Coordination of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles (UAVs and UGVs) is immensely useful in a variety of surveillance and rescue applications, as the vehicles' complementary strengths provide operating teams with enhanced mission capabilities. While many of today's systems require independent control stations, necessitating arduous manual coordination between multiple operators, this paper presents a multi-robot collaboration system, jointly developed by iRobot Corporation and Carnegie Mellon University, which features a unified interface for controlling multiple unmanned vehicles. Semi-autonomous subtasks can be directly executed through this interface, including: single-click automatic visual target tracking, waypoint sequences, area search, and geo-location of tracked points of interest. Demonstrations of these capabilities on widely-deployed commercial unmanned vehicles are presented, including the use of UAVs as a communication relay for multi-kilometer, non-line-of-sight operation of UGVs.


For many conditions, delayed diagnosis results in worse outcomes, increased mortality and amplified disease burden. In children, an emphasis on rapid, accurate diagnosis in leukaemia, lymphoma and solid tumours has been associated with an increasing survival rate and reduced morbidity over the last 25 years. The challenge is to extend early diagnosis to chronic conditions in children where early intervention will improve long-term outcomes. Similarly in adult patients, rapid access clinics for specific conditions are now routine, enabling quick referral to the specialist care service to make the precise diagnosis and start the correct treatment.

In their paper, Riccuito et al reported diagnostic delay and subsequent impact on outcome in Canadian children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).1

IBD, consisting of Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and IBD unclassified, is a chronic, heterogeneous, relapsing and remitting condition primarily as a consequence of inflammation within the bowel lumen. Early and effective treatment is crucial to control symptoms, minimise impact on nutrition and growth and enable the child to function well (eg, attend school). Over the last 20 years, there has been a steady increase in the incidence of paedaitric inflammatory bowel disease (PIBD), with a consequent increase in children presenting to primary, secondary and tertiary care.2 Paediatric gastroenterologists have been concerned for over 25 years that diagnostic delay is common. This delay is clearly multifactorial, and to determine how best to effect change would require an analysis of all aspects of the patient pathway.

Riccuito …


Micromagnetic NDT techniques like the measurement of the magnetic Barkhausen noise, the incremental permeability and the harmonic analysis of the tangential magnetic field allow deriving inspection procedures to online monitoring and control machinery parts and components in production processes in order to characterize mechanical properties like hardness, hardening depth, yield and tensile strength. These types of inspection procedures continuously were further developed in the last two decades so that today the forth generation of system hard and software is in industrial use. The application is in steel industry where steel sheets in hot-dip-galvanizing lines were annealed after cold rolling but also in heavy plate rolling mills where after thermo-mechanical rolling special textures and texture gradients can occur. An increasing number of applications are also to find in the machinery building industry and here especially in case of machinery parts of the car supplying industry. The contribution introduces in the methodology of the micromagnetic, multiparameter, microstructure and stress analysis (3MA), which, however, only can be applied at ferromagnetic materials and describes the physical basics of the techniques. The applied technology is especially sensitive for mechanical property determination as the relevant microstructure is governing the material behavior under mechanical loads (strength and toughness) in a similar way as the magnetic behavior under magnetic loads, i.e. during the magnetization in a hysteresis loop. In different case studies the advantage to implement 3MA into the industrial processes is discussed.


Recognizing texts in video is more complex than in other environments such as scanned documents. Video texts appear in various colors, unknown fonts and sizes, often affected by compression artifacts and low quality. In contrast to Latin texts, there are no publicly available datasets which cover all aspects of the Arabic Video OCR domain. This paper describes a new well-defined and annotated Arabic-Text-in-Video dataset called AcTiV 2.0. The dataset is dedicated especially to building and evaluating Arabic video text detection and recognition systems. AcTiV 2.0 contains 189 video clips serving as a raw material for creating 4063 key frames for the detection task and 10,415 cropped text images for the recognition task. AcTiV 2.0 is also distributed with its annotation and evaluation tools that are made open-source for standardization and validation purposes. This paper also reports on the evaluation of several systems tested under the proposed detection and recognition protocols.


Spent mushroom substrate (SMS), a renewable bio-waste from the mushroom-growing industry, was used as an adsorbent to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. SMS was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Adsorption experiments with the SMS adsorbent were performed based on various parameters, such as adsorbent dose, initial MB dye concentration, initial pH, contact time, and temperature. The Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models were employed to interpret the adsorption behavior. The results indicated that the equilibrium data were perfectly represented by the Temkin isotherm. The maximum adsorption capacity of SMS reached 63.5 mg g-1 at 303 K. The kinetics studies indicated that the pseudo-second-order model best described the adsorption of MB on SMS. The activation energy of the adsorption was 5.64 kJ mol-1. Thermodynamic parameters suggested that the adsorption was an exothermic and spontaneous physical process. The results imply that SMS is a potentially low-cost adsorbent for treating wastewater containing cationic dyes.


RF deflecting cavity can be used for bunch length measurement and is designed to diagnose the beam produced by the photocathode electron gun which was built at Tsinghua University for the Thomson scattering experiment. Detailed discussion and calculation for measuring the 3.5 MeV bunch and another with further acceleration to 50 MeV, which is under development, are presented. A standing-wave deflecting cavity working at 2856 MHz is designed and the power feeding system has been planned.


The main aim of this study is to investigate the factors governing the post-peak cycle response of laterally loaded reinforced concrete cantilever columns. A series of experiments are conducted, in which five reinforced concrete columns are subjected to cyclic lateral displacement. Much attention is paid to cover concrete spalling and the large lateral displacement of reinforcement. Specimens are designed so that the buckling of reinforcement and cover concrete spalling can be clearly observed. Finite element analyses are also performed using enhanced nonlinear fiber models, which are verified in member level by comparing with experimental results.


Long-distance dispersal can potentially have important consequences for evolutionary change, but is difficult to quantify. We present quantitative estimates of natal dispersal between the UK and the Netherlands in a long-distance migratory bird, the pied flycatcher. Due to over 90 000 individual ringed adults caught and 730 000 ringed nestlings we are able to estimate that dispersal of young born in the UK to breeding in the Netherlands occurs on average 43 times yr−1, and probably even more recently. We estimated that between 2000 and 2009 about 0.70% of the Dutch adult population could be immigrants from the UK. No cases of dispersal from the Netherlands to the UK were observed. Dispersing individuals bring new genes to the Netherlands, as males in the UK have a darker plumage than Dutch males. We found a good qualitative match between the proportion of dark males breeding in two Dutch populations and the estimated immigration rate from the UK. This and potentially other genetic differences may allow for new evolutionary directions if these genes are beneficial in the new population. The causes of dispersal are unknown, but it is striking that especially birds from the northern range limit dispersed.


Aggregating multiple 802.11 Access Point (AP) backhauls using a single-radio WLAN card has been considered as a way of bypassing the backhaul capacity limit. However, current AP aggregation solutions greedily maximize the individual station throughput without taking fairness into account. This can lead to grossly unfair throughput distributions, which can discourage user participation and severely limit commercial deployability. Motivated by this problem, we present THEMIS, a single-radio station that performs multi-AP backhaul aggregation in a fair and distributed way, without requiring any change in the network. We implement THEMIS on commodity hardware, evaluate it extensively through controlled experimental tests, and validate it in a deployment spanning 3 floors of a multistory building. THEMIS is being used in a commercial trial by a major broadband provider to its customers.


Learning with noisy labels is one of the hottest problems in weakly-supervised learning. Based on memorization effects of deep neural networks, training on small-loss instances becomes very promising for handling noisy labels. This fosters the state-of-the-art approach "Co-teaching" that cross-trains two deep neural networks using the small-loss trick. However, with the increase of epochs, two networks converge to a consensus and Co-teaching reduces to the self-training MentorNet. To tackle this issue, we propose a robust learning paradigm called Co-teaching+, which bridges the "Update by Disagreement" strategy with the original Co-teaching. First, two networks feed forward and predict all data, but keep prediction disagreement data only. Then, among such disagreement data, each network selects its small-loss data, but back propagates the small-loss data from its peer network and updates its own parameters. Empirical results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that Coteaching+ is much superior to many state-of-theart methods in the robustness of trained models.


Background & Objectives Drilling systems are used to identify geological reservoirs and carry out extraction of oil or natural gas from these reservoirs. Deep wells are drilled by using rock-cutting tools driven from the surface by a slender structure of pipes called a drill string. These slender rotating structures can experience undesired dynamics, which can be detrimental to the drilling system. As an example, it is mentioned that stick-slip oscillations can be an important cause for drilling inefficiency and failure of drill-string components, as violent torsional motions and large amplitude lateral motions can occur during these oscillations. As a step towards the development of appropriate vibration attenuation schemes, it is intended to study the nonlinear behavior of slender rotating structures representative of drill strings. In particular, efforts underway at Qatar University to develop a laboratory scale experimental arrangement to study these structures will be presented and discussed. Prior efforts undertaken in this area will also be briefly reviewed. Brief Review and Qatar University Experimental Arrangement Drill-string motions are important to understand the complex system behavior of a drilling system, in particular, as they relate to downhole vibration phenomena. As shown in Fig. 1, the drill string is a complex, flexible structure, which consists of hollow steel pipes screwed together to form a long continuous structure. Large diameter sections, which are referred to as stabilizers, are inserted between two drill pipes to help keep the drill string centered in the borehole. The base of the drill string is made up of two main components, namely, the drill collar and the drill bit. The drill bit, a tool which breaks down the rock and soil, is secured at the end of the drill-collar assembly. The composition of drill pipes, stabilizers, and drill collars is referred to as the bottom-hole assembly (BHA). The entire drill-string assembly is rotated at the surface by using a rotary table and a motor. This actuation is transmitted down the drill string and to the drill bit, which acts to crush the rock and soil. Throughout the drilling process, a hydraulic fluid, known as drill mud, is pumped down through the center of the drill string and collars. This drill mud serves two purposes. It not only keeps the drill bit cool and lubricated, but it is also used to wash away the soil and cut rock. After the mud flows through the drill-strings and the collars, it flows then in the annulus between the drill-string and borehole carrying the cuttings to the surface. During operations, a drill string can experience a whole range of vibrations, including axial, torsional, and lateral vibrations. Drill-string vibrations are sometimes further grouped together as vibrations without contact without the borehole, whirling motions (forward and backward) during which there can be rolling and sliding contact with the borehole, and snaking motions which are a form of lateral vibrations during which a part of the drill string rolls over a borehole contact point. Given that drill strings are long, slender structures, the first torsion natural frequency and the first bending natural frequency are typically in close proximity. In addition, the nature of the system allows for coupling and energy exchange between torsional and lateral motions. In order to focus on the behavior of drill strings in the BHA region, a number of studies have been conducted, with several including studies with scaled laboratory scale arrangements. A partial list of references is included at the end of this paper. Focusing on some of them from this list, in earlier work conducted at the University of Maryland, Liao (2011), Liao, Balachandran, Karkoub, and Abdel-Magid (2011), Liao, Vlajic, Karki, and Balachandran (2012), the focus was on stick-slip motions and whirling. Comparisons were made between experimental and numerical results. It was shown that the nonlinear nature of the contact force interactions is critical for capturing some of the associated phenomena. In a follow up study conducted by Vlajic (2014), forward and backward whirling motions were explored and the development of appropriate reduced-order models was continued. In the work carried out by Shyu (1989), which include validation with laboratory and field studies, a focus was on the coupling between lateral and axial vibrations. Later motion instabilities were experimentally investigated in the work of Berlioz, Der Hagopian, R. Dufour, and E. Draoui (1996). Other notable examples include the studies of Antunes, Axisa, and Hareux (1992), Kust (1998), Mihajlovic (2005), Gao and Miska (2008), and Khulief and Al-Sulaiman (2009). These studies will be reviewed during the conference presentation. In order to build further on previous experimental efforts and related analytical and numerical studies, efforts are underway at Qatar University to build a laboratory scale arrangement to focus on stick-slip oscillations and whirling. Some representative motions of interest are shown in Fig. 2. The proposed system, which is to be used to capture the dynamics in the BHA region, is also shown in Fig. 1 with dimensions. Details of this arrangement will be presented at the conference. It is expected that the proposed arrangement will help explore stick-slip interactions further and gain insights into different aspects including drilling mud that can be beneficial for drill-string vibration attenuation and realizing desired BHA dynamics. Keywords Rotor-stator interaction, Dry friction, Stick-slip motions, Torsional vibration, Whirling Acknowledgment The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the support received from the Qatar National Research Fund for NPRP Project 7-083-2-041, to pursue this collaborative work between the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA and Qatar University, Doha, Qatar. References Antunes, J., F. Axisa, and F. Hareux. "Flexural vibrations of rotors immersed in dense fluids, Part II: Experiments," Journal of Fluids and Structures 6 (1), 1992, pp. 3-21. Berlioz, A., J. Der Hagopian, R. Dufour, and E. Draoui. "Dynamic behavior of a drill-string: experimental investigation of lateral instabilities," Journal of Vibration and Acoustics 118 (3), 1996, pp. 292-298. Gao, G. and S. Miska. "Dynamic buckling and snaking motion of rotating drilling pipe in a horizontal well," SPE Journal 15(3), 2010, pp. 867-877. Khulief, Y. A., and F. A. Al-Sulaiman. "Laboratory investigation of drillstring vibrations," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science 223 (10), 2009, pp. 2249-2262. Kust, O. "Selbsterregte Drehschwingungen in Schlanken Torsionssta"- ben-Nichtlineare Dynamik und Regelung. PhD Dissertation, University of Hamburg-Harburg, Hamburg-Harburg, Germany, 1998. Liao, C.-M. "Experimental and numerical studies of drill-string dynamics," PhD Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2011. Liao, C.-M., B. Balachandran, M. Karkoub, and Y. L. Abdel-Magid. "Drill-string dynamics: reduced-order models and experimental studies," Journal of Vibration and Acoustics 133 (4), 2011, pp. 041008-1-041008-8. Liao, C.-M., N. Vlajic, H. Karki, and B. Balachandran. "Parametric studies on drill-string motions," International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 54 (1), 2012, pp. 260-268. Mihajlovic, N. "Torsional and lateral vibrations in flexible rotor systems with friction." PhD Dissertation, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2005. Shyu, R.-J. "Bending vibration of rotating drill strings," PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989. Vlajic, N. A. "Dynamics of slender, flexible structures," PhD Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014.


Molecular imprinting as a facile and promising separation technique has received considerable attention because of their high selectivity for target molecules. In this study, we imprinted lysozyme (Lys) on the surface of core–shell magnetic nanoparticles via surface imprinting. The magnetic supports were functionalized with maleic acid and then coated with imprinted polymer layers. The structure and morphology of the resulting magnetic imprinted nanoparticles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscope, dynamic light scatting, vibrating sample magnetometer, and thermogravimetric analysis. Binding experiments were carried out to evaluate the properties of magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (magnetic MIPs) and magnetic non-molecularly imprinted polymers (magnetic NIPs). The protein adsorption results showed that the magnetic MIPs had significant specific recognition toward the template protein and could be easily separated from solution by an external magnetic field. Moreover, the MIPs exhibited fast kinetics for the rebinding of the target protein due to the thin-imprinted layer and showed good reusability by four adsorption–desorption cycles. Therefore, the surface imprinting approach combined with magnetic nanoparticles provided an easy and fast method for the specific recognition of Lys.


Several domain decomposition methods of Neumann-Neumann type are considered for solving the large linear systems of algebraic equations that arise from discretizations of elliptic problems by finite elements. We will only consider problems in three dimensions. Several new variants of the basic algorithm are introduced in a Schwarz method framework that provides tools which have already proven very useful in the design and analysis of other domain decomposition and multi-level methods.

The Neumann-Neumann algorithms have several advantages over other domain decomposition methods. The subregions, which define the subproblems, only share the boundary degrees of freedom with their neighbors. The subregions can also be of quite arbitrary shape and many of the major components of the preconditioner can be constructed from subprograms available in standard finite element program libraries. In its original form, however, the algorithm lacks a mechanism for global transportation of information and its performance therefore suffers when the number of subregions increases. In the new variants of the algorithms, considered in this paper, the preconditioners include global components, of low rank, to overcome this difficulty. Bounds are established for the condition number of the iteration operator, which are independent of the number of subregions, and depend only polylogarithmically on the number of degrees of freedom of individual local subproblems. Results are also given for problems with arbitrarily large jumps in the coefficients across the interfaces separating the subregions. ©1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


A communication system is considered consisting of a full-duplex multiple-antenna base station (BS) and multiple single-antenna downlink users (DLUs) and single-antenna uplink users (ULUs), where the latter need to harvest energy for transmitting information to the BS. The communication is thus divided into two phases. In the first phase, the BS uses all available antennas for conveying information to DLUs and wireless energy to ULUs via information and energy beamforming, respectively. In the second phase, ULUs send their independent information to the BS using their harvested energy while the BS transmits the information to the DLUs. In both the phases, the communication is operated at the same time and over the same frequency band. The aim is to maximize the sum rate and energy efficiency under ULU achievable information throughput constraints by jointly optimizing beamforming and time allocation. The utility functions of interest are nonconcave and the involved constraints are nonconvex, so these problems are computationally troublesome. To address them, path-following algorithms are proposed to arrive at least at local optima. The proposed algorithms iteratively improve the objectives with convergence guaranteed. Simulation results demonstrate that they achieve rapid convergence and outperform conventional solutions.


Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is the most commonly used system for restoring function after spinal cord injury (SCI). In this study, we used a model consists of a joint, two links with one degree of freedom, and two muscles as flexor and extensor of the joint, which simulated in MATLAB using SimMechanics and Simulink Toolboxes. The muscle model is based on Zajac musculotendon actuator and composed of a nonlinear recruitment curve, a nonlinear activation-frequency relationship, calcium dynamics, fatigue/recovery model, an additional constant time delay, force-length and force-velocity factors. In this study, we used a classic controller for regulating the elbow joint angle; a Proportional- Integral- Derivative controller. First, we tuned the PID coefficients with trial and error, and then a particle swarm optimization algorithm was used to optimize them. The important features of this algorithm include flexibility, simplicity, short solution time, and the ability to avoid local optimums. This PSO -PID controller uses particle swarm optimization algorithm to get the required pulse width for stimulating the biceps to reach the elbow joint to the desired angle. The fitness function was defined as sum square of error. The results for PSO -PID controller show faster response for reaching the range of the set point than the PID controller tuned by trial and error. However the PSO -PID is much better in terms of the rise time and the settling time, the PID tuned by trial and error has no overshoot. The time to reach the zero steady state error is half in PSO -PID in comparison to PID tuned by trial and error.


Introduction:
 There is overwhelming evidence that endovascular treatment is beneficial for most acute stroke patients suffering a large vessel occlusion (LVO). It is also clear that all revascularization strategies are strongly time-dependent. Endovascular treatment is unavailable at most stroke-ready hospitals, and efficient transfer of these patients is increasingly important. We sought to assess the time to treatment for patients transferred from regional hospitals, vs. patients arriving directly at our CSC.

 Methods:
 We evaluated the treatment times for the last 20 patients that received both IV tPA and endovascular treatment at our center. IV tPA could have been administered at the regional hospital, but all patients received endovascular treatment at the CSC. We evaluated common stroke quality metrics, plus transfer time for patients coming from another hospital. We measured transfer time as the length of time between acceptance of the patient and patient arrival to the CSC.

 Results:
 We evaluated the most recent 20 patients receiving IV tPA and endovascular treatment since the new endovascular trials had been published. There were 6 patients undergoing interhospital transfer (IHT), and 14 that presented directly to the CSC. Door to tPA times were 93 minutes at regional hospitals vs. 56 minutes at the CSC. Door to groin puncture did not differ between the two groups. Time from symptom onset to groin puncture was significantly longer in the IHT patients - 287 minutes vs. 195 minutes. This difference was accounted for by transfer time, which averaged 126 minutes and was significantly affected by delays between transfer acceptance to the CSC and regional hospitals calling for transport, which averaged 47 minutes (range 0-141 minutes).

 Conclusions:
 Patients with acute LVO were treated later if they underwent IHT rather than presenting directly to a CSC. Transfer from regional hospitals was slow, averaging 126 minutes. The transfer time was strongly affected by delays in arranging for transportation, which averaged 47 minutes. Transportation planning is thus a clear target for improving IHT times. Furthermore, as patients presenting directly to the CSC were treated faster, the possibility of taking severe stroke patients directly to a CSC should be studied.


Abstract Radiation-induced isotopic equilibration in hydrogen gas containing tritium has to be accounted for when cryogenic distillation of hydrogen isotopes is used for their separation. In the absence of sufficient experimental data on the reaction kinetics an appropriate theoretical model is proposed. Unknown parameters of the model have been estimated with use of Möller-Plesset ab initio method. The results of calculations are in a reasonable agreement with certain experiments performed earlier by other authors. The dependencies of equilibration rate on temperature, pressure, and tritium molar fraction are established for isotope mixtures containing no impurities.


To date, research on the physical and mechanical behavior of nickel-titanium shape-memory alloy (NiTi SMA) has focused on the macroscopic physical properties, equation of state, strength constitution, phase transition induced by temperature and stress under static load, etc. The behavior of a NiTi SMA under high-strain-rate impact and the influence of voids have not been reported. In this present work, the behavior evolution of (100) single-crystal NiTi SMA and the influencing characteristics of voids under a shock wave of 1.2 km/s are studied by large-scale molecular dynamics calculation. The results show that only a small amount of B2 austenite is transformed into B19' martensite when the NiTi sample does not pass through the void during impact compression, whereas when the shock wave passes through the hole, a large amount of martensite phase transformation and plastic deformation is induced around the hole; the existence of phase transformation and phase-transformation-induced plastic deformation greatly consumes the energy of the shock wave, thus making the width of the wave front in the subsequent propagation process wider and the peak of the foremost wave peak reduced. In addition, the existence of holes disrupts the orderly propagation of shock waves, changes the shock wave front from a plane to a concave surface, and reduces the propagation speed of shock waves. The calculation results show that the presence of pores in a porous NiTi SMA leads to significant martensitic phase transformation and plastic deformation induced by phase transformation, which has a significant buffering effect on shock waves. The results of this study provide great guidance for expanding the application of NiTi SMA in the field of shock.


In this paper we consider the problem of dynamic range compression from multiple exposures in the absence of raw images, radiometric response functions, or irradiance information. This is achieved in a rapid and relatively simplistic fashion by merging image content across provided exposures. The premise of the proposal lies in assuming as one important goal of tone-mapping, that of making visible any contrast appearing across a dynamic range that exceeds display capabilities, while preserving the nature of the image structure, lighting, and avoiding introducing discontinuities in illumination, or image artifacts. The strategy assumed for this purpose appeals to the local entropy evident in each exposure, and employs cross-exposure normalization of entropy with a non-linearity characterized by a single parameter providing a trade-off between detail, and smoothness of the result.


From 1782 to 1834, the English social legislation shifted from a safety net devised to deal with emergencies to a social security system implemented to cope with the threat of unemployment and poverty. In the attempt to explain this shift, this chapter concentrates on the changed attitudes toward poverty and power relationships in eighteenth-century British society. Especially, it looks at the role played by eighteenth-century British economic thinkers in elaborating arguments in favor of reducing the most evident asymmetries of power characterizing the period of transition from Mercantilism to the Classical era. To what extent did economic thinkers contribute to creating an environment within which a social legislation aimed at improving the living conditions of the poor as the one established in 1795 could be not only envisaged but also implemented? In doing so, this chapter deals with an aspect often undervalued and/or overlooked by historians of economic thought: namely, the relationship between economic theory and social legislation. If the latter is the institutional framework by which both individual and collective well-being can be achieved the former cannot but assume a fundamental role as a useful abstraction which sheds light on the multifaceted reality in which social policies are proposed, forged, and eventually implemented.


This paper aims at assessing the impact of inventive design education on students attending a class on Methods and Tools for Systematic Innovation. The study stems from the difficulty to understand how much personal inventive talent influences the final evaluation, especially in a context where students are asked to solve open problems, as conceptual design ones. To overcome the potential bias due to the individual talent, the authors propose to determine the impact of their teaching activity by means of an ex-ante/ex-post correlation analysis. Several cohorts of students along the years have been asked to solve some design problems at the beginning of the course, when no topics have been thought yet. An adapted creativity metrics enriched to map course contents measures the students' performance at the beginning ot the class (ex-ante). These results get correlated to the students' final grades (ex-post) in order to highlight areas where teaching has a stronger impact and those where talent remains predominant.


ABSTRACT: School improvement is much sought and often claimed. However, it is questionable whether overall achievement in countries such as the USA or England has improved by any significant amount over thirty years. Several school improvement programmes have been claimed as successful, but evaluations, even where they exist, are generally poor: based on the perceptions of participants, lacking any counterfactual or reporting selectively. Accounts of improvement in individual schools are numerous, but are inevitably selective; the attribution of causality is problematic and knowledge of the conditions under which such phenomena are likely to be replicated is limited. School effectiveness research also has yet to identify specific strategies with clear causal effects. In short, many claims of school improvement are illusory. Nevertheless, there are some improvement strategies that are well-defined, feasible and robustly shown to be effective. In future, we need greater clarity and agreement about what constitutes success. Evaluation must be taken more seriously, and its results treated more critically.


Nonsense mutants of bacteriophage phi 6 were isolated by a procedure that involved directed mutagenesis of a cDNA copy of genomic segment M, transcription of this segment, in vitro packaging into procapsids, and transfection of spheroplasts to form viable mutant phage. Recombinant phi 6 viruses that contained amber mutations in two open reading frames, ORF 10 and ORF D, of genomic segment M were isolated. We show that phi 6 protein P10 is the gene product of ORF 10. Further characterization of the phi 6 ORF 10(Am) mutant revealed that phi 6 membrane-associated protein P10 is not required to make enveloped phage particles in infected cells. Enveloped phage particles isolated from a phi 6 ORF 10(Am) infection contained extremely low levels of phi 6 membrane-associated proteins P6 and P3. The low abundance is due to the very low level of P6 synthesis in phi 6 ORF 10(Am)-infected cells. The results suggest that P10 might play a role in regulating the translation of gene 6. Protein P10 was found to be required for host lysis.


By selecting 4,4′-dicyanobiphenyl (DCBP) as a building block, porous covalent triazine-based frameworks (CTFs) incorporating pyridinic N only have been deliberately fabricated. Upon pyrolysis, the CTF-templated N-doped and hierarchically porous carbons (NHCs) exhibit high surface area, adjustable pore structure and well-controlled doping of pyridinic and graphitic N species. The above CTFs have been rationally grown onto highly conductive reduced graphene oxide (rGO) to afford CTF/rGO hybrids. The subsequent pyrolysis gives sandwich-like NHC/rGO composites, which synergistically integrate respective advantages of both the components of NHC and rGO, thus offering excellent electrocatalytic performance for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Significantly, the resultant NHC/rGO-950 exhibits a more positive onset and half-wave potential, higher diffusion-limited current density and better long-term stability than the state-of-the-art Pt/C and is among the best of previously reported metal-free electrocatalysts, in alkaline solution. Such rGO-templated NHCs based on CTFs offer a promising strategy to design highly efficient metal-free ORR electrocatalysts for fuel cells.


Land is central to Africa's fortunes, and thus has occupied a prominent place in the inquiries of Africa's home-grown governance review system, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). This paper interrogates what the APRM's reports from 10 participating countries have had to say on the land issue. Land is recognised, by the APRM and by the continent's governments and supranational authorities, as a key issue for Africa's future. It is critical for both agricultural and nonagricultural development, and to accommodate human settlement. The key, overarching challenge concerns tenure security. Land in Africa tends to be held through hybridised arrangements, in which formal, statutory systems exist alongside customary or other informal systems. The former place landholding, in theory, under a clearly defined legal order, which in turn makes it suitable as collateral for business endeavours and an asset to be leveraged for developmental purposes. This has led to calls for the formalisation of land titles across the continent. In practice, however, the weaknesses of the continent's state system make this a doubtful prospect at present. This paper argues that a better option, at least as an interim measure, would be to strive for an adaptation of the continent's informal systems of landholding, with a view to giving them a degree of legal force. However, this will only deal with part of the land governance challenges facing the continent. Land is an issue that spurs passionate emotions. It is often a proxy for issues of citizenship and belonging. Any solution will need to be sensitive to this and cannot be based solely on economic criteria. The constraints on female landholding require that some traditional practices be confronted. Conflict over land and landed resources – or conflict that has a severe impact on the use of these – needs to be tackled with strong, capacitated action by the state and society. This suggests that a comprehensive resolution of issues surrounding the continent's land ultimately demands that the capacity of the continent's states be improved. They must be able effectively to establish and implement productive land governance systems, as well as the legal systems, agrarian support and security apparatus required to support and uphold them.


Estimation of parameters of a diffusion based on discrete time observations poses a difficult problem due to the lack of a closed form expression for the likelihood. From a Bayesian computational perspective it can be casted as a missing data problem where the diffusion bridges in between discrete-time observations are missing. The computational problem can then be dealt with using a Markov-chain Monte-Carlo method known as data-augmentation. If unknown parameters appear in the diffusion coefficient, direct implementation of data-augmentation results in a Markov chain that is reducible. Furthermore, data-augmentation requires efficient sampling of diffusion bridges, which can be difficult, especially in the multidimensional case.
We present a general framework to deal with with these problems that does not rely on discretisation. The construction generalises previous approaches and sheds light on the assumptions necessary to make these approaches work. We define a random-walk type Metropolis-Hastings sampler for updating diffusion bridges. Our methods are illustrated using guided proposals for sampling diffusion bridges. These are Markov processes obtained by adding a guiding term to the drift of the diffusion. We give general guidelines on the construction of these proposals and introduce a time change and scaling of the guided proposal that reduces discretisation error. Numerical examples demonstrate the performance of our methods.


The autoregressive moving average technique (ARMA) is applied to the problem of estimating the delay of Loran-C skywaves. The performance of this technique is evaluated and compared with Fourier-based methods. The simulation results show thatthe ARMA algorithm yields significantly greater estimation accuracy and that it can also operate successfully with very noisy signals.


In this study, methanol and water extracts of Glaucium acutidentatum and Glaucium corniculatum were analysed for anti-AChE activity on neuronal PC12 cell and anti-proliferative activity on HT-29 and HeLa cancer cells. In this study, total alkaloid, phenol and flavonoid content were analyzed for the determination of active compounds of Glaucium acutidentatum and Glaucium corniculatum. Indeed, methanol and water alkaloid extracts of these plants were evaluated for their anti-AChE activities on NGF-differentiated PC12 cells (dPC12) and anti-proliferative activities on HT-29 and HeLa cancer cells.
Our data showed that alkaloid was major compound, the different concentrations of plant extracts had 35-90% in vitro AChE inhibitory activity and 26-54% cellular AChE inhibitory activity and it is dose dependent manner. Furthermore, G. acutidentatum methanolic extracts showed the highest anti-proliferative activity in HT-29 cells (45±5%) Both 1000 μg/ml methanolic extracts showed the maximum anti-proliferative effect in HeLa cells (64±3%). In conclusion, this study has shown that the anti-AChE and anti-proliferative effects of these two plants and the presence of a new AChEi may be effective in AD and cancer.


A ligand binding to its transmembrane receptor can activate several different signaling pathways that indirectly switch on the transcription of target genes in the nucleus. As [Heldin and Ericsson][1] explain in their Perspective, new findings reveal that some receptors such as ErbB-4 can also take a more direct approach to activating gene transcription ([ Ni et al .][2]). Once bound to ligand, ErbB-4 is proteolytically cleaved twice. First the ectodomain is released, then intramembrane cleavage releases a cytoplasmic fragment, which moves to the nucleus where it may affect gene expression.

 [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5549/2111
 [2]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/294/5549/2179


Soil Macrofauna has a very important role in maintaining soil fertility through the decomposition of organic matter, nutrient distribution, increasing soil aeration and so on. The existence of soil macrofauna are very important in helping the process of rehabilitation of post-mining land because they contribute to the improvement of the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil. The purposes of this study are to identify and quantify the diversity of soil macrofauna in various types of stands and land without stand in Holcim Educational Forest. The highest abundance of soil macrofauna was found in mixed stand with 240 individuals in nine plots of observation, each plot was 40 cm x 40 cm. Layers of soil (0-10 cm) has an abundance of soil macrofauna higher than in the litter layer, because soil layer can provide protection from direct sunlight and enough food for soil macrofauna. Mixed stand has the highest soil macrofauna diversity (H '= 2.52, DMG = 6.93, J' = 0.63), as it has a more diverse vegetation and highest canopy density. Environmental conditions such as soil temperature, canopy density, and soil organic matter can influence the composition and abundance of soil macrofauna, so that the soil macrofauna can be used as an indicator in monitoring environmental quality. Soil macrofauna that dominates in all the stands and land without stand, were red ants (Formicidae 7), termites (Rhinotermitidae 1), earthworms (Megascolecidae 1), and larvae of Coleoptera (Scarabaeidae 1).Key words: abundance, diversity, environment, soil macrofauna


In this article, I contextualise Bacon's representations of homosexuality — that is, same-sex relations between men. The male nude made its appearance in Bacon's work in the early 1950s, a time when the nude was not a popular subject in painting and when, perhaps more critically, homosexuality was illegal in Britain. Other British contemporary homosexual artists, such as Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, steered clear of representing homosexuality, whilst others, such as Keith Vaughan, depicted homosexuality in their art in an ambiguous and diffuse fashion, often with recourse to the homoerotic. Vaughan's studies of men exercising focused on the strength and virility of the male nude, and were erotically charged without being overtly sexual. In contrast, Bacon chose to be more explicit in his depictions. He did not simply allude to, but pointed to the homosexual act of copulation. Given that Bacon was painting at a time before the legalisation of homosexuality, how can these images be explained and what was Bacon attempting to do? His representations of the homoerotic and homosexual convey social attitudes of the time and are important constructions and mediations of homosexual desire. I explain my motivations by drawing on Bacon's cultural and theoretical background. What is evident is that there is not one homogeneous interpretation of Bacon's depiction of homosexuality, but multiple readings, which are interdisciplinary. His depictions can be explained with recourse to his biography, art historical influences, political activism and his existential awareness of death. I also demonstrate how changes in the political landscape affected Bacon's portrayals in the delineation of what I describe as four thematic phases in Bacon's art.


Sunday, April 2, 2006 - 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Room 250/262 - Moscone Convention Center Organizer Name: Steven Grinspoon, MD Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts Ashok Balusubramanyam, MD Associate Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology Baylor College of Medicine Colleen Hadigan, MD Massachusetts General Hospital Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Steven Grinspoon, MD Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital Associate Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Morris Schambelan, MD Program in Nutritional Metabolism Chief, Division of Endocrinology University of California, San Francisco Abstract: Recent evidence demonstrates a novel metabolic syndrome among HIV-infected patients, including altered lipid metabolism, substrate flux, fat distribution, and insulin resistance. Increased visceral adiposity and subcutaneous fat atrophy are most prominent. Significant progress has been made in recent years to understand this syndrome. Increased lipolysis and flux of fatty acids to the liver and muscle contribute to insulin resistance. Protease inhibitors have been shown to affect PPAR signaling, adipocyte differentiation, and apoptosis. At the same time, NRTIs, through inhibition of mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma, impair fatty acid oxidation, resulting in lipid accumulation in both the liver and muscle and repartitioning away from the subcutaneous compartment. Furthermore, reduction in critical cytokines, including adiponectin, impairs fatty acid oxidation. Recent data suggest significant clinical consequences of insulin resistance in HIV-infected patients, including increased cardiovascular disease. Recent data also suggest potentially beneficial effects of insulin sensitizing agents, such as the thiazolidinediones, to increase adiponectin and subcutaneous adipogenesis while inhibiting lipolysis and reducing hepatic and intramuscular fat accumulation. The HIV lipodystrophy syndrome is a novel metabolic syndrome in which to understand the mechanisms of insulin resistance and fat redistribution. The proposed symposium will cover critical pathophysiologic mechanisms of altered lipid metabolism and nutrient trafficking, highlighting the most recent clinical and molecular data on the effects of protease inhibitors and nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors on these processes.


During July-August 1989, 219 coprological samples from primary school children from Niebla and Los Molinos localities (39 degrees 52'S, 73 degrees 26'W) in the coast of province of Valdivia, Chile, were analysed. Prevalence % (in parentheses) of infection by intestinal protozoa and helminths were the followings: Entamoeba histolytica: (18.0), Entamoeba coli (34.0), Endolimax nana (34.4), Iodamoeba buetschlii (7.4), Blastocystis hominis (64.3), Giardia intestinalis (27.9) Chilomastix mesnili (0.8), Ascaris lumbricoides (12.7), Trichuris trichiura (32.0), Trichostronqylidea gen. sp. (0.8), Enterobius vermicularis (1.6), Hymenolepis nana (0.4) Diphyllobothrium sp. (0.4). No sanitary conditions, water, faeces and garbage disposal were detected in the 55.5%, 86.4% and 52.7% of 110 houses from the sector, respectively. The high prevalence of protozoa and helminths intestinal infections in the sector are related to no sanitary conditions of houses and fecal contamination of the estuary of the Valdivia river.


Exclusive breastfeeding means infant receives only breast milk and nothing else except for oral rehydration solution (ORS), medicines, vitamins and minerals for first six months of age. The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in our society is low and various underlying factors are responsible. The main aim of this study was to identify the factors influencing exclusive breastfeeding practice among the mothers of infant in Pokhara. A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted among 101 breastfeeding mothers having infant up to six months in the immunization clinics held in ward no. 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 of Pokhara-Lekhnath metropolitan. Non probability purposive sampling technique was used. Researcher developed questionnaire were administered to the mothers and data collected. The data were analyzed with Chi square test using SPSS 20 software. The findings revealed that the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding practice among the mothers of infant below six months old was 49.5 percent. The factors such as mode of delivery (p<0.001), pre lacteal feeding (p<0.001), time of initiation of breastfeeding (p<0.001) and breast problems experience (p= 0.004) were found associated with the exclusive breastfeeding. It concludes that factors such as mode of delivery, pre lacteal feeding, time of initiation of breastfeeding and breast problems experience were found associated with EBF practice. Low birth weight of infants and higher education status of mothers did not influence on EBF. There is a need to provide information on prevention of breast related problems among the breastfeeding mothers for the promotion of EBF practice.
 Key words: Exclusive breastfeeding, Infant, Mothers


We use the results of business tendency surveys (BTS) to forecast private investment growth in Peru, exploring the possible non-linear link between the BTS and private investment for forecasting purposes. We find that business confidence indices extracted from BTS, in particular the one calculated by the Central Reserve Bank of Peru (CRBP), are useful to forecast private investment growth in Peru. Moreover, models constructed only with indices extracted from BTS have a higher predictive power than models including control variables such as lagged GDP growth, inflation or interest rates. We also find that non-linear models are not superior to linear ones in forecasting Peruvian private investment. Additionally, the linear model finally selected would allow us to estimate real private investment growth for the current quarter with a 75-day lead with respect to the official publication date, almost twice the lead associated with the estimation methodology used by practitioners.


A working memory based model for Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) hasbeen developed (Ronnberg, 2003; Ronnberg et al., 2008). It predicts that speechunderstanding in adverse conditions, for example in the presence of high levels ofbackground noise, phonological distortion or misleading semantic context, is dependenton explicit processing resources such as working memory capacity. Thispresentation will outline the details of this prediction by addressing (1) how matchingvs. mismatching semantic cues affect speech understanding at differentSNRs behaviorally and neurally, (2) how working memory capacity interacts withsignal processing in hearing aids under "high degradation" (i.e. modulated noise,fast compression) and "low" degradation (i.e. steady state noise, slow compression)conditions, and (3) how different memory systems are selectively affectedby hearing impairment.


A novel urushiol grafted Degussa P25 (urushiol/P25) hybrid nano-material was synthesized, and its structure was characterized. The urushiol/P25 hybrid nanomaterial showed high photoactivity under visible light irradiation (λ  420 nm). Bisphenol A (BPA) can easily approach to P25 surface through the hydrophobic channel between alkyl groups in urushiol. The reaction rate constant of BPA degradation increased by 4.9 times by using 0.5% urushiol/P25 as catalyst than by using bare P25. Radical quenching experiments proved that the superoxide radical anion (O2•−) mediated oxidation pathways were dominant for BPA degradation.


This volume collects 22 articles by Masahiko Aoki, selected from writings published over the course of his 45-year academic career. These fascinating essays cover a range of issues, including mechanism design, comparative governance, corporate governance, institutions and institutional change, but are tied together by a focus on East Asia and a comparative institutional framework.


It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming[.] President Theodore Roosevelt 1


Social cognition is a topic of enormous interest and much research, but we are far from having an agreed taxonomy or factor structure of relevant processes. The aim of this review is to outline briefly what is known about the structure of social cognition and to suggest how further progress can be made to delineate the in(ter)dependence of core sociocognitive processes. We focus in particular on several processes that have been discussed and tested together in typical and atypical (notably autism spectrum disorder) groups: imitation, biological motion, empathy, and theory of mind. We consider the domain specificity/generality of core processes in social learning, reward, and attention, and we highlight the potential relevance of dual-process theories that distinguish systems for fast/automatic and slow/effortful processing. We conclude with methodological and conceptual suggestions for future progress in uncovering the structure of social cognition.


Blood transfusion is an essential part of medical care, but it has risks, including infectious and immunologic complications. Recent medical practice emphasizes the rationalization of transfusion according to guidelines at the national and local levels. Early transfusions used whole blood, but modern practice commonly uses only components of the blood, such as red blood cells, platelets, plasma, and clotting factors. Red blood cell transfusions are indicated to improve oxygen delivery to tissues and to treat hemorrhage. Platelet transfusion may be indicated to prevent hemorrhage in patients with thrombocytopenia or functionally abnormal platelets. Fresh frozen plasma can be used to correct coagulation abnormalities in order to normalize the fibrinogen level, prothrombin time, and activated partial thromboplastin time. Cryoprecipitate is indicated for bleeding associated with fibrinogen deficiencies, factor XIII deficiency, hemophilia A, or von Willebrand's disease. However, blood transfusion should be based on guidelines as well as the patient's clinical condition. Appropriate use of blood components results in effective transfusion therapy and reduces transfusion-related complications.


In Deciphering Reality: Simulations, Tests, and Designs, Benjamin B. Olshin offers a series of essays that examine the detection of computer simulations, challenge visual models of reality, explore Daoist conceptions of reality, and present possible future directions for deciphering reality.


Iron-chalcogenide superconductors are appealing for high-magnetic-field applications due to their promising superconducting properties, i.e., extremely high upper critical and irreversibility field.In this paper, the first achievements obtained from sintering polycrystalline samples are presented. The sintering of FeSe polycrystalline powders and pellets was obtained in several steps starting from stoichiometric quantities of freshly polished powders shots; after grinding, powders were loaded into cleaned and dried silica tubes sealed under vacuum for subsequent heat treatments in order to obtain the superconducting phase. Samples were then characterized from the structural, transport, and magnetic points of view. From the structural characterization, it has been discovered that, in addition to the presence of the desired tetragonal FeSe phase, hexagonal phase and several impurities are present in the samples; the lack of homogeneity inside the samples is confirmed by the superconductive characterization: despite the small undeniable enhancement of the results with the application of subsequent HTs and, nearby, a resistive superconductive onset of 12 K, the transition is still broad after the third HT.


With the evolution of QoS-capable 3G wireless networks, the wireless community has been increasingly looking for a framework that can provide effective network-independent end-to-end QoS control. In this article we first construct such a framework and then describe how dynamic SLA-based control can be used to achieve end-to-end QoS in a wired and wireless (UMTS) environment. The proposed framework, which is an extension to the IST CADENUS project, offers effective wired-wireless QoS translation, efficient QoS control and management, and dynamic SLA policy-based QoS provisioning.


In this paper, we report on delay models for CMOS, BiCMOS, and BiNMOS inverters. A two-step iterative approach has been adopted to account for the slope of the input waveforms. The Alpha-Power Law model equations have been used for the short-channel MOSFET's. The effects of high collector current on the base transit time and the current gain are also included in the models of the bipolar transistors. The developed delay models are incorporated in a timing simulator to estimate the propagation delay of chains with mixed CMOS/BiCMOS/BiNMOS gates. The estimates of the simulator deviate from those of HSPICE by less than 10%, while it is faster than HSPICE by two orders of magnitudes. Hence, it can be used for identifying critical paths in VLSI systems. >


This research discusses the theoretical investigation, simulation and hardware implementation of the ElectroMechanical Multi-stAge noise SHaping (EM-MASH) sigma delta modulator (ΣΔM). The potential advantages of an EM-??M MASH compared to single-loop high-order ΣΔMs applied to inertial MEMS sensors are its inherent stability and high overload input level due to the use of lower order ΣΔMs in its individual stages. Furthermore, MASH has the advantages of high dynamic range and high noise shaping performance because of its overall high-order ΣΔM architecture. So far, the EM-MASH has not been sufficiently explored. This study is expected to serve as solid basis for the application of EM-MASH. In this research, various EM-MASH architectures (MASH21, MASH22, MASH211, MASH221 and MASH222) were theoretically studied, and the results were validated with simulations. A fourth order EM-MASH22-ΣΔM was theoretically examined and successfully implemented with a capacitive MEMS accelerometer, which includes a second order EM-ΣΔM loop cascaded with a purely electronic second order ΣΔM. The quantization noise from the first loop is digitised by the second loop and then cancelled by digital filters, whereas the quantization noise from the second loop is shaped by the second loop filter and a digital filter, which together provide fourth order noise shaping. The performance of EM-MASH22 was compared with that of a single-loop fourth order EM-ΣΔM (SD4). Both architectures were investigated by system level modelling and hardware implementation using surface-mount PCB technology. The results show that (a) both architectures achieve the same noise floor level of 19 µg/√Hz; (b) MASH22 is unconditionally stable, whereas SD4 is only conditionally stable; and (c) MASH22 achieves a higher overload input level and a higher dynamic range than does SD4. Furthermore, the research presents a novel EM-MASH-ΣΔM that employs a dual quantization technique and adopts a 2-0 structure (EM-MASH20). With a simpler and configurable composition, MASH20 is aimed at exhibiting a performance higher than that achieved with the MASH22 structure. The MASH20 does not require a second-stage ΣΔM, which reduces the complexity of the digital filters compared to those required for the MASH22; thus, the digital filter matching is more easily achievable. The study shows that the MASH20, like the MASH22, has an inherent stability, high overload input level, and high dynamic range compared to single-loop ΣΔM. However, the MASH20, with its simpler implementation, achieved a higher dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio than the MASH22 and the SD4. A capacitive MEMS accelerometer was designed and employed with MASH20. Within a bandwidth of 1 kHz, the sensor achieves a noise floor level of 15 µg/√Hz, a full-scale acceleration of ±20 g and a bias instability of 20 µg for a period of three hours. The EM-MASH-ΣΔM is sensitive to the variation of the sensing element parameters and other analogue parameters, both of which are subject to manufacturing tolerance and imperfections. This causes a leakage of the quantization noise in the final output and degrades the modulator performance. The research explored a calibration method to solve this problem by utilizing the digital domain capabilities. The method is based on the optimization algorithm which was investigated using MATLAB. The research confirms the concept of the EM-MASH structure and proves that it is applicable as a closed-loop interface for high-performance capacitive MEMS inertial sensors.


Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. Regular exercise training can positively influence risk factors for CVD; however, the optimal training modality is unknown. Single-leg cycling allows greater leg blood flow and muscle-specific oxygen consumption resulting in higher localised intensity, when compared with double-leg cycling, and therefore could provide superior benefits to CVD risk factor profile. Within this thesis, three studies were conducted to examine the haemodynamic responses to sequential single-leg cycling (i.e. both legs exercised independently within a single session) and the chronic impact of this modality on common risk factors for CVD. Study One (Chapter Four) investigated the haemodynamic responses of the active and inactive legs during sequential single-leg (12 (six with one leg followed by six with the other leg) 1-min single-leg maximal effort intervals interspersed with one minute of passive recovery) and double-leg cycling (six 1-min double-leg maximal effort intervals interspersed with one minute of passive recovery) in a young healthy population. Study Two (Chapter Five) examined the acute central and peripheral haemodynamic responses of healthy middle-aged adults to sequential single-leg (20 (ten with each leg) 30-second single-leg intervals at a rating of perceived exertion (RPE) of 15-17 interspersed with 60 seconds passive recovery) and double-leg (ten 30-second double-leg intervals at a RPE of 15-17 interspersed with 60 seconds passive recovery) interval cycling. Study Three (Chapter Six) assessed the effects of eight weeks of cycle training, using moderate intensity double-leg continuous cycling (MCTDL; cycled continuously for 40 minutes at an RPE 11-13 using double-leg cycling), high intensity double-leg interval cycling (HITDL; twenty 30-second double-leg intervals at a RPE 15-17 separated by 60 seconds of passive recovery) or high intensity sequential single-leg interval cycling (HITSL: forty (twenty with each leg) 30-second single-leg intervals at a RPE of 15-17 interspersed with 60 seconds passive recovery), on CVD risk factors in healthy middle-aged adults.

In a young healthy population (Chapter Four), mean arterial pressure was higher during the initial compared with second set of single-leg intervals (108 ± 10 mmHg vs. 101 ± 10 mmHg; p<0.05). Furthermore, the pattern of change in muscle blood volume from the initial to second set of intervals was different (p<0.05) when the leg was active in the initial (-52.3 ± 111.6%) compared with second set (65.1 ± 152.9%). Differences in mean arterial pressure and blood volume distribution during sequential single-leg cycling indicates the presence of a leg order effect. Consistent with previous single-leg cycling studies in young healthy adults, the power output produced per leg was higher (p<0.01) during single-leg (176 ± 52 W) compared with double-leg (145 ± 38 W) interval cycling which confirms the higher localised intensity associated with this modality.

In contrast to findings in younger adults in Chapter Four, power output normalised to the active muscle mass was lower during single-leg compared with double-leg cycling (single-leg: 8.92 ± 1.74 W∙kg-1 and double-leg: 10.41 ± 3.22 W∙kg-1; p<0.05) in a healthy middle-aged population (Chapter Five). This was despite the greater normalised cardiac output (single-leg: 1407 ± 334 mL∙kg-1∙min-1 and double-leg: 850 ± 222 mL∙kg-1∙min-1; p<0.01) indicating surplus blood was available to the smaller active muscle mass. The dissociation between blood availability and power output is consistent with an ageing model characterised by a decrease in local oxygen delivery and distribution capability. However, in Chapter Six, when examined as an average of the entire eight-week intervention, the participants were able to maintain a higher normalised power output during HITSL compared with HITDL and MCTDL. These data indicate that older adults are likely to respond in a similar manner to younger cohorts; however, it may take multiple exercise sessions before differences in per leg power output are observed. From the data within this thesis, it is not possible to determine the exact number of exercise sessions required to familiarise older adults to this novel modality.

The findings presented in Chapter Six indicate that irrespective of modality, participants experienced improvements in fitness (22.3 ± 6.4 mL∙kg-1∙min-1 vs 24.9 ± 7.6 mL∙kg-1∙min-1; p<0.01), and reductions in waist-to-hip ratio (0.84 ± 0.09 vs 0.83 ± 0.09; p<0.01), resting blood pressure (systolic: 129 ± 11 mmHg vs 124 ± 12 mmHg; p<0.01-, diastolic: 79 ± 8 mmHg vs 76 ± 8 mmHg; p<0.02), total cholesterol (5.87 ± 1.17 mmol∙L-1 vs 5.55 ± 0.98 mmol∙L-1; p<0.01) and LDL cholesterol (3.70 ± 1.04 mmol∙L-1 vs 3.44 ± 0.84 mmol∙L-1; p<0.01) after the eight-week intervention. Additionally, the proportion of individuals in each condition who experienced clinically relevant changes in aerobic capacity, LDL cholesterol and blood pressure (i.e. those risk factors with published clinically relevant change scores) were assessed. During the double-leg cycling conditions (HITDL and MCTDL), more individuals demonstrated changes in aerobic capacity above the clinically relevant change score (i.e. changes associated with reductions in CVD morbidity and mortality) when compared with single-leg cycling. High intensity cycling (HITSL and HITDL) demonstrated a greater influence on LDL cholesterol when compared to moderate intensity cycling. Reductions in arterial blood pressure beyond clinically relevant change scores were more prevalent following HITSL compared with the double-leg cycling conditions (HITDL and MCTDL).

In conclusion, the findings presented in this thesis provide evidence for the therapeutic use of sequential single-leg cycling in healthy populations. Importantly, when using sequential single-leg cycling as a training modality, active leg order should be alternated in each training session due to potential alterations in acute cardiovascular and metabolic responses. Further, short-term exercise training of moderate or high intensity and using double-leg or single-leg cycling can positively influence risk factors for CVD. However, based on the proportion of individuals surpassing the clinically relevant change scores for select CVD risk factors, practitioners should focus their selection of exercise modality for the specific goals of the exercise intervention.


To date, the development of valid and globally universally accepted recognized methods for the accurate exposure assessment of wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies is lagging behind the rapid emergence of high power systems in the energy and automotive sectors. WPT systems based on inductive and magnetic resonance technologies generate strong but rapidly decaying magnetic fields, which often exceed reference levels (RL) in the immediate vicinity of the WPT coils by up to a factor of $>$100. Compliance testing of WPT systems with limits derived for homogeneous exposure can lead to estimations of exposure that exceed by up to 40 dB assessments of the fields induced in the human body, i.e., the basic restrictions (BR) defined by the international safety guidelines. Testing compliance with the BR is impractical for regulatory purposes due to the high costs of resources of determining the maximum exposure conditions. This paper presents a novel compliance testing method that mitigates the overestimation of the exposure while maintaining the simplicity of the testing procedure. This is achieved by using coupling transformation functions to correlate not only the amplitude and frequency but also the gradient of the incident field with the BR. These novel conservative coupling functions have been determined by means of a large scale numerical study in the frequency range 3 kHz–10 MHz supported by a physics-based approximation. The here proposed compliance testing method is still conservative in comparison to the compliance toward BR of localized sources. However, in comparison to today's practice of applying RL directly, the overestimation is strongly reduced for high gradient fields ($G_n$ $>$ 50 T/m/T), e.g., by more than 3000 times for field gradients of about 200 T/m/T. We have validated the method by numerical analysis of human exposure to actual WPT sources. The adoption of the new method will help to accelerate the introduction of high-power wireless charging devices in the global market.


AbstractGLAUCOMA is a chronic eye disease that can damage optic nerve. According to WHO It is the second leading cause of blindness, and is predicted to affect around 80 million people by 2020. Development of the disease leads to loss of vision, which occurs increasingly over a long period of time. As the symptoms only occur when the disease is quite advanced so that glaucoma is called the silent thief of sight. Glaucoma cannot be cured, but its development can be slowed down by treatment. Therefore, detecting glaucoma in time is critical. However, many glaucoma patients are unaware of the disease until it has reached its advanced stage. In this paper, some manual and automatic methods are discussed to detect glaucoma. Manual analysis of the eye is time consuming and the accuracy of the parameter measurements also varies with different clinicians. To overcome these problems with manual analysis, the objective of this survey is to introduce a method to automatically analyze the ultrasound images of the eye. Automatic analysis of this disease is much more effective than manual analysis.


Dentoalveolar infections include a wide range of conditions from localized abscesses to deep-neck space infections or more severe cases of necrotizing fasciitis. Odontogenic infections and emergencies are a significant part of an oral and maxillofacial surgeon's daily practice. On a daily basis, an oral surgeon needs to be prepared to deal with any infection-related emergencies ranging from a toothache, localized vestibular abscess to deep head and neck abscesses. Management of these odontogenic infections could propose a challenge due to complex microbiology of the odontogenic infection and the potential for advancement to a life-threatening emergency. It is crucial that the oral and maxillo‐ facial surgeon has knowledge of anatomic boundaries and fascial spaces to be able to make an accurate diagnosis and perform prompt surgical management. For the patient, odontogenic infections may carry high incidence of morbidity and mortality if not treated promptly. Management of patient with an odontogenic infection is a multifaceted approach involving (1) an examination and assessment of the patient, (2) identifying the source of the infection, (3) anatomic considerations, (4) surgical intervention, (5) administration of the appropriate antimicrobial therapy, and (6) referral to an appropri‐ ate provider if indicated. This chapter provides the clinician with a better understand‐ ing of diagnosis and pharmacological management as well as surgical treatment of patients with odontogenic infections. of infectious process morbidity with Antibiotic cost can be compared on the cost for a standard prescription for antibiotics of preference in oral formulations.


Objective: This study investigates the effect of cognitive load on guidance of visual attention. Background: Previous studies have shown that cognitive load can undermine driving performance, particularly drivers' ability to detect safety-critical events. Cognitive load combined with the loss of exogenous cues, which can occur when the driver briefly glances away from the roadway, may be particularly detrimental. Method: In each of two experiments, twelve participants engaged in an auditory task while performing a change detection task. A change blindness paradigm was implemented to mask exogenous cues by periodically blanking the screen in a driving simulator while a change occurred. Performance measures included participants' sensitivity to vehicle changes and confidence in detecting them. Results: Cognitive load uniformly diminished participants' sensitivity and confidence, independent of safety relevance or lack of exogenous cues. Periodic blanking, which simulated glances away from the roadway, undermined change detection to a greater degree than did cognitive load; however, drivers' confidence in their ability to detect changes was diminished more by cognitive load than by periodic blanking. Conclusion: Cognitive load and short glances away from the road are additive in their tendency to increase the likelihood of drivers missing safety-critical events. Application: This study demonstrates the need to consider the combined consequence of cognitive load and brief glances away from the road in the design of emerging in-vehicle devices and the need to provide drivers with better feedback regarding these consequences.


A stream's sediment load is typically deposited, eroded, and redeposited many times in a stream channel, especially during climatic variations such as flooding. During this process of deposition, erosion and redeposition the chemistry of stream sediments changes. Understanding the past environmental conditions under which these sediments have been subjected to are of great significance to geologist interested in exploring for mineral and petroleum resources. Paleo Environmental studies conducted on 17 stream sediment samples in parts of Awe-Obi area using chemical index of alteration (CIA) and chemical index of weathering (CIW) revealed that the area is intense to extremely weathered with calculated values between 67 and 99. The mineralogical index of alteration (MIA) was studied to evaluate the degree of mineralogical weathering. The calculated values revealed that Awe-Obi is intermediate, intense-extremely weathered. Index of compositional variability (ICV) was used in this study as measure of sediment maturity. The calculated ICV values showed all the samples as immature except sample SSB8 which has a value of 0.765515. Paleo-Oxygenation condition of the study area was conducted using Ni/Co ratio. This revealed that all the samples were deposited in an oxygenated condition.


Himachal Pradesh University (HPU), a premier institution of teaching and research in the country, is situated at Summer Hill, a suburb of Shimla at a distance of 5 km from the main town. HPU has a multi-hazard /multi-disaster prone campus and it"s mainly because of its geo-climatic complexities and anthropogenic factors being the capital city of Himachal Pradesh massive development is going on in and around Shimla. Seismic hazard wise HPU and the surrounding areas in Summer Hill are quite vulnerable. It falls in the Zone IV of the seismic zonation map of India. Based on the past earthquake evidences, active tectonics or study of fault planes along which movement is still going on and seismic vulnerability studies indicate one conclusion, that is an earthquake of magnitude of 1905 Kangra earthquake is overdue in the region. Apart from earthquake, flood, fire and landslide are also the major disasters in Shimla and in the recent years they have wreaked havoc in the region. Shimla have been found more prone to disasters and are at high risk in terms of lives and property. Building bye-laws have not been followed in the city Man and man- made structure stands no chance against the awesome power and furry of such disaster when they strike. Therefore, a mechanism is needed to safeguard against massive and unwarranted loss of life and property in the event of such calamity. Solution to counter these trends exists and the knowledge and technology necessary to apply them are widely available. Disaster reduction is the sum of all the action which can be undertaken to reduce the vulnerability of a society to natural hazards. The solution includes proper land-use planning, aided by vulnerability mapping, to relocate people in safe areas, the adaptation of proper building codes in support of disaster resilient engineering, based on local multi hazard risk assessment/maps. In this paper, Hazard and Vulnerability assessment of HPU Campus is assessed. This study will serve as an initiative which can be used for managing both natural and human-induced hazards in the campus.


The aim of the paper is to investigate the extent to which urbanization and industrialization affect bank development in The Gambia. To achieve the objective of this research, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) is employed and to check the robustness of th results, the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS), Canonical Cointegrating Regression (CCR) and VECM Granger Causality are employed on time series data from 1990-2017. The results revealed that urban concentration has a positive impact on banking sector development of The Gambia both in the short and long run. Conversely, industrialization has a significant negative association with bank development in the short run, but insignificant in the long run. Furthermore, the results from the Granger Causality technique revealed a unidirectional relationship moving from both urbanization and industrialization to bank development. Urbanization should be encouraged, as urban development leads to bank development and consequently the banking sector accounts for 90% of the financial industry in The Gambia, which can promote economic growth. Furthermore, the manufacturing industries should increase their level of partnership with the banks in order to ease their financial distress and increase productivity.


The Shadow of a Doubt is an installation made from a collection of gathered fragments, in the form of objects, texts, videos and performance gestures, which have been re-enacted as both drawn marks and filmed documentation of actions. A few years ago Johnston acquired nine chairs from a scrap yard that had been salvaged from the Maze prison. These chairs form the centre of an extended dialogue about retracing pivotal moments of the 1980's through recollecting the mediatised versions of events and paralleling them with memories of a protected home life.


Only available in electronic version

There is no systematic structure in the Netherlands for mapping out
the discrimination experiences of different groups in different
areas of society. As in many other countries, discrimination
studies in the Netherlands mostly focus on the experiences of
specific groups, on specific domains or on specific types of
discrimination. This study aims to chart the extent to which
residents of the Netherlands perceive that they are subject to
discrimination, from the perspectives of group identities,
discrimination grounds and societal domains. In addition, it
highlights the consequences that people attach to their
experiences. The study shows that different types of perceived
discrimination are associated with different groups, and are
related to the way in which groups are perceived in Dutch
society.


System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is one of the few innovations developed by the farmers that have resulted in greater level of interest and enthusiasm not only among the farmers but also among scientists. SRI was diffused first to Tamil Nadu State in India during the year 1999, followed by Andhra Pradesh. However, there is a need to study how SRI was diffused and adopted across the States of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The initial diffusion of SRI was mainly through literature. In Tamil Nadu, out of 31 districts, in 19 districts SRI has been introduced. At present out of 23 districts in Andhra Pradesh State, SRI has been introduced in 22 districts. The study revealed that farmers' awareness of SRI happened during 2004-05. The gap between initial awareness and actual adoption ranged from one to twelve months. The delay in adoption was mainly due to labour and technical constraints. Mass media were the major sources of awareness for the farmers, while State Department of Agriculture and State Agricultural Universities were the major sources that provided subsequent knowledge and training. At present, the rate of adoption of SRI practices is at take-off stage. The important attributes which aroused the interest of farmers to gain more knowledge about SRI were high grain and straw yield, lower seed rate, less water requirement and less cost of cultivation. Few farmers discontinued (which is more of disenchantment discontinuance) due to more of labour and institutional constraints and less of technical reasons. Important reasons for non-adoption of SRI practices were risk involved in adopting new practices, shortage of agricultural labour and psychological fear of loss.


This is a tutorial article on the application of geometrical vector space concepts for deriving the rapidly converging, reduced computation structures known as fast recursive least squares (RLS) adaptive filters. Since potential applications of fast RLS, such as speech coding [1] and echo, cancellation [2], have been previously examined in the ASSP Magazine, this article focuses instead on an intuitive geometrical approach to deriving these fast RLS filters for linear prediction. One purpose of this article is to keep the required mathematics at a minimum and instead highlight the properties of the fast RLS filters through geometrical interpretation. The geometrical vector space concepts in this article are then applied to deriving the very important fast RLS structure known as the fast transversal filter (FTF).


Over the last years, civic technology projects have emerged around the world to advance open government and community action. Although Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) communities have shown a growing interest in researching issues around civic technologies, yet most research still focuses on projects from the Global North. The goal of this workshop is, therefore, to advance CSCW research by raising awareness for the ongoing challenges and open questions around civic technology by bridging the gap between researchers and practitioners from different regions. The workshop will be organized around three central topics: (1) discuss how the local context and infrastructure affect the design, implementation, adoption, and maintenance of civic technology; (2) identify key elements of the configuration of trust among government, citizenry, and local organizations and how these elements change depending on the sociopolitical context where community engagement takes place; (3) discover what methods and strategies are best suited for conducting research on civic technologies in different contexts. These core topics will be covered across sessions that will initiate in-depth discussions and, thereby, stimulate collaboration between the CSCW research community and practitioners of civic technologies from both Global North and South.


The development of a robust strategy for network security is reliant upon a combination of in-house expertise and for completeness attack vectors used by attackers. A honeypot is one of the most popular mechanisms used to gather information about attacks and attackers. However, low-interaction honeypots only emulate an operating system and services, and are more prone to a fingerprinting attack, resulting in severe consequences such as revealing the identity of the honeypot and thus ending the usefulness of the honeypot forever, or worse, enabling it to be converted into a bot used to attack others. A number of tools and techniques are available both to fingerprint low-interaction honeypots and to defend against such fingerprinting; however, there is an absence of fingerprinting techniques to identify the characteristics and behaviours that indicate fingerprinting is occurring. Therefore, this paper proposes a fuzzy technique to correlate the attack actions and predict the probability that an attack is a fingerprinting attack on the honeypot. Initially, an experimental assessment of the fingerprinting attack on the low- interaction honeypot is performed, and a fingerprinting detection mechanism is proposed that includes the underlying principles of popular fingerprinting attack tools. This implementation is based on a popular and commercially available low-interaction honeypot for Windows - KFSensor. However, the proposed fuzzy technique is a general technique and can be used with any low-interaction honeypot to aid in the identification of the fingerprinting attack whilst it is occurring; thus protecting the honeypot from the fingerprinting attack and extending its life.


We present SPEX, the Spectropolarimeter for Planetary Exploration, which is a compact, robust and low-mass spectropolarimeter designed to operate from an orbiting or in situ platform. Its purpose is to simultaneously measure the radiance and the state (degree and angle) of linear polarization of sunlight that has been scattered in a planetary atmosphere and/or reflected by a planetary surface with high accuracy. The degree of linear polarization is extremely sensitive to the microphysical properties of atmospheric or surface particles (such as size, shape, and composition), and to the vertical distribution of atmospheric particles, such as cloud top altitudes. Measurements as those performed by SPEX are therefore crucial and often the only tool for disentangling the many parameters that describe planetary atmospheres and surfaces. SPEX uses a novel, passive method for its radiance and polarization observations that is based on a carefully selected combination of polarization optics. This method, called spectral modulation, is the modulation of the radiance spectrum in both amplitude and phase by the degree and angle of linear polarization, respectively. The polarization optics consists of an achromatic quarter-wave retarder, an athermal multiple-order retarder, and a polarizing beam splitter. We will show first results obtained with the recently developed prototype of the SPEX instrument, and present a performance analysis based on a dedicated vector radiative transport model together with a recently developed SPEX instrument simulator.


Studies on intact muscle fibres indicate that reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced during muscle activity, or applied exogenously, can cause decreased force responses primarily by reducing the Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile apparatus. Identification of the molecular basis of this effect is complicated by the fact that studies on skinned muscle fibres in general have not observed reduced contractile Ca2+ sensitivity when applying ROS, predominantly H2O2. Here, using skinned fibres from rat extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and soleus muscle, it is shown that although H2O2 (≥ 100 μm) has little effect by itself, when added in the presence of myoglobin it causes marked reduction in the Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile apparatus, probably due to production of hydroxyl radicals (OH•). Maximum force production is also reduced, but only with larger or more prolonged treatments. The effects are not prevented by tempol, a potent superoxide scavenger. Dithiotreitol (DTT) produces little reversal of the sensitivity change if applied afterwards, but it does substantially reverse all the changes if applied before the fibre undergoes an activation sequence. When glutathione (GSH, 5 mm) is present, exposure of EDL fibres to H2O2 and myoglobin causes an increase in Ca2+ sensitivity, with longer treatments causing a subsequent decrease, whereas in soleus fibres it causes only decreases in sensitivity and maximum force. The increased Ca2+ sensitivity in EDL fibres is evidently due to the summed actions of (i) a potentiating effect of glutathionylation, which can be reversed by DTT and only occurs in fast‐twitch fibres, and (ii) a less reversible reduction in sensitivity. Western blotting showed that reductions in Ca2+ sensitivity were not due to loss of troponin‐C. The present findings help provide a mechanistic basis for diverse findings on the effects of ROS in muscle fibres and implicate OH• radicals and glutathione as likely mediators of the effects.


An unprecedented number of investors are giving their financial advisors a mandate for socially responsible investing (SRI). Yet, the impact of SRI mandates on consumers is unclear. In a pre-registered lab-in-the-field experiment with 345 professional advisors, we find that advisors charge a premium to SRI clients that cannot be justified by higher effort, skill, or costs. This suggests that advisors exploit the SRI preferences of their clients (who accept these higher fees). In an independent survey, financial regulators predict higher SRI fees but do not predict exploitation. Regulators confirm that our findings are externally valid and require attention from policymakers.


This working paper provides an overview of the transitional process in Colombia and Peru, focusing on the situation of children. The adoption of judicial and administrative measures to deal with human rights violations from the past (Peru) and the present (Colombia) is a tool towards the consolidation of democratic institutions. While individual initiatives have been undertaken in both countries, addressing the situation of children in an integrated, comprehensive way is a persistent challenge, as is the exploration of legal tools as a means to demand responsibility.


Background Accurate evaluation of liver fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is important to identify patients who may develop complications. The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of simple non-invasive tests in identifying advanced fibrosis among patients with biopsy-proven NAFLD. Methods Consecutive patients with biopsy proven NAFLD were recruited from the Newcastle Hospitals Fatty Liver Clinic from 2003 to 2009. The AST/ALT ratio, AST to platelet ratio index, BARD (weighted sum of BMI > 28 ¼ 1 point, AST/ALT ratio > 0.8 ¼ 2 points, diabetes ¼ 1 point), FIB-4 (age 3 AST (IU/l)/platelet count ( 3 10 9 /litre) 3 O ALT (IU/l)) and NAFLD fibrosis scores were calculated from blood tests taken at time of biopsy. Results 145 patients (82 male (61%), mean age 51 6 12 years) were included. The mean body mass index was 35 6 5 kg/m 2 . 73 subjects (50%) had diabetes. 93 patients (64%) had non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. 27 (19%) had advanced fibrosis (Kleiner stage 3 e 4). The FIB-4 score had the best diagnostic accuracy for advanced fibrosis (area under receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC) 0.86), followed by AST/ALT ratio (AUROC 0.83), NAFLD fibrosis score (AUROC 0.81), BARD (AUROC 0.77) Conclusions The ALT/AST ratio, FIB-4 and NAFLD fibrosis scores can reliably exclude advanced fibrosis in a high proportion of patients with NAFLD, allowing liver biopsy to be used in a more directed manner.


The ability to cope with competitive stress is an integral part of elite sport performance. The purposes of this investigation were to identify and examine players' perceptions of sources of stress and coping strategies prior to the 1999 soccer world cup finals. Using a case study approach (Stake, 2000), members of a women's national soccer team (n = 10) participated in this investigation. Through the process of inductive data analysis, main sources of stress were categorized into the following four main themes: coaches, demands of international soccer, competitive stressors, and distractions. Participants used several types of strategies based on a range of problem-focused, emotion-focused, appraisal-reappraisal, and avoidance coping styles to deal with these stressors. The main coping themes identified were reappraisal, use of social resources, performance behaviors, and blocking. Athletes implemented different coping strategies depending on the stressors they encountered. The widest range of coping res...


Background The End of Life Care Strategy (2008) states that healthcare providers, prisons and coronial services should develop strategies that enhance delivery of palliative and end of life care. The prison environment and rules potentially creates inequalities in care. A paucity of research means that although palliative care is recognised as desirable, there is a lack of evidence about the nature of what is required and its feasibility in a prison context. Aims and Methods The aim of the study was to quantify palliative and end of life care need in adult prisons in England and Wales and identify services delivered and strategies to enhance care. A self-reported questionnaire was developed and consent for participation sought from 124 prisons. Results Data obtained from 39 prisons (31.5% response rate) indicate that between 2010-2012, 113 prisoners died from natural causes; retrospective review concluded that 68 required palliative care input. Forty-five were considered for release to receive care in an alternative location; 20 of them were released. Factors preventing release included on-going risk, failure to identify patients in a timely manner or obtain the required medical report, and prisoners' wishes to remain in prison. Two-thirds of prisons had a palliative care policy; 28% had implemented the Gold Standards Framework and 36% Advance Care Planning. Ninety percent of prisons had access to palliative care nurse specialists and 77% palliative medicine consultants. Three broad approaches were identified; the individual prison approach, the cluster approach and the regional approach. Conclusions There is evidence of support from specialist palliative care services, implementation of palliative care principles and access to education for prison staff. The study has highlighted the challenges in developing palliative care services across the entire prisons service and the unique approaches adopted. Further research is underway to develop a model of integrated palliative and end of life care for dying prisoners.


Previous published literature examining the impact of Fabry disease on female heterozygotes has suggested that women with this disease have a unique clinical relationship with the healthcare system and engage in Fabry disease medical management in a manner different from their male counterparts. The past history of labeling these women as carriers for the disease and asymptomatic has been proposed as one barrier to females' participation in evaluation and monitoring for Fabry disease. However, the health beliefs unique to females with Fabry disease have not been thoroughly addressed in the literature. We attempted to examine this issue in more detail utilizing the Health Belief Model, a conceptual framework to assess perceived susceptibility to and severity of a disease, perceived benefit of engaging in a health behavior, and perceived barriers to performing this behavior. This study, part two of a larger three part project, examines the health beliefs of 44 adult females diagnosed with Fabry disease from across the United States through the means of a concurrent demographic survey and written, multiple choice and open-ended health belief questionnaire. Themes emerging from analysis of part one of the larger three part project, aimed at describing the health beliefs of ten females through qualitative thematic analysis, informed the design of the health belief questionnaire utilized in this study. This study characterizes the health beliefs of a larger population of adult females diagnosed with Fabry disease than previously assessed in part one of the study, specifically assessing the perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and perceived benefits of and barriers to treatment, evaluation, and monitoring, and identifies strategies to address identified barriers, modifying variables, and cues to action to improve communication between healthcare providers and their female patients. Strategies developed to identify and address these barriers may be applied to other populations of females diagnosed with genetic conditions in which poor compliance for recommended evaluations and monitoring have been documented, providing a broader application and public health significance to the findings of this study.