The timing and speed of developmental processes during healthy puberty might be of critical importance to optimal adult functioning. Indeed, diseases that affect the brain at a young age, such as schizophrenia, are likely to have their origin in this period. The general aim of this thesis was to explore possible mechanisms contributing to individual variation in brain structure at the brink of puberty. Two lines of research were conducted: (1) The relative importance of genetic and environmental influences on global and regional brain volume (2) The association between hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal (HPG)-axis hormones and brain structure. Research was based on a sample of 107 twin-families consisting of 9-year-old healthy twin pairs (45 monozygotic (MZ) and 62 dizygotic (DZ) pairs) and one of their full siblings (N=85) between 10 and 15 years of age. Results showed that in 9-year-olds, global brain volumes are already remarkably heritable, with estimates ranging from 77% (i.e., gray matter) to 94% (i.e., total brain volume). Regionally, white matter density in posterior parts of the fronto-occipital and superior longitudinal fascicles, cingulum and corpus callosum were found to be significantly heritable with estimates ranging up to 93%. Interestingly, the areas within gray matter density that were significantly heritable were substantially smaller, and included the amygdala and temporal lobes. The onset of secondary sexual characteristics (SSC) of puberty was associated with decreased frontal and parietal gray matter densities and was mainly found in girls. Nocturnal rises in luteinizing hormone (LH) levels from the pituitary mark the beginning of puberty in both boys and girls, even before SSC of puberty are visible. An increased production of LH was associated with larger global and focal white matter. This association was driven by a common genetic factor. LH-levels were however not related to global or regional gray matter. The pubertal brain might respond differentially to changing hormone levels over time, therefore the possible association between sex steroids testosterone and estradiol and brain structure was studied in a more advanced stage of puberty. Indeed in girls, a higher level of estradiol was mainly associated with decreased gray matter within the prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortices (not with white matter). At this age, testosterone levels were not associated with gray or white matter. Sex differences in brain structure were not related to sex steroid levels. The last study of this thesis describes the possible influence of the intrauterine presence of a male co-twin on masculinization of brain volume, possibly mediated by higher prenatal testosterone exposure. Results showed that, corrected for larger global brain volumes in boys, children with a male-co twin showed a larger total brain and cerebellar volume versus children with a female-co-twin. It might be suggested that prenatal testosterone plays a role in development of sex differences in the human brain. This thesis contains the first series of studies that has provided important new leads into the complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors, hormones and brain structure in this critical period of life.


A detailed account of the construction, properties, and practical applications of electrospinning for the fabrication of high-quality ultrafine fibers, suitable for drug delivery, is given. With respect to the electrospinning method, various parameters are of crucial importance. The electrospinning parameters are classified as solution properties, process parameters, and environmental conditions. The solution properties include the polymer concentration, molecular weight and viscosity, the solution conductivity and relative volatility, volatility of the solvent, surface tension, and dielectric constant. The process parameters refer to the flow rate, the applied voltage, the needle diameter, and the distance between the tip of the needle and collector and the geometry of the collector. The environmental conditions include the relative humidity and temperature. All these factors are responsible for a flawless electrospinning process, which leads to the formation of the desirable electrospun nanofibers with the requisite characteristics. In this chapter, it has been shown that the electrospinning technology could provide a useful method for modifying drug release behavior and opens new routes for the development of effective and tailor-made drug release carriers.


Functional traits impact species interactions, community composition, and ecosystem functioning. However, few studies have focused on the diversification and phylogenetic correlation of multiple functional traits over geological time. We conducted phylogenetic comparative analysis for boreal forest understory species in northeast China to examine the diversification and phylogenetic correlation in several functional traits: leaf area (LA), leaf carbon content (LCC), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), leaf nitrogen content (LNC), plant height (PH), and specific leaf area (SLA). Phylogenetic signals showed that there were very low levels of phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC) in understory leaf‐related traits and plant height, suggesting divergence of functional traits for the co‐occurring understory species. The disparity through time analyses (DTT) indicated that trait disparities mainly originated during recent divergence events and there were no differences in the observed trait disparities compared with that expected under Brownian motion. Furthermore, we found both positive and negative phylogenetic correlations among the measured functional traits. The very low levels of PNC suggest that these functional traits diverged among co‐occurring understory species, and that those species are distantly phylogenetically related. The phylogenetic correlations among traits may be caused by both positively and negatively correlated adaptions that correspond to resource acquisition strategies. This study provides evidence that divergence in functional traits may reflect understory adaptions to boreal conditions.


BACKGROUND
Differential diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs) can be difficult in areas, such as Korea, where tuberculosis is endemic. Nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a widely used method to test a very small amount of pathogen and to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis from fine needle aspirates.

OBJECTIVES
The usefulness of nested PCR for the detection of M tuberculosis from tuberculous SPN and for the differential diagnosis of SPN was evaluated.

METHODS
Thirty-three patients in whom a diagnosis of SPN was made based on a CT scan of the chest were enrolled in this study. Included were 17 malignant and 16 benign SPNs. Nested PCR was carried out for the detection of M tuberculosis by using TB-1, TB-2, TB-28, and TB-29C on fine needle aspirates from the nodule in all 33 cases.

RESULTS
Aspirates from malignant neoplasms, pneumonia, and sequestration were all negative on nested PCR for tuberculosis. One of the three radiologically suspected tuberculous nodules without response to anti-tuberculosis drugs (uncertain) yielded positive results on nested PCR for the detection of M tuberculosis. In contrast, 7 out of 8 (87.5%) aspirates from proven tuberculous nodules showed positive results on nested PCR. Nested PCR could be used to detect M tuberculosis in fine needle aspirates from tuberculous SPNs with good sensitivity (87.5%) and specificity (96.0%).

CONCLUSION
Nested PCR for the detection of M tuberculosis in fine needle aspirates may be useful in the differential diagnosis of SPNs.


Since deposition, the organic matter of most oil
shales has been so changed over geological time
that little recognisable features remain. Microscopical
examination does not provide much help
for constitutional analysis and thus one cannot use
biological features as a basis for classification.
Tasmanite oil shale is a notable exception. The
kerogen is so sharply differentiated from the
mineral matrix that it can be largely separated
by mechanical means.
Tasmanite kerogen, when isolated, appears as
flattened discs, which, by various sectioning processes,
can be shown to have been nearly spherical
in shape before compaction. There has been a
great deal of argument as to the exact nature of
these dissemenules. The century-old suggestion,
originally rejected, that they are algal in origin
has now been generally accepted and it may be
taken that Tasmanites, as it occurs in oil shale,
represents the cyst stage of a peculiar alga belonging,
most likely, to the Chlorophyceae. The exact
relationship within the family is still uncertain.
Because of its discrete and peculiar structure, it
might be assumed that the organic matter of tasmanite
has a chemistry different from other algal
shales. This is true only in so far as the soluble
resin-like material is concerned, the pyrolysate
possesses a normal hydrocarbon chemistry, although
the non-hydrocarbon constituents are somewhat
more than usual. Infrared and other physical
methods of analysis support this hypothesis.


Distance cameras have gained large popularity in the last years. With more than 24 million Microsoft Kinect units sold and the proliferation of 3-D sensors for biometric authentication, these cameras have reached the mass market. Distance cameras capture an image in which each pixel encodes the distance to its corresponding point in the scene. This opens up new application possibilities which are difficult or even impossible to implement with normal gray-level or color cameras. These new applications are particular useful if they can be implemented with low-cost consumer 3-D cameras. However, this is problematic as these sensors have only limited accuracy compared to professional measurement systems and are thus not yet sufficient for many applications. In this thesis, several aspects that affect the accuracy of time-of-flight and structured light cameras are discussed. The calibration of cameras, i. e. the calculation of an exact camera model, is of major importance. The estimation of these models requires point correspondences between the scene and the camera image. Whenever high accuracy is required, it is recommended to use calibration patterns such as checkerboards. This thesis introduces two methods, which find checkerboards more reliably and accurately than existing algorithms. The evaluation of the measurement errors of distance cameras requires reference values that are considerably more accurate than those of the camera. This thesis presents a method that allows using a terrestrial laser scanner to acquire such data. However, before the reference data can be used for error analysis, it is necessary to transform the measurements of both sensors into a common coordinate system. For this purpose, an automatic method was developed that reliably calculates the unknown transformation based on a single calibration scene. The accuracy of this approach is confirmed in several experiments and clearly exceeds the accuracy of the competing state-of-the-art method. In addition, it is possible to generate reference distance images with this method, which can subsequently be used for the evaluation of distance cameras. Time-of-flight (ToF) cameras have some error sources that are characteristic for this measurement principle. In order to be able to better compensate for these errors, it is first necessary to investigate the nature of these errors. This thesis also presents a comprehensive, standardized evaluation of the systematic errors of ToF cameras. For this purpose, six experiments are defined, which are subsequently carried out with eight ToF cameras. The evaluation of these experiments shows that the characteristic errors are differently pronounced with the investigated cameras, but nonetheless, can be observed even with the most recent models. Finally, a new calibration method for structured-light sensors is proposed, as well as an algorithm which refines parametric models of objects. The calibration method allows calculating a complete sensor model based on two or more images, even if the projected pattern is unknown. This is particularly necessary if the sensor does not use a regular projector, but emits the pattern with a diffractive optical element. This part of the thesis also presents a novel refinement method for parametric models that uses the developed camera model. The evaluation results show that the proposed method computes more accurate model parameters than state-of-the-art fitting algorithms.


Carbon absorption and storage, known as carbon sequestration, have reduced global warming through photosynthesis. Seagrass beds in coastal ecosystems have high plant productivity and are found to have the ability to reduce the effect of global warming due to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Due to the anthropogenic effect, decreasing environmental quality, such as tourism, may affect seagrass diversity and growth, therefore its carbon contents. This study investigates the ability of seagrass species as carbon storage and their diversity in a common tourist destination area referred to as disturbed habitat, located at Sanur and an area that is less disturbed, referred to as undisturbed habitat. Samples were collected from 3 transects 50m in length that were placed on each site. Three plots, each measuring 0.5 x 0.5 m, were employed on each transect. The number of individuals of each species and the percent plant coverage were measured on each plot. Plant biomass and carbon content were extracted in the Lab and divided into below- and above-ground. The result shows that eight species were found at Sanur and only four from Samuh sites. On average, the percentage of plant coverage was higher at the Samuh site. Samuh site. The plant biomass and carbon storage were lower at Samuh than at the Sanur site. Species differences from each site affect the plant biomass, so the carbon content. Anthropogenic activities are not the only ones to determine the carbon storage of seagrass, but rather the species morphology.


The Bangladesh corporate governance regime is framed by legal rules and requirements, in comparison to those prevailing in such jurisdictions as Australia. However, it is arguable that such legal rules have not necessarily led to major modernisation of structures or to such significant changes to the profile of company boards that would maximise their effectiveness. This study involves analysis and comparison of some of the important characteristics of Bangladeshi and Australian company boards, with a particular focus on independent directors. To provide context for this study, the regulatory framework for corporate governance in Bangladesh is compared and contrasted with that of Australia as an example of a developed country, while the study itself explores directors with reference to diversity, age, remuneration, expertise and experience and governance involvement. The results demonstrate that as well as differences, particularly around diversity, there are surprising similarities as well, principally around age and expertise. What is most marked is the lack of an independent skill development or recruitment facility for Bangladeshi directors such as operates in Australia, a lack that potentially limits the extent to which an open, competitive market for director skills can develop.


In this paper we study the set of periods of holomorphic maps on compact manifolds, using the periodic Lefschetz numbers introduced by Dold and Llibre, which can be computed from the homology class of the map. We show that these numbers contain information about the existence of periodic points of a given period; and, if we assume the map to be transversal, then they give us the exact number of such periodic orbits. We apply this result to the complex projective space of dimension n and to some special type of Hopf surfaces, partially characterizing their set of periods. In the first case we also show that any holomorphic map of CP(n) of degree greater than one has infinitely many distinct periodic orbits, hence generalizing a theorem of Fornaess and Sibony. We then characterize the set of periods of a holomorphic map on the Riemann sphere, hence giving an alternative proof of Baker's theorem.


Although it is well-known that the ICOS-ICOS ligand (ICOSL) costimulatory pathway is important for many immune responses, recent accumulated evidence suggests that dysregulation of this pathway may lead to and/or exaggerate autoimmune responses. ICOS is induced on the cell surface after T cell activation. Similarly, ICOSL is up-regulated on APCs by several mitogenic stimuli. However, the mechanism regulating expression of the ICOS-ICOSL pair, and the significance of controlling their expression for an appropriate immune response, is largely unknown. To gain a better understanding of the importance of fine control of the ICOS-ICOSL costimulatory pathway, we generated ICOS-transgenic (Tg) mice that have high constitutive expression of ICOS in all T cells. Using ICOS-Tg mice, we studied whether in vivo immune responses were affected. Unexpectedly, we first found that ICOS-Tg mice exhibited a phenotype resembling ICOS-deficient mice in their Ag-specific Ab response, such as a defect in class switch recombination. Further examination revealed that ICOSL expression of APCs was significantly suppressed in ICOS-Tg mice. Interestingly, suppression of ICOSL was induced by interaction of ICOSL with ICOS, and it seemed to be regulated at the posttranscriptional level. The suppressive effect of the ICOS-ICOSL interaction overcame the positive effect of CD40 or B cell activation factor of the TNF family (BAFF) stimulation on ICOSL expression. Together, our studies demonstrate a novel mechanism for the regulation of ICOSL expression in vivo and suggest that the ICOS costimulatory pathway is subject to negative feedback regulation by ICOSL down-regulation in response to


Background: Accurate and timely diagnosis of community-acquired bacterial versus viral infections in children with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) remains challenging both for clinician and laboratory. In the quest of new biochemical markers to distinguish bacterial from viral infection, we have explored the possible role of the soluble secreted form of ST2 (sST2). Methods: This explorative prospective cohort study included children with SIRS who were suspected of having community-acquired infections. Plasma samples for sST2 measurement were obtained from 64 hospitalized children, 41 of whom had SIRS of bacterial etiology and 23 SIRS of viral etiology, and from 20 healthy, age- and sex-matched control children. sST2 measurement was carried out by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in parallel with standard measurements of procalcitonin (PCT) and C reactive protein (CRP). Results: Our findings demonstrate that children with SIRS associated with bacterial infection present significantly increased levels of sST2, when compared with patients with SIRS of viral etiology and healthy children. More important, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated that sST2 has a significant diagnostic performance with respect to early identification of SIRS of bacterial etiology, which was similar to that of PCT and greater than that of CRP. Finally, the combination of sST2 plus PCT and/or CRP, and PCT plus CRP increased their sensitivity and negative predictive value compared with sST2, PCT and CRP alone. Conclusions: In conclusion, sST2 level may prove useful in predicting bacterial etiology in children with SIRS.


The Human Genome Project and the International HapMap Project have yielded new understanding of the influence of the human genome on health and disease, advancing health care in significant ways. In personalized medicine, genetic factors are used to identify disease risk and tailor preventive and therapeutic regimens. Insight into the genetic bases of cellular processes is revealing the causes of disease and effects of exercise. Many diseases known to have a major lifestyle contribution are highly influenced by common genetic variants. Genetic variants are associated with increased risk for common diseases such as cardiovascular disease and osteoarthritis. Exercise response also is influenced by genetic factors. Knowledge of genetic factors can help clinicians better understand interindividual differences in disease presentation, pain experience, and exercise response. Family health history is an important genetic tool and encourages clinicians to consider the wider client-family unit. Clinicians in this new era need to be prepared to guide patients and their families on a variety of genomics-related concerns, including genetic testing and other ethical, legal, or social issues. Thus, it is essential that clinicians reconsider the role of genetics in the preservation of wellness and risk for disease to identify ways to best optimize fitness, health, or recovery. Clinicians with knowledge of the influence of genetic variants on health and disease will be uniquely positioned to institute individualized lifestyle interventions, thereby fulfilling roles in prevention and wellness. This article describes how discoveries in genomics are rapidly evolving the understanding of health and disease by highlighting 2 conditions: cardiovascular disease and osteoarthritis. Genetic factors related to exercise effects also are considered.


This paper presents an overview of the Experiment for Regional Sources and Sinks of Oxidents (EXPRESSO) including the objectives of the project, a detailed description of the characteristics of the experimental region and of field instrumentation deployed, and a summary of the main results of all components of the experiment. EXPRESSO is an international, multidisciplinary effort to quantify and better understand the processes controlling surface fluxes of photochemical precursors emitted by vegetation and biomass burning along a tropical forest to savanna gradient in central Africa. The experiment was conducted at the beginning of the dry season in November-December 1996. Three main research tools were deployed during this period: (1) the French research aircraft (Avion de Recherche Atmospherique et de Teledetection, Fokker 27), instrumented for chemistry and flux measurements (CNRS- France), (2) two satellite receivers for in situ acquisition of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-advanced very high resolution radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR) imagery for fire detection (EC-JRC, Ispra, Italy), and (3) a 65-m walkup tower installed at a tropical forest site in the Republic of Congo (National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado). Average dynamic and turbulence characteristics over savanna and forest ecosystems were retrieved from aircraft measurements. They illustrate the complex atmospheric circulation occurring in this region in the vicinity of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Satellite receivers were operated three times a day to produce maps of fire distribution. Statistics and mapping of burned surfaces from NOAA-AVHRR and ERS-Along Track Scanning Radiometer space systems have been developed. The influence of biogenic and biomass burning sources on the chemical composition of the lower atmosphere was studied through both aircraft and tower measurements. The EXPRESSO field campaign was followed by modeling efforts (regional and global scales) in which model components are evaluated using the experimental data.


Several assumptions determine whether respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is an appropriate sampling method to use with a particular group, including the population being recruited must know one another as members of the group (i.e., injection drug users [IDUs] must know each other as IDUs) and be networked and that the sample size is small relative to the overall size of the group. To assess these three assumptions, we analyzed city-specific data collected using RDS through the US National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System among IDUs in 23 cities. Overall, 5% of non-seed participants reported that their recruiter was "a stranger." 20 cities with multiple field sites had ≥1 cross-recruitment, a proxy for linked networks. Sample sizes were small in relation to the IDU population size (median = 2.3%; range: 0.6%- 8.0%). Researchers must evaluate whether these three assumptions were met to justify the basis for using RDS to sample specific populations.


AIMS To determine the different morphologies of autosomal dominant cataract (ADC), assess the intra- and interfamilial variation in cataract morphology, and undertake a genetic linkage study to identify loci for genes causing ADC and detect the underlying mutation. METHODS Patients were recruited from the ocular genetic database at Moorfields Eye Hospital. All individuals underwent an eye examination with particular attention to the lens including anterior segment photography where possible. Blood samples were taken for DNA extraction and genetic linkage analysis was carried out using polymorphic microsatellite markers. RESULTS 292 individuals from 16 large pedigrees with ADC were examined, of whom 161 were found to be affected. The cataract phenotypes could all be described as one of the eight following morphologies—anterior polar, posterior polar, nuclear, lamellar, coralliform, blue dot (cerulean), cortical, and pulverulent. The phenotypes varied in severity but the morphology was consistent within each pedigree, except in those affected by the pulverulent cataract, which showed considerable intrafamilial variation. Positive linkage was obtained in five families; in two families linkage was demonstrated to new loci and in three families linkage was demonstrated to previously described loci. In one of the families the underlying mutation was isolated. Exclusion data were obtained on five families. CONCLUSIONS Although there is considerable clinical heterogeneity in ADC, the phenotype is usually consistent within families. There is extensive genetic heterogeneity and specific cataract phenotypes appear to be associated with mutations at more than one chromosome locus. In cases where the genetic mutation has been identified the molecular biology and clinical phenotype are closely associated.


A difficult problem in automated time alignment is the separation of neighboring sounds with the same manner of articulation, such as two adjacent vowels or two adjacent fricatives. Usually, a broad classifier will find only one region that contains both sounds. In this study, the automatic detection of acoustic events that separate such sequences is investigated. For example, an algorithm based on abrupt changes in the energy between 2000 and 4000 Hz separates /v/'s and /s/'s, which are adjacent to /(hooked schwa)/'s or /s/'s Preliminary results based on 38 cases of adjacent fricatives taken from the TIMIT database show that 68% of the automatically placed boundaries agreed with the labeled boundaries. Of the remaining 12 cases, 67% were considered to be as good as, or even better than the TIMIT labeling. The fricative separation algorithm is presently being refined and tested across a larger database containing other similar sounds. Methods for separating adjacent stops and adjacent vowels will also be ...


BACKGROUND
Endothelial monocyte-activating polypeptide-II (EMAP-II) is a proinflammatory cytokine with antiangiogenic properties. Serum EMAP-II levels have not been investigated previously in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between serum EMAP-II levels and clinicopathologic features, including prognosis, in patients with NSCLC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We measured serum EMAP-II levels in 30 healthy control subjects and 48 patients with untreated NSCLC by enzyme linkedimmunosorbent assay.

RESULTS
Patients with NSCLC had significantly higher serum EMAP-II levels than did the control group (492 pg/mL +/- 1126 pg/mL vs. 266 pg/mL +/- 1013 pg/mL; P = .015). No significant association was found between serum EMAP-II levels and various clinicopathologic features (age, smoking history, performance status, histopathology, tumor stage, lymph node stage, or distant metastasis). Median survival time was 10.13 months (range, 2-53.8 months). The high-EMAP-II (>or= 100 pg/mL) group had a shorter survival compared with the low-EMAP-II (< 100 pg/mL) group (P = .023), and the serum EMAP-II level was still an important predictor of survival in a multivariate analysis, along with disease stage.

CONCLUSION
Our results showed that serum EMAP-II levels are significantly higher in patients with NSCLC than in healthy subjects and suggest it is of potential prognostic value.


Crop rotations can reduce problems that occur in monoculture planting systems. In 1990, at Lane, Okla., 0.5 ha of Bernow fine-loamy soil was planted to peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.). In the following 5 years, bell pepper (Capsicum annuum var. annuum L.), cucumber (Cucumis sativas L.), navy bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), and cabbage (Brassica oleracea L. Capitata group) were planted in one of four rotations after 1, 2, or 3 years of peanut. The first vegetable planting in each annual rotation was followed by either vegetables or peanut in following years. In 3 of the 6 years, peanut or vegetables were planted in each rotation. Peanut yields in the first year averaged 6.6 Mg.ha -1 , but were <1.9 Mg.ha -1 thereafter. Yields of the first vegetable planting, which followed 1 or 2 years of peanut, were normal for this location, but were significantly lower after 3 years of peanut. For second or third plantings of vegetables in rotations, yields were reduced up to 50% compared to the first vegetable planting. For most crops, the rotation that had 3 years of peanut followed by 3 years of vegetables generally produced the least cumulative yield. Numbers of sclerotia produced by soilborne plant pathogenic fungi fluctuated over the years, but were the same in the spring of the second and sixth years. Rotating these crops appears to have limited applicability for maintaining high vegetable or peanut yields.


The HINTEGRA ankle was developed as an attempt to specifically address the needs of minimal bone resection, extended bone support, proper ligament balancing, and minimal contact stresses within and around the prosthesis. The purpose of this study was to determine the short-term results in a consecutive series of 116 patients (122 ankles). Preoperative diagnoses were posttraumatic osteoarthrosis in 91 ankles (75%), primary osteoarthrosis in 16 ankles (13%), and systemic arthritis in 15 ankles (12%). Eight ankles had to be revised. Four were revised because of loosening of at least one component; one because of dislocation of the meniscus; and three for other reasons. All revisions were successful. After an average of 18.9 months (range, 1-3 years), 84% of patients were satisfied, and the clinical result was rated as good or excellent in 82% of the cases. The American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society hindfoot score improved from 40 points preoperatively to 85 points at followup. Eighty-three ankles (68%) were completely pain-free. The average range of motion clinically was 39 degrees (range, 15 degrees-55 degrees) and under fluoroscopy (true ankle motion) it was 37 degrees (range, 7 degrees-62 degrees). Radiographically, the tibial component was stable in all ankles, and no tilting of the component occurred since surgery. However, migration of the talar component was observed in two ankles. The concept of minimal bone resection and wide bony support was shown to be successful on the tibial and talar sides. Obtained function, pain relief, and patient satisfaction were promising and, compared with other devices, the results mostly were superior. This may support the idea that anatomic-shaped surfaces, as is the case in the HINTEGRA ankle, may be successful in total ankle replacement.


Background: Cardiorespiratory fitness is important for a person to efficiently perform his day to day life activities. Obesity influences this fitness leading to the development of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Fitness can be improved through physical exercise which could be categorized into moderate or severe based on the maximum heart rate. Maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max) is yet another equivalent parameter in use to assess the severity of the exercise. This study aims to study if there is any influence of moderate exercise on the VO2 max in individuals with greater BMI. Materials and Methods: Institutional Ethics Committee approval was obtained and a written informed consent was obtained from all the study participants. Sixty four young adults of mean age (19.66 + 0.2years) underwent a 30 minutes normal walking in order to perform a moderate exercise using a pedometer counting 3000 steps. Pre and post exercise variables like blood pressure and heart rate was recorded using a semiautomatic digital sphygmomanometer(OMRON HEM 401,India).Maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max) was calculated and the difference between the pre and post exercise condition was derived. Paired 't' test was done using SPSS 17.0 and the statistical significance value was set at p


We report on a high-average power, pulsed source at 497.5 nm based on the frequency doubling of an acousto-optically Q-switched, cryogenically-cooled Yb:YLiF4 (Yb:YLF) laser. The Yb:YLF was resonantly pumped by a laser diode module into the 960 nm absorption band and generated a diffraction limited output beam at 995 nm. At this wavelength, the laser delivered up to 50 W of average Q-switched output power at a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 10 kHz with a pulse duration of 60 ns and a slope efficiency of 69%. At a PRF of 500 Hz, this laser yielded 14 ns long, 31 mJ pulses with the slope efficiency of ~40%. Frequency doubling was achieved using an LBO crystal with a conversion efficiency approaching 50% at both 500 and 1000 Hz PRF. The maximum achieved pulse energy at 497.5 nm was 14.3 mJ at 500 Hz PRF (average power over 7 W). To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported pulse energy and average power for an all-solid-state laser operating under 500 nm.


Summary: The membrane-bound aldehyde dehydrogenase from 'Acetobacter rancens' CCM 1774, solubilized from the membrane fraction by treatment with surfactants and subsequently purified to homogeneity, was characterized with respect to the M
r of the dimeric enzyme (145000), pH optimum (5·1), pI value (5·3), substrate specificity towards straight-chain aldehydes, substrate inhibition and the effects of various inhibitors and ions. Methanol extracts of the membrane fraction and of the purified enzyme showed properties identical with pyrroloquinoline quinone as revealed by spectrophotometric methods and reactivity with apoquinoprotein glucose dehydrogenase. Pyrroloquinoline quinone could not be liberated by EDTA treatment. The enzyme activity of an apoenzyme could be partly restored by addition of membrane extracts containing pyrroloquinoline quinone adducts. The solubilized, purified quinoprotein aldehyde dehydrogenase and the membrane-bound enzyme differed in substrate binding, substrate inhibition, pH optimum and linkage to a c-type cytochrome which acts as electron acceptor in membrane fractions. Since double-reciprocal plots of initial reaction rates with various concentrations of aldehyde or electron acceptor showed intersecting lines, and different inhibition patterns were obtained for the two forms of the enzyme, a ping-pong kinetic behaviour with the two reactants was excluded. The kinetic mechanism was suggested to be changed after solubilization from a random-order type to a compulsory-order type, and is thus atypical for quinoproteins reported so far.


Tropical soils are often deeply weathered and vulnerable to degradation having low pH and unfavorable Al/Fe levels, which can constrain crop production. This study aims to examine nitrogen-enriched novel biochar co-composts prepared from rice straw, maize stover, and gram residue in various mixing ratios of the biochar and their feedstock materials for the amelioration of acidic tropical soil. Three pristine biochar and six co-composts were prepared, characterized, and evaluated for improving the chemical and biological quality of the soil against a conventional lime treatment. The pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC), calcium carbonate equivalence (CCE) and nitrogen content of co-composts varied between 7.78-8.86, 25.3-30.5 cmol (p+) kg-1, 25.5-30.5%, and 0.81-1.05%, respectively. The co-compost prepared from gram residue biochar mixed with maize stover at a 1:7 dry-weight ratio showed the highest rise in soil pH and CEC, giving an identical performance with the lime treatment and significantly better effect (p < .05) than the unamended control. Agglomerates of calcite and dolomite in biochar co-composts, and surface functional groups contributed to pH neutralization and increased CEC of the amended soil. The co-composts also significantly (p < .05) increased the dehydrogenase (1.87 µg TPF g-1 soil h-1), β-glucosidase (90 µg PNP g-1 soil h-1), and leucine amino peptidase (3.22 µmol MUC g-1 soil h-1) enzyme activities in the soil, thereby improving the soil's biological quality. The results of this study are encouraging for small-scale farmers in tropical developing countries to sustainably reutilize crop residues via biochar-based co-composting technology.


ABSTRACT Marine mollusk shells have been extensively used to provide radiocarbon (14C)-based chronologies in paleoenvironmental and archaeological studies, however uncertainties in age measurements are introduced because secondary factors such as vital effects and diet may influence 14C incorporation into these shells. Deep burrowing and deposit feeding mollusks, in particular, may incorporate "old" carbon resulting in apparently older ages than their contemporary environment. In this study, we present paired 14C and stable isotope (δ13C and δ18O) measurements for nine species of known-age bivalves having different feeding strategies and collected in six localities around the NE Atlantic. We exclude potential "old" carbon contamination in these known-age mollusk shells, acquire a better understanding of local ecology and provide an improved context for the environmental interpretation of 14C ages. Our results indicate that, in the NE Atlantic, marine mollusk-derived 14C ages provide a reliable basis for environmental and archaeological investigation, independently of vital effects and differences in microhabitats, feeding strategies and sample location—all of which are apparent from stable isotopes.


Batik industry is the main support of economy in the Regency of Pekalongan. Batik industry is a creative art industry which provide value-added fabrics with the stamped drawing wax batik motive and coloring. This industry has been traditionally produced, hereditary, and yet have the optimization that causes inefficiency. Research aims: first, to analyze the influence of input factors of production; second, to analyze the level of production inefficiencies. Analysis tool used is Stochastic Production Frontier, and Descriptive Statistics. Primary data were obtained from 115 samples of batik entrepreneurs with multistage sampling. The results are: capital, labor, fabrics, auxiliary materials and stamp tool significantly had positive effect on the production of batik cloth. The fuel had no significant effect on production. Old business is increasing, causing more efficient production, and production type to distinguish the level of inefficiency. Level of production efficiency on average is 0.9105.


Crystallographic texture is one of frequently investigated properties of near-surface regions. From the application point of view, the inheritance effect of the crystallographic orientation of a substrate is important for layered structures. The investigation of the texture of layered structures or gradient materials by means of X-ray diffraction back-reflection pole figure measurements requires a control of the information depth. Such measurements at a controlled information depth can be achieved by means of non-symmetrical diffraction geometry, employing a constant value of falling angle of the incident beam. Thus, the texture of near-surface layers with a defined thickness can be examined, as in tomographic techniques. In this work, the method of texture analysis based on a controlled information depth was applied to the investigation of the texture inheritance of a Zn protective layer on deep drawing steel. Moreover, the crystallographic relations between the texture of substrate and deposited layer, termed as texture inheritance, were considered.


The paper contains description of the implementation of C code for tree representation of Markov Chain Monte Carlo(MCMC) clustering. The aim of the code is to produce results which helps in visual representation of the most frequent pattern, its agglomerations and divisions and thus helps in constructing a tree also called as dendrogram. It illustrates the mergers or divisions which have been made at successive levels. The paper explains codes for various code functions used for finding the most frequent patterns, its agglomerations and divisions from the labels generated by Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulations. They have been implemented in C and attached to R statistical software. The algorithmic analysis of code and running time analysis has been done with the help of certain test datasets in later section of the report. The following section of the paper contains description of the C files, the explanation of the function implemented in them and its linkage to R so that C function can be called from R for speeding up the execution of the code.


Changing pneumatic compression has a stimulating activity on the processes of regeneration, it stops the condition of stagnation of the trophic ulcer. Unfortunately the frequency of recurrence is not predictable. Venous trophic ulcers have some peculiarities and it makes them different from trophic ulcers of another origin. This is a phenomenon of independent progression of ulcer properties and their exacerbation. Our examinations confirm the view of venous trophic ulcer as a system with closed pseudo chaotic activity, it makes a clinic task: to change the condition of ulcer from the given one to wound with consequences of restoring processes.


Gradual and frequential dispersion of the viscosity of DNA solution in cattle splin was studied. Zimm--Crothers rotational viscosimeter was used for determining gradient relationship of viscosity eta (g). To determine frequential dispersion of viscosity a magnetelecttric vibrational viscosimeter with the working range of 16-100 Hz was produced. It was found that gradient relationship of specific viscosity coincides within the measuring error with the frequential relationship of actual component of specific viscosity at dynamic measurements. The influence of the alternating force with the frequency f is equivalent to the effect of stationary applied force producing the gradient g=k with f, where k=3,2 plus or minus 0,4.


Nuragic Sardinia is the only Italian region where later prehistoric standing monuments identified specifically as cult buildings have survived. In fact, the many monumental cult complexes, built during the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, which were often related to rituals that implied the use of water, are the most visible expressions of Nuragic religious behaviors. The most common category is undoubtedly that directly linked to water cult activity, sacred wells, and springs, architectural features that give access to surface water or underground aquifers. The variety of monuments attested is particularly rich and varied, including not only sacred wells and springs but also rectangular‐plan buildings (so‐called megaron temples), straight and curvilinear plan buildings, and purely circular ones, with or without vats. Water sanctuaries are the places where Nuragic religiosity was performed and the power and wealth of Nuragic communities, were shown through the monumentality of structures, the elaborate stone decorations, and the presence of exclusive built‐in stone furniture and votive offerings. In fact, these sanctuaries are complexes articulated in structures of different types and sizes where large amounts of wealth, mainly tools, ornaments, weapons, and bronze figurines were accumulated as offerings.


In this paper, how to estimate residual useful lifetime (RUL) is discussed based on a model-based method when fluctuations exist in the degradation process around its average behavior. The main idea is to model the degradation process as a time-dependent Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process, where the first passage failure is adopted to consider corresponding RUL estimation. The time-dependent OU process is proved good by its statistical properties on the controllable mean, variance, and correlation. Its mean-reverting property is introduced to interpret temporary correlated fluctuations from an overall degrading trend in degradation records. The corresponding parameter estimation is proposed based on the maximum likelihood estimation method, and a Volterra integral equation of second kind with a non-singular kernel is then considered to calculate the probability density function (pdf) of failure time. Proposed methods are tested in a case study, where results are compared with a nonlinear-drift, linear-diffusion process.


A well-functioning regional innovation system involves a lot of communication and interaction among the actors. However, sometimes the communication and interaction create tensions impeding regional development. In order to explore the reasons behind this, this study looks at the relationships between key stakeholders in the Twente Region in the Netherlands. The region has an established reputation for innovation and entrepreneurship, a high inter-connectedness between the actors, and a strong knowledge infrastructure. The research focuses on the University of Twente as a key actor contributing to regional growth in close cooperation with various stakeholders. This is an introductory interview-based case study that identifies four areas of tension between the university and its regional stakeholders. Our inquiry sheds light on the misalignment of stakeholders' interests and expectations that lessens the actors' capacity for policy formulation and strategic agenda setting, as well as hinders its successful translation into action. Then, the absence of clear intermediaries significantly increases the perceived distance between the University of Twente and the Twente region and impedes the university's collaboration with companies outside the science and business park. Next, the tension of discontinuity highlights the complexities of human resources and personalised networks – their diversity, multidimensionality, and overlaps make it harder to synchronise action and enhance reciprocal benefits. The knowledge asymmetry between the parties further complicates their communication and weakens commitment. In the end, the paper offers a few ideas for action for academic leaders and regional policymakers.


Distance education has been an important research issue of multimedia computing and communication. Since the instructional activities are implemented on cyberspace, how to control behaviors of students and to increase the degree of communication awareness have been a challenging issue. We propose a system based on the scaffolding theory. Behaviors of students are supervised by an intelligent control system, which is programmed by the instructor under our generic interface. The interface is built based on virtual reality and real‐time communication technologies. Students and instructors have their individual avatars that are controlled by a video game like navigation. Those behaviors that violate virtual campus regulations are detected and interceptive actions are performed. The proposed system is implemented on a Windows system and can be used for general purpose of distance education.


EU through General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, stipulates to safeguard EU citizens fundamental rights by ensuring ethical, uninterrupted, big data sharing within and outside EU. Healthcare data is no exception to this. While dealing with big data, healthcare providers, Big Data Analysts(BDAs) and government bodies have collectively realized that patients values are to be prioritized for patients optimal value care and for an efficient healthcare system at large. To ensure patients value care, privacy, inter alia, is incorporated both by design within each domain's data base and by policy via international, pan-European and national laws and regulations. This also became viable by standardizing the Information Security Management System (ISMS) indicators for healthcare providers and regulators alike. Lack of standard respective metrics for each privacy assuring parameter, constrains privacy from becoming an objective value object for each value actor. Still, privacy can be seen transforming from being a subjective value for each value actor to a (subjective) value object in healthcare setup. To confirm this concept, this paper is based on two value models. Both models are built using E3- value kit on the guidelines of Padlock Chain Model in a Dutch healthcare setting. First model is built to represent the current state of privacy protecting data/information sharing between patients and healthcare providers (from the patients perspective). Later, the focus is drawn upon the privacy assuring bilateral relationships between Lab (biobank and bio-depositary) and other key value actors. In future our endeavor will be to quantitatively measure privacy by design constituents i.e. Minimization, Enforcement and Transparency at the backdrop of privacy by policy (ISMS) indicators i.e. availability, integrity, confidentiality and accountability. Experts opinions are included to evaluate the viability of the model discussed for privacy-ensuring healthcare data sharing both on healthcare sector and on technical grounds.


The plans to develop the ASA BRANCA OFFSHORE WINDPOWER PROJECT were envisioned a long time ago, by 2001, after a great drought in Brazil, as reported in the Historical Scenario of this article, aiming at providing the National Grid with larger clean energy sources by means of offshore wind power plants. Its initial phase shall start by 2025 with 720 MW of installed capacity on the Brazilian Northeast coast. Today, it represents a challenging project since its implementation will be the largest pioneer offshore generation not only in Brazil, but also in the southern hemisphere at the tropical environment near the equator. The feasibility studies indicate the higher capacity factor of this Project that accrues from the known trade winds on this region blowing steadily toward the equator from the southeast.
 The Project presented herein shall be the first phase of a much larger Offshore Wind Farm development that EÓLICA BRASIL has defined and presented to the Brazilian Authorities. This Phase-I has received permits to be installed at the sea near shore in the Municipality of Amontada, in an area that spans 15 km along the coast of Ceará State and at about 9 to 18 km distance of from the seashore.
 In this region, there are more than 6 GW of onshore wind power plants installed or planed along the coasts of the Northeast Region at Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte States, distributed in hundreds of small and medium onshore generations very near the seashore. The successful operational experience of those projects is a significant indication of the unexplored offshore windpower potential available on this Brazilian coastal region, so that it is included among the most promising regions in the world to produce bulk clean power, especially considering huge offshore windpower plants that will certainly be one of the main Brazilian contributions to reduce the risks from global warming. World's biggest companies, from hi-tech firms to large banks, are bracing for prospect that climate change could substantially affect their bottom lines yet within the next decade due to impacts that will be faced as the planet warms. Early estimates suggest that trillions of dollars may ultimately be at stake.
 The development of such enormous offshore potential of renewable energy, assured by existing both Brazilian legislation and official regulations, became technical and economic feasible in Brazil by applying the new conception of offshore wind turbine generators (WTGs) with unit ratings larger than 10 MW propelled by wind speeds faster than 10m/sec.
 This paper presents the main technical characteristics of the conceptual design of this pioneer Project in Brazil, including the basics of planning and feasibility studies as well as the foreseen scenarios for national power market for offshore wind generation on the horizon of the next decade (2021-2030).


The Balkan states have all responded to the EU's conditional offer of membership with domestic institutional and policy changes in line with the EU requirements. Yet, there is a remarkable variation among the countries from the region in terms of their formal sovereignty, both with regard to domestic governance independent of external actors (internal sovereignty) and internationally recognized status (external sovereignty). Does sovereignty affect the conditionality-compliance dynamic? The dissertation offers an explanation of how the statehood of a prospective EU member affects the policy and politics of conditionality at EU level and the politics of compliance at domestic level. It argues that in semi-sovereign countries, the EU conditionality can incur higher compliance costs as it can intervene in the sovereignty of an aspiring candidate suggesting a redefinition of internal and/or external statehood structures. The security nature of such interventions has an effect on the EU foreign policy behavior involving two agents of conditionality - the European Commission and the Council - and creating risks for inconsistency in EU policy execution. Domestic politics hold the key to compliance with sovereignty-sensitive conditions as the political space tends to be very fragmented and political opposition to EU conditions may arise. In countries where sovereignty is not contested, the EU conditionality prioritizes democratic and economic reforms, the politics of conditionality hides less dangers for incoherence as the EU is inclined to speak with one voice and the politics of compliance are more consensual rendering the compliance trend more sustainable. The dissertation employs the comparative method of analysis and examines the compliance patterns of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and Bulgaria as cases representing the full variation along the sovereignty variable. The argument is situated at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics. It extends the sovereignty debate in the International Relations (IR) literature to the specificity of the EU relations with the Balkan countries. In so doing it links the IR debate to the Europeanization literature exploring the EU's impact on domestic changes in EU candidate countries. Sovereignty as a variable is neglected in the Europeanization literature and this dissertation is an attempt to address this gap.


Fusarium head blight (FHB) of wheat is caused by a complex of pathogens with F. graminearum, F. culmorum, F. poae, F. avenaceum and F. tricinctum being the most common worldwide. Besides ears, the species have been isolated from wheat roots, foot, stems, ears and leaves. Greenhouse studies were carried out to investigate differences in susceptibility of wheat parts – leaves, stems, kernels and spikelets – to the five Fusarium species inoculated at midanthesis. Tissue susceptibility was assessed by establishing Fusarium spp. re-isolation frequency 20 days post inoculation. Additionally, FHB severity and effect of the disease on grain weight were assessed. Tissue susceptibility to the Fusarium isolates varied significantly (p ≤ 0.05) and was in decreasing order: spikelets (mean 83%), kernels (mean 79%), stems (mean 75%), and leaves (mean 31%). Fusarium graminearum and F. culmorum were re-isolated in the highest frequency from spikelets and kernels, respectively while the corresponding lowest reisolation frequencies were F. avenaceum and F. poae; and F. poae. Fusarium head blight was initiated earlier and progressed significantly faster (p ≤ 0.05) on plants inoculated with F. culmorum and F. graminearum than the other three isolates. Area under disease progress curve varied significantly (p ≤ 0.05) and decreased in the order: F. graminearum, F. culmorum, F. tricinctum, F. avenaceum and F. poae, respectively. All Fusarium isolates except F. poae caused a significant reduction in 1000-kernel weight with F. culmorum resulting in the highest (87%) reduction, compared to non-inoculated controls. Fusarium species infect vegetative wheat parts where they may survive between cropping cycles and contribute inoculum for FHB development in a subsequent crop.


Global environmental-change is evident, and undeniably it is mostly induced by anthropogenic activities. Several programs fuelling climate-change mitigation were lately implemented; all fostering specific and ambitious targets. Although some improvements were regionally observed, regrettably the expected results are in many cases still out of reach. Contemporaneously, societies experienced a proliferation of grass-roots initiatives calling for individual participation in fostering societal sustainable transition. Scholars advocate that bottom-up activities may outperform top-down policies in reaching sustainability; however, a methodological framework to intelligibly assess CBIs' impact on socio-ecological systems is still unexplored. This paper aims at: illustrating main caveats in assessing CBIs' environmental impacts, proposing a general methodological framework, presenting results from a pan-European research. Keywords: Environmental assessment; greenhouse gas emissions; community based intiatives; sustainable transition, sustainability, carbon footprint.


The majority of research on factors associated with women participation in physical activity (PA) has been in developed countries with limited research in developing countries. Few women in Malaysia are active at the recommended levels for health, and activity rates are less than developed countries. Little research has focused specially on physically active Malaysian women and the factors that contribute to them becoming and staying active in PA programs. This lack of knowledge hinders the tailored development and implementation of PA programs to meet their needs. The aim of this study was to identify the factors of participation in PA programs for Malaysian women. The social-ecological model was used to investigate and theme the factors. Focus group discussion was conducted with participants in six PA programs targeted specifically to women. Thirty-seven women were involved in the focus group discussion, with ages ranging from 19 to 82 years. Inductive and deductive content analysis was conducted from verbatim transcripts using NVivo. Inductive content analysis allowed raw data and second-order themes to emerge. Findings revealed social support structures, tailored programs for women, and location were key contributors that encouraged women to participate in these programs. The similarity in contributors between women in non-western and western countries signifies a prime opportunity for bi-lateral relationships to be formed to enable the enhancement of program development relevant to different ethnicities and cultures within or across countries.


A review was made of 177 cerebral palsied patients previously included in a follow-up study, concerning whom reasonably detailed information was available as to type, intensity and duration of physical therapy and similar treatment. These patients had all been followed until at least the age of 14 years. Seventy-four had been accidentally or intentionally untreated, and the status of this group at the time of follow-up examination was compared with 103 subjected to intensive physical therapy, with or without bracing and orthopedic surgery. Comparison could be made with original or serial motion pictures, which were available of 132 of the patients. The original composition of the treated and untreated groups was comparable as to type and severity of involvement, mild and severe cases being considered separately. The groups were also comparable as to intelligence, except that the untreated group contained a much higher percentage of mentally defective persons, who would have been expected to do proportionately less well according to published reports. Patients with spastic hemiparesis appeared to develop at least a good quality of locomotion with or without treatment, if the original involvement was mild. Among those with originally moderate or severe hemiparesis, the treated group had relatively better gait and also had fewer contractures. The alleged danger of inducing stuttering or epileptic fits by treatment of a hemiparetic arm appears not to be genuine. The treated group had no greater frequency of stuttering and a much lower frequency of epilepsy (this latter finding is probably based on the high correlation between mental defect and epilepsy, the untreated group including more defectives). Forced preferential use of the hemiparetic hand for uni-manual activities, however, is another matter and is obviously a source of frustration and possibly a factor in stuttering. The ultimate status of the patients with spastic tetraparesis was generally poorer than that of those with hemiparesis. Nevertheless, it appears that quality of gait can be improved and contractures lessened by physical therapy and functional training, for both unilateral and bilateral spastics. The percentage of patients eventually subjected to orthopedic surgery was not much lower in the group receiving intensive physical therapy from infancy. The ultimate gait and hand function of the intensively treated patients with extrapyramidal types of unwanted movement were not essentially different from those untreated. Contractures occurred only infrequently in patients with pure choreoathetosis but were proportionately more common if there was hyperreflexia, an extensor plantar response, ankle clonus, or frank spasticity as in a mixed type of palsy. The methods of physical therapy were mostly stretching exercises and functional training; no claim is made that the patients might not have done better with other methods of therapy. Many of these methods depend on unproven physiologic hypotheses, however, and should be evaluated by comparison with similar untreated patients and not merely with the prior status of the same patient. The tendency of children to improve in co-ordination and function with increasing age must be distinguished from the effect of treatment. The data presented are somewhat discouraging, at least for patients with athetosis and dystonia, but are also a challenge for the development of more effective methods of treatment. At present they suggest that if the number of physical therapists and the number of hours of physical therapy available are limited, they are best applied to the prevention of contracture and the improvement of gait in patients with unilateral or bilateral spasticity. The results in patients with hyperkinetic disorders of movement such as athetosis and dystonia appear less rewarding for the number of hours devoted to them than is the case in the treatment of spasticity. It is nevertheless obvious, and freely acknowledged, that a trial of intensive physical therapy for a reasonable period is usually advisable in the interest of the future peace of mind of the patient and of his parents, and perhaps most particularly if the physician in charge believes the end-result is likely to be poor. Such trials are necessary, but in the interest of honesty and economy of effort should be undertaken with the frank recognition that they are, in fact, experimental trials and should be subject to periodic reappraisal.


Heart is the most important organ of a human body. Through blood, it transfers oxygen and vital nutrients to the various parts of the body and helps in the metabolic activities and it removes wastes of metabolic. Thus, even minor problems in heart can affect the whole organism. Researchers are diverting a lot of data analysis work for assisting the doctors to predict the heart problem. So, an analysis of the data related to different health problems and its functioning can help in predicting with a certain probability for the wellness of this organ. In order to assist the physicians, identification of heart disease by machine learning and data mining technique has been implemented. Heart as one of the essential organ of the human body and with its related disease such as cardiovascular diseases accounts for the death of many in our society over the last decades, and also regarded as one of the most life-threatening diseases in the world. Today healthcare industry is rich in data however poor in knowledge. There are different data mining and tools and algorithms of ML are available for extraction of knowledge from data storeand to use this knowledge for more accurate diagnosis and decision making. The main contribution of this review is tosummarize the recent research with comparative results that has been done on heart disease prediction and also make analytical conclusions. From the study, it is observed Naive Bayes with Genetic algorithm; Decision Trees and ANN techniques enhance the accuracy in predicting heart disease in different scenarios.


We model annual low pay transition probabilities taking account of three potentially endogenous selections: two sample drop-out mechanisms (panel attrition, non-employment) and 'initial conditions' (base-year low pay status). This model, and variants that ignore one or more of these selection mechanisms, are fitted to data for men from the British Household Panel Survey. Tests of the ignorability of the endogenous selection mechanisms suggest that 'economic' selection mechanisms such as initial conditions and retention of employment are more important than the 'survey' selection mechanism (attrition). However, consistent with related US research, relatively simple models provide estimates of covariate effects that differ little from the estimates from the complicated models.


Rapidly discovering, sharing, integrating and applying geospatial information are key issues in the domain of emergency response and disaster management. Due to the distributed nature of data and processing resources in disaster management, utilizing a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to take advantages of workflow of services provides an efficient, flexible and reliable implementations to encounter different hazardous situation. The implementation specification of the Web Processing Service (WPS) has guided geospatial data processing in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) platform to become a widely accepted solution for processing remotely sensed data on the web. This paper presents an architecture design based on OGC web services for automated workflow for acquisition, processing remotely sensed data, detecting fire and sending notifications to the authorities. A basic architecture and its building blocks for an automated fire detection early warning system are represented using web-based processing of remote sensing imageries utilizing MODIS data. A composition of WPS processes is proposed as a WPS service to extract fire events from MODIS data. Subsequently, the paper highlights the role of WPS as a middleware interface in the domain of geospatial web service technology that can be used to invoke a large variety of geoprocessing operations and chaining of other web services as an engine of composition. The applicability of proposed architecture by a real world fire event detection and notification use case is evaluated. A GeoPortal client with open-source software was developed to manage data, metadata, processes, and authorities. Investigating feasibility and benefits of proposed framework shows that this framework can be used for wide area of geospatial applications specially disaster management and environmental monitoring.


The culture is undoubtedly the proto-task of education (Confucius), the oldest and classical issue of every planned activity that we call schooling. Due to numerous circumstances and evident reasons, the culture is on the way of becoming marginally represented in order of importance in relation to other functions and tasks of contemporary school. The special threat is the simplification of culture to some manifest and technical forms which do not essentially represent the basic dimensions of a concrete ethnical culture and its identity. This threat has been noticed during the last decade in all the systems which emphasize the competitive role of school and insist on a high quality of knowledge, whose definition is questionable in several ways. Besides the critical approach to such a reality, to which many scientists and some UNESCO's materials have drawn attention, the author points to the necessity and possibility of adequate exploration and solution of the issue of culture within the realms of actual changes in Croatian education. One of the many possible and variable routes for the adequate solution of the issue of culture in contemporary school is more precise and reliable definition of many questions directly or indirectly related to identity. The cultural identity is nowadays changing faster than ever before (globalization, homogenization, unification, cultural relativism, etc.), resulting in constant and unpredictable changes in derivations from this identity, such as cultural profile, cultural dimensions, cultural characteristics (ontoculture, phyloculture) and, by all means, the culture of knowledge as the new determinant of information society. The basic problem of this study comes down to identification of some determinants pointing to the possible direction of school activities with the purpose of achieving desirable qualities of individual culture as well as of culture in community.


Ba2Ti9O20 (B2T9) and BaTi4O9 (BT4) ceramics have been fabricated using sol-gel technique. The sol-gel derived powder was produced from barium acetate and butyl titanate using acetic acid as solvent. The as-prepared powders were then calcined at different temperatures ranging from 600° to 1200°C. After that, the powder was pressed into pellets and further sintered at different temperatures ranging from 1250°C to 1380°C. XRD characterization and Raman spectroscopy showed that after calcining the sol-gel powder at 900°C for 2 h and sintering the pressed pellets at 1330°C for 4 h, triclinic B2T9 and orthorhombic BT4 ceramics could be obtained. The dielectric constant and Q-value are 35 and 1910 at 6.1 GHz.


This paper argues that temporal interpretation in Tagalog is driven not simply by aspectual information, but also makes use of top-down discourse information. It is demonstrated here how discourse relations play a role in constraining temporal interpretation, given that Tagalog does not grammatically encode tense, which results in temporal vagueness. Using Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (Asher & Lascarides, 2003), show how temporal information of events is derived from discourse, by determining what type of discourse relation holds across two propositions. A detailed application of how this machinery works is given, explaining how world knowledge affects the temporal interpretation process.


Environmental issues which have negative impacts on environment, social, and economy, imply a need for sustainability practices. As the concept of sustainability is broad, this study focuses only on the environmental aspect, particularly green practices. It aims to examine the influence of institutional pressures, namely coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures on the adoption of green initiatives, and the extent of green adoption in Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs). A questionnaire survey was
conducted on all 921 PLCs in Bursa Malaysia. The data from 120 usable questionnaires were analysed using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that the adoption of green initiatives in PLCs is significantly influenced by coercive and normative
pressures, while mimetic pressure does not influence the adoption of green initiatives in PLCs. Theoretically, this study contributes to management accounting and environmental management literatures in the context of green practices towards environmental sustainability. It also provides empirical evidence to practitioners on the need to understand the key drivers of green initiatives for them to meet the challenges on green issues and to derive the best results from implementation of the initiatives.
Regulatory authorities or policy makers may facilitate more extensive adoption of green initiatives by providing more financial incentives for technical resources and training.


This essay examines the phenomenon of typicality as a horizon of the novel's activity. The novel's manner of representing seems to require a certain belief in the existence of types. Yet how the novel goes about demonstrating this belief does not sit easily with usual ideas about what classification looks like or how it proceeds. Novels seem to manifest typicality while pulling away from taxonomic endeavors in the empirical world. If taxonomy aims at systematically arranging things in order to express how they are related to each other, typicality in the novel proceeds differently. Instead of linking typicality to quantitative occurrence, this essay examines how it asserts itself through a kind of representational intensity that can shift from one mode or object to another and take different forms. This intensity comes about not so much through description, or through the accumulation of detail, as through a kind of supercharged observation and modulations of narrative pace and speed. If taxonomy ends in an array, the novel's typicality manifests itself more phenomenologically and affectively, through sentiments and hard-to-define sensations that include those of decline and deficiency, of something missing or of something running down. There is also a phenomenon that occurs when types suddenly disclose themselves in all their fullness; such an event can even bring the narrative to a halt. This essay focuses on the question of how types appear, or, in other words, the phenomenology of the novel as form.


Agriculture, like other economic sectors in the developed world, has experienced significant structural change over recent decades as farm size, intensity, capitalisation and specialisation have dramatically moved from traditional to industrial configurations. From an historical perspective, the rate of change occurring in agriculture has varied from the imperceptible to the dramatic with many writers recognising three periods of great change or "agricultural revolutions" (Troughton 1986; Bowler 1 992). The developments of recent decades make up the latest of these revolutions. The first agricultural revolution, the prehistoric domestication of crops and animals and the development of the plough, resulted in farming replacing hunting and gathering as the basis of subsistence. With the second agricultural revolution, many centuries later, farming changed from subsistence to commercial modes of production in response to the growing urban markets arising out of the industrial revolution. This new commercial agriculture diffused rap idly to the areas of overseas colonisation including Canada where most agricultural settlement by Europeans was market-oriented from the start. The third period of dramatic change has occurred since about the Second World War and is referred to as "'agricultural industrialisation" or "agricultural restructuring" (Troughton 1982). Theory relating to agricultural restructuring suggests that changes in the spatialpatterns of agricultural activity have resulted from the restructuring process. While these spatial changes can be examined at many scales, the purpose of this research note is to analyse broad, Canada-wide, adjustments using provincial-level data for the post-war restructuring period from 1951 to 1991. Agricultural Reslructuring Tremendous diversity characterises Canada's geography contributing to on-going regional disparity problems. In most parts of the country, the first non-Native immigrants came in search of farmland. With very different technology and priorities compared to the present, they settled many land types including the southern Shield, the uplands throughout the Maritime provinces and the northern Clay Belts, areas that are now considered agriculturally unsuitable. These regions, which have all experienced precipitous declines in agricultural activity over the twentieth century, illustrate the increasing relative disadvantage of certain locations and environments associated with recent agricultural restructuring (Mandale 1984; Parson 1979, 1990; Troughton 1982-83, 1988). Many theories of the agricultural restructuring process in developed countries have been proposed (Pierce 1994). These theories take large to small scale approaches and examine the contribution of political, economic or individual factors in reshaping the structure and role of agriculture in the context of broader economic change. An important theme in this work relates agricultural change to the productivity gains resulting from the substitution of capital for labour (Hayami and Ruttan 1985). In terrelated is the growing significance of agribusiness as agriculture has become an increasingly international pursuit (Commins 1990; Found 1996; LeHeron 1993). Although regional and local markets still exist in urban-centred locations (Bryant and Johnston 1992), the development of global food systems means that many small producers with limited resources are increasingly marginalised. With restructuring, agriculture has become increasingly intensive, spatially concentrated and specialised (Bowler 1992). Intensification, the increased use of off-farm inputs including machinery, chemicals, hybrids and technology, has resulted in significantly higher per hectare output and in capital replacing labour. Farmers who cannot afford to adopt these new technologies or whose land is unsuited, enter a cyclical downward spiral and eventually go out of business (Beattie et al 1981). Concentration, a related outcome, translates into farm production increasingly focused on fewer, larger farms in the most productive regions. …


Advanced assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) are established treatment for severe male-factor infertility. The risk of transmitting existing genetic abnormalities to offspring through assisted reproduction has been a particular concern in male infertility cases due to Y-chromosome microdeletion, congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens and Klinefelter's syndrome, because these conditions generally required ICSI to achieve pregnancy. In addition, earlier studies raised the concerns of increased spontaneous abortion rate and chromosomal abnormalities with IVF and ICSI. Recently, well designed, large scale, population based studies concluded that assisted reproductive technology accounts for a more than a two-fold increase in the risk of low birth weight and major birth defects. Taken together, the bulk of the literature on the genetic risks of assisted reproduction highlights the importance of adequate pretreatment genetic evaluation and counselling. Furthermore, it is important to have proper infertility evaluation to identify and treat reversible causes of male-factor infertility that would allow couples to conceive naturally or opt for less invasive assisted reproductive technology.


Deep networks face challenges of ensuring their robustness against inputs that cannot be effectively represented by information learned from training data. We attribute this vulnerability to the limitations inherent to activation-based representation. To complement the learned information from activation-based representation, we propose utilizing a gradient-based representation that explicitly focuses on missing information. In addition, we propose a directional constraint on the gradients as an objective during training to improve the characterization of missing information. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we compare the anomaly detection performance of gradient-based and activationbased representations. We show that the gradient-based representation outperforms the activation-based representation by 0.093 in CIFAR-10 and 0.361 in CURE-TSR datasets in terms of AUROC averaged over all classes. Also, we propose an anomaly detection algorithm that uses the gradient-based representation, denoted as GradCon, and validate its performance on three benchmarking datasets. The proposed method outperforms the majority of the state-of-the-art algorithms in CIFAR-10, MNIST, and fMNIST datasets with an average AUROC of 0.664, 0.973, and 0.934, respectively.


Multi-agent systems (MAS) are collections of autonomous computational entities (the agents) capable of pro-actively pursuing goals and re-actively adapting to environment change. Agents in MAS exploit their social abilities, interacting with peers, and their situated capabilities as well, by perceiving and acting on the world around them. From distributed computing to intelligent systems, the relevance of agents and MAS as software abstractions is steadily growing as they are extensively and increasingly used to model, simulate, and build heterogeneous systems across a huge variety of diverse application scenarios and business domains, ranging from industrial manufacturing to robotics, from social simulation to applications, and more. The recent, renewed popularity of AI techniques has further spread the adoption of MAS, focusing in particular on the cognitive capabilities of agents, so that intelligent systems can be modelled and built as MAS. Along those lines, this Special Issue gathers five contributions that well represent the many diverse advancements that are currently ongoing in the MAS field.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether patients with early primary progressive multiple sclerosis show changes in T1 relaxation time (T1-RT) in normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) and normal-appearing gray matter (NAGM) during 2 years and whether T1-RT at baseline predicts disability.

METHODS
Twenty-one patients and 12 control subjects were studied at baseline and after 2 years. Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC) scores were assessed. T1 relaxation time histograms of NAWM and NAGM were obtained in all subjects, and mean, peak height, and peak location of the histograms were measured. Paired t tests were used to compare baseline and 2-year histogram values in patients and control subjects. To investigate whether T1-RT predicted clinical changes, multiple linear regression analysis was used.

RESULTS
Patients showed increases in NAWM and NAGM T1-RT mean and peak location during follow-up, and significant decreases in NAWM and NAGM peak height. Baseline NAWM T1-RT mean values and peak height predicted disability at 2 years, as measured with the Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite score.

CONCLUSION
T1 relaxometry is a good marker of disease progression and has prognostic potential in primary progressive multiple sclerosis.


BACKGROUND
The widespread use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) for COPD treatment has been questioned. Recent studies of weaning some patients with COPD off ICSs found little or no adverse consequences compared with long-acting bronchodilators. It is unclear, however, whether discontinuation of ICSs reduces the elevated risk of pneumonia associated with these drugs.

METHODS
Using the Quebec health insurance databases, we formed a new-user cohort of patients with COPD treated with ICSs during 1990 to 2005 and followed through 2007 or until a serious pneumonia event, defined as a first hospitalization for or death from pneumonia. A nested case-control analysis of the cohort was used to estimate the rate ratio of serious pneumonia associated with discontinuation of ICS use compared with continued use, adjusted for age, sex, respiratory disease severity, and comorbidity.

RESULTS
The cohort included 103,386 users of ICSs, of whom 14,020 had a serious pneumonia event during 4.9 years of follow-up (incidence rate, 2.8/100/y). Discontinuation of ICSs was associated with a 37% decrease in the rate of serious pneumonia (rate ratio [RR], 0.63; 95% CI, 0.60-0.66). The risk reduction was rapidly evident, going from 20% in the first month to 50% by the fourth month after discontinuation. The risk reduction was particularly marked with fluticasone (RR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.54-0.61) but less so with budesonide (RR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.78-0.97).

CONCLUSIONS
Discontinuation of ICS use in COPD is associated with a reduction in the elevated risk of serious pneumonia, particularly so with fluticasone.


Background Following a so called evidence-based planning (EBaP) process in 2013 where a series of consultation with stakeholders were undertaken, Davao City moved to strengthen their Nutrition Program by launching an equity focused Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) initiative. The EBaP uses the bottleneck analysis (Tanahashi Model) as basis of analysis. This process showed that acute malnutrition remains significant in the city and that the distribution of malnutrition is unequal with certain districts bearing malnutrition rates that rank as 'serious' according to the WHO Crisis Classification scale. The IMAM initiative was supported by UNICEF and ACF International and was integrated in the local health system. Objectives This analysis aims to present the progress made in implementing IMAM in Davao City and to document the key implementation framework, key successes and highlight constraints to guide scale-up of the management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in the Philippines. Methods This case study was undertaken by the Davao City Nutrition Division and UNICEF in partnership with ACF International between April to December 2014. In documenting this initiative, project documents were reviewed and analysed. Key informant interviews among patients, health providers, local officials and other stakeholders were conducted as well as validation site visited. Result As a result of the EBaP analysis, the City Health and Planning Office' s Annual Operations Plan (AOP) nutrition budget for 2014 increased from PhP 6.5 to PhP 11.5 million primarily focused on implementing lifesaving IMAM services. This resulted to the screening of 83,441 children (6–59 months) and the treatment of 236 children with SAM through 577 trained health workers and 176 outpatient therapeutic outpatient therapeutic program (OTP) sites from January to December 2014. Some of the facilitating factors towards this initiative include the use of an evidence-based planning process, extensive advocacy amongst different stakeholders, support of local decision-makers and partnership and coordination of the different stakeholders. At the same time, there are factors which hindered this implementation such as lack of incentives for health workers, the need for a more sustainable health financing and the need to strengthen the health system as a whole. Addressing the roots of malnutrition concurrently with this program is also imperative. Conclusion Malnutrition is a problem not only in the traditional emergency context of a middle income country but also in urban settings. Guided by EBaP analysis, the implementation of IMAM in Davao presents a framework for planning, budgeting and implementation of IMAM programmes with identified challenges and enabling factors for guiding the scaling up of PIMAM in the Philippines especially in the urban settings context.


ABSTRACT A detailed picture of the electronic states manifolds of single- and double-vacancy defects in molecular models of graphene based on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is presented. DFT calculations using various density functionals including long-range corrected ones have been performed for pyrene, circumpyrene and 7a,7z-periacene. It has been found for pyrene defect models that DFT results reproduced well the set of closely-spaced singlet and triplet states predicted by the CCSD(T) and previous MRCI + Q calculations, indicating the applicability of DFT for accessing the excited states manifolds also for larger graphene models. For the single-carbon vacancy defect, all structures have a triplet ground state. As expected, in the largest system, 7a,7z-periacene-1C, the lowest lying states are much closer in energy. For all double-vacancy defect structures, a significant rearrangement of the electronic states with increasing size of the sheet is observed. The closed-shell 1Ag state in the smallest systems is destabilised in the extended 7a,7z-periacene system, which has the 3B2u state as the ground state. As observed for the single-vacancy defect, the lowest lying states are closer in energy for the larger systems, since there are more π orbitals close in energy available. For all states, the formation of the bridging bonds for the double vacancy leads to distances shorter than for the single vacancy defect indicating a larger rigidity of the former structure which does not allow stronger distortions. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


Introduction Tendinopathy is a common musculoskeletal condition that is prevalent in both the sporting and sedentary population, and Achilles tendinopathy (AT) has a higher prevalence than any other tendinopathy site (de Jonge, 2011). The annual incidence of Achilles tendinopathy has been estimated at 9% in top level runners (Lysholm, 1987) and elite long distance runners have a lifetime risk of 52% (Kujala, 2005). Clinically, tendinopathy presents with tendon pain with loading, tenderness on palpation and impaired function (Kountoris, 2007). Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) has exhibited a role in tendon healing via increasing nitric oxide, which in turn causes fibroblast proliferation, collagen synthesis, contraction of collagen lattices and local vasodilation (Paoloni, 2004; Murrell, 1997). The majority of research in the area of GTN and AT has been conducted by one group (Paoloni, 2004) but there is conflict in the literature, as the results have not been replicated (Kane, 2008). Methods A 32-year old male triathlete presented with a seven year history of Achilles tendinopathy which had failed conservative treatment. Tendinopathic changes were confirmed on MRI. The patient reported intermittent Achilles pain related to running and was unable to train or participate in running components of triathlons due to the Achilles pain. Swimming and cycling were pain-free. The patient had declined injection therapies and surgery. Local pain and stiffness were particularly noticed in the morning. Any attempts at running caused alteration of running technique, reduction in performance times and pain for three days thereafter. Initial presentation (Day 1) Initial examination revealed tenderness and palpable thickening in the mid-portion of the right Achilles. The following outcome measures were administered: Victoria Institute of Sports Assessment (VISA-A), Lower Extremity Functional Scale (LEFS) and Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) (Table 1). Repeat assessments were conducted at days 30, 60, 90 and 180. Treatment The option of using topical GTN patches as an adjunct to the exercise regime was discussed and the possible side effects were highlighted. The patient consented to this treatment. The GTN patch was prescribed by a consultant rheumatologist, and administered as outlined by Paoloni et al (2004), one quarter patch delivering 1.25 mg/day placed on the affected tendon and replaced daily, for 6 months. The patient also commenced a phased Achilles tendon loading programme (Silbernagel, 2007). Results The patient had made a complete recovery and was asymptomatic by day 180 (see table 1) and the affected Achilles was no longer tender on palpation. The patient had returned to running and triathlete training, running 7 km at a pace of 3 min 41 seconds per kilometre. Discussion The evidence to date suggests that GTN has a potential role in the treatment of tendinopathy as an adjunct to exercise. This case highlights the benefit of topical GTN as an adjunct to a specific exercise programme and as a treatment consideration for a triathlete with recalcitrant Achilles tendinopathy. Further trials would be useful in validating the role of GTN as a potential modality in the treatment of tendinopathy. Abstract 50 Table 1 Outcome measure scores from day 0 to day Day 1 Day 30 Day 60 Day 90 Day 180 VISA-A(0–100) 43 48 57 63 97 LEFS(0–80) 57 57 61 64 80 NRS(0–10) 5 3 2 2 0 References de Jonge, et al . BJSM. 2011;45 (13): 1026–28 Kountouris, et al. Best Practice & Res Clin Rheum. 2007;21 (2): 295–316 Kujala, et al . Clin J of Sp Med. 2005;15 (3): 133–35 Lysholm, et al . AJSM. 1987;15 (2): 168–71 Paoloni, et al . JBJS. 2004;86 (5): 916–22 Silbernagel, et al . AJSM. 2007;35 (6): 897–906


In many industries the tracking and tracing of products within the supply chain is required by law. Companies in the metal working industry exchange so-called material test reports, which specify the product's properties, the customer's requirements, and serve as an assurance between the supplier and the customer. Internet technologies have changed the way companies exchange information and conduct business. In the metal working industry companies can implement an intermediary platform and make the exchange of material test reports more efficient. Furthermore, a client application that allows the company to export test reports from their information system directly to the intermediary can significantly decrease the processing costs. This inter-organizational collaboration can render an increase in productivity for customers and suppliers. The main goal of the thesis is to analyze how companies in a supply chain can exchange documents with an intermediary over the protocol SOAP as well as support companies by showing a structured procedure for how to achieve security in a system using SOAP. SOAP is a platform independent XML-based communication protocol. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is of major importance in e-business applications, because of its platform, language, and vendor independent way of describing data. As a universal data format, it enables the seamless connection of business systems. SOAP does not provide any security and is usually implemented over HTTP, which allows it to pass through firewalls. Companies are only prepared to join an inter-organizational collaboration if IT-security is guaranteed. In the exchange of material test reports, security has two objectives. The first is to replace the handwritten signature in the paper-based document exchange. The second is to guarantee security for the material test reports as well as for the information intermediary. SOAP's extensibility model allows organizations to develop new extensions, which build upon the protocol and provide functions which aren't specified. Specifications for attachments as well as for security should be implemented in the electronic document exchange. To design a secure system, each security concept, such as confidentiality, authentication and integrity, can be analyzed in its context and the appropriate standard can thereafter be implemented.


Music recommender systems, commonly integrated into streaming services, help listeners find music. Previous research on such systems has focused on providing the best possible recommendations for these services' consumers, as well as on fairness for artists who release their music on streaming services. While those insights are imperative, another group of stakeholders has been omitted so far: the many other professionals working in the music industry. They, too, are (in)directly affected by music streaming services. Therefore, this work explores the perspective of music industry professionals. We present a study that addresses the role of streaming services and recommender systems in their jobs. Results indicate this role is significant. Furthermore, participants feel that music recommender systems lack transparency and are insufficiently controllable, for both customers and artists. Finally, participants desire that music streaming services take charge of increasing recommendation diversity, and variety in consumers' listening behavior and taste.