A Concise History of Christianity in Canada. Eds. Terrence Murphy and Roberto Perrin. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996. Henry John Cody. An Outstanding Life. D.C. Masters. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1995. Changing Roles of Women Within the Christian Church in Canada. Eds. Elizabeth Gillian Muir and Marilyn Whiteley. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Femmes et religions. Dir., Denise Veillette. Quebec: Corporation canadienne des sciences religieuses, Les Presses de l'Universite Laval, 1995. "Through Sunshine and Shadow": The Women's Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874-1930. Sharon Ann Cook. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995. The Work of Their Hands: Mennonite Women's Societies in Canada. Gloria Neufeld Redekop. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press for the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1996. Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America. P. Travis Kroeker. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995. Religious history has been one of the most vibrant fields in Canadian historiography over the past decade. It has been at the centre of discussions about modernization, with a particular focus on the question of secularization. The secularization debate is primarily concerned with the role or power of religion and churches in society. This emphasis has diverted attention away from how religion shapes individual lives, and it obscures how religion shapes many other themes in Canadian history. How religion intersects with questions of ethnicity, gender identification and class consciousness is now becoming a major interest to historians of religion.1 In particular, as the books I review here indicate, religious history is being integrated with gender, especially the experience of women, and ethnic identity. In other words, it is being integrated with the main currents of Canadian historiography. As the social history of religion emerges, the Church is no longer a prism to understand the religious past. The shift towards religious history also reflects important alterations in the Canadian religious landscape. As Terence Murphy concludes in the epilogue to A Concise History of Christianity in Canada, "the defining reality of contemporary Canadian society is pluralism, which includes not only ... religious diversity, but also recognition of tolerance of differing beliefs and customs as a basic societal value. Whatever the fortunes of the Christian churches they must live within a framework that precludes the sort of cultural authority they once enjoyed" (369). The move away from Church history parallels the decline of the historic "mainstream" churches and the emergence of many new religious movements. Religious beliefs that are not defined by adherence to a particular church or denomination play an important role in the contemporary religious landscape. With the current sensitivity to the diversity of the Canadian experience, any overarching religious paradigm has been shattered. The books under review are a good reflection of the diversity of subject matter in religious history and of the difficulty in defining a Canadian religious community or national religious experience. Instead of shedding light on what is distinctive about religion or church life in Canada, historians of religion in Canada now focus on how religion contributes to the many identities in Canada. The multi-authored A Concise History of Christianity in Canada is a good reflection of the emphasis on religion as opposed to Church and the integration of religious history with the main currents of social history. The volume is structured around the major landmarks in religious history. Key dates are 1840 for Quebec and 1854 for English Canada. In French-speaking Canada, 1840 marked the beginnings of religious revival. The Catholic church began a serious campaign to make French Canadians a truly Catholic people. …


PURPOSE Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) controls the expression of genes in response to hypoxia, as well as a wide range of other cellular processes. We previously showed constitutive stabilization of HIF-1alpha in the majority of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). To our knowledge, the prognostic significance of HIF in lymphoma has never been investigated. PATIENTS AND METHODS We studied the immunohistochemical protein expression of HIF-1alpha on tissue microarrays from 153 patients with DLBCL treated in sequential cohorts with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, oncovin, and prednisone (CHOP) or rituximab-CHOP (R-CHOP) from 1999 to 2002. Results were correlated with patient outcome. Results Median follow-up for all patients was 80 months. Among all patients, HIF-1alpha was expressed in 62% of germinal center and 59% of non-germinal center patients. With HIF-1alpha analyzed as a dependent variable, there were no survival differences in CHOP-treated patients. In the R-CHOP group, however, HIF-1alpha protein expression correlated with significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Five-year PFS for HIF-1alpha-positive patients was 71% v 43% for HIF-1alpha-negative patients (P = .0187), whereas 5-year OS was 75% and 54%, respectively (P = .025). In multivariate analysis with International Prognostic Index criteria, HIF-1alpha remained a significant predictor for PFS (P = .026) and OS (P = .043). Compared with other biomarkers, HIF-1alpha correlated only with BCL6 (P = .004). In terms of gene expression, we found several common gene associations of HIF-1alpha and the stromal-1 signature with genes predominantly involved in regulation of the extracellular matrix (eg, BGN, COL1A2, COL5A1, and PLOD2). CONCLUSION The expression of HIF-1alpha protein is an important independent favorable prognostic factor for survival in patients with DLBCL treated with R-CHOP.


There is an established research agenda on dissecting an article's components and their association with a journal's prestige. However, journals' titles and their overview, aim and scope (i.e. journal's mission statement – JMS(s)) have not been investigated with the same diligence. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive outlook of titles and JMSs' lexical structure and identify significant differences between journals prestige and type of access and their JMS content in the field of business, management and accounting (BMA), considering the field's experience in developing and applying mission statements. Titles and JMSs' structural analysis reflected current and critical discussion in BMA: a predilection for counterintuitive findings and information and communication technology (ICT) tools. JMSs expressed primarily target customers and markets. JMSs from reputable journals showed a higher betweenness for key-terms related to rigorous features. In contrast, JMSs of lower reputable journals highlighted indexing attributes. The Wilcoxon rank-sum and the Kruskal–Wallis tests showed significant differences in the JMSs' median diversity regarding the journal's type of access and best quartiles.


PURPOSE
Single-agent doxorubicin remains the standard treatment for advanced soft tissue sarcomas. Combining doxorubicin with standard-dose ifosfamide has not been shown to improve survival and is associated with a significantly increased toxicity; it is not known whether higher dose single-agent ifosfamide is superior to doxorubicin.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
This randomized prospective multicenter phase III trial was designed to compare progression-free survival of patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma receiving either regimen of standard doxorubicin 75 mg/m2 every 21 days, ifosfamide 9 g/m2 over 3 days continuous infusion, or ifosfamide 3 g/m2 per day in 3 hours over 3 days. The primary end point was progression-free survival. Secondary end points included overall survival, response rate, and toxicity.

RESULTS
The study included 326 patients. Grade 4 leukopenia, neutropenia, febrile neutropenia, and encephalopathy were more frequent in the ifosfamide arms. Progression-free survival, overall survival, and response rates were not significantly different between the three arms. An independent data monitoring committee reviewed the interim data and recommended early closure of the trial for futility (ie, no significant difference would be shown).

CONCLUSION
Single-agent doxorubicin remains the treatment of choice for patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma.


Participants in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) come from an incredibly diverse set of backgrounds and act with a wide range of intentions (Christensen 2013, Ho 2014). Interestingly, our own recent surveys of 11 MITx courses on edX in the spring of 2014 show that teachers (versus traditional college students) are a significant fraction of MITx MOOC participants. This suggests many ways to improve and harness MOOCs, including the potential arising from the collective professional experience of participants, opportunities for facilitating educator networks, MOOCs as a venue for expert-novice interactions, and possible added value from enhancing teacher experience through accreditation models and enabling individual teacher re- use of MOOC content. Here, we present data in detail from these teacher enrollment surveys, illuminate teacher participation in discussion forums, and draw lessons for improving the utility of MOOCs for teachers.


Many community mental health centers have had to operate with less funding in the past several years, especially since the advent of block grant funding. Evidence is now accumulating that some centers have had to decrease their overall level of services and staffing. Others have attempted to adjust by increasing their clinician caseloads, closing their satellite facilities, and de-emphasizing services that fail to generate adequate fees and third-party reimbursements, such as consultation and education, partial hospitalization, and programs for children and the elderly. In contrast, and partly as a result of the increased authority of the states over the community mental health centers program, services for the severely and chronically mentally ill appear to be receiving higher priority. This development will require that centers improve their access to the general health care sector, maintain and improve their relationships with academic institutions, and increase the number, responsibilities, and rewards of the psychiatrists they employ.


Background: Breast density has been found to be an independent risk factor for breast cancer. Mammographic breast parenchymal pattern or percent density is mainly a reflection of the proportion of glandular tissue to fatty tissue, and studies have shown that it works synergistically with other risk factors such as nulliparity in predicting breast cancer risk. This study analyses the various mammographic breast patterns and correlates this with some demographic variables and final Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System outcomes of asymptomatic women in our center. Materials and Methods: This is a prospective descriptive study of mammographic breast pattern in 459 females who presented at the breast imaging suite of our institution. Mammography was performed after completion of an assisted administered questionnaire for demographic information. A GE Senographe DMR machine using two standard views (craniocaudal and mediolateral oblique) and additional views were used when necessary. Results: A total of 459 women ranging in age from 34 to 80 years were included in the study, of which 46.6% were in the age range of 41 to 50 years. The scattered fibroglandular pattern was the most common pattern found (44%), and the homogeneous dense pattern was the least common (0.4%). A significant association with age and menopause status was found, while no association was found with age at the time of the woman's first delivery and family history of breast cancer. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that there is a significant association between breast cancer and age and menopause status. However, no correlation was found with the age of women at their first delivery and family history of breast cancer.


Abstract Voluntarism has moved to the centre of most western neo-liberal governments' focus in terms of welfare delivery. At the same time, very little of the social policy literature has identified specific historical, cultural and political contexts of place in shaping the particular form of voluntarism and the scale at which it takes place in a country. In order to address policy-related issues of the voluntary sector, a geographical perspective focusing on these local contexts can be very useful in unpacking how the sector can exist across regional and local scales. This article explores the rise of voluntarism in adult learning disability services in Ireland. Ireland experienced the 'community turn' much earlier than most Western states, in that the state advocated a 'hands-off' approach in learning disability services from the outset. It uses data from 40 interviews with local health agencies, voluntary organisations and informal carers. It critically examines the complex geographical factors that have contributed to the particular form of voluntarism that has evolved, thus demonstrating that understanding levels of voluntary activity requires attention to local circumstances.


Al-Saied Mohammed Al-Hasani Al-Baghdadi interpreted history in a philosophical jurisprudential way according to his pure religious culture. In addition, the works and readings from which we drew Al-Baghdadi view to history studied the history from a religious point of view in particular. He skipped out any work related to the origins of western history of all tendencies and schools. Accordingly, we comprehended that his views came to support our interest and understanding of our Islamic heritage in general and our Shiite heritage in particular. This does not imply that Al-Baghdadi adopts a methodological view to history more than an attempt to rewrite and correct the view to Islamic history in general. His purpose of theses attempts is to make the Islamic history related to the historical reality of the Islamic cause with all its stages and periods. By that he is confirming basic cases concerning the nature and purpose of this history on one hand and method of dealing with the Islamic historical records on the other hand which then became the base of our  understanding of this history.


Bioleaching/minerals biooxidation and bioremediation have been widely used commercially for heap/dump bioleaching of secondary copper sulfide ores, sulfidic-refractory gold concentrates and treatment of acid rock drainage. Technical and commercial challenges, identified in this paper, remain for bioleaching of primary sulfides and complex ores. New frontiers for the technology exist in processing massive sulfides, silicate-locked minerals and in the more distant future in-situ leaching. Decommissioning of cyanide heap leach operations and stabilizing mine wastes using biotechnology are opportunities requiring intensive and focused research, development and engineering efforts.


This is a special issue, consisting over 10 selected dissertations that were awarded in 3 genome analysis competitions (KOGO Young Scientist Best Paper Award, KNIH KARE Data Analysis Award, and KOBIC Bioinfor-matics Software Award), hosted by KOGO (Korea Genome Organization) in 2014. A dissertation (In-Pyo Baek et al.) on developing software that defines and visualizes phenotype-related single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) among whole SNVs through next-generation sequencing (NGS) won the grand prize for the KOBIC award, and the KNIH KARE award was given to the elucidation of epigenetic interactions of genes regulated by non-coding elements in complex diseases by Min Kyung Sung et al. The other 8 consist of dissertations regarding GAWS, genomewide classification of miRNA, and short-read phasing for constructing haplotypes in certain genomic loci that are associated with BMI. In addition, there are 4 review papers on diverse genome research issues. Dr. Feng Zhang's group of Fudan University reviewed the genomic architecture, synthesis mechanism, and biological roles of copy number variants. Dr. Hyun-Seok Park's group of Ewha Womans University reviewed the design of hidden Markov models and their application in solving various computational problems in epigenetics. Drs. Seon-Hee Yim and Yeun-Jun Chung reviewed current issues in direct-to consumer genetic testing. Dr. Perumal Elumalai reviewed the chemo-preventive potential of nimbolide for cancer treatment. Several genetic association studies in hyperuricemia, maturity-onset diabetes, BMI, and insulin levels will be interesting for readers. In silico characterization of a drug target candidate enzyme in legionellosis, rifampicin resistance mechanisms in tuberculosis treatment , and a study of phytochemicals for the treatment of type 1 diabetes will be useful information for researchers in this field.


Over the past few decades, there has been a growing interest in modelling of machining processes. In this regard, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is one of the latest methods used for that purpose. SPH is a powerful technique that can be used in handling problems of large deformation that are difficult to be tackled using traditional finite element methods. The current work aims to present and evaluate the use of SPH in modelling the machining process. A coupled thermo-mechanical analysis of a 3D model is performed using LS-DYNA to predict the cutting forces and residual stresses during orthogonal cutting of AISI 316L, at different sets of machining conditions. The Johnson-Cook material constitutive model is used to simulate the material behavior. The simulation results are validated by a previously published experimental work and compared to finite element model.


Neural language models are known to have a high capacity for memorization of training samples. This may have serious privacy im- plications when training models on user content such as email correspondence. Differential privacy (DP), a popular choice to train models with privacy guarantees, comes with significant costs in terms of utility degradation and disparate impact on subgroups of users. In this work, we introduce two privacy-preserving regularization methods for training language models that enable joint optimization of utility and privacy through (1) the use of a discriminator and (2) the inclusion of a novel triplet-loss term. We compare our methods with DP through extensive evaluation. We show the advantages of our regularizers with favorable utility-privacy trade-off, faster training with the ability to tap into existing optimization approaches, and ensuring uniform treatment of under-represented subgroups.


The aim of this double-blind, placebo-controlled study was to determine whether acute administration of almitrine enhances hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Haemodynamics and blood gases were studied at various inspiratory fractional concentrations of oxygen (FIO2): 0.15, 0.21, 0.30 and 1.0, randomly administered for 20 min periods under constant infusion of either placebo or almitrine (8 micrograms.kg-1.min-1) in 20 patients with COPD. The almitrine group exhibited a significant increase in mean pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance and arterial oxygen tension (PaO2) at FIO2 0.15, 0.21 and 0.30. During hypoxia, the increase in mean pulmonary pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance was three times greater in the almitrine group than the placebo group. No significant difference in cardiac output and systemic haemodynamics was found. These results suggest that almitrine at the dose used, enhances pulmonary vasoconstriction in COPD patients.


We present OSFormer, the first one-stage transformer framework for camouflaged instance segmentation (CIS). OSFormer is based on two key designs. First, we design a location-sensing transformer (LST) to obtain the location label and instance-aware parameters by introducing the location-guided queries and the blend-convolution feedforward network. Second, we develop a coarse-to-fine fusion (CFF) to merge diverse context information from the LST encoder and CNN backbone. Coupling these two components enables OSFormer to efficiently blend local features and long-range context dependencies for predicting camouflaged instances. Compared with two-stage frameworks, our OSFormer reaches 41% AP and achieves good convergence efficiency without requiring enormous training data, i.e., only 3,040 samples under 60 epochs. Code link: https://github.com/PJLallen/OSFormer.


Abstract.
 The mechanism that guides the formation of exceptionally preserved fossils with soft tissues variously displayed is a paramount challenge to paleontology. The key question for exceptional preservation is the nature of the slowdown of decay and acceleration of soft tissue mineralization. Here we report the experimental formation of subfossils of the brine shrimp Artemia salina (Crustacea, Branchiopoda), which were produced during 14 months of aging in a kaolinite clay sediment. EDS/SEM elemental analyses showed that the subfossils were preserved as thin clay-organic replicas that displayed fine anatomical details. Decomposition in the clay-colloidal solution established highly heterogeneous acidic conditions, with the lowest pH typically found in the vicinity of the buried organisms, and visually manifested in patchy coloration of the sediment. Elevated acidity is likely what ultimately slowed the decay. An acidic environment increases the rate of clay destruction and, consequently, the diffusion rate decline. As a result, the acidic products quickly accumulate around a buried body; this in turn inhibits bacterial proliferation, accelerates the acidic hydrolysis of clay and, accordingly, the release of tanning and mineralizing agents. The subfossils remained stable under experimental high pressure and temperature. These model subfossils exhibit features that are typical of some Lagerstätten fossils preserved in fine-grained sediments.


Neuronal inclusions in lower motor neurons in 23 cases of adult‐onset sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were studied immunocytochemically and ultrastructurally. Monoclonal and polyclonal antiubiquitin antibodies recognized four structures in the neuronal perikarya: (1) all Lewy body–like inclusions in 6 cases with a relatively short clinical course, (2) a small percentage of Bunina bodies in 4 cases with abundant Bunina bodies, (3) ill‐defined structures closely associated with Bunina bodies (Bunina body–related structures) in 15 cases, and (4) a focally aggregated meshwork of fine filamentous structures not associated with Bunina bodies in all cases. These four structures were not recognized by the antibodies raised against cytoskeletal proteins (neurofilament, tubulin, microtubule‐associated protein 2, and phosphorylated tau). Electron microscopy revealed Lewy body–like inclusions to be accumulations of randomly oriented filaments, approximately 15 nm in diameter, covered by fine granules. Bundles of coated filaments 12 nm in diameter that sometimes formed Bunina body–like structures were also observed in the perikarya. Immunoelectron microscopy showed the reaction product with antiubiquitin to be on the filaments, 15 nm in diameter, of Lewy body–like inclusions. Our study revealed the existence of two types of filaments in lower motor neurons of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: (1) ubiquitin‐positive, granule‐associated filaments, approximately 15 nm in diameter, that form Lewy body–like inclusions; and (2) 12 nm coated filaments that may be a candidate for another ubiquitin‐positive structure and possibly a precursor of Bunina bodies. These two types of filaments may represent early pathological changes of lower motor neurons in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.


We have investigated magnetotransport properties of YRh6Ge4, which was recently predicted to be a triply degenerate nodal semimetal. We find it exhibits remarkable signatures of a chiral anomaly, manifested by large negative longitudinal magnetoresistance, quadratic field dependence of magnetoconductance and planar Hall effect. Furthermore, we have also observed Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) quantum oscillations in the magnetoresistivity measurements on this material. The analyses of the SdH data reveal two point-like Fermi surfaces and these pockets are found to host nearly massless fermions. The small size of these Fermi pockets is in a good agreement with the theoretical prediction that the triply degenerate point in YRh6Ge4 is much closer to the Fermi level than previously demonstrated triply degenerate nodal semimetals such as MoP and WC. These results suggest YRh6Ge4 may serve as a model system to probe exotic properties of three-component fermions and understand their underlying physics. *email: firstname.lastname@example.com


Abstract We compared the cell species populations among two bodies of water and whether or not the pH levels, which were very similar, had any effect on this.  We hypothesized that the cell species populations, since the waters had very similar pH levels, would result in very similar species populations along with very similar cell diversity levels. By taking samples of both bodies of water, we observed small sub-samples of each under a microscope in order to identify the cells present in each sample. We found that even though both bodies of water presented very similar pH levels, the cells living in those samples differed greatly. We found that the Boomer lake sample contained Micrasterias and Closterium, along with much more, while the Dolese Outlet did not have either of these species; Dolese Outlet had both Staurastrum and Closterium while Boomer Lake did not.  We then waited two weeks and tested these two bodies of water again to compare the changes over the span of time.  Our hypothesis was therefore not completely supported.  Although both samples contained some of the same species, they also contained species that the other did not.  The cell density also varied greatly between these two samples while the cell diversity, which was calculated by using the Shannon index, were almost identical.  Overall, this comparative study will be beneficial when more in-depth studies are conducted over the relationship between pH levels and cell diversity.


We present an analysis of local properties of magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause for various interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) orientations in global magnetospheric simulations. This has heretofore not been practical because it is difficult to locate where reconnection occurs for oblique IMF, but new techniques make this possible. The approach is to identify magnetic separators, the curves separating four regions of differing magnetic topology, which map the reconnection X line. The electric field parallel to the X line is the local reconnection rate. We compare results to a simple model of local two‐dimensional asymmetric reconnection. To do so, we find the plasma parameters that locally drive reconnection in the magnetosheath and magnetosphere in planes perpendicular to the X line at a large number of points along the X line. The global magnetohydrodynamic simulations are from the three‐dimensional Block‐Adaptive, Tree Solarwind Roe‐type Upwind Scheme (BATS‐R‐US) code with a uniform resistivity, although the techniques described here are extensible to any global magnetospheric simulation model. We find that the predicted local reconnection rates scale well with the measured values for all simulations, being nearly exact for due southward IMF. However, the absolute predictions differ by an undetermined constant of proportionality, whose magnitude increases as the IMF clock angle changes from southward to northward. We also show similar scaling agreement in a simulation with oblique southward IMF and a dipole tilt. The present results will be an important component of a full understanding of the local and global properties of dayside reconnection.


The evolution of ambient intelligence systems has allowed for the development of adaptable systems. These systems trace user's habits in an automatic way and act accordingly, resulting in a context aware system. The goal is to make these systems adaptable to the user's environment, without the need for their direct interaction. This paper proposes a system that can learn from users' behavior. In order for the system to perform effectively, an adaptable multi agent system is proposed and the results are compared with the use of several classifiers.


This document introduces capabilities that allow YANG datastores to
reference and incorporate information from remote datastores. This is
accomplished by extending YANG with the ability to define mount points
that reference data nodes in another YANG subtree, by subsequently
allowing those data nodes to be accessed by client applications as if
part of an alternative data hierarchy, and by providing the necessary
means to manage and administer those mount points. Two flavors are
defined: Alias-Mount allows to mount local subtrees, while Peer-Mount
allows subtrees to reside on and be authoritatively owned by a remote
server. YANG-Mount facilitates the development of applications that
need to access data that transcends individual network devices while
improving network-wide object consistency, or that require an aliasing
capability to be able to create overlay structures for YANG data.


This thesis concerns the extensive study and comparison of two approaches commonly used to compute the aerodynamic forces with the unsteady vortex lattice method. The first approach was introduced by Katz and Plotkin and is based on Bernoulli's equations, the second approach was based Joukowski's equations for the computation of forces. This report is divided in two main sections: the study of one wing undergoing simple movements (steady, pure harmonic pitching and pure harmonic plunging) and the study of two separate wings undergoing a combination of flapping and pitching such as seen in avian flight. For the simple test cases, the results obtained with both methods of computation were first compared to an analytical solution for a (quasi) 2D case. Then the comparison of both methods was made for finite wings. For the 3D problem a convergence study was done with respect to the chordwise discretisation of the airfoils. This section showed that for all the cases, the two methods give almost the same answer and therefore they could be considered as equivalent. The convergence study realised for finite wings showed however that Joukowski's method converges quicker than Katz's for symmetric airfoils, but it is the other way around when it comes to cambered airfoils. The study of the flapping and pitching motion is based on the work of N. Abdul Razak in [2]. The influence of pitch leading was extensively studied as this phenomenon presents a flow attached at all time, so these kinematics are well suited for the vortex lattice method. Both pure flapping and pitch lagging were also discussed but more briefly. For pitch leading, the study showed that in general both methods give the same results for the drag and the lift. Moreover, the UVLM solutions were very close to the experimental ones, especially for the drag. The convergence showed a small advantage for the Katz method for the coarser meshes, but in the end both methods appear to reach convergence for the same discretisation.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to establish a synthetic evaluation index system of new socialist countryside (NSC) development at county level in China, and by which to evaluate the level of NSC construction among different regions in China. Then, some problems of rural development can be found and corresponding measures can be proposed, which could provide references for policymaking. Design/methodology/approach - First, from agricultural, rural and farmers' perspective, a preliminary index system which containing 44 indicators was put forward. Then, combining with a series of subjective and objective indicator screening methods, such as fuzzy synthetic evaluation, clustering analysis, correlation and variation coefficient analysis, the final index system containing 22 indicators was established. Third, combining with factor analysis, the final index system was used to evaluate the level of NSC construction in 28 counties of China in 2007. Finally, we calculated district factor scores by a model and gave an aggregate index ranking of different regions. Findings - NSC construction at county level is not well developed in China and there are significant geographical differences among different districts. First, NSC construction in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Hangzhou is relatively better. Second, NSC construction of East China is better than that of North China and Central China. Northeast of China is better than Southwest and Northwest. Third, NSC construction in municipalities is higher than non-municipalities. Rural development in Western regions of China needs to be paid special attention. Originality/value - A final evaluation index system including 22 indicators was designed. These indicators are complete, independent, weakly correlative and stable. The index system can be further applied to evaluate other regions' NSC development. The evaluation results can provide useful references for NSC reform in the whole nation.


Purpose: To compare the post operative inflammatory pattern after phacoemulsification in patients receiving intra-cameral injection of ceftazidime and cefuroxime per-operatively for the prevention of post-operative endophthalmitis. Study Design: Quasi experimental study. Place and Duration of Study: Ophthalmology Department Unit-1, Lahore General Hospital, Lahore from November 2016 to March 2018. Material and Methods: Patients undergoing phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation were divided into 2 groups by convenient sampling. Group A received Cefuroxime and group B received Ceftazidime both as 1 mg/0.1ml intra-cameral injections at the end of the routine surgery. The patients were examined pre and post operatively on slit lamp and the number of cells in the anterior chamber (A/C) were counted on first day, first week and 6 weeks after surgery. Results: Out of 260 patients there were 130 in each group. On the first post-operative day in group A there were grade 1 cells in A/C in 22 patients, grade 2 in 93 patients, grade 3 in 14 patients and Grade 4 in 1 patient. In group B there were grade 1 cells in A/C in 11 patients, grade 2 in 96 patients, grade 3 in 20 patients and grade 4 in 3 patients. After one week, in group A, cell counts were grade 0 in 27 patients while in group B, cell counts were grade 0 in 23 patients. After 6 weeks no patient in any group showed any activity in the anterior chamber. Conclusion: There is little difference in post operative inflammatory pattern of intracameral ceftazidime antibiotic prophylaxis as compared to intracameral cefuroxime. Key Words: Endophthalmitis, Cataract Surgery, Cefuroxime, Ceftazidime.


Polyaniline modified zinc oxide (PANI/ZnO) nanocomposite was synthesized by in-situ polymerization process. The as-synthesized nano-ZnO, PANI and PANI/ZnO nanocomposite were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FT-IR, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The UV–visible spectroscopy studies showed that the absorption peak for PANI/ZnO nanocomposite has a red shift toward visible wavelengths compared with the ZnO nanoparticles and PANI. Photocatalytic efficiency of PANI/ZnO nanocomposite was investigated for the degradation of methyl orange (MeO) dye as a model organic compound under Visible light irradiation. The photocatalytic activities of ZnO, PANI and PANI/ZnO nanocomposite were studied. The results showed that ZnO/PANI nanocomposite had greater photocatalytic activity than ZnO nanoparticles and PANI under visible light irradiation. According to these results, application of PANI as a shell on the surface of ZnO nanoparticles causes the enhanced photocatalytic activity of the PANI/ZnO nanocomposite. Influence of some operational parameters such as: amount of photocatalyst, pH of solution, and MeO dye initial concentration on the photodegradation reaction rate was investigated. The optimum values of pH and catalyst dose found to be 6 and 1.50 gmL -1 respectively. It was demonstrated that the photocatalytic degradation of MeO follows pseudo first-order kinetics. The PANI/ZnO nanocomposite photocatalysts have good photocatalytic stability and can be reused three times with only gradual loss of activity. Thus, the PANI/ZnO nanocomposites are efficient photocatalytic materials for degrading contaminated colored wastewater for reuse in textile industries under mild conditions. Keywords : PANI/ZnO Nanocomposite; Methyl orange; Visible light; photo-catalysis; Degradation rate constant


We introduce a new iterative scheme with Meir-Keeler contractions for strict pseudocontractions in -uniformly smooth Banach spaces. We also discuss the strong convergence theorems for the new iterative scheme in -uniformly smooth Banach space. Our results improve and extend the corresponding results announced by many others.


Creativity researchers have identified intrinsic motivation as the critical intervening process that explains the effects of contextual characteristics on individual creativity. Departing from this prevailing focus on intrinsic motivation, in the present study an alternative theoretical model was advanced based on the theory of planned behavior (TBP; Ajzen, 1991). Specifically, it was proposed that TPB-based psychological mechanisms (attitude toward creativity, creative self-efficacy, and creativity intention) would mediate the effects of contextual factors (leader encouragement and peer support) on individual creative performance. Multisource data collected at 3 time points from 386 students and their 28 instructors largely supported the hypothesized mediating role of creative self-efficacy. The current findings suggest a need to rethink the role of intrinsic motivation in the context-creativity link by identifying alternative psychological mechanisms.


INTRODUCTION
The purpose of the study was to explore the feasibility, identify challenges, and offer solutions to evaluating transfer of training to the operations setting.

BACKGROUND
The assumption underlying public health emergency preparedness training is competencies and capabilities will transfer to the operations setting. However, there are no studies describing methods for evaluating the transfer of training.

METHODS
An online training course that mimicked field decision making was selected. A functional exercise was developed and aligned with the goals and objectives of the online course. Transfer of training was assessed at the individual capability level and at the agency level by examining changes in emergency operating plans.

CONCLUSIONS
It was concluded the ability to evaluate transfer of training to an operations setting is feasible. However, it requires more deliberate and coordinated planning between the exercise and the training than the current status quo.

LESSONS LEARNED
Eight lessons learned are shared including the need to design training courses to align to an operation-based exercise, and not vice versa, the need to rely on qualitative approaches, and the need for an a priori evaluation rubric.


The texture development and the mechanical properties were investigated in a nanocrystalline Fe-50wt%Ni alloy fabricated by using an electrodeposition method. The as-deposited texture was characterized by a mixture of major <100>//ND and minor <111>//ND fibre components. Grain growth occurred in the specimen during annealing above 410oC, and resulted in the texture change that the <111>//ND fibre component developed strongly with decreasing <100>//ND fibre component. This texture evolution was attributed to the abnormally rapid growth of the <111>//ND grains, which became much coarser than the <100>//ND and other oriented grains in the fully annealed specimen.


Methods of how to introduce into a scene a priori known grid like structures in order to improve the conditions for image analysis are described. This is important for such cases when objects have to be detected and measured but due to the object characteristics, there is now a markable signal difference between the object and the given background. Translucent liquids or glass like objects represent such classes. Different types of structure detecting algorithms are proposed and discussed. Results are shown for industrial glass pearl measurement as well as for liquid (micro drops) detection in medical and pharmaceutical industries. The structuring approach follows the simple engineering idea to influence the scene conditions in order to improve the possibilities for scene analysis.


In patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), chronic inflammation on a background of established cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors is thought to contribute to atherosclerosis, resulting in the observed increased mortality from CVD.1

Recent studies suggest a role for interleukin-6 receptor (IL6R) in both CVD2 ,3 and RA.4 A functional, non-synonymous genetic variant found within the IL6R gene (rs2228145) conferring an amino acid change (Asp358Ala) influential in determining levels of soluble IL6R5 has been convincingly associated with both CVD occurrence2 ,3 and RA.4 This amino acid change within the IL6R gene has a similar effect to the RA therapy, tocilizumab, which targets the IL6R pathway, leading to an increase in IL6R and soluble IL6 levels, as well as a decrease in C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Although unlikely to be causal in disease,6 CRP levels …


A successful design accounts for the structure of the problem it is aimed at solving. When it is a human-directed design, this includes the expectations of its users. How do we arrive at such a design? One approach starts from first principles (e.g., simplicity, unity, symmetry, balance) to evaluate the quality of proposed designs. Here, we introduce design from zeroth principles, a form of human-in-the-loop computation that synthesizes a design that conforms to its users' expectations. The technique begins by constructing a transmission chain seeded with a random design. Each user in the chain is exposed to the design and then recreates it, passing along their recreation to the next user, who does the same. Through this iterative process, the users' perceptual, inductive, and reconstructive biases directly transform the initial design into one that is better fit to human cognition. Such designs are easier to learn and harder to forget. We evaluated the approach in three domains — stimulus–response mappings, vanity phone numbers, and letter placement in typeset words — and show that it produces a good design in each.


Sustainability has been growing consistently more popular in construction, with projects introducing innovative ideas to build greener every year. One material that has not experienced many innovations since emerging in building use is concrete. The reason behind this could be the chemical process of curing concrete being unique compared to most materials. While concrete can be broken down into some of its original components, water, cement, and admixtures used are not retainable. This makes it difficult to recycle the material, and the aggregates recovered from recycling also experience a loss in strength. With admixtures being involved in most concrete mixes today, it is hypothesized that a sustainable additive could be discovered to use in concrete for strength retainage. The review of literature focuses on modern concrete mixes, recycled aggregate, concrete admixtures, and marble powder. This research analyzes waste marble powder in concrete. Waste marble powder is a byproduct of marble processing and contains properties similar to cement. Experiments involving the use of both marble powder and recycled aggregate are carried out in the form of concrete cylinder batching and breaking over seven-day periods. Findings of this process show that marble powder could be a promising component of concrete upon further research.


With dynamic growth and acceptance of mobile devices, many innovative business applications are beginning to emerge. Tracking and tracing seems to be one of the popular applications which many organisations have initiated, often facilitated by location based services provided by mobile network operators. However, there are many issues associated with the provisioning of this application with current technologies and business models. Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) that make up a significant segment of businesses worldwide do not yet seem able to benefit widely from these services. In this chapter, we initially review current technologies/ applications and the issues associated with them, drawing from research and the experiences of a long term ongoing action research project with SMEs in the trade sector. Subsequently, we explore the opportunities offered by 3G services/business applications to SMEs, and provide a broad critical outlook on future opportunities for SMEs to benefit from 3G services.


Disputes by their nature involve contentious behavior. If one attributes such behavior to underlying personality traits, these attributions can be quite damning. The current research investigated negative trait attributions and their impact on dispute resolution decisions. We hypothesized that judging one's opponent to be low in agreeableness and high in emotionality (e.g. stubborn and volatile) shifts one's preference towards more formal procedures – formal in the sense that a third party judge controls the process and outcome. Drawing on the attribution literature, we hypothesized that two antecedents of these judgments (and consequent preferences) are the perceiver's level of prior information and the perceiver's cultural proclivity to explaining behavior in terms of personal dispositions. Results of an experiment measuring reactions to a hypothetical dispute found that prior information and culture (USA vs Hong Kong) increased trait attributions and preferences for formal procedures. Additionally, expectancy measures showed interaction effects suggesting that disputants dynamically construct expectancies in light of their personality impressions.


Cigarettes and other tobacco products contain bitter compounds including nicotine, which contribute to the chemosensory properties of tobacco and stimulate multiple sensory systems, including taste transduction pathways. Since bitter taste has evolved to identify potentially toxic compounds, and thus protect against harmful foods, our hypothesis is that aversion to this taste may prevent smoking and nicotine dependence. The goal of this research was to investigate the role of inherited differences in taste perception in smoking behaviors. We sought to determine whether such genetic variation could account for the well-known differences in flavored tobacco use among different U.S. ethnic groups. For example, around 80% of African-American smokers report that they prefer menthol cigarettes, compared to only 30% of European-American smokers who express this preference. We recruited subjects from four different populations, comprising a total of 9871 individuals, purified DNA's from some saliva or blood samples and used a candidate gene approach to sequence taste-related genes. We identified several genetic associations between polymorphisms in taste-related genes and different smoking behaviors. We have shown that the frequency of the TAS2R38 taster haplotype differs between smokers and non-smokers in European-American populations. In addition, we identified two SNPs, one located in the menthol receptor TRPM8 and one in the menthol reactive gene TRPA1, that are strongly associated with menthol smoking in a study group of African-Americans. Moreover, we found that the taster haplotype of the TAS2R38 bitter taste receptor gene is less common in European-American smokers and that the non-taster haplotype of this gene is significantly lower in menthol smokers compared to non-menthol smokers. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that variations in taste-related genes play a role in the choice of cigarettes when smoking. Understanding genetic differences in taste perception in tobacco use could help inform the development of more effective tobacco control policies.


Research Problem: This study investigates the impact of deception on the performance of tasks in virtual teams. While the advantages of virtual teams in organizations have been well-studied, as the use of these teams expands, organizations must acknowledge the potential for negative consequences of team member actions. Research Questions: (1) How does deceptive communication influence the outcomes of virtual group collaboration? and (2) How does perceived deception impact the individual perceptions, such as perceived trustworthiness and mutuality, of the virtual team itself? Literature Review: Based on (1), the conclusion from the literature on virtual teams that trust and mutuality are vital toward team development, (2) the propositions put forth by Interpersonal Deception Theory that deception will be perceived by team members, and (3) from the conclusion from the literature on interpersonal deception and trust that deception will impact outcomes of an interaction, including trust, mutuality, and ultimately team performance, we developed a model of the impact of deception on outcomes in virtual teams. This model suggests that deceptive communication negatively impacts task performance. Deceptive communication is also expected to impact perceived deception both within and between groups. The model further proposes that perceived deception will negatively impact both perceived trustworthiness and mutuality. Methodology: Through an experiment, virtual teams of three members participated in a group decision-making task in which team members must cooperate to search a grid for enemy camps and then collaborate on a strike plan, with half the teams populated by a deceptive team member. Two-hundred seventeen subjects were recruited from courses at three universities. Five experimental sessions were conducted across two semesters in computer labs at the three universities. Following the virtual team experiment, subjects completed surveys related to key constructs. Analysis of variance and linear regression were used to test the hypotheses. Results and Discussion: Deception has a negative impact on task performance by virtual teams. Participants perceived deception when it was present. Perceived deception led to decreased mutuality and trust among team members. These findings suggest that organizations that utilize virtual teams must be aware of and prepared to deal with negative behaviors, such as deception. The generalizability of these findings is potentially limited by the use of student subjects in a laboratory setting. Future research may extend these findings by incorporating additional variables that have been found to be important to virtual team outcomes or studying the current model in a longitudinal design.


Experimental green-roof rainfall–runoff observations have shown a positive impact on stormwater management at the building scale; with a decrease in the peak discharge and a decrease in runoff volume. This efficiency of green-roofs varies from one rainfall event to another depending on precipitation characteristics and substrate antecedent conditions. Due to this variability, currently, green-roofs are rarely officially used as a regulation tool to manage stormwater. Indeed, regulation rules governing the connection to the stormwater network are usually based on absolute threshold values that always have to be respected: maximum areal flow-rate or minimum retention volume for example. In this context, the aim of this study is to illustrate how a green-roof could represent an alternative to solve stormwater management issues, if the regulation rules were further based on statistics. For this purpose, a modelling scheme has been established at the parcel scale to simulate the hydrological response of several roof configurations: impervious, strictly regulated (in terms of areal flow-rate or retention volume), and covered by different types of green-roof matter. Simulations were carried out on a long precipitation time period (23 years) that included a large and heterogeneous set of hydrometeorological conditions. Results obtained for the different roof configurations were compared. Based on the return period of the rainfall event, the probability to respect some regulation rules (defined from real situations) was assessed. They illustrate that green-roofs reduce stormwater runoff compared to an impervious roof surface and can guarantee the respect of the regulation rules in most of the cases. Moreover, their implementation can appear more realistic than that of other infrastructures strictly complying with regulations and demanding significant storage capacity.


A dissertation on income generation by rural women through indigenous poultry keeping project is a result of the Community Needs Assessments (CNA) conducted in Chessa village in Uyui district. Prior to project intervention, the CNA exercise was conducted which came up with the community needs and challenges. The main challenge unveiled with CNA exercise which faces rural women in Chessa Village was income poverty. Rural women were socially oppressed, legally ignored, politically exploited and technologically deprived and subordinated as a production unit for bearing and rearing children. Therefore, Chessa rural women can be considered as underprivileged and less developed. It is expected that the participation of women in IGAs can contribute to enabling households to cope with income shocks, to ensure food security, to avoid an increase in poverty or to prevent vulnerable households from falling below the poverty line. Women's income is important for achieving economic growth and sustainable development in Chessa Village and thus, their economic contributions should be given importance in policy design. From this study now, the researcher helped rural women to form a group (Upendo group) and came up with the conclusion that in order to eliminate the distressed condition of rural women and bring them to the main stream of development for achieving a sustainable livelihood, Upendo group need to be involved in income generating activities much more actively. Furthermore, Upendo group need to improve in all sorts of areas such as income, information, knowledge and skills, education, and access to capital. Therefore indigenous poultry keeping came up as the means to solve the problem.


Industrial development at a regional level demands an ability to create productive cross sector collaboration. This thesis is about how such interorganizational collaboration can be constructed. Based on studies of three collaborative efforts taking place in the same region at the same time, I set out to answer the following main research question.How can regional actors collaborate to support development in enterprises?In the theoretical part of the thesis, I address the discourses on industrial development with an emphasis on the collaborative aspects. Three approaches that all heavily influence the current thinking and policymaking in this field are discussed. The first is what may be labeled the regional-development orientation associated with industrial districts and flexible specialization after Piore & Sabel (1984), mainly within the discipline of industrial geography. The second main contribution to the discourse on industrial development is the work of Porter (1990) and his followers. Typical for these two main contributions is that they circle around various collaborative constructs at a systemic or macro level (e.g. networks, industrial clusters) and in essence argue for the centrality of interorganizational collaboration in fostering industrial development. What they both lack, however, is considerations of how the desired collaborations can be created, i.e. they lack a development perspective that addresses the collaborative processes essential to practical development. The third tradition or approach is associated with public planning for development. It takes the public actors as a point of departure in discussing how industrial development may be advanced. Within certain traditions of public planning associated with community development, a much clearer emphasis is put on broad regional participation and concrete means to involve various actors in collaborative planning efforts. I argue that in order to develop industry, a greater emphasis on "how" is needed, and I question the adequacy of a planning logic in this respect. The broad support for collaborative strategies, but inability to contribute beyond declaring its importance, leads me to the main theoretical chapter where I address the issue of collaboration. Collaboration between organizations is viewed as a general approach to addressing shared problems, where industrial development is one such problem-complex. In conceptualizing collaboration, I give special attention to social ecology (e.g. Trist 1983) as a framework for interorganizational development. Organizing collaborative domains and collaborative processes are the two main foci of the chapter. I criticize the linear process models and develop the interactive dimension of collaborative processes as an alternative. This chapter ends in an expansion of the main research question into the following issues.1) the organizing of collaboration2) the processes of collaboration3) the regional dimension of collaboration4) the role of public actorsIn part three of the thesis I present the case material covering 5+ years of development trajectories. The Joint Project, the Wood Centre and the Electronics Committee all have central features in common. All the three cases address competence development in enterprises, and they do it through collaboration between enterprises, the educational system and country representatives, however in clearly different ways. Moreover, the cases unfold during the same time period in the same country. Theses similarities give special access to the understanding of collaborative development processes by comparing across the cases. Analysing and discussing the three development trajectories in part four of the thesis lead me to the last chapter, where my conclusions and contributions to the literature are presented. On the issue of organizing, several contributions to collaborative theory have emerged during the research process. I criticize the prevalent sequential and rather mechanistic contributions in the current literature, and I argue for a more dynamic and rather mechanistic contributions in current literature, and I argue for a more dynamic and iterative understanding of organizational issues. In a regional landscape where legitimacy, the building of trust and the development of relationships are at the core of feasible strategies for change, roles, functions and organizational forms need to be understood in a relational and dynamic perspective. This included regarding convening as an ongoing process throughout the lifespan of a collaborative effort, and to understanding the issue of organizing as a process of ongoing reconstruction, rather than a once-and-for-all construction of an organizational unit. As an alternative to the prevailing process models. I have developed principles of interactivity to characterize dynamic and evolving collaborative relationships based on a democratic value stand.I have developed the regional dimension of collaboration by introducing new concepts (partial domain, sub-domain and triple connectedness), as well as developing the meaning of previously introduced concepts (infrastructure for change). I suggest the concept of a regional infrastructure for change as the conceptual bridge between industrial geography, collaborative theory and an action research oriented approach to industrial development. While the study does not fully discuss the role of public actors, it clearly argues the importance of a proactive role, and discusses some dilemmas with such a role. I emphasise the importance of regional autonomy, the recognition of public-public collaboration a part of industrial development, and the challenge for public actors of moving back and forth between the two different logics associated with, respectively, bureaucracy and horizontal collaboration.


Interface design plays a crucial role in developing superior mechanical performance of graphene/polymer nanocomposites. Herein, we report a facile approach to the fabrication of advanced polymeric nanocomposites of epoxy by the incorporation of polyetheramine-functionalized graphene oxide (PEA-f-GO). Two types of PEA molecules with different molecular lengths were used to synthesize the PEA-f-GO sheets. The chemical bonds formed between the amine functional groups on the GO surface and the epoxy resin during curing provided strong sheet/matrix interfacial adhesion. The addition of PEA-f-GO was found to produce significant enhancements in the mechanical properties of epoxy, including elastic modulus, tensile strength, elongation at break and toughness. In particular, the PEA-f-GO sheets containing shorter PEA molecules produced higher improvement in strength but smaller increases in both ductility and toughness than those containing longer PEA molecules. For example, at 0.50 wt% filler loading, two nanocomposites showed increases of 63% and 51% in tensile strength and 90% and 119% in toughness as compared to the unfilled epoxy. Our results suggest that the interphases between the GO and the polymer matrix can be tuned by varying the molecular lengths of grafted modifiers, thereby providing a new route for the rational designing and development of the GO-based composite materials.


The internet is a powerful tool that provides easy access to information. Many people access it for health information and bring the material gathered to health appointments. However, the information may not always be correct or adequately monitored for quality. This could lead to some of it being harmful. This article examines whether or not the internet will enable us to lead healthier lives. The need for a quality label, how professionals must become adept at using the internet, the possibility of a digital divide exacerbating health inequalities and the dangers of misusing the internet's interactive elements are examined.


For lithium-sulfur batteries to surpass the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, sulfur-containing cathodes require high sulfur loading (>70 wt%) relative to all inactive components, anchoring sites to prevent polysulfide shuttling, high capacity (>1000 mA h g-1), and stable cycling performance. Here we demonstrate a nanomanufacturing route to produce low-density hybrid nanomaterial electrodes that synergize the mechanical and electrical integrity of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with the chemical defect properties of carbon nanohorns (CNHs) to produce carefully optimized properties for binder-free lithium-sulfur battery cathodes. High sulfur loadings (>75%) are achieved through a brief (<20 minute) vapor phase treatment at 155 °C, with sulfur infiltration kinetics that increase with defect content of the hybrid composite. By controlling the relative concentration of CNHs to CNTs, and hence defect engineering the composite, we determine an optimized hybrid structure with a 7 : 3 relative weight ratio that exhibits a reversible capacity of more than 1200 mA h gsulfur-1 when operated at 0.1C and a capacity retention of over 85% after 100 cycles. The excellent cyclability and high capacity of these electrodes is one of the best reported to date for binder-free carbon composites and we demonstrate this to be due to the role of defects in promoting the retention of high order polysulfides for subsequent conversion to the insoluble low-order polysulfide reaction product. Our work highlights the critical intersection between controllably manufactured compositions of hybrid nanostructures and improved performance in batteries capable of surpassing the energy storage capability of conventional Li-ion.


In this article, we make sense of financial algorithms as new objects of concern for organizational ethnography. We conceive of algorithms as 'objects of ignorance' jeopardizing traditional ethnography from the perspective of its categories and methods. We investigate the organizational politics taking place within high-frequency trading – a sub-field of algorithmic trading where automated decision-making without human direction has reached a peak, and show that financial algorithms raise particular epistemic and methodological challenges for practitioners and ethnographers alike. Consequently, we develop a typology for various interpretations of algorithms as ethnographic objects, accounting for their structural ignorance and shedding light on a continuum of the changing human-machine/trader-algorithm relation. To this end, we use the concepts of 'quasi-object' and 'quasi-subject' as developed by Michel Serres, and make the point that in order to study financial algorithms ethnographically, we need to think anew the dynamic relationship they embody, and acknowledge their constitutive heterogeneity.


Since the early twentieth century, contemporary art and art theory have creatively challenged the status of representation. During that time, the court of law has come to rely on a variety of new representational modes and technologies. The law is increasingly staged on a screen and the photographs, video documents, audio recordings used as evidence are not entirely distinct from their correlates in contemporary art, cinema and mass media. What questions of representation, judgment and justice cross borders between art and the law? Through the contribution of internationally renowned artists and scholars, this anthology explores how the aesthetics of new media technology and its spatial implementations affect the judicial system in relation to fundamental concepts such as truth and representation. - p [4] of cover


Space Time Block Code is a powerful tool for improving performance in wireless communication. Multiple input multiple outputs (MIMO) are a promising application of multiple antennas at both transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance by achieving spatial diversity. MIMO, when used with appropriate STBC coding techniques and proper channel estimation, can achieve huge performance gains in multipath fading wireless links. Our work aims to simulate the space-time coding over worst fading environment and evaluate its performance in terms of BER. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) can be used to provide an estimate of the channel which help to mitigate some of the deficiencies of multi-user transmission.


Since, most of the organizations present their services electronically, the number of functionally-equivalent web services is increasing as well as the number of users that employ those web services. Consequently, plenty of information is generated by the users and the web services that lead to the users be in trouble in finding their appropriate web services. Therefore, it is required to provide a recommendation method for predicting the quality of web services (QoS) and recommending web services. Most of the existing collaborative filtering approaches don't operate efficiently in recommending web services due to ignoring some effective factors such as dependency among users/web services, the popularity of users/web services, and the location of web services/users. In this paper, a web service recommendation method called Popular-Dependent Collaborative Filtering (PDCF) is proposed. The proposed method handles QoS differences experienced by the users as well as the dependency among users on a specific web service using the user/web service dependency factor. Additionally, the user/web service popularity factor is considered in the PDCF that significantly enhances its effectiveness. We also proposed a location-aware method called LPDCF which considers the location of web services into the recommendation process of the PDCF. A set of experiments is conducted to evaluate the performance of the PDCF and investigating the impression of the matrix factorization model on the efficiency of the PDCF with two real-world datasets. The results indicate that the PDCF outperforms other competing methods in most cases.


Objective − The study aims to explore the associations between adolescents' appearance self-attitudes and their self-rated health, psychosomatic complaints and psychological well-being. A number of covariates known to impact health and well-being are also being investigated. Materials and Methods − The study utilizes data from the Bulgarian 2013/2014 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study. The national representative sample included 3204 adolescents aged 13 and 15. The methods used were the Body image feelings and attitudes subscale of the Body Investment Scale (BIS), the HBSC psychosomatic complaints scale, the KIDSCREEN-10 index as a measure of psychological well-being, and single-item measures for appearance satisfaction and self-rated health. Results: Adolescents' appearance satisfaction and positive feelings and attitudes towards body and appearance were significantly associated with better self-rated health, absence of or little psychosomatic complaints and better psychological well-being. These associations remained significant after the addition of a large number of covariates, including sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, and family affluence); chronic health conditions; health behaviours (healthy eating, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and dieting to lose weight); overweight/obesity; and peer victimization. Adolescents' appearance self-attitudes explained the largest proportions of the variances in self-rated health, psychosomatic complaints and psychological well-being, compared to the other groups of independent variables. Conclusion − The results demonstrate the great significance of appearance self-attitudes for physical and mental health and well-being in adolescence. They are important for medical practice, health education and health promotion among adolescent populations, where appearance self-attitudes should be considered as crucial risk factors for health.


Long-term commonalities and experiences with modularization in comparable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been identified as a research gap. This paper contributes by describing a unique collection of experiences from companies that received a similar introduction to the same core modularization topics through a series of introductory initiatives. This shared introduction makes the projects and processes of the companies comparable. The study reveals three main aspects of achieving significant long-term benefits from modularization initiatives: The company must (1) aim big and be willing to change its foundation accordingly, (2) draw on the right positional strength and have broad organizational inputs, and (3) properly coordinate work and then actively seek to preserve the focus and results over a long period of time. Interviews were conducted with representatives from 12 of these companies. Qualitative and quantitative data obtained from the interviews were used to draw parallels between the definition, execution, and impact of modularization. The stated results and project circumstances show commonalities for the successful implementation of modularization. They indicate which actions lead to the desired changes and secure the results persistently. The participants have achieved various results, such as strategic changes, new architectures, fewer variants, higher product earnings, and new development processes. Some have also introduced maintenance plans to secure the results, such as establishing configurators, performing weekly analyses, and recruiting dedicated personnel etc. The interviews revealed several influencing factors, such as management support, internal communication, organizational drive, proper facilitation, and prioritized project management. They also indicated that significantly more improvement can be achieved with proper goal setting and commitment to specific goals. These are the factors that can help future SMEs in the proper incorporation of modularization and in maximizing their exploitation of modularization theory.


We have sequenced the 5′ hypersensitive‐2 (5′HS‐2) site of the locus control region (LCR) and the promoters of the two γ‐globin genes located on chromosome 11 of a black patient with mild β‐thalassemia (β‐thal) major due to a homozygosity for the C → T mutation at position – 88 of the β promoter and with a high Hb F level. Sequence variations in the 5′HS‐2 were the same as observed for the βs chromosome with haplotype number 3, while most of the Gγ promoter and the Aγ promoter had sequences similar to that of the βs chromosome with haplotype number 19. This atypical haplotype (number 19A) is apparently associated with an increased γ chain production which is particularly evident during periods of severe hematopoietic stress. Additional studies on relatives of the proband and on 10 unrelated black β‐thal homozygotes with either the C → T mutation at – 88 or the A → G mutation at –29, confirm the possible importance of the sequence differences in the 5′HS‐2, and also suggest that at least two additional factors, namely a C → T mutation at position –158 of the Gγ promoter and a relative deficiency in α chain synthesis play a (perhaps less important) role in the increased Hb F synthesis in these patients. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We consider the problem of optimal control of district cooling energy plants (DCEPs) consisting of multiple chillers, a cooling tower, and a thermal energy storage (TES), in the presence of time-varying electricity price. A straightforward application of model predictive control (MPC) requires solving a challenging mixed-integer nonlinear program (MINLP) because of the on/off of chillers and the complexity of the DCEP model. Reinforcement learning (RL) is an attractive alternative since its real-time control computation is much simpler. But designing an RL controller is challenging due to myriad design choices and computationally intensive training. In this paper, we propose an RL controller and an MPC controller for minimizing the electricity cost of a DCEP and compare them via simulations. The two controllers are designed to be comparable in terms of objective and information requirements. The RL controller uses a novel Q-learning algorithm that is based on least-squares policy iteration. We describe the design choices for the RL controller, including the choice of state space and basis functions, that are found to be effective. The proposed MPC controller does not need a mixed integer solver for implementation, but only a nonlinear program (NLP) solver. A rule-based baseline controller is also proposed to aid in comparison. Simulation results show that the proposed RL and MPC controllers achieve similar savings over the baseline controller, about 17%.


The percentage of Australians taking up Private Health Insurance (PHI) was in decline following the introduction of Medicare in 1984 (PHIAC). To arrest this decline the Australian Government introduced a suite of policies, between 1997 and 2000, to create incentives for Australians to purchase private health insurance. These policies include an increased Medicare levy for those without PHI on high incomes, introduced in 1997, a 30% rebate for private hospital cover (introduced 1998), and the Lifetime Health Cover (LHC) policy where PHI premiums are set at age of entry, increasing for each year older than 30 years (introduced 2000). In 2004 the longitudinal study on Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), included a series of questions on private health insurance and hospital use. We used the HILDA data to investigate the demographic, health and income factors related to the PHI decisions, especially around the introduction of the Lifetime Health Cover policy. Specifically we investigate who was most influenced to purchase PHI (specifically hospital cover) in 2000 as a response to the Lifetime Health Cover policy deadline. Are those who have joined PHI since the introduction of LHC different from those who joined prior to LHC? What are the characteristics of those who have dropped PHI since the introduction of LHC? We model the PHI outcomes allowing for heterogeneity of choice and correlation across alternatives. After controlling for other factors, we find that LHC prompted moderately well-off working age adults (30-49 yrs) to purchase before the 2000 deadline. Young singles or couples with no children, and the overseas born were more likely to purchase since 2000, while the relatively less well-off continue to drop PHI in spite of current policy incentives.


We propose and evaluate a method that combines a visual hull with multi-view stereo for the fast acquisition of dynamic 3D data. Both use the same set of cameras. The focus lies on high speed, as 3D has to be generated repeatedly, based on the output of multiple video cameras. The underlying principle is to bootstrap the system with quickly computed sparse stereo, constrained by silhouette information. We further show how this integrates with a fast plane sweeping algorithm, as our dense stereo algorithm of choice


Objective: To compare the result of pancreatogastrostomy (PG) with Roux-en-Y reconstruction versus pancreatojejunostomy (PJ) with conventional Traverso-type reconstruction following pylorus-preserving pancreatectomy (PP- PD) in a retrospective study. PPPD has been accepted as a radical surgical treatment for malignant periampullary neoplasms. However, the reconstruction of this surgery is technically complicated. The leakage of pancreatic juice and the delayed gastric emptying are the major complications of PPPD and may be fatal. To solve these problems, we have performed PG with Roux-en-Y anastomosis. There are several techniques proposed the reconstruction after PPPD, however there have been no previous study describing the result of PG with Roux- en-Y anastomosis. Since 2002 we have perfor- med 32 cases of PPPD. They were divided into two groups according to the reconstruction procedures: PG with Roux-en-Y reconstruction (group PG-RY) (17 cases) and pancreatojejunostomy with Traverso-type reconstruction (group PJ-T) (15 cases). Results: Patient age, gender, and underlying disease were comparable among the groups. Two groups showed no differences in intraoperative bleeding amount, and the time of surgery. The occurrence of the pancreatic leakage was significantly reduced in the group PG-RY compared with the group PJ-T. There was no case of the delayed gastric emptying in the group PGRY. Conclusions: Pancreatogastrosotmy with Roux-en-Y anastomosis can reduce the occurrence of the pancreatic leakage and delayed gastric emptying following pylorus-preserving pancreatoduodenectomy.


Copyright and the First Amendment exist in tension. The Supreme Court acknowledges this tension but says that copyright law resolves it with two built-in free speech safeguards: (1) by protecting only the expression of ideas and not the ideas themselves (the idea/expression dichotomy); and (2) by allowing the use of expression under certain circumstances (the fair use doctrine). The problem is that these doctrines are notoriously vague, so users often cannot know ex ante whether their uses will be immune from liability. This unpredictably might be tolerable if users could be confident that, if they were subject to liability, any damage award would be limited to a reasonable licensing fee or a share of profits attributable to the infringement. But copyright law allows plaintiffs to opt for statutory damages instead of compensatory or restitutionary damages, and statutory damages can sometimes be punitive and even grossly excessive. This combined uncertainty – of not knowing whether a use will be immunized from liability and what the penalty will be if it is not – means that the idea/expression and fair use doctrines are underutilized. Yet if these doctrines are what resolve copyright's tension with the First Amendment, they need to be sufficiently viable that users can confidently rely on them. One solution is to make the fair use and idea/expression doctrines more predictable, but this has proven largely illusory. Another is to modify the statutory damage regime to ensure that awards are better calibrated to not chill speech. This latter solution, which has not been methodically explored in the literature, is the focus of this article.


In this study, two alternatives to incarceration as punishment for DWI were evaluated using quasi-experimental designs. Recidivism rates for repeat DWI offenders receiving intensive supervision probation with treatment or in-home confinement with electronic monitoring were compared with offenders receiving the traditional jail sanction in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles County, California respectively. After adjusting for other factors associated with recidivism, it was found that those offenders receiving the alternative sanctions experienced lower one-year recidivism rates than their comparison groups. (A) For the covering abstract see IRRD 893732.


The NICE Quality and Productivity collection provides users with practical case studies that address the quality and productivity challenge in health and social care. All examples submitted are evaluated by NICE. This evaluation is based on the degree to which the initiative meets the NICE Quality and Productivity criteria: savings, quality, evidence and implementability. The assessment of the degree to which this particular case study meets the criteria is represented in the summary graphic below.


The Canonical Polyadic Decomposition (CPD) of tensors is a powerful tool for analyzing multi-way data and is used extensively to analyze very large and extremely sparse datasets. The bottleneck of computing the CPD is multiplying a sparse tensor by several dense matrices. Algorithms for tensor-matrix products fall into two classes. The first class saves floating point operations by storing a compressed tensor for each dimension of the data. These methods are fast but suffer high memory costs. The second class uses a single uncompressed tensor at the cost of additional floating point operations. In this work, we bridge the gap between the two approaches and introduce the compressed sparse fiber (CSF) a data structure for sparse tensors along with a novel parallel algorithm for tensor-matrix multiplication. CSF offers similar operation reductions as existing compressed methods while using only a single tensor structure. We validate our contributions with experiments comparing against state-of-the-art methods on a diverse set of datasets. Our work uses 58% less memory than the state-of-the-art while achieving 81% of the parallel performance on 16 threads.


The temperature dependence of the electrical characteristics of strained nMOSFETs combining stress memorization technique (SMT) process and contact etch-stop layer has been investigated. The observed higher mobility and lower gate tunneling current of SMT devices indicate higher tensile stress in the channel and prove the true transmission of SMT-process-induced stress from the deposited SiN layer. Moreover, as temperature is increased, SMT devices show less deteriorated mobility and increased gate tunneling current, which are due to decreased phonon scattering and increased tunneling barrier height, respectively.


Various philosophers and historians argue about historical periodization. The idea of describing human history in periods has its roots in the modern age. Modernity itself is one such periodization that we continue to dispute. Supposedly we are now living in a postmodern age or a post-postmodern age, and probably, in a not so distant future, we will be living in some other kind of post-"something" once again. What seems to be clear is that modernity and its concepts are still with us. The way we study human phenomena even today comes principally from the work of the Eighteenth Century. The story goes that the modern period is the time when human beings finally began to break the metaphorical oppressive chains of tradition and its basis in religious superstition; instead of a reliance on theology with its basis in revelation, the modern human being looks towards other disciplines like philosophy, science and political philosophy for guidance. If theology wants a place among the disciplines it must deal with matters of morality and excuse itself of attempting to answer questions that other academic disciplines are better trained to do.


Time-lapse changes in seismic data are commonly evaluated in terms of changes in reservoir properties such as pressure, saturation, or temperature. Traditionally, the evaluation of time-lapse seismic data has focused on changes of seismic signatures within the reservoir interval. Recent studies, however, have shown convincingly that time-lapse seismic changes occur not only in the reservoir, but also in the overburden and (generally) in the rock mass surrounding the reservoir. These time-lapse changes can be explained by production-induced stress changes in the rocks surrounding the reservoir.


Modelling Public Transport (PT) is done for many reasons, for example exploring possible new routes for train lines or analyzing commuter flows between two cities. The traditional 4-step model is a way to describe the behavior of a PT system. The last step of the 4-step model describes route-choice for PT travelers.
The route choice algorithm of OmniTRANS, a computer software package to model travel behavior between origins and destinations, is called Zenith. It is based on the frequency-based methodology. Frequency is one of the main inputs for this methodoloy. The choice fractions to board a certain line of a certain path are based on the costs of that path and the frequency of that line. The total average travel time between an origin and destination is based on the average waiting time and the travel time. It appeared that for some path sets the removal of a line led to a lower total average travel time of all paths. This specific model output is counterintuitive and not realistic. In general, there are other disadvantages of the frequency-based methodology such as the average output relative to lines.
The research goals are twofold: firstly there must be determined under which circumstances the specific modelling problem of the total average costs occurs and how this problem has an effect on the modelling output. Secondly, a recommendation should be written based on all advantages and disadvantages of the frequency-based methodology including the outcomes of the analysis of the specific modelling problem.
The theoretical background includes a detailed analysis of the frequency-based algorithm in Zenith and an explanation of the cause of the modelling problem. The literature research discusses other assigning methodologies, such as the scheduled-based methodoloy. This methodology takes into account explicitly all travel times and waiting times.
The methodology to analyze the specific modelling problem consists of two parts. The first part is a sensitivity analysis of how different combinations of input parameters (frequency, travel time) lead to the occurrence of the modelling problem. The second part consists of an analysis of the modelling problem in a large network in OmniTRANS, since it is not known to what extent the modelling problem occurs in practice. This enables to link the theoretical framework of the sensitivity analysis with the practical modelling world. Based on the literature search and the findings of the above-stated first parts, a recommendation is written concerning the frequency-based methodology.
The sensitiviy analysis makes clear that the modelling problem only occurs for low travel-times. Moreover, only small differences in travel time lead to the modelling problem. In the large case network it appears that the modelling problem occurs quite often (6 % of the stop centroid combinations contains the modelling problem). In case of occurrence of the modelling problem, it appears that the problem severity is low since the difference in travel time (situation with or without a certain line) is small . In general, the theoretical framework matches the outcomes of the large case network.
The recommendation concludes that fixing the specific modelling problem of the total average costs is not that difficult, since the severity is low. But since the frequency-based methodology shows fundamental modelling problems concerning average modelling output, it is recommended to exploit the possibilites of a new dynamic assignment algorithm in OmniTRANS such as the scheduled-based methodology. The transit modelling world increasingly needs dynamic models to tackle capacity problems. Secondly the development of dynamic car traffic models is way further in OmniTRANS, so not upgrading the frequency-based methodology leads to disintegral traffic models.


Health communication is a fairly recent and currently growing area of the medical field. The diagnostic phase of many medical encounters can be the making, or breaking point of future relationships for the physician and patient (Blum, 1972). Many studies have examined how the physician's communication affects the relationship. However, few studies have investigated diagnosis in clinical setting with the exceptions of Heath (1987), Maynard (1991), and Nikolaisen (1998). Moreover, none have been found on the delivery and reception of diagnosis in the surgical setting. Research reveals that the diagnostic phase in physician/patient relationships is a crucial one in establishing adherence, compliance, and foundations for future relationships (Blum, 1972). As the diagnostic phase is present in every surgical encounter, it is important to further examine its content. Specifically, this study investigates delivery and reception in eleven surgery cases. In surgery, there is more to the diagnosis and reception than there would be in an encounter with a clinician, family practitioner, or general practitioner. In the case of surgery, there is a pre-diagnosis and reception, and a post-diagnosis and reception. Thus, the diagnostic phase of medical encounters is more complex in surgical cases. In general, the findings of this study indicate that the time span of the diagnostic delivery in surgery is longer than in general practice settings. The two-step phase of diagnostic delivery and reception in surgery is also a new finding indicated in this study. As for reception, I found, unlike others, mixed reception to be a category beyond good news and bad news reception. Overall, there were more similarities than differences between diagnostic delivery and reception in surgery to those findings of diagnostic delivery and reception in clinical settings.


Optimization and profitability approaches play a crucial and central role in airline industry The main problem is how to overcome complexity by providing effective route schedule with minimal empty seats. So we need capable tools to re-optimize existing flight routes or to offer new one instead. This research deals about the efficient heuristic algorithm for optimal transportation of N different passenger contingents between ending points. We want to find out better transport plan with minimal transport cost for the route with more charging/discharging points (airports). Such optimization tool can help in sizing of appropriate airplane for definite direction, too.


Socio-economic parameters have significant impact on consumer's attitude towards the usage of traditional system of medicine in Tamilnadu, India. Though traditional systems of medicine have made significant contributions towards fulfilling healthcare needs of the people in the past, impacts of modern medicine have been so large that traditional medicine witnessed a dark period in India. While such practices are common in the rural/ remote areas, off late, change in the trend with respect to the usage of Siddha medicine as complementary alternative therapy among urban population has been observed. Present study aims to evaluate the resurgence of interest in Siddha medicine among the people working in different sectors (occupation) in Tamilnadu, India.


Research has shown that Knowledge Management (KM), as a field of practice and study, gained momentum from the rise of the World Wide Web (Web) in the 1990s. With the extant growth of the Web into a full scale social space and the emergence of Social Media (SM) platforms like Twitter, the hierarchical boundaries within the organisation are broken down and a lateral flow of information is created. As socio-technical platforms, social media are regarded as social machines that are co-constituted by humans and technology to facilitate the social processes of knowledge sharing. These processes are enabled by the ordinary social interaction and communication flow that exists within a corporate organisation. In recent years, these social interactions have been phenomenally facilitated by the increased use of social media (SM) as well as the consumerisation and adoption of mobile devices within the workplace. Apart from the exponential increase in the amount of potentially insightful data being generated, this trend has created some tension between KM and SM in which SM is perceived as a new trend that threatens the sustainability of KM as a viable field of practice. There is a division between scholars who question the value of KM within the current socio-technical trends, given that KM has previously suffered an image problem in the past, and those who argue for these new socio-technical trends as an extension of knowledge management. To address this dilemma, this work presents EMSoD | A Framework for repositioning KM within the current socio-technical trends of Enterprise Mobility and Social (media) Data. The framework highlights the cyclical interaction between the process of tacit to explicit knowledge conversion, knowledge discovery from either - or a combination of - public social media data and data from corporate social media within a managed platform. At the core of this framework is KM value to organisations, for which a measurement mechanism is also devised in this thesis. Also presented in this thesis is a granular study of the impact of enterprise mobility on employee engagement as a function of their usage satisfaction from mobile devices and social applications.


Purpose Alopecia areata (AA) is a common disorder of patchy hair loss which carries a substantial psychological burden for patients. The current understanding of AA prevalence, disease course and burden is limited, and further research is needed to improve patient care. This prospective cohort of AA patients within the Danish Skin Cohort was established to provide data that can serve as a tool in future studies of for example, AA epidemiology and disease burden. Participants A total of 1494 patients with dermatologist-verified AA were included in the cohort. Patients were invited and included through electronic or phone-based questionnaires. Information regarding demographics, biometrics, lifestyle factors, skin type, AA onset and development, health-related quality of life and self-reported severity assessment was collected. Findings to date The mean (SD) age of AA onset was 32.7 (17.6) years. The mean body mass index and history of cigarette smoking was comparable with the general population. The majority (92.5%) of participants were Caucasian. In total, 72.4% of patients received their diagnosis by a physician within a year after onset of symptoms, and 66.9% reported to still have symptoms of AA within the past year. A total of 12% reported to have a first-degree family member with AA. In total, 31.4% of patients were missing all or nearly all hairs on their scalp, 32.2% had no or barely no eyelashes and 36.2% had no or barely no eyebrow hairs. Overall, most patients (55.7%) did not experience irritated eyes, but 30% reported slight eye irritation and 47.2% reported no damage to finger nails or toenails. Future plans Observational studies regarding comorbidities, psychosocial burden of AA and efficacy of pharmacological interventions will be carried out and additional data will be linked from nationwide registries of routinely collected data. Furthermore, follow-up survey data will be added for longitudinal analyses.