congenital heart diseases (CHD). PA affects 0.2-0.6% of full-term neonates, 20% of which suffer mortal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and among survivors 25% exhibit permanent consequences at neuropsychological level. Each year, about one third of 1000 live births underwent to surgical intervention in early infancy and/or are at risk for ominous outcome. Advances in brain monitoring, in anesthetic and cardiothoracic surgical techniques, including selective or total body cooling, cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and deep hypothermic circulatory arrest, have essentially reduced mortality expanding the possibility to address functional neurologic and cardiac outcomes in long-term survivors. However, open-heart surgery constitutes a time-frame of planned ischemia-reperfusion injury, which is a price to pay in the treatment or palliation of CHD. Infants who underwent heart surgery and non-CHD infants complicated by PA share similarities in their neurodevelopmental profile and a common form of brain damage due to hypoxic-ischemic injury. The purpose of the present review was to evaluate different mechanisms implicated in brain injury following CPB and PA and how it is possible to monitor such injury by means of available biomarkers (S100B protein, Activin A, Adrenomedullin).


w Societies worldwide are increasingly facing security challenges posed by climate change. The impacts of climate change exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and undermine human security, and the most detrimental effects are seen in already fragile contexts. Development organizations are key in addressing and mitigating climate-related security risks due to the importance of preventive measures. Such organizations are conceptualizing and integrating security risks posed by climate change, but the work is often done in silos. This paper contributes to the burgeoning research on the integration of climate-related security risks by organizations, with a case study on how the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is framing and developing its responses. The study shows that although Sida prioritizes the integration of environment and climate with conflict on a general policy level, there are some challenges when translating the policy into practice. The analysis identifies ambiguities with regard to concepts used and tensions between expert and general knowledge. There are several initiatives at Sida on different levels with the aim to integrate climate and conflict. However, there seems to be room for increased collaboration on operationalization, which could enable even deeper levels of integrated work. No. 2020/1 January 2020 SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security


The effect of the finite probe size in plasma fluctuation measurements is revisited for dusty plasmas, where it has been argued that dust leads to a significant low-frequency enhancement in the spectral densities of ion density fluctuations, which can constitute the physical basis of a dust diagnostic technique. Theoretical predictions for the spectral modifications are presented and the dust acoustic mode contribution is analysed. The finite probe size effect is treated within the volume average approach, which introduces geometry dependent form factors that are calculated for spherical and cylindrical probes. The volume average approach is compared with the typically employed cutoff wavenumber approximation for various dust and plasma parameters. The contribution of temperature fluctuations to the spectral density of current fluctuations is also evaluated.


Historical events in the development of cardiac electrophysiology are described briefly. Observations before 1900 showed that electrical changes accompanied activity of muscle and nerve. Other studies showed that electrical activity of the heart produced voltage changes on the human torso. In 1903 Einthoven developed the string galvanometer which made measurement of electrocardiographic potentials much easier, more accurate and more common. The bases of understanding of arrhythmias were established by Lewis in the early 1900's. Soon thereafter Wilson devised practical and theoretical approaches to the human electrocardiogram which led to many further developments. Events before 1950 established the existence and mechanism of electrical activity in excitable cells. Studies of the origin of QRS began in about 1950, with studies of depolarization of the canine ventricle. Studies of the human ventricle followed. In the 70's it appeared possible to solve the electrocardiographic forward problem, prediction of electrocardiographic potentials from a knowledge of intracardiac events. That solution appeared possible because of new approaches to the associated physical and computational problems. Attempts to solve the forward problem at that time assumed that the cardiac generator (the boundary between resting and depolarized cells) was a uniform double layer generator. (The strength of the generator is constant everywhere along the boundary). Meanwhile physiologists and anatomists had worked out the mechanism of communication between cardiac cells. The cells are longer than they are wide, and each cell can depolarize contiguous cells. The connections between cells are predominantly at the ends of the cell and the longitudinal depolarization of a cardiac mass travels three times as fast as transverse depolarization. The generator is not uniform but is strongest parallel to the long axes of the cells. Many or most of those working in the field did not recognize the importance of the connections between cardiac cells in not only the pathway of excitation, but also the potentials produced as the cells depolarized. A number of experiments indicated that the uniform double layer assumption led to both qualitative and quantitative errors in prediction of fields generated by depolarization of cardiac muscle. These are reviewed. There are now alternatives to the uniform model which recognize the non-uniformity of the cardiac generators, particularly the axial model. The forward problem is unsolved but it appears possible that these newer models will make a solution possible.


Abstract. This study employed a hybrid system for the combination of pixel-based (PB) and object-oriented (OO) Support Vector Machines (SVMs) based on Bayesian Probability Theory (BPT) for improved land cover classification. A set of uncorrelated feature attributes have been generated from a one-meter IKONOS satellite image. Four different SVMs kernels were compared and tested to classify buildings, trees, roads and ground from satellite image and the generated attributes. The kernels used include: linear, polynomial, radial basis function (RBF), and sigmoid. PB and OO SVMs have been applied to classify the image. BPT was then applied for combining the class memberships from the PB and OO classifiers. Accuracy assessment was carried out using reference data sets derived from the one-meter IKONOS image. The outcomes demonstrate that the OO method has achieved an overall kappa coefficient of 0.8286, compared with 0.6327 that was derived from the conventional PB method. The improvement in overall kappa obtained from the combined system was 0.0608 over the OO SVMs.


The use of min-max optimization in adversarial training of deep neural network classifiers and training of generative adversarial networks has motivated the study of nonconvex-nonconcave optimization objectives, which frequently arise in these applications. Unfortunately, recent results have established that even approximate first-order stationary points of such objectives are intractable, even under smoothness conditions, motivating the study of min-max objectives with additional structure. We introduce a new class of structured nonconvex-nonconcave min-max optimization problems, proposing a generalization of the extragradient algorithm which provably converges to a stationary point. The algorithm applies not only to Euclidean spaces, but also to general $\ell_p$-normed finite-dimensional real vector spaces. We also discuss its stability under stochastic oracles and provide bounds on its sample complexity. Our iteration complexity and sample complexity bounds either match or improve the best known bounds for the same or less general nonconvex-nonconcave settings, such as those that satisfy variational coherence or in which a weak solution to the associated variational inequality problem is assumed to exist.


The ultimate goal to perform surface science studies under technologically relevant conditions includes wet-chemical methods to prepare well-defined oxide surfaces [1]. The most widely practised approach is hydrofluoric acid etching, even though this chemical poses serious health risks and may inadvertently dope the surface with fluorine, an efficient electron donor [2]. Here, we present a rational yet versatile wet-chemical alternative to lengthy sputtering–annealing cycles in ultrahigh vacuum for preparing single crystal oxide samples for surface science investigations. The method does not require hydrofluoric acid, is environmentally benign and is demonstrated on rutile TiO2 (110), rutile TiO2 (011) and SrTiO3 (100), but may have much wider application potential, also for surfaces that are quickly destroyed by acids. The procedure consists of (i) ultrasonication in the presence of a dispersing agent to remove polishing debris; (ii) thermal annealing to produce equilibrium-shaped steps and terraces determined by the crystal miscut; and (iii) oxidative cleaning in an alkaline mixture to remove adsorbed organic contaminants from the surface. Each of the steps is optimised based on AFM and characterisation in ultrahigh vacuum, including by LEED and XPS. Following this wet-chemical preparation, we demonstrate atomically resolved electrochemical scanning tunnelling microscopy on TiO2 (110), on a sample that was never treated by sputtering–annealing.


Heparin binding-epidermal growth factor-like growth factor (HB-EGF) is one of the EGF receptor ligands and possesses several functional domains. It is involved in diverse biological processes, including wound healing, blast implantation, atherosclerosis and tumor formation, through its interactions with various molecules. We have reported that HB-EGF gene expression is significantly elevated in human ovarian cancer, and further demonstrated that HB-EGF plays key roles in the acquisition of malignant phenotypes, such as cell survival in peritoneal fluid, cell adhesion on extracellular matrices, invasion, angiogenesis, tumorigenicity, and chemoresistance in ovarian cancer. Thus, HB-EGF was considered as a promising target for cancer therapy. In vitro as well as in vivo experiments have revealed that cross-reacting material 197 (CRMI97), a specific inhibitor of HB-EGF, or a small interfering RNA for HB-EGF can block each step involved in peritoneal dissemination. According to these pieces of evidence, the development of targeting tools against HB-EGF, such as CRM197, could allow us to improve the prognosis of cancer patients.


The microstructe of mold fluxes of low-carbon steel and mould powders were researched by means of polarizing microscope. The result shows that the mineral compositions of the mould fluxes primarily are glass phase, wollastonite, quartz, melilite, pyroxene and feldspar. The main mineral compositions of mould powders is melilite. The quartz, pyroxene and glass phase are helpful to reduce the crystalline portion of mould powder, but the melilite, wollastonite help to improve the crystalline portion and promote crystallization of melilite. It is good for the crystalline portion when the casting speed droop.


Abstract. Development and simulation of synthetic hurricane tracks is a common methodology used to estimate hurricane hazards in the absence of empirical coastal surge and wave observations. Such methods typically rely on numerical models to translate stochastically generated hurricane wind and pressure forcing into coastal surge and wave estimates. The model output uncertainty associated with selection of appropriate model parameters must therefore be addressed. The computational overburden of probabilistic surge hazard estimates is exacerbated by the high dimensionality of numerical surge and wave models. We present a model parameter sensitivity analysis of the Delft3D model for the simulation of hazards posed by Hurricane Bob (1991) utilizing three theoretical wind distributions (NWS23, modified Rankine, and Holland). The sensitive model parameters (of 11 total considered) include wind drag, the depth-induced breaking γB, and the bottom roughness. Several parameters show no sensitivity (threshold depth, eddy viscosity, wave triad parameters, and depth-induced breaking αB) and can therefore be excluded to reduce the computational overburden of probabilistic surge hazard estimates. The sensitive model parameters also demonstrate a large number of interactions between parameters and a nonlinear model response. While model outputs showed sensitivity to several parameters, the ability of these parameters to act as tuning parameters for calibration is somewhat limited as proper model calibration is strongly reliant on accurate wind and pressure forcing data. A comparison of the model performance with forcings from the different wind models is also presented.


Indonesia, with the spirit and principles of a just democracy, has given birth to various political parties and paradigms that are believed to be a solution in solving various problems faced by the Indonesian people lately such as Corruption, Intolerance, radicalism, terrorism and various social problems can be said as a complex cases, social anxiety in Indonesia lately, really need a solution that can solve the problem without skating a particular religion. The presence of the Indonesian solidarity party, chaired by Grace Natalie lately, known as a Christian female political figure with a relatively young age in the midst of the world's largest Muslim majority population, political battles in various efforts to gain public support, became the biggest challenge for the Indonesian Solidarity Party. The contribution of the Indonesian Solidarity Party in fighting for the aspirations of minority religions greatly influences the strength of the Indonesian Solidarity Party, besides having to fight for the support of the Muslim population with religious doctrines that do not provide space for non-Muslims to be elected as leaders. The presence of the Indonesian Solidarity Party is believed by some support groups to be a new enthusiasm to participate in resolving the problems currently being faced by the Indonesian people. crucial by not considering the religious values that exist in Indonesia in conveying political narratives and maneuvers, such as unconditional rejection of Sharia Law, rejecting polygamy as a social problem, to invite debate and get a serious reaction for some Indonesian Muslim groups. In this paper, is an attempt to dissect the various paradigms and narratives of the Indonesian Solidarity Party in political communication as a whole, analyze the principles of the State concept, and examine the concept of Islam in depth, comprehensively, and be able to answer the socio-political discourse lately.


This article explains the organizational life cycle, its impact on organization performance and role of an HR manager in effective compensation management. The stages in the life cycle are a key determinant of compensation strategies and their effectiveness in achieving organizational goals. The sales revenue, business risk and free cash flow of organizations change considerably during different stages of the organizational life cycle. Sales organizations must review, update and align their sales force compensation strategy in keeping with the organizational life cycle. Realigning fixed and variable pay in the compensation structure according to different stages of organizational life cycle will help organizations design an optimal compensation strategy for building competitive advantage.


This is the opening article in a Human Relations special issue on 'Interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary career studies'. After introducing a story of an 'exceptional — but real' career, we argue for an urgent shift toward greater interdisciplinary inquiry. We reflect on the story to describe differences in the way each of psychology, sociology, social psychology, and economics views the concept of career. We turn to explore what career researchers, representing each of the above social sciences, might not see on their own. In contrast, we highlight how social scientists can move toward a) appreciating the limitations of our separate approaches, b) introducing more appropriate research methods, c) maintaining a wider cross-disciplinary conversation, and d) better serving the client — the person — in our future research. We continue with a preview of the remaining five articles in this special issue, and propose that these can serve as stimuli for a wider conversation.


In recent time e-meter (electronic meter) place a major role for the power consumption &cost efficient system. In advanced future it has high reliable and productive programmed meter perusing framework (AMRS). This paper aims to plan a straightforward ease.IOTbased energy meter reading system which includes fault indication. Unit usage after (i.e. for 15 days once). Mode selection (automatic& manual) and SMS alert to user. Mode selection option is included. To avoid more power consumption automatic mode is used to cut-down the appliances for the user convenience. If there is a fault in the e-meter it sends a notification to the user. If there is any fault in E-meter the LED will glow. EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) used as flash memory to store a data. The proposed system neglects the regular digital meter reading system and allows remotely access the electronic meter. Legitimate validation, user can get to the created webpage points of interest from anyplace on the planet. The advantages of this project are to reduce cost and save more power and also reduce man power and time consumption. This project is implemented is hardware and software used are ARUDINO IDE (using embedded C language).


At least rhetorically, most members of Congress care about fiscal discipline. Consistent with this concern, Congress has included numerous fiscal discipline rules in its federal budget process legislation. Faced with constituent pressures to cut taxes while maintaining or even increasing federal spending, however, politicians have succumb to certain budget pathologies. These pathologies can lead to gimmicks used to disguise the size of the budget deficit and to by-pass or merely comply superficially with formal budget process requirements. Since both parties often benefit, there is little political incentive to check the use of such strategies. This chapter seeks to explain and highlight the most prevalent budget games. It classifies budget gimmicks as falling into three general categories: 1) games with numbers; 2) games with timing; and 3) procedural gimmicks. The first category involves manipulation of economic data or methodology used to estimate the cost or "score" for proposed legislation as well as the economic "baseline" used to project increases or decreases in revenue that would result from enacting such legislation. Although there can be reasonable differences of opinion regarding such economic assumptions and methodologies, the budget process offers temptations to pick and choose the economic data or methodology that portrays legislative proposals in the best budgetary light or to suggest inconsistent use of such data or methodologies in pursuit of a particular political agenda. Timing gimmicks, on the other hand, involve manipulation of the budget year in which projected revenue increases or savings are reported. One such potential game is manipulation of the "budget window." Revenue estimates over a five-year period will look very different from those reported over ten-years. Timing gimmicks also include the use of delayed payments, accelerated receipts, and phased-in or expiring statutory provisions designed largely or solely for purposes of "budget appearances." Finally, the chapter looks at the increasing use of "reconciliation bills" for tax and other budget-related legislation. The optional budget reconciliation procedure, originally designed for deficit control, offers opportunities to include controversial provisions, often including major tax cuts, in legislation subject to debate under streamlined, limited-debate procedural rules accompanied by rigid numeric requirements regarding revenue to be raised or saved. The chapter incorporates some modest suggestions for changes to reconciliation and budget scoring rules to limit some of the gimmicks described and increase the potential for greater fiscal discipline.


: A typical clinical and histologic case of Queyrat's erythroplasia of the glans penis is presented. For several years the patient had been treated for balanitis and inflammation of the glans. A few months before the patient died, the correct diagnosis was established. Shortly after, metastases to the inguinal lymph nodes were found and treated with X-rays. At autopsy, metastases to other organs were revealed. It is concluded that erythroplasia of Queyrat might be Bowen's disease of a mucosal or mucocutaneous area, and this "carcinoma in situ" may metastasize. Consequently Queyrat's erythroplasia should be treated as a malignant disorder as soon as the diagnosis is established.


The Wild and Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act (WFRHBA) of 1971 authorized the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to manage feral horses (Equus ferus caballus) and burros (E. asinus) on public lands in the United States. This special issue of Human–Wildlife Interactions has explored in-depth the ecological, policy, political, practical, and sociological issues pertinent to the BLM and USFS management of wild horses and burros. In this commentary, I summarize the pros and cons of the available contemporary policy and management options—the tools in the BLM and USFS toolbox— that can contribute to achieving the intent of the WFRHBA. Ultimately, it will be up to the U.S. Congress to choose which options are in the best interest of the American public and our natural resources.


OBJECTIVES
Two phase I studies in healthy Chinese (NCT01458743) and Western (NCT01612507) subjects evaluated the pharmacokinetics (PK) and safety of single and multiple ceftaroline fosamil 600 mg infusions administered every 8 or 12 hours (q8h or q12h).

METHODS
Each study enrolled subjects sequentially into 1 of 2 cohorts (cohort 1: 60-minute infusions; cohort 2: 120-minute infusions). All subjects in the Chinese (n = 26) study received open label ceftaroline fosamil; in the Western study, subjects (n = 41) in each cohort were randomized 3 : 1 to ceftaroline fosamil or placebo infusions. Single infusions were administered on days 1 and 8. On days 2 - 7 (3 - 7 for Chinese study, cohort 1) subjects received q12h or q8h infusions. Plasma and urine were collected on days 1 and 8 for PK analysis.

RESULTS
Ceftaroline PK was linear and time-independent following single and multiple doses of ceftaroline fosamil. The magnitude and timing of peak plasma concentrations of ceftaroline (active metabolite), ceftaroline fosamil (prodrug), and ceftaroline M-1 (inactive metabolite) varied according to the ceftaroline fosamil dosing schedule (q12h or q8h) and infusion duration (60 minutes or 120 minutes), but overall plasma ceftaroline exposures within the respective dosing intervals were broadly similar across cohorts. The most frequent adverse events were rash/drug eruption, most of which were of mild-moderate intensity and considered related to treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Ceftaroline PK was broadly similar in healthy Chinese and Western subjects receiving equivalent dose regimens. The tolerability profile of ceftaroline fosamil in Chinese and Western subjects was consistent with previous clinical trials.


The photo-catalytic hydroxylation of phenol with hydrogen peroxide was carried out over TS-1 and Ti-MCM-41 catalysts. For comparison, the dark (thermal)-catalytic hydroxylation of phenol was also performed. The difference in catalytic behaviors of TS-1 and Ti-MCM-41 and product distribution in both the reactions were investigated. The TS-1 and Ti-MCM-41 catalysts having the Si/Ti ratio of 50 were prepared by in-situ crystallization and characterized using XRD, UV-DRS. In the all reactions, the main products were catechol (CAT), hydroquinone (HQ) and benzoquinone (BQ). In dark (thermal)-reaction, TS-1 showed a higher catalytic activity than Ti- MCM-41. In photo-reaction, however, the activity of Ti-MCM-41 was comparable to that of TS-1. The conversion of phenol and the selectivity to CAT in the photo-catalytic reaction were higher than those in dark (thermal)-reaction. In the all reactions, the selectivity to CAT increased remarkably when the selectivities to HQ and BQ decreased with reaction time.


After a single dose of olsalazine, the maximum serum concentration of the intact compound is much lower than after an equivalent dose of sulphasalazine. In both compounds the diazo bond is largely split by colonic bacteria and comparable amounts of the metabolites 5-ASA and acetyl-5-ASA are recovered in the faeces. During long-term ingestion of olsalazine, 1-4 weeks are required to reach a steady state, and serum concentrations of the parent drug are low. It is demonstrated that olsalazine is rapidly sulphated into the metabolite, olsalazine-O-sulphate, which has a long half-life. Acetyl-5-ASA is more stable and more soluble than 5-ASA; however, the therapeutic efficacy of acetyl-5-ASA in inflammatory bowel disease is not proven.


Following the CJEU's decisions in Pierre Fabre and Coty, a considerable amount of scholarship on the design of competitive markets has been concerned with one particular issue: should product manufacturers be allowed to impose firmer restrictions on distribution with the aim of upholding consumers' views on product quality? This article asserts that when consumers are exposed to a variety of goods offered in the marketplace, they see product quality as more objective; when they are exposed to a variety of offers pertaining to differentiated goods, they perceive of quality as more subjective. Based on this observation, this article examines a recurring set of trade-offs that courts face when balancing the legitimate interests of product manufacturers to restrict distribution against their effects on consumer sovereignty. The article's findings aim to advance debates about the overarching policy goals of the manner in which digital markets ought to be regulated.


The acquisition and interpretation of in vivo ultrasonic measurements in tissue encounter problems associated with limited access to the region of interest, intermixed scattering structures with different characteristic dimensions, and system-dependent effects. This work addresses these problems by adapting and testing a technique for measuring the absolute attenuation and the absolute backscatter coefficient (effective backscatter cross section per unit volume of material), as a function of frequency, in a single-transducer backscatter configuration. The frequency-dependent attenuation and backscatter coefficients of a tissue-mimicking gelatin phantom containing a random distribution of two populations of scatterers were measured, Three transducers with different center frequencies and focusing characteristics were used in order to verify that system-dependent effects were removed by the technique and to investigate the change in the measured parameters across a broad range of frequencies (2 to 60 MHz). A spherical autocorrelation model was applied to measurements of the backscatter coefficient in order to estimate the size of scatterers. Measurements demonstrate that the backscatter and attenuation properties of a mixture of two distinct intermixed scatterer-size populations change as a function of the frequency range across which the model is applied. Comparison of both the magnitude and the frequency dependence of the experimental results with the theoretical prediction of the backscatter coefficient showed good agreement.


Vertical coordination in agriculture is a complex problem. Coordination arrangements have both technical and organizational dimensions. This paper calls attention to the institutional dimensions of vertical coordination. It applies concepts of institutional economics to vertical coordination problems. Finally, this paper calls for an integration of economic techniques within an institutional framework as an approach to research on vertical coordination systems.


Hemostatic abnormalities are common in patients with metastatic malignancy and are attributed, in part, to materials secreted by tumor cells. Tumor stimulation might therefore cause further perturbation of hemostasis. This article reports observations on the effects of androgen stimulation on multiple hemostatic parameters in patients with metastatic prostate cancer. Testosterone was given before chemotherapy in an experimental protocol designed to increase tumor sensitivity to cytotoxic agents. The following parameters were measured on day 0 (before) and days 2 and 4 of fluoxymesterone administration: PT, APTT, platelet count, plasma betathromboglobulin (BTG), platelet factor 4 (PF4), fibrinogen, fibrin(ogen) split products (FSP), factor VIII coagulant activity (VIII C), von Willebrand factor antigen (vWF Ag), fibrinopeptide A (FPA), antithrombin III (AT III), and protein C antigen (PC). Ten patients were studied during 17 cycles of hormonal stimulation. Baseline levels of BTG, PF4, fibrinogen, FSP, factor VIII C, vWF Ag, and FPA were significantly elevated compared with normal control. Although androgen stimulation resulted in elevation of BTG, FPA, and FSP levels by day 4 in many patients, the changes for the entire group were not statistically significant. Other parameters remained unchanged or were only slightly elevated. Two patients developed laboratory evidence of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) but were clinically unaffected. Our data suggest that most patients with metastatic prostate cancer show evidence of ongoing activation of platelets, coagulation, and fibrinolysis. In a few individual patients, androgen stimulation of this hormonally dependent tumor may cause further activation of platelets, coagulation, and fibrinolysis.


The assumption that the transmission of social behaviors and political preferences is purely cultural has been challenged repeatedly over the last forty years by the combined evidence of large studies of adult twins and their relatives, adoption studies and twins reared apart. Variance components and path modeling analyses using data from extended families quantified the overall genetic influence on political attitudes, but few studies have attempted to localize the parts of the genome which accounted for the heritability estimates found for political preferences. Here, we present the first genome-wide analysis of Conservative-Liberal attitudes from a sample of 13,000 respondents whose DNA was collected in conjunction with a 50 item socio-political attitude questionnaire. Several significant linkage peaks were identified and potential candidate genes discussed.


An epidemiological study was conducted to determine the prevalence and risk factors to tungiasis amongst 1,030 randomly selected individuals in rural communities of Badagry Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. Hands, feet, elbows and other parts of the body were examined for the presence of clinical signs of tungiasis and the number and location of lesions were recorded. The study also assessed the respondent's knowledge, attitude and practices to tungiasis amongst the randomly selected individuals. Socio-demographic profile of respondents revealed 40.7% were between 20-39 years, and 10% were elderly (>60 years), 78.8% of the sampled population were from Egun ethnic group and 26.6% of the sampled population were farmers. The clinical symptoms observed ranges from itching and oedema to desquamation of skin and loss of toenails. In total, 293 (28.4%) individuals were infested and there was no significant difference in the prevalence of infection between males and females (p 0.05). A total of 2,515 lesions were observed, out of which 1,660 were located on the toes and 808 on the sole of the feet. The most important risk factors identified were respondents not using footwear regularly, and living in sandy-floored rooms. Knowledge about the etiology of tungiasis and its transmission was high in surveyed communities, 97.8% of the surveyed population indicated to have experienced tungiasis at least once in their lifetime. Transmission of tungiasis was thought to be majorly related to the presence of local pigs (61.2%), sandy soil (39.6%), dirty environment (26.1%) and fish scales (8.6%). Surgical extraction of embedded sand fleas using unsterile needles, blades or any sharp object (61.5%) and application of kerosene (paraffin) (51.7%) were the most common treatment applied. Targeted health education and intervention measures addressing the associated risk factors need to be implemented in communities with high disease burden.Keywords: Neglected tropical disease; risk factors; knowledge and treatment practices


With the huge amount of data continuously accumulated and shared by individuals and organizations, it has become necessary to meet the emerging processing and information retrieval requirements associated with these large volumes of data. This could be achieved by indexing the data sets and reducing heavy computational overhead accustomed to most current indexing strategies during processing of very large amounts of data sets. This study proposes a novel Indexing strategy called Big Data INDexing Strategy (BIND), using a concept of high performance parallel computing. BIND supports parallel distribution of data and performs processing in a MapReduce fashion. To develop the BIND strategy, Ian Foster's task-scheduling concept for parallel processing is applied. The proposed indexing strategy was first tested on a 2-node cluster environment where varying sizes of datasets were used to note if the performance improves or declines as the size of the data increases. Subsequently, it was tested on a 3-node cluster to note the performance when the number of computation resources are increased. The results demonstrates that BIND minimizes the processing and query time as compared to the current strategy. The findings have significant implication in efficiently managing Big Data and facilitating data processing and information retrieval for users and organizations that manage Big Data.


The present economic crisis has had a powerful impact on the restaurants in the city of Brașov, which have confronted themselves in the past years both with a decrease in the number of consumers, and with a reduction in the consumption of products and public food services. In this context, this survey aims to analyze the perceptions of the restaurant managers in the city of Brașov regarding the quality of products and services they offer to the consumers, by using, in this sense, one of the techniques that are specific to qualitative research that is the semi – directive in – depth interview method.


In 2011, artist Andrew Norman Wilson was working as a subcontractor doing video work for Google at the Mountainview California Googleplex. He'd noticed that the workers entering and exiting the building next door had different working conditions to the majority of the workers at the site and discovered they were working on the Google Books mass digitization project. One day he took his camera down to film them leaving the building at the end of the shift and the next day he was fired. Wilson used the footage to create a video he calls "Workers Leaving the Googleplex" (2011), and projects such as Krissy Wilson's "The Art of Google Books" destabilise the fictional veneer of smooth clean surfaces that the Google Books project projects into the world. The growing field of critical infrastructure studies helps us to unpack and understand the multiple dimensions operating This paper argues that notions of the particularities of digital labour of all kinds are central to developing a more comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted nature of digital cultural objects, both born-digital and digitised. The paper considers the often invisible, contingent, omitted or assumed labour involved in digitization projects, using thinking from critical infrastructure studies, new media, media archaeology and creative labour.


Data management plans (DMPs) encourage researchers to think about how they will responsibly handle the data they collect, and are required by many funders. The National Science Foundation (NSF) requires that all grant proposals be accompanied by a data management plan. Other federal funding agencies have similar requirements or will have soon. This guidance will serve as a starting point to guide researchers through the data life cycle process with available tools either on campus or through the California Digital Library (CDL).


Silica is an essential trace element in human nutrition and dietary deficiency leads to abnormal bone formation in experimental animal studies (Carlisle, 1972, Schwartz 1972). Silica-containing glasses and glass ceramics, within a certain range, are bioactive, forming a strong bond with bone and soft tissue when they are used as bone replacement materials. The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of silica on the osteoblast in vitro with a view to its eventual incorporation into biomaterials to improve bone-bonding properties.
Two distinct approaches were used. The first involved the analysis of silica as a nutrient, by supplementing osteoblast growth medium with sodium metasilicate, and evaluating the osteoblast response in terms of cell growth, mineralisation and cytotoxicity. The second approach examined the response of osteoblasts to silica as a biomaterial. A silica gel was used to isolate the effects of silica on the osteoblast in vitro without the effects of the other ions present in bioactive glass. The biocompatibility of patterned silicon wafers was investigated to evaluate the potential use of these materials in the field of biomaterials. Finally, the bioactivity and osteoblast response to a novel silicon/polymer composites as assesseda s a potential biomaterial.
The results of nutrition studies showed that in some cases low levels (1-100ppm) of silicate appeared to have a beneficial effect on bone formation in terms of nodule formation and mineralisation. Higher levels of silicate supplementation (>300ppm) caused rapid apoptosis in osteoblasts, fibroblasts and macrophages and affected cell spreading.
The biomaterial studies showed that the silica gel surface was bioactive and osteoblasts responded favourably demonstrating enhanced, earlier nodule formation. Bioactive surfaces formed a calcium phosphate (CaPi) layer and released silicic acid when incubated in a simulated body fluid (SBF). Bulk silicon wafers (Si) supported osteoblast growth however, the removal of the oxide layer by wet etching (ESi) imparted bioactive properties to the wafer. Patterned Si/Esi surfaces supported the formation of a CaPi layer over the entire surface and demonstrated osteoblast preferences for bioactive surfaces. The incorporation of silica particles into a bioabsorbable polymer matrix rendered the composite bioactive and supported osteoblast growth.
The results of this work demonstrate the importance of silica in bone mineralisation, osteoblast apoptosis and particularly the potential benefits of the use of silica and silicon to improve bone bonding in non-bioactive biomaterials and biosensors.


The steeping chip weighting waveforms are used in Multiple Access Interference (MAI) cancellation by emphasizing the received spreading signal, therefore, that allows to solve the problem of orthogonality for the chip waveforms. Our paper presents a useful method based on fuzzy systems to determine the despreading sequences weighted by the steeping chip weighting waveforms for Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access (DS/CDMA). The validity of our proposed method has been tested by numerical examples for an Additive White Gaussian Noise channel. We show that the parameter values of the chip weighting waveforms are good and the Bit Error Rate performance of the system does not undergone any degradation.


This paper studies empirically the consequences of retirement on health. We make use of a targeted retirement offer to army employees 55 years of age or older. Before the offer was implemented in the Swedish defense, the normal retirement age was 60 years of age. Estimating the effect of the offer on individuals' health within the age range 56-70, we find support for a reduction in both mortality and in inpatient care as a consequence of the early retirement offer. Increasing the mandatory retirement age may thus not only have positive government income effects but also negative effects on increasing government health care expenditures.


The possible associations of myoclonic phenomena, progressive or non progressive encephalopathies and epileptic phenomena are reviewed with special emphasis on childhood. This leads to the following five groups of conditions: (1) myoclonus without encephalopathy and without epilepsy; (2) encephalopathies with non-epileptic myoclonus; (3) progressive encephalopathies with myoclonic seizures or epileptic syndromes (Progressive myoclonus epilepsies); (4) epileptic encephalopathies with myoclonic seizures; (5) myoclonic epilepsies. In the first group, which also includes physiological myoclonus, a more thorough description of "benign sleep myoclonus of newborn" and "benign myoclonus of early infancy" is given. Characteristic of group 2 are "Kinsbourne syndrome" and certain types of "Hyperekplexia" which pose interesting differential diagnosis problems with stimulus-sensitive epilepsies. In group 3, the concept of progressive encephalopathies is stressed, meaning that "Progressive Myoclonus Epilepsies" are always in fact progressive encephalopathies presenting with myoclonic types of seizures or epileptic syndromes among other neurologic and psychologic signs and symptoms. Major and rare causes are reviewed. The term major is applied to typical features or to frequency, whereas rare causes include not only those what are rarely seen, but also some myoclonic variants of diseases which usually have different symptoms. The fourth group refers to severe epilepsies, mainly in infancy and childhood, which lead to mental retardation irrespective of their cause. The assumption is that diffuse and persistent epileptic activity may interfere with normal development of the higher cerebral functions. "West syndrome" and "Lennox-Gastaut syndrome" are the more representative examples and may present with myoclonic type of seizures, but they are not dealt with in detail here. Group 5 comprises true myoclonic epilepsies, differentiating syndromes recognized as idiopathic, such as "benign myoclonic epilepsy of infancy" and "juvenile myoclonic epilepsy", from those which are cryptogenic and carry a more cautious prognosis--i.e.: "cryptogenic myoclonic and myoclono-astatic epilepsies" and "Severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy". Finally other epileptic syndromes usually not considered as myoclonic epilepsies, but presenting sometimes myoclonic seizures, are mentioned.


Medical dialogue systems have the potential to assist doctors in expanding access to medical care, improving the quality of patient experiences, and lowering medical expenses. The computational methods are still in their early stages and are not ready for widespread application despite their great potential. Existing transformer-based language models have shown promising results but lack domain-specific knowledge. However, to diagnose like doctors, an automatic medical diagnosis necessitates more stringent requirements for the rationality of the dialogue in the context of relevant knowledge. In this study, we propose a new method that addresses the challenges of medical dialogue generation by incorporating medical knowledge into transformer-based language models. We present a method that leverages an external medical knowledge graph and injects triples as domain knowledge into the utterances. Automatic and human evaluation on a publicly available dataset demonstrates that incorporating medical knowledge outperforms several state-of-the-art baseline methods.


The squamous cancer of the penis has a very low incidence in our environment which means that very few centres have any cases and therefore lack any major experience. This handicap together with their treatment being divided between Urologists and Dermatologists decreases even more the number of cases seen and precludes the obtention of valid considerations. This report presents 15 cases of squamous cancer of the penis seen and followed-up for at least 5 years, and which were treated according to an established protocol in which the differential element, based in our results, is that ilial lymphadenectomy does not offer better results than chemotherapy in high-stage disease, with 33% survival, whereas in low-stage disease the use of surface and deep bilateral inguinal lymphadenectomy, in conjunction with micrographic surgery achieves survival rates of 100%. Morbidity in this case is standard (transient lymphedema, 100% patients; inguinal skin necrosis, 4% patients), while ilial lymphadenectomy has a high morbidity and some mortality.


Pyrite (FeS2) is a typical container of Pt in ores of magmatic and hydrothermal origin and in some carbonrich ores of sedimentary-diagenetic origin. Knowledge of the state of Pt disseminated in the matrix of pyrite, including local atomic environment (type of atoms in the nearest and distant coordination shells, coordination numbers, interatomic distances) and oxidation state, is necessary for physical-chemical modeling of platinum group element mineralization and for the improvement of Pt ore extraction and processing technologies. Here we report results of an investigation of local atomic structure of synthetic Pt-bearing pyrites by means of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). Synthesis experiments, performed at 580° and 590°C in a Pt-saturated system by means of salt-flux method, yielded crystals of pyrite with concentrations of Pt up to 4 wt %. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) showed that the distribution of Pt within the pyrite grains is of zonal character, but within the distinct zones Pt is distributed homogeneously. Negative correlation between the concentrations of Pt and Fe was observed in the synthesized pyrite grains. The slope of the correlation line corresponds to the formation of the solid solution in the Pt-Fe-S system and/or to the formation of PtS2. The XAS experiments revealed the existence of two forms of Pt in pyrite. The main form is the solid solution Pt(IV), which isomorphically substitutes for Fe. The Pt-S distance in pyrite is ~0.1 Å longer than that of Fe-S in pure pyrite. The distortion of the pyrite crystal structure disappears at R >2.5 Å. The second Pt-rich form was identified by means of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) as nanosized inclusions of PtS2. Heating experiments with in situ registration of X-ray absorption spectra resulted in partial decomposition (dissolution) of PtS2 nanosized inclusions with the formation of the solid solution (Fe1–xPtx)S2. Therefore, the PtS2 nanosized particles can be considered as a quench product. Our data demonstrate that both Pt solid solution and PtS2 nanosized inclusions (at high Pt content) can exist in natural Pt-bearing pyrites.


The essential oils were obtained by hydrodistillation from aerial parts of Mentha pulegium L. (M. pulegium L.) and Artemisia herba alba (A. herba alba) Asso. and analyzed by gas chromatography–flame ionization detector chromatograpy (GC–FID) and gaz chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The antibacterial activities of the oils were determined by the disk diffusion method and a microdilution broth assay against six bacteria stains. The combinations of these essential oils with antibiotics were evaluated against two multi-drug-resistant bacteria strains: imipenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (IRAB S3310) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA S19). The chemical analysis of M. pulegium essential oil revealed the presence of pulegone (74.8%) and neoisomenthol (10.0%). A. herba alba essential oil was characterized by camphor (32.0%), α-thujone (13.7%), 1,8-cineole (9.8%), β-thujone (5.0%), bornéol (3.8%), camphene (3.6%), and p-cymene (2.1%). All strains tested except Pseudomonas aeruginosa were susceptible to these oils. The combinations of essential oils with antibiotics exerted synergism, antagonism, or indifferent effects. The best effect was observed with A. herba alba essential oil in association with cefoxitin (CX) against MRSA S19. However, for IRAB S3310, the strongest synergistic effect was observed with M. pulegium in association with amikacin (AK). This study demonstrated that M. pulegium and A. herba alba essential oils have antibacterial activities which could be potentiated by antibiotics especially in the case of IRAB S3310.


Two experienced spiritual (trance) healers who occasionally treat each other were recorded simultaneously, each with 27 EEG channels. The participants alternated their roles as healer and client (8 runs of 15 min: each 4 times healer, 4 times client). FFT spectral analysis was done using average reference. Spectra were averaged across the 27 channels. Power was integrated for each of the eight frequency bands (delta through gamma). The eight simultaneous results of the healing runs (client vs healer condition) were statistically compared (frequency band-wise ANOVA). In their role as healer compared to their role as client, both participants showed less power in the function-inhibiting delta and function-facilitating beta-3 EEG frequency bands. In sum, this pilot study of spiritual (trance) healing found distinct EEG states (common to both participants) that combined EEG characteristics of functional inhibition and functional facilitation in healer and client which cannot be reduced to changes in drowsiness or alertness.


Purpose: Intraarticular distal radius fractures are often treated with open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) through a volar approach. This common approach, however, is technically demanding to restore the articular surface of the radiocarpal joint while respecting soft tissue integrity. The purpose of this video is to demonstrate the surgical technique of volar plate fixation of an intraarticular distal radius fracture. Methods: A 32-year-old patient who sustained multiple injuries including an intraarticular distal radius fracture was treated with ORIF by a volar approach. Results: Exposure is performed through a standard flexor carpi radialis approach. The intraarticular fracture of the distal radius is reduced, and a volar plate is applied. Careful measurement of screw length is described in detail to minimize postoperative tendon irritation. Closure of the soft tissues is completed and early postoperative rehabilitation is emphasized. Discussion: Multiple, varied techniques for fixation of intraarticular distal radius fractures are described in the literature. As demonstrated in this video of ORIF with a volar plate, attention to articular reduction, soft-tissue protection, and postoperative rehabilitation are key components used to achieve good clinical outcomes.


Predicting stock market crashes is extremely valuable for all investors. Several useful prediction models have been developed, focusing on mature financial markets, in North America, Europe, and Japan. The authors investigate whether traditional crash predictors—the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E), the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio (CAPE), and the bond–stock earnings yield differential model (BSEYD)—predict crashes for the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Composite Index in mainland China. Using data from the early 1990s to the end of 2016, the authors find that the P/E ratio has predictive value for both exchanges over the entire period. When testing the P/E, CAPE, and BSEYD over a shorter nine-year period, the authors find that all measures had a higher predictive value for the Shenzhen index, where smaller, privately owned companies are listed, than for the Shanghai index, where larger, often state-owned enterprises trade.


Laser diode response to deep sinusoidal injection current modulation is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. By the numerical analysis of multilongitudinal rate equations with a modulation term, regular pulsation regions and the spectral broadening and wavelength shift of the optical pulse are given. These theoretical results are well supported by experimental observations with an AlGaAs laser diode, where a 40-70 ps optical pulse at a repetition rate of 200 MHz to 2.17 GHz was obtained. The possibility of generating a coherent optical pulse by harmonic frequency injection current modulation of laser diodes without external cavities is pointed out theoretically. Further, coherent pulsations by external light injection in sinusoidally modulated laser diodes are investigated both theoretically and experimentally.


SUMMARY I. INTRODUCTION Recent case law from the Luxembourg court concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments under the Brussels and Lugano Conventions shows that public policy, traditionally a vector of inward-looking national values even in a European context, is undergoing significant transformation, so as to become the very cornerstone of the edification of common European values. This is particularly so with respect to the fundamental right to procedural fairness, which is taking on unprecedented importance in the various national legal systems. The process of change, in which public policy has been instrumental, has involved the gradual merging of the values of the "two Europes," the seat of human rights and the union of economic interests. The free movement of foreign judgments in the latter area testifies to the disappearance of purely national definitions and standpoints, which give way to common European parameters. From a comparative perspective, one could say that there is evidence here of progressive integration, from the bottom-up, which does not result from authoritarian black-letter unification, but involves internalisation of common values by each of the national legal systems.1 II. THE CHALLENGE: THE SEARCH FOR A NEW COMMON EUROPEAN LEGAL CULTURE Abundant evidence of the growing importance of European law in a purely quantitative sense can be found in the legal system of any given Member State of the European Union; it is indeed quite obvious that it is no longer possible to envisage any branch of private law without constant reference to European sources, whether they be hard or soft law, international conventions between Member States or secondary Community law, regulations with direct effect or national provisions implementing Community directives. Indeed, although the latter, by far the most profuse in these fields, now frequently define their own scope by reference to a connecting factor with the European Community,2 there are many instances in which harmonised law has in fact entirely absorbed the "common" domestic law applicable, irrespective of any such link.3 Whatever the means, vast areas of what might be termed the "modern" law of obligations, such as consumer protection, insurance contracts, and products liability, as well as an increasingly large part of private international law, now even in the more traditional field of family relations,4 are all affected by the move to harmonise or unify the individual legal systems. It is here that the whole issue of "Europeanisation" becomes extremely sensitive, insofar as one may call into doubt the legitimacy of a deliberate filing down of those cultural differences which are characteristic of the various legal traditions represented within the European Union.5 However, the impact of European law on domestic systems signifies more a real growingtogether of legal systems than deliberate inroads on national practice. For while European law has affected the content of given rules, it is European law's impact on hitherto more entrenched national perspectives or methods of reasoning that is a far surer sign of legal integration. Indeed, harmonisation is not necessarily the result of imposed uniformity; it may also, if certainly more exceptionally, be the effect of a spontaneous, incremental growth towards common perspectives and standpoints.6 In addressing the theme of this symposium, my aim has therefore been to discover signs evidencing the progressive development of a specifically European way of looking at things. Is there a contemporary European legal culture, distinct from pre-existing national traditions? The quest for such evidence avoids any particular reference to the common historical background of European legal systems, however conducive the influence of Roman law and the shared values of Christianity may have been in the shaping of the various national traditions.7 Indeed, this symposium invites us to look less at such cultural similarities as may issue from the heritage of the ius commune, than to new perspectives for legal integration, particularly those induced by the heightened economic and institutional proximity of European states within the past halfcentury. …


Abstract We present a case of a 7-year-old boy with acute abdominal symptoms initially misdiagnosed as constipation. Delayed imaging diagnostics revealed an ileus with contorted small intestine, so laparotomy was indicated. An acute bowel obstruction was found based on an incarcerated internal hernia. Small and large bowel segments were incarcerated into a large mesenteric defect leading to extended intestinal necrosis. About 30 cm of necrotic small bowel and 15 cm of large intestine were resected, two primary anastomoses were performed. The mesenteric defect was closed with two running sutures. The boy's clinical outcome was very good. Two aspects are discussed: the initial clinical misdiagnosis of acute bowel obstruction in a child leading to a delay of diagnostics and therapy on the one hand and the origin of mesenteric defects on the other. In children with abdominal pain, ultrasound must be performed as soon as possible and pediatric surgeons have to be involved early. There should be an awareness of the fact, that mesenteric defects and other congenital malformations can occur more often than we suspect it. In the case of an internal hernia, a misjudgement of the clinical condition may be very harmful for the patient and can lead to a short bowel syndrome or even death.


In 1966, the United States Supreme Court created a sensation with its decision in Miranda v. Arizona. This article examines interrogation practices in detail in three systems: the American, the English (and Welsh), and the Canadian while also discussing rules from various other countries. It considers when the Miranda-type warnings (required in all three systems) must be given and when suspects will be deemed to have waived their rights. This article further discusses how reliability and voluntariness of confession is assured. Finally, a particular emphasis is placed on the issue of when a suspect's silence during interrogation may be used against him in court. The article concludes that American courts have not done enough to ensure reliability and voluntariness. In addition, the article further argues that the English approach whereby a suspect is warned that silence during interrogation may be used against him in court, and then it is so used, is fair. The article explains why this approach is not inconsistent with Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976) which bans such use based on the current Miranda warnings. It suggests that a fifth warning as to use in court be added to the Miranda warnings.


We consider a decentralized hypothesis testing problem in which several peripheral energy harvesting sensors arearranged in parallel. Each sensor makes a noisy observation of a time varying phenomenon, and sends a message about the present hypothesis towards a fusion center at each time instance t. The fusion center, using the aggregate of the received messages during the time instance t, makes a decision about the state of the present hypothesis. We assume that each sensor is an energy harvesting device and is capable of harvesting all the energy it needs to communicate from its environment. Our contribution is to formulate and analyze the decentralized detection problem when the energy harvesting sensors are allowed to form a long term energy usage policy. Our analysis is based on a queuing-theoretic model for the battery. Then, by using numerical simulations, we show how the resulting performance differs from the energy-unconstrained case.


Despite the wide occurrence of ties in a variety of contest settings, the strategic interaction that arises when ties are treated as viable outcomes has received little attention. Building on recent theoretical work, we experimentally examine an extension of the canonical two-player all-pay auction in which a tie occurs unless one player's bid exceeds the other's by some critical threshold. In the event of a tie, each player receives an identical fraction of the prize. For the case where players receive one-half of the prize when they tie, we find that players' expenditures are non-monotonic in the threshold required for victory. Moreover, for certain positive thresholds, expenditures may even be higher than under the standard all-pay auction. We also find that decreasing the fraction of the prize players receive for tying may either increase or decrease total expenditures. In accordance with theory, the eect depends upon the threshold.


The deployment of wireless sensor networks is highly dependent on the given application. In fact it depends on the environment characteristics, the available budget and the type and desired quality of service. Since making real tests is most of the times costly and time consuming, researchers and developers usually use simulation tools in order to simulate the behaviour of the network under particular conditions and in different scenarios. In order to make the available simulators suitable for the targeted application, users usually customize the source code by modifying it or adding other modules into it. This task is time consuming and complicated especially if the simulator is customized for the first time and if there is many dependencies between different units. This paper presents the performances and the features of a graphical user interface of an easy to use simulator for wireless sensor networks lifetime estimation.


In the decades following the Civil War, the principal task facing the United States Army was that of subduing the hostile western Indians and removing them from the path of white settlement. Indian scouts and auxiliaries played a central role in the effort, participating in virtually every campaign. In this comprehensive account of the "wolves" (as scouts were designated in sign language), Thomas W. Dunlay describes how and why they served the army, how they were viewed by the military and their own tribes, and what wider implications their service held.