In the article the author is dealing with two issues he perceives as main
 specific features of the German 18th century Enlightenment: the impact of
 pietism and the role of Prussian king Frederic the Great. On the one hand, as
 a very influential intellectual power in Germany, especially in Prussia,
 pietism was reluctant to let freedom of consciousness go too far. Instead, it
 tried to come to terms with the Enlightenment movement and save what was
 believed to be the original "core" of Christianity. On the other hand,
 Frederic played a crucial role in the development of German Enlightenment as
 a free-thinker, as well as an enlightened despot, who encouraged his subjects
 to think freely in religious matters, but never contemplated the possibility
 to help them overcome their political immaturity. Instead, he preferred order
 and discipline in persuading his "people" to accept state machinery which
 should be served quietly and obediently. The long-term consequences of such
 development were the rise of nationalism and the theory of the reason of
 state.


This paper aims to provide a comparative review of recent regional policy developments in the countries of the EU and Norway, concentrating particularly on the period of 2007. The papers has been prepared by the European Policies Research Centre (EPRC) under the aegis of EoRPA (European Regional Policy Research Consortium), which is a grouping of national government authorities from countries across Europe. The Consortium provides sponsorship for the EPRC to undertake regular monitoring and comparative analysis of teh regional policies of European countries and the inter-relationships with EU Cohesion and Competition policies.


We have seen that a number of students apply for various examinations which may be institutional, non-institutional or even competitive. The competitive exams mostly have objective or multiple choice questions(mcqs). The automation of scoring of subjective or descriptive answers is a need considered nowadays. This paper focuses on designing an efficient algorithm that will automatically evaluate the answers given by students and assign a score based on the AI technologies which are as good as scores given by a human being.


Purpose/Objective: Cardiac rehabilitation aims to reduce the likelihood of recurrent cardiac events through physical activity (PA) and education. There is limited understanding about the predictors of physical activity behavior in rural adults beyond rehabilitation. This study explored predictors of regular physical activity in rural adults, 6–12 months post cardiac rehabilitation. Research Method/Design: A self-report questionnaire (quantitative cross-sectional design) was mailed to a simple random sample of rural South Australians who previously participated in cardiac rehabilitation (n = 315). Regression modeling was adjusted for physical activity history and gender to examine psychological, social, and environmental predictors of (a) current leisure-time physical activity, self-reported through the Godin Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire expressed as the Leisure Score Index (LSI) and the weekly frequency of physical activity bouts that cause sweating ("sweat frequency"), and (b) stage of physical activity behavior change according to the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change ("Stage of PA change"). Results: All measures of self-efficacy (barriers, task, and relapse), social assimilation, and self-regulation predicted LSI, whereas all measures of self-efficacy and self-regulation predicted both "Stage of PA change" and "sweat frequency." Self-regulation explained the highest percentage of explained variance in LSI (31.6%) and "sweat frequency" (12.5%). Home social support additionally predicted "Stage of PA change"; there were no environmental predictors of any of the outcome measures. Conclusion: Similar to urban populations, the predictors of post–cardiac-rehab physical activity among rural adults predominantly emanate from the psychological domain. Findings support the need to strengthen the focus of cardiac rehabilitation program design on self-management skills and behaviors.


This paper reports the wavelet transform based time-frequency-intensity analysis of radiated electromagnetic noise generated by a flash lamp pumped terawatt class of high power pulsed laser. High power pulsed solid state lasers are widely used for research and industrial applications. Main electrical components of these lasers are flash lamp power supplies, electro-optic switches, timing and synchronization circuits, and control system. These sub-systems operate at different instants of time during the laser operation cycle. Range of the time delays between switching of various blocks in the system vary from 100 ns to hundreds of microseconds. The electromagnetic noise generated by the laser is pulsed type single shot event, which is measured in time domain. The conventional technique of Fourier transform generate frequency spectrum of the electromagnetic interference (EMI), however, it loses the time information and does not reveal the noise contributions by each of the sources and subsystem localized in time. In this work, wavelet transformations are applied on the measured signals to estimate frequency content of the noise contribution by each source and to generate the time-frequencyinformation. This technique helps in better identification and characterization of the electromagnetic noise sources in a high power laser chain and to achieve the growing demands for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC).


The dinosaurs of the Jurassic era (206–144 million years ago) were the tyrants of their world. But, concurrent with those dinosaurs, a mammal-like reptile gained arboreal proficiency, permitting exploitation of the insect fauna that was co-evolving and diversifying with the flowering plants. This key step would eventually lead to the evolution of the monotremes, marsupials and placental mammals.

Marsupials were early descendents of that last common ancestor and were established between 180 and 130 million years ago. The marsupial radiation separated from the placental mammals, and can provide us clues to the details of retinal evolution.

Around 180 million years ago, Pangea, the last supercontinent, began separating into Laurasia and Gondwanaland. That separation coincided with the last common ancestor to the mammalian clades. This continental drift would eventually isolate marsupials to Gondwanaland, especially to Australia, Antarctica and South America. Once isolated on South America and Australia, perhaps with minimal competition from placental mammals, radiation continued, resulting in different orders of marsupials. Seven such orders are extant, with three represented in the New World. With the eventual connection of South America to North America through …


This paper presents a multi-port isolated DC-DC converter for DC applications. A three-port structure is presented, characterized with full bidirectional power flow and simple control. Galvanic isolation is achieved by means of a multi-winding medium frequency transformer which is a part of a resonant LLC converter. To provide controllable power exchange with external DC ports, two out of three ports are equipped with additional bidirectional buck/boost stages. They serve to provide active power flow control, while the inner resonant stage provides galvanic isolation, operates in the open-loop and adapts its mode of operation based on the actual power flow. Both switched mode and rea-time hardware-in-the-loop simulations, with control algorithm deployed on the digital signal processor, are used to verify and demonstrate various operational modes.


In the Minimalist Program (1995), Chomsky gets rid of the Agreement projection and argues that Tense and Agreement can be assimilated universally. Tasks that were previously thought to be responsibility of the Agreement node are reassigned to Tense and other heads. Serbo-Croat data contradicts the above theory showing that not only does this language lack a Tense projection, but it also lacks a Tense marker, allowing a manipulation and interpretation of its predicate forms. Further investigation shows that the entire Slavic language group, as well as some African and some Arabic languages display the same property. A Tense morpheme is absent from all of them and they heavily rely on Aspect in the computation of the time of any given action. Apart from Slavic languages, a link between Tense and Aspect is evident in Spanish and Latin as well. Aspectual opposition is not powerful enough to express all the various "time frames" that a language needs and that are, for example, available in English. To overcome this problem, Slavic languages introduce Agreement into the "time" computation. Introducing two different sets of Person and Number markers ensures even greater variety. Since the Tense head is absent from Serbo-Croat, Nominative Case assignment is performed by Agreement. This phenomenon is also characteristic for Bulgarian (and possibly the entire Slavic group, as well as some unrelated languages, like Portuguese and Galician). Consequently, Serbo-Croat does not allow Exceptional Case Marking but instead inflects its infinitives for Person and Number. Surprisingly, the absence of a Tense marker does not imply the absence of the [Tense] feature as all Tense less languages seem to be perfectly capable of communicating the time and duration of any given action. Thus, I have also found that the [Tense] feature does not have to be morphologically realised, although all languages invariably seem to display Aspect morphology. To account for the properties of both Tenseless and Tensed languages, I provide the evidence for the argument that languages universally project Infl and that both [Asp] and [T] features count as its intrinsic categorial features, in order to survive until LF. We also know that this projection must be specified for a strong [N] feature that forces overt subject raising, and that it is not specified for a strong [V] feature, as the main verb does not leave the VP until LF. In languages that do have a Tense marker, like in English, the [Tense] feature is checked at LF by the Tense marker. In languages that do not have a Tense marker, like Serbo-Croat, the [Tense] feature gets checked at LF in an alternative way. A number of smaller but related issues are also handled on the way, particularly PRO distribution. I argues that PRO is assigned null Case if and only if it is controlled (by subject, object or arbitrarily) and that PRO acquires the null Case from its controller, not from the Infinitive. Contrary to Boskovic's (1996) proposals, uninflected Infinitives can not assign any Case in any language.


Interaction between a solid copper jet and an electric current pulse is a complex process that has been experimentally studied by letting a jet created by a shaped charge device pass through an electrode configuration consisting of two aluminum plates with a separation distance of 150 mm. When the jet bridged the electrodes, which are connected to a charged pulsed power supply, current pulses with amplitude up to 250 kA were passed through the jet. By using flash X-ray diagnostics, the disruption of the electrified jets could be studied. In this paper, the disruption of the electrified jets is discussed and compared with disruption phenomena observed in electrically exploded metal rods in a static setup. Necks are naturally formed along a stretching jet, and in the experiments with current interaction these necks explode electrically. In the static experiments, the metal rods have small notches distributed along the rod to resemble the necks of the jet. When two neighboring necks or notches explode, the shock of the explosion compresses the intermediate jet or rod segment axially and the material is forced out radially. The disruption phenomena in the jet and rod experiments are similar with rapid expansion of the metal at explosion and at comparable velocities.


This thesis explores demonstration projects as a potential strategy for supporting processes towards sustainable development in the building sector through making mainstream building more sustainable. The research question has been approached in four empirical studies carried out in Sweden and the Netherlands, which study demonstration projects for sustainable housing from different perspectives. These are: 1) two case studies, 2) qualitative interviews with key actors, 3) a study of the image conveyed by the Swedish trade press, and 4) a study of the image conveyed by The Swedish Architectural Review. The findings are discussed using a framework presenting the notions of sustainable development and sustainable building, conditions for learning and development in the building sector as well as the findings from earlier research in the field. The thesis indicates that demonstration projects have an important role in the processes towards sustainable development in the building sector. The demonstration project provides real-world data, makes sustainable building a tangible and visible concept and is a means of learning through doing for the actors involved. The demonstration project becomes a reference to what sustainable building is and how this can be accomplished. The demonstration project has the potential of becoming a strategy for systematic successive learning and development on the path to reaching long-term abstract objectives for sustainable development through realistic advancements and in accordance with conditions for learning and development in the building sector. However, in order to become an effective strategy, deficiencies in contemporary demonstration projects have to be solved. This concerns the lack of incentives and interest for learning; deficiencies in the production of reliable and useful information; and the lack of institutions for information dissemination. The fact that demonstration projects are handled as special projects also impedes their influence on mainstream building. Moreover, ideals in contemporary demonstration projects often fail to address ideals and interests among actors in the building sector. The thesis provide a basis for the enhanced understanding and use of demonstrations projects, both from a theoretical and a practical view, and discusses the production and dissemination of reliable and useful information as well as factors that will affect the influence of demonstration project on mainstream building.


OBJECTIVE
To determine prevalence estimates in order to monitor diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes, in American Indian youth.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
To explore the feasibility of developing a case definition using information from primary care records, all youth aged <20 years with an outpatient visit or hospitalization for diabetes were identified from the Billings Area Indian Health Service database in Montana and Wyoming from 1997 to 1999, and the medical records were reviewed. Classification for probable type 1 diabetes was based on age < or =5 years, weight per age < or =15th percentile at diagnosis, or positive results of islet cell antibody test. Classification for probable type 2 diabetes was based on weight per age > or =85th percentile or presence of acanthosis nigricans at diagnosis, elevated C-peptide or insulin, family history for type 2 diabetes, or use of oral hypoglycemic agents with or without insulin or absence of current treatment 1 year after diagnosis.

RESULTS
A total of 52 case subjects with diabetes were identified, 3 of whom had diabetes secondary to other conditions. Of the remaining 49 case subjects, 25 (51%) were categorized as having probable type 2 diabetes, 14 (29%) as having probable type 1 diabetes, and 10 (20%) could not be categorized because of missing or negative information. Prevalence estimates for diabetes of all types, type 1 diabetes, and type 2 diabetes were 2.3, 0.6, and 1.1, respectively, per 1,000 youth aged <20 years.

CONCLUSIONS
Our definitions may be useful for surveillance in primary care settings until further studies develop feasible case definitions for monitoring trends in diabetes among youth.


The anterior humeral circumflex artery (AHCA) branches off of the third part of the axillary artery, proximal to where the posterior humeral circumflex artery (PHCA) originates. The anterior humeral circumflex artery then travels horizontally behind the coracobrachialis muscle towards the bicipital groove (intertubercular sulcus), where its principal branch, the arcuate artery, ascends along the lateral portion of the groove and supplies the humerus at the level of the greater tuberosity. The anterior humeral circumflex artery also forms an anastomosis with the posterior humeral circumflex artery and other arterial branches, such as the profunda brachii and the acromiothoracic artery. It is crucial for the blood supply of the humeral head, the glenohumeral joint, teres major and minor, and deltoid.


Introduction Leishmania RNA virus type 1 (LRV1) is an endosymbiont of some Leishmania (Vianna) species in South America. Presence of LRV1 in parasites exacerbates disease severity in animal models and humans, related to a disproportioned innate immune response, and is correlated with drug treatment failures in humans. Although the virus was identified decades ago, its genomic diversity has been overlooked until now. Methodology/Principles findings We subjected LRV1 strains from 19 L. (V.) guyanensis and one L. (V.) braziliensis isolates obtained from cutaneous leishmaniasis samples identified throughout French Guiana with next-generation sequencing and de novo sequence assembly. We generated and analyzed 24 unique LRV1 sequences over their full-length coding regions. Multiple alignment of these new sequences revealed variability (0.5%–23.5%) across the entire sequence except for highly conserved motifs within the 5' untranslated region. Phylogenetic analyses showed that viral genomes of L. (V.) guyanensis grouped into five distinct clusters. They further showed a species-dependent clustering between viral genomes of L. (V.) guyanensis and L. (V.) braziliensis, confirming a long-term co-evolutionary history. Noteworthy, we identified cases of multiple LRV1 infections in three of the 20 Leishmania isolates. Conclusions/Significance Here, we present the first-ever estimate of LRV1 genomic diversity that exists in Leishmania (V.) guyanensis parasites. Genetic characterization and phylogenetic analyses of these viruses has shed light on their evolutionary relationships. To our knowledge, this study is also the first to report cases of multiple LRV1 infections in some parasites. Finally, this work has made it possible to develop molecular tools for adequate identification and genotyping of LRV1 strains for diagnostic purposes. Given the suspected worsening role of LRV1 infection in the pathogenesis of human leishmaniasis, these data have a major impact from a clinical viewpoint and for the management of Leishmania-infected patients.


Plea bargains are the stock-in-trade of the modern American prosecutor's office. The basic scenario, wherein a defendant agrees to plea guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence, is familiar to viewers of police procedurals. In an equally famous variation on the theme, the prosecutor requests something more than an admission of guilt: leniency will only be forthcoming if the defendant is willing to cooperate with the prosecutor in securing the conviction of another suspect. In some of these cases, the defendant is a low-level criminal who has information on a high-level malefactor who is of more interest to the police. In others, the defendant and the person she is asked to testify against are of the same criminal rank, but evidentiary weaknesses induce the prosecutor to seek the aid of one suspect in order to convict the other. In this latter version, the classic tactic of film detectives is to offer the bargain to both defendants in the hopes that one will crack and agree to reveal what he knows about the other. The defendants could either be in custody for different crimes or be accomplices in the same offense. The last variation (involving accomplices) is the subject of this Article. I take issue with the prosecutorial tactics in these cases because of the risk they create of punishing the comparatively virtuous person more than the comparatively vicious one for the same acts. As I will argue, it is the less honest person who is more likely to accept the prosecutor's deal, leading the more honest person, who resisted temptation, to suffer greater penalties. I contend that this scenario offends distributive justice, runs counter to the idea (accepted by some) that a proper goal of the state is the cultivation of good character in the citizenry, and is perverse insofar as a person will suffer more from the prosecutor's dilemma insofar as she is more or less a person of conscience. These negative considerations notwithstanding, I do not call for the abolition of accomplice plea bargaining but argue that the problems I raise should be considered when weighing its pros and cons.This article was published in the company of a strong critical response by Guha Krishnamurthi, whose contribution I greatly appreciate.


After fertilization the membrane potential of the Asterias embryo undergoes an approximately fourfold increase in internal negativity, as measured by intracellular microelectrodes. Our previous experiments have demonstrated that the ionic basis of the membrane potential in this embryo may be described by a simplified form of the constant field equation. Using this relationship, the present experiments illustrate that the relative permeability of Na to K (PNa/PK) may be determined at any time during the early cleavage of this embryo. The results of these experiments indicate a relative increase of PK as related to PNa as the mechanism responsible for the large change in membrane potential. This has been confirmed by independent determination of absolute values for PNa and PK by means of 24Na and 42K tracer-flux analysis. Experiments carried out during early cleavage demonstrate a greater than two fold increase in K permeability (3.8 × 10−7 cm/sec to 9.5 × 10−7 cm/sec) with no concurrent alteration in Na permeability (0.1 × 10−7 cm/sec). PNa/PK in 15 minute and two hour post-fertilized embryos is 0.03 and 0.01 respectively. Its magnitude is the same whether determined by the constant field assumption or from tracer-flux analysis. These changes in ionic permeability occur on a time scale which is similar to that of increased metabolic and synthetic activities in other echinoderm embryos. A possible regulatory role in the early differentiation of this embryo is discussed.


Reservoir wettability has direct impact on the relative movement of reservoir fluids and oil displacement efficiency by EOR techniques. The industry standard wettability laboratory techniques of Amott, USBM and modified Amott/USBM are very time demanding due to its complex experimental setup and procedure. This paper describes the theory and experimental setup and procedure of a new wettability laboratory technique. Rise In Core, RIC, technique is based on a modified version of the Washburn Equation. The modified equation could be solved for the wettability contact angle by only substituting the slope of a fitted straight line of the square of core sample mass change with time, resulting from either water imbibition into oil saturated core sample, and/or vice versa. A constant of the equation, that is characteristic of the rock type, needs to be determined prior, however, by conducting an imbibition experiment of a reference liquid into air saturated twin core sample. The reference liquid completely wets the core sample with zero contactangle. The new technique was applied to measure the wettability of Berea sandstone core samples. The wettability of natural outcrop cores was found to be weakly water wet. Experiments conducted on neighboring samples, produced similar wettability results, indicating good repeatability. The applicability of the RIC in other wettability regions was also tested, resulting in repeated strong wetness for samples that were artificially treated to be either strongly water wet, and oil wet. The technique was also compared to the existing industry technique and proved to provide equivalent and more consistent wettability measurements for more than ten twins of carbonate core samples. RIC technique is theoretically sound, and requires simple experimental setup and procedure. Moreover, it determines wettability in terms of contact angles rather than wettability index. It is more consistent and applicable to all wettability regions.


We present the results of an experiment to search for trapped antihydrogen atoms with the ALPHA antihydrogen trap at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator. Sensitive diagnostics of the temperatures, sizes, and densities of the trapped antiproton and positron plasmas have been developed, which in turn permitted development of techniques to precisely and reproducibly control the initial experimental parameters. The use of a position-sensitive annihilation vertex detector, together with the capability of controllably quenching the superconducting magnetic minimum trap, enabled us to carry out a high-sensitivity and low-background search for trapped synthesised antihydrogen atoms. We aim to identify the annihilations of antihydrogen atoms held for at least 130 ms in the trap before being released over ∼ 30 ms. After a three-week experimental run in 2009 involving mixing of 10 antiprotons with 1.3 × 10 positrons to produce 6 × 10 antihydrogen atoms, we have identified six antiproton annihilation events that are consistent with the release of trapped antihydrogen. The cosmic ray background, estimated to contribute 0.14 counts, is incompatible with this observation at a significance of 5.6 sigma. Extensive simulations predict that an alternative source of annihilations, the escape of mirror-trapped antiprotons, is highly unlikely, though this possibility has not yet been ruled out experimentally.


Recent work has provided new insights into the mechanism of spindle assembly. Growing evidence supports a model in which the small GTPase Ran plays a central role in this process. Here, we examine the evidence for the existence of a RanGTP gradient around mitotic chromosomes and some controversial data on the role that chromosomes play in spindle assembly. We review the current knowledge on the Ran downstream targets for spindle assembly and we focus on the multiple roles of TPX2, one of the targets of RanGTP during cell division.


We show on the basis of German that prosodic patterns change in the course of a traditional sentence-list elicitation. Two frequent methods are analyzed: sentence-frame and syntax-frame elicitations. While only the sentences of the sentence-frame elicitation show an increase in speaking rate, both elicitation methods cause a drastic reduction in the alignment variability of nuclear pitch-accent rises. So, the starting point for the idea of segmental anchoring, i.e. the characteristic stable alignment of L and H targets, could primarily be due to a training effect based on the continuous production of analogously constructed or identical carrier sentences. Detailed pitch-accent analyses also offer alternative interpretations for anchoring patterns. Methodologically, in order to avoid training effects in pitchaccent production, our findings suggest using the syntax-frame method and short sentence lists of 40 items or less.


Objective: To provide a more detailed anatomical and clinical application basis for digital artery perforator flaps of the middle phalange.
Methods: 5 ten adult cadaveric (10 hand specimens) hand specimens from adult cadavers hand specimens were used chosen from December 2012 to March 2013. The dorsal branches of middle phalange digital artery and arterialy area of the index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger were observed with microanatomically by under microscopically. Images were obtained taking pictures with a high-resolution camera, measurement and analysis of the with PhotoshopCS4 software, the branch point position, angle, length, number of small branches, and anastomoses were observed, and observed data was gotten.
Results: The starting point mean outer diameter of dorsal branches of the middle phalange digital artery of index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger was ≥ 0.30 mm, and the end mean outer diameter was ≥ 0.20 mm. The starting point mean outer diameter of the little finger was ≥ 0.25 mm, and the end mean outer diameter was ≥ 0.10 mm. There were 2-5 small branches, with a 53.5 ± 10.5o mean arterial angle.
Conclusion: Flap retrograde or antegrade anatomical structures of middle phalange digital artery's dorsal branches were fixed, easy, and fast to operate. This method appears ideal to repair the digital dorsal defect of proximal interphalangeal joints, finger pulp defect of the middle phalange, and fingertip and pulp defect of the distal phalange.


The aim of the study is to understand the effects of two stages of HT-GaN growth with different V/III ratios on optical, chemical and structural characteristics of the HT-GaN layer. In addition, the effects of two-stage growth on the transport properties has been presented through fabricated Schottky diodes. As the V/III ratio in the 1st stage growth of HT-GaN layer is varied, it has been observed that recovery of reflectance is faster with higher V/III ratios, while no significant effect has been observed by changing the V/III ratios in the 2nd stage of HT-GaN growth. The 2nd stage growth is caused to decrease in screw dislocation densities obtained from the high-resolution x-ray diffraction measurements. The lowest edge type dislocation densities have been obtained for samples with lower V/III ratios in both the 1st and 2nd stages of HT-GaN growth. Well-defined terraces and a few GaN atomic layer surface roughness have been realized through the atomic force microscopy measurements on all the samples. Ga atom bound oxygen states has been investigated through the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to find out the V/III ratio effect on the impurity incorporation. An increase in the V/III ratio has given rise to a higher percentage of oxygen incorporation during the 2nd stage of growth. The lowest internal quantum efficiency has been obtained for the samples grown at the highest V/III ratio for both the 1st and 2nd growth stages. Fine excitonic transitions have been indicated by the low temperature high-resolution photoluminescence measurements. Current–voltage measurements performed on the Schottky diodes have shown the effects on the diode parameters.


Hollow mesoporous silica nanospheres were prepared using different types of templates such as iron oxide nanoparticles (magnetite and hematite) and polymer nanospheres (polystyrene and resorcinol formaldehyde resin). The process involves a first step of coating silica on templates along with surfactants and then removal of both templates and surfactants to produce hollow mesoporous silica nanospheres in the second step. TEM, XRD, FTIR, TGA, and N2-adsorption–desorption analysis were used to characterize the samples and indicated the hollow and mesoporous structure of silica nanospheres. Ibuprofen as a drug model was used to investigate the drug adsorption behavior of the silica nanospheres which also showed sustained release properties.


The phase noise of wavelength tunable semiconductor lasers is becoming increasingly more important in fast optical switching networks employing advanced modulation formats.
The objective of this thesis is to develop techniques to investigate the phase noise of different types of tunable lasers, and investigate the performance of these devices when used in dynamic coherent networks. Specifically sampled-grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG-DBR) lasers and a three-section tunable slotted Fabry-P´erot (SFP) laser are studied in this thesis. The optical linewidth of the devices is measured using a standard delayed selfheterodyne
method and a new measurement technique using an optical quadrature front end. The effect of laser phase noise in system environments is examined by employing the
lasers in a static 1.25 Gbit/s differential binary phase shift keying (DPSK) transmission system and a 10.7 Gbaud differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) packet switching system.

The work presented in this thesis also introduces a new method for calibrating SG-DBR lasers to achieve the best possible phase noise. The method is based on using the voltage signal of the gain section of the SG-DBR laser, and can achieve a linewidth reduction of up to 80% compared to techniques that only calibrate for the side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) and the output power of SG-DBR lasers. The results in this thesis show the importance of characterization of laser phase noise when tunable lasers are used in dynamic coherent systems.


Abstract In the last decades, a new wave of oak decline has been observed in Poland. The most important pathogenic organisms involved in this phenomenon are probably soil-borne pathogens Phytophthoragenus, especially P. quercina. In this work, we sought to test the influence of elevated CO2 concentration on the susceptibility of oaks (Quercus robur L.) to infection by P. quercina. In order to test the susceptibility of oak fine roots to infection, we applied phosphite-based fertiliser Actifos in 0.6% concentration. One-year-old oak seedlings were grown for one year in greenhouse with either an ambient atmosphere (400 ppm CO2) or an elevated (800 ppm) concentration of CO2. Oaks grown at the elevated CO2 concentration developed longer shoots as proved by statistically significant differences. However, there was no difference in the development of root systems. The application of Actifos had a positive significant effect on the development of shoots and the surface area of fine roots under the elevated CO2 concentration.


OBJECTIVES
To test whether three different intensive programs of treatment for neurotic and personality disorders are effective in decreasing neurotic symptoms and traits of neurotic personality and whether there are differences between them in clinical outcome.

METHOD
The sample consisted of 105 patients (83% female, mean age 35) diagnosed with neurosis and personality disorders that were treated in three therapeutic wards under routine inpatient conditions. The therapeutic programs are designed for patients with neurotic and personality disorders. They consist of 6-12 weeks of approximately 5 hours of eclectic group treatment (group psychotherapy, psychodrama, psychoeducation etc.). Participants filled in Symptoms' Questionnaire KS-II, and Neurotic Personality Questionnaire KON-2006 at the beginning and at the end of the course of psychotherapy.

RESULTS
The treatment proved to be effective in diminishing neurotic symptoms (d Cohen = 0.56). More detailed analysis revealed that there was a significant interaction between the three analysed therapeutic wards and the effectiveness (12 = 0.09). The treatments offered in two institutions were effective (d Cohen = 0.80) while one of the programs did not lead to significant improvement of the patients. None of the therapeutic wards proved to be effective in changing the neurotic personality traits.

CONCLUSIONS
There are significant differences in effectiveness of the intensive programs of treatment for neurotic and personality disorders. In the light of the literature, one can assume that the differences are more connected with the characteristics of therapeutic teams than with the methods used. The need for standard methods of effectiveness monitoring is discussed.


During late summer, Norwegian spring-spawning herring migrate to wintering areas, where they remain for about five months in dense aggregations. First-time spawning cohorts typically adopt the overwintering area of the spawning stock. However, during the last 50 years the stock has occupied seven discrete wintering grounds, spanning from high seas to narrow fjords, which reveals considerable plasticity in choice of wintering area. We here show that changes in herring wintering area take place when abundant recruit cohorts appear. The ratio in abundance between four year olds and five year and older herring is on average 14:1 in the years when changes in wintering area take place, compared with 0.3:1 in years without changes. The wintering areas vary greatly with regards to temperature and distance to the feeding and spawning grounds, features that affect energy expenditure heavily. The total migration distance of the stock has been quite stable in the last 15 years, but in the preceding period the stock had a shorter total migration distance. Rather than being strictly optimized, the establishment of wintering areas seems to be governed by general school cohesion mechanisms with the transmission of learned migration routes disrupted if the first-time spawners are too numerous.


This article looks at the findings of Marks & Clerk's 2013 Life Sciences Report, launched in April 2013. Of interest to both R&D/IP experts and professionals in strategic positions within biotechnology companies, it explores many of the issues facing the biotechnology industry and is informed by an industry survey of over 330 international life sciences professionals. Topics explored include the financial climate, growing markets in Asia, IP reforms in the US and Europe, biosimilars and personalised medicine.


During a magnetopause crossing near the subsolar point Cluster observes the ion diffusion region of antiparallel magnetic reconnection. The reconnecting plasmas are asymmetric, differing in magnetic field strength, density, and temperature. Spatial changes in the electron distributions in the diffusion region are resolved and investigated in detail. Heating of magnetosheath electrons parallel to the magnetic field is observed. This heating is shown to be consistent with trapping of magnetosheath electrons by parallel electric fields.


This paper focuses on viewpoint planning for 3D active object recognition. The objective is to design a planning policy into a Q-learning framework with a limited number of samples. Most existing stochastic techniques are therefore inapplicable. We propose to use Kriging and bayesian Optimization coupled with Q-learning to obtain a computationally-efficient viewpoint-planning design, under a restrictive sampling budget. Experimental results on a representative database, including a comparison with classical approaches, show promising results for this strategy.


For many low-income households in cities of the developing world, 'self-help' or informal housing provides not only their shelter, but also functions as a vital productive asset. The land accessible to the urban poor for informal housing, however, is often remotely located in the urban periphery. While providing access to shelter, such peripheral locations may undermine the potential of shelter to serve as a productive asset, especially for women whose mobility is constrained by their dual roles as care-givers and wage-earners. This research explores how location influences the potential of housing to serve as a productive asset in two informally settled communities in different parts of Mexico City. The paper argues that the 'right to shelter' associated with informal housing needs to be 'scaled-up' to include the 'right to the city' through closer consideration of the linkages among shelter, location, and livelihoods. Such a policy focus necessarily situates housing in a broader socio-spatial context and would serve to complement the prevailing emphasis on community or place-specific upgrading activities in informal or low-income settlements. Finally, the paper raises questions about the role of planning in improving the livelihood opportunities of lower-income households.


. Bitcoin is a digital currency currently being legalized throughout the European Union [2], whose operating principles were published publicly [5], but not in scientific or mathematical sources. The goal of this report is to encourage discussions about decentral-ization and security of the Bitcoin system, as well as about reasonableness of the Bitcoin network fees. Bitcoin is a fully decentralized peer-to-peer electronic currency system, which lets its users to send transactions directly from one user to another, without any third-parties. Electronic signature ensures that transaction is sent by the person who owns the money, but the main problem of such a system is to ensure, without any third-parties, that the same money could not be spent twice. This problem in the Bitcoin system is solved using a peer-to-peer network. The Bitcoin network timestamps all transactions, by grouping them to an ongoing chain of transaction blocks, where each block must have a hash (SHA256) result which would meet certain conditions, thus ensuring that in order to cancel or modify a past transaction, one would need to find more hashes which meet the required conditions than the whole Bitcoin network combined since the time of transaction. This allows users to leave and rejoin the network at will, and always be sure which transaction history is the correct one.


Sequence analysis of a 3.4-kb region Streptomyces peucetius daunorubicin (DNR) gene cluster established the presence of the dnrH and dnmT genes. In dnrH mutants, DNR production increased 8.5-fold, compared with that in the wild-type strain, while dnmT mutants accumulated epsilon-rhodomycinone (RHO), which normally becomes glycosylated in daunorubicin biosynthesis. Hence, dnmT may be involved in the biosynthesis or attachment of daunosamine to RHO or in the regulation of this process. Since the DnrH protein is similar to known glycosyl transferases, this protein may catalyze the conversion of DNR to its polyglycosylated forms, known as baumycins. Overexpression of dnmT in the wild-type and dnrH mutant strains resulted in a major decrease in RHO accumulation and increase in DNR production.


This study examines the effects of immigration legislation on Mexican immigrant families' health and mental health. Focus groups were completed with youth and adult participants who were immigrants or children of immigrants (N = 43). Participants shared the risky conditions that are part of their everyday life and feelings of isolation, powerlessness, frustration, fear, stress and chronic trauma they experience. Major themes are as follows: (a) Arriesgando la vida (risking our lives)–participants shared the dangers involved in migrating to the United States; (b) Mirando por la ventana (looking out the window)–participants live in a constant state of fear, of being arrested and deported, which significantly restricts how they live their lives; (c) and Estamos traumados (we are traumatized)– participants share the effects on children, how women's stress is manifested, and men's feelings of powerlessness. Further research is needed on the effect of prolonged trauma particularly on children's development.


Nepal is a diverse country with lowlands of Terai to the highest mountains attracting many tourists and visitors to make visits. So, the tourism in Nepal is primarily nature-based as tourists are mostly attracted by the spectacular landscapes, majestic mountains, glaciers, lakes, rivers and biodiversity across its diverse ecological gradient. Mountaineering, trekking, whitewater rafting and jungle safari tours are the main forms of nature-based tourism activities in our country. Climate change is affecting Nepal in a number of ways and the travel and tourism sector cannot remain untouched. Various studies on climate change shows increased weather uncertainties and extremities resulting into long dry period and intense rain during monsoon leading to increased water induced disasters like floods, inundation, landslides, cloudburst floods, and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) which are projected to continue in future as well. This has affected natural landscapes, and Himalayas influencing every walk of life and livelihood options. Though the impacts of climate change can be observed in the whole world, poor country like Nepal is likely to suffer most due to limited resources to cope with and adapt to the effects of climate change. In this paper, an effort has been made to review the impact of climate change on the travel and tourism sector in Nepal through the study of previous literatures on climate changes.


© 2017, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). All rights reserved. This paper presents data from fiber-optic strain monitoring of the Nine Wells Bridge, which is a three-span, pretensioned, prestressed concrete beam-and-slab bridge located in Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. The original deployment at the site and the challenges associated with collecting distributed strain data using the Brillouin optical time domain reflectometry (BOTDR) technique are described. In particular, construction and deployment issues of fiber robustness and temperature effects are highlighted. The challenges of interpreting the collected data as well as the potential value of information that may be obtained are discussed. Challenges involved with relating measurements to the expected levels of prestress, including the effects due to debonding, creep, and shrinkage, are discussed and analyzed. This paper provides an opportunity to study whether two commonly used models for creep and shrinkage, adequately model data collected in field conditions.


ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of a qualitative study of caregivers of children with disabilities enrolled in a Medicaid-serving accountable care organization (ACO). The state of Ohio mandated ACO enrollment for Medicaid-eligible children with disabilities in 34 of 88 counties effective July 2013. Research participants were queried in focus groups and individual interviews about their children's care experiences and care coordination after enrollment. Most told researchers that they themselves are their children's care coordinators, and many indicated that resource scarcity is a more pressing problem than fragmented care. Data analysis identified a theme of scarcity and four categories of insufficiency that made caregiver efforts on behalf of their children more difficult: a lack of health services under managed care, resource constraints on other agencies and programs for which families were eligible, a lack of financial support, and a lack of family support. A conceptual framework places ACO care coordination among more upstream factors and identifies ways in which ACOs serving Medicaid populations may wish to address the social determinants of the well-being of children with disabilities. Implications for future research are discussed.


Patient monitoring systems are gaining their importance as the fast-growing global elderly population increases demands for caretaking. These systems use wireless technologies to transmit vital signs for medical evaluation. The aim of the project is to provide a better health care to people from house in more economic and pertinent friendly manner. The need of home based health monitoring system is increased now days because health care cost is increasing exponentially in last few decades. In the proposed home based health monitoring system using android smart phone includes the aspects of acquisition of medical parameters like Body temperature, Pulse rate and ECG. Processing of a collected data using ARM7 (LPC2148) processer and processed data is then displayed on doctors or relatives android mobile phones. Also the data can be displayed on personal computer. The system is utilizing a low cost component to transmit data like ECG to physician for monitoring; diagnosis and patients care at significantly low cost, regardless of patient's location.
Index Terms: Body temperature; pulse rate;


Instance level video object segmentation is an important technique for video editing and compression. To capture the temporal coherence, in this paper, we develop MaskRNN, a recurrent neural net approach which fuses in each frame the output of two deep nets for each object instance -- a binary segmentation net providing a mask and a localization net providing a bounding box. Due to the recurrent component and the localization component, our method is able to take advantage of long-term temporal structures of the video data as well as rejecting outliers. We validate the proposed algorithm on three challenging benchmark datasets, the DAVIS-2016 dataset, the DAVIS-2017 dataset, and the Segtrack v2 dataset, achieving state-of-the-art performance on all of them.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of polystyrene divinylbenzene copolymer HPLC columns on the chromatographic performance of the USP compendial method for doxycycline hyclate. The compendial method was implemented based on the assessment of the chromatographic performance of six USP defined L21 polystyrene divinylbenzene HPLC columns. Modifications to the method were based on USP for chromatography. The method was validated for the determination of doxycycline hyclate and its impurities in commercially available drug products. A number of different polystyrene-divinylbenzene columns were tested and failed to provide selectivity for the resolution of doxycycline and its impurities. Separation was optimally achieved on an Agilent PLPR-S column (250 × 4.6 mm, 8 μm) by using an Agilent 1260 series HPLC system. Doxycycline hyclate and its impurities were eluted isocratically at a flow rate of 1 mL/min with mobile phase and detected at 270 nm. The column temperature was maintained at 60oC. The method was validated according to USP category I requirements for Assay. Validation acceptance criteria were met in all cases. The analytical range for doxycycline hyclate was 50 - 250 μg/mL and the linearity was r2 > 0.999 over three days. The method was determined to be specific. Both accuracy (95.1% - 102.4%) and precision (0.50% - 4.8%) were established across the analytical range for low, intermediate and high QC concentrations. Method applicability was demonstrated by analyzing marketed products of doxycycline hyclate, in which results showed potency meeting USP acceptance criteria. In conclusion, this study described the remarkable differences in selectivity that were encountered during the implementation phase for the compendial methods for doxycycline and its impurities in marketed products and it could be used in the future to assss the product quality of doxycycline hyclate capsules stored in the National stockpiles.


This paper contributes to the consumer-based brand equity literature by researching what brand equity means for Turkish consumers and by defining factors that, from their perspective, affect Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE). According to our literature review, although some important cross-cultural studies about CBBE can be found, some aspects of this topic require further research. The target population of the study is households in the Western Black Sea Region. This region was chosen because it is a manageable size, geographically close to the researchers, and statistically representative of the Turkish people. Turkish panel furniture (PF) brands were chosen as the sample, and a stratified sampling method was used to determine the questionnaires sample size. Data were analysed in SPSS, incorporating statistical tests such as factor analysis, correlation analysis and chi-square tests. Factors that affected CBBE were marketing activities, perceived quality, brand awareness, brand association and price.


Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) is a rapidly growing need in K-12 schools. While often viewed as a homogeneous group, in reality this population is varied in terms of prior knowledge, access to formal education, age, and native language. Despite these differences, students must be taught first social, and then academic, English in order for them to be successful in their classes and graduate. While in previous decades, ELLs were isolated from the mainstream population, common education practices now integrate them into their grade-level classes. However, while working with this high-need population, mainstream content-area teachers often lack the time, professional knowledge, and/or resources to adequately help. This literature review, focusing primarily on resources for content-area teachers in grades 7-12 from a variety of settings, examines the challenges they face and how some of those challenges can be mitigated. Primarily, the problem must be acknowledged while support is given to teachers to plan and modify their lessons to help older learners who are at basic English proficiency levels. Additionally, students' prior knowledge and experiences must be incorporated into lessons, especially when making connections and in recognizing the funds of knowledge students have. An overreaching problem in the field, however, is that studying how to help older learner ELLs is an area that is drastically lacking, and there is definitely room for more focused research on this topic.


Students enrolled in introductory astronomy at a mid-sized land grant institution were surveyed at the start and end of each semester for three years regarding their epistemic beliefs about the physical sciences. After collecting data for two years in the control (baseline) course, the course was revised to include regular discussions of the nature of science, practice identifying pseudoscientific claims, and practice with metacognition. Survey data on epistemic beliefs were collected for one more academic year after the course was revised. This work details how the course was structured during the baseline and revised portions of the study. Data from both portions of the study are analyzed as a whole as well as broken down by gender. Negative trends seen in the baseline data are mostly eradicated in the revised portion of the course. The data analysis motivates a discussion of why including content regarding the nature of science should be integrated in classes geared toward non-science majors.


Recent studies indicate that there is a great potential for enhanced oil recovery in shale oil reservoirs by altering the matrix wetness to induce spontaneous imbibition. The most common method is to add surfactant additives in fracturing fluid during multistage hydraulic fracturing operation. This imbibition process has complex pressure systems involved such as reservoir pore pressure, wellbore hydrostatic pressure, and surface pumping pressure. Without the wells being soaked intentionally, this pressurized state may be sustained for more than a month before flowback. Therefore, it is important to study the effect of pressure on the imbibition-induced oil recovery enhancement and its mechanism. In this study, we conducted forced imbibition tests on core plugs of unconventional sandstone, carbonate, and shale with different wettabilities. The applied pressures were 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, and 5000 psi, and the results were compared to those of spontaneous imbibition under atmospheric pressure. Experimental results were used further in the numerical simulation study. The results manifested that a more water-wet state is still essential to improve the oil recovery regardless of the soaking pressure. When the rock is oil-wet, higher soaking pressure does not further worsen imbibition because of the minimal negative capillary pressure when oil saturation is high. However, when the rock is water-wet, the soaking pressures can be adverse to the imbibition in shale formations because of a longer pressure transient time which is against the capillary force. Dimensionless pressure (pD) is defined in this study to quantitatively determine the extent of imbibition inhibition during the forced imbibition. This observation indicated that in tight reservoirs, a higher soaking pressure will obtain less oil recovery from imbibition than that of lower soaking pressure cases at a given time.


Corporate securitization offers companies a financing solution that falls along the continuum between classical securitizations and unsecured straight corporate bonds, providing access to cheaper funding through structured credit. The notes issued by the borrower are funded by future cash flow generated by a business activity. In order to reach investment-grade credit quality, these hybrid vehicles use securitization-style financing structures and rely on a combination of restrictive covenants-both on the business financial profile and on its activity-and credit and liquidity enhancements to fund often-complex operating businesses at high levels of debt leverage. In addition to the infrastructure and healthcare sectors, various commercial endeavors have been the source of new issuance over the past decade, including football stadiums, public houses (pubs), Formula 1 racing licensing, champagne bottling, funeral homes, and forestry. While these sectors are disparate, it is clear that corporate securitizations are generally prevalent in industries that have utility or "utility like" strong, stable cash flows, as well as high barriers to entry and predictable operating expenditures and maintenance capital expenditures (capex). These industries also tend to have modest-growth capex requirements, and a mature, established track records.


The importance of exposure to traumatic events for the development of dental anxiety has not been investigated. The aim of the present study was to test the hypotheses that individuals who reported having been exposed to a traumatic event [that is, fulfilling Criterion A of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)] as the cause of their dental anxiety would report significantly higher levels of dental anxiety, typical trauma-related (PTSD) symptoms, and greater disturbance of memories involving these events than those who reported being exposed to non-traumatic events. Patients of a specialized dental fear clinic (n = 90) were divided into those who reported a traumatic event that initiated their dental trait anxiety and those who did not. The two groups did not differ in their severity of dental anxiety and number of PTSD symptoms, but the memories of those who had been exposed to traumatic events were significantly more vivid than the memories of those in the reference group. Length of time since the event took place did not play a role. Hence, traumatic events are remembered more vividly, but do not seem to initiate more severe forms of dental anxiety than other events.


Snapshots of modern mathematics from Oberwolfach provide exciting insights into current mathematical research. They are written by participants in the scientific program of the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (MFO). The snapshot project is designed to promote the understanding and appreciation of modern mathematics and mathematical research in the interested public worldwide. All snapshots are published in cooperation with the IMAGINARY platform and can be found on www.imaginary.org/snapshots and on www.mfo.de/snapshots


This paper examines the impact of interbank competition on liquidity risk and on the interaction between liquidity and credit risks. We first show that financial intermediation with deposit insurance may increase the impact of liquidity risk, so that intermediated loans may carry higher liquidity premia for borrowers than market-financed loans. Second, with negligible interbank competition, higher credit risk may reduce liquidity risk, so a bank's need for liquidity may also induce it to take on additional credit risk. Third, we show that Bertrand competition among banks in the loan market, introduced by outside lenders purchasing the relationship-specific liquidation skilll of the incumbent lender, has two potential effects: (i) it can improve loan liquidity, and (ii) it can make credit and liquidity risks comonotonic, thereby reducing the inclination of banks to take on excessive credit risk to cope with their liquidity needs. However, interbank competition improves loan liquidity only under some conditions. We identify conditions under which greater interbank competition increases loan liquidity and reduces each bank's overall risk, which includes credit and liquidity risks.


The phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE‐5) inhibitors—sildenafil, vardenafil, and tadalafil—are used primarily in erectile dysfunction, but sildenafil is also indicated for pulmonary hypertension. Common adverse effects of vardenafil include headache, flushing, nasal congestion, dyspepsia, and nausea. Recently, PDE‐5 inhibitors have been associated with adverse vision effects, and emerging evidence now indicates that they may also be responsible for hearing changes and hearing loss. We describe a patient who developed unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss possibly related to the use of vardenafil for erectile dysfunction. To our knowledge, only one other case of hearing loss related to this drug class has been published. Our patient was a 57‐year‐old man who came to the emergency department with right‐sided mild‐to‐moderate hearing loss in the 500–3000‐Hz range, confirmed by audiogram, that occurred after ingestion of vardenafil. The patient was hospitalized 2 days later for administration of intravenous dexamethasone, followed by oral prednisone. He reported that his hearing had improved on the fourth hospital day and was discharged 3 days later, continuing to taper the prednisone on an outpatient basis. A repeat audiogram after 10 days of corticosteroid therapy confirmed that his hearing in the 500–3000‐Hz range was within normal limits. Use of the Naranjo adverse drug reaction probability scale indicated a possible (score of 3) adverse reaction of sudden sensorineural hearing loss associated with vardenafil consumption. We also performed an analysis of hearing loss cases related to PDE‐5 inhibitors in the United States Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting System database to compare the characteristics of our patient with those of other reported adverse event cases. Based on the temporal relation of the sudden sensorineural hearing loss to this patient's drug consumption, we propose that the vardenafil is a likely cause of the hearing loss. This case provides further evidence that PDE‐5 inhibitor consumption should be considered as a possible cause in patients presenting with sudden sensorineural hearing loss.


: Joint manifestation in Lyme disease hare shown similarities to those in reactive arthritis. SAPHO syndrome can also be included into the group of seronegative spondyloarthrophaties. It is presented a patient with joint, ocular and serological features proper of Lyme disease and after ones suggestive of SAPHO syndrome, who responds properly to an antibiotic treatment. It is considered the possibility that some patients suffering from SAPHO syndrome can also be suffering from Lyme disease.


Background/Aims: Cognitive decline in the elderly is an early predictor of dementia. The apolipoprotein E (APOE) Ε4 allele is considered an important genetic determinant of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and strongly suspected to play a role in cognitive variation. However, its effects upon predicting the progression of cognitive decline more generally remain unclear. Our aim was to explore the role of APOE Ε4 in longitudinal cognitive decline, considering sociodemographics, vascular disease, and lipid profile. Methods: We chose a nested case-control design, and prospectively collected demographic and clinical data, determined APOE genotypes, and obtained follow-up information on cognitive variation (measured by a spectrum of cognitive tests) for 3 years. Cognitive decline was predefined as an increase in Clinical Dementia Rating Scale class, or at least a 4-point decrease (>1 SD) in MMSE, between baseline and follow-ups. Results: Among 600 follow-up subjects with mild cognitive impairment and aged 65 years or older, 114 pairs of cognitive decline and stable subjects were identified and matched for sex, age, and educational level in a 1:1 ratio. The APOE Ε4 frequency in the cognitive decline group was significantly higher than that in the stable group (p < 0.05), while the APOE Ε2 and Ε3 prevalence in the cognitive decline group did not differ significantly from that in controls (p > 0.05). At the first follow-up, modest but significant declines only in the memory domain were associated with APOE Ε4. At the last follow-up, significant associations were noted between APOE Ε4 and cognitive decline from 5 of the 6 cognitive outcomes, which included story recall, memory, spatial recognition, naming, and sustained attention. Conditional logistic regression showed that the presence of APOE Ε4 was significantly associated with the cognitive decline group, as compared to the stable group, adjusting for vascular diseases and lipid profile. Conclusions: APOE Ε4 offered information on the risk of cognitive decline in this longitudinal study, and may exert detectable effects early in a long prodromal AD trajectory.


The influence of DC current annealing on magnetic properties and the frequency dependence in the range from 0.1 to 20 MHz of the giant magnetoimpedance effect (GMI) of glass-covered amorphous microwires were investigated. Under a certain annealing condition (10 min annealing with applied current Ia=110 mA), the maximum change of impedance was about 200% with a maximum slope sensitivity of 0.26%/Am-1 . Further treatment with increased current resulted in a decrease of the maximum MI ratio. Meanwhile, annealing can produce short-range order relaxation and consequently improves the sample's soft magnetic properties. We also found that the GMI ratio increased due to the enhanced induced anisotropy with increasing current under the same Joule energy.


Researchers often communicate knowledge about biodiversity, especially information about where species are likely to be found, through maps. However, readers do not necessarily interpret such maps in the way the authors intend. We assessed undergraduate students' interpretations of mapped biodiversity data with a mixed-method approach: a survey instrument was developed using writing and focus groups, then delivered to students enrolled in introductory biology courses at the University of Florida in the United States. Surveyed participants (N = 195) were presented with sets of maps for the Palamedes Swallowtail butterfly, Papilio palamedes, with three data visualization methods: point occurrences, expert-assessed range, and correlative distribution model results (distributional models were shown at high and low resolutions). Map interpretations were assessed by asking participants to rate the likelihood of finding a Palamedes Swallowtail at various point on each map and how confident they were in the information the map presented. They were also asked which map type they would most likely use to find a Palamedes Swallowtail. For distributional model maps, the effect of resolution on interpretation was assessed by asking participants to rate the perceived accuracy of each map, as well as their confidence in the data being presented. Participants most trusted in data provided via point maps compared to range and distributional model maps, and trusted point maps most among the three map types. For distribution maps, participants felt more certain in data presented to them via higher-resolution maps and interpreted them as being more accurate. This preference was especially pronounced for participants studying Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields compared to their non-STEM peers. Our findings suggest biodiversity researchers need to carefully consider symbol choice and resolution when transmitting information about species distributions.


The current paper proposes a new approach of experiential learning, by bringing together the concept of immersive education and an emergent technology: augmented reality.
The immersive education tends to resolve the main drawback of traditional education, which is the limited experimentation, and with the help of the evolving technologies, the students can understand the school subjects in a different manner.
At present, the theoretical part plays the major role in education, while the experimentation is often ignored or treated superficially, especially when it comes to progressive domains, such as engineering or programming.
By bringing the immersive education closer to students and teachers, they might be able to experience the most important aspects of this domain, in real-time, without sacrificing the good parts of traditional education.
The approach presented in our paper is accomplished through an augmented reality system called AREA, which combines the digital and non-digital worlds, in order to foster an interactive and educative way of discovering the inventions that have revolutionized the modern world, thus making students curious about the evolution of modern technology.
Using augmented reality, students have the chance to experiment the connection between learning and practicing and how they co-work in order to achieve great success.
The application was tested on a group of high school students and on a group of adults specialized on engineering and marketing domains, the results being very intriguing.
Besides presenting our system and the way it can be integrated to overcome the current educational challenges (e.g. lack of practical exercises), we also analyzed the use of other existing augmented reality systems, from various domains, that offer similar experiences to the one accomplished by AREA.


The scattering of subsurface cylindrical cavity near multiple semi-cylindrical alluvial valleys under incident SH waves is studied in this paper by using methods of auxiliary function, complex function multi-polar coordinates. The model is divided into two parts, Domain I is multiple semi-cylindrical alluvial valleys, and Domain Ⅱ is an elastic half space with several subsurface circular cavities near multiple semi-cylindrical alluvial valleys. A series of infinite algebraic equations is then obtained based on the displacement and stress continuity condition on "common boundary" of two parts after constructing the associated displacement and stresses expressions of each part. Numerical examples illustrate that material parameters of semi-cylindrical alluvial valleys have great impact on DSCF around subsurface cavity and DSCF dose not always decrease as wave number increases especially under incident waves with high frequency when the alluvial valleys are "softer".


Background: Primary central nervous system (CNS) vasculitis is an idiopathic inflammatory process that selectively affects CNS vasculature without a systemic inflammatory response, and causes luminal obstruction with resultant ischemia of recipient tissue. Its varying clinical symptoms and signs depend on the caliber of vessels involved and distribution and location of the affected structures. Granulomatous hypophysitis (GH) is an autoimmune inflammatory process typically affecting women, and usually presents with hypopituitarism, and at times, diabetes insipidus, and/or visual loss. Both entities are rare CNS diseases, which, to our knowledge, have never been previously reported in the same patient. Case Description: We present a unique case of chronic progressive primary CNS vasculitis causing limbic encephalopathy in a 30-year-old male with only a history of medication-controlled hypertension. He initially presented 4 months prior with nonspecific neurological complaints and was found to have a homogenously enhancing and enlarged pituitary, which was biopsy proven to be GH. Conclusion: This rather unique presentation highlights the need to maintain a high index of suspicion for underlying PCNS vasculitis in a patient who does not fit the typical demographic for isolated GH.


INTRODUCTION
Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is common in men 50 years old and older. The main treatment options are alpha-blockers (such as tamsulosin), which reduce symptoms, and 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (such as dutasteride), which reduce symptoms and slow disease progression. Clinical studies have demonstrated that dutasteride-tamsulosin combination therapy is more effective than either monotherapy to treat symptomatic BPH. We studied the cost-effectiveness in Canada of the dutasteride (0.5 mg/day) and tamsulosin (0.4 mg/day) combination compared with tamsulosin or dutasteride monotherapy.

METHODS
A Markov model was developed which follows a cohort of male BPH patients ≥50 with moderate to severe lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). The model estimates costs to the Canadian health care system and outcomes (in terms of quality adjusted life years [QALYs]) at 10 years and over a patient's lifetime. The dutasteride-tamsulosin combination was compared to each of tamsulosin monotherapy and dutasteride monotherapy.

RESULTS
Compared with tamsulosin, the combination was more costly and produced better patient outcomes. Over a lifetime, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was CAN$25 437 per QALY gained. At a willingness to pay CAN$50 000 per QALY, the probability of combination therapy being cost-effective was 99.6%. Compared with dutasteride, the combination therapy was the dominant option from year 2, offering improved patient outcomes at lower cost. The probability that combination therapy is more cost-effective than dutasteride was 99.8%.

CONCLUSION
Combination therapy offers important clinical benefits for patients with symptomatic BPH, and there is a high probability that it is cost-effective in the Canadian health care system relative to either monotherapy.


Water temperature is a non-conservative tracer in the environment. Variations in recharge temperature are damped and retarded as water moves through an aquifer due to heat exchange between water and rock. However, within karst aquifers, seasonal and short-term fluctuations in recharge temperature are often transmitted over long distances before they are fully damped. Using analytical solutions and numerical simulations, we develop relationships that describe the effect of flow path properties, flow-through time, recharge characteristics, and water and rock physical properties on the damping and retardation of thermal peaks/troughs in karst conduits. Using these relationships, one can estimate the thermal retardation and damping that would occur under given conditions with a given conduit geometry. Ultimately, these relationships can be used with thermal damping and retardation field data to estimate parameters such as conduit diameter. We also examine sets of numerical simulations where we relax some of the assumptions used to develop these relationships, testing the effects of variable diameter, variable velocity, open channels, and recharge shape on thermal damping and retardation to provide some constraints on uncertainty. Finally, we discuss a multitracer experiment that provides some field confirmation of our relationships. High temporal resolution water temperature data are required to obtain sufficient constraints on the magnitude and timing of thermal peaks and troughs in order to take full advantage of water temperature as a tracer.


Binary oppositions are a divisive force in social and physical space. This thesis engages the notion of heteronormativity as the primary source of binarism which oppresses expressive diversity of sexuality, gender and architecture. Queer, as the antithesis of binarism, is used as a process and as an action enacted through spatial design and experience to challenge normative assumptions in architecture. This thesis proposes a queer approach to design, questioning and blurring architectural binaries. A process of questioning, designing and reflecting – in non-linear, iterative, design-led research – establishes itself through three projects, each increasing in scale and complexity. For the purpose of clarity, the thesis is structured in a linear fashion: theoretical context and case study analysis is established before engaging with this design process at three scales – installation (breaking binaries), domestic (blending binaries) and public (blurring binaries) – followed by overall reflection. Primary modes of experimentation include analogue and digital drawing and modelling with photography as a method of documentation. This thesis concludes that, by focusing on modes of being and engagement, read and lived conditions combine in blurred non-binary experience. Blurring binaries enables people to engage their diverse subjectivities in space, making their space queer, instead of being defined by heteronormative social and architectural norms.


Phenotyping of crops is important due to increasing pressure on food production. Therefore, an accurate estimation of biomass during the growing season can be important to optimize the yield. The potential of data acquisition by UAV-LiDAR to estimate fresh biomass and crop height was investigated for three different crops (potato, sugar beet, and winter wheat) grown in Wageningen (The Netherlands) from June to August 2018. Biomass was estimated using the 3DPI algorithm, while crop height was estimated using the mean height of a variable number of highest points for each m2. The 3DPI algorithm proved to estimate biomass well for sugar beet (R2 = 0.68, RMSE = 17.47 g/m2) and winter wheat (R2 = 0.82, RMSE = 13.94 g/m2). Also, the height estimates worked well for sugar beet (R2 = 0.70, RMSE = 7.4 cm) and wheat (R2 = 0.78, RMSE = 3.4 cm). However, for potato both plant height (R2 = 0.50, RMSE = 12 cm) and biomass estimation (R2 = 0.24, RMSE = 22.09 g/m2), it proved to be less reliable due to the complex canopy structure and the ridges on which potatoes are grown. In general, for accurate biomass and crop height estimates using those algorithms, the flight conditions (altitude, speed, location of flight lines) should be comparable to the settings for which the models are calibrated since changing conditions do influence the estimated biomass and crop height strongly.


In mobile peer-to-peer networks, proposed service discovery protocols disregard the exposure of the participating peers' privacy details (privileged information). In these methods, the participating peers must provide their identities during the service discovery process to be authorized to utilize services. However, a peer may not be willing to reveal its privileged information until it identifies the service providing peer. So these peers face a problem, should the service requesting or the service providing peer reveal the identity first. The protocol presented in [12] solves this problem to some extent and discover the services available in the service requester's vicinity in a single-hop time sync peers only. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving model based on challenged/response idea to discover the services available in the mobile peer-to-peer network even when the moving service requester and the service provider are at a multi-hop distance away. The performance studies shows that our protocol does preserve the privacy in a communication efficient way with reduced false positives in comparison to one other recently proposed protocol.


For monocular 3D pose estimation conditioned on 2D detection, noisy/unreliable input is a key obstacle in this task. Simple structure constraints attempting to tackle this problem, e.g., symmetry loss and joint angle limit, could only provide marginal improvements and are commonly treated as auxiliary losses in previous researches. Thus it still remains challenging about how to effectively utilize the power of human prior knowledge for this task. In this paper, we propose to address above issue in a systematic view. Firstly, we show that optimizing the kinematics structure of noisy 2D inputs is critical to obtain accurate 3D estimations. Secondly, based on corrected 2D joints, we further explicitly decompose articulated motion with human topology, which leads to more compact 3D static structure easier for estimation. Finally, temporal refinement emphasizing the validity of 3D dynamic structure is naturally developed to pursue more accurate result. Above three steps are seamlessly integrated into deep neural models, which form a deep kinematics analysis pipeline concurrently considering the static/dynamic structure of 2D inputs and 3D outputs. Extensive experiments show that proposed framework achieves state-of-the-art performance on two widely used 3D human action datasets. Meanwhile, targeted ablation study shows that each former step is critical for the latter one to obtain promising results.


We investigate optical forces exerted by suitable superpositions of equal-frequency Bessel beams—frozen waves—over dielectric, magnetodielectric, and negative-index Rayleigh particles. Frozen waves are capable of providing virtually any desired longitudinal intensity pattern by adequately superposing arbitrary-order Bessel beams, serving as potential beams in optical trapping, atom guiding, optical bistouries, and so on. Analytical expressions for gradient and scattering forces experienced by very small particles are deduced, and our numerical examples reveal that both low- and high-index dielectric and magnetodielectric particles can be efficiently trapped and manipulated. Our results indicate that such wave fields could actually provide three-dimensional traps in multiple transverse planes.


Mental Health Resources is a multidisciplinary group practice that provides a non-hospital-based intensive outpatient program (IOP) exclusively for mental health patients. This program was developed as a hospital diversion model to accommodate the trends toward shorter hospital stays and to provide an intensive therapeutic environment in an outpatient setting. This IOP consists of three hours of group treatment programming per day, three to five times a week, and is staffed by a psychologist, a master's level clinician, and a psychiatrist. Psychiatric consultation and medication management are provided on-site when needed. Patients who are not currently being treated by a psychiatrist receive an initial psy chiatric evaluation. Other patients are referred to their treating psychiatrists to be followed more closely during their IOP stay The IOP has been operating for approximately five years. The program is designed for persons who are in acute psychological distress and who can be treated on an outpatient basis The IOP is also ideal few patients who have recently been discharged from short-term hospitalization or partial hospitalization and who do not require daily medical monitoring. This approach is well suited for others in crisis or acute distress who need a therapeutic milieu, problem-solving skills, and support. Individuals who require more than three hours of care per day or are imminently suicidal, homicidal, or psychotic are not appropriate. Mental Health Resources has met all state requirements necessary for providing this level of care and is licensed by the state of Tennessee to do so. The IOP has three core components that target affect, cognition and psychophysiological symptoms. The affective component consists of learning to identify and express feelings, finding safe and appropriate outlets for avoided feelings, and tolerating high levels of emotion without becoming overwhelmed. As in traditional group psychotherapy, resistance to affect or change is confronted and interpersonal and family of origin problems are identified. Repetitive relationship themes that adversely affect current daily functioning are addressed. Patients are assisted in labeling their emotional experience and expressing it in meaningful ways. Difficulties with anger, fear, or sadness are addressed in this context. For example, grief work may assist people in understanding the process of grief, examining blocks to grief, and exploring unresolved losses. The cognitive aspect of the program consists of teaching problem-solving skills based on the principles of rational behavior therapy. Crisis situations or conflictual relationships are anticipated, action plans are developed, cognitive errors are identified, and rational behavioral strategies are renewed and strengthened. Assertiveness. problem solving, anger management, anxiety management, and similar skills training take place through examining one's self-talk, disputing irrational ideas, and teaching both coping and deconditioning skills The psychophysiological aspects of die program are concerned with bodily processes that may exacerbate symptoms or be misinterpreted by patients in their recovery. Relaxation exercises, skills for coping with chronic illness, and pain management are some of the typical subject areas addressed. The psychoeducational groups focus on different content areas depending on the individual needs of the group participants. Some of the areas that may be addressed are loss, out of control teens, workplace problems, chronic illness, conflict, and selfdefeating behavioral patterns. Identified problem areas are used to teach coping skills that provide new strategies or solutions. Approaches such as dairy homework assignments, selfmonitoring, and diaries are frequently used to develop and maintain coping strategies. Nearly 90 percent of our patients have a diagnosis of major depression, 70 percent have axis II diagnoses, and nearly 60 percent have comorbid medical problems. Complex cases (multiple diagnoses) are effectively treated in the program. According to multiple symptom measures, the program's patients were significantly more distressed and endorsed a greater number of symptom measures, the program's patients toms and a greater degree of symptom severity than both local and national hospitalized psychiatric samples. On average, these patients were treated for 17 sessions, occurring over a period of seven weeks. The typical IOP patient is in treatment three days per week, although patients might need more visits earlier in the treatment and fewer visits later on. The average daily census is approximately six, with a range of four to ten. Previously published preand posttreatment measures of our patients' symptoms demonstrated very significant improvements on seven of nine symptom scales, including depression and anxiety. Similarly, very significant treatment effects were demonstrated on all four of the measures of global distress and symptom severity. By discharge, the average patient had essentially returned to his or her premorbid level of functioning, based on preand posttreatment ratings on the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). The patients have also indicated that they are highly satisfied with their treatment. On a scale of 1 to 4, the average satisfaction score across eight items was 3.7. Mental Health Resources has demonstrated that its mental health IOP is a safe, clinically effective, costefficient, less restrictive and highly rated consumer friendly service. lOPs present an opportunity for the development of multidisciplinary private practice groups. By providing program effectiveness data, urgent appointments. and crisis intervention services, lOPs can also lend credibility to private-practice groups wanting to collaborate with larger systems of care, including hospitals, partial programs, employee assistance programs, and managed care organizations. At this community systems level, IOPs give multidisciplinary practice groups the potential to become part of an integrated continuum of care.


We present the findings of an ongoing program into the potential use of Ionic Liquid (IL) based lubricants for space mechanisms applications. This multi-stage activity includes assessment of the material properties of the promising candidate ionic fluids, their tribological performances, and vapour pressure measurements.
The activity has highlighted the potential advantages of this family of fluids for vacuum applications; namely impressively low volatilities and favourable tribological behaviours in comparison to conventional vacuum fluids. A down-selection exercise was performed, highlighting the best potential candidate ILs for further study, and validation of these behaviours at component level is planned. However, a requirement for future work is anticipated to mitigate some of the less desirable properties of ILs (namely corrosion).


One in five women and one in sixteen men are sexually assaulted while attending college (Krebs et al., 2007; White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, 2014). The inconsistencies in the definition of "sexual consent" may determine which behaviors constitute sexual assault and rape and, in tum, affect victims' rights as well as conviction and sentencing rates. Insufficient standard definitions of sexual consent or consensual sexual behaviors have resulted in many aggressors serving little to no time in jail (Kahan, 2010). Specifically defining consent and educating college students about its meaning could affect the prevalence of sexual assault. Previous studies focusing on sexual consent have stressed this importance, but research is limited. The purpose of this review is to investigate the effects of operationally defining and understanding consent, and consensual sexual behaviors, on the behaviors and attitudes of college students, as a deterrent for sexual assault. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Psychology First Advisor Pamela Landau Second Advisor Stephen D. Jefferson Third Advisor Carol Freedman-Doan


BACKGROUND
Few studies have investigated the individual long-term contributions that mothers and fathers make to their children's schooling.

AIMS
(1) To explore the role of early father involvement in children's later educational attainment independently of the role of early mother involvement and other confounds, (2) to investigate whether gender and family structure moderate the relationship between father's and mother's involvement and child's educational attainment, and (3) to explore whether the impact of father's involvement depends on the level of mother's involvement.

SAMPLE
The study used longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study. The initial sample were those 7,259 cohort members with valid data on mother involvement at age 7, father involvement at age 7, and school-leaving qualification by age 20. Of those, 3,303 were included in the final analysis.

METHOD
The measures were control variables, structural factors (family structure, sibship size and residential mobility), child factors (emotional/behavioural problems, cognitive ability and academic motivation), and father's and mother's involvement.

RESULTS
Father involvement and mother involvement at age 7 independently predicted educational attainment by age 20. The association between parents' involvement and educational attainment was not stronger for sons than for daughters. Father involvement was not more important for educational attainment when mother involvement was low rather than high. Not growing up in intact two-parent family did not weaken the association between father's or mother's involvement and educational outcomes.

CONCLUSION
Early father involvement can be another protective factor in counteracting risk conditions that might lead to later low attainment levels.


Abstract With the purpose of improving the water solubility and oral bioavailability, ursolic acid nanoparticles (UANs) were prepared by the emulsion solvent evaporation method, and the nanosuspension was freeze-dried into powder. The optimal conditions for preparing nanoparticles were screened out using single-factor experiment. Take advantage of the optimal conditions, UA nanoemulsion had mean particle size (MPS) of 69.7 ± 15.6 nm and polydispersity index value (PI) of 0.005. The MPS of UA nanosuspension was gained at 100.2 ± 12.1 nm (PI = 0.005), after the organic solvent was removed by rotary evaporator. Finally, UANs possessing an MPS of 157.5 ± 28.0 nm (PI = 0.005) and zeta potential of 20.33 ± 1.67 mV were obtained after freeze-dried. UANs were investigated using SEM, XRD, DSC, TGA and further explored their equilibrium solubility, dissolution rate, solvent residue analysis, cellular antioxidant activity and oral bioavailability. All the results above showed that UA in UANs was in the amorphous state. The result of solubility test figured that the equilibrium solubility of UANs was 13.48 times in simulated gastric fluid (SGF), 11.79 times in simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) and 23.99 times in deionized water than raw UA. Accordingly, the dissolution rate of UANs in SGF and SIF had an apparent enhancement. The oral bioavailability of UANs increased 2.68 times than raw UA. UANs improved antioxidant activity toward cells compared with raw UA, and EC50 of UANs reduced 37.5 times than raw UA. The residual contents of trichloromethane and ethanol were separated up to the mustard of the ICH limit for class III and class II solvents. The results above indicated that UANs possesses a value of application on enhancement oral bioavailability.


Composite materials have shown their efficiency in improving the mechanical properties of concrete structures, in addition to ensuring better resistance to environmental conditions. Reinforced concrete structures are often very sensitive to accidental loads, leading to deterioration, failures and human life fatalities. The reinforcement of concrete columns by composite materials, judiciously integrated in the concrete matrix, has the advantage of offering sufficient rigidity and strength to prevent overall collapse, on one hand, and, to preserve external and esthetic aspects of reinforced concrete works, on the other hand. The experimental and numerical studies in the present work represent a promising revelation regarding the effectiveness of the proposed confinement process by integrating a composite grid inside the reinforced concrete matrix. The concepts of single and double confinement are developed and discussed on the basis of experimental results for concrete specimens.


Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in the U.S. juvenile justice system persists despite substantial efforts to reduce it. The juvenile justice system is comprised of a series of interconnected stages, yet few studies to-date use methods to measure DMC that take the cascading nature of the decision-making process into account. Our study addresses this gap by applying life table analysis to identify the cumulative nature of DMC across multiple stages of the juvenile justice system using data from 2008 to 2010 in Georgia that include white, black, and Hispanic/Latino youth. We then compare these state-level results to life tables from a national sample of black youth and a subnational sample of Hispanic/Latino youth. Our findings show that arrest/referral accounts for the greatest proportion of total system-wide DMC for black youth, but most of the total DMC for Hispanic/Latino youth results from later stages.


Recently, there has been interest in the fabrication of multiple quartz crystal microbalances (QCMs) on a single substrate to create a sensor array. However, such devices are ultimately subject to the limitations of the QCM configuration, requiring electrodes and wires on the sensing surface of the crystal substrate, resulting in a cumbersome arrangement that is unable to detect electrical property changes. The lateral-field-excited (LFE) sensor is a novel sensing device that only requires electrodes on the back side of the substrate. With a bare sensing surface, the LFE sensor is a better choice for implementing a sensor array. The purpose of this paper is to report on the fabrication and testing of two independent LFE devices on a single substrate. The individual LFE elements are shown to respond to both electrical and mechanical property changes, with minimal crosstalk between the LFE elements.


Although recent theoretical developments and empirical studies indicate that technology-related stress may have negative and positive consequences for employees across life domains, the majority of previous IS research on technostress has focused on its downsides at work and has neglected to study how and why technology-related stress may spill over from work to home. Furthermore, while much of our knowledge of technology-related stress and its effects derives from cross-sectional studies examining between-person differences, there is a need for longitudinal, daily investigations that take a within-person view. Integrating the challenge–hindrance stressor framework with affective events theory and work–home spillover literature, we propose a broader conceptualization of technology-related stressors, referred to as technology-driven (TD) stressors, which comprise technology-driven challenge (TCS) and hindrance (THS) stressors, and examine how and why daily TCS and THS experienced at work affect the relationship between employees and their partners at home. In an experience sampling study of 115 employees who responded to daily surveys both at work and at home over a two-week period, we found that while THS are negatively related to partnership satisfaction via negative affect, TCS are positively related to partnership satisfaction via positive affect. We also investigated the moderating effect of work–home role integration (WHI) and perceived organizational support in work–home boundary management (POS) on the strength of the within-individual spillover processes. Our results show that WHI acts as a double-edged sword for letting TCS- and THS-triggered positive and negative affect spill over to partnership satisfaction, whereas POS serves as a facilitator of positive affect and as a buffer against negative affect. Broadly, our study shows that understanding daily TD work stressors is important because their negative and positive downstream effects often do not stop at employees' workplace boundaries but actually penetrate and shape their everyday lives at home.


This guide will help students researching topics related to Latin America using resources from the Latin American and Caribbean Collection at the University of Florida and from outside institutions.


A claim of undue influence (UI) often figures prominently in will and trust contests and in other legal matters. Mental health professionals (MHPs) are frequently asked to provide expert opinions on UI, but the task is challenging, because of the lack of a clear definition of UI, and conflicting and contradictory recommendations in the literature on the specific conduct of the MHP in rendering opinions on UI. Recently, however, a California statutory scheme on UI applicable in will, trust, conservatorship, and financial elder abuse cases was adopted, bringing greater clarity to the meaning of the construct. The clarification provides an opportunity to review the concern, and to recommend a set of principles to guide MHPs in the role of expert in such litigation.