PURPOSE OF REVIEW
Chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) has been recently introduced as an umbrella-term encompassing all forms of chronic pulmonary function decline posttransplant with bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome and restrictive allograft syndrome as the most important subtypes. Differential diagnosis and management, however, remains complicated.

RECENT FINDINGS
Herein, we provide an overview of the different diagnostic criteria (pulmonary function, body plethysmography and radiology) used to differentiate bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome and restrictive allograft syndrome, their advantages and disadvantages as well as potential problems in making an accurate differential diagnosis. Furthermore, we discuss recent insights in CLAD management and treatment and advances in the search for accurate biomarkers of CLAD.

SUMMARY
Careful dissection of CLAD phenotypes is of utmost importance to assess patient prognosis, but uniform diagnostic criteria are desperately needed. There is a long way ahead, but the first steps towards this goal are now taken; tailored individualized therapy will be the golden standard to treat CLAD in the future, but randomized placebo-controlled and multicentre trials are needed to identify new and powerful therapeutic agents.


Despite antidepressant therapy of appropriate trial duration and dose optimization, 50-60% of depressed patients have an adequate treatment response, whereas only 35-40% achieve remission. Psychostimulants have been suggested as potential candidates to promote acceleration of response and to alleviate residual symptoms of depression. Nowadays, clinicians often consider the off-label use of stimulants or stimulant alternatives as adjunctive antidepressants. In this review study, we reviewed the available literature on the efficacy of these agents for treatment of refractory unipolar and bipolar depression.


To enhance the production management of the rod-pumped wells in the oil field, using a high performance single-chip as the processor, a field monitor system based on GPRS is researched and developed. In the paper the hardware design and software design are expatiated, the sampling frequency and determination rules for the running state are analyzed, the rational communication protocol is designed to ensure the reliable message transmission and reduce the communication fees. In the end the field monitor system is successfully implemented and verified in practice, part of data transmission result is illustrated.


This book is written by a partner in the prestigious Toronto law firm of McCarthy TCrault and a partner in the well-known accounting firm of Arthur Anderson. Mr. Freiman, the senior author, holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in English, a subject he taught for a number of years at the university level in England, the United States and Canada. Mr. Berenblut graduated from the London School of Economics and has been an expert witness, an arbitrator in connection with many issues involving economic damage quantification. Dr. Freiman and Mr. Berenblut are the editors of this multi-authored book and they also have contributed two major chapters. The book consists of 23 chapters covering general principles of expert testimony, from accounting to psychiatry.


I never thought that a virus could disturb the lives of people everywhere, almost to the point of paralysis. Even after the appearance of the first signs given by this killer virus, at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, in China, we did not suspect what harm it can cause to humanity. People began to see the reality when China, the country with the largest population in the world, said it was facing great difficulties with the killer virus. Alarming information then began to appear in Spain, Italy and other countries not only in Europe but also on other continents of the world. Spain has been brought to its knees by the virus, as has Italy, with thousands of people dying every day. The economic and social life of these countries, and not only, had begun to be paralyzed. One by one, schools were closed, the educational process started to be carried out online. For Spaniards, Italians, French, Germans, etc., there were no problems with teleworking, as they had everything they needed to continue high-performance, online education. I was thinking then what we Romanians will do if the virus brings us to our knees, because only with some exceptions we had what we needed for telework, and the hygiene and personal protection materials ,,were sublime, but they were completely missing". I was shocked when it was announced on television that in Romania the first case of infection with Covid-19 was registered. Then the number of those infected increased daily, many Romanians in the diaspora contributing to this performance, who, against the recommendations of the national authorities not to return to Romania during that period, did not take them into account and we were faced with the result: the number of people infected and hospitalized multiplied with each passing day. In those difficult conditions, the online education started to be carried out in Romania as well. As a professor in a military higher education institution, I had to comply with this situation, but the beginning was difficult for me. I would like to talk further about the difficulties I have encountered in conducting online education, as well as how I have managed to overcome them, with the hope that in the future such phenomena will no longer represent an issue for some of the teaching staff.


Although starch is the main polysaccharide used in the fermentation of bread dough, wheat flour also contain some non-starch polysaccharides such as pentosans or hemicelluloses, which may contribute up to 3% of the total polysaccharide content of the flour. Despite being present in relatively low amounts, pentosans and hemicelluloses play an important role in dough rheology and bread properties. The aim of this work is to understand how the xylanases from Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma sp. influence dough rheology, such as elasticity, extensibility, strength and stability. When the extensograph parameters such as extensibility (E) and elasticity (R) were determined, it was possible to note that all dosages of xylanase from A. niger were capable of decreasing the dough elasticity in 21%. Depending on the dosage, the xylanase from Trichoderma sp. can decrease dough stability in the mixing and, consequently, the mixing time during the process. An increased dosage of Trichoderma xylanase decreased the elasticity in 32% and increased the extensibility by 8% following 45 min. It was also observed that raising dosages of Trichoderma xylanase in flour content affected the dough rheology more significantly than raising dosages of A. niger xylanase .


The steeling effect suggests that "optimal" stress positively affects well-being by enhancing resilience. However, there is lack of longitudinal investigations in diverse age groups. The aim was to explore steeling in later life and potential predictors. The sample consisted of N = 195 participants. A 1-year longitudinal survey study was conducted. Sociodemographics, experienced stress, resilience resources, and satisfaction with life were assessed. Latent profile analysis was used to identify profiles that differ in the change of resilience resources over time and to examine differences between the profiles across the other study variables. Three profiles emerged: decreased resources (Decrease), stability of resources (Maintenance), and increased resources (Increase). "Decrease" was characterized by low, Maintenance by moderate, and Increase by high stress. Age influenced profile membership. While the results failed to support the classic steeling effect, with high stress associated with increased resilience resources, optimal stress was associated with the maintenance of resilience resources.


Approximately 1 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year and must cope with the disease and treatments. Many studies have documented the deteriorations in quality of life that occur. These data suggest that the adjustment process is burdensome and lengthy. There is ample evidence showing that adults experiencing other long-term stressors experience not only high rates of adjustment difficulties (e.g., syndromal depression) but important biologic effects, such as persistent downregulation of elements of the immune system, and adverse health outcomes, such as higher rates of respiratory tract infections. Thus, deteriorations in quality of life with cancer are underscored if they have implications for biological processes, such as the immune system, relating to disease progression and spread. Considering these and other data, a biobehavioral model of adjustment to the stresses of cancer is offered, and mechanisms by which psychological and behavioral responses may influence biological processes and, perhaps, health outcomes are proposed. Finally, strategies for testing the model via experiments testing psychological interventions are offered.


In this paper I explore the notion of childhood as it is re/configured in Christmas texts through the discursive frames of industrialisation and global capitalism. Through a poststructuralist analysis of three Christmas texts from the 1840s, 1940s and 1990s, I map discursive shifts in the ways that children and childhood are constructed in relation to the discourses of capitalist societies. Three texts are examined in detail: A Christmas Carol, published by Charles Dickens in 1843; the 1947 version of the film, Miracle on 34th Street; and the 1999 Walt Disney film, The Santa Clause. While these texts provide only a small sample from the thousands of texts available, their commercial success and sustained popular appeal makes them particularly significant sites of analysis. Dickens' text is widely considered 'the most often repeated and imitated secular Christmas story of all' (Belk 2005, p.18), which has itself 'become sacred Christmas literature' (Belk 2005, p. 19). The success of Miracle on 34th Street led to several remakes for television audiences, with major motion picture remakes released in 1973 and again in 1994, while The Santa Clause the role credited with launching actor Tim Allen from a successful television career into a string of Hollywood blockbuster films won the 1995 People's Choice Award (USA) for Favourite Comedy Motion Picture, and was followed by sequels in 2002 and 2006 (IMDb, 2007). When considered together, these three popular, enduring and commercially successful texts illustrate some of the ways in which cultural texts are implicated in constructing children, over time, as particular kinds of economic subjects.


It is well known that the presence or absence of effect‐measure modification depends upon the chosen measure. What is perhaps more disconcerting is that a positive change in one measure may be accompanied by a negative change in another. Therefore, research demonstrating that an effect is 'stronger' in one population when compared with another, but based on only one measure, for example, the odds ratio, may be difficult to interpret for researchers interested in another measure. The present article investigates relationships among changes in the relative risk, odds ratio, and risk difference from one stratum to another. Monte Carlo integration shows that the three measures change in the same direction for 78 or 89 per cent of the volume of the geometric space defined by the four underlying proportions, depending on whether the strata are presumed to share the same direction of effect or not. Analytic results are presented concerning necessary and sufficient conditions for the measures to change in opposite directions. In general, the conditions are seen to be quite complicated, though they do give way to some interesting results. For example, when exposure increases risk but all risks are less than 0.5, it is impossible for the relative risk and risk difference to change in the same direction but opposite to that of the odds ratio. Both data‐analytic and hypothetical examples are presented to demonstrate circumstances under which the measures change in opposite directions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This study investigated EFL writing processes through collaborative assessment from a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective. This study focused on assessing essay writing of one intact group of Iranian EFL learners at the intermediate level of language proficiency (N = 15) based on the placement test administered at the institute. Both learners and their teacher assessed essays based on an analytic scale during seven sessions. Moreover, being engaged in collaborative dialogue, the learners were given the opportunity to discuss existing differences between their self-assessed scores and those assigned by the teacher in order to reach an agreed score. Moreover, all their dialogic interactions were audio-recorded for later transcription and micro-analysis.  Findings of the microgenetic analysis revealed that benefiting from the mediatory role of the collaborative dialogue and the checklist, the group under investigation gained insight into their capacities, weaknesses, and their metacognitive awareness was raised as the result of conducting CA. The findings suggested that learners took advantage of the collaborative dialogue in which they were engaged while assessing their writing tasks. In particular, the dialogic interaction afforded the learners the chance to present, discuss, and test their ideas and consequently enhance their awareness of the writing tasks. The collaborative assessment could help the learners gain a better insight into their strengths and weakness; further, it led to their metacognitive awareness about components of a good piece of writing.


Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have shown their potential as a carrier of molecular information, and they have been involved in physiological functions and diseases caused by viral infections. Virus-infected cells secrete various lipid-bound vesicles, including endosome pathway-derived exosomes and microvesicles/microparticles that are released from the plasma membrane. They are released via a direct outward budding and fission of plasma membrane blebs into the extracellular space to either facilitate virus propagation or regulate the immune responses. Moreover, EVs generated by virus-infected cells can incorporate virulence factors including viral protein and viral genetic material, and thus can resemble noninfectious viruses. Interactions of EVs with recipient cells have been shown to activate signaling pathways that may contribute to a sustained cellular response towards viral infections. EVs, by utilizing a complex set of cargos, can play a regulatory role in viral infection, both by facilitating and suppressing the infection. EV-based antiviral and antiretroviral drug delivery approaches provide an opportunity for targeted drug delivery. In this review, we summarize the literature on EVs, their associated involvement in transmission in viral infections, and potential therapeutic implications.


ABSTRACT Hiring a new employee is traditionally thought to be an uncertain investment. This uncertainty is lessened by the presence of signals that indicate job fitness. Ideally, job applicants objectively signal their qualifications, and those signals are correctly assessed by the hiring team. In reality, signal manipulation is pervasive in the hiring process, mitigating the reliability of signals used to make hiring decisions. To combat these inefficiencies, we propose and evaluate SIGHT, a theoretical class of systems affording more robust signal evaluation during the job application process. A prototypical implementation of the SIGHT framework was evaluated using a mock-interview paradigm. Results provide initial evidence that SIGHT systems can elicit and capture qualification signals beyond what can be traditionally obtained from a typical application and that SIGHT systems can assess signals more effectively than unaided decision-making. SIGHT principles may extend to domains such as audit and security interviews.


Bunyaviruses including 53 strains of snowshoe hare (SSH) and 4 of Northway (NOR) were isolated from 132,428 unengorged adult female mosquitoes of 7 species collected throughout the boreal forest of the Yukon Territory and open woodland terrain in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada during 8 of 11 arctic summers from 1972 through 1982. Isolations of SSH virus were also achieved from mosquito larvae during 1974 and 1975. Percentage virus infection rates of important vectors were Aedes communis (0.038) and Culiseta inornata (0.124). Isolations of NOR virus were achieved during 1976 and 1978 only. Infection thresholds of SSH virus for Ae. communis were 0.1 mouse LD50, when virus transmission occurred both after virus feeding and after intrathoracic injection and Cs. inornata transmitted SSH virus after intrathoracic injection. Both Ae. communis and Cs. inornata were infected after injection of 3 plaque-forming units (PFU) NOR virus, and transmitted after injection of 300 PFU, but they also became infected after feeding on 30 PFU virus.


In the era of globalization, the process of delivering a message and receiving it is so fast and easy. This is evidenced by the existence of social networking applications that are present on smartphones. The use of social media is very diverse, so that many people, ranging from ordinary people to journalists, can spread what they want. However, unfortunately, sometimes there are those who spread information on social media who do not pay attention to communication ethics, causing untrue news such as hoaxes, defamation, denunciation, etc. all of which are out of the realm of ethics. Whereas in Islam really uphold ethics in communication and prioritize ethics. And in principle, it leads people to experience a peaceful and comfortable life. So as media users must apply ethics, one of these ethics is the principle of Islamic communication, in which this Communication has fourmain points, namely; honest, positive message, tabayyun and silm. Which Islamic communication has two main sources, namely the Al-Quran and As-Sunnah.


Data detection or fusion based on output from multiple wireless links often requires channel state information (CSI) about the links' error rate (ER) performance. We consider the scenario that these links include direct source-destination (SD) links and two-hop links that require an intermediate decode-and-forward (DF) node to relay the source signal. Conventional destination-based estimators suffer from slow convergence and are incapable of simultaneously blind estimating all ERs, including, in particular, those of the source-relay (SR) links. They may also require various degrees of CSI about the ERs of the SD and relay-destination (RD) links to remove the ambiguity arising from the insufficient number of links in the network and from that due to the symmetric nature of a cascaded source-relay-destination link's ER as a function of its component SR and RD links' ERs. We propose novel Monte-Carlo-based estimators that overcome all these shortcomings. The estimation process involves injecting noise into the samples received by the destination node to create virtual links and alter link output statistics. We show that the latter scheme exhibits a stochastic resonance effect, i.e., its mean squared estimation error (MSEE) performance is enhanced by injecting proper noise, and there exists an optimal injected noise power level that achieves the maximum improvement. The stochastic resonance effects are analyzed, and numerical examples are provided to display our estimators' MSEE behaviors, as well as to show that the ER performance of the optimal detector using the proposed estimators is almost as good as that with perfect ER information.


A large number of chemicals are known to interfere with steroidogenesis in the adrenal cortex and other tissues. Many xenobiotics inhibit steroid hormone production as a result of interactions with cytochrome P-450-containing hydroxylases in adrenal mitochondria or microsomes. For example, metyrapone, a compound used clinically in the evaluation of pituitary-adrenocortical function, binds to various cytochromes P-450 in the adrenal, preventing the interactions of steroid substrates with the enzymes and inhibiting steroidogenesis. The mineralocorticoid antagonist, spironolactone, and its major circulating metabolite, canrenone, also competitively interact with adrenal steroid hydroxylases. In addition, spironolactone is converted by adrenal microsomes to an unknown metabolite which promotes the destruction of cytochromes P-450, decreasing the activities of steroid hydroxylases. Carbon tetrachloride is similarly "activated" by adrenal microsomal mixed function oxidases resulting in a decline in steroidogenic enzyme activity. Carbon tetrachloride (in the presence of NADPH) initiates lipid peroxidation in adrenal microsomes but its toxic effects on steroid hydroxylases are fully demonstrable when lipid peroxidation is inhibited by EDTA. A number of heavy metals, including cadmium, also inhibit adrenal steroid hydroxylases. When incubated with adrenal microsomes, cadmium does not affect cytochrome P-450 levels but decreases basal and substrate stimulated NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase activity. Although inhibitory effects of many chemicals on steroidogenesis have been described, the toxicological significance as well as definitive mechanisms of action have in most cases yet to be determined.


This thesis examines the impact of social and economic
change on the practice of "free mining" in the Forest of
Dean between 1788 and 1886, asking how and why the free miners'
"rights" altered over that period and what the consequences
of their survival were for the development of trade unionism
among the Forest miners. The thesis is divided into three
parts. The first of them discusses the free miners' rights
and argues that they should be seen as part of a group of uses,
including commoning and the occupation of Crown land, which
its inhabitants made of the Forest in the eighteenth century.
These uses came under pressure between 1788 and 1841 from
reforms in central government and the intrusion of strangers
from outside the Forest into the mining industry. A series
of Acts of Parliament between 1838 and 1841 consolidated the
new order in the Forest but the bargaining which preceded
that legislation resulted in the preservation - though in
a diluted form - of the miners' rights and of commoning.
Part two asks whether the partial survival of these customs
acted as a socially conservative influence which might have
explained the relative weakness of trade unionism among
the Forest's colliers. It is argued that the instability
of union may be explained by reference to the organization
of the industry and its markets, to the method of work
organization in the pits, which created divisions among
the miners, and to the inadequacies of "national" miners'
unionism. Though it is not necessary to invoke the peculiar
local rights and customs to account for the weakness of unionism in Dean, Part three will contend that they remained important
to many foresters. Renewed pressure from the Crown and from
the large coalowners, on both the free miners and commoners,
and the resistance of the foresters to change, are examined.
The character of that resistance took colour from the assumptions
and rhetoric of the union and in turn reinforced and
helped to make successful, a campaign by the union for the
separate representation of the working men in the Parliament.


Accelerating artificial intelligence by photonics is an active field of study aiming to exploit the unique properties of photons. Reinforcement learning is an important branch of machine learning, and photonic decision-making principles have been demonstrated with respect to the multi-armed bandit problems. However, reinforcement learning could involve a massive number of states, unlike previously demonstrated bandit problems where the number of states is only one. Q-learning is a well-known approach in reinforcement learning that can deal with many states. The architecture of Q-learning, however, does not fit well photonic implementations due to its separation of update rule and the action selection. In this study, we organize a new architecture for multi-state reinforcement learning as a parallel array of bandit problems in order to benefit from photonic decision-makers, which we call parallel bandit architecture for reinforcement learning or PBRL in short. Taking a cart-pole balancing problem as an instance, we demonstrate that PBRL adapts to the environment in fewer time steps than Q-learning. Furthermore, PBRL yields faster adaptation when operated with a chaotic laser time series than the case with uniformly distributed pseudorandom numbers where the autocorrelation inherent in the laser chaos provides a positive effect. We also find that the variety of states that the system undergoes during the learning phase exhibits completely different properties between PBRL and Q-learning. The insights obtained through the present study are also beneficial for existing computing platforms, not just photonic realizations, in accelerating performances by the PBRL algorithms and correlated random sequences.


Injection site lipodystrophy is not uncommon in insulin-treated patients with diabetes. In this era of human insulin and insulin analogues, lipoatrophy is far less common than lipohypertrophy, and distant site lipoatrophy is even rarer. The underlying pathophysiology of distant site lipoatrophy is largely undefined, and this disease is a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge to the treating physicians.

A 60-year-old woman (BMI 32 kg/m2) with a 25-year history of type 2 diabetes mellitus presented with a depression in her interscapular region that had been present for 3 months and was causing a significant visible cosmetic defect (figure 1). Due to a diminished response to oral drugs, the patient had been prescribed a twice daily premixed human insulin regimen (30% regular …


VioLit summary: OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper by Strauss and Donnelly was to assess the extent to which corporal punishment is currently used on adolescents. Areas addressed included the etiology of corporal punishment with respect to gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and cultural support. Theoretical issues relating to the cause of youth violence were also addressed. METHODOLOGY: This paper employed a quasi-experimental design using data from a nationally represented sample of 6,002 U.S. couples, gathered in the summer of 1985. These couples participated in the National Family Violence Resurvey by telephone interview. Respondents were 18 years or older, either presently married or living as a couple, or they were single, separated or divorced parents with a child living at home. The response rate was 84%. The definition of corporal punishment for the purposes of this paper was the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury, for purposes of correction or control of the child's behavior. Corporal punishment included spanking, slapping, and grabbing or shoving a child roughly. Corporal punishment, for the purposes of this paper excluded hitting with an object (hair brush, belt or paddle). If while conducting the interview, more than one child was living at home, only one child was randomly selected and considered for data purposes. Use of corporal punishment was measured as either "contemporaneous", or "adult recall". Contemporaneous, or current use, referred to the respondent as the perpetrator. Adult recall, the history of the respondents own childhood punishment, referred to the respondent as the victim. The N for adult recall data was 5,452. The respondents were asked to reflect back to when they experienced the most physical punishment and to rate how often in that year corporal punishment was used on them. The answer categories included: never, once, twice, 3-5 times, 6-10 times, 11-20 times, and more than 20 times. Separate responses were gathered to distinguish between punishment by father or by mother. Past research has indicated that the peak years for hitting adolescents is between the ages of 13 and 14. In order to best compare adult recall with contemporaneous, the contemporaneous data included 380 cases of adolescents who were between the ages of 13 to 14 at the time data was collected. The minor violence scale of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) was used to measure contemporaneous use of corporal punishment when compared to that of adult recall data. This study addressed the accuracy and limitations of using adult recall data. The following limitations of using contemporaneous data were also addressed by the authors: 1) the parent who did the punishing was not interviewed; 2) only a small percentage of the sample had a child living at home; and 3) the underestimation of the use of corporal punishment by the respondents. Analyses used in this study included prevalence and chronicity rates, and comparisons of aging versus cohort. FINDINGS/DISCUSSION: The prevalence of recall data (49.8%) which revealed being punished one or more times closely matched the same measure of prevalence for the contemporaneous data (46.3%). These were considered low estimates assuming that some participants may have forgotten their history of punishment and some may not have disclosed information. Corporal punishment was used an average of 7.9 times, according to the recall data, compared to an average of 5.9 times for the contemporaneous data. The median for both samples sets was four times per year. The authors caution that these values may be low. The data also revealed that the prevalence rate of corporal punishment was 40% for respondents over 70 years of age, versus 55.4% for respondents between 18 to 19 years of age. This result was opposite of what was expected. Nevertheless, a response rate of 40% recall, after 70 years, was considered remarkable. Social and psychological factors that could influence use of corporal punishment were explored through an examination of cultural norms, the gender of parent and child, and socioeconomic status (SES). Cultural norms were explored utilizing data from a survey conducted by Moore and Strauss in 1987. This 1987 survey used a representative sample of 917 New Hampshire parents and reported that 31% agreed, 23% were neutral or mildly disagreed, and 46% strongly disagreed that it was a good idea for a parent to slap a teenager who talked back. In this survey parents supported their right to hit adolescents. Also, a positive correlation existed between parents who condoned hitting and parents who actually hit. The paper posited that gender differences explained why reason some parents endorsed corporal punishment but did not use it in child rearing. The authors stated that the recall rates of 44% for daughters compared to 58.2% for sons supported the traditional pattern that corporal punishment is more appropriate for sons than daughters. There was a tendency for both parents, regardless of gender of child, to use corporal punishment. Over half of the sons were punished by both parents versus 41% of the girls. However, many families revealed a direct gender influence when only one parent used corporal punishment. When it was the son, there was an equal chance that the mother or father exacted punishment, but when it was the daughter, the mother was twice as likely as the father to exact punishment. Consequently, it was assumed that adolescent daughters were hit less because fathers hit their daughters less. The lowest use of corporal punishment reported was father to daughter, with 40% having been hit only once. Most disturbing was that the rate of parental use of punishment against sons was six or more times. The SES index factored into the results the education of the parents, occupational prestige scores of the parents, and their combined income. Using a multiple indicator of SES as an independent variable, and prevalence as a dependent variable, middle class families were shown to have a higher prevalence rate than either the lower or upper class respondents. This result may contradict past research. However, the authors noted that this paper focused on adolescents and not younger children. When chronicity was used as the dependent variable, it was discovered that the higher the SES, the lower the chronicity. This suggested that although the rate is smaller for lower SES parents, those that hit their children do it more often. The authors noted that even though results suggested that corporal punishment is considered normal, and that almost all children defend its use, this is not evidence that corporal punishment does not have harmful effects. On the contrary, the authors suggested that corporal punishment is harmful because there is evidence that it is associated with increased probability of violence, crime, depression, alienation, and lowered achievement. The authors also suggested that corporal punishment most likely interferes with the development of independence because it is likely to be used to humiliate and stump the progress of the adolescent. The authors suggested that the reason corporal punishment has rarely been investigated may be because it is so common. The authors noted that, although there is no statutory limits and no consensus by the public on how much corporal punishment takes place before it crosses the line to physical abuse, most Americans would consider excessive punishment as abuse. AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS: The authors suggested further research to determine the effects of one parent interceding and stopping the other parent from using corporal punishment. They also suggested exploring the following issues with future samples: whether men believe corporal punishment was good for them because they are men and so they don't report being hit, and 2) why fathers don't report when they hit girls or women. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado) KW - Family Relations KW - Family Environment KW - Parent Child Relations KW - Juvenile Victim KW - Child Abuse Victim KW - Child Abuse Incidence and Prevalence KW - Child Abuse Offender KW - Child Physical Abuse Victim KW - Child Physical Abuse Offender KW - Child Physical Abuse Incidence and Prevalence KW - Domestic Violence Incidence and Prevalence KW - Domestic Violence Offender KW - Domestic Violence Victim KW - Adult Offender KW - Adult Parent KW - Adult Violence KW - Physical Punishment KW - Parent Offender KW - Corporal Punishment KW - Corporal Punishment Incidence and Prevalence KW - Corporal Punishment of Juvenile KW - Corporal Punishment Causes


This paper develops a geometric method to estimate the error space of 3-DOF planar mechanisms with the Minimum Volume Ellipsoid Enclosing (MVEE) approach. Both the joint clearances and actuator errors are considered in this method. Three typical planar parallel mechanisms are used to demonstrate. Error spaces of their serial limbs are analyzed. Thereafter, limb-error-space-constrained mobility of the manipulator, namely, the manipulator error space is analyzed. The MVEE method has been applied to simplify the constraint modeling. A closed-form expression for the manipulator error space is derived. The volume of the manipulator error space is numerically estimated. The approach in this paper is to develop a geometric error analysis method of parallel mechanisms with clear algebraic expressions. Moreover, no forward kinematics computations have been performed in the proposed method, in contrast to the widely used interval analysis method. Although the estimated error space is larger than the actual one, because the enclosing ellipses enlarge the regions of limb error space, the method has an attractive advantage of high computational efficiency.


We propose a framework for learning robust, adaptive appearance models to be used for motion-based tracking of natural objects. The approach involves a mixture of stable image structure, learned over long time courses, along with 2-frame motion information and an outlier process. An online EM-algorithm is used to adapt the appearance model parameters over time. An implementation of this approach is developed for an appearance model based on the filter responses from a steerable pyramid. This model is used in a motion-based tracking algorithm to provide robustness in the face of image outliers, such as those caused by occlusions. It also provides the ability to adapt to natural changes in appearance, such as those due to facial expressions or variations in 3D pose. We show experimental results on a variety of natural image sequences of people moving within cluttered environments.


There is growing evidence to support the use of dimensional models for the classification of personality disorders (PDs). The Five Factor Model (FFM) is one such model that has been proposed as a unifying system for both normal and abnormal personality description; however, the Openness to Experience (OE) domain remains problematic. Some studies fail to replicate the domain when taking into account PD pathology, while others find inconsistent results regarding schizotypal personality disorder (SZPD). These inconsistencies have led some authors to suggest that the OE domain may not be useful in describing PD pathology. The following studies examine a two-aspect structure of OE as one possible explanation for the previously inconsistent findings. It is suggested that OE can be decomposed into two distinct yet correlated aspects. There is evidence to suggest that OE relates to both a willingness, and capacity to be open to sensory awareness and subtle cues from the environment on the one hand, and the capacity to organize and integrate that information on the other hand. The current series of studies propose that inconsistent findings between OE and SZPD are the result of the facets of OE grouping together into two separate but related aspects. As such, the Openness Aspect (OA) is hypothesized to relate in a positive manner to SZPD, while the Intellect Aspect (IA) is hypothesized to relate in a negative manner to SZPD. This hypothesis was tested in both student and clinical samples using multiple regression analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. As predicted, results revealed consistent and unique associations for each aspect with SZPD, regardless of sample. Taken together, the studies described add to growing evidence that the FFM is a useful dimensional model for the integration of normal and abnormal personality description. Moreover, the findings presented here highlight the importance of considering multiple levels of personality structure, in that both facet and aspect level analysis revealed associations that domains were unable to capture.


For the past two decades countering terrorism has been at the forefront of the foreign policy priorities of democracies. This has coincided with the growth of human rights narratives as a fundamental feature of such democracies. However, a number of counterterrorism measures, such as the use of unlawful detention at Guantanamo Bay, confirmation of 'black sites' being used for interrogation and extended state surveillance powers, have raised serious human rights concerns. How do states ensure strong national security while protecting the fundamental human rights they claim as the bedrock of their society? How do states balance regulation of terrorism when the damage that can be done to political and legal systems by terrorism itself as well as by counter-terrorism measures which violate basic human rights norms are exceptional. It is to these challenges that the lecture will turn. I will address four myths that have dominated the post 9/11 terrorism and human rights landscape demonstrating that security need not be sacrificed for human rights (and vice versa), and that the relationship between rights and security is not necessarily one of tension but rather one of mutual capacity-building and necessity.


Results obtained during the past decade indicate clearly that protozoa are actively involved in the degradation of dietary and microbial proteins in the rumen. Because of the great ability of protozoa to ingest the participate matter suspended in the rumen, protozoa are more active in degrading insoluble than soluble proteins. This indicates that studies carried out using lysed and sonicated protozoa are not appropriate for quantifying the actual contribution of protozoa to protein degradation in the rumen. In vivo trials have confirmed that duodenal flow of both undegraded di etary protein plus bacterial protein generally is in creased by defaunation. The decrease in ruminai am monia concentration consistently observed after de faunation accounts for the lower urinary nitrogen (N) excretion found in defaunated animals, whereas the increase in fecal N excretion in the same animals prob ably results from a shift of plant cell wall digestion from the rumen to the large intestine. Total N excretion is not altered significantly by defaunation. A summary of literature data indicates there are contradictory ef fects of defaunation on ruminant performance. This implies that animal response to defaunation may de pend on the specific nutrient-limiting performance on the one hand and on the modifications of digestion and metabolism resulting from defaunation on the other. Different methods are proposed to either eliminate or decrease the numbers of ruminai protozoa or to alter their makeup. However, none of these approaches has been tested under practical feeding conditions. J. Nutr. 126: 1335S-1346S, 1996.


Nearly 60% of all community colleges field athletic teams with over 72,000 students participating in these sports. That represents approximately 11% of all community college male students (5% of female students). Additionally, community colleges invest nearly $50 million dollars annually in financial aid to student athletes. With such a strong presence on community college campuses, accurate profiles of student athletes and an understanding of how they perceive themselves is crucial. Subsequently, a 22-item survey was developed to profile student athletes in the most common community college sports, and to identify how these student athletes identity themselves and the role of sports in their lives. Through a purposeful distribution of surveys to 15 community colleges in the southern United States, 104 responses were received and used in data analysis. Introduction Community colleges play a unique role in American higher education, being particularly noted for their acceptance of diverse, first-generation, and non-traditional students. The result is a system of colleges organized by state to facilitate job training, to re-educate and further and educate, and to foster community development (Cohen &. Brawer, 2003). With such an under-girding philosophy, the emergence of intercollegiate athletics in community colleges has been sporadic and uneven across institutions and states, and little is known about these athletic programs or their student athletes (Castaneda, Katsinas, & Hardy, 2006). College athletic programs at many four year institutions are a source of pride and often constitute a central place in the mindset of the community. At the community college level, athletic team participation has been argued to be perhaps the most common student activity (Castaneda, 2004). Castaneda, drawing on national data sets, estimated that approximately 11% of all full-time community college male students participated in athletics, and 5% of all full-time female students. She also estimated that nearly 25,000 community college students receive financial aid for participating on athletic teams. Community colleges have organized intercollegiate athletics into a variety of associations, with the largest being the National Junior College Athletic Association (419 members), which sanctions sport competitions and regulates the offering of financial aid to student athletes. Some sanctioning bodies are regionally exclusive, such as the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges that organizes community college athletics for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Other bodies, such as the California Commission on Athletics, are state-specific for their two-year colleges. Community colleges that offer athletic opportunities average seven teams per institution, with a near even distribution for men and women. Athletic teams are, however, more common on rural college campuses by a two-toone margin, with urban community colleges being the least likely to offer athletic opportunities. Further, of the rural community colleges that do offer athletic teams, as much as 22% of the male student body is involved in athletic team competition (Castaneda, Katsinas, & Hardy, 2006). As little has been reported about community college athletics, it is particularly important to develop a better understanding of who is participating in these activities and how they see themselves in relation to the institution and the importance of their education. The purpose for conducting the current study was to develop a profile of student athletes in the most common community college sports, and to identify how these student athletes identity themselves and the role of sports in their lives. From the profile, community college administrators, state legislators, trustees, student athletes and their parents can all place the role of sport in the community college in a better context. The result might be more attention to counseling, career planning, academic support, and even the recruitment process for students. …


The topic of diversity and inclusion has garnered increased interest over the past decade, with 78% of executives listing the topics as critical initiatives (Forbes, 2011). One group that has received little attention but continues to be stigmatized is the childfree population, or those individuals who deliberately choose not to have children. Previous research has examined opinions of this group generally and in the workplace, specifically, but this research frequently considers childfree and childless people under the same umbrella. This study examined ratings of the childfree in the workplace compared to childless adults as well as to parents. The potential efficacy of inclusion policy statements, as well as their impact on implicit reactions, were also investigated. Results generally support findings in previous research such that childfree adults are more likely to be seen as deviating from societal expectations and are also seen as less warm than are their counterparts with children. Encouragingly, these results do not suggest any differential impact on work-related perceptions, including dedication to work, competence, and promotability. Implications for research and practice as well as suggestions for future study are incorporated.


Biosecurity agencies are particularly concerned to know the potential distribution of invasive alien species under present, and to a lesser extent, future climates; expensive decisions can hinge upon the degree of perceived threat a pest species poses. Climate-based niche modelling techniques are available to inform these decisions. These tools now regularly employ gridded climate datasets of moderate spatial resolution (0.5 degree), though biosecurity decision-makers continually seek greater spatial precision in the risk map products. Various splining techniques are capable of generating gridded climate datasets approaching the precision limits imposed by the availability of digital elevation model data. As the spatial precision of climate datasets increases, more detailed effects of topographic relief become apparent in the climatic data. When these datasets are used to develop and apply species niche models, the climate data is spatially intersected with species location data to infer relationships between the climate and the species' geographic distribution. Here we investigate the effect of changing climate precision on projections of species' niche models developed with CLIMEX, including the effect of upscaling and downscaling the outputs. We found that there were noticeable increases in sensitivity in models developed using more precise climate datasets. The largest differences in projections were noted where species range limits coincided with regions of strong climatic gradients such as where there was marked topographic relief in relation to the spatial precision of the climatic dataset. Upscaling (fitting a model with a fine resolution dataset and then projecting the results with a coarser grid), tended to produce smaller potential ranges for a species, albeit at the cost of model sensitivity. Downscaling had the opposite effect, identifying additional, mostly marginally climatically suitable habitat. It remains unclear how sensitive the fine resolution results are to the number and spatial arrangement of input location records used to build the model. The results indicate some benefits of improving the spatial resolution of climate datasets, though not at the expense of climatic data accuracy. Decision-makers should be mindful of the inherent uncertainties in these models, and modellers have a responsibility to identify and convey these uncertainties to their intended audience.


The complications and loose boundaries of what nature "is" has been an area of inquiry and mediation for some time within eco-criticism and the interdisciplinary approaches of environmental humanities. One of the groundbreaking texts in this area is William Cronon's essay, titled "The Trouble with Wilderness", which appeared in the New York Times Magazine in 1995, reaching a much larger and broader audience than its subsequent volume publication. This memorandum paper proposes to examine various conceptions of wilderness and various pre-conceptions of what constitutes "interference", beginning with the precepts contained in the above essay, and then tracing these in three specific text collections: discussions on wildfire policy from the Yellowstone National Park fires in 1988 and the continuing discussions at the time of this writing, as wildfires burn across the blurred landscape denominations of three Western states (Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon); media coverage and decision-making documents concerning the establishment of one of the most recent NATURA 2000 sites in Sweden, Ojnareskogen on Gotland; and a primary creative text, written by a fire ranger and one of the most established poets in America, Gary Snyder, the first poem from his first published collection, and three critical approaches/overlayers to it, which, taken together, trouble the idea of untouched nature, of wilderness.


EPA appears likely to tighten the ambient ozone standard, even as many areas of the country are having great difficulties meeting the current standard. This paper offers an analysis of potential regulatory, administrative, and legislative initiatives for reducing the costs of meeting ozone standards. The detailed analysis of these initiatives is organized into six steps: (i) acknowledge mistakes and adapt to new knowledge; (ii) rehabilitate EPA's Title I Program; (iii) build on the best ideas; (iv) clarify and change the Clean Air Act; (v) educate the public; and (vi) fund research. EPA can go a long way to make its programs more efficient and effective without changes in the Clean Air Act; indeed, a number of its current initiatives show promise. But it must do more. Congress can help, too, by giving EPA the statutory guidance and freedom it needs to improve the program.


The article discusses humorous conversational activities ((e.g. jokes, teasing, joint fantasizing) in the context of genre theory. The high degree of creativity, emergent construction and artistry typical of humor call for a flexible concept of genre which makes sense of modifications and transgressions in communicative processes. Some forms of conversational humor are generic, for example, standardized jokes, joint fantasizing or teasing. Other forms exploit our knowledge of serious genres and activity types (thereby relying on it): e.g. humorous stories about problems, humorous gossiping or counseling. Here the keying is done from the start in such a way that a serious mode of understanding is undermined. Generic boundaries are often transgressed and hybridized in joking; new sub-types arise, such as absurd meta-jokes which violate the well-known expectation of a punch-line or other features of the genre. Nevertheless, the realizations of these genres are related only by a sort of family resemblance. The concept of intertextuality plays another important role in analyzing oral genres of humor. Genre knowledge is also employed when the speakers violate expected patterns in such a way that further information is located precisely in the violation. The article shows humorous co-construction as an emergent phenomenon, which plays with genre knowledge.

Keywords: Genre; Artistry, Intertextuality; Conversational humour; Emergent construction; Typification; Hybridization; Keying; Performance; Teasing; Narration.


The amplification properties of different photonic crystal fibers have been studied by means of a full vector fi- nite-element modal formulation combined with a population and propagation rate equation solver. A honeycomb as well as a cobweb photonic crystal fiber have been considered. The consequences of the defect dimension and the dopant radius on the field intensity distribution as well as the overlap integrals have been analyzed. Results demonstrate that a proper photonic crystal fiber design can be usefully exploited in order to obtain active fibers with superior characteristics compared to standard step index ones. In particular, photonic crystal fibers open up the possibility of a gain medium with highly flexible geometric, dispersion, and amplifying characteristics.


The prevailing dual-route model of oral reading claims that a lexical route is used for the pronunciation of words and a non-lexical route processes nonwords. Neurological data from patients with acquired dyslexias have been high-lighted to support this claim. Models using a lexicon alone are generally held to be incapable of explaining these data. However, by selectively impairing its component parts, it is easily possible to account for phonological and surface dyslexias using a single-route model based upon pronunciation by analogy.


Borohydrides present interesting options for electrochemical power generation acting either as hydrogen sources or anodic fuels for direct borohydride fuel cells and batteries. Though there have been several papers concerning electrochemical determination of relevant thermodynamic and kinetic parameters to the borohydride system, a number of its basic aspects have not been yet systematically studied. In this paper we report chronopotentiometric studies of the electrooxidation of sodium borohydride at a gold sphere electrode in 2M NaOH solutions, at temperatures ranging from 25 to 55 °C. Gold displayed a rather good BH4 - oxidation activity, and the overall oxidation process was shown to be irreversible involving a number of electrons very close to the theoretically expected value of 8. The results suggested that the rate-determining step is an irreversible, diffusion controlled, one-electron oxidation step, for which the transfer coefficients were calculated.


This brief presents a novel idea of replacing the purely analog technique of AM modulation with ΔΣ modulation. The idea is to transmit the pulse wave with same amplitude but varying width with respect to the amplitude of the input signal instead of multiplying the input signal with the carrier as is the case in AM modulation. A system level modeling is presented as a proof of concept followed by the MATLAB results. Circuit level implementation of 1st order delta sigma "AM" modulator is also presented, capable of operating within AM broadcast range and above.


A new planning and control scheme for multirobot coordination is presented. First, the event-based planning and control theory is introduced. The most important step is the design of an event-based motion reference for the multirobot system. It drives the system to achieve the best possible coordination. Hybrid position/force controllers which are able to perform a large class of tasks are designed based on the combination of general task space with the well-known nonlinear feedback linearization technique. To improve the force control performance, the dynamics of joint motors have been considered in the force control. For a given task, a task projection operator can be found for each robot with the consideration of redundancy management. It projects the feedback linearized model to the actual task space. A distributed computing architecture is proposed to implement this scheme in a parallel computation. The event-based coordination scheme was experimentally implemented and tested for the coordinated control of two 6 DOF PUMA 560 robots with very good results.


Abstract Various seismic techniques have been used to investigate the subsurface in the area around the 2.2 km deep Lopra-1 well located on the Faeroe Islands. The techniques include vertical seismic profiling, walk-away vertical seismic profiling and refraction seismic profiling. Integration of these three different techniques, using a combined profiling method, makes it possible to overcome some of the problems arising from the large acoustic impedance contrasts and S-wave scattering which often exist in volcanic areas. The three seismic profiles show distinct compressional (P) and shear (S) energy arrivals. The direct S-wave is generated at basalt interfaces at or just below the sea bed and interferes in part with groundroll in the refraction recordings. The low noise activity before first arrival indicates the very high quality of the VSP data. The VSP and the walk-away VSP recordings show clear evidence of reflected P-waves, while reflected P-waves are more difficult to recognize on the surface recordings. The velocity through the basalt flows is shown to be dependent on the thickness of the basalt beds. Thick beds yield high velocities, while thin beds generate lower velocities. Velocity anisotropy is observed in the upper 700 m, probably resulting from cracks in the columnar basalt flows or from master joints. The seismic examination of the three profiles shows excellent interbasaltic reflections. A very strong reflector with a negative reflection coefficient is observed at a depth of c. 2.35 km and is interpreted to be the base of the basalt flows. Deeper reflections are interpreted as sills in the substratum of the basalt flows.


We derive multiple antenna transmission strategies in the presence of limited channel information at the transmitter and the receiver. In, particular, we look at the cases of complete channel information, channel phase information and channel amplitude information at the transmitter. We highlight that transmission along the eigenvector of the channel corresponding to the maximum eigenvalue minimizes error probability, when complete channel information is available at the transmitter. In the case where only the channel phase information is available at the transmitter, we derive the beamformer which minimizes the error probability. We also show that, in the presence of channel amplitude information at the transmitter without any phase information, selection diversity at the transmitter is the best beamforming strategy. We evaluate the penalty in SNR incurred by the transmission schemes in the case of limited channel information compared to the case of complete channel information at the transmitter.


We utilize a concatenation scheme to construct new families of quantum error correction codes
that include the Bacon-Shor codes. We show that our scheme can lead to asymptotically good
quantum codes while Bacon-Shor codes cannot. Further, the concatenation scheme allows us to
derive quantum LDPC codes of distance Ω(N2/3/loglogN) which can improve Hastings's recent
result [arXiv:2102.10030] by a polylogarithmic factor. Moreover, assisted by the Evra-Kaufman-
Zémor distance balancing construction, our concatenation scheme can yield quantum LDPC codes
with non-vanishing code rates and better minimum distance upper bound than the hypergraph
product quantum LDPC codes. Finally, we derive a family of fast encodable and decodable quan-
tum concatenated codes with parameters Q = [[N,Ω(√N),Ω(√N)]] and they also belong to the
Bacon-Shor codes. We show that Q can be encoded very efficiently by circuits of size O(N) and
depth O(√N), and can correct any adversarial error of weight up to half the minimum distance
bound in O(√N) time. To the best of our knowledge, they are the most powerful quantum codes
for correcting so many adversarial errors in sublinear time by far.


Conversational agents (e.g., chatbots, virtual agents) are becoming part of our everyday lives, from personal assistants, social companions to team support. In recent years, there has been a wave of research on this topic in both the HCI and AI communities, though the two communities approach the research and development of conversational agents with different foci and distinct methodologies. In this panel, we bring scholars in the HCI and AI communities together to share their perspectives and identify research topics that the two communities can collaborate on. We invite the CSCW community to reflect on the phenomena, challenges and research opportunities in human-agent communication, as well as the roles of agents in improving our personal, social and organizational lives.


Antibiotic lock therapy (ALT) – instillation of high concentrations of anti-microbial agent with or without anti-coagulant into the lumen of central venous catheters – is considered a valid conservative treatment for catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) in patients highly dependent on maintaining the catheter. Results from randomized controlled studies have indicated that the effectiveness of ALT is moderate, but recent findings from experimental studies and observational case series point to considerable efficacy and safety of this therapy, which is usually associated with concomitant systemic treatment. In this article, the current knowledge about ALT for patients with CRBSI is reviewed and discussed, with emphasis on existing controversies and the results obtained according to the various uses of the catheters and the etiologies of infection.


Drought-induced growth arrest is a major cause of yield loss in crops and is mediated in part by abscisic acid (ABA). The aim of this study was to identify the cell types targeted by ABA during arrest. As transcription factors ABI3 and ABI5 are essential for ABA-induced growth arrest in Arabidopsis, blast was used to identify OsVP1 and OsABF1 as their structural orthologues in rice (Oryza sativa), and employed RNA in situ hybridization to reveal the cell types accumulating the corresponding transcripts in response to ABA. Exogenous ABA arrested the growth of leaves 1, 2 and 3 in young rice shoots and inhibited secondary cell-wall formation in sclerenchyma, including expression of the cellulose synthase gene OsCesA9. Transcripts for OsVP1, OsABF1 and of the putative target genes OsEm, OsLEA3 and WSI18, increased under ABA, accumulating principally in the cytosol of the major support cells (sclerenchymatous cortical fiber cells and epidermal silica cells) of slowly growing leaf 1. Rapidly growing immature tissues in leaves 2 and 3 accumulated OsABF1, OsEm and WSI18 transcripts in the nuclei of all cells, irrespective of ABA treatment. It is concluded that during arrest of leaf growth, ABA targets support cells in maturing tissues. Target cells in immature tissues remain to be identified.


Pathological speech usually refers to the condition of speech distortion resulting from atypicalities in voice and/or in the articulatory mechanisms owing to disease, illness or other physical or biological insult to the production system. While automatic evaluation of speech intelligibility and quality could come in handy in these scenarios to assist in diagnosis and treatment design, the many sources and types of variability often make it a very challenging computational processing problem. In this work we design multiple subsystems to address different as-pects of pathological speech characteristics. These subsystems are then fused at the binary hard score level (intelligible or not intelligible) using Bayesian networks. Results show that subsystems, such as multiple language phoneme probability system, prosodic and intonational subsystem, and voice quality and pronunciation subsystem, have discriminating power for intelligibility (9.8%, 17.1%, 14.6% higher than by-chance respec-tively). Noisy-Majority based fusion shows 66.4% accuracy, but the performance improvement by fusion is not made. Also, voice clustering based joint classification is applied to minimize misclassification of the best subsystem, and it shows the best classification accuracy (79.9% on dev set, 76.8% on test set).


Forming groups of captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) is a common management practice. New formations of unfamiliar macaques can be costly, with high levels of trauma, particularly as intense aggression is used to establish a dominance hierarchy. Combining previous subgroups into one new group may be beneficial, as some individuals already have established dominance relationships. We tested this hypothesis by forming a new mixed-sex group of rhesus macaques that combined an established group of females with an established group of males. Prior to the mixed-sex group formation, both the female and male hierarchies had been stable for 3 y; after mixed-sex group formation these hierarchies were maintained by the females and were initially maintained by the males for 3 wks. However, the temporary hospitalization (due to a laceration caused by aggression) of the alpha male destabilized the male hierarchy. Age and weight then predicted male rank. Temporary hospitalizations resulted in rank changes for the males, evidenced by reversals in subordination signals. Thisstudy indicates that using established groups of familiar individuals may maintain female hierarchical stability in a mixed-sex group formation, but further research is needed to understand how to maintain and predict male hierarchical stability to reduce trauma. Improved knowledge of hierarchical stability would be invaluable to managers of large rhesus macaque groups and would help improve the welfare of captive rhesus macaques.


: The mechanism of action of exodeoxyribonuclease from rat brain predominantly localized in neuronal nuclei was studied. The enzyme which is highly specific towards one-chain DNA can effectively hydrolyze the two-chain DNA of plasmid pBR 322 "activated" by the disruption of the phosphodiester bond in one chain. A kinetic analysis of DNA hydrolysis with a tritium label evenly distributed along the DNA molecule and terminally labeled with phosphate revealed that the enzyme hydrolyzes polynucleotides from the 5'-to the 3'-end via a partially processive mechanism.


As primary navigational mean, Electronic Chart Display and Information System became an inevitable tool and decision-making assistance. ECDIS implementation entails several issues, ranging from proper understanding, education, training, handling and acceptance of this, still relatively new, technology. The navigational tool has changed, however traditional navigational skills remain, or at least, they should sustain. ECDIS EHO is an education-based research project with comprehensive and multidisciplinary ECDIS analyses at different levels, focusing on proper education and training, knowledge required for safe navigation conducting, and all other maritime segments which have found their place in the ECDIS system. Among other objectives, the tendency is to create solid interaction with ECDIS end-users, i.e. officers of the navigational watch. One of the research activities is an international survey questionnaire placed among seafarers forming the part of the navigational watch, ranging from deck cadets to pilots. The survey is focused on OOWs on ECDIS and paperless vessels, containing questions regarding experience, system handling and operation, knowledge, as well as mariners' opinion. It refers specially to mandatory carriage requirements and possible decommissioning of traditional paper charts which, in fact, represent traditional navigation as such. The proposed paper elaborates question concerning one of the main safety parameters in the ECDIS system: the safety contour. Ways of settings the parameter are discussed, given that no clear regulations exist. The importance of this interactive parameter is underlined, because it represents safety of navigation in whole when sailing onboard paperless vessels in depth- restricted water areas. Answers were analysed and discussed, together with interviews with navigational officers, providing direct end- user feedback on the elaborated. Despite dedicating maritime education and training ashore, inadequate use of ECDIS contour had caused few significant accidents which are described and elaborated in this paper by using several marine accident investigation data bases. The summary of findings is pointed out in the concluding chapter, together with planned activities for the further research.


Sustainable tourism is a key function for socio-economic development in Italy. Identifying cultural heritage, environmental, landscape resources, processes and features is one of the most important strategies for sustainable and efficient urban planning and management. The Italian jurisdictional framework defines regional plans by means of specific laws that govern zoning procedures and regulations with operational guidelines and bounding conditions for urban planning. While urban and land development is the subject of several regionally mapped governing and zoning plans, tourism is often locally regulated, and a national tourism plan is still in a phase of initial implementation. As a result, spatially distributed regulatory and management information regarding the economic, social and cultural value of tourism at the country scale are not available. This research proposes and tests an experimental GIS methodology for mapping the touristic potential using open geo data developed by means of using a quantitative index. The spatial distribution of the presented tourism potential index is based on two main input parameters: landscape diversity and drive-time accessibility from a central mobility location. The first parameter defines the local attractiveness, the second the potential fruition of touristic resources. The Lazio Region, in central Italy, is selected as case study for its rich and heterogeneous landscape heritage, in most cases spread around its internal – not easily accessible – areas. Available geographic data are gathered and processed by means of spatial analysis techniques, in order to obtain numerical values, subsequently classified by GIS-based fuzzy logic measures. Results show a homogeneous map of index-based local destinations' attractiveness, based on easy understandable value-scale, that shall be used as a support decision and policy making tool.


We assessed the feasibility of tele-ophthalmology in a remote location, Tungyin, an island 200 km from Taiwan, which has no ophthalmologist. Screening for eye diseases was carried out among residents aged 40 years or more. A total of 113 subjects, approximately 31% of the whole population, were enrolled in the screening programme. Images were transmitted (via ADSL) to a retinal specialist in Taiwan for diagnosis. The average processing time, excluding the time for copying files, was 6.4 s (SD 2.1) per subject. Transmission took 60–90 s for most of the images (83%). The average time required to make a diagnosis for each subject, including data entry, was approximately 34 s (SD 18). In screening for retinopathy, the detection rate with digital imaging (8.8%) was two times higher than with indirect ophthalmoscopy (4.4%). In 12% of cases macular degeneration was identified, and in 6% there were mild or moderate problems with the optic disc. Community-based screening for four categories of eye disease was successfully demonstrated using store-and-forward tele-ophthalmology.


Aim of this study was to develop learning tools of mathematics by model of Experiencing, Applying, Cooperating, and Transferrin (REACT) which was valid and practical. Learning tools developed include syllabi, lesson plan, Student Worksheet, and the student book. The development refers to the Plomp models of development model of learning device, which consists of five phases, namely the initial investigation phase, the design phase, the phase of realization, evaluation and revision of the test phase. The research instruments used in this study were the validation sheet of learning tools, questionnaire sheet of student responses to the learning implementation, and questionnaire sheet of teacher responses to the learning tools. Validator assessment results indicate that the learning tools developed were valid with an average value for validation of syllabus, lesson plans, student worksheets, and the student book were 3.23 (good), 3.21 (good), 3.29 (very good), and 3.39 (very good), respectively. Field trials showed that the application of the learning tools developed was practical. A total of 82.40% of students responded positiv to the application of the learning tool in class, while the teacher assess that learning tool that is used with a value of 4.29 (good criteria)


Providing a complete description of modern tactical military communications and networks technology, this book systematically compares tactical military communications techniques with their commercial equivalents, pointing out similarities and differences. In particular it examines each layer of the protocol stack and shows how specific tactical and security requirements result in changes from the commercial approach. The author systematically leads readers through this complex topic, firstly providing background on the architectural approach upon which the analysis will be based, and then going into detail on tactical wireless communications and networking technologies and techniques.


Abstract: Quebec has been the site of the development of First Nations health determinants within the context of forced systemic racism within the Canadian mainstream medical healthcare system. The Cree Nation of Chisasibi has created alternative administrative health approaches and wellness practices through their Land Based Healing Program that addresses delivery service gaps in the current medical healthcare system. In this thesis, I examine the historical development of healthcare systems for English-speaking First Nations living in Quebec, while analysing how political legislation through the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement has transformed the Eeyou into practicing autonomous action towards health operations and wellness approaches. I analyse the importance of Eeyou teachings and healing methodologies practiced within the Land Based Program that are vital to providing optimal First Nations health and wellness in a way that the current mainstream medical healthcare systems cannot.
Keywords: systemic racism; healthcare systems and land based healing.


Reliable prediction of evaporative losses from reservoirs is an essential component of reservoir management and operation. Conventional models generally used for evaporation prediction have a number of drawbacks as they are based on several assumptions. A novel approach called the co-active neuro-fuzzy inference system (CANFIS) is proposed in this study for the modeling of evaporation from meteorological variables. CANFIS provides a center-weighted set rather than global weight sets for predictor–predictand relationship mapping and thus it can provide a higher prediction accuracy. In the present study, adjustments are made in the back-propagation algorithm of CANFIS for automatic updating of membership rules and further enhancement of its prediction accuracy. The predictive ability of the CANFIS model is validated with three well-established artificial intelligence (AI) models. Different statistical metrics are computed to investigate the prediction efficacy. The results reveal higher accuracy of the CANFIS model in predicting evaporation compared to the other AI models. CANFIS is found to be capable of modeling evaporation from mean temperature and relative humidity only, with a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.93, which is much higher than that of the other models. Furthermore, CANFIS improves the prediction accuracy by 9.2–55.4% compared to the other AI models.


Excellent progress has been made in recent years in synthesizing high quality natural sounding speech at bit rates as low as 8 kb/s. Rapidly increasing demand for speech transmission over digital radio channels requires that the bit rates be decreased even further—to 4 kb/s or lower. But, one is not able to achieve high quality speech at these low bit rates. Why? Low bit rate speech coders exploit auditory masking to mask the quantizing noise in the coded signal. The current models of auditory masking are valid only for relatively stationary segments, such as vowels, in the speech signal. Much of the distortions we heard in low bit rate coders are introduced during transitional segments, resulting from lack of psychophysical data on perception of such distortions. A human listener is able to detect such distortions in the coded version without comparing the coded version with the original. Why is it so? How does our hearing system know that the coded signal is distorted? Such questions must be answered be...


In Papua New Guinea (PNG), women's health is addressed by applying biomedical solutions which often ignore the complexity of women's histories, cultural contexts and lived experiences. The objective of this study was to examine adult and older women's perceptions of health and well-being to identify priority areas for public service interventions. Rapid ethnographic assessment was conducted in the Wosera district, a rural area of PNG from mid-2005 to early 2006, to examine the health concerns of women. Twenty-seven adult women and 10 older women participated in the study. Health was not limited to one aspect of a woman's life, such as their biology or maternal roles; it was also connected with the social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of women's daily existence. Participants also identified access to money and supportive interpersonal relationships as significant for good health. A disconnect was found to exist between women's understandings of good health and socio-political health policies in PNG, something likely to be repeated in health service delivery to different cultural groups across the Asia Pacific region. Health and development practitioners in PNG must become responsive to the complexity of women's social relationships and to issues relating to the context of women's empowerment in their programmes.


: A patient with "life-long" bleeding problems and thrombocythemia had normal results on routine coagulation and fibrinolysis tests, but platelet function tests, including bleeding time, platelet adhesiveness, aggregation, and uptake and release of labeled serotonin were markedly altered. In addition, several types of ultrastructural abnormalities not reported previously were observed in some of the patient's platelets. The relationship between thrombocythemia, platelet dysfunction, and abnormal morphology is discussed.


Prosopis juliflora, which is an alien tree species in Ethiopia, has invaded over 360,500 ha of land in the Afar region of the country and is threatening pastoral livelihoods. We conducted a contingent valuation study to assess rural households' willingness to contribute in cash and labor to mitigate P. juliflora invasion in three districts of Afar. Results show that about 84% of the respondents prefer an intervention involving complete eradication of P. juliflora. The lower and upper bound median willingness to contribute to this intervention were 9.97 and 13.42 USD/household/year in cash and 30 and 43 days/household/year in labor. Off-farm income and P. juliflora invasion levels on pasturelands are among the factors affecting willingness to contribute to the mitigation of P. juliflora invasion. Incentives to local people and having a proper institutional setup that involves local culture and institutions are important for mobilizing people on a voluntary basis for mitigation of P. juliflora invasion.


Establishing investor status is a precondition for substantive protections, and a key jurisdictional issue in arbitration, of investor–state disputes under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). This article argues that the differences in the ways the term "investment" is interpreted in arbitration under the ICSID Convention and in international commercial arbitration are to a large extent preserved in arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty. In ICSID arbitration, which preserves many elements of state sovereignty, tribunals have set a higher threshold for "investment." In international commercial arbitration, on the other hand, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) has interpreted the term more broadly, thus capturing more investor activities in the energy sector of the host states. Moreover, both types of arbitral procedure available under the Energy Charter Treaty continue to have their respective advantages and disadvantages. However, given the changing role of states in the global energy sector, this traditional divide may become less clear.


This thesis aims to contribute to the design and implementation of genre-based academic writing courses intended for learners of English in Taiwan by (a) examining the ways in which Taiwanese speakers of Chinese as a first language (both experienced and novice writers) typically structure texts, in both Chinese and English, in response to prompts intended to elicit one of four discourse modes (recount, argument, explanation and classification) and (b) comparing the structuring of their texts with (i) prototypes relating to each of the four discourse modes that are based on a sample of published academic articles, and (ii) texts written in English by experienced and novice writers who are speakers of English as a first language. In response to one of four prompts, each intended to elicit a different discourse mode, experienced and novice writers Taiwanese citizens whose first language is Chinese were asked to write texts of between 200 and 250 words. They produced 240 texts, of which 120 were written in Chinese and 120 in English. Analysis of these texts indicated that, in terms of both overall rhetorical structure (often referred to as 'schematic structure') and internal discourse structure (the occurrence and co-occurrence of particular discourse relations), the texts written in both Chinese and English by the experienced writers were (a) very similar to one another, and (b) also very similar to texts written in English by experienced writers for whom English is a first language. Although the structuring of the texts written by the novice writers was less consistent overall, the texts written in Chinese by these writers were structurally closer than were the texts written in English to (a) the texts written in both English and Chinese by the experienced writers, and (b) texts written in English by experienced writers of English for whom English is a first language. Furthermore, analysis of 60 texts (20 written in Chinese and 20 written in English by expert/ experienced Taiwanese writers and 20 written in English by New Zealand teachers for whom English was a first language) revealed a marked tendency, in all cases, towards simple linear or complex linear textual development, with cyclic development being evident in only one of the 60 texts. There is a widespread belief that experienced writers whose first language is Chinese and experienced writers whose first language is English tend to structure texts in very different ways. So far as the writers involved in this study are concerned, this would appear not to be the case. It may therefore be that the difficulty that learners of English in Taiwan often experience in relation to the structuring of texts in English has less to do with their cultural and linguistic heritage than it has to do with the complexities that are inevitably associated with attempts to structure texts in a language in which one has limited proficiency. If this is the case, it has implications for the ways in which genre-centered writing programs intended for learners of English in Taiwan are organized and implemented.


Background and Aims: We analyzed lung sounds intensity (LSI) of the patients with interstitial pneumonia (IP) and reported that the LSI was greater on the left lung base than the right. On the other hand, postural change of LSI was greater on the right lung base than on the left. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the postural difference and laterality of LSI in healthy subjects and compare them with those of IP patients. Methods: We evaluated LSI of five healthy volunteers. Lung sounds were recorded from bilateral low posterior chest wall in sitting, supine, prone and each lateral decubitus positions. LSI was analyzed by a sound spectrometer with lung sound analyzer LSA2018 (KenzMedico, Japan) as shown in sound-spectrogram (Fig. 1). Results: Postural difference of LSI was not significant among sitting, supine and prone positions, while LSI was greater on the left than the right in sitting and prone positions. As for lateral decubitus positions, LSI was greater on the dependent lung, i.e. greater on the left lung in the left lateral decubitus position and vice versa. (Fig. 2) The difference between left and right was significant only in the left lateral decubitus position. Postural difference was significant on the right lung but not on the left lung. These results showed that LSI was greater on the left than the right and postural change was greater on the right than the left lung. These results were almost identical to those observed in patients with IP. Conclusions: Postural changes and laterality of LSI in healthy subjects were almost the same as those of IP patients, i.e., LSI was greater on the left than the right and postural change was greater on the right than the left lung.


[1] The influence of wind stress, small-scale waves, and surface films on air-sea gas exchange at low to moderate wind speeds (<10 m s−1) is examined. Coincident observations of wind stress, heat transfer velocity, surface wave slope, and surface film enrichments were made in coastal and offshore waters south of Cape Cod, New England, in July 1997 as part of the NSF-CoOP Coastal Air-Sea Chemical Fluxes study. Gas transfer velocities have been extrapolated from aqueous heat transfer velocities derived from infrared imagery and direct covariance and bulk heat flux estimates. Gas transfer velocity is found to follow a quadratic relationship with wind speed, which accounts for ∼75–77% of the variance but which overpredicts transfer velocity in the presence of surface films. The dependence on wind stress as represented by the friction velocity is also nonlinear, reflecting a wave field-dependent transition between limiting transport regimes. In contrast, the dependence on mean square slope computed for the wave number range of 40–800 rad m−1 is found to be linear and in agreement with results from previous laboratory wind wave studies. The slope spectrum of the small-scale waves and the gas transfer velocity are attenuated in the presence of surface films. Observations over large-scale gradients of biological productivity and dissolved organic matter show that the reduction in slope and transfer velocity are more clearly correlated with surface film enrichments than with bulk organic matter concentrations. The mean square slope parameterization explains ∼89–95% of the observed variance in the data and does not overpredict transfer velocities where films are present. While the specific relationships between gas transfer velocity and wind speed or mean square slope vary slightly with the choice of Schmidt number exponent used to scale the heat transfer velocities to gas transfer velocities, the correlation of heat or gas transfer velocity with mean square slope is consistently better than with wind speed.


Determining the root cause of performance regression for microservices is challenging. The topological cascading performance implications among microservices hide the source of the problem. Additionally, the lack of knowledge about application phases can potentially lead to false-positive critical service detection. Service resource utilization is an imperfect proxy for application performance, potentially leading to false positives. Therefore, in this work, we propose a new performance testing framework that leverages hidden Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) kernel metrics to locate root causes of performance regression. The framework applies a systematic multi-level approach to analyze microservice performance without intrusive code instrumentation. First, the framework constructs an attributed graph with microservice requests, scores the services to identify the critical paths, and ranks the low-level metrics to highlight the root cause of performance regression. Through judiciously designed experiments, we evaluated the metric collection overhead, showing less than 18% more latency when the application is running across hosts and 9% within the same host. In addition, depending on the application, no overhead is experienced, while the state-of-the-art approach presented up to 1060% more latency. The microservice benchmark evaluation shows that MicroLens can successfully identify the set of root causes and that the causes vary when the application is running in different infrastructures.


This study examined gender, parents' job type and family size as determinants of academic performance of selected junior secondary school students in Ijebu-Ode Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested. The study was descriptive in nature using survey research design. Four hundred (400) students formed the sample of the study. The respondents were randomly selected from eight (8) Junior secondary schools from the study area. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection and it consisted of two (2) sections. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Multiple Regression analysis was used in analysing the hypotheses. Findings revealed that there was no significant relationship between gender and academic performance; parents' job type and students' academic performance, but students' academic performance is influenced by their family size which is the only predictor.Furthermore, there was no significant combined contributions of gender, parents' job type and family size to the prediction of academic performance. Based on the various findings, it was recommended among others that parents are advised to focus their attention on the education of their children irrespective of the number of children in the family. There must be collaborative partnerships between schools, parents and relevant stakeholders in providing quality education with the aim of achieving academic excellence.


This paper presents a probabilistic analysis of the recently introduced incremental light bundle adjustment method (iLBA) [6]. In iLBA, the observed 3D points are algebraically eliminated, resulting in a cost function with only the camera poses as variables, and an incremental smoothing technique is applied for efficiently processing incoming images. While we have already showed that compared to conventional bundle adjustment (BA), iLBA yields a significant improvement in computational complexity with similar levels of accuracy, the probabilistic properties of iLBA have not been analyzed thus far. In this paper we consider the probability distribution that corresponds to the iLBA cost function, and analyze how well it represents the true density of the camera poses given the image measurements. The latter can be exactly calculated in bundle adjustment (BA) by marginalizing out the 3D points from the joint distribution of camera poses and 3D points. We present a theoretical analysis of the differences in the way that LBA and BA use measurement information. Using indoor and outdoor datasets we show that the first two moments of the iLBA and the true probability distributions are very similar in practice.


We investigate the effect of different star formation histories (SFHs) on the relation between stellar mass (M-*) and star formation rate (SFR) using a sample of galaxies with reliable spectroscopic redshift z(spec) \textgreater 2 drawn from the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey (VUDS). We produce an extensive database of dusty model galaxies, calculated starting from a new library of single stellar population (SSPs) models, weighted by a set of 28 different star formation histories based on the Schmidt function, and characterized by different ratios of the gas infall timescale tau(infall) to the star formation efficiency nu. Dust extinction and re-emission were treated by means of the radiative transfer calculation. The spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting technique was performed by using GOSSIP+, a tool able to combine both photometric and spectroscopic information to extract the best value of the physical quantities of interest, and to consider the intergalactic medium (IGM) attenuation as a free parameter. We find that the main contribution to the scatter observed in the SFR-M-* plane is the possibility of choosing between different families of SFHs in the SED fitting procedure, while the redshift range plays a minor role. The majority of the galaxies, at all cosmic times, are best fit by models with SFHs characterized by a high tau(infall)/nu ratio. We discuss the reliability of a low percentage of dusty and highly star-forming galaxies in the context of their detection in the far infrared (FIR).


This article develops an index of trade barrier for 119 countries by using the tariff and the import data from TRAINS database of UNCTAD at 6-digit level of HS classifications. Bivariate as well as multivariate econometric models have been estimated to explain cross-country variations in the constructed trade barrier indices. The results show that cross-country variations in trade barrier indices are much influenced by variations in per capita income, population and literacy rate. This article considers Bangladesh as an example and finds that at disaggregated levels of commodity classification, there are significant differences among trade barrier indices across commodities and cross-country rankings of trade barrier indices are not necessarily consistent with the rankings of trade barrier indices in the cross-industry context.


Construction industry has been one of the most energy and material consuming industries in recent years. Environmental assessment of construction methods that includes energy consumption and emission release are important for implementation of improvement option to life cycle of construction. Despite the significant effect of selecting appropriate method on reducing amount of material, energy and emission, the studies often do not consider or incompletely model the environmental impact. The research has studied the energy consumption and carbon emission of two conventional and industrial methods of construction for concrete buildings: in-situ concrete and pre-cast concrete structural methods. This study has figured out how implementing precast concrete structure affects on environmental sustainability of the construction process. In addition the features of construction methods that can help the designer to achieve more sustainability have been assessed. The model developed to use the life cycle assessment (LCA) as a comprehensive sustainability methodology to quantify the environmental impact of several phases of building construction from extraction of raw materials to end of construction phase (cradle to gate). To investigate the environmental impact of each construction method two designed concrete structures with in-situ and precast elements modeled in building information modeling (BIM) and linked to the designed spread sheet. Extracted results indicated using the high strength concrete for precast concrete structure, just in construction periods, is an effective way that reduces energy consumption of process and decreases carbon dioxide but in manufacturing process precast concrete consumes more energy and emits more carbon to environment. In Recognition of different features of energy consumption, material use and emission release of proposed method of construction, assist the project team in better decision making from environmental impact point of view and enable designers to provide recommendations toward achieving sustainable construction methods. Review History: Received: 1 March 2015 Revised: 22 June 2016 Accepted: 2 August 2016 Available Online: 5 November 2016


We evaluate sources of business cycle fluctuations in China after 1978 with business cycle accounting method developed by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2007). We find that efficiency wedge, which represents institutional change and technology advance, was the main source of economic fluctuations in 1978 - 2006. The amplitude of it fluctuation declined after 1992, which resulted in moderation of business cycle fluctuations. We also find that distortions manifest themselves as taxes on investment, which represents frictions in the capital market, became another economic fluctuation source after 1992, which is different from results of business cycle accounting on US and Japan data. Our results also show that government consumption and net exports played minor roles in generating business cycles. Our results point out several promising directions for future research on China's business cycle.