To what extent does the number of response categories in a Likert-type scale influence the resultant data? Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the issue of whether the response category format has any influence on data characteristics such as the mean, coefficient of variation, skewness and kurtosis. This issue is important for several reasons. The first is that decisions are made based on outcomes such as the mean score. For example, marketing organizations and research providers use Likert type scales to measure constructs such as customer satisfaction. In this situation a higher score is better. Could the score have been comparatively better if a different scale format had been used? There is an absence of evidence on this issue. The second reason is that scale formats that are used in on-going market research projects such as tracking studies occasionally change. Can the old results be re-scaled or transformed to be comparable to data from a new scale format? Again, little is known about this. The third reason concerns data characteristics such as variation about the mean, skewness and kurtosis. Analysis tools such as regression are often used on data of this type to explain the variation in certain variables. If there is little variance in the data, this is harder to do. How does scale format affect these characteristics? The answers would be useful to both market researchers as well as academics. A literature review found that little work has been done on this issue. Therefore, this study set out to investigate the impact of scale format on data characteristics. It examined how using Likert-type scales with varying numbers of response categories affects the resultant data in terms of mean scores, and measures of dispersion and shape. Three groups of respondents were administered a series of eight questions (group n's = 300, 250,185). Respondents were randomly selected members of the general public. A different scale format was administered to each group – either a five-point, seven-point or ten-point scale. The surveys were conducted by a professional market research organization via telephone interview. Data characteristics of mean score, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis were analyzed according to scale format. The five and seven-point scales were re-scaled to a comparable mean score out of ten. The study found that the five and seven-point scales produced the same mean score as each other, once they were re-scaled. However the ten-point format tended to produce slightly lower relative means than either the 5 or 7-point scales (after the latter were re-scaled). The overall mean score of the eight questions was 0.3 scale points lower for the 10-point format compared to the 5 and 7-point format. This difference was statistically significant at p=0.04. In terms of the other data characteristics, there was very little difference among the scale formats in terms of variation about the mean, skewness or kurtosis. Therefore each of the three formats appears comparable for the type of research project in which multiple-item scales are analyzed with multivariate statistical methods. This study is also 'good news' for research departments or agencies who ponder whether changing scale format will destroy the comparability of historical data. Five and seven-point scales can easily be re-scaled with the resultant data being quite comparable. In the case of comparing five or seven-point data to 10-point data, a straightforward re-scaling and arithmetic adjustment easily facilitates the comparison. Finally, it appears that indicators of customer sentiment – such as satisfaction surveys – may be partially dependent on the choice of scale format. A five or seven-point scale is likely to produce slightly higher mean scores relative to the highest possible attainable score, compared to that produced from a ten-point scale.


In this study, we developed a summer dayglow model using auroral emissions acquired by the ultraviolet imager (UVI) onboard the Polar satellite. In the summer polar region, dayglow varies as a cosine-like function of the solar zenith angle (SZA). The shape of this function can be characterized by its amplitude (Amp) and phase (Phi) factors. We first obtained the hourly Amp and Phi factors in summers from 1996 to 2000, and then investigated the universal time (UT) and solar activity variations of these two shape factors. It was found that both factors were non-linearly dependent on the solar flux for all years, and the Amp factor showed clear UT variations under both low and high solar flux years. Thus, a dayglow model was constructed to consider the above dependencies. After the dayglow was removed automatically from the original UVI images via our model, the remaining auroral precipitation energy flux was in good agreement with previously reported magnetic local time–latitude (MLT–MLAT) patterns. Our model provides a fast way to statistically process summer auroral precipitation of Polar/UVI and its variations. Citation: Wang L M, Luan X L. A preliminary dayglow model for summer auroral images from Polar/UVI. Adv Polar Sci, 2016, 27: 272-279, doi: 10.13679/j.advps.2016.4.00272


Filled sinkholes have long been known to occur in the carbonate rocks of Missouri. A sandstone unit occurs in these sinkholes at their outer margin, forming a rim, and ii is called here the rimrock sandstone. Samples of rimrock sandstone, from an area northeast of Rolla, Missouri were studied. Grain size, heavy mineral and. thin section analyses of these samples were carried out. Size analysis data suggest that, texturally, the rimrock sandstone is similar to the St. Peter sandstone and that this formation could have supplied sands for the formation of rimrock. Field evidences suggest that continental conditions prevailed at the time of the formation of the sandstone under study. The median grain size is similar all over the area for this sandstone and it is mineralogically mature. This could be due to the maturity of the source rock. Size and shape of the detrital sand grains have been altered due to secondary enlargement through silicification. It seems that most of the filled sinkholes have resulted from the simultaneous deposition and sinking of the sediments, due to the solution activity. Association with the white and purple shales, alumina clays and coals suggest that the rimrock is of basal Pennsylvanian age. The clay deposits resting over the rimrock sandstone in these sinkholes are of great economic value due to their heat resisting character. iii


RFamide peptides 43RFa and 26RFa have been shown to promote food intake and to exert different peripheral actions through G-protein–coupled receptor 103 (GPR103) binding. Moreover, 26RFa was found to inhibit pancreatic insulin secretion, whereas the role of 43RFa on β-cell function is unknown, as well as the effects of both peptides on β-cell survival. Herein, we investigated the effects of 43RFa and 26RFa on survival and apoptosis of pancreatic β-cells and human pancreatic islets. In addition, we explored the role of these peptides on insulin secretion and the underlying signaling mechanisms. Our results show that in INS-1E β-cells and human pancreatic islets both 43RFa and 26RFa prevented cell death and apoptosis induced by serum starvation, cytokine synergism, and glucolipotoxicity, through phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt- and extracellular signal–related kinase 1/2-mediated signaling. Moreover, 43RFa promoted, whereas 26RFa inhibited, glucose- and exendin-4–induced insulin secretion, through Gαs and Gαi/o proteins, respectively. Inhibition of GPR103 expression by small interfering RNA blocked 43RFa insulinotropic effect, but not the insulinostatic action of 26RFa. Finally, 43RFa, but not 26RFa, induced cAMP increase and glucose uptake. In conclusion, because of their survival effects along with the effects on insulin secretion, these findings suggest potential for 43RFa and 26RFa as therapeutic targets in the treatment of diabetes.


Natural resource dependence is believed to have potential impact on institutional development, and there is growing consensus in the academic literature that institutional weakness is central to the explanation of the negative effects of resource booms. Generally, the quality of institutional framework and natural resource dependence interact mutually. Natural resources rents can damage institutions by removing incentives to conduct reforms and even to establish a well-functioning bureaucracy. Also, weak institutional quality is the ultimate cause for a disadvantageous management framework of natural resources and process of converting revenue flows into economic development. This paper examines the connection between institutional quality and resource dependence in resource-rich Caspian Basin countries (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan) with transition economies. The analysis for the total natural resources rents suggests that, in aggregate, revenues on total natural resources have a negative impact on government effectiveness.


Happiness lies in conquering one's enemies, in driving them in front of oneself, in taking their property, in savoring their despair, in outraging their wives and daughters. Genghis Khan (1) INTRODUCTION Conventional wisdom once held that well-being is an objective affair, something that the masses should not be expected to have a great deal of authority about. Among the more noteworthy ideas in those days was the perfectionist notion that well-being consists, at least partly, in excellence or virtue. The coming of modernity brought a more optimistic view of the individual's authority regarding matters of personal welfare, and the old objectivist orthodoxy yielded to the present age of subjectivism, where common opinion has it that what's good for people is, more or less, whatever they say it is. Crudely, nothing benefits a person, virtue included, unless it somehow answers to her wants or likes. Discontent with subjectivism has been brewing for some years now, driven by a more nuanced understanding of the considerable merits of some objectivist accounts, notably Aristotelian theories, as well as a barrage of criticism aimed at subjectivist views like the desire theory. (2) Indeed, Aristotelian views are now among the chief competitors in discussions of well-being--or, equivalently, welfare or flourishing. (3) This is a welcome development, for such work has greatly enriched contemporary reflection on well-being, helping to counter what some of us see as the trivialization of philosophical thought about the good life in the modern era. Whatever the merits of non-subjectivist accounts of well-being, however, it is less clear that the perfectionism espoused in much of this literature can be sustained. I will argue that it cannot, using the best-known example of a perfectionist theory, Aristotelianism, to show why. The discussion should concern even those with little interest in perfectionist theories, for a better understanding of the problems confronting Aristotelian perfectionism will illuminate some important points about the nature of well-being and related values. We can usefully think of Aristotelian theories as centering on three claims. Our inquiry will focus on the first, welfare perfectionism, which maintains that well-being consists, non-derivatively, at least partly in perfection: excellence or virtue--or, in the Aristotelian case, excellent or virtuous activity. The perfection in question includes, but certainly is not limited to, moral virtue. Perfection, that is, is a fundamental or ultimate constituent of well-being (non-perfectionists might grant that it can constitute well-being derivatively, say by being desired). Perfection is typically regarded as the perfection of one's nature: being a good specimen of one's kind, for instance, or fulfilling one's capacities well. (4) But I will understand perfectionism broadly enough to include any theory that takes well-being to consist at least partly in excellence or virtue (or the exercise thereof). Some contend that Aristotle counted external goods as an additional part of flourishing, distinct from perfection. I have no wish to debate the fine points of Aristotle exegesis here, as I am less interested in the historical Aristotle than in whether a perfectionist view of well-being can be defended. But it seems to me that his view is most plausibly and charitably read as counting external goods only insofar as they facilitate good functioning, and not as distinct contributors to well-being. (5) Roughly, well-being consists in a life of excellent or virtuous activity, or "well-functioning." But the difference should not seriously affect the arguments to follow, for all Aristotelians take well-being to consist at least primarily in virtuous activity. My arguments should apply as well to weaker forms of perfectionism. The second claim, externalism, is the denial of internalism about well-being. A weaker cousin of subjectivism, which grounds well-being in the person's attitudes, internalism roughly maintains that the constituents of an agent's well-being are ultimately determined wholly by the particulars of the individual's makeup qua individual (vs. …


Electricity price connotes a grey system, due to uncertainty and incomplete information for partial external or inner parameters. A two-stage method based on grey system and extreme value theory is proposed to estimate the value-at-risk. In stage one, to capture the dependencies, seasonalities and volatility-clustering, a gray GM(1,1) model is utilized to filter electricity price series. In this way, an approximately independently and identically distributed residual series with better statistical properties is acquired. In stage two, a peaks over threshold method is adopted to explicitly model the tails of the residuals of GM(1,1) model, and accurate estimates of electricity market value-at-risk can be produced. For conquering the difficulty of lacking observed data over threshold, Bayesian estimation based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate the parameters of peaks over threshold model. The empirical analysis shows that the proposed model can be rapidly reflect the most recent and relevant changes of electricity prices and produce accurate forecasts of value-at-risk at all confidence levels, and the computational cost is far less than the existing two-stage value-at-risk estimating models, further improving the ability of risk management for electricity market participants.


: Food and escape reactions of Nereis virens to oscillations of a ball 2 mm in diameter in water have been studied. These antagonistic reactions differ significantly by the range of ball oscillations which evoked them. The range from 10 to 30 Hz appeared to be optimal for food reaction, and the range above 40 Hz -- for escape reaction. Worms are able to detect a ball from a distance of 12--13 mm at optimal oscillation frequency 30 Hz. Possible receptor mechanisms providing these types of reaction are discussed.


In the last two decades we have witnessed a boost in scientific interest and knowledge of adipose tissue biology to such an extent that it was promoted to an active endocrine organ. Adipose tissue is not just related to body weight and appetite regulation. It is also implicated in obesity, a low-grade inflammatory state, as well as inflammatory conditions including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune disease where anti- and pro-inflammatory cytokine balance is critical. All major adipose derived products, simply termed adipokines, like leptin, adiponectin, visfatin and resistin, reportedly participate in inflammation and immunity. In this review we explore in depth the relationship between adipose tissue and RA, with focus on possible mechanisms, beyond observations about circulating or synovial levels, and special reference to future perspectives and clinical implications.


The overexpression of ErbB-2 receptor relates to malignant transformation of breast cancer. The present study was carried out to establish the usefulness of alpha-tocopheryloxybutyric acid (TE) as a chemotherapeutic agent for human breast cancer. TE caused induction of apoptosis in MDA-MB-453 cells overexpressing the ErbB-2 receptor. TE reduced levels of activated ErbB-2 receptor and Akt. In contrast, TE induced the activation of p38, and SB203580, a specific inhibitor for p38, attenuated the TE-induced apoptosis. These data indicate that simultaneous occurrences of Akt inhibition and p38 activation by TE result in the cell death.


Under electricity market operation, the competitiveness of wind power generation may be reduced because of the stochastic nature of the wind resource, which often results in increased regulation costs. The negative impact associated to the stochastic nature of the wind resource may be reduced by coupling the wind farm with energy storage facilities, thus constituting a virtual power plant. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for scheduling and operating such a plant in an electricity market environment. The proposed method is able to take advantage of existing market opportunities for increasing operational profits while smoothing out energy imbalances caused by the errors associated to wind power forecasts. The results obtained for a test case based on real-world data for a whole year of operation are compared and discussed.


A coherent description of architectures provides insight, enables communication among different stakeholders and guides complicated (business and ICT) change processes. Unfortunately, so far no architecture description language exists that fully enables integrated enterprise modelling. In this paper we focus on the requirements and design of such a language. This language defines generic, organisation-independent concepts that can be special-ised or composed to obtain more specific concepts to be used within a particular organisation. It is not our intention to re-invent the wheel for each architectural domain: wherever possible we conform to existing languages or standards such as UML. We complement them with missing concepts, focussing on concepts to model the relationships among architectural domains. The concepts should also make it possible to define links between models in other languages. The relationship between architecture descriptions at the business layer and at the application layer (business-IT alignment) plays a central role.


This guide is a compilation of resources to assist faculty by introducing you to the academic resources available to faculty at BC.


A cross-sectional study of 540 married Akha and Lisaw women of reproductive age was conducted in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, between June 1st and August 31st, 1999, in order to determine the seroprevalence of HBsAg and identify the risk factors for chronic HBsAg carriage. HBsAg was detected by the reverse passive hemagglutination technique (RPHA). Data were obtained by questionnaires and serological testing. There were 164 Lisaws and 376 Akhas: most were illiterate (88.71%) and the annual family income was < or = 9,999 baht (50.93%). The seroprevalence of HBsAg was 8.15%. Logistic regression analysis, controlling for possible confounding factors, revealed that one to five injections in the year prior to the study increased the risk of HBsAg carriage by a factor of 4.84 (95% CI = 1.42-16.49); more than six injections increased the risk by a factor of 5.84 (95% CI = 1.47-23.18).


Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) on aboard Chinese Huan Jing (HJ)-1C satellite has been planed to be launched in 2010. The satellite will fly in a sun-synchronous polar orbit of about 500-km altitude. SAR will operate in S band with HH polarization. Its image mode has the incidence angles 25°and 47°at the near and far sides of the swath respectively. SAR image has a spatial resolution of 20 m with a swath of 100 km. Here, the sea surface wind mapping capability of the SAR in the Chinese Coastal Region has been examined using M4S radar imaging model developed by Romeiser et al. The model is based on Bragg scattering theory in a composite surface model expansion. It accounts for contributions of the full ocean wave spectrum to the radar backscatter from ocean surface. The model reproduces absolute normalized radar cross section (NRCS) values for wide ranges of wind speeds. The model results of HJ-1C SAR have been compared with the model results of Envisat and Radarsat SAR signals. It shows that HJ-1C SAR is as good as both Envisat ASAR and Radarsat SAR at sea surface wind mapping Capability.


Orai3 channel has emerged as important player in malignant transformation. Indeed, its expression is increased in cancer and favors cell proliferation and survival by permitting calcium influx. In this study, Orai3 was overexpressed in lung adenocarcinoma as compared to their matched non-tumour samples and was associated with tumoural aggressiveness. Moreover, its expression was associated with estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) expression and visceral pleural invasion in multivariate analysis. Furthermore, both the overall survival (OS) median and the metastasis free survival (MFS) median of tumors with high Orai3 expression were lower than in low Orai3 expression regardless of cancer stage (35.01 months vs. 51.11 months for OS and 46.01 months vs. 62.04 months for MFS). In conclusion, Orai3 protein level constitutes an independent prognostic marker in lung adenocarcinoma, and a novel prognostic marker that could help selecting the patients with worst prognosis to be treated with adjuvant chemotherapy in resectable stage.


Multiple factors can be offered to explain the Labour victory, and Conservative defeat, in the 2001 British general election. Here we pursue one of the most interesting explanations offered by a modified Downsian model of party competition. Part I of this paper builds on Stimson's (1991) rational choice theory of policy mood cycles and considers how this framework can be applied to the context of British elections. Part II discusses measures of ideological change at mass and elite levels, focusing on two issues at the heart of British party politics: tax cuts v. spending and European integration v. independence. Evidence is drawn from the 2001 British Representation Study (BRS), involving 1000 parliamentary candidates and MPs. Comparisons are made with the British Election Studies (BES). Part III lays out the evidence. The study comes to three main conclusions: (i) on the key issues of public spending and Europe, Labour politicians remained close to the center-ground of Westminster party politics, along with the Liberal Democrats, with the Nationalist parties further towards the left, while the Conservatives remained with clear blue water on the far right; (ii) as a result of this pattern the Conservatives were the party furthest away from the median British voter; and (iii) one reason for this pattern was selective perception, so that Conservative politicians "missed the target." The conclusion discusses the reasons for this phenomenon, the implications for the future of British party politics, and the broader lessons for why parties fail to learn and adapt in the face of the repeated electoral defeats.


The aims of the study were (a) to test the effectiveness of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to predict Greek university students' voluntary participation in an extracurricular gymnastics course, and (b) to evaluate gender differences. Two hundred sixty-three (127 female, 136 male) students participated in the study. Students' attitudes, intention, and PBC were measured with a questionnaire and their attendance in the course was recorded by the teacher. Results from the MANOVA conducted showed that females had higher scores compared with males in all observed variables. Results from the structural equation modeling (SEM) employed supported the usefulness of TPB to explain students' attitudes and behavior toward extracurricular physical activities (PA). Differences also emerged on path structure of the relationships among the variables.


The problem of regulation of behavioral deviations in the youth environment attracts the attention of many researchers in various branches of science. Regulation of behavioral deviations means the prevention of unfavorable living conditions of adolescents, namely the elimination of factors that can cause certain negative consequences. The article reveals and analyzes the important factors that determine the criminal behavior of adolescents. In particular, such factors are singled out: uncensored propaganda of negative behavior styles that provoke adolescents to imitate «heroes» with bloody and violent behavior; the influence of families that give their children little attention from preschool age, turn a blind eye to their bad behavior, have an irresponsible attitude to the world around them and the environment, encourage their children's whims; inconsistency of legal reform, extremes in modern judicial practice. The results of the study of predisposition to criminal behavior of adolescents are also presented. The methods chosen for the study: "Diagnosis of the tendency to overcome social norms and rules (Yu.A. Kleiberg)", "Methods of diagnosing the tendency to deviant behavior (A.N. Orel)", "Diagnosis of hostility (according to the Cook-Medley scale)", "Obozov-Shchokintest to determine the degree of determination", "A. Bass-A. Dark diagnosis of indicators and forms of aggression". The type of social regulation of behavioral deviations such as individual prevention of juvenile delinquency is considered in detail. Its essence is purposeful work with a particular teenager and their closest people. Social workers, social educators and modern law enforcement agencies are comprehensively called to carry out this type. Individual prevention is directed at the adolescent and their negative traits, the environment that shapes them, as well as the conditions, circumstances and situations that contribute to or facilitate the commission of crimes by minors.


Arrays of ferromagnetic circular dots (with diameters ranging from 225 to 420 nm) have been prepared at the surface of atomically ordered paramagnetic Fe60Al40 (at. %) sheets by means of ion irradiation through prelithographed poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) masks. The cumulative effects of consecutive ion irradiation (using Ar+ ions at 1.2 × 1014 ions/cm2 with 10, 13, 16, 19 and 22 keV incident energies) on the properties of the patterned dots have been investigated. A progressive increase in the overall magneto-optical Kerr signal is observed for increasingly larger irradiation energies, an effect which is ascribed to accumulation of atomic disorder. Conversely, the coercivity, HC, shows a maximum after irradiating at 16–19 keV and it decreases for larger irradiation energies. Such a decrease in HC is ascribed to the formation of vortex states during magnetization reversal, in agreement with results obtained from micromagnetic simulations. At the same time, the PMMA layer, with an initial thickness of 90 nm, becomes progressively thinned during the successive irradiation processes. After irradiation at 22 keV, the remaining PMMA layer is too thin to stop the incoming ions and, consequently, ferromagnetism starts to be generated underneath the nominally masked areas. These experimental results are in agreement with calculations using the Monte-Carlo simulation Stopping Range of Ions in Matter software, which show that for exceedingly thin PMMA layers Ar+ ions can reach the Fe60Al40 layer despite the presence of the mask.


According to a widely held view, rationality demands that the preferences of a person be transitive. The transitivity assumption is an axiom in standard theories of rational choice. It is also prima facie very plausible. I argue here that transitivity is not a necessary condition of rationality; it is a constraint only in some cases. The argument presented here is based on the non-linearity of differential utility functions. This paper has four parts. First, I present an argument against the transitivity assumption (I, II). Second, I discuss some objections; this will also bring out some features of the view defended here, like the essentially comparative nature of choice (III). Then, I discuss certain proposals that promise to avoid my conclusion (IV). Finally, I go into some implications concerning the nature of rational decision making (V). To accept some intransitivities as rational does not make our life easier; it can even lead to hard choices. However, it does not lead to skepticism about rational choice.


As managed care continues to emerge as a dominant structure for delivering and reimbursing health care, nursing is responding and assisting in reshaping the health care system. Nursing case management as a new delivery of care includes providing and coordinating care across the continuum. The continuum includes prevention, wellness, acute, rehabilitation, long term, and hospice care. Various definitions of case management exist and are dependent on the discipline that employs them, the setting in which they are implemented, and the personnel and staff mix used in their implementation. Patient identification, assessment, planning, implementing and coordinating and evaluating the delivery of service and patient outcomes are components common to all case management models. The nurse case manager should be minimally educationally prepared at the baccalaureate level. She/he should also have expert clinical skills, knowledge of the health care system, health care finances, and legal issues and be an effective communicator. Within the case management model the case manager will use various tools to achieve clinical, quality, and economic outcomes. Some of these tools include practice guidelines, critical paths, variance analysis, protocols/algorithms, risk assessment, and outcome measurement tools.


Energy efficiency is a strategic component of urban sustainability. The aim of this workshop is to address benchmarking techniques in energy efficiency and sustainability as a management tool in the context of urban and local community actions towards sustainability. The workshop also identifies and discusses methodologies and tools to measure urban sustainable energy and energy efficiency in cities. It is well known that standard benchmarking techniques, such as per capita or GDP normalization, are missing important features of the collected data used for benchmarking. Rigorous benchmarking techniques are likely to play an increasingly important role for policy-making authorities and for local authorities to assess their energy efficiency actions, to monitor their performance, exchange experience and learn from each other. In order to develop reliable and robust benchmarking techniques, different databases on energy consumption and location should be integrated with statistical and energy performance assessment methodologies. A special session was dedicated to databases, methodologies and GIS based tools for assessing energy sustainability in urban areas


Magnetization measurements show that modern high current-density strands made for HEP programs exhibit flux-jump instabilities at low fields, due to their having large effec- tive filament diameters. Such instabilities might be problematic be- cause they can initiate a quench in low-field regions of magnets. We explored magnetization and transport measurements of the most recent high strands and cables to probe the instability behavior. In the regime where flux jumps are seen by magnetization measurements, transport current measurements show a threshold for stability. This threshold is significantly lower than the critical current at higher fields, and above this threshold, quenching in the strand could be initiated by ramping the magnetic field. The threshold current depends on the wire size and internal filament design, and is consistent with stability criteria. In cables, quench currents were nearly independent of field after training, and were far below the expected critical currents. Details of these measure- ments and their implications for testing and use in magnets are discussed.


This essay focuses on the risk of solitude of smart workers, i.e. those people who perform mobile, remotely and digitally intensive relations of work. Reduction in face-to-face interactions with organizational members can have negative effects on either their professional identity and sense of community, or their extra-work life. On the other side, a growing number of mobile workers is discovering novel social spaces and collective practices (e.g. Coworking Centers, Fab Labs). On the basis of a review of theoretical and research literature, and the analysis of data from the European Working Condition Survey, we connect the interpretation of smart working and of new digitalized practices of collaborative work.
Is smart working a win win solution for organizations and workers or merely a new form of intensification of work? Do the new practices of collaborative work overcome the risk of isolation posed by the remote work?  Or are they perfectly complementary to smart working to reduce labor costs and share human capital? As empirical evidence does not permit to formulate clear answers to these questions, we try to identify trend lines for some future scenarios in terms of risks and opportunities.


Increased maritime activities and rapid environmental change pose significant hazards, both natural and technological, to Arctic maritime operators and coastal communities. Currently, U.S. and foreign research activities account for more than half of the sustained hazard-relevant observations in the U.S. maritime Arctic, but hazard assessment and emergency response are hampered by a lack of dedicated hazard monitoring installations in the Arctic. In the present study, we consider a number of different sustained environmental observations associated with research into atmosphere-ice-ocean processes, and discuss how they can help support the toolkit of emergency responders. Building on a case study at Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, we investigate potential hazards in the seasonally ice-covered coastal zone. Guided by recent incidents requiring emergency response, we analyze data from coastal radar and other observing assets, such as an ice mass balance site and oceanographic moorings, in order to outline a framework for coastal maritime hazard assessments that builds on diverse observing systems infrastructure. This approach links Arctic system science research to operational information needs in the context of the development of a Common Operational Picture (COP) for Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) relevant for Arctic coastal and offshore regions. A COP in these regions needs to consider threats not typically part of the classic MDA framework, including sea ice or slow-onset hazards. An environmental security and MDA testbed is proposed for northern Alaska, building on research and community assets to help guide a hybrid research-operational framework that supports effective emergency response in Arctic regions.


Professor T. B. Johnston has pointed out to me that the " thoracic stomach " associated with a short oesophagus is a true hernia, as the whole stomach develops within the abdomen; but in the course of development the oesophagus does not grow in length with sufficient rapidity, so that a part of the diaphragm is drawn through the hiatus oesophageus into the thorax. In addition to the sixteen cases of diaphragmatic hernia with a short oesophagus I have seen five cases at the Clinic and one at Guy's of the so-called " hiatus hernia," in which a part of the stomach which is generally within the abdomen is forced urnder certain conditions through the hiatus oesophageus into the thorax ; it is sometimes, but not always, accompanied by a part of the oesophagus, which is of normal length. The condition is almost invariably missed in routine x-ray examinations, but can be recognized by using a special technique when its presence is suspected on account of the characteristic symptoms (see Guy's Hospital Reports, 1934, lxxxiv, 43). -I am, etc., New Lodge Clinic, Windsor Forest, ARTHUR F. HURST. July 6th.


Recent advances, first and foremost the development of new immunosuppressive agents, have markedly improved the outcome of intestinal transplantation, which is a treatment option for patients with serious intestinal diseases who have become dependent on total parenteral nutrition. The first small bowel transplantation in Sweden was performed at Huddinge Hospital in 1997, in the adult patient with intestinal pseudo-obstruction. The article reports the course of this patient and an update of international progress in intestinal transplantation.


Background: In the context of clinical assessment of memory complaints (MCs), the process of disclosing a diagnosis is of major importance since it is known to influence disease acceptance of patients and their next of kin. Based on the Common Sense Model (CSM, Leventhal et al. 1997), this study aims to prospectively examine memory problem perceptions of patients with memory complaints and their next of kin during the diagnostic process, namely before and after diagnosis disclosure. Methods: We plan to recruit 125 patients with MCs who are seen for the first time at the Research and Resources Memory Center in Nancy, France. This study includes 4 visits during which patients and their next of kin are evaluated for memory problem perceptions (French adaptation of the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Memory IPQ-M, Hurt et al. 2010), anxiety, depression, quality of life and coping strategies. Findings: Results from the pilot study show that the CSM is applicable in MCs and early stage dementia and reveal a typical profile for first-visit patients at a memory center. Discussion: We anticipate that the use of IPQ-M will help gain insight into how patients and their next of kin cope with memory problems.


We study the response of a three-sector commodity-exporter small open economy to a commodity price boom. When the economy has access to international borrowing and lending, a temporary commodity price boom brings about the standard wealth effect that stimulates demand and has long-run implications on the sectoral allocation of labour. If dynamic productivity gains are concentrated in the traded goods sector, the commodity boom crowds out the traded sector and delays convergence to the world technology frontier. Financial openness by stimulating current demand, amplifies the crowding out effect and may even lead to a growth trap, in which no resources are allocated to the traded sector. From a normative point of view, our analysis suggests that capital account management policies could be welfare improving in those circumstances.


Murine small intestinal motility consists of phasic contraction from interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) and migrating motor complexes (MMCs) from the enteric nervous system. The number of ICC is reduced in various gastrointestinal disorders, and this effect can be reversed once the disorder is resolved through cellular and tissue remodelling. Exposure to high-dose radiation can induce inflammation and alter intestinal motility. In this study, we investigated the changes in the small intestinal motility of 8- to 10-week-old male C3H/HeN mice after high-dose (13 Gy) irradiation. The aim of this study was to determine whether those changes are caused by changes in the ICC or enteric nervous system. After irradiation, the small intestine was dissected and stored in oxygenated Krebs-Ringer bicarbonate solution. The tension of contractions and intracellular membrane potentials were recorded at day 0, 1, 3 and 5 after irradiation and compared with those of sham-irradiated mice. Histological evaluation was performed by immunohistochemistry and apoptosis was evaluated. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for c-kit mRNA was also performed. Phasic contractions were not changed at day 0, 1, 3 and 5 after irradiation and did not significantly differ from those in the control mice. Slow waves were also sustained after irradiation. However, the frequency of migrating motor complexes (MMCs) was significantly higher at day 0 and 1 after exposure and the amplitude and area under the curve were significantly lower at day 3 after exposure compared with control mice. MMCs were recovered at day 5 with no difference from those of the control mice. ICC were detected after irradiation by immunohistochemistry for c-kit, and c-kit mRNA levels did not differ between sham-irradiated and irradiated mice. Histological evaluation showed that the most severe inflammation was detected at day 3 after irradiation, and apoptosis was detected only in the mucosa. Acetylcholine increased the contractility after irradiation, and tetrodotoxin decreased the number of MMCs in sham-irradiated and irradiated mice. Nw-oxide-l-arginine (L-NA) increased the number of MMCs. MMCs were recovered after L-NA treatment at day 3 after irradiation. Sodium nitroprusside decreased the MMCs in sham-irradiated and irradiated mice. Exposure to high-dose radiation did not alter phasic contractions and slow waves in the small intestine of mice, which suggests that ICC and their functions may be sustained after high-dose irradiation. Mucosal inflammation was severe after irradiation and there were some changes in MMCs related to the enteric nervous system.


This article reveals that formal labour markets in the European Union are not always quite as pure, wholesome and legitimate as might be supposed. Until now, it has been commonly assumed that the formal economy is separate and discrete from the informal economy. To contribute to the emerging literature showing that this is not always the case and that the formal economy can be permeated by informal practices, a so far little discussed employment arrangement is here brought to the fore in which formal employers pay their formal employees two wages, one declared and the other an undeclared (`envelope') wage. Reporting a 2007 survey composed of 26,659 face-to-face interviews in the 27 EU member states, the finding is that some 5 percent of all formal employees receive such undeclared wages from their formal employers which amount on average to two-fifths of their wage packet. However, this employment practice is not evenly distributed across the EU. Such quasi-formal employment is markedly more prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where the undeclared wage is more likely to be paid for regular employment hours, while in Continental Europe and Nordic countries undeclared wages are less common and are received mostly for overtime or extra work conducted. Given the prevalence in the EU of this hybrid employment practice which is neither purely formal nor informal, the article concludes by calling for greater recognition of how formal and informal employment are sometimes intimately interlocked and entwined rather than separate and discrete spheres.


This article analyses different standard measures of legislative turnover. Two main concerns are discussed: (1) the very definition of turnover: incoming MPs versus first-term MPs; and (2) the level of analysis: the whole chamber versus political groups. To illustrate this discussion, turnover in the French lower chamber, the Assemblée Nationale, is studied. It is shown that the choice of a particular measure is not trivial since empirical results are affected by the definition adopted. If the distinction between incoming and first-term MPs does not greatly modify results, the choice of the level of analysis leads to contradictory results. It is shown that the very logic of electoral contests leads to renewal mostly among those who lost previous elections, while incumbent majorities that lose elections hardly experience renewal. As both these phenomena coexist for every single election, aggregate measures of turnover do not account for these contradictory tendencies and tend to concentrate on alternation rather than turnover.


Abstract Through global trade, spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae), a native of Southeast Asia, has spread to at least 3 other continents since 2008. Initial reports of the fly in new regions often are associated with damage in agriculture fields, but the fly may be present in the landscape for years before populations reach a level at which they become a pest in fruit production. In 2012, spotted wing drosophila was reported in blueberry fields in eastern Tennessee, USA, for the first time. In order to determine whether the fly was established in middle Tennessee, we conducted landscape surveys over 2 yr in the middle of the state's ornamental nursery industry where many fruit and ornamental hosts of the fly are grown. Red and yellow colored traps baited with yeast solution were placed in 17 locations of the 5-county nursery production region of middle Tennessee. Traps were monitored weekly for 8 wk in 2013 and 9 wk in 2014. Flies were caught at all 17 locations in 2013 and 16 of 17 locations in 2014. First activity was delayed 3 wk and total captures were 77% lower in 2014 relative to the previous year, likely due to high mortality of overwintering flies resulting from unusually cold winter temperatures in the region. No statistical differences were detected between trap colors in the landscape or between total captures of each sex, despite a trend for more female than male captures by the end of the season. Beginning Feb 2014, we also sampled weekly from a single yellow monitoring trap suspended within a plot of mixed-species dogwood trees (Cornus spp.; Caryophyllales: Cornaceae) for nearly 1 yr. Adult D. suzukii consistently were caught from late Jul until mid-Dec when the first frost occurred. Our surveys confirm that spotted wing drosophila is well established in the middle Tennessee nursery production region, despite no concurrent reports of damage by local small-fruit producers in the region.


BACKGROUND: Most tests of lung function used in the evaluation and follow-up of the pulmonary effect of smoking reflect airway function alone such as standard spirometry. Whereas, the best established test that reflect alveolar function is the single-breath carbon monoxide diffusing capacity (DLco-SB) especially when this is expressed per liter of alveolar volume (DLco/VA). Accordingly, to study the effect of smoking on both airway and alveolar functions, it is necessary to use DLco/VA test in addition to standard spirometry. OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of cigarette smoking on lung diffusion, to correlate the effect of cigarette smoking and smoking cessation on lung diffusion and to find out whether the effect of cigarette smoking on lung diffusion is reversible. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The effect of cigarette smoking on spirometric indicators of ventilatory function (FVC, FEV1%, PEFR) and on lung diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (DLco-SB/VA) was evaluated on two occasions 6 months apart in 94 middle-aged, asymptomatic, male subjects, 56 smokers and 38 nonsmokers. RESULTS: All subjects were within the normal predicted spirometric and lung diffusion values (80-120%). The values of FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC% and PEFR averaged more than 94% in never smokers (n = 38, mean age 43.57 years), 85% predicted in smokers (n = 56, mean age 42.54 years). However, the mean rate of decrease in spirometric and lung diffusion values (DLco/VA) between smoker and non-smokers were significant (p<0.05). fourteen subjects (14) who initially were smokers became sustained exsmokers within six months of the first measurement, however, comparing the mean values of these parameters between the two groups reveals statistically significant differences (p<0.05); since that the values of DLco and DLco/VA in ex-smokers were significantly greater than those of current smokers and approached the values of those who had never smoked. In ex-smokers the mean values of DLco/VA rose, averaging 90% predicted at the first assessment but 97% predicted six months later. CONCLUSION: The values of FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC%, PEFR and Lung diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (DLco/VA) were lower in smokers than in never smokers. Ex-smokers had spirometric and lung diffusion values similar to those of never smokers even when spirometric values and DLco/VA were known to have been reduced while they were smoking.


What were Anglican Clergymen, in the fiction of the nineteenth century, like? How were their social and intellectual attitudes, and religious beliefs, characterized and delineated? Why do novelists portray the clergy as they do? How accurate is their portrayal, in the light of contemporary ecclesiastical history? This study answers these questions by reference to the novels, both well-known and little read, and to the lives and opinions of the actual clergy, of the period. There is a general survey of the fictional clergy throughout the century which relates them to particular religious movements, such as the Evangelical and Tractarian movements, and to changing intellectual and theological opinion. The principal aim of the study, however, is literary. It concentrates on the work of four major authors: Jane Austen, Thomas Love Peacock, Anthony Trollope and George Eliot. Their novels are examined in detail; the place and treatment of their clerical characters analysed and discussed. This close study of particular novels, it is hoped, will deepen the general literary appreciation of the novels and writers and stimulate interest in the neglected clerical characters of fiction.


Overparameterized neural networks enjoy great representation power on complex data, and more importantly yield sufficiently smooth output, which is crucial to their generalization and robustness. Most existing function approximation theories suggest that with sufficiently many parameters, neural networks can well approximate certain classes of functions in terms of the function value. The neural network themselves, however, can be highly nonsmooth. To bridge this gap, we take convolutional residual networks (ConvResNets) as an example, and prove that large ConvResNets can not only approximate a target function in terms of function value, but also exhibit sufficient first-order smoothness. Moreover, we extend our theory to approximating functions supported on a low-dimensional manifold. Our theory partially justifies the benefits of using deep and wide networks in practice. Numerical experiments on adversarial robust image classification are provided to support our theory.


In this paper we argue that 3 traditions of theory about organizational communication have special relevance to the ideas of problematic integration theory. In the rational structure tradition, organizations are described as mechanisms for suppressing or overcoming integration problems, as rationally designed communication processes achieve a system-level resolution that may ignore or override any individually experienced integration problems. In the organizing process theory tradition, values are recognized as important elements guiding organizational sense making or emerging through organizing or learning, but amazingly diverse and unintegrated social structures can stand as resolutions (broadly defined) of integration problems. Finally, in the structurational tradition, the diverse values of organizational groups are treated as emerging and being resolved in many ways in local practice, whereas structural constraints imply that local resolutions will enter into a body of generally relevant organizational knowledge only in limited ways.


Purpose Develop a 64Cu labeled radiopharmaceutical targeting prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and investigate its application for prostate cancer imaging. Methods 64Cu-PSMA-BCH was prepared and investigated for stability, PSMA specificity, and micro-PET imaging. With the approval of Ethics Committee of Beijing Cancer Hospital (No. 2017KT97), PET/CT imaging in 4 patients with suspected prostate cancer was performed and the radiation dosimetry was estimated. Then, PSMA PET-ultrasound image-guided biopsies were performed on 3 patients and the fine needle aspirates were further performed for autoradiography and immunohistochemistry analysis. Results 64Cu-PSMA-BCH was prepared with high radiochemical yield and stability. In vivo study showed higher uptake in PSMA ( +) 22Rv1 cells than PSMA ( −) PC-3 cells (5.59 ± 0.36 and 1.97 ± 0.22 IA%/106 cells at 1 h). It accumulated in 22Rv1 tumor with increasing radioactivity uptake and T/N ratios from 1 to 24 h post-injection. In patients with suspected prostate cancer, SUVmax and T/N ratios increased within 24 h post-injection. Compared with image at 1 h post-injection, more tumor lesions were detected at 6 h and 24 h post-injection. The human organ radiation dosimetry showed gallbladder wall was most critical, liver and kidneys were followed, and the whole-body effective dose was 0.0292 mSv/MBq. Two fine needle aspirates obtained by PET-ultrasound-guided targeted biopsy showed high radioactive signal by autoradiography, with 100% PSMA expression in cytoplasm and 30% expression in nucleus. Conclusion 64Cu-PSMA-BCH was PSMA specific and showed high stability in vivo with lower uptake in liver than 64CuPSMA-617. Biodistribution in mice and PCa patients showed similar profile compared with other PSMA ligands and it was safe with moderate effective dosimetry. The increased tumor uptake and T/N ratios by delayed imaging may facilitate the detection of small lesions and guiding targeted biopsies.


ABSTRACT Two decades (1997–2017) of blended satellite-retrieved phytoplankton chlorophyll a concentration (Chl-a) data were used to assess the interannual variation and recent trends of phytoplankton biomass in Arctic and subarctic ocean (ASAO) regions. Satellite and reanalysis data for geophysical variables were used to assess the probable environmental factors responsible for the observed Chl-a changes. Aggregate Chl-a in the entire ASAO increased steadily from 1997 and then began to decline in the early 2010s. This decline reflects Chl-a declines in most ASAO regions, but the responsible factors and the year in which the trend reversal occurred varied greatly from region to region. In open ocean regions, large-scale climate variability might underlie the Chl-a decline, whereas, in semi-enclosed coastal waters and embayments, the underlying factors might be local or regional (including land–ocean interactions). Therefore, although sea surface temperatures in the ASAO continued to increase steadily, the decline in aggregate Chl-a in the ASAO is unlikely to be connected to global warming.


This paper illustrates, analytically and quantitatively, the effect of high-order temporal correlations on steady-state and transition probabilities in Finite State Machines (FSMs). As the main theoretical contribution, we extend the previous work done on steady-state probability calculation in FSMs to account for complex spatiotemporal correlations which are present at the primary inputs when the target machine models real hardware and receives data from real applications. More precisely: 1) using the concept of constrained reachability analysis, the correct set of Chapman-Kolmogorov equations are constructed; and 2) based on stochastic complementation and iterative aggregation/disaggregation techniques, exact and approximate techniques for finding the state occupancy probabilities in the target machine are presented. From a practical point of view, we show that assuming temporal independence or even using first-order temporal models is not sufficient, that is, the inaccuracies induced in steady-state and transition probability calculations are significant for most of the analyzed benchmarks. Experimental results show that, if the order of the source is underestimated, not only the set of reachable sets is incorrectly determined, but also the obtained probability values can be more than 100% off from the correct ones.


The tuning process of the three-dimensional electric field near the beam axis is very important in the optimization of the Interdigital H-mode Drift Tube Linac (IH-DTL). The tuning of the longitudinal field distribution, the Kilpatrik (Kp) factor, and the transverse dipole field have been discussed in detail, combined with the radio-frequency tuning process of the 53.667 MHz short IH-DTL cavity, which was designed to accelerate 238U34+ from 0.143 MeV/u to 0.289 MeV/u in the SSC-Linac injector project at the Institute of Modern Physics. The flatness criterion and the tube tuning method are discussed in order to meet the beam dynamics requirements. In the tube tuning process, the energy gain error in the cells should be reduced to less than ±2%, and the Kp factor should be reduced to 1.6. The transverse dipole field and the method that uses a "plunger" to dismiss this dipole field are evaluated. The experience gained from the first cavity optimization benefits the tuning process of the three remaining IH-DTL cavities in the SSC-Linac project.


This article presents an explorative qualitative case study of how sixteen young Somali migrants stranded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia feel about staying in touch with loved ones abroad using Internet-based transnational communication. Left-behind during transit migration from Somalia to overseas, at this moment they can only digitally connect with contacts living inside for example dreamed diasporic locations in Europe. Based on in-depth interviews, a focus group and concept maps drawn by informants the ambivalent workings of affects spurred by transnational communication are explored. The intense feelings of togetherness originating in Skype video-chat, mobile phone calls and Facebook use are conceptualized with the notion of transnational affective capital – one of the only sources of capital the informants have. The ambivalence of transnational affective capital is scrutinized by exploring whether such connectivity routines offer trust, enable anxiety management and promote 'ontological security'. Alternatively, the question arises whether transnational communication may further exacerbate ontological insecurity: discomfort, unsettlement and increased anxiety related to the precarious situation of being stranded.


: Acute pancreatitis is most commonly attributed to gallstones, alcohol abuse, and metabolic disorders such as hyperlipidemia and hypercalcemia. Medications are an infrequent yet commonly overlooked etiology of pancreatitis. Although several drugs have been implicated, antidiabetic agents are a rare cause for drug-induced pancreatitis. Canagliflozin is a new drug in the class of SGLT-2 inhibitors used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Serious reported side effects include renal impairment, hyperkalemia, and hypotension. Pancreatitis as a result of canagliflozin, however, is exceedingly rare. Here we describe a case of a 33-year old female who presented with severe acute pancreatitis in the setting of recent initiation of canagliflozin. Given the timing of her presentation and after excluding all other possible etiologies, it was determined that canagliflozin was the likely source of her illness. This case highlights the importance of identifying drug-induced pancreatitis, especially in novel drugs, as it is commonly neglected in patients with multiple medical comorbidities and those taking numerous medications. Prompt identification of drug-induced pancreatitis can improve management as well as decrease morbidity and mortality in these individuals.


The following thesis includes a re-examination of research conducted at the Oxbow Dam site (DhMn-1) in southeastern Saskatchewan in 1956 as well as the results of new research conducted at the site in 1995 and 1996. The material recovered during the original excavation was instrumental in defining the Oxbow cultural complex of the Northern Plains (Nero and McCorquodale 1958). As research on the subject progressed through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, many archaeologists felt that the original assemblage no longer fit directly into the complex but, instead, represented a transitional period from antecedent Mummy Cave series complexes into an early example of the Oxbow complex. This notion was based on the fact that the 1950s excavation produced a radiocarbon date that was much older than those produced from subsequent research. Furthermore, the assemblage, which was thought to represent a single component, contains artifacts that are atypical of the complex as it is currently understood. The results of the 1995 and 1996 field work indicate that the site is actually multicomponent and that the Oxbow material is a relatively late example of a campsite from the complex. In light of these results, it appears that the original radiocarbon date was likely contaminated and that the artifact assemblage was a mixture of two or more cultural components; a combination which simulated what an early Oxbow component might look like. An overview of assemblages from various sites within the complex, however, strongly suggests that cultural continuity exists between grassland Mummy Cave series variants like Gowen (Walker 1992) and later Oxbow


ecords in any organization is very vital and an important asset. This article R evaluates records management practices at the Abia State Ministry of Health. This study reports on part of a doctoral research project by Chilaka (2019) that sought to look at the influence of records management practices and organizational culture on good governance in Abia State Civil Service, Nigeria. The aim of this study was to evaluate records management practices at the Ministry of Health and suggest ways in which these practices can be improved upon. The objectives of this study were: to establish the existing records management practices at the Ministry of Health; to examine whether records management practices conform to national legislations, policies and guidelines; to examine whether records management practices at the Ministry of Health conform to international best practices; to establish challenges facing the Ministry of Health in the management of their records and suggest how records management practices can be improved upon by use of best practices.. This study used the survey method approach. Data was collected through questionnaire. The population for this study was 526 civil servants in the senior category (levels 7 – 16); however only 105 (20%) was used as the sample size for the study. 85 (81%) out of 105 were able to participate in the study. Data collected through a questionnaire was analysed to obtain some descriptive statistics. The study findings established that records management at the Ministry of Health were not well entrenched. This was evidenced by lack of framework for effective and efficient records management, lack of institutional policies, guidelines and regulations for records management, and lack of adequate basic records management skills among staff. In order to enhance records management, the study recommended that a regulatory framework for records management should be developed and implemented, the Ministry of Health should formulate institutional policies, guidelines and regulations for records management. It is also recommended that management together with the Records Manager should identify training needs for staff of the Ministry especially those in Administrative and finance departments and have their trainings tailored those areas


Most researchers agree that there is a continuum between well-definedness and ill-definedness. However, positioning a specific problem within this continuum is not always easy. To determine the degree of ill-definedness of a problem, in this paper, we propose a classification into the following five classes with respect to the size of the problems's solution space: 1) one single solution, 2) one solution strategy which can be implemented in different variants, 3) a limited number of alternative solution strategies which can be implemented in different ways, 4) a great variety of possible solution strategies where solutions can be verified, and 5) the correctness of a solution cannot be verified.


The overall objectives of this study were to evaluate the use of a milk progesterone enzyme immunoassay to investigate reproductive activity in post-partum dairy cows and to evaluate fertility in the dairy herds. An enzyme immunoassay for progesterone in milk was established which conformed to requirements in terms of specificity, precision and sensitivity (4 pg/10μ ). The concentration of progesterone in plasma and milk had a high correlation (r=0.96). The concentrations of progesterone in milk with and without preservative were also highly correlated (r=0.96).

Monitoring of milk progesterone concentrations from a week after calving through to 4 weeks after insemination showed that the length of the postpartum acyclic period (PPAP) was not affected by season. There was also no significant relationship between the length of PPAP and age, parity, milk yield, days open, body weight and body condition after calving. One factor that did lengthen the PPAP was the occurrence of a post-partum transient progesterone rise (PTPR) prior the first normal oestrous cycle. The observation of oestrus (standing heat behaviour) by experienced herdsmen observing cows twice daily was also recorded in the study. In the period between calving through to insemination only 58.5% of ovulations were accurately detected when checked against milk progesterone levels.

Two trials were carried out to determine the effect of GnRH analogue (Fertagyl R, Intervet, Australia: Pty. Ltd) on fertility and cycle lenth of Cows which failed to conceive after insemination. An intra-muscular injection of 100 μg Fertagyl R on day 14 after insemination significantly increased (p 0.5) after treatment, and conception rates were not significantly affected.

Pregnancy diagnosis at 21 to 24 days after insemination using milk progesterone concentrations was highly accurate. The use of discriminant analysis for setting the cut off levels of milk progesterone which separated pregnant and non-pregnant cows improved the sensitivity of this pregnancy test. The highest accuracy was 97.2% (69/71) for pregnant and 92.1% (47/51) for non-pregnant cows at 23 days after insemination. Factors such as shortened or prolonged oestrous cycle after failing to conceive, embryonic mortality, insemination at the wrong time or oestrus not being accurately detected caused false positive results. A transient decrease in milk progesterone levels in some cows around 21-24 days of pregnancy caused some false negatives results.

The last experiment concerned the investigation of fertility problems in 4 dairy herds, using monthly milk samples for assaying progesterone and combining this information with results of reproductive examinations on monthly Herd Health visits. Milk progesterone from individual cows with abnormal ovarian structures helped distinguish between follicular and luteal cysts. The herd incidence of cows with high and low progesterone levels at monthly sampling helped define periods of protracted postpartum anoestrus through the year.


The basic problem in designing control systems is the ability to achieve good performance in the presence of uncertainties such as output disturbances, measurement noise or unmodeled dynamics (i.e. robust controllers). Recent development in the area has been directed towards developing a consistent design methodology within this uncertain environment. The attitude control/ momentum management of the space station poses a typical problem in a highly uncertain environment (such as mass properties of the Space Station and environmental disturbances as well as parametric uncertainties). The objective of this research is to use LQR control for the position control of spin axis rotor position at reference value in the presence of parametric uncertainties, external unmeasurable disturbances and system inherent non-linearity with different type's reference tracking signal are considered extensively in this paper.


Adoption of banana tissue culture in Uganda still remains low despite the availability of policies geared to enhancing agriculture. A survey was carried out on 115 smallholder farmers in Central Uganda to establish the influence of agro-related policies in tissue culture banana adoption between January and July 2018. Results from the study indicated that 83.8% of the respondents were aware about the Plan for Modernization of Agriculture policy as compared to National Agricultural Policy (5.5%), National Development Plan (13.12%) and Agricultural Sector Development Strategy and Investment Plan (3.3%). Age, gender and education level all exhibited weak correlations in relation to policy awareness while generally, the study found out that awareness of the of the policies did not significantly influence farmer's adoption of tissue culture banana in central Uganda (P>0.05). We conclude that most of the agro-related polices were on paper and minimal efforts were in place to enhance their awareness amongst small holder farmers. We therefore recommend that increased awareness of agro-related policies to the farmers as well as integration of farmer interests in policy formulation are paramount in order to achieve wide uptake of agro-technologies like banana tissue culture.


Geographic studies of environmental racism have focused on the spatial relationships between environmental hazards and community demographics in order to determine if inequity exists. Conspicuously absent within this literature, however, is any substantive discussion of racism. This paper seeks to address this shortcoming in two ways. I first investigate how racism is understood and expressed in the literature. I argue that although racism is rarely explicitly discussed, a normative conceptualization of racism informs the research. Not only is this prevailing conception overly narrow and restrictive, it also denies the spatiality of racism. Consequently, my second goal is to demonstrate how various forms of racism contribute to environmental racism. In addition to conventional understandings of racism, I emphasize white privilege, a highly structural and spatial form of racism. Using Los Angeles as a case study, I examine how whites have secured relatively cleaner environments by moving away from older industrial cores via suburbanization. I suggest that the historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are instances of white privilege and have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racism. Thus, in addition to interpreting racism as discriminatory facility siting and malicious intent, I also examine a less conscious but hegemonic form of racism, white privilege. Such an approach not only allows us to appreciate the range of racisms that shape the urban landscape, but also illuminates the functional relationships between places—in particular between industrial zones and residential suburbs, and how their development reflects and reproduces a particular racist formation.


Quasicrystals are structures with long-range order and no translational periodicity. Monatomic quasicrystals were predicted for model potentials, but no single-component atomic quasicrystal of an actual element has been reported to date. A dodecagonal quasicrystal was recently predicted to form in bilayer water. Water and silicon present striking similarities in their phase behavior, raising the question of whether quasicrystals may occur in silicon. Here, we show, using molecular simulations, that a confined silicon bilayer forms a quasicrystal upon compression between smooth surfaces. The quasicrystal is stable in a narrow region of the phase diagram and forms spontaneously upon cooling the liquid bilayer in a wide range of pressures. Cooling the liquid between atomically detailed plates incommensurate with the quasicrystal leads to its spontaneous formation at 1 atm of lateral pressure. This suggests that the silicon quasicrystal could be obtained in experiments at room pressure by tuning the structure...


Rituximab is a chimeric murine/human monoclonal antibody that specifically targets CD20 molecules on the surface of B-cells, thereby depleting B-cells and regulating humoral immunity. This antibody is mostly used in CD20-positive B-cell lymphoma, but is also widely used in many other connective tissue and neurological disorders. These neurological disorders include multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica, myasthenia gravis, Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, paraneoplastic neurological syndromes, primary central nervous system lymphoma, inflammatory myopathy, and some other autoimmune-mediated neurological disorders. Rituximab may be useful even in refractory cases of these disorders. There are some notable side effects in each phase after administration. An infusion reaction can occur just after administration in more than half of cases, though most reactions are negligible. Several months after administration, sustained suppression of humoral immunity with myelosuppression can cause reactivation of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), and severe opportunistic infections, some of which are fatal once they occur. Severe interstitial pneumonia can be treated with steroid pulse therapy, if necessary. To reduce the risk of infusion reactions and improve long-term tolerability, the human-derived components of the antibody have been increased to form humanized or human monoclonal antibodies like ocrelizumab and ofatumumab.


The concept of Privacy by Design is rooted in systems engineering. Yet, it is the legal framework of global privacy that gives new color to this concept as applied to Big Data. Increasingly, the long arm of the law is reaching into Big Data, but it is not simply by matter of regulatory enforcement or civil legal developments that Privacy by Design (PbD) is being thrust into the spotlight once more. Given that Big Data is considered miniscule in contrast to future data environments, PbD is simply the right thing to do. This paper aims to explore the origin of PbD, the current and future state of Big Data and regulatory enforcement, and the methodology of PbD applied to Big Data. As a cornerstone of organizational culture, PbD is a concept that allows organizations of any size to embrace the privacy interests of the data they collect, store, and use at the forefront of their approach.


This paper introduces a novel and efficient approach for user cooperation in wireless video multicast using randomized distributed space time codes (R-DSTC), in which the sender first transmits the source packets, and the sender and receivers that have received all source packets then generate and send the parity packets simultaneously using R-DSTC. As more parity packets are delivered, more receivers can recover all source packets and join the parity packet transmission. Four variations of the proposed systems are considered. The first one requires complete channel information between the sender and all receivers and between all receivers to derive the optimal transmission rates for sending source and parity packets, and employs receiver feedback to determine when to terminate parity transmission. The other three suboptimal systems do not require full channel information and/or receiver feedback, and hence are more feasible in practice. All four versions can support significantly higher video rates and correspondingly higher quality of decoded video, than prior approaches in the literature, which require full channel information but not feedback.


A number of SLA studies in the past decade (e.g. Lardiere, 1995; Murphy, 2000) have attempted to answer the question of whether the Dual-Mechanism Model can be extended to L2 English processing. These studies have found that the clear regular-irregular dissociation in compounds observed for L1 users is not the case for L2 users, who tend to include regular plurals in compounds to varying degrees. The present study reports on further efforts to investigate this issue with Turkish learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Turkey. An elicited written production task, similar to that used by Murphy (2000), was administered to high and low proficiency L1 Turkish users of EFL and native English speakers. The results, it is claimed, indicate that both the L1 controls and the L2 participants dissociate between regular and irregular nouns within English compounds. However, in contrast to most previous studies, the L2 dissociation was found to be stronger at higher levels of L2 proficiency, which speaks for a developmental restructuring in L2 inflectional processing that could be explained under a weak version of the Dual-Mechanism Model.


The role of forests in our environment is increasing in importance due to the multifunctional benefits forests provide in relation to climate change mitigation, water conservation and provision of fibre for bioenergy. However, afforestation targets across Europe are not being met. Using Ireland as a case study, we investigate why farm afforestation rates are falling, despite the availability of generous subsidies. We use a novel technique to examine the afforestation participation decision using a life cycle choice framework where we apply revealed choice methodology to afforestation for the first time. We find that the model coefficients coincide with expected economic theory relative to the utility maximisation of income, leisure and wealth (long term land value). However, we observe a cohort of farmers who do not plant forestry regardless of income derived, reflecting their preference to maintain the flexibility of the long term value of their land by continuing to farm.


Why an atlas of the Carboniferous in northern England? There can hardly be a more researched system in the whole of the British Isles, given its widespread distribution at outcrop and annual appearances in numerous PhD theses (including those of the authors). But perhaps all we really know about the Carboniferous is no more than skimming the surface. In this atlas, using modern multifold seismic and borehole data collected by the oil industry in its search for petroleum accumulations, we can start to look beyond the surface exposures and gain some new insights into the structure and stratigraphy of the subsurface (and surface) Carboniferous.

The unique appeal of this atlas of seismic sections is that it is based on data from onshore UK. Although these lines were originally shot as small segments targeting individual prospects and trends, they have been spliced together to produce a series of basin-scale regional lines which should be of value to academic researchers and industry alike. With this atlas, we can walk the seismic lines at outcrop and in many cases compare exposure to both the seismic data and associated palaeofacies maps.


While ERISA sets forth an explicit standard that the plan administrator's actions must meet those of a prudent man acting in like circumstances, courts have applied the arbitrary and capricious standard of review to administrator decisions. Courts should apply the arbitrary and capricious standard only when dealing with disinterested plan administrators acting properly under ERISA. The arbitrary and capricious rule was applied to post-ERISA decisions as a continuation of the pre-ERISA precedent, which established the rule through the continued development of common law from union negotiated employee benefit plans decided under the Labor Management Relations Act. Unfortunately, this continuation of judicial review marked an improper application of ERISA standards, which was passed by Congress in an effort to modify fiduciary mismanagement under LMRA and pre-ERISA employee benefit plans. ERISA set forth specific statutory guidelines that distinguish its precedent from pre-ERISA cases and decisions made under the LMRA analogy. Congress intended ERISA to develop a separate and distinct common law of employee benefits which should be distinct from strict trust law theory. Under ERISA, courts should require de novo review in all inquiries into interested plan administrators with improper motives and in cases where the employee-beneficiary satisfies his burden of proof that the administrator was self-dealing or acting with an improper motive. This review would not have the financial and litigious consequences many have supposed, but would create a higher standard of fiduciary responsibility and increase the tendency that the plans properly pay employees, as was expressly intended and proposed by ERISA's drafters.


Bidding behavior in all-pay auctions is well documented as deviating from the Nash predictions. In particular, there is pervasive and significant overbidding not only in terms of the aggregate groups bids being greater than the value of the prize, but also by individuals placing bids that guarantee them to earn negative profit. In this paper, we conduct a series of experiments in order to attempt to provide behavioral explanations for these bidding strategies. We find that individual agents are not especially strategically motivated, but rather we believe that non-monetary incentives play a significant role. Another critical factor in overbidding is the framing of the earnings. If earnings are presented in a positive manner instead of negatively as in the standard all-pay auction framework, then aggregate overdissipation can be eliminated in the long run.


It is a commonly held belief that languages and dialects can be identified by pitch information alone. In most previous experiments, subjects were presented with pitch information as well as with limited information on amplitude and timing but not with higher-level, i.e. linguistic, information as represented by intonation contours. The question arises as to whether higher-level information may significantly enhance success rates. To evaluate both approaches, two experiments were carried out. In the first experiment, listeners were presented with isolated pitch information extracted from recordings of four varieties of German. In the second experiment, listeners were presented with intonation contours of the same varieties, which were superimposed on neutral carrier utterances. The results suggest that success rates may indeed be enhanced by using intonation contours. Moreover, the linguistic background of the listeners was found to affect performance in both tests.


Summary Species reintroductions can be used in conservation management to increase biodiversity and aid in restoring ecosystem function. For reintroductions to be successful, it is important to identify the conditions required to establish a viable population. We developed a demographic model using Vortex10, an individual-based simulation software, to assess the long-term consequences of different management interventions on the success of the recent reintroduction of the white stork, Ciconia ciconia, to the UK. Demographic data obtained from this reintroduced population were supplemented with information from western European populations to build the models. The impact of incorporating different management actions (e.g. supplementing with captive-bred juveniles, provision of nesting platforms, and habitat improvement/supplementary feeding) on the stochastic population growth rate was assessed. Survival rates also differ depending on an individual's migratory strategy, hence we tested the impact of having different proportions of the population as residents or migrants. Our models showed that if the British stork population adopts a fully migratory strategy, with its associated higher mortality rates, i.e. all individuals migrating to southern Europe or northern Africa, increasing the supplementation rate would not lead to a positive population growth rate. However, management actions which increased the number of fledglings per nest generated a slight positive growth rate that led to a 54.3% increase in population size after 50 years and, when combining all three management options, the population grew by 378.3%. Alternatively, if a minimum of 9% of individuals overwintered in Britain, which is likely based on field observations and tracking data, a positive growth rate can be achieved without additional management due to this behaviour's lower mortality rates. We conclude that the British white stork population will likely be viable in the long term, but these models and projections should be updated as more demographic data on this novel population become available.


Background: Nonattendance is common among patients suffering from delusional infestation (DI) with a risk factor for poorer patient outcomes. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence rate and predictors of nonattendance among patients presenting to a psychodermatology department with DI and the subsequent effect on the success of prescribing new antipsychotics. Methods: Data of 265 patients were reviewed of the Amsterdam UMC, the Erasmus University Medical Center, the Royal London Hospital, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine between January 2008 and October 2019. Results: We observed that among the patients who attended the first consultation, 57% (n = 144) did not attend their second visit. Recreational drug use was significantly higher in the nonattendance group compared to the attendance group (25% against 18%). Patients who had a history of previously prescribed antipsychotics at the time of the first consultation were less likely to get prescribed antipsychotics from the psychodermatology departments for DI; however, prescribing antipsychotic drugs by the psychodermatology department did not influence nonattendance significantly. Conclusions: People suffering from DI are at high risk of nonattendance, even in specialist settings. Patients with current illicit drug use and younger patients are particularly at risk of this.


This study investigates the main predictors of entrepreneurship in small and medium-sized family firms. Based upon literature review and a pilot case study, hypotheses are developed, relating several individual and organizational antecedents of entrepreneurship to three different family firm types. Most of the hypotheses are confirmed by an analysis carried out on a large random sample of small and medium-sized Swedish family firms. Further studies addressing the determinants of entrepreneurship in family firms and practitionersņ advice aimed at enhancing entrepreneurship in such companies would hence benefit from targeting their efforts on the specific family firm types they address.


In Indonesia, broiler meat is available abundant mainly in traditional market. Unfortunately, this kind of meat is perishable most physical, organoleptic, and microbiological deterioration. To conserve consumers from low quality of meat, this study was conducted to evaluate the physical, organoleptic, and microbiological quality of meat. Meat evaluated was obtained from three traditional markets determined purposively, namely A market, B market, and C market. The physical quality measured were pH and a w ; the microbiological quality were total plate count and E. coli number; the organoleptic were meat color, texture, aroma that value in hedonic and hedonic rank test. This study showed that physically the meat was not really decrease although it had pH higher than normal pH of meat. The value of a w reached was 0.84-0.85. The microbial contaminant was higher than the number of microbial allowed. However, organoleptic value indicated that meat were acceptable for panelists.


Unified Parallel C (UPC) is a parallel language that uses a Single Program Multiple Data (SPMD) model of parallelism within a global address space. The Berkeley UPC Compiler is an open source and high-performance implementation of the language. The choice of C as the code generation target greatly enhances the compiler's portability, as evidenced by its support of a wide range of supercomputing platforms, including large-scale multiprocessors, vector machines, and network of workstations. In this paper I describe the translator component of the Berkeley UPC Compiler, which is responsible for performing UPC-to-C transformation and generating the necessary runtime calls for communication. The goal of the translator is to generate high quality C code while enabling easy porting of the compiler, and also provide a framework that allows for extensive high-level optimizations. We use a combination of micro-benchmarks and application kernels to show that our compiler can output C code that achieves good performance on both superscalar and vector environments, despite the source-to-source transformation process. We also investigate several communication optimizations, specifically targeting two optimizations can get significantly improve the performance of finegrained programs: message coalescing and split-phase communication generation.


Inference on large-scale models is of great interest in modern science. Examples include deterministic simulators of fluid dynamics to recover the source of a pollutant, or stochastic agent-based simulators to infer features of consumer behaviour. When computational constraints prohibit model evaluation at all but a small ensemble of parameter settings, exact inference becomes infeasible. In such cases, emulation of the simulator enables the interrogation of a surrogate model at arbitrary parameter values. Combining emulators with observational data to estimate parameters and predict a real-world process is known as computer model calibration. The choice of the emulator model is a critical aspect of calibration. Existing approaches treat the mathematical model as implemented on computer as an unknown but deterministic response surface. However, in many cases the underlying mathematical model, or the simulator approximating the mathematical model, are not determinsitic and in fact have some uncertainty associated with their output. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian statistical calibration model for stochastic simulators. The approach is motivated by two applied problems: a deterministic mathematical model of intra-cellular signalling whose implementation on computer nonetheless has discretization uncertainty, and a stochastic model of river water temperature commonly used in hydrology. We show the proposed approach is able to map the uncertainties of such non-deterministic simulators through to the resulting inference while retaining computational feasibility. Supplementary computer code and datasets are provided online.


The Postcolonial representation of European culture can alter our (European) perspectives on Western arts. The case of the novel An Equal Music by the Indian writer Vikram Seth is particularly interesting. Although set in Europe (between London, Vienna and Venice) and dealing with European characters, situations, landscapes, and cultural myths, the book offers a peculiarly Postcolonial reading of our classical music. Therefore, by applying Said's contrapuntal analysis to Postcolonial writing, I deal with 'What the Postcolonial means for us', taking into account, besides European Literature and Postcolonialism, also the relationship between European music and the Postcolonial sensibility, using Said's and Kundera's essays as keys to Seth's musical and fictional world.


The genus Lampris (Lampridae) currently comprises two species, Lampris guttatus (Brünnich 1788) and L. immaculatus (Gilchrist 1905) commonly known as Opah and Southern Opah, respectively. Hyde et al. (2014) presented DNA sequence data which revealed the presence of five distinct, monophyletic lineages within L. guttatus. In this paper, we present morphological and meristic data supporting the presence of five species previously subsumed within L. guttatus (Brünnich 1788). We restrict Lampris guttatus (Brünnich 1788), resurrect L. lauta (Lowe 1838), and describe three new species of Lampris. A key to the species of Lampris is provided.


OBJECTIVES
Local inflammatory reaction and tension are the main causes of postoperative complications after tracheal surgery. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) are known to have immunomodulatory activity. The exact mechanism of this activity is not known, although it is possible that they modulate the function of different cells involved in the immune response. Little is known of their impact on acute inflammation, especially in the problematic tracheal area. We aimed to study the effect of ASCs applied locally in an animal model of tracheal resection and anastomosis.

METHODS
ASCs from the subcutaneous fat of BDIX rats were infected for expression of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) and were cultured with Polyglactin 910 sutures to obtain biosutures (ASC-coated sutures). After tracheal resection, 90 BDIX rats (syngeneic, autologous model) underwent anastomosis with biosutures (1.5 10(6) cells/biosuture [Group 1] or 0.5 10(6) cells/biosuture [Group 2]) or conventional sutures (Group 3). The animals were killed after 1, 4, 10, 30 or 60 days and histological and immunofluorescence studies were performed on the anastomotic areas. Inflammatory cell densities were graded semiquantitatively by the pathologist in a blinded fashion.

RESULTS
In the early period (1 and 4 days), the biosuture groups presented an atypical pattern of acute inflammation, characterized by the almost complete absence of neutrophils, and the presence of abundant lymphocytes and plasma cells, compared with the control group (P < 0.05). Moreover, abundant macrophages/monocytes were immunolocated around blood vessels near the biosutures and between biosuture threads 1 day after anastomosis, whereas the presence of macrophages/monocytes in animals treated with conventional sutures was discrete (P < 0.05). No differences were observed in the later period. No side effects in the biosuture groups were found.

CONCLUSIONS
Biosutures are a comfortable way of stem cell delivery to the surgical field without modification of the operative protocol. ASCs suppress the local acute inflammatory reaction (increased macrophage migration and decreased neutrophil infiltration) in the tracheal anastomosis and cause an early switch from acute to chronic inflammation.


OBJECTIVES
This 2-year follow-up of the XIENCE V USA study examines both the long-term safety and effectiveness of the everolimus-eluting coronary stent system (EECSS) in real-world patients.

BACKGROUND
The safety and effectiveness of EECSS at 1 year in real-world clinical settings have been demonstrated in XIENCE V USA trial with low rates of target lesion revascularization (TLR), cardiac death, myocardial infarction (MI), and stent thrombosis (ST). Data on whether efficacy is maintained after 1 year and the event rate of very late stent thrombosis (VLST) between 1 and 2 years have not yet been reported.

METHODS
XIENCE V USA is a prospective, multicenter, single-arm, FDA required condition of approval study designed to examine the safety and effectiveness of EECSS in an all-inclusive, consecutively enrolled population from real-world clinical settings. Clinical end-point events, including ST, cardiac death, MI, and revascularization were adjudicated by an independent Clinical Events Committee.

RESULTS
 Four thousand eight hundred and seventy-three (96.4%) out of 5,054 participants (1,875 standard-risk; 3,059 extended-risk) reached 2-year follow-up. The 2-year rate of Academic Research Consortium (ARC)-defined definite and probable ST was 0.96% (95% CI 0.70-1.28) in the overall population and 0.34% (95% CI 0.12-0.74) and 1.33% (95% CI 0.95-1.81) in the standard-risk and extended-risk cohorts, respectively. The rate of VLST was 0.06% in the overall population, 0.0% in the standard-risk, and 0.10% in the extended-risk cohorts. The 2-year composite rate of cardiac death and ARC-defined MI was 8.9% (95% CI 8.08-9.70) in the overall population and 5.6% (95% CI 4.61-6.78) and 10.8% (95% CI 9.71-11.94) in the standard-risk and extended-risk cohorts, respectively.

CONCLUSION
Low event rates observed at 1 year were maintained through 2 years. Despite the increased number of patients who discontinued dual antiplatelet therapy by 2 years, the ST rate remained consistently low, and <1% at 2 years due to low VLST occurrence. These results demonstrate continued safety and effectiveness of the XIENCE V everolimus-eluting stent in a highly complex, real-world patient population through 2 years.


Significant reduction in design time for system on chip (SoC) applications can be achieved through IP reuse. Such a design methodology encourages designers to develop IP blocks that add to a library of soft cells in anticipation of the market trends and meet stringent time to market constraints. However for application specific ICs all the hardware in each IP block may not be used. This gives rise to an opportunity to reduce the number of hardware components in such blocks depending on the application and customizing the IP or soft cell for the application context. In this paper we present a method to automatically detect and remove logic in RTL blocks (soft cells) that are not used by the embedded application thereby reducing area and power. A prototype tool ReDeEm RTL (ReDesign in Embedded RTL, read as Redeem RTL) has been implemented to remove all redundant logic and its performance although dependent on the type of application, shows that sizable reduction in logic can be obtained.