This paper explores the dynamics of risk aversion of a representative agent with an iso-elastic utility function. In contrast to most of the existing literature, we estimate the coefficient of relative risk aversion from option prices. To do this, we transform the risk-neutral density function obtained from a cross-section of option prices to an objective distribution function that reflects individuals' risk aversion through a CRRA utility function. The dynamics of the relative risk-aversion coefficient are obtained by repeating the same estimation procedure over rolling windows. This procedure uncovers strong variation in risk aversion over time. We also propose a simulation procedure to construct confidence intervals for the risk-aversion coefficient in each period. We assess the robustness of these confidence intervals under different assumptions on the data generating process of stock prices. The results imply a strong influence of volatility on the variation of risk aversion. In an empirical application, we compare the forecasting performance of our approach based on our risk-aversion estimates against the method proposed in [1]. Overall, we find that our simulation based approach obtains better forecasting results than bootstrap methods.


In the current study, the macroinfauna communities inhabiting 12 sandy beaches along the Spanish coast of the Gulf of Cadiz were describe in order to characterize their unexplored biodiversity, their zonation patterns and their environmental features. A total of 66 macroinfauna taxa were recorded on 12 sandy beaches, ranging from 4 to 33 species. Density reached 848 individual per m 2 . The individual zonation pattern ranged from two to three zones, regardless of the morphodynamic state. A common zonation pattern of the whole set of beaches was established, comprising three across-shore biological zones. Generally, the supralittoral zone was typified by the air-breathing amphipod Talitrus saltator and coleopterans; the middle zone was dominated by true intertidal species, such as Haustoriidae amphipods ( Haustorius arenarius ), Cirolanidae isopods ( Eurydice affinis ), Spionidae polychaetes ( Scolelepis spp.) and nemerteans; and the lower or sublittoral zone was typified by Pontoporeiidae amphipods, mysids and spionid polychaetes. Sediment moisture, average grain size, organic matter content and elevation were the main predictor variables of zonation patterns. We used the conservation and recreation potential indices to show how this information can be useful for coastal management. Most beaches studied show a score above 5 on the conservation index, so the beaches have a reasonable potential for conservation management.


Purpose of Review
Chronic pain continues to be one of the leading healthcare cost burdens in the United States and is typically defined as ongoing pain, lasting longer than six months. Various treatment options exist for chronic pain, including physical therapy, medical management, pain psychology, and interventional therapies. Pain medications have been the mainstay of treatment for chronic pain conditions with an increasing use of membrane stabilizers and antidepressants to treat neuropathic pain conditions. Specifically, serotonin noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) have been used to treat a range of pain conditions expanding from everyday use for depressive disorders.

Recent Findings
SNRIs, including duloxetine, venlafaxine, and milnacipran, have demonstrated efficacy in reducing pain in musculoskeletal pain (chronic low back pain and osteoarthritis), fibromyalgia, and neuropathic pain conditions (peripheral diabetic neuropathy).

Summary
The article describes the function, role, and use of SNRIs to treat chronic and neuropathic pain by altering the noradrenergic descending inhibitory pathways.


Unstable distal radius fractures cannot be immobilized in a plaster cast: mal-unions (and later arthrosis of the wrist) are the result. Most symptoms are attributable to the shortening of the radius. Retention by means of an external fixator is the therapy of choice in such cases. Various fixator systems have become known. In this paper, a new fixator is presented which has the following advantages: It is very mobile and adaptable, and corrections are possible after attachment of the fixator. The screws can be inserted depending on the anatomical situation. The fixator is handy and light. The fixator has proved its effectiveness for a long time and is also suitable for complicated wrist injuries.


Modeling and simulation techniques have opened the new windows to address various issues related with complex computations. Researchers belonging to different field viz. Economics, Physics, Biology etc. have been applying computer-aided simulated techniques in their research work. The modified mathematical model relevant to the present case has been taken into account. Further, simulation techniques become the essential tool to examine the behavior of the proposed system so as to explain and verify in the real-world situation. The present paper explores the aspects of modeling and simulation by discussing the measurements of the conductivity of YBCO superconductor materials by using the mathematical model for the numerical experimentation in the temperature range of 10K to 240K. By changing the value of one of the scattering strength, impact of modeling and simulation has also been observed.


Nedocromil sodium is the disodium salt of a novel pyranoquinoline dicarboxylic acid which has physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties which make it suitable for delivery to the respiratory tract by inhalation. Its biological properties suggest that it will display anti-allergic effects in man and that it will also have anti-inflammatory activity in chronic reversible obstructive airways disease. The clinical development of nedocromil sodium has been influenced by its anticipated effects in man and also by the knowledge that preclinical and early clinical tests are poor predictors of efficacy for agents of this type. Thus, although nedocromil sodium prevents immediate and delayed reactions to bronchial antigen challenge, and also prevents exercise-induced bronchoconstriction, the clinical development programme of this drug was designed to provide therapeutic double-blind trials of 1 month's treatment with the drug at the earliest opportunity, because this was thought to be the definitive test for activity. Studies on a larger scale and of longer duration followed the positive outcome of the first therapeutic trials. This series of studies, conducted to different designs, demonstrated the safety and efficacy of nedocromil sodium. They also permitted a view to be gained of the place of nedocromil sodium in the management of patients with airways inflammation.


During a design process, designers iteratively go back and forth between different design stages to explore the design space and search for the best design solution that satisfies all design constraints. For complex design problems, human has shown surprising capability in effectively reducing the dimensionality of design space and quickly converging it to a reasonable range for algorithms to step in and continue the search process. Therefore, modeling how human designers make decisions in such a sequential design process can help discover beneficial design patterns, strategies, and heuristics, which are important to the development of new algorithms embedded with human intelligence to augment computational design. In this paper, we develop a deep learning based approach to model and predict designers' sequential decisions in a system design context. The core of this approach is an integration of the function-behavior-structure model for design process characterization and the long short term memory unit model for deep leaning. This approach is demonstrated in a solar energy system design case study, and its prediction accuracy is evaluated benchmarked on several commonly used models for sequential design decisions, such as Markov Chain model, Hidden Markov Chain model, and random sequence generation model. The results indicate that the proposed approach outperforms the other traditional models. This implies that during a system design task, designers are very likely to reply on both short-term and long-term memory of past design decisions in guiding their decision making in future design process. Our approach is general to be applied in many other design contexts as long as the sequential design action data is available.


A case of bilateral renal artery thrombosis due to circular rupture of the intima following blunt abdominal trauma is reported. A further 15 published cases are tabulated. The pathogenetic mechanism, symptoms, course and value of various diagnostic techniques are discussed. The importance of early and specific radiological diagnosis is stressed and the value of angiography is pointed out. The literature is quoted extensively.


INTRODUCTION: About a third of the world's population has latent tuberculosis. In 2004, over 14 million people had active tuberculosis. Approximately 1.7 million people died from the infection. Over 80% of new cases diagnosed in 2004 were in people in Africa, South-East Asia, and Western Pacific regions. METHODS AND OUTCOMES: We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of interventions to prevent tuberculosis in people without HIV infection at high risk of developing tuberculosis? What are the effects of interventions to prevent tuberculosis in people without HIV infection at high risk of developing multidrugresistant tuberculosis? What are the effects of different drug regimens in people with newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis without HIV infection? What are the effects of different drug regimens in people with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis without HIV infection? What are the effects of low-level laser therapy in people with tuberculosis without HIV infection? Which interventions improve adherence to treatment in people with tuberculosis without HIV infection? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to July 2008 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). RESULTS: We found 31 systematic reviews, RCTs, or observational studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions. CONCLUSIONS: In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: adding pyrazinamide in chemotherapy regimens lasting up to 6 months; adding rifampicin to isoniazid regimens; benefits of different regimens; chemotherapy for less than 6 months; daily chemotherapy; direct observation treatment; intermittent chemotherapy for 6 months or longer; isoniazid; low-level laser therapy for pulmonary tuberculosis; regimens containing quinolones; rifampicin plus isoniazid; substituting rifampicin with ethambutol in the continuous phase; and support mechanisms for directly observed treatment.


The Southeastern Regional Organ Procurement Program has developed a computerized system for the selection of organ transplant recipients. This system has proven to be a useful method for the rapid selection of histocompatible recipients for organ transplants from a large pool of potential recipients in a wide geographical area. In addition, the system provides a readily accessible source of data that can be used to analyze the relationship between histocompatibility and transplant survival.


Abstract Background European trials using procalcitonin (PCT)-guided antibiotic therapy for patients with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) have demonstrated significant reductions in antibiotic use without increasing adverse outcomes. Few studies have examined PCT for LRTIs in the United States. Methods In this study, we evaluated whether a PCT algorithm would reduce antibiotic exposure in patients with LRTI in a US hospital. We conducted a controlled pre-post trial comparing an intervention group of PCT-guided antibiotic therapy to a control group of usual care. Consecutive patients admitted to medicine services and receiving antibiotics for LRTI were enrolled in the intervention. Providers were encouraged to discontinue antibiotics according to a PCT algorithm. Control patients were similar patients admitted before the intervention. Results The primary endpoint was median antibiotic duration. Overall adverse outcomes at 30 days comprised death, transfer to an intensive care unit, antibiotic side effects, Clostridium difficile infection, disease-specific complications, and post-discharge antibiotic prescription for LRTI. One hundred seventy-four intervention patients and 200 controls were enrolled. Providers complied with the PCT algorithm in 75% of encounters. Procalcitonin-guided therapy reduced median antibiotic duration for pneumonia from 7 days to 6 (P = .045) and acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) from 4 days to 3 (P = .01). There was no difference in the rate of adverse outcomes in the PCT and control groups. Conclusions A PCT-guided algorithm safely reduced the duration of antibiotics for treating LRTI. Utilization of a PCT algorithm may aid antibiotic stewardship efforts. This clinical trial was a single-center, controlled, pre-post study of PCT-guided antibiotic therapy for LRTI. The intervention (incorporation of PCT-guided algorithms) started on April 1, 2017: the preintervention (control group) comprised patients admitted from November 1, 2016 to April 16, 2017, and the postintervention group comprised patients admitted from April 17, 2017 to November 29, 2017 (Supplementary Figure 1). The study comprised patients admitted to the internal medicine services to a medical ward, the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU), or the Progressive Care Unit (PCU) "step down unit". The registration data for the trails are in the ClinicalTrials.gov database, number NCT0310910.


Conventional analysis of load displacement curves in nanoindentation experiments determine modulus by using the elastic portion of the unloading slope or power law fitting the unloading slope. For polymeric materials, however, this analysis is not adequate because they behave viscoelastically. In companion research, L. Cheng has developed analytical models for flat tip and spherical tip indentation using a three element Kelvin-Voigt model, with a spring in series with a parallel dashpot and a spring for compressible and incompressible materials. Incompressible (v=0.5) polydimethylsiloxane coatings with thicknesses of 2 and 78 microns, a compressible (v=0.33) bulk polystyrene (PS) and a 16 Jim styrene-acrylate block copolymer coating (v=0.33) have been used to verify the models. The polymers were indented using flat tip and spherical tip indenters with a nanoindentation apparatus in creep (constant load) and relaxation modes (constant depth). The data was fit to the analytical models using a non-linear least squares fit algorithm varying three parameters. In general the fitted elastic and shear moduli compared favorably with conventional rheological and mechanical measurements on the same bulk polymers. However, it appears that the agreement for the thin film analysis can be improved by taking the hydrostatic pressure dependence of the modulus and substrate effects into consideration.


Summary The aim of this study is to determine the protective effect of L-carnitine (LCAR) against the toxicity of doxorubicin (DOX) an antineoplastic drug, treatment dose on plasma sialic acid (SA), malondialdehyde (MDA) and blood reducte glutathion (GSH) levels. In this study 21 healthy New Zealand rabbits were used. The rabbits in Group I (n=8) 0.6 mg/kg DOX, in Group II (n=7) 0.6 mg/kg DOX with 1000 mg/kg LCAR, in Group III (n=6) 1000 mg/kg dose were administered intra peritoneally along 6 days. In all groups the control groups were appreciated before administration. The blood samples were obtained after 2 h from administration. SA levels in Group I and in Group II significantly increased (P<0.001) during application than before administration, but SA levels in Group III decreased (P<0.001). GSH level in Group I decreased (P<0.05) from third day comparing to first day. GSH levels in Group III significantly increased (P<0.05) from second day of administration. MDA levels on 3, 4, 5 and 6th days of Group I incresead (P<0.001) when compared to first and second days and control group and GSH level increased (P<0.01) in Group II. MDA levels in Group III decreased (P<0.05) in all days. TSA and LBSA levels in Group I increased (P<0.001) comparing to Group II on 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 th days of administration. GSH levels in Group III increased on 2 and 3rd days (P<0.01) and increased on 4, 5 and 6 th days (P<0.001) comparing to Group I and Group II. MDA levels in Group I increased on 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 th days (P<0.001), on 3rd days (P<0.01) comparing to Group II. In conclusion, it may be suggested that L-carnitine administration could have a protective effect during doxorubisin administration through alteration plasma SA, MDA and blood GSH levels.


Objective The aim of this study was to determine whether there were any associations between disordered eating attitudes and behaviors and depression and anxiety among obese adolescents. Methods A prospective cross-sectional study comprising 80 obese adolescents was performed from November 2013 to September 2014. Disordered eating attitudes were evaluated by the 'Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q)' and 'Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire(DEBQ)'. 'Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire' contains four subscales that evaluate restraint, eating concerns, shape concerns, and weight concerns, and the items evaluate eating attitudes of the individual over the last four weeks. 'Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire' comprises three subscales which measure restrained eating, emotional eating, and external eating behaviors. Psychiatric examinations were performed for binge eating disorder (BED). Depression was evaluated by 'Children's Depression Inventory (CDI)', and anxiety was evaluated by the 'State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children'. Mann-Whitney U, Chi-Square and Pearson Correlation tests were used for statistical analysis. Results Mean age of the subjects was 14.01±1.59 years. Forty-six (57.5%) of the subjects were girls. Mean body mass index was found as 31.29±3.06 kg/m². Twenty adolescents were found to have depression and 23 adolescents were found to have BED. There were significant associations betweeen DEBQ emotional eating score, EDE-Q eating concern score, EDE- shape concern score, EDE-Q weight concern score, EDE-Q total score and CDI score (>19) (p: 0,03; 0,02; 0,007; 0,01; 0,049 respectively). No significant association was found between BED and depression (CDI score >19). At Pearson's correlation test, positive correlations were found between DEBQ emotional eating score, DEBQ total score, EDE-Q eating concern score, EDE-Q shape concern score, EDE-Q weight concern score, EDE-Q total score and the STAİ score (p = 0.0001). No significant association was found between BED and the STAI scores. Conclusion In obese adolescents, disordered eating attitudes and behaviors could be associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms. Thus, all adolescents with obesity should be screened for their eating attitudes and behaviors and also for their emotional health.


Preface. Acronym Key. CHAPTER 1: Securitization Terminology. CHAPTER 2: Structured Finance and Special Purpose Entities. CHAPTER 3: Credit Derivatives and Total Rate of Return Swaps. CHAPTER 4: CDOs and the Global Capital Markets. CHAPTER 5: Risk and Valuation Issues. CHAPTER 6: Early CDO Technology. CHAPTER 7: Early Warning Commercial Financial Services. CHAPTER 8: Subprime and Alt-A Mortgages: Collateral Damage. CHAPTER 9: Cash versus Synthetic Arbitrage CDOs. CHAPTER 10: CDO Equity Structures. CHAPTER 11: CDO Managers. CHAPTER 12: Balance-Sheet CLOs and CDOs. CHAPTER 13: Super Senior Sophistry. CHAPTER 14: Synthetics and Mark-to-Market Issues. CHAPTER 15: Comments on Selected Structured Finance Products. CHAPTER 16: Credit Funds. CHAPTER 17: The Credit Crunch and CDOs. CHAPTER 18: Future Developments in Structured Finance. APPENDIX: Interesting Web Sites. Bibliography. Index.


We look at the tax burden on direct investment from three perspectives. The first section illustrates how the recognition of company tax planning and of the importance of intellectual property affects measures of effective tax rates. It also discusses the methodological issues that arise, such as to which subsidiary the benefits of a multicountry strategy should be attributed. The simulations emphasize the importance of the share of royalties in crossborder income, and of tax planning strategies such as the shifting of debt to high-tax locations. At the same time, evidence on actual company behavior is necessary to limit the range of possible tax avoidance strategies. Otherwise, the effective tax burden on cross-border investment would virtually disappear. Even then, the range of possible estimates is large. The simulations also show how home governments can respond to some types of tax planning by, for example, requiring that parent interest expense be allocated to foreign income. The second section supplements the hypothetical calculations by evaluating the determinants of the actual effective tax rate on overall U.S. manufacturing investment abroad. Among the various components are the location of assets, the location of debt, other forms of income shifting, the share of royalties, and home government repatriation taxes. The results are generally consistent with the simulations in the first section. Somewhat surprisingly, real assets seem more mobile than tax bases, confirming the constraints on tax avoidance. The first two sections demonstrate that it is not the more "obvious" features of a tax system, such as whether foreign dividends are taxed or exempt, that are important, but provisions that govern the taxation of royalties, the use of tax haven finance subsidiaries, and the allocation of parent interest expenses to foreign income. The third section introduces host government behavior to see how they tax different types of companies. As expected, they seem to favor more mobile companies and those that offer benefits to local factors such as labor. Companies that sell a large share of their output offshore receive concessions while those that import a great deal of their components are penalized, presumably because of the positive and negative impacts on country terms of trade. Subsidiaries of R&D intensive companies pay higher effective tax rates, suggesting rent extraction by the host government.


The 3C Citation Context Classification task is the first shared task addressing citation context classification. The two subtasks, A and B, associated with this shared task, involves the classification of citations based on their purpose and influence, respectively. Both tasks use a portion of the new ACT dataset, developed by the researchers at The Open University, UK. The tasks were hosted on Kaggle, and the participated systems were evaluated using the macro f-score. Three teams participated in subtask A and four teams participated in subtask B. The best performing systems obtained an overall score of 0.2056 for subtask A and 0.5556 for subtask B, outperforming the simple majority class baseline models, which scored 0.11489 and 0.32249, respectively. In this paper we provide a report specifying the shared task, the dataset used, a short description of the participating systems and the final results obtained by the teams based on the evaluation criteria. The shared task has been organised as part of the 8th International Workshop on Mining Scientific Publications (WOSP 2020) workshop.


OBJECTIVE: Aim of the study was to assess whether different birth management of an english and german department can influence the maternal and neonatal outcome. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The database consisted of routinely published data from 1986-95 for two clinical units in Solihull (England) and Ibbenbueren (Germany) comprising 34 820 and 9 053 deliveries respectively. In order to standardise the obstetric risk profiles the heterogeneous primary groups were subdivided into "standard primip groups". A statistical comparison using the "binomial confidence interval method" was carried out. RESULTS: In the standardised comparison induction of labour, duration of labour 1-6 hours, vaginal delivery from cephalic presentation, elective caesarean section, both for cephalic and breech presentation, transfer to the childrens hospital were less frequent in Solihull. On the other hand, Solihull showed more frequent oxytocin administration, fetal blood analysis, epidural anaesthesia, episiotomies, duration of labour > 13 hours, forceps, ventouse and emergency caesarean section deliveries from cephalic presentation, vaginal deliveries or emergency caesarean sections from breech presentation, resuscitation of the newborn using mask and/or drugs, maternal blood loss > 1 000 ml as well as abnormalities of placental separation. Despite the different management of the departments being compared no significant differences in the incidence of perinatal hypoxia as determined by Apgar scores at 5 minutes nor in the fetal mortality rate between the units could be identified. CONCLUSION: Using standardised data the quality of obstetric and perinatal care in England and Germany can be reliably compared. Different birth management does not significantly influence the neonatal outcome.


This study assesses the role of feed-in tariffs (FITs) and renewable energy certificates (RECs) in creating incentives for cross-border investments and for investments in particular technological portfolios via M&A. The analysis explores the dataset on M&As in alternative energy sources worldwide over 2005‑2011. The results suggests that FITs encourage more diversified M&A than RECs. With respect to foreign investment, the study finds a linear relationship between FITs and cross-border M&As in the wind energy sector, but an inverted U-shaped relationship in the solar energy sector. One possible explanation for the latter may lie in reduced policy credibility due to the public finance implications of 'generous' FITs. Another possible explanation for this finding concerns the use of high solar FITs by countries whose natural conditions provide little comparative advantage in solar energy, suggesting that low profitability and limited potential of solar energy in those countries might have deterred the entry of foreign investors.


The fundamental challenge in design of wireless sensor network is enhance the network lifetime. Many factors are taken into account for the maximization of life time of wireless sensor networks, such as minimizing the power consumption, low cost operation, optimal routing algorithms. Sensor nodes have much redundancy and data aggregation that becomes a productive procedure to eradicate the redundancy. It minimizes the number of transmissions and hence it saves power. The Packets that are generated by heterogeneous sensors or different submissions have different attributes. Packets from different sub-missions could not be aggregated. The data aggregation scheme uses static routing protocols that do not forward the packets dynamically according to network state or packet types. The spatial isolation initiated by static routing protocol is unfavorable to data aggregation .The concept of packet attribute, defined as the identifier of the data tried by different types of sensors or submissions suggest an Attribute-aware Data Aggregation (ADA) scheme consisting of a packet-driven timing algorithm with special Dynamic routing protocol and Potential-Based Dynamic Routing that is elaborated to support an ADA scheme which improves the efficiency of Data Aggregation.


We have four reasons for agreeing to review this book. First, we have long been interested in Critical Pedagogy, a field in which Peter Mclaren is among the outstanding authors. In 1999, one of the reviewers, Changyong Yang, researched Critical Pedagogy in his dissertation On the Evolvement of the New Sociology of Education. This work is now published in Chinese as The New Sociology of Education: Its Continuous and Rupture History. (Yang, C., 2004) Secondly, as a visiting professor in the Center for East Asia and Pacific Studies in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Yang's research project is Sociology of Education: A Postmodern Practice and Its Theory in America. So Peter Mclaren and Ramin Farahmandpur's (2005) book Teaching against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism falls with our scope of research. Thirdly, Junrui Chang, a young scholar and a doctoral candidate, is now trying to apply the theory and method of Critical Pedagogy to do her research on art curriculum in Chinese rural society. Fourthly, as educational researchers in China, we are very much interested in Peter McLaren and his coauthor Ramin Farahmandpur's effort on a socialist pedagogy that follows Marxism. We are glad to accept the new book for review.


Tactile feedback is a key sensory channel that contributes to our ability to perform precise manipulations. In this regard, sensor skin provides robots with the sense of touch making them increasingly capable of dexterous object manipulation. However, in applications like teleoperation, the complex sensory input of an infinite number of different textures must be projected to the human user's skin in a meaningful manner. In addressing this issue, a deep gated recurrent unit-based autoencoder (GRU-AE) that captured the perceptual dimensions of tactile textures in latent space was deployed to implicitly understand unseen textures. The expression of unknown textures in this latent space allowed for the definition of a control law to effectively drive tactile displays and to convey tactile feedback in a psycho-physically meaningful manner. The approach was experimentally verified by evaluating the prediction performance of the GRU-AE on seen and unseen data that were gathered during active tactile exploration of objects commonly encountered in daily living. A user study on a custom-made tactile display was conducted in which real tactile perceptions in response to active tactile object exploration were compared to the emulated tactile feedback using the proposed tactile feedback loop. The results suggest that the deep GRU-AE for tactile display control offers an effective and intuitive method for efficient end-to-end tactile feedback during active tactile texture exploration.


A description is given of how the frequency response of optical receivers can be accurately calibrated by measuring a heterodyne signal generated by mixing two Nd:YAG ring lasers. One laser signal passes through the modulator while the other functions as a local oscillator to convert one of the sidebands of the modulated carrier to a fixed intermediate signal. This heterodyne system offers more than 50 dB of dynamic range. Calibration of both optical phase and amplitude modulators is achieved. The technique presented eliminates the need for a high-speed photoreceiver, has a good signal-to-noise ratio, and makes measurement of phase modulator frequency response possible. >


Purpose The genetic aetiology of a major fraction of patients with intellectual disability (ID) remains unknown. De novo mutations (DNMs) in protein-coding genes explain up to 40% of cases, but the potential role of regulatory DNMs is still poorly understood. Methods We sequenced 70 whole genomes from 24 ID probands and their unaffected parents and analyzed 30 previously sequenced genomes from exome-negative ID probands. Results We found that DNVs were selectively enriched in fetal brain-specific enhancers that show purifying selection in human population. DNV containing enhancers were associated with genes that show preferential expression in the pre-frontal cortex, have been previously implicated in ID or related disorders, and exhibit intolerance to loss of function variants. DNVs from ID probands preferentially disrupted putative binding sites of neuronal transcription factors, as compared to DNVs from healthy individuals and most showed allele-specific enhancer activity. In addition, we identified recurrently mutated enhancer clusters that regulate genes involved in nervous system development (CSMD1, OLFM1 and POU3F3). Moreover, CRISPR-based perturbation of a DNV-containing enhancer caused CSMD1 overexpression and abnormal expression of neurodevelopmental regulators. Conclusion Our results, therefore, provide new evidence to indicate that DNVs in constrained fetal brain-specific enhancers play a role in the etiology of ID.


The distribution of the secreted protein ribonuclease T1 (RntA) fused with the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP), RntA-EGFP, was visualized in hyphae of Aspergillus oryzae in the presence of a protein transport inhibitor, brefeldin A, cytochalasin A, or nocodazole. During treatment with the protein transport inhibitors, the distribution of RntA-EGFP changed and distinct patterns of fluorescence accumulation were observed. The addition of brefeldin A caused RntA-EGFP fluorescence to appear in reticular networks, and the disruption of the polymerization of actin filaments by cytochalasin A caused an increase in RntA-EGFP fluorescence intensity in the hyphae without accumulation in a specific cellular component. In contrast, RntA-EGFP fluorescence was distributed in different parts of a hypha during treatment with nocodazole, a compound that depolymerizes microtubules. In addition, quantitative analysis was performed using the RntA-EGFP visualization system to analyze the relative amount of RntA-EGFP secreted into the culture medium during treatment with the protein transport inhibitors.


New applications such as soft real-time data center applications, algorithmic trading, and high-performance computing require extremely low latency (in microseconds) from networks. Network operators today lack sufficient fine-grain measurement tools to detect, localize, and repair delay spikes that cause application service level agreement (SLA) violations. A recently proposed solution called LDA provides a scalable way to obtain latency, but only provides aggregate measurements. However, debugging application-specific problems requires per-flow measurements since different flows may exhibit significantly different characteristics even when they are traversing the same link. To enable fine-grained per-flow measurements in routers, we propose a new scalable architecture called reference latency interpolation (RLI) that is based on our observation that packets potentially belonging to different flows that are closely spaced to each other exhibit similar delay properties. In our evaluation using simulations over real traces, we show that while having small overhead, RLI achieves a median relative error of 12% and one to two orders of magnitude higher accuracy than previous per-flow measurement solutions. We also observe RLI achieves as high accuracy as LDA in aggregate latency estimation, and RLI outperforms LDA in standard deviation estimation.


Background: Doctors are the main prescribers of medication for the patients. There are many factors that affect prescribing behaviour such as pharmaceutical promotions.

Aims & Objective: To assess drug representatives' influence on physician's prescription, to assess physician's attitudes toward drug representative and to study other factors that may affect the prescribing behaviour of physicians.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 275 GPs & family physicians working in all primary care centers in KAMC in Central Region in 2011-2012. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used. The questionnaire included questions regarding socio-demographics, clinic work load for physicians, factors influencing prescribing of a new drug including gifts offered by drug representatives, reference sources used for prescribing, CME hour characteristics and sponsorships by drug representatives and physician beliefs about impact of pharmaceutical promotions on prescribing.

Results: Of the physicians, 204 filled the questionnaire (response rate 74.2%), nearly 72 % were non-Saudi, 71.6% were staff physicians, and 59.8% had more than 10 years of practice. Guidelines updating and drug characteristics were the most important factors influencing physicians' prescription of a new drug (97.5%, 96.6%) while the least factor influencing their prescribing was drug representatives (41.0%). The most frequent resources used by physicians in case of any problems in prescribing process were textbooks e.g. BNF or MIMS (52.5%), Micromedix (44.7%). According to self-report of physicians, their prescribing behaviours were not affected by visits of drug representatives (43.6 %) while some of them (41.7%) stated that may be they were affected. Over 61% of physicians however believed that other physicians´ prescribing pattern was sometimes affected by drug representatives' influence. There was no correlation between sponsored lectures and influence of prescribing behaviours (p-value 0.914). Although the physicians accepted gifts, drug representatives do not influence their prescription of a new drug.

Conclusion: A minority of physicians was partially influenced by drug representative promotions affecting their prescribing patterns. Most of the doctors were not affected by gifts or drug related information given by the representatives. Majority of physicians relied on latest guidelines from medical literature and other standard references in writing prescriptions.


Caffeine (CAF) has been reported to improve various facets associated with successful soccer play, including gross motor skill performance, endurance capacity and cognition. These benefits are primarily attributed to pharmacological mechanisms. However, evidence assessing CAF's overall effects on soccer performance are sparse with no studies accounting for CAF's potential psychological impact. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess CAF's psychological vs. pharmacological influence on various facets of simulated soccer performance. Utilising a double-dissociation design, eight male recreational soccer players (age: 22 ± 5 years, body mass: 78 ± 16 kg, height: 178 ± 6 cm) consumed CAF (3 mg/kg/body mass) or placebo (PLA) capsules, 60 min prior to performing the Loughborough Intermittent Shuttle Test (LIST) interspersed with a collection of ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), blood glucose and lactate, heart rate and performing the Loughborough Soccer Passing Test (LSPT). Whole-body dynamic reaction time (DRT) was assessed pre- and post- LIST, and endurance capacity (TLIM) post, time-matched LIST. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS (v24) whilst subjective perceptions were explored using template analysis. Mean TLIM was greatest (p < 0.001) for synergism (given CAF/told CAF) (672 ± 132 s) vs. placebo (given PLA/told PLA) (533 ± 79 s). However, when isolated, TLIM was greater (p = 0.012) for CAF psychology (given PLA/told CAF) (623 ± 117 s) vs. pharmacology (given CAF/told PLA) (578 ± 99 s), potentially, via reduced RPE. Although DRT performance was greater (p = 0.024) post-ingestion (+5 hits) and post-exercise (+7 hits) for pharmacology vs. placebo, psychology and synergism appeared to improve LSPT performance vs. pharmacology. Interestingly, positive perceptions during psychology inhibited LSPT and DRT performance via potential CAF over-reliance, with the opposite occurring following negative perceptions. The benefits associated with CAF expectancies may better suit tasks that entail lesser cognitive-/skill-specific attributes but greater gross motor function and this is likely due to reduced RPE. In isolation, these effects appear greater vs. CAF pharmacology. However, an additive benefit may be observed after combining expectancy with CAF pharmacology (i.e., synergism).


In this paper, a low-power consumption level-shifter using the clamping circuit technique and LTPS (low temperature poly silicon) technology for TFT LCD (thin film transistor-liquid crystal display) is proposed. The new proposed level-shifter can convert from the input amplitude of 0/spl sim/+3 V to the output amplitude of 0/spl sim/+10 V by using only one input signal. The power consumption of the proposed level-shifter can be reduced to about 1/2 that of the conventional one under conditions of +10 V power supply voltage, 1 pF load capacitor and 2 MHz operating frequency. For an application, the proposed level-shifter can be adopted to the high-voltage generator.


Background and Hypothesis:
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a disabling, chronic gut disorder involving immune dysregulation. Our lab has generated a murine IBD model in which the innate immune system drives inflammation. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), an innate immune cell subset that was recently discovered, exhibit many T-helper cell characteristics. ILCs, though few, produce cytokines, thereby significantly impacting tissue through local action in mucosal sites. They express the cell surface markers, CD90, which is unique to ILCs, and CD45, which all leukocyte types express. Colitis prevention in our model via ILC depletion indicates a role for ILCs in IBD. Therefore, we aimed to identify the ILCs' localization in our murine model. We hypothesized that the ILCs will localize to inflamed areas of the intestinal lamina propria and into the intraepithelial spaces.
Experimental Design or Project Methods:
Mice expressing TNFAIP3, an inhibitor of NF-kB, were mated with adaptive immunity-lacking mice (RAG1-/-). RAG1-/- x Villin-TNFAIP3 (TRAG) mice had colitis that was 100% penetrant by age 6 weeks. Distal colons excised at age 4 weeks and 8 weeks were used for identifying CD45+ and CD90+ cells in both RAG and TRAG mice intestines via immunofluorescence.
Results:
We observed differences in the distributions of CD90+ and CD45+ cells within TRAG and RAG mice intestines.
Conclusion and Potential Impact:
Differences exist in intestinal leukocyte distributions within our models. Altered ILC distribution might reflect an inflammatory state or contribute to IBD pathology. This work may further elucidate ILCs' role in IBD and as IBD treatment targets.


In this paper, a numerical simulation of the thermal process in SMT laser microsofdered joints has been developed, in which the influences on the thermal process of factors such as the thermal conductivity variation of solder with temperature, light reflection coefficient of the lead wire surface, and heat transfer on the surface of SMT materials have all been considered. In order to put this numerical calculation into practice and prove its results, the reflective characteristic of light waves in relation to SMT materials has been determined, and the dynamic temperature process of laser soldered microjoints has been measured by a new experimental method invented by the authors. The numerical simulation results have been borne out by the tests, and the influence of heating parameters on the thermal process has been analysed in this paper. The conclusions will benefit the further study of microjoint quality control in SMT laser microsoldering.


Presently, C++ programming has been taught in many universities around the world as the first object-oriented programming language for undergraduate students to start studying programming concepts and computer architecture. However, many of them may struggle in studying C++ programming due to the nature in the formal language. Thus, hands-on self-study tools can be effective. In previous, we have developed Java programming learning assistant system (JPLAS) for assisting self-study of Java programming. JPLAS offers the value trace problem (VTP) for novice students to study Java programming through code reading study. In a VTP instance, actual values of important variable or standard output messages in a given source code are questioned, where the correctness of each answer is checked through string matching. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of VTP for hands-on self-study of C++ programming by novice students. We generated 37 VTP instances for basic grammar concepts using source codes in textbooks or websites for C++ programming, and asked 46 students in three universities in three countries to solve them using the answer interface for JPLAS. The results suggest that most of the students are satisfactory, but some students need cares at early programming study stage.


An enclosure has been constructed to evaluate the performance of active noise reduction (ANR), circumaural head sets, and hearing protectors, at frequencies below 800 Hz. It consists of a massive (5‐kg), flat base plate against which one cup cushion is sealed by spring pressure. The sound pressure within the cup is recorded by a microphone flush‐mounted in the base plate. A 20‐cm‐diam aluminum tube, 20 cm in length, is attached by annular flanges to the base plate at one end and, at the other, to a 15‐cm‐diam loudspeaker, which drives the enclosed volume so formed. The excitation of cross modes within the tube is suppressed by a 2.0‐cm cylindrical annular layer of felt, in contact with the inner wall of the tube. The performance of the measuring system will be described and results reported for the attenuation of an analog ANR head set. [Work done in collaboration with the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine.]


Aiming at the difficulties of aurum leaching from arsenic gold ore, the behavior of arsenic and aurum leaching by the roasting pretreatment of arsenic gold ore is discussed. The result indicates as the following: the rate of aurum extraction is only 14.16% to this kind of refractory gold ore by choosing normal method of aurum extraction. However, the rate of fixing arsenic is up to 95.77% and the aurum extraction rate is 78.45% through the pretreatment of fixing arsenic roasting under optimum roasting conditions like adding amount of CaCO3 by 3%, roasting temperature 650°C and roasting time 4 hours. The result is satisfactory.


This paper provides an overview of the main trends in child income poverty since the mid-2000s, and explores to what extent child poverty trends are linked to demographic, policy and/or labour market changes. Trends in poverty and the standard of living of children in low-income families since the onset of the Great Recession are also closely examined: nearly 1 in 7 children is income-poor in the OECD, and child poverty increased in almost two/thirds of OECD countries with the Great Recession. About 1 in 10 children across the OECD live in a family with a standard of living below the 2005 poverty line. Children in low-income families experienced a decline in their standard of living in many countries, with the largest decline among families with the smallest incomes.


An AFM methodology to enable measurement of the adhesion of micrometre sized objects, having contact areas in the range of nanometre to micrometer, is reported. The method also enables imaging of the actual breakage zone on both the surface and the removed object to obtain further information regarding the breakage zone. The method is also useful for measuring consolidating systems, such as drying, curing, or annealing systems.


Abstract Are differences in local banking development long lasting? Do they affect economic performance? I answer these questions by relying on a historical development that occurred in Italian cities during the Renaissance. A change in Catholic doctrine led to the development of modern banks in cities hosting Jewish communities. Using Jewish demography in 1500 as an instrument, I provide evidence of extraordinary persistence in the level of banking development across Italian cities and substantial effects of local banks on per capita income. Additional firm-level analyses suggest that banks exert large effects on aggregate productivity by reallocating resources toward more efficient firms.


An intervention, which used elements of the theory of planned behavior, was developed and tested in a randomized control trial (RCT) involving households in the city of London, Ontario, Canada. A bespoke methodology involving the direct collection and measurement of food waste within curbside garbage samples of control (n = 58) and treatment households (n = 54) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. A comparison of garbage samples before and after the intervention revealed that total food waste in treatment households decreased by 31% after the intervention and the decrease was significantly greater (p = .02) than for control households. Similarly, avoidable food waste decreased by 30% in treatment households and was also significantly greater (p = .05) than for control households. Key determinants of treatment household avoidable food waste reduction included personal attitudes, perceived behavioral control, the number of people in a household, and the amount of garbage set out.


Single-carrier (SC) and multicarrier (MC) transmissions have emerged as two competitive technologies for long-haul coherent optical fiber transmission systems. In this letter, we compare chromatic dispersion (CD) and nonlinearity tolerances for coherent optical SC frequency-domain-equalization and SC orthogonal frequency-division-multiplexing systems. We establish the simulation systems employing the same structures of transmitter and receiver, the same structure of frame, and almost the same frequency-domain equalization method except the inverse fast Fourier transform processing. Both CD tolerance and nonlinear transmission performance in single-channel and wavelength-division-multiplexing scenarios are investigated. The comparison can reveal the difference of SC and MC transmissions.


While parliament buildings and governor's palaces have been studied as embodiments of governmental or colonial power, the architecture of the often more mundane state administrative office buildings has only received scant attention from architectural historians. In this article, we seek to demonstrate that political discourses concerning such buildings can nonetheless reveal important conceptions of colonial power. Rather than focussing on how such power was accommodated in and shaped by state-built architecture overseas, this article draws attention to the representational aspects of colonial governance in a mother country through an analysis of various projects proposed for the Belgian Ministry of Colonies (1908–1960). In the 1930s, when it was still housed in an eighteenth-century neoclassical building in Brussels, the Ministry of Colonies was included in a visionary but unsuccessful civil service reform, which was aimed at a modernisation of the Belgian state bureaucracy and its office buildings. After the Second World War, when colonialism became increasingly criticised in international fora, successive Belgian Ministers of Colonies pleaded for the construction of a new, grandiose ministerial complex, which was supposed to symbolise efficiency, modernity, and—above all —the permanence of the colonial undertaking. Even though important steps were taken to realise this complex, the project was outrun by the global decolonisation process, of which the independence of the Belgian Congo (1960) was an inevitable outcome.


The influence of weak disturbances (up to 300 microT) of natural magnetic field on the protein metabolism in neurons of sensomotor cortex (layers III and V) in Wistar rats upon learning in a complex maze was studied. It was found that sensomotor neurons were very sensitive to weak disturbances of magnetic field. The protein content increased, while the nucleus-cytoplasm ratio and osmotic state of neurons remained unchanged. The specificity of neuron's reaction manifested itself in a sharp increase of nucleus and cytoplasm dimensions. In associative neurons (layer III), both the nucleus and cytoplasm were involved in the response; in efferent neurons (layer V), only nuclear parameters changed. The variance coefficients of all parameters of protein metabolism in sensomotor neurons, independently of their functional properties, were much higher than in control, which resulted in a wide diversity of cytochemical response.


Ochratoxin A (OTA) has been frequently found as a food contaminant, and it is considered one of the mycotoxins most harmful to human health. In this context, this study was performed aiming to evaluate mycelial growth and ochratoxin A production from three isolates of Aspergillus carbonarius and Aspergillus ochraceus. The isolates were inoculated on culture media coffee, wheat and maize as well as YES medium and cultivated at 15 and 25°C. Measurement of colony diameters was performed every 48 h for growth description. OTA quantification was made with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) three times (5th, 15th and 25th day). All the isolates presented higher growth rate in YES medium at 25°C; however, growth in every culture media at both tested temperatures was observed. The maize-based medium showed the lowest growth rate. YES medium induced the most OTA production. In grain-based culture media, A. ochraceus isolates produced lower quantities of OTA, reaching a maximum of 9.95 µg/g. However, A. carbonarius isolates produced much higher quantities, showing the A. carbonarius CCDCA10608 isolate, which produced 29.83 µg/g at 15°C in YES medium and 13.06 in wheat-based medium at 15°C. Therefore, among the tested conditions, those more and less favorable to OTA production were recognized.

 Key words: Aspergillus, food, high performance liquid chromatography, mycotoxin, ochratoxin A.


Summary This paper presents a scalable multiprocessor architecture with multiple access memories and multi-way busses. This parallel architecture with more intelligent memory model and efficient multi-way interconnection network organization is called as CRrCW (Concurrent Read and restricted Concurrent Write) scaleable multiprocessor system. The memory and network model provides concurrent memory accesses and more memory bandwidth for a CRrCW scaleable multiprocessor system. Thus, the proposed multiprocessors system with the memory model and network take advantages of both multiprocessor systems with shared memory and distributed memory. In this paper, conventional shared, distributed memory multiprocessor and the CRrCW multiprocessor are examined under various conditions and also compared with each other. A sliding caches memory model is used to reduce the cost of the CRrCW multiprocessor system. A cluster controller is also used to enhance the broadcast and multicast ability of the interconnection network. Simulation results of the sliding caches memory model show that memory requirements of a CRrCW multiprocessor system is almost independent of scale of the multiprocessor. In addition this, simulation results of the interconnection network also show that even small number of the connection per processors greatly enhances the scalability of the multiprocessor system. Two scientific applications, volume visualization and N-body problem, is chosen to examine performance of the system. These applications case studies represent a range of important behaviors found in parallel computing. The CRrCW multiprocessor system with special interconnection network and intelligent memory organization provides high speed-up and efficiency over conventional shared and the distributed memory multiprocessor. Therefore, the CRrCW multiprocessor system is a potential candidate for large-scale parallel computing applications.


We analyzed the correlation between mainland China and Hong Kong stock markets based on cash flow (CF) news and discount rate (DR) news instead of considering market return as a whole. We decomposed stock return into CF news and DR news following Campbell and Vuolteenaho. Then, the VARBEKK-GARCH method was used to investigate the time-varying correlations of CF news and DR news in the two markets.We ensured robustness by using the structural break test from Bai and Perron to estimate the structural break points during the sample period. The results show that CF news and DR news in the mainland China market is more volatile than in the Hong Kong market, and DR news correlation is usually negative when the mainland China market is undergoing some reform. The estimated structural break points were matched to important events in the mainland China market and the two markets become increasingly correlated.


This thesis presents an in-depth analysis of infants' acquisition of onomatopoeia – an area of phonological development that until now has been largely overlooked. Infants produce many onomatopoeia in their earliest words, which are often disregarded in phonological analyses owing to their marginal status in adult languages. It is often suggested that onomatopoeia may be easier for infants to learn because of the iconicity that is present in these forms; this corresponds to Imai and Kita's (2014) 'sound symbolism bootstrapping hypothesis', as well as Werner and Kaplan's theoretical work Symbol Formation (1963). However, neither of these accounts considers the role of phonological development in infants' acquisition of onomatopoeia. This thesis presents a series of six studies with a range of perspectives on our central research question: is there a role for onomatopoeia in phonological development? Two analyses of longitudinal diary data address the nature of onomatopoeia in early production, while two eye-tracking studies consider the nature of iconicity in onomatopoeia and whether or not this has a perceptual advantage in early development. The role of the caregiver is then considered, with a prosodic analysis of onomatopoeia in infant-directed speech and a longitudinal perspective of the role of onomatopoeia in infant-caregiver interactions.
 The contributions from thesis are threefold. First, we offer empirical evidence towards an understanding of how onomatopoeia fit within an infant's wider phonological development, by showing how onomatopoeia facilitate early perception, production and interactions. Second, our results illustrate how these forms are an important aspect of phonological development and should not be overlooked in infant language research, as has often been the case in the development literature. Finally, these findings expand the iconicity research by showing that onomatopoeia do not present an iconic advantage in language learning, as has so often been assumed by theorists in the field.


Thin films of viscous fluids coating solid surfaces can become unstable due to intermolecular forces, leading to break-up of the film into arrays of droplets. The long-time dynamics of the system can be represented in terms of coupled equations for the masses and positions of the droplets. Analysis of the decrease of energy of the system shows that coarsening, decreasing the number of droplets with increasing time, is favored. Here we describe the two coarsening mechanisms present in dewetting films: (i) mass exchange leading to collapse of individual drops, and (ii) spatial motion leading to droplet collisions and merging events. Regimes where each of mechanisms are dominant are identified, and the statistics of the coarsening process are explained. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


The timing of migration is generally considered of utmost importance for reproduction and survival, and timing is furthermore considered to be under strong genetic control. The individual timing of migration is presumably a result of a combination of genetic, phenotypic and environmental factors as well as some degree of randomness. However, potential differences in consistency of timing between spring and autumn and between migration strategies are not well studied. Using long-term Danish ringing data, we study such differences by correlating date of ringing with date of recaptures for a suite of common migrating passerines in Denmark. We found that individuals marked early in one year tended to be recaptured early in the same season in a following year indicating that individuals time their migration in spring or autumn similarly between years. The relationship between spring and autumn migration was overall slightly negative, suggesting that birds arriving early in spring tended to depart late in autumn and vice versa. There were only weak effects of geographical location on timing, suggesting that the patterns found are not primarily caused by different populations being involved. Knowledge of individual consistency in migration timing is needed for understanding changes in migration timing. The consistent patterns of repeatabilities within and between seasons found here highlight the importance of timing of migration in songbirds.


Cobalt phosphate (CoPO) is gaining increasing interest as an alternative to noble metals in electrocatalytic applications. Here, we report the controlled synthesis of flower-like CoPO microsheet arrays supported on Ni foam (CoPO MA/NF) via a simple hydrothermal reaction, and their direct use as a 3D integrated anode for non-enzymatic glucose sensing. The catalytic activity of CoPO MA/NF towards glucose oxidation was evaluated by electrochemical tests. Results show that CoPO MA/NF displays high performance for glucose sensing with a short response time of less than 10 s, a low detection limit of 1 μM (S/N = 3), and a high sensitivity of 3.55 mA mM−1 cm−2. In addition, CoPO MA/NF shows excellent selectivity in the presence of interfering agents such as dopamine, uric acid and ascorbic acid, which makes it reliable for glucose detection in real human serum samples. This work not only provides the controlled synthesis of a CoPO 3D integrated electrode by a simple process, but also explores the potential application of the CoPO-based electrode material for electrochemical sensing of biochemical analytes.


BACKGROUND
Sickle cell disease individuals who get pregnant constitute a high risk group during pregnancy and in the peurperium. Females experience various complications of sickle cell disease in pregnancy, hence female health workers who are thought to be aware of these complications, and who would be involved in information dissemination about prenatal diagnosis were studied to know how their knowledge would affect their attitude to early termination of affected pregnancy detected by prenatal diagnosis.

METHODOLOGY
Structured questionnaires were administered to all categories of female health workers at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria.

RESULT
One hundred and seventy-six responses were obtained. Fifty-seven (32.4%) were single, while 119 (67.6%) were married. One hundred and fifty-three (86.9%) were Christians, while 23 (13.1%) were Moslems. Ninety-seven (55.1%) of the respondents were nurses, 14 (8.0%) doctors, and other health workers were 65 (36.9%). The mean score of the knowledge of the complications of sickle cell disease in pregnancy for the unmarried respondents was 4.60 +/- 1.6, and for the married 4.03 +/- 2.0. The mean score for the doctors was 5.29 +/- 0.73, for the nurses 4.42 +/- 1.63, and for the other health workers 3.66 +/- 2.18. Three (21.4%) of the doctors would accept early termination of affected pregnancy, while 31 (32.0%) and 21 (32.3%) of the nurses and the other health workers, respectively, would accept termination of affected pregnancy.

CONCLUSION
Despite the knowledge of the complications of sickle cell disease in pregnancy by the health workers, they are opposed to the early termination of affected pregnancy detected by prenatal diagnosis; therefore, emphasis should be on genetic counseling as a means of controlling sickle cell disease.


Background The postoperative pulmonary complication (PPC) is an important surgical risk as common as the cardiac one, containing atelectasis, pneumonia, and respiratory failure. Objective The purpose of this study is to evaluate the risk factors for PPC in the patients with major respiratory underlying diseases such as bronchial asthma (BA) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in our university hospital. Methods Totally 10699 patients were surgically treated in our university hospital from April to December in 2014. Among them, there were 68 COPD patients and 181 BA ones studied here. Eight of 68 COPD patients (11.8%) had PPC with 6 consolidations and 2 consolidations + respiratory failures, whereas 16 of 181 BA patients (8.8%) had PPC with 14 asthma attacks and 2 consolidations. We retrospectively evaluated physiological background, pulmonary function, duration of surgery, and perioperative specific treatment for pulmonary diseases to analyze the risk for PPC in these patients. Results In the BA patients, smoking index> 20 pack-year was significantly associated with PPC [OR (95%CI) = 11.7(2.6-52.1), P= 0.0013]. In the COPD patients, induction of COPD specific treatment and duration of surgery >300minites were significantly associated with PPC [OR (95%CI) = 0.09(0.01-0.63), P= 0.016; OR (95%CI) = 9.5(1.4-65.3), P= 0.022, respectively] Conclusions To prevent PPC, smoking cessation in BA and induction of specific treatment and shortening of surgery time in COPD were critically important.


The purpose of the present study is to broaden knowledge in the area of adjustment to incarceration. Clemmer (L9S0) proposed that a process known as prisonization develops as inmates adjust to the arduous circumstance of incarceration. Previous research has compared two competing models of adaptation, known as importation and deprivation, as predictors of prisonization. Given that Clemmer (1950) originally hypothesized that prisonization serves as a method of adjusting to the prison environment, the present study explored the relationships among the importation model, the deprivation model, prisonization, and adjustment. In an attempt to take into consideration both person and environmental factors, it was hypothesized that an integration of the importation and deprivation models would explain more of the variance in adjustment and prisonization levels than models emphasizing either personal variables or environmental influences alone. Second, based on a failure of previous research to include measures of personality in the examination of the importation model, it was hypothesized that inclusion of a comprehensive personality measure of psychological type (MBTI-theta scores) would increase the explanatory power of the importation model. Finally, it was hypothesized that inclusion of psychological and emotional measures of perceived distress could account for more of the variance than the traditionally used measure of disciplinary infractions, as relatively few inmates on average receive disciplinary write-ups on a regular basis. Results supported the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, the integrative model had a better fit to the data iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. than either the deprivation model or the importation model independently. In addition, self-reported levels of perceived distress accounted for a better fit to the data than number of disciplinary infractions, suggesting that a combination of emotional and behavioral indices account for more of the variance in adjustment than either factor separately. Prisonization was found to mediate the relationship between importation and deprivation variables and behavioral measures of adjustment, but was not found to significantly mediate the relationship between adaptation variables and levels of perceived distress. Last, the inclusion of personality factors, namely psychological type, significantly contributed to the overall understanding of adjustment to incarceration in the present study.


Abstract. A solar radiation measurement campaign was performed in the south-eastern village of Marsaxlokk (35°50' N; 14°33' E; 10 m a.s.l), Malta, between 15 May and 15 October 2012. Erythemal solar radiation data (from a UVB-1 pyranometer), and total horizontal solar radiation (global and diffuse components) from two CM21 pyranometer were recorded. A comparison of atmospheric compounds from ground measurements and satellites shows that TOC (total ozone column) data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument OMI, TOMS and DOAS algorithms correlate well with ground-based recorded data. The water vapour column and the aerosol optical depth at 550 nm show a significant correlation at the confidence level of 99 %. Parametric models for evaluating the solar UV erythemal (UVER), global (G) and diffuse (D) horizontal irradiances are calibrated, from which aerosol effects on solar irradiance are evaluated using the Aerosol Modification Factor (AMF). The AMFUVER values are lower than AMFG, indicating a greater aerosol effect on UVER than on global solar irradiance. In this campaign, several dust event trajectories are identified by means of the HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and by synoptic conditions for characterizing desert dust events. Hence, changes in the UV index due to atmospheric aerosols are described.


The Jehovah's Witnesses Society (JW), a fundamentalist Christian sect, is best known to laypersons and healthcare professionals for its refusal of blood products, even when such a refusal may result in death. Since the introduction of the blood ban in 1945, JW parents have fought for their rights to refuse blood on behalf of their children, based on religious beliefs and their right to raise children as they see fit. Adolescent JWs have also sought to refuse blood products based on their beliefs, regardless of the views of their parents.


Community Question Answering (cQA) services, such as Yahoo! Answers and MSN QnA, facilitate knowledge sharing through question answering by an online community of users. These services include incentive mechanisms to entice participation and self-regulate the quality of the content contributed by the users. In order to encourage quality contributions, community members are asked to nominate the 'best' among the answers provided to a question. The service then awards extra points to the author who provided the winning answer and to the voters who cast their vote for that answer. The best answers are typically selected by plurality voting, a scheme that is simple, yet vulnerable to random voting and collusion. We propose a weighted voting method that incorporates information about the voters' behavior. It assigns a score to each voter that captures the level of agreement with other voters. It uses the voter scores to aggregate the votes and determine the best answer. The mathematical formulation leads to the application of the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem which guarantees the existence of a voter scoring function that satisfies the starting axiom. We demonstrate the robustness of our approach through simulations and analysis of real cQA service data.


Inherited gene disorders related to the hemostatic system have been documented as risk factors for thrombosis. The roles of factor V Hong Kong (FV Hong Kong), factor V Leiden (FV Leiden), factor II G20210A (FII G20210A), methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T, and MTHFR A1298C mutations in Turkish patients with thrombosis (270 patients) compared with healthy controls (114 subjects) were evaluated. Polymerase chain reaction—based restriction enzyme analysis was carried out to screen these mutations, and single-strand conformation analysis was established to identify variations using the primers selected for restriction enzyme analysis studies. As a result, a significant relationship was determined among FV Leiden, FII G20210A, and thrombosis. The FV Hong Kong mutation was observed in only 2 patients with pulmonary vein thrombosis who are FV Leiden/FV Hong Kong compound heterozygous for FV gene. MTHFR C677T and A1298C were equally distributed in the patient group compared with the control group. All named mutations were also identified with single-strand conformation analysis, but a new variant/polymorphism during studies was not found. Because some inherited abnormalities are associated with thromboembolic disorders, determining the mutations and gene-to-gene interactions in patients with thrombosis history has a great impact on diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.


The concept of the Atlantic world arose to describe the interactions of the peoples of the Americas, Europe, and Africa through exploration, colonialism, imperialism and independence and and their adjustments in new homelands, market systems and more.


One of the most important measures of success of a high school is its graduation rate. There are many factors that influence whether or not students graduate in the traditional four-year schedule. Student motivation and achievement certainly are primary reasons students may meet this expectation, but oftentimes there are other issues that contribute to the delay of on-time graduation. Sometimes these factors are actually beyond the control of the student. Frequent student mobility, socio-economic disadvantages, and behavioral issues are reasons that often impede on-time graduation for students. Students affected by these issues desperately need schools to be flexible and find options to keep them in school and on course to graduate with their cohort. Of the students who eventually drop out, one-third are behind in their coursework in the 9th grade (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010)The purpose of this initiative was to examine the impact of student mobility, socio-economic distress, and chronic negative behavior on on-time graduation, as well, evaluate and develop programs and protocols that provide options to help students retain and regain credits needed to graduate with their cohort. This work studied students and personnel in three demographically different high schools in North Carolina: a large, urban school in Cary, NC drawing from an affluent area; a large school located near a military base in Fayetteville, NC; and a small, mountain school serving many students who are socio-economically disadvantaged in Murphy, NC.Data were gathered through the spring, summer, and fall semesters of 2015. The research practitioners investigated data drawn from a variety of credit recovery and retention options, including, a personalized registration program and several on-line programs, such as GradPoint, Study Island, and Edgenuity. One research practitioner also identified effective strategies to create a training program for school counselors to assist students in retaining and regaining credits toward graduation. This qualitative data gives voice to the students who often have no voice when it comes to making decisions when they fall behind their cohort, and provides counselors with the tools to assist these students. Qualitative data were gathered through a variety of research methods, including surveys, interviews, case studies, and focus groups. These methods were selected because of their ability to solicit the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of those participating in the improvement change (Creswell, 2012). The intent of this work was to increase options for students at risk of not graduating on time, thereby improving their chance of staying in school and graduating with their cohort.


If housing costs increase faster than incomes, households may be subject to affordability stress, which may put homeownership out of reach, or raise household debts levels to the extent that trade-offs of spending on essential non-housing goods and services must be made. Housing affordability is an important element of economic and social wellbeing that has long been part of policy agenda of Australian governments. In this thesis, the concept of housing affordability is redefined, based on the use of a residual approach. This focuses on the residual income that remains after housing needs are met, which is then compared to a poverty line or budget standard. The alternative approach, based on the ratio of household income spent on housing, is used most commonly in studies of housing affordability, but is applied uniformly across housing situations (renters and homeowners), locations and household types and is less precise in identifying those that are experiencing problems with income and/or housing costs. Four new models are developed to identify the types and situations of households that are subject to affordability stress, where in metropolitan areas they tend to live, and how long the experience of affordability stress last. Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Income and Housing Surveys, Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), and 'after housing' budget standards, the ordered probit method is applied to identify variables that predict housing stress, including types of housing arrangements and ownership, age, family composition, and level and sources of income. The influence of location and the built environment on whether a household is in housing affordability stress is assessed through a model that includes transport and distance variables for New South Wales and Victoria. In Sydney, affordability stress increases at greater distances from the city centre and inner suburbs, but in Melbourne, distance from the city centre is related to falling housing costs. The difference between the two cities is attributed to their built environment, which evolved historically in a path-dependent way. The duration of the experience of housing stress is assessed using survival analysis. The results show that renters and single households, especially single males, aged under 65 are particularly vulnerable to long periods of affordability stress, especially when they experience life events that result in reduced levels of residual income.


We present a combinatorial model for cluster algebras of type $D_n$ in terms of centrally symmetric pseudotriangulations of a regular $2n$-gon with a small disk in the centre. This model provides convenient and uniform interpretations for clusters, cluster variables and their exchange relations, as well as for quivers and their mutations. We also present a new combinatorial interpretation of cluster variables in terms of perfect matchings of a graph after deleting two of its vertices. This interpretation differs from known interpretations in the literature. Its main feature, in contrast with other interpretations, is that for a fixed initial cluster seed, one or two graphs serve for the computation of all cluster variables. Finally, we discuss applications of our model to polytopal realizations of type $D$ associahedra and connections to subword complexes and $c$-cluster complexes.


A water-in-oil microemulsion method was used for the preparation of silica-coated permalloy (Ni0.80Fe0.20) nanoparticles. The particles were prepared by the reduction of their salts with sodium borohydride NaBH4 in a cationic water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsion of water/cetyltrimethyl- amonium bromide (CTAB) and n-butanol/isooctane at 25oC. According to the TEM and x-ray diffraction analyses, the synthesized material was in the form of nanoparticles. The magnetization of the silica-coated nanoparticles was lower than that of the uncoated particles, reflecting the influence of the nonmagnetic silica surface layer on the magnetization.


This paper presents a Cellular Neural Networks (CNN) based rotation invariant fingerprint recognition system by keeping the hardware implementability in mind. Core point was used as a reference point and detection of the core point was implemented in the CNN framework. Proposed system consists of four stages: preprocessing, feature extraction, false feature elimination and matching. Preprocessing enhances the input fingerprint image. Feature extraction creates rotation invariant features by using core point as a reference point. False feature elimination increases the system performance by removing the false minutiae points. Matching stage compares extracted features and creates a matching score. Recognition performance of the proposed system has been tested by using high resolution PolyU HRF DBII database. The results are very encouraging for implementing a CNN based fully automatic rotation invariant fingerprint recognition system.


In this paper, we study some parties - each has a private data set - want to conduct the outlier detection on their joint data set, but none of them want to disclose its private data to the other parties. We propose a linear transformation technique to design protocols of secure multivariate outlier detection in both horizontally and vertically distributed data models. While different from the most of previous techniques in a privacy preserving fashion for distance-based outliers detection, our focus is the technique in statistics for detecting outliers.


We developed a mobility detection system to analyze pressure changes over time during side-turns in 29 healthy volunteers (17 males and 12 females) with a mean age of 46.1 ± 19.64 years (ranging from 23 to 86 years) in order to determine the effect of gender, age, and BMI on performance during bed postural change. Center of gravity (COG) location, peak pressure of counteraction, and time to reach peak pressure were the main outcomes used to gauge the ability to make a spontaneous side-turn. Men exhibited significantly higher side-turning force (P = 0.002) and back-turning force (P = 0.002) compared with women. Subjects with BMI ≥27 kg/m2 had significantly higher side-turning force (P = 0.007) and back-turning force (P = 0.007) compared with those with BMI < 27 kg/m2. After adjusting for other covariates, age positively correlated with back-turning time (P = 0.033) and negatively correlated with side-turning speed (P = 0.005), back-turning speed (P = 0.014), side-turning force (P = 0.010), and back-turning force (P = 0.016), respectively. Turning times negatively correlated with time to reach peak pressure (P = 0.008). Our system was effective in detecting changes in turning swiftness in the bed-ridden subject.


OBJECTIVE
To examine gender differences in sleep, fatigue, and daytime activity in a sample of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

METHODS
Participants included 88 children in maintenance treatment for ALL (34 girls; 54 boys). Participants wore an actigraph for 10 consecutive days (5 days pre-dexamethasone and 5 days during dexamethasone administration). Fatigue instruments were also administered.

RESULTS
Girls napped more and had less fragmented night sleep than boys did. Wake time after sleep onset was sensitive to dexamethasone administration, revealing a differential direction of response for girls and boys. No gender differences were observed for subjective fatigue or daytime activity in the total sample.

CONCLUSIONS
Our preliminary findings support gender differences in the sleep of children with cancer after controlling for differences in age, treatment, and risk group. Future research that focuses on the etiology of gender differences and developing interventions will help clarify the clinical application of our findings.


A guide to library and Internet resources that may be useful in researching resistance to the Nazis and the rescue of some of the victims.


Lack of access to electricity is one of the major impediments to growth and development of the rural economies in developing countries. That is why access to modern energy, in particular to electricity, has been one of the priority themes of the World Bank and other development organizations. Using a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2005 of some 20,000 households in rural Bangladesh, this paper studies the welfare impacts of households' grid connectivity. Based on rigorous econometric estimation techniques, this study finds that grid electrification has significant positive impacts on households' income, expenditure, and educational outcomes. For example, the gain in total income due to electrification can be as much as 30 percent and as low as 9 percent. Benefits go up steadily as household exposure to grid electrification (measured by duration) increases and eventually reach a plateau. This paper also finds that rich households benefit more from electrification than poor households. Finally, estimates also show that income benefits of electrification on an average exceed cost by a wide margin.


Tobacco mosaic virus mutant Ni 2519 has a selected temperature-sensitive defect in the spreading of local lesions, and additional reported defects in virus assembly and in host range. Here we show that the temperature-sensitive local lesion-spreading defect (which maps in the assembly origin within the gene encoding protein p30) is probably independent of mutations in the pseudoassembly origin or of host range defects resulting from other mutations in the coat protein. One new host range mutant has been isolated.


In this paper a novel nonlinear logistic regression model based on a simplex basis function neural network is introduced that outputs probability of categorical variables in response to multiple predictors. It is shown that since a linear combination of the simplex basis functions can be represented as a piecewise linear model, the proposed nonlinear logistic regression model retains the main advantage of linear logistic regression model, that is, allowing probabilistic interpretation of the data sets from an identified model. The associated estimation problem is treated based on the principle of maximum likelihood by alternating over two algorithms; the iteratively reweighted least squares algorithm for linear parameters, while the simplex basis functions are fixed; then nonlinear parameters in each simplex basis function are adapted in turn based on gradient descent of the negative likelihood. The proposed algorithm is then extended to estimation of nonlinear multinomial logistic model. Numerical experiments are initially carried out to illustrate the advantage of nonlinear logistic regression model versus its linear counterpart in terms of approximation capability. Then we apply the proposed method for a difficult computer vision example of land-cover real data set


We investigated the elongational flows of the weakly entangled linear polymer melt using a coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation. We extended the uniform extensional flow (UEF) method developed by Nicholson and Rutledge (D. A. Nicholson and G. C. Rutledge, J. Chem. Phys., 145, 244903 (2016)) for application to Langevin dynamics. We succeeded in observing the elongational viscosity of the weakly entangled linear polymer melt from the equilibrium state to the steady state using the extended UEF method, whereas the conventional rectangular parallelepiped shape technique for extensional flows has failed to do so for over 20 years.


Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of the methods for measuring of the company's performance, strategy formulation and subsequent management leading to improving competitiveness. Nowadays company performance has an important role because the competitive environment is much more changeable and more difficult to predict because of the influence of globalization. BSC is worldwide used both in large, medium and small businesses regardless of the field of business. According to Knapkova, Homolka and Pavelkova (2014), this model is used only by 13 % of the enterprises in the Czech Republic. BSC monitors business performance from four perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Process, Learning and Growth. The main aim of this paper is to verify whether there is a correlation between Learning and Growth and Financial perspective. Data were obtained from the database Albertina Gold and from quantitative research in companies in 2015. As sample small and medium enterprises in Czech Republic were chosen by random selection. Data were analysed by using regression analysis. Based on the analysis the dependence of some financial indicators on the attitude of the company to the risk and on long‑term or short‑term orientation was proved. BSC is spread in 30 – 50 % companies all over the word, in Australia this method is used even in 88 % companies (Al Sawalqa, Holloway and Alam, 2011). Due to proven dependence it would be appropriate to raise Czech companies' awareness of advantages of this method.


In survival models, some covariates affecting the lifetime could not be observed or measured. These covariates may correspond to environmental or genetic factors and be considered as a random effect related to a frailty of the individuals explaining their survival times. We propose a methodology based on a Birnbaum–Saunders frailty regression model, which can be applied to censored or uncensored data. Maximum‐likelihood methods are used to estimate the model parameters and to derive local influence techniques. Diagnostic tools are important in regression to detect anomalies, as departures from error assumptions and presence of outliers and influential cases. Normal curvatures for local influence under different perturbations are computed and two types of residuals are introduced. Two examples with uncensored and censored real‐world data illustrate the proposed methodology. Comparison with classical frailty models is carried out in these examples, which shows the superiority of the proposed model.


In this study, we introduce a new model called the Odd Burr Lindley distribution which extends the Lindley distribution and has increasing, bathtub and upside down shapes for the hazard rate function. It includes the odd Lindley distribution as a special case. Several statistical properties of the distribution are explored, such as the density, hazard rate, survival, quantile functions, and moments. Estimation using the maximum likelihood and inference of a random sample from the distribution are investigated. A simulation study is performed to compare the performance of the different parameter estimates in terms of bias and mean square error. Two real data applications are modelled with the proposed distribution to illustrate the performance of the new distribution. Based on goodness-of-fit statistics, the new distribution outperforms the generalized gamma, gamma Weibull, gamma exponentiated exponential, generalized Lindley, Kumaraswamy Lindley, and odd log-logistic Lindley distributions.


We propose a general class of language models that treat reference as an explicit stochastic latent variable. This architecture allows models to create mentions of entities and their attributes by accessing external databases (required by, e.g., dialogue generation and recipe generation) and internal state (required by, e.g. language models which are aware of coreference). This facilitates the incorporation of information that can be accessed in predictable locations in databases or discourse context, even when the targets of the reference may be rare words. Experiments on three tasks show our model variants outperform models based on deterministic attention.


After discussing the Malawian context and summarising the remittance research, I focus on remittances in rural Malawi. I follow remittances from the giver's motivations through to the receiver's view of remittances and how the receiver uses them and finally to their impact as a means of moderating the effect of negative shocks on the receiving household. Results show that parents remit to respondents for altruistic purposes, or for insurance motivations (e.g. to help out the respondent if they are sick). Respondents remit to parents for altruistic motivations and inheritance. There is strong bi-directionality in the remittance flows. Children remit to respondents as an "insurance premium", and for inheritance motivations. Altruism motivates respondents to give to their children. There is strong evidence of co-insurance between respondents and their siblings with both insurance payouts and premiums being paid. Respondents and their siblings also remit to each other for altruistic motivations. There is strong evidence of "mental accounting" amongst both male and female headed households. Remittances exhibit a much lower MPC than salary and farming income. Male and female headed households differ in their use of income from different sources, however one result is consistent: remittances are used for education. Probit models indicate that households are more likely to receive remittances from local areas if someone in the household is sick (local remittances insure a health shock). Households that suffer from drought are more likely to receive remittances from more distant areas (other districts, a city, abroad). Drought has a major negative impact on consumption levels but distant remittances insure affected households who suffer from these. Local remittances, which make up most remittance flows, are unable to insure these community shocks. Only around 10 per cent of households receive remittances from outside their home district however. Remittances help to insure household consumption against health shocks, but only food consumption is insured.


The recent advent of Lu3Al5O12:Ce optical ceramics marks a turning point in scintillator material technology. Because of their lower preparation temperature, brightness, and robustness such materials can now compete with single crystals. Their further scintillation efficiency optimization includes the thorough control of the defects responsible for optical and scintillation losses. The choice of sintering agent appears critical to achieve both high optical transparency and scintillation performance. In this work, the optical investigations coupled with X‐ray absorption near‐edge spectroscopy evidence the beneficial role of MgO sintering agent. Mg2+ co‐dopants in ceramics drive the partial conversion of Ce3+ to Ce4+. The Ce4+ center, however, does not impair the scintillation performance due to its capability to positively influence the scintillation process. The importance of simultaneous application of such co‐doping and annealing treatment is also demonstrated. With 0.3 at% Mg, our ceramics display a light yield of ≈25000 photons/MeV with short 1 μs shaping time, a relative fast component intensity as high as 60%, and very low afterglow. Such performances are better than those of the isostructural single crystals ever reported. We discuss the role of co‐doping and annealing in the scintillation mechanism that make such combined treatments a positive strategy for material engineering.


The extent and nature of participation in the labour market by persons affected by disability has a multitude of direct and indirect effects on their living standards and quality of life, and so is a critical area for investigation and policy concern. This paper seeks to quantify the effects of disability on labour force participation in Ireland for the first time. Using data from the Living in Ireland Survey, 2000 and the Quarterly National Household Survey Disability Module 2002, we look at the relationship between participation and self-reported disability. The results show that those individuals reporting a severely limiting condition have a much lower probability of participation in the labour force than others, and this continues to be the case having controlled for other characteristics such as age, education and marital status. The reporting of such conditions itself may not be exogenous, however, and this is a priority for further research.


The recent Camp Fire in California demonstrates that aside from being energy inefficient, homes in the United States are particularly vulnerable to wildfires. While energy efficiency may slow the increase in destructive fires, it's clear we must improve wildfire building survivability. Few Americans realize that Europeans have been using materials in their buildings that make them both more energy efficient and significantly better protected against fires than standard American buildings. On top of this, European construction methods produce buildings that cost significantly less over their lifetimes than buildings in the U.S. It's time the United States embraced these modern building materials and techniques by changing building codes to jumpstart their use in this country, especially in areas where wildfires often occur.


Backgound: This study is intended to administer stress scale, psychological well-being scale and self-efficacy scale in 279 baby boomers who were born from 1955 to 1963 residing in the P and U areas. Methods: Pearson's simple correlation analysis was performed to identify the relationship between life stress, psychological well-being and self-efficacy, while hierarchical regression was used according to the procedure suggested by Baron & Kenny (1986) to figure out how self-efficacy mediates the effect of life stress on psychological well-being. Results: First, life stress in baby boomers has a significantly negative effect on psychological well-being and self-efficacy; second, it was confirmed that self-efficacy has a partial effect in the relationship between life stress including family, economics, health and psychological well-being. Conclusions: We discussed the implications and limitations of this study and whether interventions are required to improve the psychological well-being of baby boomers.


We propose a simple swarm model to study collective behaviour of a group of mobile autonomous agents interacting through a long range attraction and short range repulsion function. It is shown that the individuals (agents) will aggregate and eventually form a cohesive cluster of finite size around the swarm centre in a finite time, and the size depends only on the parameters of the swarm model. Furthermore, it is also shown that all the individuals will converge to equilibrium positions of the swarm model, and thus the configuration of the swarm converges to a constant constellation. Numerical simulations are also worked out to illustrate the analytical results.