The nutritional implication of processed maggot meals, hydrolysed, defatted, full-fat, sun-dried and oven-dried, in the diets of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings were evaluated. The nutrient density, proximate composition, gross energy and mineral constituents of the maggot meals were determined. Five isonitrogenous and isocaloric diets were formulated to provide 40% crude protein in which fish meal in the reference diet was completely replaced by any of the following processed maggot meals: oven-dried full-fat (ODM), sun-dried full-fat (SDM), defatted oven-dried (DODM) and defatted sun-dried (DSDM) maggot meals respectively. Fish were fed ad libitum in triplicate treatments for 56 days in glass tanks. Biological evaluations of the fish were based on growth performance and nutrient utilization indices. The result of the nutrient composition analysis showed that processing methods of defattening and drying influenced the nutrient density of maggot meal, with crude protein content ranging between 43.30% and 46.70% for full-fat sun-dried and hydrolysed/defatted oven-dried maggot meals respectively. The result showed that growth performance and nutrient utilization of fish fed DODM and DSDM dietary inclusions were not significantly different and similar to fish fed the fish meal-based diet. However, fish fed the diet containing SDM exhibited lower daily weight gain, protein efficiency ratio and specific growth. Generally, fish performed better when fed diets containing defatted maggot meals than full-fat maggot meal, and compared favourably with fish fed the fish meal-based diet.


Memory circuits have become dominant components in IC designs especially in mobile and IoT era, which demands extremely high integration density as well as high reliability under process and environment variations. As density grows, the same number of fail bits becomes extremely rare events, hence one of the most challenging design aspects is to accurately predict the extremely low failure rate. In order to overcome the intractability of conventional Monte Carlo methods, many importance sampling methods have been suggested. In this paper, a novel multiple shift-vector importance sampling method using support vector machine and clustering (MSVISC) is proposed and its contributions to high density memory design in aspects of both fabrication process and circuit design are demonstrated. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of advanced importance sampling method applied to the state-of-the-art DRAM designs.


During the period 1969-1975, 12 disqualified U.S. Army helicopter aviators with various finger amputations were evaluated by the U.S. Army Aeromedical Consultation Service for return to flying duties. The evaluations included both medical examinations and in-flight performance observed by aviation medicine specialists and standardization instructor pilots. The criteria for aeromedical disposition are presented with a discussion of the hand and finger requirements to fly U.S. Army UH-1 rotary wing aircraft. All evaluated aviators were presented to a board of senior U.S. Army flight surgeons, who recommended return to flying. Ten of the disqualified aviators were returned to unrestricted flying. Two required limitations to fly with another qualified aviator. At this time, 1 to 7 years after evaluation, 11 are current Army aviators. None have had to be reevaluated or suspended as a result of problems with their amputations. Not one of these aviators has had a fatal accident. The comprehensive medical and in-flight evaluations of well-motivated, disqualified aviator finger amputees has proven to be of benefit in retaining valued assets for U.S. Army aviation.


We assess the effects of monetary policy on real house prices and housing investment across the US states during the period 1983-2008. We find that an expansionary monetary shock generates higher housing investment and house prices at the national level. At the state level, however the responses of housing investment and house prices differ from the nation-wide responses. We relate this heterogeneity to various observable factors such as property tax rates, howeownership, income inequality, poverty and demographic factors. All these factors are crucial in explaining the heterogeneity of the state-level responses.


Implementation strategies are key factors in determining the overall success of clinical guidelines. They are important for changing physician practices and expected to result in clinical improvement or cost savings. Within an organization, the method of implementation should be a major component of the development of the guideline itself. In a group practice system, clinical guidelines must be clear and provide numeric thresholds or explicit criteria for decision points and subsequent action. Assessing the overall impact of a clinical practice guideline provides excellent feedback in determining whether goals are being met and provides guidance for fine: tuning strategic approaches. With regard to the prevention of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) monitoring, the overall results of a clinical practice guideline would assess guideline compliance, complications of the guideline interventions, as well as the incidence of DVT, pulmonary embolism, hospital readmissions, and mortality.


Oligopolistic competition occurs when a small number of operators compete for the same pool of customers. This is often the case in transportation, due to reasons such as external regulations, economies of scale and limited capacity of the infrastructure. We present a demand-based optimization approach to study market equilibria in oligopolies. The framework takes into account interactions between demand and supply as well as competition among suppliers. In particular, the preferences of the customers are modelled at a disaggregate level according to random utility theory, while competition is modelled as a multi-leader-follower game. To find equilibrium solutions, we propose a fixed-point optimization model which can incorporate both nonlinear and linearized customer choices probabilities. Due to its complexity, the model can only tackle small-size instances with restricted strategy sets. Finally, we include a preliminary description of a heuristic approach that can be used to efficiently select for all competitors a subset of strategies that have the potential to produce equilibrium or near-equilibrium solutions.


This paper deals with the " dark triad " personality and its components (Machiavellianism, narcissism, subclinical psychopathy) on economics & management student population in Croatia and Slovakia. Dark Triad represent important HRM area in which is trying to understand the " dark " side of human functioning which has potentially harmful impact on organization functioning and performance. Population of economics & management students is important in the context of HRM because of their future high potential to generate dysfunctional organizational behaviors, when they will be organizational employees, especially on management positions. The goal of this research was to gather the data about dark triad personality phenomenon, make the comparisons between Croatian and Slovak sample, present the potential organizational impact of employees with dark characteristics in organizational context and show the implications for HRM. For measurement of the dark triad components (variables) it is used questionnaire measurement that adopts the standardized short dark triad measurement instrument of Jones & Paulhus. Results of the Croatian students are compared with the results of Slovak students, and basically also with Canadian student sample. The basic results showed that 6% Croatian and 0.5% of Slovak economy & management students showed full dark triad profile, also there are found very significant statistical differences in the Machiavellianism and subclinical psychopathy variables between the Croatian and Slovak samples, i.e. these characteristics were statistically higher in Croatian sample.


This study focuses on a new tourist festival in the southern Andalusian village of Frigiliana. The festival began in 2006 and celebrates the village's plural Jewish, Christian and Muslim past. The thesis argues that a recent tourist invention has moved beyond the confines of a four-day commercial event and into the everyday lives of the population. It argues that through the sustained management of culture, the organisers of the festival have consciously defined and configured an emergent local ethnicity. Festival Frigiliana 3 Culturas is a considered political move framed within national discourse relating to the recuperation of lost historical memories. The festival was created within this discursive field, but it is more than a symbolic gesture. It is a form of cultural activism that counters a dominant monocultural narrative in a somatic manner. Festival Frigiliana 3 Culturas playfully conjures up the past during a tourist event. Yet in doing so, it is playing with new myths and legends in the present. Within a festival atmosphere, locals claim ownership of their public space in order to express their myths and legends. The festival constructs a medieval sensorium through which the body encounters lost histories. Thus, the festival moves beyond symbolic constructions and creates a space where the internal organs of the body validate a recent notion of local identity, tradition and culture. The thesis argues that the internal organs of the body work in communion with reconfigured symbols. It argues that the inner body actively engages with the festival and attains the level of discourse required to transform "pure" blood into "plural" blood. It contends that the kitsch plastic realm of proletarian tourism realises the potential for social change. During this commercial process, Festival Frigiliana 3 Culturas creates a new ethnicity called al-Andalus and it is the commercial component within the event that allows locals to claim ownership of their public space.


This study has explored: 1) the perceptions of medical students towards their writing needs (necessities, lacks, and wants) in writing, and also their perceptions towards syllabus, materials, activities, instruction and the effect of writing in English in the MB (Medical Biology) class; 2) differences of perceptions between Medics I and II; 3) the perceptions of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and MB teachers regarding students' lacks in writing; 4) collaboration between the ESP teachers and the MB teachers; and 5) the challenges of collaboration. Mixed-method approach was adopted: 267 questionnaires were distributed to Medics I and Medics II students; 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and 9 semi-structured interviews with ESP/MB teachers, coordinators, the Deputy Head of the English language centre and the Dean of Medicine in an Arab university. Findings showed that medical students' perceptions of their writing 'wants' were writing practice, reading for different schemata, and grammar practice. Their 'lacks' in writing are mainly vocabulary, spelling accuracy and applying grammatical rules in writing. Some students thought they need more guidance, interactive writing activities and innovative general/medical materials. There were no significant differences between Medics I and Medics II students except that Medics II students benefitted more from the writing component. ESP and MB teachers' perceptions regarding the writing needs of the students differed. The data showed similarities regarding the students' and ESP/MB participants' perceptions of 'lacks' such as insufficient reading, paragraph writing and grammar practice. ESP participants believed their students to have more practice in writing while MB participants emphasized content, writing for professional purposes and comprehension of exam questions. Regarding collaboration, the ESP and MB participants showed inclinations to cooperate. However, they had different views on teaching content, the status of the ESP teacher, the use of L1, administrative issues, unclear goals and interpersonal issues.


Delivery of therapeutic compounds to the brain is limited, because due to their molecular size they cannot cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Focused ultrasound (FUS) after administration of microbubbles into the blood-stream has been shown to open the BBB locally, non- invasively and reversibly. In this study, we investigated the time required for BBB's permeability at the sonicated region to revert to its initial condition. BBB opening has also been shown to be induced safely for a variety of sonicating parameters. The group of parameters tested was as follows: Pulse Repetition Frequency 10Hz, 20% duty cycle, pulse length 20ms, two sets of 30s sonication with a 30s delay between, with peak-rarefactional pressure of 0.30MPa. Contrast-enhanced high-resolution MRI (9.4 T) revealed BBB opening and allowed for the monitoring of the slow permeation of gadolinium in the hippocampus. BBB closing appeared to occur within a maximum of 5 days after sonication at the aforementioned parameters. The timeline of BBB closing will allow for time wise more efficient delivery of therapeutic compounds to the brain, as well as critical guidance for repeated drug administration over a period of time when necessary.


Aim and Objective: Our aim is to find out the best line of treatment both radiologically and clinically for the extra articular fractures of the distal tibia treated with imil nailing and plating.
Materials and Methods: From 2016 may till 2018 January all patients with extra articular fractures were taken for the study. All are closed fractures.17 patients under went imil nailing and 15 underwent distal tibia plating patients with diabetes, smokers, alcoholics were included in relation to wound healing. Results were analysed as per the scoring the two sets of patients were analysed for infection, skin necrosis, non-union, malunion, ankle rom, knee pain, shortening etc.
Results: in plating no infection, skin necrosis in one patient, non-union noticed in 3 patients and finally in 9months all united except one malunion is more in plating, ankle rom, stiffness is noticed knee pain noticed in few cases of imil nailing cases, shortening noticed in one case in plating results are graded as excellent, good, fair, and poor. In nailing-no infection, no skin necrosis, nononunion, no angulation, ankle rom full, knee pain in 1case,and no shortening results were graded as excellent, good, fair and poor both groups were compared.
Discussion: Imil cases bone united in 8w, early weight bearing, no infection, skin necrosis, no angulation, no shortening noticed.
In plating shortening, delayed union, angulation, ankle stiffness which is not seen in imil smoking diabetes, and alcoholics landed up in skin necrosis and plate exposures.
Conclusion: In our study we found imil nailing is the best and less complication and early reture to work it gives early weight bearing, no shortening, no delayed /non-union, no infection, early union and no malunion rom at ankle is very good rarely knee pain. Hence we conclude imil gives the best result.
 In our study the fractures were operated by different surgeons. We fell a bigger randomised trial involving more number of cases will show how t


The resistance of Staphylococcus aureus to ciprofloxacin has complicated the problem of treating staphylococcal associated infections in which MRSA is the causative agent since ciprofloxacin was the drug of choice to treat such infections. Our study investigated the incidence of Ciprofloxacin resistant S. aureus isolates that were also methicillin resistant among Iraqi patients. The obtained bacterial isolates were tested for Ciprofloxacin resistance using agar dilution method and the sequence of gyrA and parC . The results revealed that about 8% of the isolated MRSA strains were Ciprofloxacin resistant and the resistance was due to mutation in gyrA rather than parC .


Remediation of soil contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is an important societal, environmental, economical and technological challenge, due to the high number of sites contaminated by these persistent and toxic compounds. Environmental engineering companies using conventional bioremediation processes often fails to reach sufficient PAH removal rates from historically contaminated soils. Therefore, there is a real need for the development of innovative solutions.In the present work, the characterization of 6 historically tar oil-contaminated soils showed that 42 to 86% of PAH are located in the sand fraction, either adsorbed on various coal/coke/wood particles or integrated in resinified and weathered tar oil particles. Thus, either selective separation of the most contaminated fraction or surfactant-enhanced soil washing (SW) appears to be promising alternatives to bioremediation, according to the level of sequestration of PAHs. Further investigations were performed on the surfactant-enhanced SW process, which is based on the transfer of PAHs from the soil-sorbed fraction to the washing solution. This process generates SW solutions containing a large amount of surfactant and pollutant. They have to be treated in order to avoid environmental contamination and ensure the cost-effectiveness of the whole process.Anodic oxidation (AO) was identified as a suitable and promising process for the treatment of SW solutions containing PAHs and Tween® 80 as extracting agent. The detailed understanding of mechanisms involved in the removal of organic compounds from SW solutions during AO allowed the implementation of two different treatment strategies:•First, it was emphasized that the use of AO at low current intensity during long treatment times (23 h) allows the selective degradation of target pollutants (PAHs) and the reuse of the SW solution for additional SW steps. Thus, the large amount of Tween® 80 saved strongly improves the cost-effectiveness and ecological footprint of SW processes, particularly when the high sequestration of pollutants requires several SW steps using high surfactant concentrations.•In contrast, high removal rates of organic compounds and production of more biodegradable by-products was observed during short treatment times (3 h) by AO at high current intensity. Thus, synergistic effects were observed for the combination of AO with a biological post-treatment. High removal rates with optimized operating costs can be achieved. Moreover, AO can also be used as a post-treatment (polishing step) for the removal of hardly-biodegradable compounds. This treatment strategy aims at avoiding environmental contamination by SW solutions.Both treatment strategies have to be considered for a suitable management of SW solutions. In view of promising results obtained, scientific challenges related to the scale-up of this process were discussed


BACKGROUND
We aimed to assess the long-term oncologic outcome of hand-assisted laparoscopic radical nephrectomy (HLRN) compared with open radical nephrectomy (ORN) in patients with clinically localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed the data from 1098 patients who underwent radical nephrectomy at five institutions in Korea between 2000 and 2011 for clinically localized RCC. One hundred ninety-seven patients in the HLRN group were compared with 901 patients in the ORN group. Univariate and multivariate analysis assessed the effects of operative method on oncologic outcomes.

RESULTS
The median duration of follow-up was 69 months for the HLRN group and 63 months for the ORN group. No statistically significant difference was found in the operative time (170.2 minutes versus 168.9 minutes, P=.793) between the HLRN and ORN groups. However, estimated blood loss was significantly lower in the HLRN group than in the ORN group (245.9 mL versus 422.4 mL, P<.001). The pathological T stage was significantly higher in patients in the ORN group: 79.9% of patients in the HLRN group derived from pT1, versus 54.7% of those in the ORN group (P<.001). A statistically significant difference was found in the 5-year disease-free (90.6% versus 79.6%, P<.001), cancer-specific (95.7% versus 91.1%, P=.019), and overall (93.4% versus 85.4%, P<.001) survival between the HLRN and ORN groups. However, multivariate analysis by Cox's proportional hazards model does not retain surgical methods as an independent predictive factor for cancer-related death or recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS
HLRN may be a preferable minimally invasive surgical treatment for clinically localized RCC with comparable long-term oncologic outcomes.


Tubular structure is extensively used from domestic to aviation kind of applications. Life and safety are most considered in designing tube structure that against failure. For the last 200 years of research output and understanding, it was estimated that about 90% of metal failures were due to the external or surface defect and environmental attacks. The present work had focused on damage tolerant fatigue life prediction on aluminium cylindrical structures. Endurance tests were conducted with a constant amplitude repetitive loading at both, in room and high temperatures. A notch is introduced by wire cut machined on external surface and in a straight line with circumferential orientation to represent an external defects and flaws. Crack growth rates were measured by imaging technique. The experimental results suggested that the creep fatigue life is shorter than conventional fatigue life. The effect of stress ratio is also presented. The fully reversed with high temperature results registered the most severe damage with tremendous of life reduction.


This work presents an implementation of a hierarchical disparity estimation algorithm entirely executed on programmable 3D graphics hardware. In contrast to previous hardware based implementations of computational stereo algorithms, our method calculates disparities either for rectified stereo images or uncalibrated pairs of stereo images without known epipolar geometry. We exploit features of modern graphics hardware to search for correct disparity vectors eciently. The hierarchical approach increases the speed and the robustness of the algorithm. Additionally, we use bidirectional matching to remove false matches. We observe up to 50 fps for input images with 256 ◊ 256 pixels resolution on desktop graphics cards and up to 30 fps on mobile 3D hardware.


Invariance is an effective prior that has been extensively used to bias supervised learning with a \emph{given} representation of data. In order to learn invariant representations, wavelet and scattering based methods ``hard code'' invariance over the \emph{entire} sample space, hence restricted to a limited range of transformations. Kernels based on Haar integration also work only on a \emph{group} of transformations.
In this work, we break this limitation by designing a new representation learning algorithm that incorporates invariances \emph{beyond transformation}.
Our approach, which is based on warping the kernel in a data-dependent fashion,
is computationally efficient using random features, and leads to a deep kernel through multiple layers. We apply it to convolutional kernel networks and demonstrate its stability.


For a prime number $p$ and a sequence of integers $a_0,\dots,a_k\in \{0,1,\dots,p\}$, let $s(a_0,\dots,a_k)$ be the minimum number of $(k+1)$-tuples $(x_0,\dots,x_k)\in A_0\times\dots\times A_k$ with $x_0=x_1+\dots + x_k$, over subsets $A_0,\dots,A_k\subseteq\mathbb{Z}_p$ of sizes $a_0,\dots,a_k$ respectively. We observe that an elegant argument of Samotij and Sudakov can be extended to show that there exists an extremal configuration with all sets $A_i$ being intervals of appropriate length. The same conclusion also holds for the related problem, posed by Bajnok, when $a_0=\dots=a_k=:a$ and $A_0=\dots=A_k$, provided $k$ is not equal 1 modulo $p$. Finally, by applying basic Fourier analysis, we show for Bajnok's problem that if $p\geqslant 13$ and $a\in\{3,\dots,p-3\}$ are fixed while $k\equiv 1\pmod p$ tends to infinity, then the extremal configuration alternates between at least two affine non-equivalent sets.

A corrigendum was added March 12, 2019.


1 To investigate the vasodilator actions of nitroglycerine and isoprenaline, the effects of these agents, dibutyryl cyclic AMP (db cyclic AMP) and 8‐bromo cyclic GMP (8‐Br cyclic GMP) on intact muscle tissue, and of cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP on skinned muscle of the rabbit mesenteric artery were investigated. 2 In porcine coronary artery, nitroglycerine (>0.1 μm) increased the production of cyclic GMP with no change in the amount of cyclic AMP, while isoprenaline (>0.1 μm) significantly increased the production of cyclic AMP with no change in the amount of cyclic GMP. 3 In the rabbit mesenteric artery, nitroglycerine or isoprenaline inhibited the tonic component of the 39 mm [K]o‐induced contraction to a greater extent than the phasic component. Nitroglycerine and 8‐Br cyclic GMP showed a stronger inhibitory action on the K‐induced contraction than did isoprenaline and db cyclic AMP. 4 The sources of Ca utilized for the generation of contraction by noradrenaline and caffeine were estimated to be the same as those determined from the amplitudes of contractions evoked in Ca‐free solution by various concentrations of noradrenaline or caffeine. 5 In intact muscle tissues, the effects of nitroglycerine or 8‐Br cyclic GMP on the amount of Ca stored in cells were estimated from the caffeine‐induced contraction in Ca‐free solution. Both agents inhibited the contractions due to a reduction in the amount of Ca in the cells. When the effects of isoprenaline or db cyclic AMP were observed, both agents inhibited the caffeine‐induced contraction but the accumulation of Ca into cells was greater than the control. 6 In saponin skinned muscles, the pCa‐tension relationship in the presence of cyclic AMP and cyclic AMP‐dependent protein kinase (cyclic AMP‐PK) shifted to the right and to a lower level in comparison with the control. Applications of cyclic GMP with cyclic GMP‐dependent protein kinase (cyclic GMP PK) also inhibited the contraction induced by low concentrations of Ca. 7 In skinned muscles, cyclic AMP exhibited dual actions on Ca store sites, i.e. in the presence of high concentrations of Ca or prolonged superfusion of Ca, cyclic AMP reduced the amount of Ca due to activation of the Ca‐induced Ca release mechanism by excess accumulation of Ca. On the other hand, cyclic GMP consistently inhibited the amplitude of the caffeine‐induced contraction due to a reduction in the amount of Ca in the store sites. 8 These results indicate that nitroglycerine and isoprenaline increase the amount of cyclic GMP and cyclic AMP, respectively. The main effect of cyclic GMP is activation of Ca extrusion, thus reducing the amount of Ca stored in the cell, while the main effect of cyclic AMP is to increase the amount of Ca stored in the cell. Both cyclic AMP with cyclic AMP‐PK and cyclic GMP with cyclic GMP‐PK inhibit the phosphorylation of myosin. Consequently both cyclic nucleotides reduce the free Ca in the myoplasm and promote relaxation, but by different mechanisms.


Background: Current studies mainly emphasized the spiritual needs and care of cancer and hospice patients; few deal with the other critically ill patients.
Aim: This study aimed to describe the spiritual needs and care of ICU patients from nurses' perspectives.
Design: This is a qualitative study.
Method: The semi-structured guided interviewing on ICU nurses in a medical center of southern Taiwan was approved by the IRB at the research department of the hospital and data collection was carried out from January to June 2012. The investigator repeatedly read the transcribed text, and found statements relevant to the themes in the transcriptions to form significant statements as the basis of data analysis. To ensure the rigor of this study, the investigator adopted the approach of trustworthiness of qualitative research proposed by Lincoln and Guba.
Results: For the assessment of patients' spiritual needs, the patients were divided into two groups: conscious and unconscious groups. The spiritual needs of the former were assessed by the clinical observation and judgment, while the latter were assessed through family interpretation. In addition, there are six themes in general spiritual care: care skills, interaction promotion, religious belief, cultural care, wish fulfilment, alleviation of grief and terminal care. Spiritual care of the conscious and unconscious patients were also included.
Conclusion: Spiritual needs and care from ICU nurses' perspective were different from the patients; however, both of views were focused on the general spiritual care, while ICU nurses divided spiritual care into the conscious and unconscious patients. Relevance to clinical practice: The authors suggested that a complete guideline of spiritual care for critically ill patients integrating with the cultural care and interdisciplinary cooperation could be developed on the basis of the results of this study in the future, which could provide more empirical data as the nursing reference.


A new approach to understanding socio- economic development is proposed, based on consideration of the evolution of coordination mechanisms. The work consists of two parts. In the first part, a critical analysis of four recently proposed theories of development, focusing on geographical, institutional, or cultural factors, is given. These theories have greatly enriched our understanding of the evolution of society. However, as our analysis shows, none of them provides a satisfactory description of the driving forces and mechanisms of this evolution; the main reason is rooted in their common shortcoming — monocausality. It is proposed to distinguish between two types of development, catching-up and leading one. Basic ideas of the theory of catching-up development are presented. It explains the phenomenon of the "economic miracle" as a result of mutually conditioned changes in culture, institutions, technological progress and well-being in the context of interaction of competition, power and collaboration mechanisms. The second part is devoted to the theory of leading socio-economic development.


This new collection of the key authors on nationalism delivers the latest thinking on the fundamental aspect of politics, sociology and international relations – nations and nationalism.

John Breuilly, Walker Connor, Steven Grosby, Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony D. Smith and Pierre van den Berghe comprehensively explain the key theoretical question in nationalism studies of 'when is the nation?', that is, 'in what point of history is a nation born?' In a world still imbued with the language and practices of nationalism, this is a pertinent question, to which main theories give different answers. The comparison and contrast of these main approaches in the volume not only offers an overview of the state of theoretical debates but also reveals their strengths and weaknesses. This new text:

introduces the main schools of thought with clarity and concision

tackles the most pertinent questions in nationalism

delivers both theoretical and empirical perspectives

uses an innovative new interactive debate format with questions and answers

presents key case studies bringing theory to life

The inclusion of case studies gives the reader fresh insights into specific nations and national groups, including the USA, Greece, England and Fiji. The accessible debate format puts main theories and thinkers to the test, enabling the reader to interact with the issues directly.

This unique volume is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of nationalism, ethnicity and global conflict.


Creating a culture of respect is the essential first step in a health care organization's journey to becoming a safe, high-reliability organization that provides a supportive and nurturing environment and a workplace that enables staff to engage wholeheartedly in their work. A culture of respect requires that the institution develop effective methods for responding to episodes of disrespectful behavior while also initiating the cultural changes needed to prevent such episodes from occurring. Both responding to and preventing disrespect are major challenges for the organization's leader, who must create the preconditions for change, lead in establishing and enforcing policies, enable frontline worker engagement, and facilitate the creation of a safe learning environment.When disrespectful behavior occurs, it must be addressed consistently and transparently. Central to an effective response is a code of conduct that establishes unequivocally the expectation that everyone is entitled to be treated with courtesy, honesty, respect, and dignity. The code must be enforced fairly through a clear and explicit process and applied consistently regardless of rank or station.Creating a culture of respect requires action on many fronts: modeling respectful conduct; educating students, physicians, and nonphysicians on appropriate behavior; conducting performance evaluations to identify those in need of help; providing counseling and training when needed; and supporting frontline changes that increase the sense of fairness, transparency, collaboration, and individual responsibility.


No research has been done on institutions created for African American orphans in the South after the Civil War, leaving a significant gap in the literature surrounding not only the nature and operation of these institutions but also how they reflected the various conceptions of the New South that competed for acceptance during Reconstruction and beyond. How individuals and organizations, particularly religious organizations, imagined the "problem" of the black orphan and the nature of a society that failed to deal with it affected the "solutions" they devised in the form of orphan asylums. Four case studies of orphanages in Virginia, operated by individuals from four different Christian denominations in different periods following the Civil War, provide insight into the changing visions of the New South over approximately fifty years. These visions in turn affected the operational values of each institution and the factors which ultimately led to their success or failure. Chapter 1 examines the Friends' Asylum for Colored Orphans in Richmond, a Quaker orphanage begun during Reconstruction and which saw the African American orphan as emblematic of the hope and opportunity available postemancipation. This motivated the inclusion of and eventual transfer to African American leadership, which enabled the institution to continue into the midtwentieth century. Chapter 2 looks at the Lynchburg Colored Orphan Asylum and Industrial School, an institution founded by an Episcopalian minister during the violent reactionary period of the 1890s; his imagined orphan was dangerous, suggestible, and representative of an out-of-control society. His goal was to raise a tractable generation of African American children to restore white superiority which precluded any African American involvement in the project; this, combined with personal failings, resulted in the closure of the orphanage within a decade. Chapter 3 inspects the St. Francis Colored Foundling and Orphan Asylum and its later iteration Holy Innocents' Asylum, Catholic foundling orphanages in Richmond also started in the 1890s. These saw African American orphans as little more than potential converts, a view somewhere between the hope and control models of the previous two institutions, and this white, foreign-led institution lasted just over twenty years. Chapter 4 analyzes the Weaver Orphan Home, a Hampton orphanage operated by a black Baptist family during the height of Jim Crow segregation. Their early adoption of a family-based model of child welfare, centered on promoting the dignity and personhood of the child, was hugely successful and enabled them to operate for over half a century.


CD4CD25 Tregs play a central role in the maintenance of peripheral self tolerance by keeping autoreactive T cells in check. Whereas the thymic origin of CD4CD25 Tregs, as a distinct lineage, has been inferred, understanding of their developmental pathways has remained elusive. In both mice and humans, peripheral CD4CD25 Treg populations have been described as composed of antigen-experienced T cells that fail to significantly proliferate following TCR stimulation but suppress proliferation and effector functions of CD25 T cells. Here we show that analysis of CD25 expression in human circulating CD4 T lymphocytes with respect to their in vivo differentiation stages identifies a distinct subset of CD25CCR7CD62LCTLA-4FOXP3 cells contained in the CD45RA/RO naive fraction. The subset, which we have named natural naive Tregs (NnTregs), is prominent in young adults and decreases with age together with the total naive CD4 population. NnTregs are anergic following stimulation in the absence of IL-2 and exert ex vivo cell-cell contact-mediated suppressor functions. In addition, they proliferate in response to stimulation with autologous APCs, which indicates a high enrichment in T cells bearing self-reactive TCRs. The definition of this subset has important implications for the analysis of human naturally occurring Tregs and for their targeting in therapeutic immune interventions.


Objective: Pro-inflammatory cytokine-driven mechanisms have been implicated in vein graft failure, though little is known about the effect of hemodynamic factors and anti-inflammatory counter-regulatory mechanisms. We hypothesized that early temporal expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)–1 and the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 proceeds by way of wall shear stress–dependent pathways in the arterializing vein graft. Methods: Rabbits (n 27) underwent bilateral jugular vein carotid interposition grafts, and simultaneous unilateral distal carotid branch ligation, to produce both low-flow and high-flow grafts in the same animal. Vein grafts were harvested at 1, 3, 7, 14, and 28 days and were assessed for architecture, wall shear stress, and cytokine messenger RNA levels (quantitative real-time two-step reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction). Results: The model resulted in an immediate 90% flow reduction (P < .001, paired t test) in the vein graft on the ligated side, and a 36% increase (P .01) in contralateral graft flow. This persisted as 15-fold flow differential throughout the 28-day period. The construction yielded a 15-fold differential in wall shear stress between low-flow and high-flow vein grafts (P < .001, two-way repeated measures analysis of variance). Intimal hyperplasia began by day 3, and was 6-fold more in low wall shear grafts by 28 days (230.6 35.4 m intimal thickness vs 36.1 17.6 m for low shear versus high shear grafts; P .001). For both cytokines time independently affected mRNA expression (P < .001, global analysis of variance). Exposure of vein grafts to the arterial circulation markedly up-regulated IL-1 at 1 day, with significantly more induction in the low shear setting (P .002). IL-1 protein localized to the developing neointima at days 1 and 3. Conversely, IL-10 slowly increased until day 14, with significantly more expression in the high shear grafts (P < .001). Conclusions: Vein graft adaptation induces early pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1 expression and delayed protective IL-10 expression (most notable under high shear conditions), both of which are modulated by wall shear. These differential temporal windows offer strategies for appropriately timed pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory therapies to interrupt pathologic vein graft adaptations. (J Vasc Surg 2004;40:345-50.)


Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a highly heterogeneous condition, ranging from individual traumatic incidents such as car accidents to national tragedies such as natural disasters. Every individual has a different depending on their personality and past experiences, especially regarding their tendency to depression. Hence the condition is better termed psychotrauma spectrum disorder (PSD). Its heterogeneity hinders reliable diagnosis, as detection is entirely dependent upon a clinician's subjective impression and sensitivity to comorbidities and there is always the possibility of concealment. Yet early diagnosis is essential, as the earlier PSD is detected the more likely treatment will be successful. Furthermore, reliable biomarkers of PSD would allow for much more accurate detection and monitoring of progression. Here we propose a new computational approach building on our prior work on the early detection of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and depression. We will use a new analysis tool, called the Brain Code (BC). This concept was developed to integrate many different kinds of data, for e.g. the often fragmented and incomplete outputs from body sensors that record balance, dexterity, postural, facial and vocal movements combined together with cognitive or clinical outputs such as the intentional or emotive content of speech. The Brain Code allows us to fit all these different data streams together in such a way as to compensate for the deficiencies of each individually. It can put disparate physiological and cognitive data into the same 'coordinate system', so that we will be able to develop a reliable quantitative 'signature' of PSD. These quantitative biomarkers will be designed so that they are useful for both physicians in a clinical setting and for communities affected by a large-scale traumatic event.


Attenuation caused by tree shadowing is an important factor for describing the propagation channel of satellite services. Thus, vegetation effects should be determined by experimental studies or empirical formula- tions. In this study, tree types in the Black Sea Region of Turkey are classified based on their geometrical shapes into four groups such as conic, ellipsoid, spherical and hemispherical. The variations of the vegetation depth according to different tree shapes are calculated with ray tracing method. It is shown that different geometrical shapes have different vegetation depths even if they have same foliage volume for different elevation angles. The proposed method is validated with the related literature in terms of average single tree attenuation. On the other hand, in order to decrease system requirements (speed, memory usage etc.) of ray tracing method, an artificial neural network is proposed as an alternative. A graphical user interface is created for the above processes in MATLAB environment named vegetation depth estimation tool (VdET).


BACKGROUND
Disseminated intravascular coagulation associated with malignant bone marrow involvement has been described as a rare complication of gastric carcinoma and most patients die within 1-4 weeks. Effective chemotherapy of the underlying malignancy may be the only way to control acute DIC.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the benefit of infusional 5-fluorouracil as the primary treatment of metastatic gastric carcinoma and DIC at diagnosis.

METHODS
From February 2001 to January 2005, six women (median age 48 years) with gastric carcinoma who presented with diffuse bone metastases and acute DIC were treated in our department. Diagnosis was based on primary gastric and bone marrow biopsies. DIC was confirmed by laboratory findings. Initial treatment consisted of infusional 5FU 200 mg/m2/day. When the bleeding tendency stopped, cisplatin 60 mg/m2 and epirubicin 50 mg/m2 every 3 weeks were added.

RESULTS
Within one week of starting the treatment, the clinical and laboratory signs of acute DIC were resolved in five of six patients. Upon clinical improvement, five patients subsequently received epirubicin and cisplatin. Survival, however, was short (mean 15 weeks). All patients died with symptoms of bleeding, showing clinical and laboratory signs of DIC.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on our experience, infusional 5FU is an effective regimen with negligible myelosuppression; thus, it may be a good choice as initial therapy for this group of patients. The response induced by protracted 5FU was usually short and lasted for only a few weeks. Therefore, once DIC symptoms are controlled, the addition of newer cytotoxic drugs may be necessary to consolidate the remission.


Before the industrial revolution prolonged economic growth was unachievable. All economies were organic, dependent on plant photosynthesis to provide food, raw materials, and energy. This was true both of heat energy, derived from burning wood, and mechanical energy provided chiefly by human and animal muscle. The flow of energy from the sun captured by plant photosynthesis was the basis of all production and consumption. Britain began to escape the old restrictions by making increasing use of the vast stock of energy contained in coal measures, initially as a source of heat energy but eventually also of mechanical energy, thus making possible the industrial revolution. In this concise and accessible account of change between the reigns of Elizabeth I and Victoria, Wrigley describes how during this period Britain moved from the economic periphery of Europe to becoming briefly the world's leading economy, forging a path rapidly emulated by its competitors.


Dedi Jaya Hospital in the newest hospital in District of Brebes and has been operated since April 2006. During two years, there has been performed many efforts to improve quality of the hospital in terms of the physical building, medical equipments, and human resources (both medical and non-medical officer) as a part of preparing a hospital accreditation. Bed Occupancy Rate at the hospital in year 2007 was low namely equal to 32.27 in which it was especially happened in Class II (10.24) and Main Class (22.26). Percentage of income at Inpatient Unit in Year 2007 was lower than percentage of income at Inpatient Unit in year 2006. Based on data and facts, there was found some problems at the hospital in terms of the aspects of product, process, and after sale. Those problems could decrease a level of patients' satisfaction and reduce patients' desire to revisit (be loyalty). Aim of this research was to analyze customers' satisfaction at Inpatient Unit of Dedi Jaya Hospital in Brebes District. This research was focused on description of customers at Inpatient Unit and effort to maintain. Therefore, environmental factors like competitor, distance, and transportation were not searched.
Result of this research shows that satisfaction level has significant relationship with the level of patients' loyalty at Inpatient Unit of Dedi Jaya Hospital. Most of the respondents are included in Failure category (43.4%) that means customers are unsatisfied and not loyal, in Forced loyalty category (11.7%) that means customers are satisfied but they are not loyal. Otherwise, percentage of respondents who are included in Successes category that means they are loyal and do word of mouth is 36.7%. Based on the result, there has been arranged Switching and Voice to improve satisfaction ang loyalty of patients at Inpatient Unit of Dedi Jaya Hospital.

Sumber Utama : www.mikm.undip.ac.id


Background— Leukoaraiosis, a term that defines an abnormal appearance of the subcortical white matter of the brain on neuroimaging (bilateral patchy or diffuse areas of low attenuation on CT or hyperintense T2 MR areas), has gained evidence in retrospective studies to demonstrate its association with stroke and in prospective studies to demonstrate its prognostic value related to the occurrence of stroke, both ischemic and hemorrhagic, or the occurrence of vascular death. Summary of Review— The subtype of ischemic stroke most strongly predicted by leukoaraiosis is lacunar infarct, which is likely caused by the same underlying small-vessel pathology. Leukoaraiosis has been shown to predispose to intracerebral hemorrhage at both the basal-ganglionic and lobar sites, primarily when leukoaraiosis is extensive and patients are treated with anticoagulants because of prior ischemic events. Conclusions— Leukoaraiosis shares with stroke common pathophysiological mechanisms and, because it is likely an expression of the same disease, must be regarded as an intermediate surrogate of stroke rather than a true stroke risk factor.


Introduction The ventricular ectopic QS interval (VEQSI) has been shown to identify structural heart disease and predict mortality in an unselected population. In ischaemic heart disease (IHD) risk stratification for sudden death is imperfect. We hypothesised that VEQSI would be greater in IHD patients who have suffered serious ventricular arrhythmias. Methods 12-Lead Holter recordings from 143 patients with a history of myocardial infarction (MI) were analysed; 38 had prior significant ventricular arrhythmia (66.2±9 years; 92% male); 105 had no history of ventricular arrhythmia (64±11.4 years; 71% male). All ventricular ectopic beats (VEB) were reviewed and VEQSI was measured for each VEB morphology. VEQSI max was recorded as the duration of the broadest VEB. Results VEQSI max was significantly longer in patients with a history of prior serious ventricular arrhythmia (214±20 ms and 172±21 ms respectively; p<0.001). Multivariate analysis established VEQSI max as an independent marker for previous life threatening events (OR 1.11; 95% CI 1.07 to 1.16; p<0.001). VEQSI max >195 ms had 86% sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing patients who had suffered significant ventricular arrhythmia (LR 6.39; accuracy 0.86; p<0.001). Conclusions VEQSI max >195 ms distinguishes patients with a history of life threatening events from those without prior ventricular arrhythmia. This may be a useful index for risk stratification in IHD. Figure VEQSI max in patients with prior MI but no history of ventricular arrhythmia (MI-no VT/VF cohort) and patients with prior MI and significant ventricular arrhythmia (MI-VT/VF cohort). Figure 1


These might be the comments to our peer reviewers from someone outside the scientific community. Our peer reviewers fit the adage that if you want something done, you ask a busy person. They are people with many other demands who freely give their time and expertise to JAMA Pediatrics by carefully reading manuscripts, thinking about them, writing detailed reviews, and sending them to us. These reviews are a key element in our decision on how to proceed with submitted manuscripts. The reviewers' comments make the manuscript better and thus contribute in an immeasurable way to the scientific process. They help us understand the importance of a piece of work and how it makes a contribution to the field. They identify errors before they are published and make the science of these publications stronger.


The paper contains a macroscopic continuum model for adsorption in porous materials (B. Albers [1, 2]) which is an extension of the model for porous bodies by K. Wilmanski [7] on mass exchange processes. We consider the flow of a fluid/adsorbate mixture through channels of a solid component. The fluid serves as carrier for an adsorbate whose mass balance equation contains a source term. Due to low adsorbate concentration we deal with a physical adsorption process which means that particles of the adsorbate stick to the skeleton due to weak van der Waals forces. The model contains two different permeability parameters whose nature is completely different: The first one, the usual bulk permeability coefficient, describes the resistance of the skeleton to the flow of the fluid/adsorbate mixture. The second one describes the surface resistance to the outflow of the mixture from the solid. This work shows within a simple example the range of these parameters and the dependence of adsorption/diffusion on them.


We present a physically-based system to simulate and control the locomotion of soft body characters without skeletons. We use the finite element method to simulate the deformation of the soft body, and we instrument a character with muscle fibers to allow it to actively control its shape. To perform locomotion, we use a variety of intuitive controls such as moving a point on the character, specifying the center of mass or the angular momentum, and maintaining balance. These controllers yield an objective function that is passed to our optimization solver, which handles convex quadratic program with linear complementarity constraints. This solver determines the new muscle fiber lengths, and moreover it determines whether each point of contact should remain static, slide, or lift away from the floor. Our system can automatically find an appropriate combination of muscle contractions that enables a soft character to fulfill various locomotion tasks, including walking, jumping, crawling, rolling and balancing.


Activities of BAY 12-8039 against 205 pneumococci were tested by agar dilution. MICs (in micrograms per milliliter) at which 50 and 90% of the isolates are inhibited (MIC50s and MIC90s, respectively) were 0.125 and 0.25 (BAY 12-8039), 2.0 and 4.0 (ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin), and 0.25 and 0.5 (sparfloxacin). Beta-lactam MIC50s and MIC90s for penicillin-susceptible, -intermediate, and -resistant strains, in that order, were 0.016 and 0.03, 0.25 and 2.0, and 2.0 and 4.0 (amoxicillin); 0.03 and 0.06, 0.25 and 4.0, and 4.0 and 8.0 (ampicillin); 0.03 and 0.06, 0.5 and 4.0, and 4.0 and 8.0 (cefuroxime); and 0.03 and 0.125, 0.25 and 2.0, and 4.0 and 8.0 (cefpodoxime). At two times their MICs after 24 h, BAY 12-8039, ciprofloxacin, ampicillin, and cefuroxime were uniformly bactericidal (99.9% killing) against 12 strains; other compounds were bactericidal at four times their MICs.


Background and Aims:  The aim of this study was to determine the cause of taints and off-flavours in a number of commercial wines and to develop methods for quantitative analysis of the compounds responsible.

Methods and Results:  Three compounds, 2-chloro-6-methylphenol (i.e. 6-chloro-ortho-cresol), 2,6-dichlorophenol and indole, were identified by gas chromatography (GC)/mass spectrometry (MS)/olfactometry as causes of taints or off-flavours in the wines. New methods for quantitative analysis of these three compounds, as well as some other chloro- and bromophenols were developed. The methods employed GC/MS and stable isotope dilution analysis, and confirmed the presence of 2-chloro-6-methylphenol, 2,6-dichlorophenol and indole in some wines at concentrations well above their odour and taste detection thresholds.

Conclusions:  2-Chloro-6-methylphenol, 2,6-dichlorophenol and indole were confirmed as causes of taints and off-flavours in commercial wines.

Significance of the Study:  The development of new analytical methods will make it possible to determine whether chlorophenol (and perhaps also bromophenol) taint in wine is more widespread than previously recognised. Similarly, the simple, rapid and accurate method for quantifying indole in wine will allow large numbers of wine and ferment samples to be studied to determine those factors that can result in unacceptably high concentrations in commercial wines.


: Mucous membrane of the gastroduodenal region of 104 patients with different pathologies (gastritis and erosive ulcerative alterations) was investigated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Examination of the biopsy material revealed frequent occurrence of pathogenic strains of Helicobacter pylori (up to 80%) and Herpesviridae (EBV, HHV 6, HHV 7, HHV 8) in various combinations. In such cases it is necessary to use adequate antibacterial and antiviral therapy with individual choice of immunomodulators.


Because laceration of the liver is a condition which the surgeon is rarely called upon to treat, 36 cases of liver injury admitted between 1926 and 1958 have been reviewed and the results compared with those of other authors. As well as discussing the incidence of this injury and its relation to age, sex, and pathology, the surgical management is outlined. The greatest single factor which has assisted the surgeon is transfusion of whole blood. Early operation is considered advisable, and suturing is preferred in repairing damage to the liver substance and achieving haemostasis. Nevertheless, the mortality rate is high, in this series 60%, which compares favourably with that of other series. It is notable that patients operated on have a better chance of survival than those not operated upon.


Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of the innovative "Preceptor Mini-Series: Adventures in Interprofessional Precepting" movie program in training pharmacy preceptors on interprofessional competencies and to determine pharmacy preceptors' perceptions of the effectiveness of the Mini-Series format.
Methods: Chronicled by two preceptor experts, the Mini-Series movie follows the challenges of pharmacy, nursing, and medicine students and their preceptor during six-week experiential rotations. Pharmacy preceptors were invited to events held at movie theatres or local classrooms in three different cities. Participants were asked to provide basic demographic information and answer four "pre-program" and "post-program" survey questions focused on working in an interprofessional environment on a 5 point scale, 1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree. The post-program survey also included six additional questions to assess participant's attitudes toward the effectiveness of this medium.
Results: Fifty-eight (58) individuals attended the movie events. The majority had more than ten years of preceptor experience (n = 21, 36.2%), were female preceptors (n = 40, 69.0%), and practiced in an interprofessional environment (n = 48, 82.8%). The participants' scores on all four interprofessional confidence level questions were significantly increased after viewing the Mini-Series movie and the overall mean increased from 4.47 (pre-confidence level) to 4.79 (post-confidence level, p 10 years) (4.89 vs. 4.63, p = 0.020). The mean for satisfaction (4.9, 3 questions) was slightly higher than the means for perceived learning (4.8, 1 question), and instructional approach (4.87, 3 questions).
Implications: After program completion, pharmacy preceptors indicated an increase in confidence level for precepting in an interprofessional environment. The Mini-Series movie program also yielded positive feedback on its delivery format and suggests the medium may be effective to use for similar future training initiatives.
Conflict of Interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest or financial incentives to disclose related to this project. Dr. Craig D. Cox conceptualized, developed, and directed the Mini-Seriesprogram described in the manuscript. All funding for and all income generated by the program studied is the property of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy.

Type: Original Research


Verbs may refer to the means (I bumped into the lamp) or outcome (I broke the lamp) of an action (cf. Rappaport Hovav & Levin, 2010; Talmy, 1985). Do young children expect language to encode this distinction? Children's imitation patterns suggest that they analyze nonlinguistic events in these terms. When a head-touch is the simplest action available, toddlers include just the outcome, not the means, in their own imitation (Gergely, Bekkering, & Kiraly, 2002). We ask whether syntax influences this inference. An experimenter with her hands occupied made a toy activate with a headtouch, using either Means-focused (I'm daxing to my toy) or Outcome-focused language (I'm daxing my toy). Toddlers then imitated the action. Meansbut not Outcome-focus language encouraged children to include the distinctive headtouch, overriding the standard 'rational imitation' effect. This suggests that toddlers' knowledge of argument structure includes an understanding of a means/outcome divide in verb meaning.


Medullary carcinoma of the thyroid (MCT) is an uncommon malignant neoplasm, which occurs sporadically and in three familial syndromes with a dominant autosomal transmission mode. We studied a family of 13 members in which four of them (two males and two females: sons, mother and niece) were involved with MCT. All of them underwent mode-B echography and colour-Doppler echography and pulsed colour Doppler, with measurement of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and calcitonin, in an attempt to delineate a pattern useful to differentiate malignant from benign thyroid pathology. Colour Doppler signal was of little usefulness for histologic characterization in function of vascularization, although it was useful for delineating nodules in non-homogeneous glands.


This paper addresses the need for reliable multicast (RM) network support for the class of distributed virtual simulations (DVS) that operate with human participants who experience a virtual representation in real time, for example DIS and real-time HLA federations. The need for RM in DVS is explained. The state of reliable multicast networking is explained and typical mechanisms for providing it are described. There is no general solution to RM; all existing RM protocols take advantage of some aspect of their application domain for successful function. Aspects of the DVS domain that lend themselves to providing RM are described, along with an approach to RM for DVS that has been prototyped successfully in the Selectively Reliable Transport Protocol (SRTP). The workings of SRTP are described, including its application to DIS and real-time HLA. SRTP enables efficient use of network-level multicast, and as such represents an advance over the multicast emulation that is used in the Run Time Infrastructure (RTI) created for the Synthetic Theater of War (STOW). In conclusion, ongoing work and potential future improvements to SRTP RM are described.


The use of individual participant data (IPD) from multiple studies is an increasingly popular approach when developing a multivariable risk prediction model. Corresponding datasets, however, typically differ in important aspects, such as baseline risk. This has driven the adoption of meta‐analytical approaches for appropriately dealing with heterogeneity between study populations. Although these approaches provide an averaged prediction model across all studies, little guidance exists about how to apply or validate this model to new individuals or study populations outside the derivation data. We consider several approaches to develop a multivariable logistic regression model from an IPD meta‐analysis (IPD‐MA) with potential between‐study heterogeneity. We also propose strategies for choosing a valid model intercept for when the model is to be validated or applied to new individuals or study populations. These strategies can be implemented by the IPD‐MA developers or future model validators. Finally, we show how model generalizability can be evaluated when external validation data are lacking using internal–external cross‐validation and extend our framework to count and time‐to‐event data. In an empirical evaluation, our results show how stratified estimation allows study‐specific model intercepts, which can then inform the intercept to be used when applying the model in practice, even to a population not represented by included studies. In summary, our framework allows the development (through stratified estimation), implementation in new individuals (through focused intercept choice), and evaluation (through internal–external validation) of a single, integrated prediction model from an IPD‐MA in order to achieve improved model performance and generalizability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A new vision of structural health monitoring (SHM) is presented, in which the ultimate goal of SHM is not limited to damage identification, but to describe the structure by a probabilistic model, whose parameters and uncertainty are periodically updated using measured data in a recursive Bayesian filtering (RBF) approach. Such a model of a structure is essential in evaluating its current condition and predicting its future performance in a probabilistic context. RBF is conventionally implemented by the extended Kalman filter, which suffers from its intrinsic drawbacks. Recent progress on high-fidelity propagation of a probability distribution through nonlinear functions has revived RBF as a promising tool for SHM. The central difference filter, as an example of the new versions of RBF, is implemented in this study, with the adaptation of a convergence and consistency improvement technique. Two numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the superior capacity of RBF for a SHM purpose. The proposed method is also validated by large-scale shake table tests on a reinforced concrete two-span three-bent bridge specimen.


Transmission efficiency (TE) and focal ratio degradation (FRD) are two important parameters for evaluating the quality of an optical fiber system used for astronomy. Compared to TE, the focal ratio is more easily influenced by external factors, such as bending or stress. Optical cables are widely implemented for multi-object telescopes and integral field units (IFUs). The design and fabrication process of traditional optical cables seldom considers the requirements of astronomical applications. In this paper, we describe a fiber bundle structure as the basic unit for miniaturized high-density FASOT-IFU optical cables, instead of the micro-tube structure in stranded cables. Seven fibers with hexagonal arrangement were accurately positioned by ultraviolet (UV)-curing acrylate to form the bundle. The coating diameter of a fiber is 0.125 mm, and the outer diameter of the bundle is 0.58 mm. Compared with the 0.8 mm micro-tube structure of a traditional stranded cable, the outer diameter of the fiber bundle was reduced by 27.5%. Fiber paste was filled into the bundle to reduce stress between the fibers. We tested the output focal ratio (OFR) in 95% of the encircled energy (EE95) of the fibers in the bundle under different conditions. With the incident focal ratio F/8, the maximum difference of OFR is 0.6. In particular, when the incident focal ratio is F/5, the maximum difference of OFR is only 0.1. The jacket formed by the UV-curing acrylate can withstand a certain stress of less than 1.38 N mm−1. The fiber bundle can maintain uniform emitting characteristics with a bending radius of 7.5 cm and with tension less than 6 N. The test results show that the structure of the fiber bundle can be used as a basic unit for miniaturized high-density astronomical optical cables.


BACKGROUND: In most industries, workers are exposed to loud noise. Noise is considered as a nonspecific biological stressor that have adverse effects on human physiology. It is associated with hypertension which is in turn one of the most important preventable risk factors of cardiovascular disorders. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of noise on changes of workers' blood pressure. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 90 individuals who were exposed to noise at one of the industries in Isfahan, Iran. Noise levels (in dBA) were measured by means of a sound level meter. Data was collected using a demographic questionnaire and physical examination. Blood pressure was measured by a sphygmomanometer at workplace. The collected data was analyzed by t-tests. RESULTS: The workers aged 31.5 ± 5.2 years and were exposed to mean noise level of 97.5 ± 10.1 dBA which was significantly above the standard level (85 dBA).The relationships between blood pressure, heart rate, and noise level were not significant. However, Pearson's correlation indicated systolic blood pressure to have significant correlations with age (correlation coefficient = 0.302) and work experience (correlation coefficient = 0.299). CONCLUSION: Workers exposed to noise levels above the standard, especially in the metal industry but their blood pressures haven't any associated with noise. it mention that any changes in blood pressure resulting from occupational noise are likely to be small, careful controls, large sample sizes, and long time exposure to noise would be take to identify significant effects. Keywords: Noise Exposure, Blood Pressure, Young Workers, Cardiovascular Disease, Metal Industries


ABSTRACT The transmission of Escherichia coli O157:H7 from manure-contaminated soil and irrigation water to lettuce plants was demonstrated using laser scanning confocal microscopy, epifluorescence microscopy, and recovery of viable cells from the inner tissues of plants. E. coli O157:H7 migrated to internal locations in plant tissue and was thus protected from the action of sanitizing agents by virtue of its inaccessibility. Experiments demonstrate that E. coli O157:H7 can enter the lettuce plant through the root system and migrate throughout the edible portion of the plant.


To examine the association between the functional state of endothelium and bronchial asthma the oxide nitrogen (NO) condition in blood samples was evaluated in 118 bronchial asthma children with a wide range of desease severity with the use of Yemchenko L.N. method (1994) by determination of terminal stabile metabolites, and endothelin-1 (ET-1) concentration with enzyme immunoassays analysis, and also with the use of J. Hladovec method (1978) of circulation endothelial cells (CEC) level establishing. The credible increase of ET-1 (0,525±0,06 fmol/ml), NO (66,59±4,45 mkM/ml), CEC ( 7,28±0,63 cells/100 mkl) levels in bronchial asthma children compared with control (0,22±0,01 fmol/ml, 29,86±0,77 mkM/ml, 3,03±0,22 accordingly, p<0,01). The levels of endothelial markers credibly decreased on the background of anti-inflammatory therapy by inhalative glucocorticosteroids (NO 82,69±14,38 mkM/ml and 42,12±9,66 mkM/ml, p=0,001; ET-1 0,64±0,15 fmol/ml and 0,35±0,06 fmol/ml, p=0,001; CEC 7,3±1,67 and 5,0±0,32 cells/100 mkl p=0,0017). All the trial results may be used as an additional standard definition of bronchial asthma severity and therapeutic efficiency in bronchial asthma children.


Exposure of therapeutic and diagnostic medical devices to biological fluids is often accompanied by interfacial adsorption of proteins, cells, and microorganisms. Biofouling of surfaces can lead to compromised device performance or increased cost and in some cases may be life-threatening to the patient. Although numerous antifouling polymer coatings have enjoyed short-term success in preventing protein and cell adsorption on surfaces, none have proven ideal for conferring long-term biofouling resistance. Here we describe a new biomimetic antifouling N-substituted glycine polymer (peptoid) containing a C-terminal peptide anchor derived from residues found in mussel adhesive proteins for robust attachment of the polymer onto surfaces. The methoxyethyl side chain of the peptoid portion of the polymer was chosen for its chemical resemblance to the repeat unit of the known antifouling polymer poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), whereas the composition of the 5-mer anchoring peptide was chosen to directly mimic the DOPA- and Lys-rich sequence of a known mussel adhesive protein. Surfaces modified with this biomimetic peptide-peptoid conjugate exhibited dramatic reduction of serum protein adsorption and resistance to mammalian cell attachment for over 5 months in an in vitro assay. These new synthetic peptide based antifouling polymers may provide long-term control of surface biofouling in the physiologic, marine, and industrial environments.


Aim to conquer the low efficiency of the current auto-CVT actuated by hydraulic system, a new design was proposed based on the analysis of the energy loss, which used compounded disc spring clamp set and motorized actuation system. Through the special design of the compounded disc spring and the balance spring, the axial thrust was well counterpoised, thus it achieved the result that the actuation system could be droved by low power motor. The test results show that the CVT developed according to the new design can reduce the power consumption obviously and improve the power performance.


It analyzed the conditions in hydrodynamic action of coolant in super high speed grinding area and described the conception of lubricate induce force in the paper. Using fluid dynamical lubrication theory, theory analyses and mathematics modeling on lubricate induce force in plane grinding with non-porous grinding wheel were carried out, also the computer simulations were done, and the conclusion was theoretically verified by tests in interrelated material documents. On the bases of this, by analyzing the effects of parameters and pointing out grinding wheel speed, grinding wheel width significantly influences the max dynamic pressure in grinding area, thus the analyses indicated that it rises with the speed of grinding wheel increasing.


After preliminary experiments, over a period of the recent 10 years there were repaired skull bone defects in 116 patients using Styracryl, AKR-100, AKR-15 and Protacryl. The acrylic plastics polymerize at relatively low temperature, feature good mouldability, are readily sterilizable and result in no inflammatory lesions in the surrounding tissues. Good cosmetic results are obtained.


The days are fundamentally gone when healthcare information is posted in batches. Online systems have totally changed the I/S picture. Departments trying to plan for demand have a much harder job of it, but help is available.


a ABSTRACT This study aimed understanding the woman's language during the post-partum period as to her percep- tions of her body language. This study was based in the work of Maurice Merleau-Pont. Ten women living in Cascavel, State of Parana, Brazil, were interviewed from February to May 2005. This study allowed the unders- tanding of the meaning that the woman gives to her existence in the post childbirth period. This study may sup- port training of health professionals in terms of understanding how women experience the post-partum period, thereby allowing better care of these patients.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate outcomes of re-operative coronary artery surgery in a tertiary care hospital in a developing country.

METHOD
Preoperative, intra-operative and postoperative variables were analyzed in 82 consecutive patients who underwent re-operative coronary surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass.

RESULTS
The mean age was 63.3 +/- 7.7 years, 91.2% were male and 9.8% female. Coronary artery disease risk factors were present in more than 50% of the patients. History of preoperative myocardial infarction was positive in 56% patients. There was strong clinical and angiographic indication for surgery with unstable angina in 50% patients and > 80% had multivessel disease. Only 5% patients were in functional class I. The risk stratification showed a mean Euro score of 8. The IABP was used in 20% patients. A mean of 3.1 grafts per patient were applied. The median cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and aortic cross clamp time was 144 minutes respectively. Postoperative mortality was 7.3%. Short-term follow up revealed 74% of the patients in NYHA functional class I.

CONCLUSION
Reoperative coronary artery bypass grafting is challenging but with expertise, team effort can be performed with good functional outcome.


This research is aimed at assessing whether rules and recommendations adopted in European Countries (France; Germany; Italy; Spain; United Kingdom) and non-European Countries (Canada; Japan; Russia; United States) enable companies to have a regulatory framework as a guarantee of information completeness, so that anyone can, on the one hand, assess if the company is transparency-oriented and, on the other, to facilitate the comparison of remuneration systems with other companies in other European contexts or non-European Countries. Finally, this paper aims to examine how the listed companies, operating in the public utilities sector, have implemented remuneration systems disclosure in the corporate behaviour in order to assess if, European and non-European listed companies surveyed behave in conformity with transparency provisions and assure stakeholders, information completeness.


Objective: This study assesses to what extent the Mini-Mental State Exam and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores may predict the presence of dementia in a sample of typical old age psychiatric patients who may or may not have temporally or permanently reduced cognitive abilities. Methods: A total of 141 inpatients completed the Mini-Mental State Exam and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment at arrival. All patients were subsequently diagnosed during their stay at the age-psychiatric unit. Receiver operating characteristics and analysis of variance were used to compare the results of the two tests for different patient groups. Results: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is slightly more sensitive and specific than the Mini-Mental State Exam for dementia prediction. Age, sex, and education only account for approximately 2% of the variance in both tests. Patients with more than one diagnosis across the diagnostic groups included in this study (dementia, psychoses, affective disorder, and depression) performed significantly poorer on both tests than patients with a single diagnosis. Conclusions: Both tests are efficient in detecting cognitive impairment, but neither test can effectively exclude other reasons for low test results in our sample of elderly psychiatric patients. The sensitivity for ruling out dementia is 27 points for the Mini-Mental State Exam and 23 points for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in the current patient sample.


This study is subject to 3D virtual simulation and experiment design method application in the optimal clearance design in the 3D shell punched processing. During the simulation stage, the PAM-CRASH and 3D-CAD (Pro/E) system are used to model the punching processing. The results of the punching maximum punched burr from the 3D virtual punching simulation were input to a neural network to establish a model corresponding to the 3D shell punched variables. Once the metal punching control parameters, such as punch/die radius, punch/die clearance, punch cutting angle and different material thickness, were given, the punching processing performance (the punching maximum burr and maximum stress) can be accurately predicted by this developed network. Therefore, in this research, a satisfactory result based on the simulation verification is established.


PURPOSE
A phase II study was conducted to determine the efficacy and toxicity of radiotherapy with concomitant gemcitabine and cisplatin for patients with locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Forty-eight patients with locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma received gemcitabine (30 mg/m2) and cisplatin (10 mg/m2) twice weekly during the first 3 weeks of radiotherapy. The radiation dose to the primary tumor and regional nodes was 45 Gy in 25 fractions, and the gross tumor volume received an additional 5.4 Gy in three fractions. Four weeks after radiotherapy, patients received gemcitabine (1,000 mg/m2) once weekly every 3 of 4 weeks for a 12-week period. The primary end point was survival at 12 months. Secondary end points were time to progression, toxicity, and quality of life.

RESULTS
Survival at 1 year was 40% for 47 eligible patients. The median survival was 10.2 months. Confirmed responses were observed for 8.5% (two partial, two complete), and median time to progression was 7.3 months. Grade 4 or higher toxicity was observed for 31% and consisted primarily of hematologic and GI toxicity. There was a trend toward improved overall quality of life, measured by the Symptom Distress Scale (P = .06), with significant improvements in domains of insomnia, pain, and outlook.

CONCLUSION
The combination of radiotherapy, gemcitabine, and cisplatin was well tolerated. Survival results were similar to those achieved with other treatment regimens for patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer but did not meet our predefined criteria for additional evaluation of this regimen.


Cyclin Dependent Kinases (CDKs) play a central role in the eukaryotic cell cycle. The activation of these kinases is modulated by the expression and binding of their regulatory cyclin partners. Their key role in cell cycle progression, coupled to evidence that pathways leading to their activation are deregulated in a number of human cancers makes them attractive therapeutic targets. More recently the role of CDKs 7, 8 and 9 in the regulation of transcription has been explored. CDK9 has been shown to play a role in the regulation of transcription via phosphorylation of RNA polymerase II (RNA pol II). The outcome of transcriptional inhibition via CDK9 exhibits significant variation between cell lines. B-Cell lymphoproliferative disorders, including CLL, rely on the expression of transcripts with a short half-life such as Mcl-1, Bcl-2 and XIAP for survival. In vitro studies have demonstrated that compounds with transcriptional inhibitory effects are effective pro-apoptotic agents in models of this disease. AT7519 is a potent inhibitor of cyclin dependent kinases 1, 2 and 9 and is currently in early phase clinical development. These studies profile the mechanism of action of AT7519 on CLL cells isolated from patients. Primary cell samples were isolated from a total of 15 patients with CLL with various stages of disease (8 Stage 0, 0/I or II and 7 Stage IV) and who were either treatment naive or had received a variety of prior therapies. Patient samples were characterised for cytogenetic abnormalities (11q, 17p and 13q deletion or trisomy 12) as well IgVH mutation and ZAP70 expression. AT7519 was shown to induce apoptosis (by MTS, morphology and PARP cleavage) in these samples at concentrations of 100–700nM. AT7519 appears equally effective at inhibiting the survival of CLL cells harbouring a variety of mutations including those representative of patients that fall within poorer prognosis treatment groups. The amount of AT7519 required to induce cell death in 50% of the CLL cell population increased as exposure time was decreased but significant cell death was obtained at doses approximating to 1uM following 4–6h of treatment. These doses are equivalent to exposures achieved in ongoing AT7519 clinical studies indicating that cytotoxic doses can be achieved in patients on well tolerated schedules. The mechanism of AT7519 cytotoxic effects was investigated by western blotting for a variety of cell cycle and apoptotic markers following incubation with compound. Short term treatments (4–6h) resulted in inhibition of phosphorylation of the transcriptional marker RNA pol II and the downregulation of the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1. Additional antiapoptotic proteins including XIAP and Bcl-2 remained unchanged. The reduction in Mcl-1 protein levels was associated with an increase in the apoptotic marker cleaved PARP. No inhibition of cell cycle markers such as phospho-retinoblastoma protein was observed in the same samples suggesting that the cytotoxic effects of AT7519 in CLL patient samples is due to its transcriptional activity alone. Together the data suggest AT7519 offers a promising treatment strategy for patients with advanced B-cell leukemia and lymphoma.


The herbicides Irgarol 1051 (2-( tert-butylamino)-4-cyclopropylamino)-6-(methylthio)-1,3,5-triazine) and Diuron (3-(3 ′,4′dichlorophenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea) are commonly incorporated into antifouling paints to boost the efficacy of the compound towards algae. Previous investigations have identified environmental concentrations of these herbicides as being a threat to non-target organisms, such as seagrasses. Their individual toxicity has been assessed, but they can co-occur and interact, potentially increasing their toxicity and the threat posed to seagrass meadows. Chlorophyll fluorescence ( Fv:Fm) and leaf specific biomass ratio (representing plant growth) were examined in Zostera marinaL. after a 10-day exposure to the individual herbicides. The EC 20 for each herbicide was determined and these then used in herbicide mixtures to assess their interactive effects. Irgarol 1051 was found to be more toxic than Diuron with lowest observable effect concentrations for Fv:Fm reduction of 0.5 and 1.0 g/l and 10-day EC50 values of 1.1 and 3.2 g/l, respectively. Plants exposed to Irgarol 1051 and Diuron showed a significant reduction in growth at concentrations of 1.0 and 5.0 g/l, respectively. WhenZ. marinawas exposed to mixtures, the herbicides commonly interacted additively or antagonistically, and no significant further reduction in photosynthetic efficiency was found at any concentration when compared to plants exposed to the individual herbicides. However, on addition of the Diuron EC20 to varying Irgarol 1051 concentrations and the Irgarol 1051 EC 20 to varying Diuron concentrations, significant reductions in Fv:Fm were noted at an earlier stage. The growth of plants exposed to Diuron plus the Irgarol 1051 EC 20 were significantly reduced when compared to plants exposed to Diuron alone, but only at the lower concentrations. Growth of plants exposed to Irgarol 1051 and the Diuron EC 20 showed no significant reduction when compared to the growth of plants exposed to Irgarol 1051 alone. Despite the addition of the EC 20 not eliciting a further significant reduction when compared to the herbicides acting alone for most of the mixtures, the lowest observable significant effect concentration for growth and photosynthetic efficiency decreased to 0.5 g/l for both herbicides. Irgarol 1051 and Diuron have been shown to occur together in concentrations above 0.5 g/l, suggesting that seagrasses may be experiencing reduced photosynthetic efficiency and growth as a result. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


This book is essential reading for your year as a primary newly qualified teacher (NQT). It provides support through advice, reassurance and practical strategies, and encourages you to critically reflect on your experiences so that you can get the most from your induction period. Term by term, the book guides you through the transition from trainee teacher to becoming a confident class teacher responsible for the organisation, management and learning of the pupils in your charge. All aspects of life in the classroom are considered, from the practicalities of setting up and resourcing the classroom and creating displays to more strategic level thinking about leading learning and wider school responsibilities. The text tackles key issues such as classroom organisation, homework, writing Individual Education Plans, record keeping and the use of data for tracking pupil progress, and engaging with pupils, parents, colleagues and outside agencies. The final section focuses on the end of induction and what lies beyond for your future career in teaching.


This special issue of Optics & Photonics News highlights the most exciting peer-reviewed optics research to have emerged over the past 12 months.


This article makes a comparative reflection on the way Mexicans and Italians negotiate. The purpose is to identify and analyze the particularities that Mexican and Italian cultures have in the moment of negotiating. The methodological strategy was focused on the perception of people; the meaning, structure and essence of a lived experience of one individual in a given moment of a negotiation. The results evidences that the different ways of negotiation are related to: Negotiation philosophy, counterpart conception, whom negotiates, pre negotiations and beginning of negotiations. The style of both cultures is evidenced in the way they participate of intercultural contexts both in business as in personal settings.


Due to the wire delay constraints in deep submicron technology and increasing demand for on-chip bandwidth, networks are becoming the pervasive interconnect fabric to connect processing elements on chip. With ever-increasing power density and cooling costs, the thermal impact of on-chip networks needs to be urgently addressed. In this work, we first characterize the thermal profile of the MIT Raw chip. Our study shows networks having comparable thermal impact as the processing elements and contributing significantly to overall chip temperature, thus motivating the need for network thermal management. The characterization is based on an architectural thermal model we developed for on-chip networks that takes into account the thermal correlation between routers across the chip and factors in the thermal contribution of on-chip interconnects. Our thermal model is validated against finite-element based simulators for an actual chip with associated power measurements, with an average error of 5.3%. We next propose ThermalHerd, a distributed, collaborative run-time thermal management scheme for on-chip networks that uses distributed throttling and thermal-correlation based routing to tackle thermal emergencies. Our simulations show ThermalHerd effectively ensuring thermal safety with little performance impact. With Raw as our platform, we further show how our work can be extended to the analysis and management of entire on-chip systems, jointly considering both processors and networks.


OBJECTIVES
Interpreting associations between lead exposure and child behavior problems is difficult because studies have not controlled for sociodemographic confounders or have used shed teeth to mark exposure. This study explored associations between blood lead and preschool behavior.

METHODS
Children from a smelter town and a non-lead-exposed town in Yugoslavia were followed up prospectively from pregnancy through age 3. The Child Behavior Checklist was used to assess behavior problems in 379 3-year-olds, controlling for sociodemographic factors and difficult infant temperament.

RESULTS
Multiple regression revealed the expected significant associations between checklist subscales and sociodemographic factors, which explained 7% to 18% of the variance on the subscales. Concurrent blood lead explained a significant 1% to 4% of the variance on the Destructive and Withdrawn subscales. Earlier difficult temperament explained an additional 2% to 5% of the checklist variance. Scores on the Destructive subscale were consistently associated with blood lead. As blood lead increased from 10 to 20 micrograms/dL, subscale scores increased by approximately 0.5 points.

CONCLUSIONS
Lead/behavior associations are significant but small compared with the effects of social factors.


The density increase of components used in power converters involves cooling problems and results to the use of new materials and innovative assembly processes (such as adhesive bonding). Searching for an adhesive family leads to the silicones. This paper focuses on the silicone adhesive formulation as regards the use requirements (temperature range, chemical agents). This first article is dealing with the influence of chemical structure on vulcanization process parameters and physical properties before ageing. The first adhesive family is the oxime terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) adhesive's one which cures as soon as it enters in contact with air moisture. This cure process seems too sensitive to humidity and temperature and involves a too long time process for industrial applications. On the contrary the process for silicone cured by polyaddition is easy. Besides, the introduction of a few phenyl groups in dimethylsiloxane backbone makes the PDMS free from crystallisation ensuring the silicone flexibility in a higher use temperature range.


This article examines the life story of Muhammad Kkansu (Chŏng Suil), a once distinguished foreign professor of Arabic history and culture at Dankook University and a prolific scholar on the Silk Road, who was indicted in 1996 on charges of espionage and use of a false identity as an Arab of Filipino-Lebanese descent to enter South Korea. It considers the complex circumstances that shaped his life choices as a diasporic Korean living in China and South Korea's blind and willful ignorance of the North, which ironically enabled a diasporic Korean from China, to pass as an "Arab" right under its nose. In contrast to accounts of North Korean spies, it humanizes the experiences of Kkansu, illustrating how a diasporic Korean learned to dissimulate by adopting an ambiguous identity and navigate the social and political realities of national division and anxieties caused by global and internecine hostilities during the Cold War. His imprisonment did not foreclose the possibility of becoming an academic again; in fact, he reemerged after a presidential pardon in 2003 and authored more than a dozen important monographs and encyclopedias on the Silk Road. While there are many contradictions and gaps about his personal life, Kkansu's life story challenges the master narratives of national culture, homogeneity, belongingness, and identity.


Recent work has provided a new tectono-metamorphic framework for the Archaean evolution of the Godthåbsfjord region which can be divided into discrete tectonic units each characterized by different magmatic, structural and metamorphic histories. These tectonic units were assembled in the late Archaean, post-2750 Ma. The present structural patterns seen in the region date from the period 2750–2600 Ma and do not reflect earlier structural events, as was previously considered. Late Archaean structural evolution began with a period of interthrusting of early Archaean sialic and late Archaean oceanic crustal segments coeval with, or followed by, isoclinal nappe formation under amphibolite-facies conditions. Linear fabrics in early Archaean rocks were rotated into parallelism with those newly formed parallel to F1 hinge lines in the late Archaean rocks. A second major thrusting event emplaced granulite facies rocks structurally on top of the amphibolite facies rocks. Subsequent to this event a series of F2 upright or steeply inclined basin and dome structures formed, some of which have sheath morphology. This second folding episode acting upon the isoclinal nappes produced the regional scale interference patterns observed. The early linear fabrics were re-oriented around these second generation structures. Data are produced from selected areas to illustrate the fabric patterns and structural continuity that exists throughout the region.


Using the method of " reduced parallaxes " for the Halo RR Lyrae stars in the hipparcos catalogue we derive a zero point of 0.77 ± 0.26 mag for an assumed slope of 0.18 in the M V-[Fe/H] relation. This is 0.28 magnitude brighter than the value Fernley et al. (1998a) derived by employing the method of statistical parallax for the identical sample and using the same slope. We point out that a similar difference exists between the " reduced parallaxes " method and the statistical paral-lax method for the Cepheids in the hipparcos catalogue. We also determine the zero point for the M K-log P 0 relation, and obtain a value of −1.16 ± 0.27 mag (for a slope of −2.33). The distance moduli to the hipparcos RR Lyrae stars derived from the two relations agree well. The derived distance scale is in good agreement with the results from the Main Sequence fitting distances of Galactic globular clusters and with the results of theoretical Horizontal Branch models, and implies a distance modulus to the LMC of 18.61 ± 0.28 mag.


Urban intensification can result in a loss of buffer zones, placing sources of noise and sensitive points of reception in closer proximity to each other.  Complete removal of separation distance that is used for sound reduction can require replacement with substantial mitigation measures. This case study looks at some of the challenges encountered in using a 13 m high sound barrier to mitigate sound from a community power generation facility directly adjacent to residential land use.   Reasons behind the need for such a substantial barrier will be considered together with challenges arising in placement of the barrier.  Calculated sound reduction requirements were verified with field measurements.  Installation of the barrier allowed residential land use on property immediately adjacent to a community power generation facility.


This paper presents a new approach to the synthesis of 1,2,5-benzothiadiazepine 1,1-dioxides, sulfonamide analogues of the 'privileged' 1,4-benzodiazepine pharmacophore. The key steps during this synthesis are the hetero Diels-Alder reaction of an N-sulfinylamine dienophile with a diene to give a 1,2-thiazine 1-oxide which is then converted into a N-(o-azidobenzenesulfonyl)-1,2-amino alcohol via a 2 3-sigmatropic rearrangement involving an intermediate allylic sulfoxide and sulfenate ester. Staudinger reaction of the o-azido group and hydrolysis of the intermediate iminophosphorane gave the corresponding N-(o-aminobenzenesulfonyl)-1,2-amino alcohols. Fmoc protection at nitrogen, oxidation of the alcohol, and Fmoc deprotection furnished directly the 1,2,5-benzothiadiazepine 1,1-dioxides in 57–69% yield. An alternative method which uses triazene chemistry is also presented, but was consistently lower yielding. A second route to 1,2,5-benzothiadiazepine 1,1-dioxides using 2-nitrobenzenesulfonamide as the dienophile precursor proceeded without incident to give N-(o-nitrobenzenesulfonyl)-1,2-amino ketones which underwent reductive cyclisation to furnish the target heterocycle.


Titanium Metal Matrix Composites (TiMMC) have been gaining momentum in the aerospace applications in the past two decades. The advantages of TiMMC include superior stiffness-to-weight and strength-to-weight ratios, compared to conventional aerospace steels. The low pressure shaft in the aeroengine is one of the components that could benefit from the superior material properties of TiMMC. Potentially, the use of TiMMC could provide a combination of higher torque density (higher torque for a given diameter) and lower weight for these shafts. However, little has been done to investigate the torsional behaviour of TiMMC shafts.

This thesis investigates the torsional behaviour of TiMMC shafts with different fibre orientations, through experimental tests. A material database was\established for the TiMMC system used for each fibre orientation. Further to that, a comprehensive failure investigation was carried out on the tested specimens in order to understand the failure mechanisms. Samples from the fractured specimens were polished and etched to study their microstructure and internal features.

Numerical models were developed to predict the global orthotropic elastic material properties of TiMMC using the unit cell concept. The material properties were then used in the tube models which predict the shear moduli for different fibre orientations. The results were validated with the experimental test results.

To minimise weight, aeroengine shafts aim to have thin walls, which could result in buckling instability. Numerical models were therefore developed, to investigate the buckling behaviour of TiMMC shafts. Hill's potential function in ABAQUS was used, which define the anisotropic yield behaviour, using user- defined stress ratios.

As a result of this research, the understanding of the torsional behaviour of TiMMC has been strengthened.