Functionally gradient material (FGM) developed for heat-shielding structure is often used in the very high temperature environment. Therefore, the material property parameters are not only functions of spatial coordinates but also ones of temperature. The former leads to partial differential equations with variable coefficients, the latter to nonlinear governing equations. It is usually very difficult to obtain the analytical solution to such thermal conduction problems of FGMs. If the finite element method is adopted, it is very inconvenient because material parameter values must be imputed for each element. Hence, a semi-analytic numerical method, i.e., method of lines (MOLs) is introduced. The thermal conductivity functions do not need to be discretized and remain original form in ordinary differential equations. As a numerical example, the nonlinear steady temperature fields are computed for a rectangular non-homogeneous region with the first, the second and the third kinds of boundary conditions, where three kinds of functions, i.e. power, exponential and logarithmic ones are adopted for the thermal conductivity. Results display the important influence of non-linearity on temperature fields. Moreover, the results given here provide the better basis for thermal stress analysis of non-homogenous and non-linear materials.


A novel ytterbium-thulium codoping scheme is presented taking advantage of the fact that ytterbium codoping in thulium could facilitate population inversion between the relevant energy levels, through a cross energy transfer process between Tm 3+ and Yb 3+ .A set of nonlinear coupled ODEs which govern the dynamics of optical amplification in the ytterbium-thulium codoped material system was established based on the rate equations and propagation equations. The results demonstrated that the ytterbium to thulium energy transfer process is significant and beneficial. PACS: 42.81; 42.70.HJ


This thesis describes two main programmes: the synthesis of a new class of homochiral amines and the synthesis of ketone analogues of 3a-esterified tropane alkaloids. In chapter one, a scaled-up synthesis of (5)-a-(diphenylmethyl)pyrrolidine 1 is described. The key hydrogenation step of the oxazolidinone intermediate 2 was extended to the synthesis of the other chiral amines 70, 73, 76, 79 and 82. Hydrogenation of the oxazolidinones proceeded in good yields (71 - 87 %) and was not susceptible to racemisation. Thus, a convenient route from amino acid ester hydrochlorides (S)-valine 65, (S)-phenylalanine 66, (S)-alanine 67, (S)-isoleucine 68 and (S)-leucine 69 allowed a range of novel chiral amines to be prepared. In chapters two and three, a new route to ketone analogues of tropane esters is described. In chapter two, results of an attempt to prepare ketone 110 are outlined. Ketone 110 is an analogue of the tropane alkaloid littorine 101, where the bridging ester O atom is replaced by a CH2 group. The first approach to ketone 110 involved the Wittig reaction of acetylmethylenephosphorane 118 and the Homer-Wadsworth- Emmons reaction of diethylbenzoylmethanephosphonate 122 with tropinone 116. Tropinone 116 was found to be particularly unreactive in both cases. The second approach to ketone 110 involved the coupling reactions of both N-troc-3a- tosyloxymethyltropane 170 and N-troc-3 a-iodomethyltropane 185 with 2-phenylacetyl- 1,3-dithiane 147 and 1,3-ditihiane 142. These were also unreactive and as a result the synthesis of ketone 110 remains unresolved. In chapter three, the synthesis of other ketone analogues of naturally occurring 3 a- esterified tropane alkaloids is described. A six-step route to the ketones was devised and in this route the Grignard reactions of tropan-3 -ylacetaldehyde 227 emerged as the key to the success of the strategy. Three ketone analogues 218, 219 and 220 of tropate esters were successfully prepared. Ketone 220, the analogue of apoatropine 201, was found to be a muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist (EC(_50) 1.9x10(^-7) M) in guinea-pigileum, showing a 500-fold less activity than atropine 202. However the activity is still within the clinical range.


Prior research suggests that consumers evaluate firms more negatively if they attribute the firm's business practices to firm-serving motivations rather than to motivations that serve the public good. The authors propose an alternative hypothesis: firm-serving attributions lower evaluation of the firm only when they are inconsistent with the firm's expressed motive. As such, the negative effect of consumer skepticism regarding a firm's motives can be inhibited by public acknowledgment of the strategic benefits to the firm. The power of this inhibition procedure was demonstrated in an experiment that manipulated the salience of firm-serving benefits and the firm's publicly stated motive. Consumer evaluation of the sponsoring firm was lowest in conditions when firm-serving benefits were salient and the firm outwardly stated purely public-serving motives. This experiment also revealed that the potential negative effects of skepticism were the most pronounced when individuals engaged in causal attribution prior to company evaluation. Finally, this study measured the different effects on attribution and evaluation of two distinct forms of skepticism: situational skepticism--a momentary state of distrust of an actor's motivations--and dispositional skepticism--an individual's ongoing tendency to be suspicious of other people's motives.


Ascending serotonergic/glutamatergic projection from the median raphe region (MRR) to the hippocampal formation regulates both encoding and consolidation of memory and the oscillations associated with them. The firing of various types of MRR neurons exhibits rhythmic modulation coupled to hippocampal oscillatory activity. A possible intermediary between rhythm-generating forebrain regions and entrained ascending modulation may be the GABAergic circuit in the MRR, known to be targeted by a diverse array of top-down inputs. However, the activity of inhibitory MRR neurons in an awake animal is still largely unexplored. In this study, we utilized whole cell patch-clamp, single cell, and multichannel extracellular recordings of GABAergic and non-GABAergic MRR neurons in awake, head-fixed mice. First, we have demonstrated that glutamatergic and serotonergic neurons receive both transient, phasic, and sustained tonic inhibition. Then, we observed substantial heterogeneity of GABAergic firing patterns but a marked modulation of activity by brain states and fine timescale coupling of spiking to theta and ripple oscillations. We also uncovered a correlation between the preferred theta phase and the direction of activity change during ripples, suggesting the segregation of inhibitory neurons into functional groups. Finally, we could detect complementary alteration of non-GABAergic neurons' ripple-coupled activity. Our findings support the assumption that the local inhibitory circuit in the MRR may synchronize ascending serotonergic/glutamatergic modulation with hippocampal activity on a subsecond timescale.


We present a novel tree browser that builds on the conventional node link tree diagrams. It adds dynamic rescaling of branches of the tree to best fit the available screen space, optimized camera movement, and the use of preview icons summarizing the topology of the branches that cannot be expanded. In addition, it includes integrated search and filter functions. This paper reflects on the evolution of the design and highlights the principles that emerged from it. A controlled experiment showed benefits for navigation to already previously visited nodes and estimation of overall tree topology.


A facile solvothermal method was introduced to incorporate Eu3+ ions into the monodisperse tetragonal ZrO2 nanocrystals (NCs) with small size of approximately 4 nm. The optical properties for Eu3+ doped ZrO2 NCs were investigated in detail by using the photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy at room and low temperatures. Intense red emissions from Eu3+ ions could be achieved via the host sensitization, which was found to be much more efficient than the direct excitation of lanthanide ions. Moreover, multiple sites of Eu3+ as well as the host-to-Eu3+ energy transfer were also revealed based on the PL analyses.


With the rapid transformation from industrial to digital economy, Multinational
companies (MNCs) play a more important role in the global economy and there is an
increasing proportion for intracompany transaction out of global trade, from which large
MNCs have more and more opportunities to shift their profit to lower or non-tax countries in
order to reduce their taxable income by taking tax advantage of loopholes of the current
international tax law. Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project is established to
remedy the loopholes of the current international taxation law to prevent tax avoidance from
being conducted by most of MNCs. This project has been implemented by many countries.
However, it is still in the initial stages of the implementation.
This thesis aim to analyze the implementation of BEPS Action Plan in terms of transfer
pricing focusing on Action (13) and Actions (8-10) based on practical analysis of the current
responses from both the participating countries according to some surveys that have done
before and the MNCs by taking sample of 30 MNCs and study the trend of the gap between
the statuary and effective tax rate in three time periods 2011,2013 and 2015. Most of the
OECD countries has started to implement all four-action plan while almost half of developing
countries still hesitate to reform their tax policies according to the requirements of BEPS
Action Plan. In the case of company analysis, there aren't significant changes about their tax
planning in these three years due to the possible consequences that this action plan will bring
about more costs for big MNCs in many aspects such as operational cost, information
discloses, etc... Based on the practical analysis, the implementation of this project still faces
a great challenge, and it requires more coordination and cooperation among the international
organization, national government, and the MNCs.


Abstract The Cichlid fishes have played an important role in evolutionary biology, population studies and aquaculture industry with East African species representing a model suited for studying adaptive radiation and speciation for cichlid genome projects in which closely related genomes are fast emerging presenting questions on phenotype–genotype relations. The complete mitochondrial genomes presented here are for two closely related but eco-morphologically distinct Lake Victoria basin cichlids, Oreochromis variabilis, an endangered native species and Tilapia zilli, an invasive species, both of which are important economic fishes in local areas. The complete mitochondrial genomes determined for O. variabilis and T. zilli are 16 626 and 16,619 bp, respectively. Both the mitogenomes contain 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNAs, 2 rRNAs and a non-coding control region, which are typical of vertebrate mitogenomes. Phylogenetic analyses of the two species revealed that though both lie within family Cichlidae, they are remotely related.


The diagnosis and monitoring of osteoporosis has evolved markedly in the last several decades. Nurses caring for patients with osteoporosis and those working in prevention settings must have an understanding of the tools currently available to diagnose the disease and measure treatment response. The purpose of this article is to describe current diagnostic imaging techniques and biochemical markers of bone turnover in osteoporosis.


: Recently, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) had an important place in imaging techniques of malignant primitive tumors of the liver. For many authors, this technique appears as the reference modality for hepatic tumor evaluation. Nevertheless, MRI is considered to be primarily a problem-solving rather than a screening modality. This specific goal of this technique is due to a more precise characterization of the lesions compared to other imaging modalities. The authors, according to recent data in literature and their own experience, present MRI findings of the more frequent malignant hepatic tumors encountered in adult.


Oil sand reservoirs play an important role in the economy of Canada due to their significant recoverable reserves. Due to the high viscosity of the oil in these reservoirs, conventional methods cannot be used for production. The steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) method is an efficient way of producing oil from these reservoirs. Predicting oil production and steam injection rates is required for planning and managing a SAGD operation. This can be done by simulating the fluid flow with flow simulation codes, but this is very time consuming. The run time for a 3D heterogeneous model with one well pair can exceed 2 days. In this paper, a SAGD approximate simulator for predicting SAGD performance with 3D heterogeneous models of geologic properties is developed. This approximate simulator can handle different types of operating strategies. The approach is an approximate solution using a semi analytical model based on relevant theories including Butler's SAGD theory. The approximate simulator or proxy is much faster than the full simulator and it gives accurate estimated oil production and steam injection rates at different time steps. Theoretical and numerical research has been undertaken to develop the proxy, implement it in fast code, demonstrate the accuracy of prediction and apply to realistic examples. This proxy is used for other applications such as transferring uncertainty for reservoir realizations and well trajectory optimization.


The results of surgery in 59 patients with Scheuermann9s kyphosis are reported at an average follow-up of 56 months. These show that in skeletally immature patients, in whom the iliac apophysis has not yet fused to the body of the ilium, posterior fusion alone is adequate and is followed by little loss of correction. For skeletally mature patients combined anterior and posterior surgery is recommended. In all cases a period of pre-operative treatment is important. It is stressed that the indications for surgery are limited.


ABSTRACT Sense of Coherence–Revised (SOC-R) and posttraumatic growth (PTG) can be understood as two metaheuristics that are closely linked to resilience and adaption to adversity. This study investigated the association between SOC-R and PTG, as well as the moderating role of value orientations, in a sample of 67 Chinese and Swiss parents who lost their child. Results showed that, cross-culturally, the value of conservation was negatively associated with PTG, and self-transcendence showed a significant moderation effect to enhance the positive relationship between SOC-R and PTG. Implications for clinical practice to facilitate growth by focusing on SOC-R and value orientations were discussed.


The unique structural attributes inherent to D(2d)-symmetric rigid tetraarylbimesityls render their close packing in the solid state difficult. We have exploited the indisposed tendency of such modules based on the bimesityl scaffold toward crystallization to design a novel class of amorphous functional materials with high glass transition temperatures and thermal stability (T(d) > 400 degrees C). It is shown that a variety of 2- and 4-fold anthracene-functionalized bimesityls, 1-7, that exhibit excellent amorphous properties (T(g) = ca. 190-330 degrees C) can be readily prepared via facile Pd(0)-mediated cross-coupling strategies. As the communication between the bimesityl core and the anchored anthracenes is negligible or only marginal, the trends observed for luminescence of model constituent anthracenes are reproduced in the condensed-phase photoluminescence and electroluminescence of 1-7. In other words, the emission characteristics, i.e., lambda(max) and quantum yields, are readily modulated via appropriate modification of the fluorophores. The functional behavior of this unique class of amorphous materials based on the bimesityl scaffold is demonstrated by fabrication of OLED devices. The 2-fold functionalized derivatives 1 and 2 lend themselves to sublimation techniques, so that the electroluminescence is captured with high efficiencies at low turn-on voltages (3.5-6.5 V). The device ITO/NPB (400 A)/1% 2:MADN (400 A)/TPBI (400 A)/LiF (10 A)/Al (1500 A) for 2 yields the highest luminance of approximately 13,900 cd/m(2) at 17.5 V, a maximum luminance efficiency of approximately 7.4 cd/A at 4.5 V, and a power efficiency of approximately 5.3 lm/W at 4.0 V. Further, at a brightness of 800 cd/m(2) and a current density of 13.8 mA/cm(2), the device is found to exhibit excellent luminance efficiency of 5.8 cd/A, external quantum efficiency of 4.3% with a power efficiency of 2.2 lm/W, and pure blue light with a CIE(x,y) (x = 0.13, y = 0.18). The performance characteristics of the devices fabricated for 1 and 2 are remarkable. Although the 4-fold functionalized systems did not permit sublimation leading to spin-coating as a means for device fabrication, the observed electroluminescence for 4 and 5 attests to a broader scope and applicability of this new category of amorphous molecules for application in OLEDs.


This paper considers the Gaussian multichannel binary detection problem. A multichannel generalized likelihood ratio is derived using a model-based approach where the signal and nonwhite additive noise are characterized by autoregressive (AR) vector processes. Detection performance is obtained via the Monte-Carlo procedure for the special case where the AR process parameters of the observation processes are assumed to be known Specifically, detection performance is obtained for two-channel observation vectors containing various temporal and cross-channel correlation on both the signal and nonwhite additive noise. The computed results are compared with known optimal detection curves using coherent (both in time and across channels) as well as noncoherent integration. In addition, the degradation in performance due to a low signal-to-noise ratio on a specific channel is also considered.


Epilepsy is one of the important brain disorders, characterized by sudden recurrent and transient disturbances of mental function and movements of body, which is caused from excessive neuronal activity due to highly frequent electrochemical impulses from the neurons. This excessive discharge is shown in EEG as epileptic spikes which are complementary source of information in diagnosis and localization of epilepsy. Currently there are many techniques for the diagnosis and monitoring of epilepsy. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have proved to be an effective approach for a broad spectrum of applications for EEG signals because of its self-adaptation and natural way to organize and implement the redundancy. This paper proposes a neural-network-based automated epileptic EEG detection system that uses Feed forward Artificial Neural Network incorporating sliding window technique for pattern recognition. This work utilizes 100 single channel EEG signals obtained from the database of Epilepsy Centre in Bonn, Germany. The algorithm was trained with 50 datasets and tested for 25 normal data and 25 epileptic data sets. The performance of classification using Feed forward Artificial Neural Network gave a high success rate of 93.37% for distinguishing normal signals and 95.5% for epileptic signals.


A pilot study at a rural Danish school explores a virtual world during English lessons. The objective of applying a Vygotskian experimental design to the study is to investigate the potential of software, interaction between pupils, and integration between classroom and computer room activities. Focus of research is on developmental practices and learning processes formed by a virtual didactic. The objective is to study how such an approach motivates pupils to improve their English in the framework of a net-based computer game.


This book argues that today's professoriate has become increasingly theatrical, largely as a result of neoliberal policies in higher education, but also in response to an anti-intellectual scrutiny that has become pervasive throughout the Western world. The Theatrical Professoriate: Contemporary Higher Education and Its Academic Dramas examines how the Western professoriate increasingly finds itself enacting command performances that utilize scripting, characterization, surrogation, and spectacle—the hallmarks of theatricality—toward neoliberal ends. Roxworthy explores how the theatrical nature of today's professoriate and the resultant glut of performances about academia on stage and screen have contributed to a highly ambivalent public fascination with academia. She further documents the "theatrical turn" witnessed in American higher education, as academic institutions use performance to intervene in the diversity issues and disciplinary disparities fueled by neoliberalism. By analyzing academic dramas and their audience reception alongside theoretical approaches, the author reveals how contemporary academia drives the professoriate to perform in what seem like increasingly artificial ways. Ideal for practitioners and students of education, ethnic, and science studies, The Theatrical Professoriate deftly intervenes in Performance Studies' stillunsettled debates over the differential impact of live versus mediated performances.


A new facial composites technique is demonstrated, in which photographs of the top and bottom halves of different familiar faces fuse to form unfamiliar faces when aligned with each other. The perception of a novel configuration in such composite stimuli is sufficiently convincing to interfere with identification of the constituent parts (experiment 1), but this effect disappears when stimuli are inverted (experiment 2). Difficulty in identifying the parts of upright composites is found even for stimuli made from parts of unfamiliar faces that have only ever been encountered as face fragments (experiment 3). An equivalent effect is found for composites made from internal and external facial features of well-known people (experiment 4). These findings demonstrate the importance of configurational information in face perception, and that configurations are only properly perceived in upright faces.


Is competition for donations between development NGOs good for welfare? We address this question in a monopolistic competition model a la Salop (1979). NGOs - defined by the non-distribution constraint - compete for donations from donors by exerting fundraising effort. If the market size is fixed, the free-entry equilibrium number of NGOs is usually larger than the optimal number. However, if the market size is endogenous and NGOs both compete and co-operate in attracting new donors, the free-entry equilibrium number of NGOs is generally smaller than the optimal number. If NGOs can divert a part of funds for private use, for a certain range of outside option of NGO entrepreneurs multiple equilibria (with high diversion and no diversion of funds) exist.


The mechanism of decay of the superheated metastable metal produced by a thin foil explosion was investigated experimentally. The decay of the metastable metal was indicated by the occurrence of bubbles detected using soft x-ray backlighting. The experiments were carried out on a research facility comprising three current generators. One of them was used to initiate the explosion of a test foil, and the other two, X-pinch backlighting sources, were used for diagnostics. In the experiments, an upper limit has been determined for the decay time of the metastable state of a superheated metal. For aluminum, at a foil thickness of 6 μm and a deposited energy of 1.49 ± 0.08 eV/atom, the metastable state decay time was about 90 ns; for copper, at the same foil thickness and a deposited energy of 1.46 ± 0.07 eV/atom, it was about 250 ns. Analysis of the experimental results based on the classical nucleation theory has made it possible to estimate the work required for the formation of a critical bubble, the radius of the critical bubble, and the Tolman length, which characterizes the effect of the surface curvature on the surface tension. The work required for the formation of a critical bubble has been estimated to be 16.6 ± 1.5 eV for aluminum and 18.3 ± 1.2 eV for copper. The critical bubble radius and the Tolman length turned out to be several nanometers for both test metals.The mechanism of decay of the superheated metastable metal produced by a thin foil explosion was investigated experimentally. The decay of the metastable metal was indicated by the occurrence of bubbles detected using soft x-ray backlighting. The experiments were carried out on a research facility comprising three current generators. One of them was used to initiate the explosion of a test foil, and the other two, X-pinch backlighting sources, were used for diagnostics. In the experiments, an upper limit has been determined for the decay time of the metastable state of a superheated metal. For aluminum, at a foil thickness of 6 μm and a deposited energy of 1.49 ± 0.08 eV/atom, the metastable state decay time was about 90 ns; for copper, at the same foil thickness and a deposited energy of 1.46 ± 0.07 eV/atom, it was about 250 ns. Analysis of the experimental results based on the classical nucleation theory has made it possible to estimate the work required for the formation of a critical bubble, the radiu...


The interactions of tricyclic antidepressant drug, clomipramine (CLO), with pig ear stratum corneum (SC) and model membranes were investigated by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spin labeling to get some insight into the possible application of this drug in transdermal delivery. The changes in membrane characteristics caused by CLO in the regions that are close to the water-lipid interfaces and the central parts of the membranes were searched. The experimental results were supported by computer simulation of EPR spectra, which showed heterogeneity of the membranes composed of regions with different fluidity characteristics. CLO was effective in both parts of the layers, indicating intercalation of the drug into model membranes as well as into the pig ear SC. Introduction of various molar ratios of CLO caused a decrease in the order parameter and an increase in the rotational diffusion of nitroxide moiety in different membrane regions as well as an increase in the polarity of spin probe environment. It also changed the number of resolved spectral components, which reflects the heterogeneity of the membrane. The fluidizing effect of CLO on pig ear SC throughout the whole membrane layers indicates that CLO penetrates into the SC, which is important for its transdermal delivery.


Effects of 2-buten-4-olide (2-B4O), an endogenous satiety substance, on levels of plasma glucose, corticosterone, and catecholamines were examined in fed, conscious, and unrestrained rats. A vascular indwelling catheter was inserted into the right atrium of the animal from the jugular vein 1 wk before the experiment. Injection of 2-B4O and blood sampling were performed through the catheter in an unanesthetized condition. The levels of plasma glucose, corticosterone, epinephrine, and norepinephrine increased significantly for 2 h after the start of intravenous injection of 2-B4O in a dose-dependent manner. The increases in glucose and catecholamines induced by 2-B4O injection were abolished by bilateral splanchnicotomy (SPX) but not by pretreatment with anti-corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) antibody. The increase in corticosterone was abolished not by the SPX but by pretreatment with anti-CRF antibody. These findings suggest that 2-B4O, endogenously produced during food deprivation, may facilitate sympathoadrenal and hypothalamopituitary-adrenal functions through the central nervous system.


Entering the third millennium, the development of intelligence in humans at least there has been a spectacular change. When the first term of intelligence as though only monopolized sense or reason (intellectual), but a series of recent discovery in the field of modern psychology, legend IQ as the sole parameter intelligence fell. Currently it is believed that the intelligence turned out to be complex (compound), which is referred to as Gardner's multiple intelligences. If during intelligence interpreted as if reason or logic, though now encroaching upon the emotional and spiritual. Goleman has popularized the emotional intelligence as breakthrough new ways to measure the extent of human intelligence in controlling emotions, bring a sense of empathy, understand the feelings of self and others, as well as how to control him. But people are still faced with the problem of "spiritual problem" that is causing people to not only stutter live in a more meaningful, but also their own dark about themselves. Is the development of guidance and counseling services, one of the methods to help children discover their own potential hidden. But in reality, many teachers and parents have not been able to optimize the potential of spirituality owned subsidiary. The impact, the development of spiritual intelligence of the child to be blocked and the hidden potency he already has too precipitate. Herein lies the urgency of integrated education and guidance in order to develop the spirituality aspect and potential of children so that it can be done on an ongoing basis. In this case, the guidance is directed to develop the whole child's development capabilities that include physical-motor abilities, intelligence, social, emotional, and spiritual. Guidance is done on children's education needs to be oriented in all aspects of child development, not only focused on one aspect of development alone. Delays in the development of one of the aspects that exist in children, can inhibit the development of other aspects. Keywords: Spiritual Intelligence Guidance Model Children and Education


An original approach to binarize gray level images is proposed. A multi-scale algorithm based on a statistical test of homogeneity decides if a region belongs to the background or not. At each iteration the image is smoothed with a nonlinear filter in order to remove the noise. Stable regions in scale space are used to automatically find a threshold from the intensity histogram.


Angular deformities of the lower limbs are common during childhood. In most cases this represents a variation in the normal growth pattern and is an entirely benign condition. Presence of symmetrical deformities and absence of symptoms, joint stiffness, systemic disorders or syndromes indicates a benign condition with excellent long-term outcome. In contrast, deformities which are asymmetrical and associated with pain, joint stiffness, systemic disorders or syndromes may indicate a serious underlying cause and require treatment. Little is known about the relationship between sport participation and body adaptations during growth. Intense soccer participation increases the degree of genu varum in males from the age of 16. Since, according to some investigations, genu varum predisposes individuals to more injuries, efforts to reduce the development of genu varum in soccer players are warranted. In this article major topics of angular deformities of the knees in pediatric population are practically reviewed.


Many pozzolans are waste products from industrial processes. Every year a huge amount of coal waste is gathered from the coal washing plant in the Hyrcanian forests of Iran. These materials can be used for soil stabilization in construction and maintenance projects of forest roads. This paper aims to (a) investigate the role of coal waste (CW) as a soil stabilizer and (b) determine the changes in soil specification regarding the environmental pollution in different combinations of materials (soil, lime (4 and 6%) and CW (3, 6, 9 and 12%)). For this purpose, different technical and environmental analysis and laboratory tests were performed. Technical tests showed that the soil liquid limit and maximum dry density decreased with an increase in lime and CW contents. Addition of CW could increase the soil CBR, UCS and OMC. According to XRD test, the addition of CW and lime can increase the size of crystals in stabilized soil samples. Environmental analysis showed that the use of stabilizer significantly reduced the concentration of heavy metals such as Cd, Cr and Pb. Also, all of the metal concentrations leached from samples satisfied the required criteria, but the addition of lime and CW increased the concentration of N, P, and K. These changes can increase the invasive species consistent with calcareous soil conditions along the roads. According to the results, the combination of coal waste and lime can be one of the best methods for in situ remediation. It would, however, be better to use a minimum amount of stabilizer in pavement layers of access roads due to environmental sensitivity.


BACKGROUND
Institutions are increasingly using technology to augment the class learning experience of medical students. Especially in Africa, local content is key to allow insights and knowledge to emerge and build transformative capacity for students and patients. There is currently no peer-reviewed video content produced by students with the aim of providing education on orthopaedic topics for medical students and patients in this region.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the demographic and geographical viewership as well as video-specific statistics of orthopaedic teaching videos for medical students on a YouTube channel, with the expressed aim of informing future content production.

METHODS
Videos were produced by South African (SA) medical students as a problem-based collaborative project. Student-owned smartphones and various types of free video editing software were used to produce these videos, which were then assessed by a group of orthopaedic specialists and uploaded onto a YouTube channel (UCTeach). The analytical reports of this channel generated by Google and YouTube were analysed regarding watch time per day (minutes), average view duration (minutes), most watched videos, top geographies, age and gender.

RESULTS
A total of 83 videos were uploaded to the UCTeach Ortho channel during a 2-year period, with a total watch time of 857 062 minutes and 337 983 views. The majority of viewers were between the ages of 18 and 34 years (85%). India had the most views (n=69 089), followed by the USA (n=66 257) and SA (n=21 882). Most of the videos were watched on mobile phones (n=183 299) and computers (n=128 228). The most watched video, produced in April 2016, was on physiological and pathological gait, with 51 314 views.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study provides proof of concept for a new educational material creation and dissemination strategy. A low-cost local collaborative orthopaedic video project by medical students for medical students can lead to high view counts and watch time on YouTube. It is accessible to audiences in low-, middle- and high-income countries. The students' educational videos also reached a global audience consistently over a 3-year period.


The credit risk that an individual bank poses to the rest of the financial system depends on its size, the type of exposures it has to the real economy, and its obligations to other institutions. This paper describes a system-wide risk management approach to calibrating individual banks' capital requirements that takes into account these factors and which correspond to a policymaker's chosen target for systemic credit risk. The optimisation strategy identifies the minimum level of aggregate capital for the system and its distribution across banks that are consistent with a chosen objective for systemic credit risk. This parameterises a trade-off between efficiency and stability.


Introduction The incidence of Achilles tendon rupture (ATR) is steadily increasing, yet the exact treatment and rehabilitation of this traumatic injury is still debated [Chiodo, 2010]. Early weight bearing (WB) after ATR repair potentially yields better functional outcomes compared to immobilised patients, although re-rupture can occur at a higher rate [Costa, 2006]. Though WB has been often compared to immobilisation, it is currently unclear if early WB yields benefits in early ankle function compared to standard WB. We hypothesised that compared to standard WB, patients undergoing early WB would have higher plantarflexion moments in the injured side during gait, which would yield a longer tendon length 8 weeks after surgery. Furthermore, we hypothesised that early WB patients will show less intrapatient asymmetry than standard WB. Methods A total of fourteen patients were randomised to either early (full WB in 2nd week, n = 6) or standard WB (n = 8) after percutaneous ATR repair by the same surgeon (SM). Kinematic (f = 120 Hz) and kinetic (f = 960 Hz) data of the lower limbs were collected using 22 reflective markers, 10 infrared cameras (VICON, Oxford, UK) and two force plates (AMTI, Watertown, USA) for a minimum of five barefoot walking trials at a self-selected speed. ISB-recommended conventions determined ankle angles and inverse dynamics calculated ankle moments. B-mode ultrasonography (f = 25 Hz, Esoate, Genoa, Italy) noninvasively assessed the resting Achilles tendon length in vivo, with the knee outstretched and the ankle in 20° of plantarflexion. Plantarflexion moments and tendon lengths were compared both within patients and between early and standard WB. Statistical differences were calculated in SPSS (IBM, Armonk, USA) using paired t-tests (within patients) or one-way ANOVAs (WB comparison). Results Comparison of early WB to standard WB returned no significant differences in neither tendon length (p = 0.716) nor plantarflexion moment (p = 0.415) on the injured side (Table 1). Similarly, intrapatient comparison in early WB patients yielded no significant differences in neither tendon length (p = 0.317) nor plantarflexion moment (p = 0.083). However, intrapatient comparison in standard WB patients yielded significant differences in both tendon length (p = 0.037) and moment (p = 0.002). Abstract 2 Table 1 Mean (± standard deviation) tendon length and plantarflexion moments for injured (INJ) and contralateral (CON) sides in patients following different weightbearing (WB) protocols Tendon length (mm) Plantarflexion moment (Nm/kg) WB INJ CON INJ CON Early 203.4 ± 19.8 197.3 ± 24.0 76.1 ± 16.1 104.9 ± 22.4 Standard 200.3 ± 12.2 186.1 ± 14.5 68.2 ± 17.9 97.3 ± 20.8 Discussion The primary findings in the present study show at two months after surgery, early WB affects neither plantarflexion moment generation nor tendon length on the injured side. These results show that there appears to be no detrimental effect of early WB compared to standard WB, and that early WB does not appear to significantly lengthen the tendon within the first two months of rehabilitation, concurrent with previous studies [Silbernagel, 2012]. It was unsurprising that standard WB patients presented with significant asymmetries in plantarflexion moment, but it was unexpected that the same patients also had significant asymmetries in tendon length. The mechanism for post-ATR tendon lengthening remains, however, unclear. A clinically relevant finding is that early WB may hinder tendon lengthening at an early stage. References Chiodo et al. J Bone Joint Surg (Am). 2010;92:2466–2468 Costa et al. J Bone Joint Surg (Am). 2006;88:69–77 Silbernagel et al. Am J Sports Med. 2012;40:1564–1571


Localization systems have been identified as a key issue to the development and operation of the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). A DV-Hop localization system works by transforming the distance to all beacon nodes from hops to units of length measurement (e.g., meters, feet) using the average size of a hop as a correction factor. Despite its advantages, a DV-Hop algorithm has some disadvantages, such as its large communication cost that limits its scalability, and its mapping from hops to distance units that introduces errors that are propagated to the computation of a node location. This last issue has been solved by some recent works, but the scalability problem still is an open problem that limits this technique to small or medium sized networks. In this work, we propose a novel approach that uses Voronoi diagrams in order to scale a DV-Hop localization algorithm while mantaining or even reducing its localization error. Two types of localization can result from the proposed algorithm: the physical location of the node (e.g., latitude, longitude), or a region limited by the node's Voronoi cell. The algorithm evaluation is performed by comparison with similar algorithms. We show how the proposed algorithm can scale in different aspects such as communication and processing costs when increasing the number of nodes and beacons.


Objective: To explore the role of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) size on surgical and survival outcomes. Background: Tumor size is a prognostic factor for the majority of solid cancers, but the role for PDAC in predicting survival is not well delineated affecting the reliability of tumor node metastasis system classification. Methods: Between 1998 and 2012, 1507 patients with PDAC underwent resection at University of Verona Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. All data were collected prospectively. Tumor size has been measured both at imaging and gross pathology. Results: Among the tumors measured, 21.5% were <20 mm and 78.5% >20 mm. Larger tumors were associated with higher Ca19.9, T3-T4 and N1, higher grade, perineural invasion, R1 resections, more positive lymph nodes, and higher lymph node ratios (P < 0.05). Tumours <20 mm showed a better prognosis (33 vs 23 months; P < 0.01), but worse surgical results with higher pancreatic fistula (21.1% vs 14.6%; P < 0.01) and mortality rates (1.5% vs 0.3%; P = 0.04). PDAC size was associated with worse prognosis (hazard ratio 1.26, P = 0.02), together with Ca19.9, grading, and N1. When measured at imaging, tumor size was underestimated (median 23 vs 30 mm; P < 0.01) and did not influence prognosis Conclusions: PDAC size >20 mm, measured at gross pathology, correlates with surgical outcomes and is an independent predictor of poor prognosis. Given that imaging underestimates size by about 20%, perhaps tumors that measure >20 mm at imaging should be considered for neoadjuvant treatment regardless of resectability.


In this paper is proposed a novel steganographic scheme based on chaotic iterations which offer a solution facing the main limitation of the previous one. This research work takes place into the information hiding security fields. We show that the proposed scheme is stego-secure, which is the highest level of security in a well defined and studied category of attack called "watermark-only attack". Additionally, we prove that this scheme presents topological properties so that it is one of the firsts able to face, at least partially, an adversary when considering the others categories of attacks defined in the literature.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether a combination of oral transmucosal fentanyl (Fentanyl Oralet, Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, IL) plus oral midazolam has an acceptable safety profile and is more effective than oral midazolam alone for sedation during laceration repair in a pediatric emergency department (ED).

METHODS
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial. Patients between 2 and 8 years of age who weighed >10 kg and presented to the ED with a laceration in need of repair under sedation were eligible for inclusion. All patients received oral midazolam (0.5 mg/kg; maximum dose 10 mg) and either fentanyl (5-10 microg/kg) or placebo in oralet form. Data collected every 5 minutes included the following: heart rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, pain as measured on a Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Pain Score (CHEOPS) scale (range: 4-13), and an activity scale (range: 1-5). Effectiveness of sedation was measured by CHEOPS and activity scores compared between the treatment groups.

RESULTS
Fifty-one patients were randomized to receive oral midazolam plus fentanyl (N = 28) or oral midazolam plus placebo (N = 23). Age, weight, gender, or baseline pain and activity scores did not differ between the 2 groups. Seven patients in the fentanyl group vomited compared with 0 patients in the placebo group. Three patients in the fentanyl group and no patients in the placebo group had brief oxygen saturation below 93% on room air. The mean pain score within 5 minutes of the start of the procedure did not differ between the 2 groups (fentanyl group, 9.4 versus placebo group, 8.8). Mean activity scores within 5 minutes of the start of the procedure were also similar (fentanyl group, 4.3 versus placebo group, 4.3).

CONCLUSIONS
The addition of oral transmucosal fentanyl to oral midazolam did not improve pain or activity scores in pediatric patients given sedation for laceration repair. Patients who received Fentanyl Oralet suffered significantly more side effects despite the relatively low doses administered in this study. Oral transmucosal fentanyl should not be used for procedural sedation in the ED.


In this work, cobalt ferrite nanowires were chemically synthesized using FeOOH array a template. The FeOOH nanoarray was obtained by the hydrolysis and precipitation of Fe+3, from FeCl3.4 H2O. The cobalt ion (Co+2) was added in order to make it interact with FeOOH nanorods of 20 nm of diameter and 150 nm of length. These nanorods are grouped into packages having different orientations due to the interaction with the cobalt ions. The arrays were calcinated at 700 and 800 °C to obtain cobalt ferrite nanowires with 70 nm of diameter and some micrometers of length. The morphology and the average size of the nanorods and nanowires were determined using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). The Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to study the interaction between the nanorods and the cobalt ions. The phases of the material were identified using X-ray Diffraction.


Controlling and improving safety in organisations is achieved using a Safety Management System (SMS). Notwithstanding the variety of components considered in SMS standards, including human factors and safety culture, safety management systems are sometimes observed by those at the 'sharp end' as being bureaucratic, distinct from actual operations, and being too focused on the prevention of deviations from procedures, rather than on the effective support of safety in the real operational context. The soft parts of advancing safety in organisations, such as the multitude of interrelations and the informal aspects in an organisation that influence safety, are only considered to a limited extent in traditional safety management systems. The research in Future Sky Safety Project 5 (FSS P5) focused on improving these human-related, informal organisational aspects. Since every organisation is unique, in the operations it conducts, its history, and its organisational culture, there cannot be a one-size-fits-all standard for advancing safety in organisations. Rather, this needs to be based on the organisation at hand, leading to tailored solutions. This has been applied to a safety culture assessment and enhancement approach applied for six key organisations at London Luton Airport, and the approach has become known as the Luton Safety Stack. The six organisations decided to share the detailed results of their individual safety culture assessments. They formed a group that holds quarterly meetings, which always include a workshop element. From this approach, the organisations were stimulated to develop harmonised procedures for all ground-handling operators at Luton, and for each operation, creating a simple one-page procedure with diagrams, to keep it simple and safe. The Luton Safety Stack shows that when organisations share a place, such as at an airport, they need the opportunity to meet to discuss both potential safety threats, and opportunities to advance safety, because even through organisations are interdependent, safety issues in one organisation often have implications for others.


While London dominated the wider British music hall in the 19th century, Glasgow, the Second City of the Empire, was the center of a vigorous Scottish performing culture, one developed in a Presbyterian society with a very different experience of industrial urbanization. It drew heavily on older fairground and traditional forms in developing its own brand of this new urban entertainment. The book explores all aspects of the Scottish music hall industry, from the lives and professional culture of performers and impresarios to the place of music hall in Scottish life. It also explores issues of national identity, both in terms of Scottish audiences' responses to the promotion of imperial themes in songs and performing material, and in the version of Scottish identity projected by Lauder and other kilted acts at home and abroad in America, Canada, Australia and throughout the English-speaking world.


Volume 1: Levinas in Conversation with Contemporary Philosophy This volume includes essays elucidating Levinas's debt to figures such as Bergson, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and Blanchot, but also shows the creative intersections between Levinas's work and contemporary thinkers such as Jean-Luc Marion and Gianni Vattimo. Volume 2: Levinas and Judaism Levinas was read by some scholars as a specifically Jewish philosopher. This volume concentrates on a comparison between Levinas's thought and that of other Jewish thinkers, such as Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber and Paul Celan. The essays included here demonstrate the influence of these thinkers on Levinas's work and illustrate the common Jewish thread in their work. Volume 3: Levinas and the History of Philosophy Levinas's work was influenced by the major thinkers in the history of philosophy such as Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel, but also less obvious figures including Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Marx. Volume 4: Levinas in Practice This final volume examines the influence of Levinas's work on different fields such as ethics, politics, the environment, race theory, religion, jurisprudence, international relations and feminism.


In specific mammalian cells, the Ten-Eleven Translocation (TET) enzymes which are family members of 2-oxoglutarate (2-OG)-and Fe (II)-dependent dioxygenase (2ODD) are responsible for the modification of 5-mC to generate oxidised products such as 5-hmC, 5-caC and 5-fC, which are involved in oxidative demethylation. In rice, some reports have also revealed that 5-hmC was also present but the enzyme(s) responsible for oxidising 5-mC has not been identified. Here, possible Tet gene homologues in rice were identified by using various databases. There are 18 genes having a 2ODD domain most similar to TETs. Moreover, additional significant information such as the relatedness of protein sequence, protein interaction, nuclear localisation prediction, mutant analysis as well as gene annotation was obtained. Next, the spatial and temporal expression patterns of these genes were analysed within seedling root, mature leaf, young leaf and young panicle by analysing data from both microarray and qPCR. It was found that Os01g0546900 had highest expression in young leaf and six genes showed highest expression in mature leaf, whereas the remaining genes showed low expression in various organs. Finally, selected contrasting cultivars of rice were used to examine the expression of three genes of 2ODD and SLENDER RICE 1 (SLR1) under flooding and drought in order to evaluate the molecular aspects of Submergence 1A (Sub1A) regulation. The results showed that the Sub1A gene of tolerant rice was highly expressed under submergence but was not expressed under drought. Os03g0803500, Os07g0194500 and Os09g0489200, and SLR1 did not show any significant difference in expression in submerged and dehydrated plants of both IR64 and IR64.S1, nor in Japonica varieties which were used as susceptible check. To conclude, this finding indicates that Os03g0803500, Os07g0194500, Os09g0489200 and SLR1 may not have a correlation with Sub1A under flooding and drought stress.


The hybrid coding technique developed here involves a function of two concepts: progressive interactive image transmission coupled with transform differential coding. There are two notable features in this approach. First, a local average of an mxm (typically 5 x 5) pixel array is formed, quantized and transmitted to the receiver for a preliminary display. This initial pass provides a crude but recognizable image before any further processing or encoding. Upon request from the receiver, the technique then switches to an iterative transform differential encoding scheme. Each iteration progressively provides more image detail at the receiver as requested. Secondly, this hybrid coding technique uses a computationally efficient, real, orthogonal transform, called the Modified Hermite Transform(MHT) [1], to encode the difference image. This MHT is then compared with the Discrete Cosine Transform(DCT) [2] for the same hybrid algorithm. For the standard images tested, we found that the progressive differential coding method per-forms comparably to the well-known direct transform coding methods. The DCT was used as the standard in this traditional approach. This hybrid technique was within 5% of SNR peak-to-peak for the "LENA" image. Comparisons between MHT and DCT as the transform vehicle for the hybrid technique were also conducted. For a transform block size N=8, the DCT requires 50% more multiplications than the MHT. The price paid for this efficiency is modest. For the example tested ("LENA"), the DCT performance gain was 4.2 dB while the MHT was 3.8 dB.


The process of metal additive manufacturing is becoming increasingly economically viable over traditional subtractive manufacturing processes. However, due to the infancy of the technology, there is a lack of documentation on how to rapidly and efficiently design and fabricate a given part. Our research at Iowa State University aims to aid in the discovery and communication of knowledge on the process as well as increase industry understanding of the modern additive process. Initial focus will be in support structures, as the technology requires a connection between a part and the base plate. This report will give an introduction as well as cover the key understanding and developments with support structures for metal additive manufacturing. A large volume of work has been completed during this research in collaboration with industries around Iowa. Many unique projects and designs have been fabricated utilizing this technology, each with their own unique challenge and outcome. This paper will discuss much of the work completed with these companies around design for additive, and the volume of new insights gained from each project.


Dyslexia, or a reading disability, occurs when an individual has significant difficulty with speed and accuracy of word decoding. Comprehension of text and spelling are also affected. The diagnosis of dyslexia involves the use of reading tests, but the continuum of reading performance means that any cut off point is arbitrary. The IQ score does not play a role in the diagnosis of dyslexia. The cognitive difficulties of dyslexics include problems with speech perception, recognizing and manipulating the basic sounds in a language, language memory, and learning the sounds of letters. Dyslexia is a neurological condition with a genetic basis. There are abnormalities in the brains of dyslexic individuals. There are also differences in the electrophysiological and structural characteristics of the brains of dyslexics. Physicians play a particularly important role in recognizing children who are at risk for dyslexia and helping their parents obtain the proper assessment. The fundamental aim of this study was, to analyze the application of Lotka's law to the research publication, in the field of Dyslexia. The data related to Dyslexia were extracted from web of science database, which is a scientific, citation and indexing service, maintained by Clarivate Analytics. A total of 5182 research publications were published by the researchers, in the field of Dyslexia. The study found out that, the Lotka's inverse square law is not fit for this data. The study also analyzed the authorship pattern, Collaborative Index (CI), Degree of Collaboration (DC), Co-authorship Index (CAI), Collaborative Co-efficient (CC), Modified Collaborative Co-efficient (MCC), Lotka's Exponent value, Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test (K-S Test), Relative Growth Rate and Doubling Time.


Bibliometric techniques were applied to analyze the authorship trend in the "Clay Research" during the period of 2007-2016. A total of 83 articles and 303 authors in the journal were examined by research article contributions by year and issue, authorship patterns by year and volume, authorship patterns, author's productivity, most prolific authors, ranking by authors, contribution by institutions, authorship by country and degree of author collaboration. The average number of authors per paper is 3.650 and the average productivity per author is 0.273. The average degree of author collaboration is 0.891 during the period under study. The majority 294(97.029%) of the papers have been written in joint authorship.


Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder characterised by airflow obstruction. The inflammatory process involves mast cells, antigen presenting cells, eosinophils, neutrophils, airway epithelial cells and TH2 lymphocytes. These cells produce a broad array of pro-inflammatory mediators and cytokines that lead to the pathophysiological changes seen in asthma. The improved understanding of this complex disease, the specific cells and the complex mediators has lead to newer insights into the efficacy of various novel and potential therapies. In this review, we discuss the pharmacological agents that interrupt the synthesis and action of leukotrienes, cytokine antagonism, monoclonal antibodies against IgEs, selective phosphodiesterase inhibitors, adenosine receptor ligands and immunomodulators to drive the inflammatory response towards a TH1 type and other possible specific targeted therapy for the management of asthma. Although most of these therapies are in the inchoate stages these may hold the future for use in asthma.


UNLABELLED
PfamAlyzer is a Java applet that enables exploration of Pfam domain architectures using a user-friendly graphical interface. It can search the UniProt protein database for a domain pattern. Domain patterns similar to the query are presented graphically by PfamAlyzer either in a ranked list or pinned to the tree of life. Such domain-centric homology search can assist identification of distant homologs with shared domain architecture.

AVAILABILITY
PfamAlyzer has been integrated with the Pfam database and can be accessed at http://pfam.cgb.ki.se/pfamalyzer.


A simple model of yardstick competition between jurisdictions is presented. Governments of jurisdictions face the alternative to choose between an old and a new policy with stochastic payoffs. The new policy is superior to the old policy in one state of the world, and inferior in the other. Governments are either benevolent, serving the interest of the voter, or rent-seeking. An equilibrium with yardstick competition is shown to exist where bad governments having a good government in their neighborhood choose the new policy more often compared to an equilibrium without relative performance evaluation. Overall, the probability of policy innovations is increased by yardstick competition. The model has a testable empirical implication saying that policy innovations should show spatial correlation.


This is the report of a conference held December 6 through 9, 1977, at the Kroc Foundation headquarters in Santa Ynez, California. The Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development cosponsored the meeting with the Foundation.
 The conference was conceived at a time when prescribing estrogens had become controversial among physicians and the public. The treatment of tall girls to limit growth was sufficiently newsworthy to appear as an article in the New York Times Magazine. The occurrence of adenocarcinoma in the daughters of women treated prenatally with diethylstilbestrol was the subject of congressional hearings. It seemed the right time to bring together experts on the risks and benefits of prescribing estrogens to analyze what was known on the subject and to make recommendations on the use of estrogens in treating the young.
 The publication includes the presentations at the conference, reports of the general discussions, and a summation of conclusion and recommendations. An article is included by Dr. Zev Rosenwaks and colleagues that was not presented but seemed appropriate to the symposium. The reports of the general discussion were made by Dr. Allan Root, University of South Florida. The final summation was drafted by a committee composed of Drs. Conte, Crawford, Gurpide, Levine, New, and Root, and was submitted for comment to all the participants. Carole Bergstein was copy editor. I wish to thank all these people for their help.


In this study low cost biochar adsorbent originated from camel bone was prepared by physically treatment, and examine the developed camel bone biochar for the removal of Cd2+ and Pb2+ from their solutions. The biochar adsorbent was characterized before and after development by XRD,SEM, FT-IR, and BET surface The bone sample was pyrolyzed at temperature 500,600, 800, and 900 °C. Adsorption efficiency of Pb and Cd were optimized at different parameters (pH,pH z, contact time , initial metal concentration , adsorbent dosage and temperature. Adsorption kinetic, isotherms, and thermodynamic models have been performed to confirm the adsorption technique.The results revealed that the effective pyrolysis temperature for camel bone was 800oC that suitable for the high removal of Cd and Pb.The maximum adsorption removal percentage for Cd and Pb were 99.4 and 99.89 % , respectively at constant contact time 1 h, 1 g dose, pH 5, and 10 mg/L intial metal concentration. The kinetic results of cadmium and lead adsorption obeyed a pseudo-second-order model and fitted well with the Langmuir isotherm.


Spontaneous canine models exist for several inherited retinal dystrophies. This review will summarize the models and indicate where they have been used in translational gene therapy trials. The RPE65 gene therapy trials to treat childhood blindness are a good example of how studies in dogs have contributed to therapy development. Outcomes in human clinical trials are compared and contrasted with the result of the preclinical dog trials.


In this paper we discuss progress that has been made in modelling of urban resource flows to support urban designers to optimise the sustainability of their design and planning proposals, In particular we consider models of urban energy demand and more general resource flows. We also critique this and from this discuss work that is underway to improve the scope of more complete resource flow models as well as probability with which users will be able to identify optimal configurations of available parameters describing their urban models. Finally we conclude by discussing ways in which building models could be coupled with models of land use and transport interaction for more complete prediction of urban sustainability and how this might evolve with time.


Agricultural industries in small geographical areas with limited acreage tend to be overlooked by those not associated with the growing region or industry. Sugarbeets continue to be produced in a relatively small geographic area and on relatively limited acreage in Minnesota, North Dakota, and eastern Montana. These factors, along with continued debate over policies affecting domestic sugar industries and recent industry expansions, help justify a continued assessment of the economic importance of the sugarbeet industry to the regional economy. Revenues from sugarbeet production and expenditures by processors to Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana entities in fiscal 2003 represented the direct economic impacts from the industry. Expenditure information was provided by sugarbeet processing and marketing cooperatives. Secondary economic impacts were estimated using input-output analysis. The sugarbeet industry, which included the growing regions and processing plants located in the Red River Valley, west central Minnesota, and northwestern North Dakota/northeastern Montana, planted 776,348 acres and processed 14.5 million tons of sugarbeets in 2003. Production and processing activities generated $1.1 billion in direct economic impacts. Gross business volume (direct and secondary effects) from the sugarbeet industry was estimated at $3.1 billion. Direct and secondary employment in the industry was 2,628 and 29,258 full-time equivalent jobs, respectively. State-level tax revenues generated by the industry in the tri-state region were estimated at $62.6 million. In real terms, gross business volume of the sugarbeet industry in Minnesota and eastern North Dakota has increased 76 percent since 1987. Increases in business activity from the industry have resulted from increased production, processing, and marketing activities.


The textile and apparel industry provides the major source of foreign
exchange earnings of Bangladesh and Malaysia. Impressive export growth and
upward performance continuously turn the industry into a viable contributor to the
national economy. The objectives of the study are: firstly, to examine the export
competitiveness of textile and apparel products of Bangladesh and Malaysia, using
economic indicators like Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Constant
Market Share (CMS) analysis. Secondly, to examine the potential export markets
using Shift-Share technique.
The RCA calculations clearly show an increasing strength of comparative
advantage to Bangladesh for the export of textile as well as apparel products. This is
mainly due to the negligible import for textile and apparel products. In the case of
Malaysia, the RCA calculations also show an increasing strength of comparative
advantage of export performance ratio for the export of textile and apparel products.
The net export/total trade ratio shows an increasing strength of RCA only for the apparel products, but for the export of textile products, the RCA is shown negative
ratio. This is mainly due to the excessive import of textile products.
The CMS results suggest that export gains of both countries for textile and
apparel products are largely attributed to the size of the market effect and also to
their competitiveness effect. Regarding the export growth of selected textile products
for both countries, the CMS results demonstrate that, in most cases, Malaysia shows
better competitive performance than that of Bangladesh. For commodity composition
and market distribution effects, Malaysia shows better performance in most of the
cases and has attained advantage in world trade for overall textile articles compared
to Bangladesh. In the case of apparel products, both countries show negative export
performance of commodity composition and market distribution effects. CMS
analysis depicts that the competitiveness effects of both countries for these apparel
products subsequently improved in general during the period 1 992- 1 996 as compared
to those for periods of 1 982-86 and 1 987-9 1 . During the period of the study,
Bangladesh registered on average better performance with regards to commodity
composition and market distribution effects for apparel products as compared to
Malaysia.
The results of shift share analysis indicate that market opportunities for the
export of textile and apparel products of Bangladesh are mainly offered by the USA,
Canada and EU countries. However, Asian countries have shown a negligible role in
this respect. On the other hand, USA, Canada and EU countries have also been
identified as potential markets for Malaysia for textile and apparel products. In
addition, the Asian region also offered better market opportunities to Malaysia.


Objective To test the hypothesis that 12-lead ECG QRS scoring quantifies myocardial scar and correlates with disease severity in Chagas' heart disease. Design Patients underwent 12-lead ECG for QRS scoring and cardiac magnetic resonance with late gadolinium enhancement (CMR-LGE) to assess myocardial scar. Setting University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, Brazil. Patients 44 Seropositive patients with Chagas' disease without a history of myocardial infarction and at low risk for coronary artery disease. Main outcome measures Correlation between QRS score, CMR-LGE scar size and left ventricular ejection fraction. Relation between QRS score, heart failure (HF) class and history of ventricular tachycardia (VT). Results QRS score correlated directly with CMR-LGE scar size (R=0.69, p<0.0001) and inversely with left ventricular ejection fraction (R=−0.54, p=0.0002), which remained significant in the subgroup with conduction defects. Patients with class II or III HF had significantly higher QRS scores than those with class I HF (5.1±3.4 vs 2.1±3.1 QRS points (p=0.002)) and patients with a history of VT had significantly higher QRS scores than those without a history of VT (5.3±3.2% vs 2.6±3.4 QRS points (p=0.02)). A QRS score ≥2 points had particularly good sensitivity and specificity (95% and 83%, respectively) for prediction of large CMR-LGE, and a QRS score ≥7 points had particularly high specificity (92% and 89%, respectively) for predicting significant left ventricular dysfunction and history of VT. Conclusions The wide availability of 12-lead ECG makes it an attractive screening tool and may enhance clinical risk stratification of patients at risk for more severe, symptomatic Chagas' heart disease.


AIMS
Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) has been highlighted and well documented primarily in Western countries and there are few large studies focused on FAI-related morphological assessment in Asian patients. We chose to investigate this subject.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We assessed the morphology of the hip and the prevalence of radiographic FAI in Japanese patients by measuring predictors of FAI. We reviewed a total of 1178 hips in 695 men and 483 women with a mean age of 58.2 years (20 to 89) using CT images that had been obtained for reasons unrelated to symptoms from the hip. We measured the lateral centre edge angle, acetabular index, crossover sign, alpha angle and anterior femoral head-neck offset ratio.

RESULTS
A total of 441 hips (37.4%) had pincer-type deformity (41.7% men, 31.3% women) and 534 (45.3%) had cam-type deformity (54.4% men, 32.3% women). Moreover, 773 hips (65.6%) had at least one parameter that predisposes to FAI (74.0% men, 53.6% women) and 424 hips (36.0%) had two or more parameters (43.6% men, 25.0% women).

CONCLUSION
The prevalence of radiographic FAI was common in Japanese patients who are generally considered to have dysplastic hips. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2016;98-B:1167-74.


and to compare the findings of urinary tract ultrasonography (USG), voiding cystour-ethrogram (VCUG) and Technetium-99 dimercaptosucsinic acid scintigraphy (DMSA). Methods Our study included 92 children at age of 0 to 14 years old. Inclusion criteria ' s were: been diagnosed as UTI at least two times, had at least two positive urine culture and completed USG, VCUG ve Tc-99 m DMSA scintigraphy.


Toxicity has become a grave problem for many online communities, and has been growing across many languages, including Russian. Hate speech creates an environment of intimidation, discrimination, and may even incite some real-world violence. Both researchers and social platforms have been focused on developing models to detect toxicity in online communication for a while now. A common problem of these models is the presence of bias towards some words (e.g. woman, black, jew or женщина, черный, еврей) that are not toxic, but serve as triggers for the classifier due to model caveats. In this paper, we describe our efforts towards classifying hate speech in Russian, and propose simple techniques of reducing unintended bias, such as generating training data with language models using terms and words related to protected identities as context and applying word dropout to such words.


For a large scale cloud cluster, providing data access which crosses through high performance computing servers, network and storage servers, and scheduling resources among multi-tenants are challenging jobs, especially with specific level of Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Besides the criteria of current availability and reliability in service level agreement (SLA), throughput and latency are also critical QoS performance measurements to the tenants. Any QoS solution, unfortunately cannot be achieved without introducing additional overhead. A good QoS design should always be cost effective. This paper proposes a cost-effective QoS infrastructure over distributed storage system, providing work-conserving differentiated QoS for multi-tenants cloud storage. The proposed QoS infrastructure combines global service differentiation with adaptive share allocation to support differentiated QoS, and achieves both service isolation among users from same class and service differentiation among users from different classes.


Osseointegration is the described phenomenon of bonding between bone and certain metals, in particular, titanium. The "inert" bond is of significant strength and longevity and has been clinically applied in the different clinical disciplines for their varied applications. This article explores the extraoral applications of osseointegration in the anchorage of hearing aids and cosmetic prostheses. It covers the basic concepts, the indications for surgery and outlines the alternative options available and their advantages and disadvantages. In addition with regards to children, it outlines the contemporary approach, issues and controversies applicable to the paediatric population.


It is important to characterise the indoor radio propagation channel to ensure satisfactory performance of a wireless communication system. Site measurements can be costly; propagation models have been developed as a suitable low-cost alternative. The existing models can be classified into two major classes: statistical models and site-specific propagation models. Statistical models rely on measurement data; site-specific propagation models are based on electromagnetic-wave propagation theory. The ray-tracing technique is very useful in site-specific propagation modelling. This paper gives an overview of indoor propagation modelling and concentrates on a discussion of the raytracing modelling technique because of its practical appeal and its applicability to any environment.


INTRODUCTION: In-hospital stroke (IHS) presents a different treatment challenge than out of hospital stroke. IHS often has contraindication to IV tPA, such as such as recent surgery, MI, and use of anticoagulation. Intra-arterial therapy (IAT) with tPA and/or mechanical thrombectomy is an option for large vessel acute IHS with contraindications to or fail to recanalize with IV tPA, to restore cerebral perfusion. Objective: To assess the characteristics and outcomes of patients with in-hospital strokes large vessel occlusion who receive IAT. Methods: From our database of patients from 1/1/2008 to 12/31/2011 who had IAT for an acute stroke due to large vessel occlusion, in hospital strokes and out of hospital strokes were identified. Patient characteristics, imaging, and outcomes were retrospectively collected. Statistical analysis was performed on JMP 9.0. Result: 151 patients were included, 23 (15%) were in-hospital strokes (IHS) and 128 (85%) were out of hospital strokes (OHS). Initial median NIHSS of 17 and 16 respectively (p=0.3). IHS were frequently in the cardiology/CTS service (14, 60%) for CHF and cardiac valve repair (12, 52%). Other comorbidities present were atrial fibrillation (68%), hypertension (68%), and hyperlipidemia (56%). Seven (30%) were on warfarin prior to admission, but all had subtherapeutic INR. Three (13%) IHS received IV tPA. The time from last known well (LKW) to non-contrast CT brain was 80 min, and to CTA was 113 min in IHS, and 147 min and 229 min respectively in OHS (p = 0.0003). 20 (87%) had lesion in the anterior circulation. LKW to IAT recanalization was 248 min in IHS, compared to 375 min in OHS. Recanalization rate was 68% for IHS and 81% for OHS (p=0.2). Nine (39%) IHS had favorable mRS of 1 to 3 at 90 days, compared to 44 (34%) OHS, (p = 0.6). Despite faster recanalization time, there was no difference in the 90 day mortality of IHS v OHS (48% vs 30%, p = 0.1), and IHS had greater 1 year mortality (65% vs 30%, p = 0.005). Discussion: In-hospital strokes have higher mortality than out of hospital strokes. There is a role for IAT In carefully selected IHS with large vessel occlusion. A multicenter study is needed to reveal the characteristics of IHS patients who may benefit from IAT.


Abstract This article argues that we have come to a crossroads in research in the relationship of information and communication technologies (ICT) and literacy development. To date, research and evaluation have tried to gauge the impact of ICT on literacy. Predictably, ICT had been found to produce positive effects, though often these are small and/or specific. A systematic review of research on the topic is cited and a distillation of its results presented. However, the question of impact seems to miss a more important point: that the relationship between ICT and literacy (or literacies) is symbiotic. Questions are asked in the paper about how best to research such symbiosis, and a number of case studies are cited as evidence that a modest, descriptive and analytical approach is, at present, best suited to research in the field at this time. Two further issues follow from the above reorientation: the first is that we need to give more consideration to an understanding of the power of the visual and its relation to the verbal code, as this issue is fundamental to reading and composing on-screen; and the second is that it is not so much the new technologies themselves as the communities they enable young people to create and establish that are important for thinking about literacy development.


Not only is the energy efficiency of buildings nowadays becoming more and more important; the legislative requirements, the people's awareness of the environmental questions and their thermal comfort expectations are also on a much higher level. all of these issues can be addressed by making the building envelope more thermally resistant. however, with the traditional thermal insulation materials the thickness of thermal insulation layers is already at the viable limits. Therefore, the development of new, more efficient thermal insulation products with a higher thermal resistance is highly promoted. Preliminary research results can be applied to models to develop and confirm the conceptual designs of such new materials. In this paper, an analysis of thermal performance is presented for a novel thermal insulation consisting of graphite polystyrene (gPS) matrix with cavities filled with an insulative gas, and a protective sheath to prevent it from leaking. bearing in mind the suitability for later production, different configurations of the assembly were considered, regarding the matrix geometry, the type of the gas filling, and the surface emissivity of the cavities. a range of numerical simulations of heat transfer was conducted to determine the efficiency of different designs in reducing the conductive, the convective, and the radiative heat transfer. advantages, limitations and some detailed parameters of the proposed design concepts were determined, which were then used for optimisation. The analysis of the results indicates that the equivalent thermal conductance of a gPS panel can be significantly reduced by the introduction of gas-filled cavities. The reduction is highly dependent on the type of the gas filling (thermal conductivity, viscosity, specific heat, etc.), the size of the cavities, and the cavity surface emissivity.


Cognitive theories assume a uniform processing bias across different samples, but the empirical support for this claim is rather weak and inconsistent. Therefore, coherence between biases across different cognitive domains in a sample of 133 non-depressed (Study 1) and a sample of 266 formerly depressed individuals (Study 2) was examined. In both studies, individuals were selected after a successful sad mood induction procedure. A Dot Probe task, an Emotional Stroop task and a self-referential Incidental Learning and Free Recall task were administered to all participants. Principle component analyses indicated coherence between attentional and memory bias in non depressed, while in formerly depressed individuals distinct components for attentional biases and for memory bias were uncovered. The data suggest that in formerly depressed individuals, self-referent processing during encoding may be related to memory bias, whereas in non-depressed individuals memory bias may be related to both attentional bias and self-referent processing.


We provide a theoretical framework for studying mate search and selection based on a two-sided matching model. Guided by the model, we study dating behavior using data from an experimental dating market, where we generate random matching of subjects and create random variation in the number of potential partners. Male selectivity is invariant to group size, while female selectivity is strongly increasing in group size. This difference implies that the female net utility function of dating is more concave in the number of dates. We also report the valuation of various attributes by men and women; in accordance with the common stereotype, females put greater weight on intelligence relative to males, while males put relatively greater weight on physical appearance. Further, we find that males are less attracted to females with intelligence or ambition greater than their own.


Hawaii is a leader in distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption. It has the highest rate of PV-based electricity penetration in the U.S. and rivals global front runners. The policy impetus towards large-scale adoption of renewable energy comes from the Renewable Portfolio Standard, with a target of 40% net electricity sales from renewable sources by the year 2030 and 100% by 2045. Rooftop PV provides the largest share of renewable energy in Hawaii's electricity generation portfolio. This study analyzes demographic factors related to residential PV system adoption in Hawaii. It provides an econometric analysis, augmented by maps, to better understand the demographic characteristics of households adopting PV systems. Understanding drivers of past uptake is important to gaining insight into future trends, particularly as Hawaii continues towards its 2045 RPS goal.


The empirical mode decomposition method can separate the transformer winding vibration signal into finite modes, then disclose the running status of transformer, whereas, the decomposing results of winding vibration are disturbed by the end distorting. To optimize the empirical mode decomposition, the time series modeling and predicting were introduced to extend the signal, and non-uniform B-spline curve was provided for overshoots and undershoots of polynomial spline at the same time. Associating with predicting vibration data beyond observation series by model, envelope fitting of data inside and outside observation series based on non-uniform B-spline curve is got. Envelope fitting based on predicting model and B-spline interpolation curves alleviates large swings. Left by themselves, the end swings can eventually propagate inward and corrupt the whole data span. The decomposing results of transformer winding vibration show that intrinsic mode functions. It is demonstrated by actual analysis that the modified empirical mode decomposition method is one effective way.


absent (Table 1). On the other hand five isolates of S mullen were mixed with coliforms anaerobes when recovered from eight other patients, of whom seven had such fistulae. The overall isolation rate of S millen was 57%. When pleural fluid from patients with conditions other than those above was examined coliform and anaerrobic organisms predominated while S millen represented less than 3% of the total isolates (Table 2). Clearly, in patients with deep seated pulmonary involvement S millen was most often isolated either in pure culture (no gastrointestinal fistulae) or as part of a mixed flora (with gastrointestinal fistulae). S milleri, however, was less frequently isolated when there was no extensive pulmonary disease, despite the presence of gastrointestinal fistulae. Pulmonary abscesses have many underlying clinical causes and bacterial isolates include a mixture of anaerobes, coliforms, and microaerophilic streptococci. In this series it seems clear that S milleri is the main causative agent in empyemas and pulmonary abscesses when the infection is strictly contained within the pulmonary cavity and occurs as part of a mixed flora when gastrointestinal fistulae are present. The natural habitat of the organism includes the mouth, upper respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, and vagina. Although bacteraemia with metastatic abscess formation can occur, it is more likely that in our patients invasive and purulent lesions occurred as a result of regional spread of the organism from the mouth and respiratory tract to the pulmonary cavity as a result of local disease, trauma, or surgery. SA WAITKINS


Aims. Depression is thought to be associated with lower subsequent educational attainment during school. But, without longitudinal studies which take account of prior attainment and other potential confounders, estimates of the impact of clinically recognised depression in childhood and early adolescence are unknown. We investigated whether a clinical diagnosis of depression is associated with lower subsequent educational attainment, and whether the association is modified by gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Methods. We conducted a secondary analysis of an existing administrative data linkage between national educational data and a large mental healthcare provider in London, UK (2007–2013). Depression diagnosis before age 15 (exposure) was measured from electronic health records, and subsequent educational attainment at age 15–16 (outcome) was measured from educational records. We fitted logistic regression models and adjusted for gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, relative age in school year, neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosis and prior attainment. We investigated effect modifiers using interaction terms. Results. In total, n = 63 623 were included in analysis, of whom n = 242 had record of a depression diagnosis before age 15. Depression was associated with lower odds of subsequently achieving expected attainment levels in national exams, after adjustment for all covariates (odds ratio = 0.60, 95% confidence interval = 0.43 to 0.84, p = 0.003). There was no evidence that gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic status modified this association. Conclusions. These findings support a relationship between depression and lower subsequent educational attainment. This highlights the need for tailored educational interventions to support children and adolescents with depression, particularly in the lead up to key educational milestones.


AND/OR search spaces have recently been introduced as a unifying paradigm for advanced algorithmic schemes for graphical models. The main virtue of this representation is its sensitivity to the structure of the model, which can translate into exponential time savings for search algorithms. Since the variable selection can have a dramatic impact on search performance when solving optimization tasks, we introduce in this paper a new dynamic AND/OR Branch-and-Bound algorithmic framework which accommodates variable ordering heuristics. The efficiency of the dynamic AND/OR approach is demonstrated empirically in a variety of domains.


Sovereign debts are persistent - as financial obligations of a sovereign state, these debts survive the regime which contracted for them and bind future governments until the creditors are satisfied. Only under limited circumstances does international law allow for the cancellation of such debts. In the early twentieth century, Alexander Sack defined a class of sovereign debts - odious debts - which are particularly deserving of cancellation. To qualify as odious, a debt's proceeds must have been literally or effectively stolen by a tyrant, leaving the population she once ruled to pick up the check. Sack's purpose for what has become known as the Odious Debt Doctrine is laudable: the former subjects of a deposed dictator should not be accountable for the odious debts that ruler contracted. The current doctrinal formulation, however, is unworkable. Courts are ill-suited to screen debts or regimes for odiousness, and contemporary sovereign lending practices are not adequately addressed by Sack's rule. These twin problems of administrability and scope have kept the Odious Debt Doctrine from becoming an enforceable rule of international law. Unlike much of the extant scholarship concerning odious debt, this Article aims to reconstruct an independent legal doctrine that is both judicially administrable and applicable to a wide variety of debts. The key to this novel conceptualization of the odious debt problem is that it replaces the traditional objects of analysis - the debt or regime in question - with a new analytical target: the debtor's expenditures. For decades, the national laws of taxation have reliably sorted expenditures for favorable or unfavorable tax treatment, and the doctrine I propose - the Odious Expenditure Doctrine - co-opts this framework for a similar purpose. At base, it is not the people who contract them, the creditors who lend them, or the terms of their transfer that make debts odious. What makes a debt odious is the villainy it funds. The Odious Expenditure Doctrine reflects this realization, and constructs a rule that enables the judicial enforcement of Sack's original goals.


Magnetizations of Late Ordovician (Caradoc-early Ashgill) age in the paratectonic Caledonides of Wales and the Lake District are directed westerly and northerly respectively. They identify c. 55°) of relative rotation of probable Acadian age. Southward subduction of Iapetus ocean crust occurred in Ordovician times beneath a latitudinally oriented orogen sited in mid-southerly latitudes with the Borrowdale and Snowdonia Volcanic provinces forming parallel fore-arc and back-arc lineaments respectively. Mid-Ordovician to mid-Devonian palaeomagnetic poles from the orogen correlate with contemporaneous Gondwana data to identify a former location sited west of the South American perimeter and not near to North Africa as assumed in previous reconstructions.


This study attempts to investigate the effect of trade openness, GDP and population on the investment in Syria over the period 1980-2010. The cointegration test indicates that investment is positively and significantly related to the trade openness, GDP and population. Population has the biggest effect on the investment. The Granger causality test indicates bidirectional short-run causality relationships between trade openness, GDP, population and investment. There are also unidirectional long-run causality relationship running from trade openness to investment, and bidirectional long-run causality relationships between GDP, population and investment. The study result indicates that it is vital for the Syrian government to still adopt the economic policy in liberalizing foreign trade in order to motivate the investment in the country.


Objective—To assess the eYcacy of a longer acting preparation of the gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) analogue goserelin (Zoladex LA, 10.8 mg) in 12 girls with central precocious or early puberty. Methods—Two girls started treatment de novo; the remainder had been on suppressive treatment for a median duration of 1.5 (range, 0.2–5.6) years. Assessment comprising auxology, pubertal staging, and pelvic ultrasound examination was carried out at weeks 0, 4, 8, 10, and 12 (first cycle) and weeks 8, 10, and 12 (second cycle) to evaluate the required injection frequency. Thereafter, assessment was performed on the day of injection. Zoladex LA was given every 12 weeks unless pubertal progression occurred. Results—Satisfactory control was achieved in eight patients using this regimen, and three patients required more frequent injections. One girl was removed from the study because of clinical progression and extreme mood swings. No serious adverse eVects occurred. Mean height velocity during the study period was 4.5 cm/year (range, 3.1–6.6) compared with 6.5 cm/year (range, 3.8–9.6) before treatment in nine patients for whom data were available. Conclusions—Zoladex LA was eVective in controlling precocious puberty in girls when given at intervals of 9–12 weeks and it is recommended that an initial assessment is made eight weeks after beginning treatment. (Arch Dis Child 1998;79:323–327)


Orthotopic cardiac transplantation is an established treatment for terminal cardiac diseases. The organization of the operation closely depends on the successful team work between cardiologists, selecting the proper patients for this procedure, the anesthesiologists taking care of the multiorgan donor and the cardiac surgeons managing in parallel the donor and the recipient. Accurate donor evaluation and treatment are essential for a perfect graft function immediately after transplantation. Orthotopic heart transplantation can also be offered as a therapeutical option in adolescents presenting with end-stage heart failure due to complex congenital heart disease and who have sustained multiple previous operations. In this paper, some special logistic and technical particularities of cardiac transplantation are presented and discussed.


I. INTRODUCTION Recently, religious controversy has caught most New Zealanders rather unprepared. New Zealand earned the ire of some Islamic nations when two of its major city newspapers reprinted the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.1 That was followed by an outcry over the screening of an episode of South Park, the American satirical television cartoon show, which showed a statue of the Virgin Mary menstruating.2 The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, denounced the screening of the episode as "quite revolting."3 She insisted, "I think the critical thing is we show respect for other people's beliefs."4 In New Zealand, public consternation and debate over religious matters is unusual, for religion seldom appears to occupy a prominent place in the lives of most of its citizens. In one sense, this may be viewed as a positive thing; for New Zealand, by and large, has not witnessed the large-scale and bitter religious turmoil that has beset many nations. This is, of course, a broad generalization, and it would be remiss to ignore, for example, the spasms of fierce sectarian feuding between the transplanted Protestant and Catholic communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that punctuated this seemingly serene religious landscape.5 Furthermore, various emergent public expressions of religiosity by the indigenous people (the Maori) have been vigorously and swiftly suppressed by the state.6 Nonetheless, the general picture, I suggest, is one of comparative tranquility; at least in comparative global terms. As professor John Stenhouse notes, "what is striking about New Zealand's past is not that bigotry existed but that it so seldom erupted into violence. By world standards, New Zealanders handled their religious differences remarkably well."7 The explanations for this fortunate turn of events are undoubtedly diverse and complex. It may be that the comparative absence of religious tension, violence, and rancor is simply due to New Zealand's relatively short history as a modern nation state. Perhaps the comparative calm reflects a somewhat benign indifference and coolness toward organized religion in general by sizeable segments of the population. Certainly, that has been the predominant view of many New Zealand historians who, guided by implicit assumptions of the steady march of secularization, depicted religion slowly receding into irrelevance.8 As Sir Keith Sinclair-perhaps the leading post-World War II New Zealand historian-dryly observed, "The prevailing religion is a simple materialism. The pursuit of wealth and possessions fills more minds than thoughts of salvation."9 Similarly, sociologist Michael Hill stated that [d]espite some early attempts to transplant various Christian denominations to New Zealand on a regional basis-the Church of England in Canterbury, the Free Church of Scotland in Otago, vestiges of which can still be found in regional patterns of religious adherence-no denomination managed to establish claims to monopoly, and from the mid-nineteenth century there was an acceptance of pluralism and a secular stance on the part of the state. . . . While a majority of the population adopted some form of denominational label, nominalism was evident in the considerably lower proportions who engaged in regular religious activity.10 However, this received historical view of religion may well be misleading. The downplaying of the importance of religion in ordinary New Zealanders' lives, and in the shaping of society, may owe much to a prior commitment by scholars to see the nation forge an enlightened, secular, left-liberal path.11 This Article briefly traverses the evolution of religion-state relations in New Zealand. Part II will summarize roughly the first century of this evolution. This Article argues that the de jure stance of non-establishment, religious equality, and pragmatic secularism was also marked by a de facto or cultural establishment of a generic, yet heavily Protestantinfluenced, Christianity. …