A metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor memory device using nanocrystalline Si (nc-Si) dots as a floating gate over a short and narrow channel has been fabricated. Its operation at 77 K presents experimental evidence of storing and ejection of electrons associated with the nc-Si dot in the active area of the device. Though the lifetime of a single electron is apparently longer than the case when it is associated with another electron in the same nc-Si dot, a distribution in lifetime has been generally observed for the stored electrons in the nc-Si dots with the present memory devices.


The thesis examines the doctrines of freedom and immortality as they are found in the works of Ian Thomas Ramsey and Austin Marsden Farrer. Chapters I and IV provide the background' to the work of Dr .Ramsey and Dr. Ferrer respectively. The background is examined in both its historical and philosophical perspectives in order not only to trace the influences behind the works of these two sholars but also to set their work in the wider intellectual scene. Chapters II and III trace the development of the writings of I. T. Ramsey on these subjects up to the delivery of his Forwood lectures on Freedom and Immortality in 1957 while chapter III examines his work from 1957 until his death in 1972. Chapters V and VI repeat the process for the works of A. M. Farrer, chapter V examining his work up to the delivery of his Gifford Lectures on the Freedom of the Will in 1957 while chapter VI examines his work from 1957 until his death in 1968. Thus, not only are we enabled to see the contribution of each of the se scholars in relation to each other and to the wider contemporary intellectual scene but we are enabled also to trace the development of their thoughts on these subjects with regard to their own intellectual development. The thesis traces their reactions to the restatement in the mid-years of this century of the two hundred year old challenge of David Hume to theology and metaphysics. Such an examination of different approaches of Christian, apologetic to a common problem may therefore suggest a way forward for a renewed; apologetic in the face of a radically secularised society, which takes account of both the methods and results of scientific: enquiry but which nevertheless does not compromise the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith and which provides a significant place for theology and metaphysics in the intellectual schema.


A metapopulation consists of several subpopulations that show limited degree of internal regulation, and are not viable alone in the long term. Instead, each subpopulation is sustained over time by migration and re-colonization from nearby subpopulations. Here, I test for internal regulation in populations of the freshwater crustacean Lepidurus arcticus, commonly found throughout the Arctic, and also alpine areas of mainland Norway. A survey of Arctic populations situated at Bear Island and mainland Norwegian populations situated in the Dovre area revealed a correspondence between distance between habitat patches and frequency of occurrence. The life-history and distribution pattern of L. arcticus, with highly ephemeral populations in fragmented habitats accordingly suggest this as a candidate species for displaying metapopulation structure. First, the occurrence of L. arcticus on Bear Island and Dovre was analyzed. Then, temperature and mass scaling functions where parameterized using a laboratory set-up. A field experiment was conducted to test for density-dependent growth. Finally, growth rate and density was compared among natural populations to test if population density or growth rate was affected by system productivity, or if eventual density effects on growth was modified by productivity. L. arcticus was more widespread at Bear Island than on Dovre. Somatic growth increased with temperature, and L. arcticus showed density-dependent growth in the field experiment. Neither population density nor system productivity was found to affect growth in the natural populations, but system productivity was positively correlated with population density. Density-dependent growth under experimental conditions, together with the correlation between system productivity and population density show support for internal regulation. The results suggest that the difference between Bear Island and mainland Norway are likely due to environmental factors, not a metapopulation structure.


This brief provides an overview of the trafficking of women and children into the Australian sex industry in the context of the global trade in people trafficking. It examines why there have been no prosecutions of traffickers under existing Commonwealth laws. It explains how Australia's emphasis on border control is working against the prosecution of traffickers and the human rights of trafficking victims and explains how existing Australian policy and law will need to change to meet the new internationally agreed standards to punish traffickers and support victims under the UN Trafficking Protocol.


It is widely accepted now that a patient's right to refuse treatment extends to circumstances in which the exercise of that right may lead to the patient's death. However, it is also often effectively assumed, without argument, that this implies a patient's right to request another agent to intervene so as to bring about his or her death, in a way which would render that agent guilty of murder in the absence of such a request. But the right to refuse treatment can, logically, have no such implication, and the mistaken supposition that it does conflates a right to die with a right to be killed. Confusion over this issue is brought out by an examination of conflicting opinion concerning the permissible termination of ventilation for mentally competent patients. A wider lesson may be drawn regarding the need for the ethical assessment of new forms of life-sustaining medical technology.


We present a formal methodology for the integration of optical flow and deformable models. The optical flow constraint equation provides a non-holonomic constraint on the motion of the deformable model. In this augmented system, forces computed from edges and optical flow are used simultaneously. When this dynamic system is solved, a model-based least-squares solution for the optical flow is obtained and improved estimation results are achieved. The use of a 3-D model reduces or eliminates problems associated with optical flow computation. This approach instantiates a general methodology for treating visual cues as constraints on deformable models. We apply this framework to human face shape and motion estimation. Our 3-D deformable face model uses a small number of parameters to describe a rich variety of face shapes and facial expressions. We present experiments in extracting the shape and motion of a face from image sequences.


Driver celeration (speed change) behavior of bus drivers measured a number of times was used to predict their culpable accidents over increasing time periods. It was found that predictive power was considerable (>.30 correlation) over 5 years of time with aggregated celeration (mean of repeated measurements) as independent variables, and there were also indications that power reached even further, although too low Ns made these results unreliable. Similarly, there were indications of even stronger correlations with increased aggregation of celeration values. The results were discussed in terms of the methodology needed to bring out such results, and the stability of accident-causing behavior over time.


Abstract Childhood peer acceptance is associated with high levels of prosocial behavior and advanced perspective taking skills. Yet, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these associations have not been studied. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of sharing decisions in a group of adolescents who had a stable accepted status (n = 27) and a group who had a chronic rejected status (n = 19) across six elementary school grades. Both groups of adolescents played three allocation games in which they could share money with strangers with varying costs and profits to them and the other person. Stably accepted adolescents were more likely to share their money with unknown others than chronically rejected adolescents when sharing was not costly. Neuroimaging analyses showed that stably accepted adolescents, compared to chronically rejected adolescents, exhibited higher levels of activation in the temporo‐parietal junction, posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal pole, pre‐supplementary motor area, and anterior insula during costly sharing decisions. These findings demonstrate that stable peer acceptance across childhood is associated with heightened activity in brain regions previously linked to perspective taking and the detection of social norm violations during adolescence, and thereby provide insight into processes underlying the widely established links between peer acceptance and prosocial behavior.


This paper discusses the Washington Consensus, its origins, and its insights in terms of subsequent development experience in a broad range of countries. I continue to find that when properly interpreted as a guide to the formulation of country-specific development strategies, the Washington Consensus has withstood the test of time quite well. In my view, subsequent experience, especially in Asia, reveals a number of places where a shift in emphasis would be warranted. Finally, I try to identify some misuses of the Washington Consensus and suggest that it was vulnerable to misuse due to the absence of an accompanying and explicit development model.


Video captioning is a task of automatically generating the natural text description of a given video. There are two main challenges in video captioning under the context of an encoder-decoder framework: 1) How to model the sequential information; 2) How to combine the modalities including video and text. For challenge 1), the recurrent neural networks (RNNs) based methods are cur-rently the most common approaches for learning temporal representations of videos, while they suffer from a high computational cost. For challenge 2), the features of different modalities are often roughly concatenated together without insightful discussion. In this paper, we introduce a novel video captioning framework, i.e., Two-View Transformer (TVT). TVT comprises of a backbone of Transformer network for sequential representation and two types of fusion blocks in decoder layers for combining different modalities effectively. Empirical study shows that our TVT model outper-forms the state-of-the-art methods on the MSVD dataset and achieves a competitive performance on the MSR-VTT dataset under four common metrics.


Noting the role of power in the context of the globalisation politics of increasing consolidation of resources in the hands of the resource-rich, this article advances the culture-centred approach for public relations scholarship and practice. Drawing from postcolonial and subaltern studies theories, the culture-centred approach advances the concepts of contextual meanings and theorising from below that dialogically engage the voices of the grassroots, resisting the top-down Eurocentric production of knowledge that underlies the conceptualisations of democracy, capitalism, and civil society, three key conceptual threads constituting the theorising and practice of public relations. Our culturally centred theorising calls for a journey in solidarity for the researcher/practitioner with marginalised publics to co-construct meanings that challenge the hegemony of dominant structures, seeking to invert the top-down logics of power that perpetuate neoliberal hegemony, albeit under the name of democracy promotion, nation building, civil society promotion, etc. Culturally centred readings of public relations de-centre the taken-for-granted assumptions of Eurocentric practices and the power embodied in these practices, which are often framed in the language of altruism. Espousing participatory research and practice rooted in the knowledge-producing capacity of the global margins, this article challenges the dominant paradigm of public relations and its corporate agenda through resistive strategies that work in collaboration with the margins, actively seeking to invert the agendas of power that are carried out by the practices of public relations. Power is resisted through the participation of subaltern communities in discursive spaces that have served as and continue to serve as instruments of subaltern oppression.


Gamification can be seen as the intentional use of game design elements in non-game tasks, in order to produce psychological outcomes likely to influence behaviour and/or performance. In this respect, we hypothesize that gamification would produce measurable effects on user performance, that this positive impact would be mediated by specific motivational and attentional processes such as flow and that gamification would moderate the social comparison process. In three experimental studies, we examine the effects of gamified electronic brainstorming interfaces on fluency, uniqueness and flow. The first study mainly focuses on time pressure, the second on performance standard and the third one introduces social comparison. The results highlight some effects of the gamified conditions on brainstorming performance, but no or negative effects on flow. All three studies are congruent in that gamification did not occur as a psychological process, which questions popular design trends observed in a number of sectors.


Many organizations specify information release policies to describe the terms under which sensitive information may be released to other organizations. This paper presents a new approach for ensuring that security-critical software correctly enforces its information release policy. Our approach has two parts. First, an information release policy is specified as a security automaton written in a new language called AIR. Second, we enforce an AIR policy by translating it into an API for programs written in LAIR, a core formalism for a functional programming language. LAIR uses a novel combination of dependent, affine, and singleton types to ensure that the API is used correctly. As a consequence we can certify that programs written in LAIR meet the requirements of the original AIR policy specification.


Abstract Design management has evolved from the simple view as the management of design projects and processes, to include more upstream responsibilities and skills, at the intersection of design and strategic management. Recent literature highlights the role of design in leading and shaping company strategy, conceiving new business models, and in driving organizational change and renewal. Yet existing tools and frameworks for assessing design management capabilities fall short in catching up with the transition that has been undergoing in the ways design is utilized and managed inside organizations. This paper presents a new Design Management Audit Framework that aims to fill the gaps in existing tools by incorporating new capabilities that are increasingly emphasized by the emerging design, design management and strategic management literature. The tool also seeks to provide an answer to the question: "What are the new capabilities to be integrated into design management practices of our future economies?"


This study examined and compared the nutritional quality and degree of naturalness between baby biscuits (<3 years), children biscuits (>3 years), and adult biscuits. Mintel's Global New Products Database was searched for "Baby Biscuits & Rusks" and "Sweet Biscuits/Cookies" (re)launched between July 2019 and July 2022 in four European countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom), which resulted in 1280 products to be analyzed. Nutritional quality was measured by means of nutrient values per 100 g, and baby biscuits were assessed for compliance with the World Health Organization's latest Nutrient and Promotion Profile Model (NPPM). Degree of naturalness was measured using the food naturalness index (FNI). Baby biscuits had the best nutritional quality and were the most natural as compared to children and adult biscuits, but their energy density and sugar content require further attention. Nutritional quality was comparably poor in children and adult biscuits, and children biscuits were the least natural of the three groups. The NPPM requirements of not adding any free sugar at all to baby biscuits may drive parents to purchase alternative sweeter biscuits originally formulated and meant for children and adults. Reasonable regulations are needed to support product (re)formulations and to improve the current market food offer for babies and children.


The present study was aimed to investigate oxidative stress, DNA damage, and histopatholog- ical alterations in hepatic tissues of splenectomized Wistar rats experimentally infected with Ba- besia bigemina. Rats were challenged with 5x106 infected erythrocytes. Babesia infection was con- firmed both with Giemsa's staining blood smears and nested-PCR amplified region of apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA-1) gene. Parasitemia reached approximately 10 % at day 5 post-in- fection. Livers of infected rats were enlarged and darker in color, became extremely brittle with marked congestion. Microscopic evaluation showed cytoplasmic clearing of hepatocytes and se- vere hydropic changes with significantly dilated sinusoids containing macrophages and also intra- sinosoidal parasitized erythrocytes. Severe infiltration of lymphoplasma cells was also present throughout the liver parenchyma. Furthermore, Kupffer cells were enlarged and, occasionally, containing Babesia-parasitized erythrocytes. The activity of Glutathione (GSH) and catalase (CAT), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were also significantly decreased (p ⟨ 0.05) after infection of rats with B. bigemina. B. bigemina infection also induced a significant increase (p ⟨ 0.05) in hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide-derived products (NOx) concentra- tions as well as amount of endogenous hepatocytes DNA damage. Hepatic damage was also re- flected through the measurement of lactic acid dehydrogenase (LDH) and protein carbonyl con- tent (PCO) in liver cells. These two indices of liver injury were also significantly elevated (p ⟨ 0.5) during B. bigemina infection. Evaluation of correlation between assayed variables in infected rats revealed that MDA levels were positively correlated with PCO, NOx, LDH and DNA damage in the infected group and negatively correlated with GSH, CAT and TAC. There was also an inverse relationship between the antioxidant enzymes activities of GSH, CAT and TAC with PCO, NOx and DNA damage in infected rats. However, NOx showed positive correlation with PCO and DNA damage in infected rats. On the basis of the above results it can be concluded that the Ba- besia infection increases oxidative stress markers, protein carbonyl content and DNA damage and decreases antioxidant enzymes activities in the liver. These results suggest that B. bigemina infec- tion could alter the liver histopathology and causes DNA damage following oxidative stress in hepatic tissue. Further studies are needed to precisely define how hepatic tissue damage takes place in B. bigemina infection.


In all my papers I try to prove just one idea, that The solar planets data are created depending on each other, that because the solar group is one machine or one body. The idea simply tells us that, the solar planets data are found based on a geometrical structure connects all solar planets together, that's why any solar planet data depends on others'… For example, if we found 3 angles their total =180 degrees we may conclude that these 3 angles are triangle angles… Similar to that …. I found 687 days (Mars orbital period) = 365.25 days (Earth orbital period) x 1.9 (Mars orbital inclination = 1.9 degrees) The previous relationship between Mars and Earth is considered as Pure coincidence by the current theories, but I try to prove that this relationship is found because there's a geometrical structure connects Earth with Mars and causes this relationship. Let's summarize the idea: -A geometrical structure connects and unifies all solar planets together to make the solar group as one body or one machine. And this geometrical structure causes each planet data to be created depending on other planets data which guarantees the planets motions harmony with each other. Now the idea is almost clear, but questions are needed to be solved..! 1-What's this geometrical structure which unifies the solar planets? 2-How this geometrical structure can be found? Let's start by answer the 2nd question: How this structure can be found? The solar group is created from one energy i.e. The solar planet matter is created from this Energy as the Equation (E=mc2) tells us, and the planet orbital distance is created also from this same Energy (my hypothesis), Let's see that in details… Suppose the Energy started her trajectory from the sun toward Mercury (this supposition is for explanation only because the Energy real trajectory is more complex) The Energy will build Mercury orbital distance (Distance =Energy) and then the same energy will build Mercury Matter (Matter = Energy), So Mercury diameter and Mass should be related to Mercury orbital distance Then the Energy causes Mercury motion, and then the Energy travels toward Venus, where in her trajectory will build Mercury Venus Distance, then will build Venus Matter, and causes Venus Motion to be in Harmony with Mercury Motion… etc So, how this geometrical structure can be found? By the Energy which creates the matter, distances and motions… this same energy needs geometrical structure to use all solar planets in one machine… So, the geometrical structure is a fact and necessity…..means, if the solar group is created from one Energy, that means there's a geometrical structure controls all these planets data … Now let's try to answer the 1st question… What's this geometrical structure, which unifies the solar planets? This is the hard question, I don't know yet this geometrical structure and I try to reach to him In fact I face real difficulties in my way…. basically because we don't know this geometrical structure rules.. For Example I found an Equation d2 = 4do(d-do) where d = Planet orbital distance do= Previous Planet orbital distance So, if we use Jupiter and Saturn orbital distances in the previous equation we'll find that it's correct Equation.. (in Fact there are 3 exceptions for this Equation) Any way the question is why? Why Jupiter and Saturn orbital distances follow the previous equation? It's a geometrical rule, but why this rule is found? No one can answer! Let's see another example The light with velocity c (=0.3mkm/sec) will travel a distance 2088 mkm (Jupiter Uranus distance) during 6939.75 seconds (but Metonic Cycle is 6939.75 days!) Also The light with velocity c (=0.3mkm/sec) will travel a distance 627 mkm (Jupiter Earth distance) during 2088 seconds This geometrical rule or feature I found frequently… The same value is used in time units and distance units!? This feature I found frequently in the solar group… why the same value is used in time and distance units?!! It's a geometrical rule but we don't know this rule and we don't understand its reason… In fact the solar group geometry is beyond our Geometry books I wish I explained my idea as clear as possible… In this paper I try to show and prove that, Metonic and Saros cycles harmony depends on the geometrical structure which unifies all solar planets. i.e. Metonic and Saros cycles harmony proves there's a geometrical structure which unifies all solar planets.


This paper is intended to give an insight in the development of PHEMT multifunction MMICs (MFC) in the millimetre wave frequency range. It applies to the fast growing Local Multipoint Distribution System (LMDS) market, offering a two-chip solution for the subscriber transceivers. The focus is on the up and down converter dedicated to the Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) at 28GHz. These two chips include a sub-harmonic mixer, a buffer amplifier for the local oscillator and a low noise amplifier used either as a LNA (for Rx) or transmit driver (for Tx). The design was oriented toward low chip-size in order to being able to reach the cost requirement for such systems. Results are shown from a demonstrator assembly built with these two MMICs MFCs.


Volunteering at community events could be associated with length of community tenure as residents with longer years of "tenure" might have a greater sense of community belonging, greater social capital (e.g. social networks and trust), and greater familiarity with regional cultures, compared to new residents. Using the Metro Atlanta Speaks survey conducted in 2015 and 2016, this study finds that residents' volunteering at community events is significantly and positively associated with their length of community tenure in metro Atlanta counties. Other sociodemographic characteristics, such as age, gender, education, income, and children in the household also significantly influence residents' volunteering at community events. Since metro Atlanta counties consist of both urban and rural counties, changes in sociodemographic characteristics are expected to influence community events volunteering in metro Atlanta and other similar metro or non-metro counties in the future, and necessitate focused efforts on raising volunteering rates to compensate for those changes.


CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) is an experiment probing hypothetical particles: the axions, created in the solar core. Inside the transverse magnetic field of the CAST magnet, axions can be converted into x-rays, and be detected by four x-ray detectors at CAST. The expected x-ray signal in CAST is in 1–10 keV range, intensity depending strongly on the coupling constant of axion-photon conversion gaγ, which is expected to be low. This requires CAST to have detectors with very low background levels. The CAST Experiment makes use of three Micromesh Gaseous Structure (micromegas) detectors, which are gaseous detectors, derived from ideas of Multiwire Proportional Chambers (MWPC). CAST Micromegas detectors show perfect stability, good spatial and energy resolution. The intense study on Micromegas has enabled CAST to understand the nature of its background level, and improve it by a factor of 102 over ten years. New detector design, new readout system, better cosmic veto and addition of x-ray telescope will further improve the background in the next data taking of the experiment. The Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) of CAST is a pn-CCD detector with 200 × 64 pixels. The CAST CCD is coupled to an X-ray telescope, focusing all the parallel x-rays into a 9 mm diameter spot. The CCD will be replaced by the InGrid detector, a special manufactured micromegas detector. It is able to detect single electrons, and the low energy capabilities will open new frontiers on search of axions and other exotic particles. Another option is the Silicon Drift Detector (SDD), which is being tested in 2013, and has an energy threshold as low as 250 eV. The CAST experiment is the pioneering helioscope that excludes an important part of axion mass-coupling constant parameter space, and expects to exclude more in the following years. To succeed CAST, a new experiment, the International AXion Observatory (IAXO) is being designed and optimised, comprising the construction of a magnet specially built for axion search as well as new detectors that will enable to improve the actual limits by 1–1.5 orders of magnitude.


In this paper, a new structure of 8-bit CMOS pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is proposed and analyzed. In order to achieve a high conversion rate, the proposed new structure adopts voltage-mode open-loop sampling circuit and current-mode circuits to perform subtraction, sub-DAC operation, and comparison. Due to current-mode subtraction operation, the closed-loop circuit can be avoided to improve the speed performance. Moreover, current steering sub-DAC is used to enhance the sub-DAC speed. From the simulation results on the demonstrative example, the proposed pipelined ADC architecture can achieve 8-bit accuracy with a sampling rate up to 71.4 MS/s when the input signal frequency is 10 MHz. The power dissipation of the pipelined ADC is 205 mW at the conversion rate of 71.4 MS/s with a single 3.3 V power supply and 1P5M 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS process. The proposed structure can reach a higher speed if the voltage-sampling delay is reduced.


Deficit syndrome (DS) in schizophrenia is characterized by serious, chronic, and primary negative symptoms. We investigated differences in response to neuroleptic treatment between 8 DS patients and 6 nondeficit syndrome (NDS) patients who had the selective dopamine-D2 receptor blocker bromperidol added to their neuroleptic regimens. First, 9 mg/d was administered for 4 weeks, followed by 18 mg/d for another 4 weeks. Plasma homovanillic acid (pHVA) and plasma bromperidol concentrations were measured, and psychiatric symptoms were scored. In the NDS patients, both positive and negative symptoms improved. However, only the positive symptom scores changed in the DS patients. On day 4, pHVA concentrations of the NDS patients alone were significantly elevated. Plasma bromperidol concentrations did not differ between the groups. These results suggest that bromperidol exerts different effects on negative symptoms and pHVA concentrations between NDS and DS patients, effects that are unrelated to plasma bromperidol concentrations.


This paper presents a cost-effective area-IO DRAM (aDRAM)/logic integration implemented with CLC (chip-laminate-chip)-based system-in-a-package (SiP) technology. By inserting 512 area-IOs into the area-IO DRAM, the bandwidth of the area-IO DRAM can achieve 10GB/s when working under 166MHz. An interface module with configurable IO width was also developed to make this implementation platform able to be adapted by various applications. A performance analysis, including bandwidth and power is also presented in this paper. It is demonstrated that area-IO DRAM/logic integration with SiP technology provides significant cost-effective implementation methodology compared with embedded DRAM and off-chip DRAM.


Vaginal secretion sampling in young patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether different instrumental tools (the classical cotton swab, the urethral cotton swab, the balloon shape cotton swab and cyto-brush) yield different sampling success in young patients presenting with suspected vulvovaginitis. The study was conducted in a randomised prospective way on 100 children with symptoms of vulvovaginal infection (age range: 4 months -8 years ) seen at the Clinic of Paediatric Gynaecology of the Department of Obstetric and Gynaecology, "V.Buzzi" Children's Hospital, Milano (Italy). Children's compliance and the number of samples which had to be discontinued, because of children's intolerance have allowed the evaluation of each tools. Each of these tools was tested on 25 young patients. The vaginal secretion sampling was not possible on 8 patients out of 25 with cyto-brush (32%), on 7 out of 25 with the balloon shape cotton swab (28%), on 4 out of 25 with the classical cotton swab (16%) and only 1 out of 25 with the urethral cotton swab (4%). In conclusion all the instruments tested allow sampling of vaginal secretion in young children, but the reaction and compliance of the patients has been best with the otologic cotton swab.


Hyperthermia (HT) is a cancer treatment that utilizes a variety of heating methods to destroy cancerous tumors. A diversity of technical problems still exists regarding HT's different approaches, therapeutic potential, and evidence of effectiveness. The foremost problem is in generating and controlling heat in tumors to target cancer sites. The window of temperature for HT is between 42°C and 45°C, with the literature suggesting 43°C to be the ideal temperature for inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death). Normal cells undergo necrosis at higher temperatures than that of the specified range. To address control problems, various methods have been utilized to localize HT heating and limit its temperatures through various applicators, materials, and procedures. One method has been to implant various materials into the human body to heat tumors, a process known as Magnetic Hyperthermia (MH) as it uses magnetic nanoparticles (NP). This method is particularly useful for sending thermal energy to deep seated tumors by using ferro/ferri magnetic NP that absorb non-ionizing electromagnetic (EM) fields delivered into the human body externally. These NP have been shown to heat surrounding tissue until they reach a Curie temperature (Tc ) at which generated heat is minimized (many thermodynamic properties change at Tc , such as dielectric, elastic, optical and thermal properties. Fabricated NP, due to spontaneous polarization, can heat via hysteresis losses under applied EM fields making them candidates for testing in (EM) HT systems. Various ferro- and ferromagnetic materials have been studied extensively by this group (e.g.: Ni-Cu, Ni-Co, Ni-Cr, Er, Ce, Gd, and their alloys, etc.) as candidates for HT due to their production of heat through hysteresis or magnetic spin mechanisms. With the use of these nanoparticle systems, the focus of this paper is to produce analysis of heat generation through electromagnetic energy conversion for magnetic hyperthermia cancer treatment and to investigate the heat transfer and heat generation of magnetic NP due to temperature rise upon application of externally applied AC magnetic field. Both, polarization switching and inhomogenities affect polarization orientation within a crystal. Domain switching occurs in two steps: first, the domain nucleates at critical level of applied EM field; second, the interface between the two domains propagates. Particles moving across the interface transform from one domain type to another, which leads to a release of energy in the form of heat. This, in turn, leads to a temperature rise at the interface.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


Widely varying accounts of how people categorize new instances have been advanced in recent years. It is argued that identification and evaluation of a product are fundamentally intertwined and are outcomes of a process intended both to provide meaning and to facilitate a readiness to respond. The various alternative models of the categorization process are reviewed with an emphasis on the use of concrete category exemplars as opposed to category-defining rules and prototypes (feature-based processes). A contingency-based ''mixed model'' is presented that incorporates the effects of category learning and task-related factors likely to be important in categorization occurrences similar to those faced by consumers. This contingency processing formulation stresses the flexibility of the information processing system in its response to important contextual factors. Finally, research paradigms are introduced that are designed to examine the effects of contingent processing factors on the categorization processes used by the individual.


Introduction And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. (1) --Gerard Manley Hopkins On a hot August Sunday in 2006, the minister at St. Paul's Cathedral began his message with a quotation from a young man he had been counseling: "Modern life is trash." In the ensuing sermon he enumerated the reasons underlying this observation: environmental pollution, war, poverty, boredom, sexual excess, addiction, alienation, loneliness--a sad list that could go further. But he also talked about the alleviation of these woes. In love, in creative problem solving, in the freedom to make moral choices lie the means by which this despondent young man, and indeed all of us, can approach, clean up, and clear away the trash of modern life. In Man's Search for Meaning psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, too, deals with the discouraging perception that "modern life is trash," diagnosing the present malaise of humankind as an "existential vacuum," a sense of meaninglessness. Like St. Paul's minister, Frankl suggests help for the ailment: creativity, love, and the freedom of moral choice. Whether acknowledged or not, all of these are reflections of God, of a higher way--or what Frankl calls "another dimension, ... the capacity to rise above conditions." (2) But how and where is help to be sought and found if God Himself seems absent, thus compounding the perceived emptiness and lack of meaning? This feeling that God is absent manifests itself in literature by a shift from a recognized spiritual dimension to one that focused primarily on the social--often approaching a narcissistic self-absorption. After Milton's 1667 publication of Paradise Lost with its lofty intent "to justify the ways of God to men," an age of satire ensued, with the aim of bringing about social reform by using a metaphorical mirror to reflect and illuminate the foibles of humankind, often with the hope of reform but sometimes with the fatalistic view that humankind is beyond redemption. This shift in focus from considering the mind of God to contemporary social ills resulted in a body of poetry wherein God largely disappears from the scene--a reflection of a shifting scientific and philosophical bent towards empirical verification of "truth" and a skeptical view of faith and mystery. This skepticism may be traced as least as far back as the sixteenth century when attempts were made to explain everything in rational, even mechanist terms, referring to God as watchmaker or Supreme Engineer, who had set the universe in order but did not concern Himself with ordinary human activity. Later Rene Descartes also advocated a spirit of skepticism: "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." Even when the American colonists maintained in their Declaration of Independence that God human beings were created equal and had been endowed inalienable rights, there is no acknowledgment of His participation in ordinary life. Thus, in the eighteenth century, God is most often conspicuous by His absence from the poetic vision, with a resulting sense of meaninglessness, at times approaching despair. Yet this emerging modern and postmodern perspective is not entirely bleak or vacuous; for some writers celebrate God's presence and the resulting creativity, love, and freedom. There is an irrepressible spirit that haunts the human mind and remains dissatisfied with the myth of a totally absent God. Therein lies the hope for informing global conflict with what Frankl has termed "a tragic optimism"--an outlook that opposes the "existential vacuum" of the times, looking outward on a bleak world with hope for its redemption. (3) We find both this optimism and this malaise in the poetic vision, which provides us with an honest reflection of who are are--warts and all--but also provides a vision of who we might be, with potential to participate in sainthood. …


Purpose:To investigate the relationship between the optic disc appearance and the progression of visual field defects in eyes with normal tension glaucoma (NTG). Methods:Two hundred nine patients with NTG, who were being treated with topical antiglaucoma drugs and had been followed for at least 3 years, were studied. The baseline optic disc appearance was classified into 4 types: focal ischemic (FI), myopic glaucomatous (MY), senile sclerotic (SS), and generalized cup enlargement (GE). The progression of the NTG was assessed by the slope of the mean deviations (MDs) obtained from the visual field results collected during the follow-up examinations. The baseline and mean intraocular pressures (IOPs) were also followed. Results:Twenty-seven patients were placed in the FI group, 63 into the MY group, 24 into the SS group, and 43 into the GE group. Fifty-two patients (24.9%) could not be classified. There were no significant differences in the percentage reduction of the IOP among the 4 groups. The MD slope in the GE group (−0.51±0.74 dB/y) was significantly steeper than that in the other groups. Regression analyses showed that the factors most associated with the MD slope were the age in the FI (r, −0.495) and the GE (r=0.496) groups, and the relative reduction of the IOP (r=0.413) in the SS group. None of the factors in the MY group was significantly associated with the MD slope. Conclusions:The rate of progression of the field defects, the MD slope, in patients with NTG is possibly dependent on the baseline optic disc appearance. Thus, the optic disc appearance may be useful for the management of patients with NTG.


The effectiveness, for text-dependent speaker verification, of orthogonal instantaneous and transitional feature parameters of speech is investigated. Instantaneous spectral features are represented by cepstral coefficients obtained through a linear prediction analysis of speech. Transitional spectral information is characterised using differential cepstral coefficients. Sets of orthogonal parameters are obtained by applying an eigenvector analysis to instantaneous and transitional feature coefficients. The experimental work is based on the use of a subset of the BT Millar speech database, consisting of repetitions of isolated digit utterances 1 to 9 and zero spoken by twenty male speakers. The investigation includes an examination of the relative speaker discrimination abilities of the above two types of orthogonal feature parameters. It is shown experimentally that the equal error rate in verification can be reduced significantly by forming a spectral distance based on a combination of orthogonal instantaneous and transitional feature parameters. It is further demonstrated that, when the input utterance consists of a sequence of five digits, an equal error rate of less than 0.5% can be achieved.


Abstract In this paper the development and flight testing of flapping-wing propelled, radio-controlled micro air vehicles are described. The unconventional vehicles consist of a low aspect ratio fixed-wing with a trailing pair of higher aspect ratio flapping wings which flap in counterphase. The symmetric flapping-wing pair provides a mechanically and aerodynamically balanced platform, increases efficiency by emulating flight in ground effect, and suppresses stall over the main wing by entraining flow. The models weigh as little as 11g, with a 23cm span and 18cm length and will fly for about 20 minutes on a rechargeable battery. Stable flight at speeds between 2 and 5ms–1 has been demonstrated, and the models are essentially stall-proof while under power. The static-thrust figure of merit for the device is 60% higher than propellers with a similar scale and disk loading.


A simulation study was conducted to investigate the retrieval of meso-γ scale precipitable water vapor (PWV) distribution with the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) using output from a non-hydrostatic model (JMA NHM). The evaluation was performed on PWV values obtained by simulating three different methods: using all GPS satellites above an elevation angle higher than 10° (PWVG) (conventional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) meteorology method), using only the QZSS satellite at the highest elevation (PWVQ), and using only the GPS satellite at the highest elevation (PWVHG). The three methods were compared by assuming the vertically integrated water vapor amounts of the model as true PWV. As a result, the root mean square errors of PWVG, PWVQ, and PWVHG were 2.78, 0.13, and 0.59 mm, respectively, 5 min before the rainfall. The time series of PWVHG had a large discontinuity (~ 2 mm) when the GPS satellite with the highest elevation changed, while that of PWVQ was small because the elevation at which the highest QZSS satellites change was much higher. The standard deviation of PWVQ was smaller than those of PWVG and PWVHG, which vary significantly depending on GPS satellite geometry. When the spatial distributions of PWVG and PWVQ were compared to the meso-γ scale distribution of the reference PWV, PWVG smoothed out the PWV fluctuations, whereas PWVQ captured them well, due to the higher spatial resolution achievable using only high-elevation slant paths. These results suggest that meso-γ scale water vapor fluc tuations associated with a thunderstorm can be retrieved using a dense GNSS receiver network and analyzing PWV from a single high-elevation GNSS satellite. In this study, we focus on QZSS, since this constellation would be especially promising in this context, and it would provide nearly continuous PWV observations as its highest satellite changes, contrary to using the highest satellites from multiple GNSS constellations.


Effective education at the tertiary level is one of the key conditions for the development of modern economies; it also has a substantial impact on social development. Nowadays, higher education institutions all over the world are facing numerous challenges, some of them global (e.g. funding), others local (e.g. demographic trends). Universities are seeking new ways of dealing with the challenges; however, they often resort to methods that seem to do more harm than good by moving the emphasis from long-term objectives to short-term ones. In marketing literature, a new concept of Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) is proposed as an alternative approach to traditional and outdated marketing theories applied to the higher education sector. Its foundational premise of value co-creation seems to be of particular relevance here as it assumes that various groups of actors jointly create the academic experience. This paper focuses on the higher education sector in Poland and investigates the attitudes of Polish students towards value co-creation and their consequences for the academic experience. The study leads to the identification of value co-creation styles among students reflected by five segments: Maximalists, Minimalists, the Scrupulous, the Networking-Oriented and the Intellectuals and presents their detailed characteristics.


This article characterises national preferences of the EU Member States in previous negotiations on the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and analyses them in the context of both budget negotiations for the 2021-27 period and the future of the European integration. It has been concluded that the EU Member States preferences concerning the shape and size of the EU budget after 2020 will remain differentiated. The changing balance of payments and receipts to and from the EU budget will determine how the EU Member States assess the need to finance specific measures and actions at the EU level. Recent EU budget beneficiaries, currently on the path to reach the level of wealth of the net payers, will join the group of countries wishing to freeze the EU budget. The worsening budgetary position of many net payers will also probably strengthen their reluctance to continue financing the EU activities. The growing Euroscepticism of European societies will certainly hamper negotiations directed towards increasing the effectiveness of the EU budget. As a result, political conditions and social preferences will build up the pressure to reduce the EU budget in the future. Also, it is hard to expect any significant transformation in the structure of the EU spending in the years to come. On the one hand, Member States recognise the importance of new funding priorities (e.g. to deal with new threats), on the other, they are against increasing the EU budget. Therefore, the scenario of financing new priorities, basically from national budgets, is quite possible. This, in the longer term, will negatively affect the position and role of the EU in the world.


A novel, Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped yellow bacterium, designated VBW088(T) was isolated from a shallow water hydrothermal vent in Espalamaca in the Azores. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain VBW088(T) clustered with three type strains of species of the genus Vitellibacter and exhibited a sequence similarity of 97.3 % with Vitellibacter soesokkakensis RSSK-12(T). However, strain VBW088(T) and V. soesokkakensis RSSK-12(T) exhibited low DNA-DNA relatedness (12.7±3.5 %). Strain VBW088(T) was positive for catalase and oxidase. Growth occurred at 10-37 °C, with the optimum at 30 °C, and at pH 6.0-8.0 (optimum pH 6.0) and in up to 5 % (w/v) NaCl with optimum growth at 1-2 % (w/v) NaCl. The major fatty acids (>10 %) were iso-C15 : 0 (33.5 %) and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH (32.0 %). The polar lipids detected in strain VBW088(T) consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, one unidentified aminolipid and three unidentified phospholipids. The DNA G+C content of strain VBW088(T) was 36.7 mol%. On the basis of phylogenetic inference, DNA-DNA relatedness, chemotaxonomic analysis and physiological data, the isolate represents a novel species of the genus Vitellibacter, for which the name Vitellibacter nionensis sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain as VBW088(T) ( = KCTC 32420(T) = MCC 2354(T)).


This article seeks to examine the foreign policy behaviour of weak states in regions marked by politically turbulent geostrategic environments. An analysis of Afghanistan's foreign policy behaviour vis-à-vis Pakistan and India lends focus to this aim. India–Pakistan rivalry has gained traction as a key factor in determining Afghanistan's stability in the wake of the drawdown of Coalition forces. Missing from this debate, however, is consideration of Afghanistan's agency as a weak state with an independent set of policy preferences. Based on primary interviews with a diverse set of Afghan political actors the article outlines two competing policy advocacies: Pakistan friendly and Pakistan averse. The article argues that these advocacies are key to understanding Afghanistan's India–Pakistan dilemma. Departing from the ethnic lens used to explain Afghan politics and its regional linkages, this article shows that Kabul's relations with Islamabad determine its approach towards New Delhi regardless of ethnic rivalries. Understanding domestic Afghan narratives in this regional context is therefore imperative to adequately assess South Asia's prospective security calculus.


A multipoint Routh gamma - delta canonical continued-fraction expansion for the transfer function of a linear system is derived. Based on this general form, a multifrequency Routh approximant to the system is derived by selecting the expansion points on the imaginary axis and truncating the resulting continued-fraction expansion. A connection between the stability preservation property of the multifrequency Routh approximants and the expansion points on the imaginary axis is established. Thus the multifrequency Routh approximation procedure is flexible in deriving stable reduced-order models while fitting the frequency responses and retaining the time moments and/or Markov parameters of the impulse response of the system.


The article presents the development of Business Chemistry at seven German and one Swiss universities. Besides highlighting the course of study in general and it's development, the respective universities present benefits but also specific challenges they had to face when introducing Business Chemistry. Followed by a short introduction of Business Chemistry itself, its development and the status quo, every university presented their individual perspectives on the course of study. Overall, the article should provide our readers with an overview of Business Chemistry and sensitize them for the differences in the study programs, even though the courses of study were developed in ac cordance with all respective universities.


The phylogenetic relationships within the iguanian lizard family Phrynosomatidae are inferred from diverse types of data (i.e., mitochondrial rDNA, osteology, coloration, scalation, karyology, and behavior). All 10 currently recognized genera (Callisaurus, Cophosaurus, Holbrookia, Petrosaurus, Phrynosoma, Sator, Sceloporus, Uma, Urosaurus, and Uta) are included in the phylogenetic analyses. The phylogenies inferred from the separate analyses of the DNA sequence data (779 bp; 162 informative characters; 40 species) and non-DNA data (155 informative characters; 59 species) share 26% (10) of their respective clades. Four of the congruent clades (i.e., sand lizards + Phrynosoma, Petrosaurus, Urosaurus, Uta) are strongly supported (-70% bootstrap) in both of the separate analyses while five others are strongly supported in only one, but not both, of the separate analyses. All conflicting hypotheses leading to the taxonomic incongruence (e.g., Sceloporus group interrelationships) are weakly supported (<70% bootstrap) in one or both of the separate analyses. Combining the DNA and non-DNA data for phylogenetic analysis results in a single shortest tree. Overall, the phylogeny from the combined analysis shares more clades in common with the hypotheses inferred from the separate DNA analysis (74%) than with the separate analysis of the non-DNA data (53%). The intergeneric relationships inferred from the combined analysis are more similar to recently published hypotheses based on morphological data, except the Sceloporus group is paraphyletic. Although phrynosomatid intergeneric relationships are well resolved by the combined analysis of the DNA and non-DNA data, the relationships among most genera are nevertheless weakly supported by the separate and combined analyses. This weak support is most likely the result of rapid speciation. The monophyly of the speciose genus Sceloporus (exclusive of Sator) is supported by the separate non-DNA and combined analyses. The inclusion of numerous incomplete taxa (19 species lacking DNA data) in the combined analysis did not decrease resolution among the complete taxa (40 species with DNA and non-DNA data), but the addition of the incomplete taxa did affect the relationships among the complete taxa. Overall, the DNA data are more homoplastic than the non-DNA data, but the degree of character incongruence exhibited within the different partitions and/or sources of the DNA and non-DNA data sets varies greatly.


Systemically administered antisense oligonucleotide AZD9150 inhibits STAT3 and shows anticancer activity in preclinical models and patients. STAT3 is a transcription factor that plays an oncogenic role in many cancers, but STAT3 has proven difficult to target with chemical inhibitors. Hong et al. demonstrated that antisense technology is a feasible alternative to small-molecule inhibitors for targeting STAT3. The authors used high-affinity, next-generation antisense oligonucleotides, which have higher potency than previous generations and can be systemically administered without a lipid vehicle. One of these new antisense oligonucleotides, AZD9150, demonstrated activity in various preclinical cancer models, as well as in cancer patients who had failed one or more previous treatments, paving the way for additional clinical testing of this therapy. D. Hong, R. Kurzrock, Y. Kim, R. Woessner, A. Younes, J. Nemunaitis, N. Fowler, T. Zhou, J. Schmidt, M. Jo, S. J. Lee, M. Yamashita, S. G. Hughes, L. Fayad, S. Piha-Paul, M. V. P. Nadella, M. Mohseni, D. Lawson, C. Reimer, D. C. Blakey, X. Xiao, J. Hsu, A. Revenko, B. P. Monia, A. R. MacLeod, AZD9150, a next-generation antisense oligonucleotide inhibitor of STAT3 with early evidence of clinical activity in lymphoma and lung cancer. Sci. Transl. Med. 7, 314ra185 (2015). [Abstract]


The ~5 km of traverses and observations completed by the Opportunity rover from Endurance crater to the Fruitbasket outcrop show that the Meridiani plains consist of sulfate-rich sedimentary rocks that are largely covered by poorly-sorted basaltic aeolian sands and a lag of granule-sized hematitic concretions. Orbital reflectance spectra obtained by Mars Express OMEGA over this region are dominated by pyroxene, plagioclase feldspar, crystalline hematite (i.e., concretions), and nano-phase iron oxide dust signatures, consistent with Pancam and Mini-TES observations. Mossbauer Spectrometer observations indicate more olivine than observed with the other instruments, consistent with preferential optical obscuration of olivine features in mixtures with pyroxene and dust. Orbital data covering bright plains located several kilometers to the south of the landing site expose a smaller areal abundance of hematite, more dust, and a larger areal extent of outcrop compared to plains proximal to the landing site. Low-albedo, low-thermal-inertia, windswept plains located several hundred kilometers to the south of the landing site are predicted from OMEGA data to have more hematite and fine-grained olivine grains exposed as compared to the landing site. Low calcium pyroxene dominates spectral signatures from the cratered highlands to the south of Opportunity. A regional-scale model is presented for the formation of the plains explored by Opportunity, based on a rising ground water table late in the Noachian Era that trapped and altered local materials and aeolian basaltic sands. Cessation of this aqueous process led to dominance of aeolian processes and formation of the current configuration of the plains.


Raising the bar on ethical regulations in international clinical research: Qatar Perspective Learning Objectives: 1. Understand how new national regulations of human research protections can be established in developing countries, 2. Understand the processes required and the institutional cultural shifts necessary to advance human research protections to meet the international standards. Qatar-Research While oil and gas will probably remain the backbone of Qatar's economy for some time to come, the country is interested in diversifying the economy into knowledge-based economy. In recent years, Qatar has placed a great emphasis on education and research. The country has embarked on an ambitious national research program. Consequently, the country allocated 2.8% of its GDP to research and development. . Qatar-Research Governance The Supreme Council of Health ("SCH") is a governmental regulatory body that has the highest authority in health care services and research governance. The mission of the Research Department (RD) at SCH is to ensure that research is carried out with the highest scientific and ethical standards in order to provide high quality research directed at improving the effectiveness and quality of health care. The RD at SCH has been successful in setting forth a research governance model to enable ethical and scientifically robust research practices, in protecting research participants through processes and guidelines, and in detecting research misconduct through systematic auditing Research Governance Challenges: Localization of regulations Due to cultural and religious concerns, certain regulations have to be tailored. Example for Localization of regulations: See table Conclusion: Research regulation in Qatar overcomes the challenge of adapting international regulations by customizing its regulations according to cultural and religious concerns


The use of an automated system integrating data conditioning, statistical methods, and artificial intelligence tools to summarize and interpret high-frequency physiological data such as the electrocardiogram is investigated. The development of a methodology and its associated tools for real-time patient monitoring and diagnosis is accomplished by using the commercial programming environments MATLAB and G2, a real-time knowledge-based system (KBS) development shell. Data interpretation and classification is performed by integrating statistical classification methods and knowledge-based techniques with a graphical user interface that provides quick access to the analysis results as well as the original data. A KBS was developed that incorporates various statistical methods with a rule-based decision system to detect abnormal situations, provide preliminary interpretation and diagnosis, and to report these findings to the healthcare provider.


The article provides a brief overview of the history of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, including the range of products currently offered. It also highlights the fundamental differences between traditional open/closed-end funds and ETFs, and offers insight into the potential future of ETF products. Finally, with potential fund sponsors as the intended audience, the article provides guidance on how to evaluate if ETFs are right for their business, and if so, the importance of selecting partners with the requisite expertise to ensure the success of their product(s).


The aim of this paper is to conduct a pilot phase study and shed a light on digital entrepreneurship in Finland. This study combines theoretical and statistical information on digital entrepreneurship in Finland and Europe with a narrative of a Finnish digital entrepreneur. The research objective is to analyze how this Finnish digital entrepreneur characterizes and manifests his entrepreneurship in comparison to the data. The framework used for the analysis is Digital Entrepreneurship Monitor. It is collected and published by the project Growth of European Union (2016) in order to stimulate and cultivate digital entrepreneurship. The monitor creates a knowledge base and offers a monitoring mechanism to investigate key trends of digital entrepreneurship. The central statistics comparing digital entrepreneurship in Europe and in Finland are 1) Digital knowledge base and ICT Market 2) Digital business environment 3) Access to finance 4) Digital skills and e-leadership 5) Entrepreneurial environment.


In this paper, we apply various area reduction techniques on an inductor–capacitor (LC)-tank oscillator in order to make its size comparable to that of ring oscillators (ROs), while still retaining its salient features of excellent phase noise and low sensitivity to supply variations. The resulting oscillator employs a proposed ultracompact split transformer topology that provides a 1:2 passive voltage gain and is less susceptible to common-mode electromagnetic interference than are regular high-quality-factor LC tanks, thus making it desirable in systemon-a-chip environments. The oscillator, together with a proposed dc-coupled buffer, is incorporated within an all-digital phaselocked loop (ADPLL) intended for wireline, digital clocking, and less stringent wireless systems. The ADPLL architecture introduces a look-ahead time-to-digital converter that exploits a deterministic phase prediction to reduce power consumption and phase detection complexity. The ADPLL is realized in 40-nm CMOS and has the smallest reported area of 0.0625 mm2 among LC-tank oscillators while providing fractional-N operation, wide tuning range of 45% (from 9.4 to 14.8 GHz), very low voltage supply sensitivity of 80 MHz/V, and integrated figure-of-merit jitter (FoMjitter) better than −230 dB. A separate identical ADPLL was implemented using an RO instead, for completeness and systematic comparisons.


New methods for the high-throughput characterisation of polymer electrolytes have been developed. Polymer electrolytes for use in lithium ion batteries have been prepared in a novel systematic manner that involves parallel preparation and subsequent high-throughput conductivity measurements of up to 64 individual compositions in a multi-electrode cell. The method of casting the polymer electrolytes directly onto the substrate also allows high-throughput characterisation by x-ray diffraction. The technique was applied specifically to a ternary system of PVdF-HFP, LiTFSI and PC. By preparing a vast array of samples across the composition range, it was found that the conductivity reached a maximum value when the weight fraction composition was 0.45/0.45/0.1 of PVdF-HFP/LiTFSI/PC with completely free standing samples. The trend of increasing conductivity tended towards the maximum liquid conductivity of LiTFSI/PC. Due to limitations of this method with highly conductive polymer electrolytes, a second novel alternative polymer synthesis, preparation and measurement technique was developed for proton conducting polymers for fuel cell applications. In addition a second multi-electrode cell was designed and constructed specifically allowing AC Impedance measurements to be taken whilst allowing the polymer electrolytes to be subjected to temperature and relative humidity effects. The multi-electrode cell was calibrated using commercially available Nafion samples before being used with synthesised samples. PEEK was sulfonated to SPEEK using varying temperatures and reaction times to obtain many samples with differing DS values. The conductivity of the samples was measured in situ using an in-plane 4 electrode impedance measurement, over a range of environmental conditions. It was found that water loss caused significant conductivity decay under PEMFC conditions for Nafion but not for SPEEK samples. SPEEK with a DS of 75 % was found to have the maximum SPEEK equilibration conductivity of 0.177 S cm-1, a value comparable to that of commercial membranes. By blending this sample with a lower DS SPEEK, high conductivity values could be maintained at temperatures of 105 °C and 75 % relative humidity with maintained mechanical integrity. When an inorganic additive (Zr(HPO4)2) was introduced into the blended samples, the conductivity was enhanced further due to increased water retention within the phosphate structure.


Health is a fundamental rights of everyone and every citizen desire to get health service. Doing for their activity, every people are need healthy body. For some people, health is so expensive, even there's a quote said "orang miskin dilarang sakit". That prespective could be happened, because of the topic that has revealed lately is about how difficult for poor peoples to get their good health service from the government. It is make happened because of economic problems, because poor peoples can't pay the medical threatment that they should be paid.

As that prespective, it doesn't make that the government is quiet. Especially government of Semarang Regency has released a policy JAMKESDA (The Guarantee of Regional Health) in Semarang Regency though in Perbup No. 7 in 2015 to assist in health service for poor peoples. That's in order, to identity the effectivity of this policy, the writer formulates research problem into this to "What effect from JAMKESDA program for civil society in Semarang Regency?"

This research has a purpose to describe implementation process of JAMKESDA program in Semarang Regency, and also to figure out it's impact. Type of this research is gathered descriptive research. The primary source of this research is from inerviews with the informants using purposive sampling technique. The data analysis technique is by data reduction, served and took the conclusion.

The result shows unsisted of that JAMKESDA policy was helped poor peoples for financing assistance of health service. This policy shown satisfaction of civil society who has low economic income. Suggestion from the writer is the budget of JAMKESDA program is need to be developed, the price of health service for is increasing every year. It is important to covers health needs poor people in Semarang Regency.


In this review we synthesize what is known about the relationship between education and health. A large number of studies from both rich and poor countries show that education is associated with better health. While previous work has thought of the effect of education separately for rich and poor countries, we argue that there are insights to be gained by integrating the two. For example, education is associated with lower malnutrition in most countries, but in richer countries the educated have lower BMIs whereas in poor countries the educated have higher BMIs. This suggests that the behaviors associated with better health differ depending on the level of development. We illustrate this approach by comparing the effects of education on various health and health behaviors around the world, to generate hypotheses about why education is so often (but not always) predictive of health. Finally, we review the empirical evidence on the relationship between education and health, paying particular attention to causal evidence and evidence on mechanisms linking education to better health.


Developing an environment that enables optimal and flexible design of robot manipulators using reconfigurable links, joints, actuators, and sensors is an essential concept towards efficient robot design and prototyping. Such an environment should have a complex set of software and hardware subsystems for designing the physical parts and the controllers, and for the algorithmic control of the robot modules (kinematics, inverse kinematics, dynamics, trajectory planning, analog control and digital computer control). Specifying object-based communications and catalog mechanisms between the software modules, controllers, physical parts, CAD designs, and actuator and sensor components is a necessary step in the prototyping activities. In this project, we propose a web interface based prototyping environment for robot manipulators with the required subsystems and interfaces between the different components of this environment. The goal is to build a system of components that allows potential customers (located anywhere geographically) to input through a web interface a set of request / design parameters and specifications (such as torque, dexterity, repeatability, velocity etc), that could be analyzed, simulated and converted to specific manufacturing information that can be ultimately used by an automated manufacturing plant. The plant would be able to build consumer robots tailored to specific requirements and deliverable to customers flexibly.


Aircraft equipped with satellite communication (SATCOM) systems will enable advanced Air Traffic Management (ATM) operations over datalink on a global basis. A key concept of future ATM is 4D trajectory management, which aims to ensure an optimal path and designated arrival time for the flight by integrating time as a fourth dimension into the aircraft trajectory. However, the increase reliance on digital information exchange needed for implementing 4D implies that cyber security will be a key concern. The goal of the Iris Service Evolution programme is to provide a secure and reliable datalink for air-ground communication in oceanic and remote environment based on satellite. This paper provides an overview over ongoing work on cyber security in the Iris programme. We discuss the need for security for future datalink services in the aircraft control domain and, based on a security risk and threat analysis, provide a number of security requirements that future SATCOM datalink systems for ATM should fulfil.


A video on demand (VoD) system is expected to transmit many movies over a single channel as demanded by the end users. When several videos are transmitted simultaneously over a link the effective bandwidth required per video is usually much lower than that needed by a single video because of multiplexing gain. Fast and accurate estimation of multiplexing gain is necessary for developing call admission control (CAC) algorithms. Known models which estimate queue size and effective bandwidth of multiplexed video system cannot capture frame size variations in different segments of a video, and are not very useful particularly when the number of videos is not too large. The multinomial model proposed in this paper is built on a Markov-modulated gamma (MMG)-based traffic model of a single video. It takes into consideration average frame size variations in different segments of a video and can predict multiplexing gain for any number of multiplexed videos. The model has been validated using MPEG traces of commercial movies.


Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive and common form of adult brain cancer. Current therapeutic strategies include surgical resection, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Despite such aggressive multimodal therapy, prognosis remains poor, with a median patient survival of 14 months. A proper understanding of the molecular drivers responsible for GBM progression are therefore necessary to instruct the development of novel targeted agents and enable the design of effective treatment strategies. Activation of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase isoform 2 (JNK2) is reported in primary brain cancers, where it associates with the histologic grade and amplification of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). In this manuscript, we demonstrate an important role for JNK2 in the tumor promoting an invasive capacity of EGFR variant III, a constitutively active mutant form of the receptor commonly found in GBM. Expression of EGFR variant III induces transactivation of JNK2 in GBM cells, which is required for a tumorigenic phenotype in vivo. Furthermore, JNK2 expression and activity is required to promote increased cellular invasion through stimulation of a hepatocyte growth factor–c-Met signaling circuit, whereby secretion of this extracellular ligand activates the receptor tyrosine kinase in both a cell autonomous and nonautonomous manner. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the cooperative and parallel activation of multiple RTKs in GBM and suggest that the development of selective JNK2 inhibitors could be therapeutically beneficial either as single agents or in combination with inhibitors of EGFR and/or c-Met.


Situated at the intersection between globalization and demographic aging, this dissertation seeks to add a critical and interdisciplinary voice to the vibrant conversation on the topic of elder care. It weaves the complex conceptual threads of aging, transnational migration, and the ethics of care into a phenomenological inquiry into the lived experiences of the elderly and their adult children in the intimate space of seven transnational Chinese families in Canada. The research conceptualizes old age as a matter out of place in a neoliberal system marked by growth and productivity, and formulates a theoretical framework of sticky ambiguity as a way to reveal the tensions inherent in the discourse on elder care as a social, cultural, and intercultural phenomenon. In order to resist essentialist narratives of Chinese Canadian families, I emphasize the importance of cultural translation as a responsibility and an important means to unsettle meanings and cultural differences. An interpretive and reflexive methodology is used to analyze qualitative data in an attempt to move beyond a surface reading of the texts. In contrast to typical narrative analysis that aims to code, characterize, and thematize qualitative data, this method treats narrative as the subject's attempt to reconcile the divided self as he or she searches for a good way of representing the problem. The analysis makes observable the subject's orientation to values and idealization, and reveals the hidden struggles and conflicts that are often concealed in speech. Through three case studies on the themes of ambivalence, death, and filial piety, I try to understand how the subject orients to each phenomenon as a problem-solving situation in order to produce a dialogue about the meaning and sticky ambiguity of aging and elder care. My analysis shows that the meaning of aging and elder care is far from stable and singular. It is constructed through an evolving process of moral reasoning that is entangled in a continuous struggle with cultural identities, selfhood, gender, class, heritage, intimacy, and morality.


Background: Biological risk is the main occupational hazard in hospitals (40-50% of the total). More than 130,000 injuries occur every year in Italy and nurses are the most affected occupational category. Objectives: This study evaluated the incidence of injuries related to biological risk in nurses and nursing students in the University Hospital of Ferrara, how they occur, the knowledge on the topic and on behaviour during the department's activity. Methods: A retrospective study involving a sample of 8 departments (selected for the occurrence of more than 30 biological injuries between 1st January 2002 and 31 December 2012) recorded injuries related to biological risk; subsequently a cross-sectional survey was carried out through a questionnaire administered to nurses and nursing students. Results: 909 biological accidents were reported (81.18% in nurses and 18.82% in students). Blood was the main biological material involved (83.72% of cases), mostly by percutaneous exposure (84.16%). According to the questionnaire, 53% of subjects reported having had at least one injury during their career, and 5.72% did not report it; 46% reported doing risky procedures (re-capping needles) and 95.45% that they had been informed about the correct use of PPE. Conclusions: The lower percentage of injuries in students could be linked to good university training and to less risky procedures being performed. Re-capping needles remains one of the most dangerous manoeuvers practised. Ongoing training on the correct use of PPE is essential to train prepared and aware health professionals.


Today, cloud vendors host third party black-box services, whose developers usually provide only textual descriptions or purely syntactical interface specifications. Cloud vendors that give substantial support to other third party developers to integrate hosted services into new software solutions would have a unique selling feature over their competitors. However, to reliably determine if a service is reusable, comprehensive service specifications are needed. Characteristic for comprehensive in contrast to syntactical specifications are the formalization of ontological and behavioral semantics, homogeneity according to a global ontology, and a service grounding that links the abstract service description and its technical realization. Homogeneous, semantical specifications enable to reliably identify reusable services, whereas the service grounding is needed for the technical service integration.In general, comprehensive specifications are not available and have to be derived. Existing automatized approaches are restricted to certain characteristics of comprehensiveness. In my PhD, I consider an automatized approach to derive fully-fledged comprehensive specifications for black-box services. Ontological semantics are derived from syntactical interface specifications. Behavioral semantics are mined from call logs that cloud vendors create to monitor the hosted services. The specifications are harmonized over a global ontology. The service grounding is established using traceability information. The approach enables third party developers to compose services into complex systems and creates new sales channels for cloud and service providers.


An over‐stimulation of nigral glutamate (GLU) receptors has been proposed as a cause of the progression of the dopamine (DA) cell degeneration (excitotoxicity) which characterizes Parkinson's disease. The possible toxic action of striatal GLU (retrograde excitotoxicity) on these cells, and on other neurons which innervate the striatum and which also degenerate in Parkinson's disease (thalamostriatal cells of the intralaminar thalamic nuclei), is still practically unexplored. The retrograde excitotoxicity of striatal GLU on DAergic mesostriatal and GLUergic thalamostriatal cells was tested here by studying these cells 6 weeks after striatal perfusion of GLU by reverse microdialysis. GLU perfusion induced the striatal denervation of thalamic inputs (as revealed by vesicular glutamate transporter 2) and the remote degeneration of intralaminar neurons. In both centres, these effects were accompanied by microglial activation. Similar responses were not observed for nigrostriatal neurons, which showed no dopaminergic striatal denervation, no microglial activation in the substantia nigra and no changes in the number of dopaminergic cells in the substantia nigra. The inhibition of DAergic transmission increased the extrasynaptic GLU levels in the striatum (evaluated by microdialysis), an effect observed after the local administration of agonists and antagonists of DAergic transmission, and after the peripheral administration of levodopa (which increased the DA and decreased the GLU levels in the striatum of rats with an experimental DAergic denervation of this centre). The data presented show that striatal GLU induced a retrograde excitotoxicity which did not affect all striatal inputs in the same way and which could be involved in the cell degeneration of the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus generally observed in Parkinson's disease.


The methodology presented will take the modeling to higher level and scale. By using hierarchical component based modeling approach, the model result would be easy to understand and to communicate. We are now able to reconstruct the Keen-Minsky monetary model using system dynamics approach without difficulty. It is because ordinary differential equations and network accounting model can easily be translated into system dynamics form. The resulting model consists of two main blocks, the real sector and the financial sector. The smallest component is exponential growth module in the family of first order system. The price module is created from first order system component. The nonlinear function is encapsulated as a module. The purpose in this modeling is not emphasized on prediction, but more on getting insight by forming an accurate model of the economy's behavior


For sensitive text data to be shared among NLP researchers and practitioners, shared documents need to comply with data protection and privacy laws. There is hence a growing interest in automated approaches for text anonymization. However, measuring such methods' performance is challenging: missing a single identifying attribute can reveal an individual's identity. In this paper, we draw attention to this problem and argue that researchers and practitioners developing automated text anonymization systems should carefully assess whether their evaluation methods truly reflect the system's ability to protect individuals from being re-identified. We then propose TILD, a set of evaluation criteria that comprises an anonymization method's technical performance, the information loss resulting from its anonymization, and the human ability to de-anonymize redacted documents. These criteria may facilitate progress towards a standardized way for measuring anonymization performance.


Chemical potential is a property which involves the effect of interaction between the components of a system, and it results from the whole system. In this paper, we argue that for two particles which have interacted via their spins and are now spatially separated, the so-called Bell's locality condition implies that the chemical potential of each particle is an individual property. Here is a point where quantum statistical mechanics and the local hidden variable theories are in conflict. Based on two distinct concepts of chemical potential, the two theories predict two different patterns for the energy levels of a system of two entangled particles. In this manner, we show how one can distinguish the non-separable features of a two-particle system.


The purpose of this paper relies on the study of long-term affine yield curves modeling. It is inspired by the Ramsey rule of the economic literature, that links discount rate and marginal utility of aggregate optimal consumption. For such a long maturity modelization, the possibility of adjusting preferences to new economic information is crucial, justifying the use of progressive utility. This paper studies, in a framework with affine factors, the yield curve given from the Ramsey rule. It first characterizes consistent progressive utility of investment and consumption, given the optimal wealth and consumption processes. A special attention is paid to utilities associated with linear optimal processes with respect to their initial conditions, which is for example the case of power progressive utilities. Those utilities are the basis point to construct other progressive utilities generating non linear optimal processes but leading yet to still tractable computations. This is of particular interest to study the impact of initial wealth on yield curves.


The three-dimensional (3D) photonic band gap material is a material that there exists a full photonic band gap in which waves are forbidden to propagate whatever the polarization or the direction of propagation. In order to obtain photonic bandgap in lower range, we focus on the fabrication of PBG materials of diamond structure with TiO2 powder mixed with SiO2. The inverse epoxy structure with periodic diamond lattices in millimeter order has been fabricated by stereolithographic rapid prototyping. TiO2 slurry was filled into the epoxy structure and then cold isostatic pressing was applied. After sintering at 700K for 5hrs, the epoxy was burnt out and the designed structure was maintained perfectly. The calculated band diagram shows that there exists an absolute photonic band gap for all wave vectors. The measurement of transmission from 10 to 20 GHz in <100> direction shows that a complete band gap is formed at about 14.7-18.5 GHz. The magnitude of the maximum attenuation is as large as 30 dB at 17 GHz.


OBJECTIVES
This study evaluated the effect of treatment with abacavir/lamivudine/zidovudine versus lamivudine/zidovudine on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) RNA and clinical manifestations of HIV encephalopathy in children.

STUDY DESIGN
HIV-infected children 7 months to 10 years of age (n = 23) were studied. CSF and plasma were obtained at baseline and weeks 8, 16, and 48. Genotype analysis of HIV was attempted at baseline and week 48. Neurologic evaluations were performed at baseline and weeks 16, 32, and 48.

RESULTS
At baseline, 83% of children had >2.00 log(10) copies/mL HIV RNA in CSF, but only 10% had HIV RNA measurable at week 48. Among children in whom paired genotyping of HIV was possible, 8 of 11 had identical patterns in both CSF and plasma at baseline, whereas at week 48, only 1 of 9 children had similar patterns. Neurologic abnormalities were observed in 83% of children at baseline but only 35% of children at week 48 (P =.004), suggesting a benefit of treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Antiretroviral therapy was associated with a decline in CSF HIV RNA and an improvement in neurologic status. The development of genotypic mutations was different in CSF and plasma, suggesting discordant viral evolution. These results suggest that antiretroviral treatment in children should include agents with activity in the CNS.


Reduced Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (ROBDDs) provide a dense and memory efficient representation of Boolean functions. When ROBDDs are applied in logic synthesis, the problem arises of detecting both classical and generalised symmetries. State-of-the-art in symmetry detection is represented by Mishchenko's algorithm. Mishchenko showed how to detect symmetries in ROBDDs without the need for checking equivalence of all co-factor pairs. This work resulted in a practical algorithm for detecting all classical symmetries in an ROBDD in O(|G|3) set operations where |G| is the number of nodes in the ROBDD. Mishchenko and his colleagues subsequently extended the algorithm to find generalised symmetries. The extended algorithm retains the same asymptotic complexity for each type of generalised symmetry. Both the classical and generalised symmetry detection algorithms are monolithic in the sense that they only return a meaningful answer when they are left to run to completion. In this thesis we present efficient anytime algorithms for detecting both classical and generalised symmetries, that output pairs of symmetric variables until a prescribed time bound is exceeded. These anytime algorithms are complete in that given sufficient time they are guaranteed to find all symmetric pairs. Theoretically these algorithms reside in O(n3+n|G|+|G|3) and O(n3+n2|G|+|G|3) respectively, where n is the number of variables, so that in practice the advantage of anytime generality is not gained at the expense of efficiency. In fact, the anytime approach requires only very modest data structure support and offers unique opportunities for optimisation so the resulting algorithms are very efficient. The thesis continues by considering another class of anytime algorithms for ROBDDs that is motivated by the dearth of work on approximating ROBDDs. The need for approximation arises because many ROBDD operations result in an ROBDD whose size is quadratic in the size of the inputs. Furthermore, if ROBDDs are used in abstract interpretation, the running time of the analysis is related not only to the complexity of the individual ROBDD operations but also the number of operations applied. The number of operations is, in turn, constrained by the number of times a Boolean function can be weakened before stability is achieved. This thesis proposes a widening that can be used to both constrain the size of an ROBDD and also ensure that the number of times that it is weakened is bounded by some given constant. The widening can be used to either systematically approximate an ROBDD from above (i.e. derive a weaker function) or below (i.e. infer a stronger function). The thesis also considers how randomised techniques may be deployed to improve the speed of computing an approximation by avoiding potentially expensive ROBDD manipulation.


Successful ligament reconstruction with tendon graft requires solid healing of the tendon graft in the bone tunnels. Periosteum contains multipotent mesodermal cells and has the capacity to form osteogenic tissue. In this study, we will present the effect of periosteum-enveloping tendon on the tendon-bone healing in 3 different experimental models in rabbits: 1) wrapping on a tendon surface; 2) inserted within an extra-articular tibial bone tunnel, and 3) reconstructed in the intra-articular femoral and tibial bone tunnels. Histology for the tendon-periosteum and tendon-bone interfaces were evaluated at 4, 8, 12 weeks after operation. In tendon surface groups, new bone formation was found on the tendon surface by passing through a cartilage state from transplanted periosteum. In extraarticular groups, an interface fibrous layer formed by periosteum between the tendon and the bone became progressive integrated during the healing process. The cancellous bone lining in the bone tunnel had been interdigitated with the fibrous interface tissue. Collagen fiber-bone anchorage and organization with fibrocartilage formation developed between tendon and bone. In intra-articular groups, a fibrovascular interface tissue formed by periosteum tissue between the tendon and bone with progressive mineralization and maturation. The interface fibrous layer became integrated and mixed together with tendon and bone lining and unable to identify the margin. Progressive collagen fiber growing into bone through fibrocartilage formation appeared at later period. Our results showed that where the cambium layer of periosteum was present, there was a definite tendency towards the neoformation of fibrocartilage and bone. Periosteum had the ability to augment bone ingrowth into tendon and to induce ossification, fibrocartilage and bone formation not only in the free tendon but also in the extra-articular and intra-articular bone tunnels.


Description: The internet has become a flexible platform upon which global retail brands can expand and grow. With a greater emphasis on and opportunity for new market opportunities in the digital sphere, the global retail market is undergoing an era of rapid transformation as new web-based retail models emerge to meet the needs of the modern consumer. E-Retailing Challenges and Opportunities in the Global Marketplace explores the transformations occuring in the virtual marketplace as consumer needs and expectations shift to the new age of online shopping. Emphasizes the difficulties business professionals face in the digital age in addition to opportunities for market growth and new product development. Readers: This publication is a critical reference source for business professionals, product strategists, web managers, IT specialists, and graduate-level students in the fields of business, retail management, and advertising.


This study examines how the recent introduction of translation memory (TM) software in undergraduate translation classrooms in Chile may have an impact on the quality and readers' reception of scientific translations produced by student translators. To achieve this aim, the study was conducted in three stages: a corpus-based study determined specific linguistic features of research article abstracts in conservation biology written in English and Spanish; a translation experiment looked at how these features are represented in translations by trainee translators using TM tools; and a reception study evaluated specialist readers' responses to TM-mediated scientific translation. The thesis concludes with recommendations on how its findings—informed by recent industry developments—could be applied in the Chilean translator education context.


Studies on cyberbullying are replete with questions about whether certain risk or protective factors are likely to predict cyberbullying outcomes such as cybervictimization. Such questions can often be reframed in terms of moderation effects, or hypotheses about how the effect of a predictor variable on an outcome variable depends on the value of a moderator variable. Demonstrating how questions about moderation effects are conventionally tested using the dataset from the Teens and Parents survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre's Internet and American Life Project, the current study found two sets of significant moderation effects that could be interpreted to mean that the predictive relationship between traditional victimization and cybervictimization depend on the teenager's intensity of SNS use and gender. A secondary purpose of this paper is to extend the conventional analytic approach in the form of an R package that provide researchers with methods – based on the pick-a-point technique and the Johnson-Neyman technique – which they can use to probe moderation effects they find significant in their research projects. Empirical illustrations with the cyberbullying dataset are provided throughout to demonstrate the use of this R package.


OBJECTIVE
A high-concentration of a multi-strain probiotic mixture, VSL#3® is widely used 'whenever it is useful to promote the balance of intestinal flora'. As a food supplement, VSL#3® has been so far scarcely investigated on the aspect of safety. To fill this gap, in this paper, we analyzed the adverse events (AEs) recorded during the conduct of three (3) double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials carried out to explore the efficacy of VSL#3® in various clinical settings. Data from a large open-label observational trial were also considered.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
All trials included in the analysis were carried out according to good clinical practice (GCP) rules. AEs were classified by System Organ Class (SOC), Preferred Term (PT) and frequency. Differences vs. placebo control were considered as statistically significant if the p-value was < 0.05.

RESULTS
A total of 120 patients were analyzed, 70 patients being included in the randomized controlled trials. In this population, 45 patients had at least one AE, 20 (64.5%) in the placebo group and 25 (64.1%) in the VSL#3® group. 29 patients had at least one related AE, 14 (45.2%) and 15 (38.5%) in the two treatment groups, respectively. Only one AE was assessed as serious, i.e., Foetal malformation, which occurred in the placebo group and was considered unrelated. No significant difference was found between VSL#3® and placebo for any of the SOC considered, with the exception of Injury, poisoning and procedural complications, which was in favor of VSL#3®.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on GCP-quality data from clinical trials, we conclude that VSL#3® is a safe and well-tolerated agent.


Abstract Motorcycle taxis operate in a non-regulated, uncontrolled environment, raising public health, environmental and economic issues. Consideration of such issues requires an in-depth understanding of motorcycle taxis' organizational and operational features. Urban sprawl, a difficult economic context and demographic pressure have led to an increase in motorcycle taxi activities in the Republic of Haiti. This study presents a novel approach to analyzing informal modes of transport using qualitative data from semi-directive interviews and observations with a spatial analysis of motorcycle taxi activities by GPS tracking. The analysis is comprised of three phases. First, a suitable tracking device and fixing method were tested and selected. In the second, 12 drivers were equipped with charged devices on a daily basis. The interviews were conducted simultaneously. Finally, we draw four main results using the Haversine method and calculating the inactivity rate. Given a median action range of <3 km, the lack of peak-hours observed, an inactivity rate of more than 50% and the low profitability of the current structure, the activity's economic potential is not optimized under the current system. The poor distribution of stands across the territory and large number of drivers results in the overall inefficiency of the system.


We consider a laser that is incident normally upon a planar waveguide with a Kerr nonlinearity. In a previous paper [ J. Opt. Soc. Am.8, 786 ( 1991)] we demonstrated that the waveguide fields can participate in a transverse instability of the incident beam. We examine the evolution of this instability, show that the system evolves to a steady-state pattern, and develop a general instability criterion.