PATMIR (Project of Technical Assistance for Rural Microfinance) began in Mexico as an initiative
aimed at expanding outreach of financial services to the rural poor in a sustainable
manner. Using international technical assistance, three primary methodologies were employed
in 34 cooperatives: i.) creating new cooperatives, ii.) strengthening existing cooperatives, and
iii.) encouraging existing institutions to expand into underserved areas. Various outreach indicators,
including two composite measures, were calculated to compare across institutions.
In general, new and expanding cooperatives attained better depth of outreach than the
strengthened institutions. While it is true that some of the smaller subsidized institutions
have nearly all of their clients meeting the prototypical PATMIR outreach standards, it is important
to recognize that larger institutions can and do serve the same segment of marginalized
clients in addition to their middle and upper income clients. This strategy has advantages
in that it allows for portfolio diversification, liquidity management, economies of scale,
and financial viability.
There does appear to be a trade-off between many measures of outreach and sustainability. A
higher dependence on subsidies is correlated with better depth of outreach, smaller loan and
deposit sizes, and lower staff productivity. Not surprisingly, institutions trying to serve a
large, rural area per branch have impressive depth of outreach and lower average loan sizes.
However, these institutions have a greater reliance on subsidies, lower staff productivity, and
higher transaction costs for clients in the form of travel time. There was no clear winner
among methodologies as certain cooperatives from each category achieved both outreach and
sustainability. New institutions have strong outreach indicators and are making strides to becoming sustainable.
However, there is a large start-up cost in time, training, and resources.
Existing institutions start with potentially significant scale, but face ingrained corporate culture
that can impede necessary changes. To the extent that the management is committed to
attaining a deeper outreach and the new portfolio is cost effective, more existing institutions
will be inclined to serve marginalized groups.


Background: In the Philippines, the use of herbal medicines as remedy for diseases is still common; among these is Citrus aurantifolia Swingle (Fam. Rutaceae), which was proven to have antibacterial property in another study. Since antimicrobial resistance is currently one of the major health issues globally, this study provided an opportunity in the discovery of new antimicrobials. Objectives: This study aimed to isolate and characterize the fractions responsible for the antibacterial activity of C. aurantifolia extracts. Methods: The manually expressed juice was lyophilized, while a small portion was phytochemically screened. The extract was subjected to Kupchan partitioning using water, ethyl acetate (EtAc), and dichloromethane (DCM) as solvents. The fractions were tested against Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus subtilis , Escherichia coli , and Proteus vulgaris for antibacterial properties. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) and bioautography were then conducted on the active fraction. Results: The crude extract tested positive for plant acids, glycosides, and flavonoids. Among the three fractions, the EtAc fraction exhibited the largest zones of inhibition (mm) at 18.67±0.58, 17.33±1.15, 10.00±1.00, and 15.33±1.53 for S.a., B.s., E.c., and P.v., respectively. The appropriate solvent system was found to be ethyl acetate:hexane:acetic acid (5:4:1) for the TLC of both crude extract and EtAc fraction. Zones of inhibition were observed in the B.s. culture around the upper spots in the chromatogram. Conclusion: Ethyl acetate can be used to extract the antibacterial components of C. aurantifolia fruit. A midpolar compound with a possible flavonoid character is responsible for its activity. Other chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques are recommended to isolate and identify the active compound.


BACKGROUND
No one knows whether the temporality of nonfatal deliberate self-harm in the United States mirrors the temporality of suicide deaths.

AIMS
To analyze day- and month-specific variation in population rates for suicide fatalities and, separately, for hospital admissions for nonfatal deliberate self-harm.

METHODS
For 12 states, we extracted vital statistics data on all suicides (n = 11,429) and hospital discharge data on all nonfatal deliberate self-harm admissions (n = 60,870) occurring in 1997. We used multinomial logistic regression to analyze the significance of day-to-day and month-to-month variations in the occurrence of suicides and nonfatal deliberate self-harm admissions.

RESULTS
Both fatal and nonfatal events had a 6%-10% excess occurrence on Monday and Tuesday and were 5%-13% less likely to occur on Saturdays (p < .05). Males were more likely than females to act on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Nonfatal admission rates were 6% above the average in April and May (p < .05). In contrast, suicide rates were 6% above the average in February and March and 8% below it in November (p < .05).

CONCLUSIONS
Suicides and nonfatal hospital admissions for deliberate self-harm have peaks and troughs on the same days in the United States. In contrast, the monthly patterns for these fatal and nonfatal events are not congruent.


Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), or perceptions of speech when there is no actual auditory stimulation, are a core symptom of schizophrenia. These voices can be highly distressing, often severely affect quality of life, and increase risk for suicide. Although AVH are prevalent in schizophrenia and several other psychiatric and neurologic disorders, they are not inevitably associated with disease. A minority of people in the general population also experiences AVH without a need for care. These non-clinical individuals provide the opportunity to study AVH without several confounds associated with schizophrenia, such as antipsychotic medication use and other symptoms related to the illness. In this thesis, the pathophysiological mechanism underlying AVH was investigated in schizophrenia patients and a non-clinical population. In the "state" studies, brain activity during AVH episodes was contrasted with brain activity during non-AVH episodes. This approach can inform us about the neural activity associated with AVH. In the "trait" studies, brain activity was compared between individuals with and without AVH. This approach provides information about neural mechanisms predisposing individuals to experience AVH. Furthermore, the efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the treatment of AVH was studied. A review of electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies revealed that the left superior temporal cortex is consistently reported to be involved in this symptom. Moreover, the review showed evidence that a failure in corollary discharge, i.e. a neural signal originating in frontal speech areas that indicates to sensory areas that forthcoming thought is self-generated, may underlie the experience of auditory hallucinations. In the first state study of this thesis, it was found that activity observed in the left inferior frontal gyrus and Heschl's gyrus during AVH in schizophrenia patients as measured with fMRI may be related to stimulus detection and motor activity. Several other areas were suggested to be more specifically involved in the genesis of AVH, including the thalamus and parahippocampal gyrus. These latter structures may provide important targets for neuromodulation to alleviate AVH symptoms. In the second state study, it was found that AVH in schizophrenia patients were related to activity in auditory and language areas. AVH onset corresponded with a decrease in theta-band power in the right hippocampus, suggesting that AVH onset may be triggered by memory processes. The first trait study revealed that individuals with non-clinical AVH exhibited increased psychophysiological measures of effortful attention, suggesting that attention to auditory channels may be related to the predisposition to hallucinate in this population. The second trait study showed that non-psychotic individuals with AVH exhibited increased functional connectivity from auditory and default mode areas during the resting state compared to controls. Finally, a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) study revealed that the effect of rTMS observed in some studies may be reliant on a placebo effect. In sum, these findings highlight the importance of attention and auditory processes as well as the involvement of language and memory structures in the genesis of AVH. In addition, these results question the efficacy of rTMS as a treatment tool for AVH.


Retrieval of land-surface temperature (LST) using data from the METEOSAT Second Generation-1 (MSG) Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) requires adequate estimates of land-surface emissivity (LSE). In this context, LSE maps for SEVIRI channels IR3.9, IR8.7, IR10.8, and IR12.0 were developed based on the vegetation cover method. A broadband LSE map (3-14 /spl mu/m) was also developed for estimating longwave surface fluxes that may prove to be useful in both energy balance and climate modeling studies. LSE is estimated from conventional static land-cover classifications, LSE spectral data for each land cover, and fractional vegetation cover (FVC) information. Both International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) Data and Information System (DIS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) MOD12Q1 land-cover products were used to build the LSE maps. Data on LSE were obtained from the Johns Hopkins University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory spectral libraries included in the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer spectral library, as well as from the MODIS University of California-Santa Barbara spectral library. FVC data for each pixel were derived based on the normalized differential vegetation index. Depending on land cover, the LSE errors for channels IR3.9 and IR8.7 spatially vary from /spl plusmn/0.6% to /spl plusmn/24% and /spl plusmn/0.1% to /spl plusmn/33%, respectively, whereas the broadband spectrum errors lie between /spl plusmn/0.3% and /spl plusmn/7%. In the case of channels IR10.8 and IR12.0, 73% of the land surfaces within the MSG disk present relative errors less than /spl plusmn/1.5%, and almost all (26%) of the remaining areas have relative errors of /spl plusmn/2.0%. Developed LSE maps provide a first estimate of the ranges of LSE in SEVIRI channels for each surface type, and obtained results may be used to assess the sensitivity of algorithms where an a priori knowledge of LSE is required.


In contrast to the hopes of some US observers, the so-called 'Baghdad Spring' of early 2005 did not mark the beginning of an era of sustained political reform in the Middle East. In an attempt to explain the resilience of authoritarian governance in the region, this article aims to demonstrate the insufficiencies of external democratisation efforts that rely on a crude reading of the 'modernisation' school of thinking and ignore the insights of the 'transition' school with regard to the international dimensions of democratisation. Case studies of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two countries sharing close strategic relationships with the United States yet differing in the socio-economic foundations of authoritarianism and experiences with managing external and domestic calls for political reform, demonstrate that the unwillingness of the United States to condition its support for regional partners on human rights concerns constitutes one of the main reasons for the Arab world's 'democratic exception'.


Continuous Integration (CI) has become a best practice of modern software development. Thanks in part to its tight integration with GitHub, Travis CI has emerged as arguably the most widely used CI platform for Open-Source Software (OSS) development. However, despite its prominent role in Software Engineering in practice, the benefits, costs, and implications of doing CI are all but clear from an academic standpoint. Little research has been done, and even less was of quantitative nature. In order to lay the groundwork for data-driven research on CI, we built TravisTorrent, travistorrent.testroots.org, a freely available data set based on Travis CI and GitHub that provides easy access to hundreds of thousands of analyzed builds from more than 1,000 projects. Unique to TravisTorrent is that each of its 2,640,825 Travis builds is synthesized with meta data from Travis CI's API, the results of analyzing its textual build log, a link to the GitHub commit which triggered the build, and dynamically aggregated project data from the time of commit extracted through GHTorrent.


This paper explores poetic structure in the Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud through examination of three specially selected poems from the collection - 'Devotion', 'Nocturne vulgaire' and 'Metropolitain'. Rimbaud's ironic attitude to his own texts emerges and it is argued that he often starts a poem in a certain way only to move it subsequently in an entirely different direction. Thus 'Devotion' ultimately seems to distort and parody the very form that it initially appears to espouse - that of the devotional prayer. The concluding stages of the poem explode its apparent structural stability as Rimbaud develops one of his characteristically startling finales. In a different way, 'Nocturne vulgaire' adopts an initial tone and pattern only to subvert these in its second half and finale. The poem abandons the idea of the traditional musical nocturne and replaces it ultimately with images of elemntal ferment and apocalyptic scenes involving the idea of self-immolation. In 'Metropolitain' a related development can be seen to be at work. Dividied into five parts, its last section seems to go against patterns set out in the previous four as Rimbaud appears to grow tired of the original orientation of the piece and opts for a much more urgent, vital and authentic finale. Thus three poems show how texts in the Illuminations are dynamic, mercurial and unpredictable in their tone, content and structure.


This paper presents a numerical strategy to model nonlinear damage behavior of RC members based on level of material. The first part of the paper presents a numerical model of the RC member based on the Timoshenko multifiber beam elements and non-linear damage constitutive laws for concrete, and the effective three dimensional fiber beam-column element model is developed for the nonlinear damage analysis of RC members with VUEL subroutine based on ABAQUS/Explicit platform. In the second part, a nonlinear damage analysis for RC members is established by analyzing the sections of fiber beam column elements, and the member damage index through statistical analysis of concrete fibers damage is defined in the extreme section of beam elements, which can describe the nonlinear damage behavior of RC members under any loadings. Accuracy of the model is identified preliminarily by comparing with the analysis results of solid elements, the results shows that it seems now possible to use this approach to investigate numerically the nonlinear damage behavior of RC members based on level of material.


An automatic guided vehicle (AGV) transportation system is a fully automated system that provides logistic services in an industrial environment such as a warehouse or a factory. Traditionally, the AGVs that execute the transportation tasks are controlled by a central server via wireless communication. In a joint effort between Egemin, an industrial manufacturer of AGV transportation systems, and DistriNet Labs research at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, we developed an innovative decentralized architecture for controlling AGVs. The driving motivations behind decentralizing the control of AGVs were new and future quality requirements such as flexibility and openness. At the software architectural level, the AGV control system is structured as a multi-agent system; the detailed design and implementation is object-oriented. In this paper, we report our experiences with developing the agent-based control system for AGVs. Starting from system requirements, we give an overview of the software architecture and we zoom in on a number of concrete functionalities. We reflect on our experiences and report lessons learned from applying multi-agent systems for real-world AGV control.


1 Landscape management for enhanced natural pest control requires knowledge of the ecological function of the habitats present in the landscape mosaic. However, little is known about which habitat types in agricultural landscapes function as reproduction habitats for arthropod pests and predators during different times of the year. 2 We studied the arthropod assemblage on six crops and on the seven most abundant native plant species in two landscapes over 1 year in Australia. Densities of immature and adult stages of pests and their predators were assessed using beat sheet sampling. 3 The native plants supported a significantly different arthropod assemblage than crops. Native plants had higher predator densities than crops over the course of the year, whereas crops supported higher pest densities than the native plants in two out of four seasonal sampling periods. Crops had higher densities of immature stages of pests than native plants in three of four seasonal sampling periods, implying that crops are more strongly associated with pest reproduction than native plants. Densities of immature predators, excluding spiders, were not different between native plants and crops. Spiders were, however, generally abundant and densities were higher on native plants than on crops but, because some species disperse when immature, there is less certainty in identifying their reproduction habitat. 4 Because the predator to pest ratio on native plant species showed little variation, and spatial variation in arthropod assemblages was limited, the predator support function of native vegetation may be a general phenomenon. Incentives that maintain and restore native remnant vegetation can increase the predator to pest ratio at the landscape scale, which could enhance pest suppression in crops.


The current study aims to assess the effect from crude glycerin inclusion (0, 7, 14, and 21% dry matter) in the diet of slaughtered lamb on their development, nutrient consumption, biometrical measures, diet economic viability and carcass features. Thirty two (32) non-castrated male Texel lambs were used in the study, they presented mean initial weight 15.9 ± 4.1 kilos and were distributed in casual outlining. They were fed with four treatments, with 8 repetitions. Animals were slaughtered when they reached approximately 35 kilos. The mean total weight gain was 20.72 kilos and mean daily weight gain was 260 grams. No changes resulted from glycerin use. The carcass performance was similar among treatments (P>0.05) and the cold carcass performance (CCP) was 44.68%. There were no effects (P>0.05) on the loin eye area (LEA) and on fat thickness (FT); they showed averages of 13.66 cm2 and 0.84 mm, respectively. Nutrition cost per animal during the whole confinement period varied between R$82.60 (eighty-two Reais and forty-eight cents) to R$92.48. The smallest nutrition amount consisted of 21% crude glycerin. The gross profit ranged from R$30.75 to R$ 34.01 per animal, for feed without glycerin and 21% glycerin, respectively. Animal development was not impacted by glycerin introduction, even with decrease on dry and organic mass consumption. The result showed that crude glycerin inclusion might be used in lambs' diet. Whenever there are big amounts of feed involved in the process, the 21% crude glycerin addition may be an interesting cost reduction. Seventy eight percent (78%) glycerol crude glycerin to replace corn-based feed in confined lambs' diet appeared to be nutritionally and economically viable.


: Australia is a country of some 7,700 million square kilometres with a population of about 22.6 million. At present water security is a major challenge for Australia. In some areas the use of water resources is approaching and in some parts it is exceeding the limits of sustainability. A focal point of proposed national water conservation programs is the recycling of both urban storm-water and treated wastewater. But till now it is not widely practiced in Australia, and particularly storm-water is neglected. In Australia, only 4% of storm-water and rainwater is recycled, whereas less than 1% of reclaimed wastewater is reused within urban areas. Therefore, accurately monitoring, assessing and predicting the availability, quality and use of this precious resource are required for better management. As storm-water is usually of better quality than untreated sewage or industrial discharge, it has better public acceptance for recycling and reuse, particularly for non-potable use such as irrigation, watering lawns, gardens, etc. Existing storm-water recycling practice is far behind of research and no robust technologies developed for this purpose. Therefore, there is a clear need for using modern technologies for assessing feasibility of stormwater harvesting and reuse. Numerical modelling has, in recent times, become a popular tool for doing this job. It includes complex hydrological and hydraulic processes of the study area. The hydrologic model computes storm-water quantity to design the system components, and the hydraulic model helps to route the flow through storm-water infrastructures. Nowadays water quality module is incorporated with these models. Integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) with these models provides extra advantage of managing spatial information. However for the overall management of a storm-water harvesting project, Decision Support System (DSS) plays an important role incorporating database with model and GIS for the proper management of temporal information. Additionally DSS includes evaluation tools and Graphical user interface. This research aims to critically review and discuss all the aspects of storm-water harvesting and reuse such as available guidelines of stormwater harvesting and reuse, public acceptance of water reuse, the scopes and recommendation for future studies. In addition to these, this paper identifies, understand and address the importance of modern technologies capable of proper management of storm-water harvesting and reuse.


The purpose of this article was to describe the next-of-kin's perspective of the end-of-life (EOL) experiences associated with the death of a family member or close friend. The quality of EOL care from the next-of-kin's perspective given to their loved one needs further study in the context of a community setting focus. A secondary analysis of data from a survey of a random sample of dying experiences in the community setting included qualitative descriptive analysis of open-ended survey data and content analysis used to count the number of positive, negative, mixed, and not applicable responses. Qualitative content analysis of 186 next-of-kin responses revealed two themes: (1) communication and (2) family values and preferences including three subthemes of having a supportive environment to secure a peaceful death with dignity and respect, the desire to be present at the time of death, and attending to the needs and wishes of the dying individual and family. The need for palliative care services in institutionalized settings, continuity of provider care (physician and nurse), family presence, and support for caregiver and financial concerns with hospice services was identified. Communication remains an essential component in all aspects of EOL care with further examination involving the loved one's perspectives.


The study looks into the safety and environmental hazards in small scale mining in Benguet, Philippines which is one of the largest mining areas in the country.Questionnaire-guided interviews and work analysis observation tool coveringmining practices and risk exposures ofminerswere conducted. Results of the study showed that wearing of proper protective equipment among the minerswas not observed. Unsafe conditionswere also identified such as risk of fall during erection and dismantling of scaffolds, guard rails were not provided in scaffoldings, manual extraction of underground ores, use of explosives, poor visibility in looking for ores to take out to surface, exposure to noise from explosives, and to dust from the demolished structures. There was no proper ventilation for chemical exposures.Wastes were drained into soil or ground and/or rivers and streams. Themost common health problems among miners were hypertension (62%), followed by hypertensive cardiovascular disease due to left wall ischemia (14%). Health injuries of the respondents noted were due to accidents such as secondary blasting, and stone crushing. Health symptoms such as headache, dermatitis, and peripheral neuropathy were noted and these can be considered as manifestations of chronic cyanide poisoning, further, aggravated by improper use of protective equipments. There is a need to establish programs on minersÂ' occupational and environmental health and safety.


While virtual technology has evolved into a popular and user-friendly medium for people to experience heritage, the shape of tangible heritage has progressively been converted into a digital reality. The role that museums and cultural heritage institutions play in interpretation and representation using new and emerging virtual media is strongly involved with the adoption of simulacra, digital pictures and signs. It is the intention of this paper to argue that virtual heritage could not be recognised as a reconstructed simulation of the past, but rather as a comprehension of heritage in the present. However, because virtual heritage always carries its reference, as without the factual heritage it would have no meaning, it will be maintained that virtual reality in heritage applications is a creative and productive replication where its simulations have infinite visualizations. Using  Baudrillard's theory of Simulacra and Simulation to investigate virtual heritage as simulations of replications without origins, it will be argued that the practice of advanced techniques in computing science has put virtual productions into a position where the original heritage itself becomes separated and different from the virtual mechanical products. Virtual heritage reconstructions have come to stand as displays in their own right, almost replacing the historical role of objects in exhibition making. In a sense they have become objects and heritage is seen to be important as it is more accessible to the public when it contains and gives information that is communicated by a variety of new technologies such as VR. The visualisation of historical knowledge through virtual reality is making the process of representation problematic. Two case studies in virtual heritage will be presented, the 'Ancient Virtual Athens' created by the Foundation of the Hellenic World in Athens, Greece and  the 'Kyoto Virtual Time-Space' project, by Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan which aim to create city models where visitors can travel virtually in historical cities. Heritage, in an analogue or virtual form, is a material object by definition. Both shapes have different histories, means of production and origins which result in representing 'aura' and 'authenticity'. Hence, by accepting and understanding virtual heritage as a separate reality with its own creativity, it will be maintained that both tangible and virtual heritage do not lead in the same direction nor to the same experience.


On December 7, 1953, while collecting animals along the south coast of Biak Island (Netherlands New Guinea), in the neighbourhood of the Base of the Royal Netherlands Navy 1), I was surprised in seeing red Trombidiid mites creeping on stones in the intertidal zone. These stones, which fall dry at low tide, were overgrown with green Cladophora socialis and several species of red algae 2). I became interested in the fauna of the littoral, especially in the possible presence of other Acari, and I spent several mornings in observing the animal life on the stones.
The Trombidiid mites later appeared to belong to a Platytrombidium species, closely related to the species described by Michener (1946) as Microtrombidium littorale from mangrove forests along the Pacific coast of Panama. It will be dealt with by Dr. Womersley of the S. Australian Museum, who studies also the Mesostigmata and the Acaridiae mentioned below.
In order to collect other Acari, I took a large sample of algae on December 10, 1953 and put it in a modified Tullgren apparatus. Within two days I had a large collection of small animals: Collembola, Amphipoda, young Grapsoid crabs, Isopoda, Polychaeta, larvae of Insects, and a considerable amount of mites that, according to Womersley (in litt.), belong to two species of Mesostigmata and one species of Hyadesia. Among the material I found only one specimen of an Oribatid mite.
After my return it soon became clear that the Oribatid specimen represented a very interesting new species for which it were necessary to create a new family. Due to the absence of immature stages it was, however, difficult to get a definite idea about the systematic position.


The integrated design flow that links simulation, layout, and electromagnetic (EM) analysis is the foundation for modern RF/microwave integrated circuit (IC) design. The inclusion of thermal simulation in this flow is now possible with modern thermal solvers linked into RF/microwave integrated design tools. Silicon germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) power amplifier (PA) design is used as an example where such a flow is most beneficial due to numerous issues such as array sizing and thermal runaway. An electrothermal flow is discussed relative to some overall metrics for design flows and that incorporates the availability of an integrated thermal solver into the earliest parts of, and potentially throughout, the entire design flow. The result is a flow that potentially reduces iterations during the design process and boosts design performance by freeing up margin.


Object localization aims to generate a tight bounding box for the target object, which is a challenging problem that has been deeply studied in recent years. Since collecting bounding-box labels is time-consuming and laborious, many researchers focus on weakly supervised object localization (WSOL). As the recent appealing self-supervised learning technique shows its powerful function in visual tasks, in this paper, we take the early attempt to explore unsupervised object localization by self-supervision. Specifically, we adopt different geometric transformations to image and utilize their parameters as pseudo labels for self-supervised learning. Then, the class-agnostic activation map (CAAM) is used to highlight the target object potential regions. However, such attention maps merely focus on the most discriminative part of the objects, which will affect the quality of the predicted bounding box. Based on the motivation that the activation maps of different transformations of the same image should be equivariant, we further design a siamese network that encodes the paired images and propose a joint graph cluster partition mechanism in an unsupervised manner to enhance the object co-occurrent regions. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, extensive experiments are conducted on CUB-200-2011, Stanford Cars and FGVC-Aircraft datasets. Experimental results show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods using the same level of supervision, even outperforms some weakly-supervised methods.


A performance comparison between the electrical Cu-based backplane and a full-optical fiber-based backplane is presented in terms of capacity and power consumption. By means of systematic simulations we find the electrical configuration, which allows to optimize the Cu-based backplane by exploiting the best technologies available today. On the other hand, a fiber-based optical backplane is proposed by exploiting the most performing VCSEL sources. Limitations of the electrical and optical approaches are discussed, considering their capabilities to support up to about 25-Gb/s transmission and the possibility to evolve towards higher bit-rates.


The EM algorithm heavily relies on the interpretation of observations as incomplete data but it does not have any control on the uncertainty of missing data. To effectively reduce the uncertainty of missing data, we present a regularized EM algorithm that penalizes the likelihood with the mutual information between the missing data and the incomplete data (or the conditional entropy of the missing data given the observations). The proposed method maintains the advantage of the conventional EM algorithm, such as reliable global convergence, low cost per iteration, economy of storage, and ease of programming. We also apply the regularized EM algorithm to fit the finite mixture model. Our theoretical analysis and experiments show that the new method can efficiently fit the models and effectively simplify over-complicated models.


Ideas and issues based contemporary art is often seen as something to be avoided in schools, as the controversial subjects that it broaches are often perceived as problematic and inappropriate. However, by censoring education, it can be seen that educators are missing vital opportunities to confront the relevant personal, social, political and cultural issues that shape young peoples' lives in our postmodern, contemporary society. This article reflects on the experiences of an artist/teacher gained through the Recreating Landscapes (Illuminate Project), which aimed to utilise LeWitt's concept of the ideas 'machine' to broaden the way that Key Stage 3 art is taught and explore student voice. The construct of the teacher as giver of knowledge was challenged, informed by Barthes' work on the deconstruction of the modernist concept of Authorship. Issues were derived from a pupil voice workshop and the ownership of response to this stimulus belonged to the students. The aim was to challenge mimetic, technical achievement often favoured in 'traditional' school art pedagogy, allowing ideas and discussion to be the lynchpin, shifting away from the emphasis commonly placed on outcomes. Through this practice it was hoped that the 'landscape' of the learning environment would be recreated: a discursive setting where issues perceived as 'challenging' could be broached in a supportive environment, enabled by a reconsidered, culturally relevant pedagogy.


Nowadays we are witnessing a share's supremacy on the Occidental television scenery.

It is becoming most urgent to redefine «public service» concepts in television, which is supposed to have «quality», and understand in which way public networks, currently confronted with lack of economical resources problems, can stay true to their mission of «public service».

It is pertinent to verify if it is possible to attract private networks to programming concepts closer to what is considered «public service», which can simultaneously be «interesting» from an economic/share holds point of view, without entering in the «teletrash» domain and guarantying quality contents to the viewers.

For achieving this it is necessary to define what «quality» is, which is a vague concept and is raising many discussions in the field of audiovisual and also academic, and to which there are no solid or definitive answers.

Knowing that quality programs are more expensive in production than the ones of «teletrash», and knowing that are these last ones that get more financing for their shares translated into advertisement and by its turn, into money, you conclude easily that there is a unbalanced competition between public and private networks.

In what concerns the quality contents production, since the public networks are facing the questions of public and State financing, which is not comparable to the advertising and economic laws by which the private networks are guided.

Taking a global view on what is considered «Public Service on Audio Broadcasting» in Europe, using some examples of the Amsterdam Treaty, we intend to discuss audiovisual and suggest some paths to follow towards a quality television, pedagogically healthy and enriching, and point out some well achieved examples of quality programs, either in public television, or in private networks, in Portugal.

A pertinent content for civil society is what best defines the mission of public service; the examples to present in the communication will illustrate the required characteristics of this public service, which can be applied through quality communicative and informative contents.
These programs show how you can talk about quality in the private networks of television and how public networks need many times to adapt their programming to time schedules more adequate to the rhythm of live of the viewers.

Only aiming for good examples of quality in television contents can we really talk about a true «pedagogic» television, from which you can actually learn and help to create solid and healthy bases for a population more distracted from rights and duties of citizenship and social responsibility, in the core of post-modernity.


The kinetics of the transesterification of polylactic acid (PLA) with methanol to form methyl lactate catalyzed by Zn(II) complexes was studied experimentally and numerically. The complexes, Zn(1Et)2 and Zn(2Pr)2, were synthesized from ethylenediamine and propylenediamine Schiff bases, respectively. The temperature range covered was 313.2–383.2 K. An increase in the reaction rate with the increase in temperature was observed for the Zn(1Et)2-catalyzed reaction. The temperature relationship of the rate coefficients can be explained by a linear Arrhenius dependency with constant activation energy. The kinetics of Zn(2Pr)2, on the other hand, is only explained by non-Arrhenius kinetics with convex variable activation energy, resulting in faster methyl lactate production rates at 323.2 and 343.2 K. The formation of a new catalyst species, likely through reaction with protic reagents, appears to promote the formation of intermediate complexes, resulting in the nonlinear behavior. Stirring speed induced the stability of the intermediate complexes. Contrary to Zn(1Et)2, Zn(2Pr)2 was susceptible to the presence of air/moisture in solution. The kinetic parameters were obtained by fitting the experimental data to the mass and energy balance of a consecutive second step reversible reaction taking place in a jacketed stirred batch reactor. For the case of Zn(2Pr)2, the activation energy was fitted to a four-parameter equation. The kinetic parameters presented in this work are valuable for the design of processes involving the chemical recycling of PLA into green solvents.


Summary: Thiophene was polymerized by means of UV irradiation using diphenyliodonium hexafluorophosphate as a photoinitiator. An initiation mechanism involving electron transfer from photochemically generated onium radical cations to thiophene was proposed. N-Ethoxy-2-methylpyridinium hexafluorophosphate and triphenylsulfonium hexafluorophosphate were also found to be effective in facilitating the polymerization of thiophene. Polymerization is accompanied with the film formation on the surface of the reaction tube. The photochemically obtained polymers were characterized by FT-IR, DSC, and SEM analyses and compared with those obtained by oxidative and electrochemical means. Electrical conductivities of the samples were measured by four-probe technique.

Photograph of the polymerization mixture containing thiophene and iodonium salt in CH2Cl2 before (a), after 5 min of irradiation (b), and dried film (c).


Electropolishing (EP) is a surface finishing treatment method. The surface quality indices such as surface roughness, cleanness and corrosion resistance could be improved through this process. Because of these benefits, the electropolishing process is applied to fabricate high cleanness apparatus for semiconductor and optical pharmaceutical industries. Electropolishing is an electrochemical reaction process. The uniform and stable passive film is the key mechanism in enhancing the surface quality. However, the forming of passive film is influenced by the current distribution, fluid field and diffusion phenomena. Therefore, there are many defects such as pits, flow marks and scrape which could be found after the electropolishing process. These defects destroy the uniformity of the surface quality and induce local corrosion. The goal of this study is aimed at simulating the formation of a viscous layer and establishing numerical a model to predict its thickness and uniformity. In this study, the commercial software of FEMLAB was employed to establish a multi-physics model which contained the effects of fluidity and diffusion. The mechanism of passive film formation, the influence of fluid velocity and the thickness variation of the viscous layer were investigated through numerical simulation.


An industry standards organization sponsors a project to design a standard and document a means to assess the practical and economic benefits of 3D model maintenance throughout the complex process facility lifecycle. This article chronicles the elaborated action design research (eADR) approach used to evaluate the design and implementation stages of this project, reflecting on this ongoing effort to deploy a standard for management of 3D models. These 3D design models are a foundational element of the virtual representation or 'digital twin' of physical assets. The researcher evaluates the project artifacts created to date, focusing on the business case for the standard with various use cases where value can be derived from investment in maintaining the model beyond the design stage of capital facility development and its impact on total cost of ownership. Included in the analysis is an outline of key artifacts created as part of the researcher's intervention and how they were created as well as a summary of the project's artifacts and the use cases they support. Initial results of the project team's analysis reveal how firms can reduce total cost of ownership while improving the performance and reliability of complex process facilities by maintaining the 3D design models and using them throughout the facility lifecycle.


This timely Handbook provides an empirically rigorous overview of the latest research advances on social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs and enterprises. It incorporates seventeen original chapters on definitions, concepts, contexts and strategy as well as a critical overview and an agenda for future research in social entrepreneurship. What are the forms and manifestations of social entrepreneurship? To what extent should current developments lead to a redefinition of stakeholders' strategies and roles in the quest for better consideration of the social dimension? The highly regarded group of contributors addresses these questions in some detail. They also explore social entrepreneurship from a multicultural perspective in order to highlight the diversity of social entrepreneurship forms and practices and, from a strategic perspective, to investigate the essential role played by various actors and factors in the development of social entrepreneurship.


When Jurkat human T cells were incubated with 20 microM of pentachlorophenol (PCP) or its metabolite, tetrachlorohydroquinone (TCHQ), for 10 hr, flow cytometric analyses revealed marked increase in the number of apoptotic cells. DNA fragmentation was also observed in these cells. TCHQ was more potent than PCP in causing apoptosis. After incubation with 20 microM TCHQ for 1 hr, all mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) examined [i.e., extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK), p38, and c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinase (JNK)] were phosphorylated, whereas no clear phosphorylation was induced by PCP. TCHQ-induced apoptosis was markedly suppressed by treatment with a p38 inhibitor (SB203580) and mildly (but significantly) suppressed by treatment with a MAPK/ERK kinase inhibitor (U0126). When cells were treated with both inhibitors at the same time, TCHQ-induced apoptosis disappeared almost completely. PCP-induced apoptosis was also suppressed by SB203580 and/or U0126. Nevertheless, treatment with LL-Z1640-2, which inhibits JNK phosphorylation, did not suppress the apoptosis caused by either TCHQ or PCP. Thus, p38 and ERK appear to be important signal transduction pathways leading to apoptosis in a human T-cell line exposed to a ubiquitous pollutant or its metabolite in the general and occupational environment.


The clinical and laboratory findings of illness in a 2-year-old Thoroughbred filly are described. The treatment employed, including unilateral nephrectomy, and the macro- and microscopic findings in the diseases kidney are presented and this rare case is discussed briefly.


When it comes to building new facilities, time is money. Delays cost dollars, blunt your competitive edge, and leave you with a building that's obsolete before it opens. Here's how to use functional programming, process‐oriented teams and good planning to keep your project on track and your company on budget.


We investigated the relationship between noradrenaline (NAd)-induced contractions, endothelial function, and hypertension in femoral arteries isolated from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). In the femoral arteries of SHR, vs. age-matched control Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats, contractions induced by NAd were increased. These effects were enhanced by endothelial denudation, which abolished the differences between the two groups. NAd-induced contractions were enhanced by nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibition, and further increased by the blockade of endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF). Conversely, NAd-induced contractions were inhibited by cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibition. In addition, in SHR arteries, acetylcholine-induced relaxation was reduced, and components of endothelium-derived factors were altered, such as increased COX-derived vasoconstrictor prostanoids, reduced EDHF, and preserved NO-mediated relaxation. In the femoral arteries of SHR, the production of prostanoids [6-keto prostaglandin (PG)F1α (a metabolite of prostacyclin (PGI2), PGE2, and PGF2α] and COX-2 protein were increased compared with that in WKY rats. By contrast, contractions induced by beraprost (a stable PGI2 analogue), PGE2, and U46619 (thromboxane/prostanoid receptor agonist) were similar between the SHR and WKY groups. Thus, NAd-induced femoral arterial contractions are augmented in SHR resulting from endothelial dysfunction and increased COX-derived vasoconstrictor prostanoid levels.


Privatisation has been a key policy in the late 20th century in many countries. In West Germany, the federal government sold most of its corporate industrial shareholdings to private investors between 1949 and 1989. Unlike many other countries, West Germany did not nationalise entire industries after the Second World War. Instead, the portfolio of public enterprises and participations was mainly an inheritance from the Third Reich. The aim of the thesis is to explore the causes of privatisation and the driving and delaying forces in the privatisation process between 1949 and 1989 based on qualitative historical documents.

After the sale of participations stemming from the war economy in the early 1950s, the conservative federal government of CDU and CSU and later the
conservative-liberal government of CDU, CSU and FDP under the Federal Chancellors Konrad Adenauer (CDU) and Ludwig Erhard (CDU) pursued a larger scale privatisation programme by issuing people's shares between 1959 and 1965. The programme featured social elements and aimed at the property formation of employees and a wide dispersion of shares in the society. In the 1970s, public enterprises expanded under a social-liberal government of SPD and FDP, until a conservative-liberal government of CDU, CSU and FDP under Federal Chancellor Kohl (CDU) sold most of the remaining federal participations in industrial enterprises between 1984 and 1989. The total volume of privatisation as measured by revenues remained modest compared to other West European countries and strong political resistance within the government parties CDU and CSU manifested in the process.

Findings indicate a high continuity of thought and policy patterns from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s while the main reasons for privatisation shifted slightly. In the 1950s and 1960s, privatisation was primarily motivated by fiscal reasons - access to equity capital proved to be limited for the growing federal enterprises. Privatisation in the 1980s was caused by re-interpretations of the economic situation due to globally changing conditions and increased international competition. Hence, it can be interpreted as a lagged response to market crisis in the 1970s. Ideological shifts of paradigm did not drive privatisation. Rather, advocates of ordoliberalism focused on other economic reforms in the 1950s and liberal ideas in the 1980s co-developed with privatisation politics. For many decades, public enterprises were not viewed as ineffcient per se as long as they were operating in competitive markets. This perception only began to change slowly in the 1980s.


For nearly 150 years, American insurance companies have engaged in race and gender pricing practices that would be illegal if followed today by any other major commercial enterprise. The insurance industry has defended its long-standing practices, first for race and now for gender, based on ideas about insurance "equity" developed in the nineteenth century. The continued application of these ideas, and the practices that have resulted from them, conflict with fundamental civil rights principles and should not be tolerated as exceptions to our national civil rights laws. As that history shows, classifications used by insurers to determine rates and benefits raise complex distributional, financial, and political issues that cannot be resolved simply as technical questions of actuarial risk or economics. This Article proposes comprehensive federal civil rights legislation to ban discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, and sex in insurance coverage, rates, and benefits. It explains why previous reform efforts have failed and why recent developments, including the adoption of unisex insurance rates in Europe, could make consideration of such legislation in the United States timely once again.


The present work describes the taphonomy of the extinct mammals' fossils (Pleistocene megafauna) found in Chui creek embankment, in Rio Grande do Sul State, southern Brazil and compares them to the mammals' fossils occurring along the shoreline of the same State. These mammals lived during the Upper Pleistocene (Lujanense land-mammal period) about 120000 years ago; the fossils that occurs along Chui creek and the ones found along the shoreline suffered deposition in coastal lagoons, originated during events of sea transgression-regression, althought the last ones are now found in subaquatic environments, preserved in submerged biodetritic banks along the coast and are being thrown onto the beach during storm events. These fossils are extremely hard and dark, due to substitution of the bone's original calcium phosphate by silicates and oxides. While these fossils are found fragmented on the beach due to wave action and transport, the fossils occurring along Chui creek embankment are well preserved, indicating that they haven't suffered significant transport; the latter show light colour and more fragility due to lixiviation. Articulated parts of mammals are found, and many bones show grooves and scratches, suggesting the action of scavengers after death. They are found in situ at a depth of 2,5-3,5m in lacustrine sediments of Pleistocene origin in the Chui creek embankment and above a layer of oxidated beach sands which show parallel stratification and galleries of the Callianassa crustacean.


Objective: To evaluate the National Congenital Anomaly System (NCAS). Methods: The NCAS in England and Wales based at the Office for National Statistics and the various regional registers that exchange data with it were examined, based on guidelines for evaluating public health surveillance systems, published by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC). Data relating to congenital anomaly notifications received from 1991 to 2002 were analysed. Main outcome measures: The main outcome measures were based on CDC standards and included the level of usefulness of the system, simplicity, flexibility, data quality, acceptability, sensitivity, representativeness, timeliness, and stability of the system. Results: The NCAS has two main tiers: the "passive" system of voluntary notifications and the anomaly registers, but many reporting sources within these. It receives about 7000 notifications a year. It is inflexible and has variable data quality. The voluntary nature of reporting affects the system's acceptability. The sensitivity as compared with two regional registers (Trent and Wales) is about 33%. The congenital anomaly registers reporting to the NCAS achieve high levels of coverage and completeness. From 2003, they cover 42% of all births and account for the major proportion of the notifications. Conclusions: The NCAS serves the important function of monitoring birth defects in England and Wales, but is not currently operating in a timely or effective way. It should be adapted to meet its main objectives more effectively. More regional anomaly registers should be instituted and existing registers supported through central funds.


Abstract. Since 2005 the Measuring Ammonia in Nature (MAN) network monitors atmospheric ammonia concentrations in nature reserve areas in the Netherlands ( http://man.rivm.nl ). The main aim of the network is to monitor national trends, to assess regional deviations and to validate model calculations. Measurements are performed with commercial passive samplers, calibrated monthly against ammonia measurements of active sampling devices. The sampling is performed by an extensive group of local volunteers, which minimizes the cost and enables the use of local knowledge. We show the MAN network to be well capable of monitoring trends on national and local scales and providing data for more detailed local analyses. The quality of the network is such that trends over time for individual MAN areas can be detected on the order of 3 % per year for time series of 6–9 years.


Despite Heidegger insists that Being and Time cannot be read as a kind of existential philosophy, such interpretation still holds in some aspect, for in it, the main content is a special kind of phenomenology of life, even be called repeatedly as the foundation of the ontology of Being in general. The project of establishing an ontology of Being in general was ultimately never carried out. What Heidegger provides in Being and time is nothing but a phenomenology of life. It is peculiar that love and friendship as an important element of life is deliberately ignored. Such a deficiency of Heidegger, namely lacking love and friendship in fundamental ontology of Dasein, is probably the reason for his political fallacy during the II-World-War, notorious political mistake in his recent published Black Notebooks .


The interannual variability of rainfall amounts and rainy days is analysed from synoptic stations located in different climatic zones of Congo‐Brazzaville over the common period 1932–2007. The annual and seasonal rainfall evolution is appreciated using standardized indices. Trends examined were based on the non‐parametric Mann‐Kendall test (the major synoptic stations point out alternative periods of anomalies—positive and negative). A majority of negative anomalies is recorded during the 1930s and 1940s. The decade 1950 shows mainly positive anomalies with the exception of 1958 which records a general precipitation deficit all across Congo. The decade 1960 is characterized by precipitation excess over the whole Congo. The decades 1980 and 1990 experience the largest rainfall deficit (about 10–20% below the long‐term mean). The evolution of the precipitation at Brazzaville is particularly stable, although there are large positive anomalies during the 1990s. The transition between positive and negative anomalies decades is not uniform across Congo. The progressive non‐parametric Mann‐Kendall trend test shows that there is stability in the annual rainfall and rainy days over the southern area in the period 1932–2007. By contrast, the annual rainfall for the northern stations shows a significant decline since about the 1980s. In the south the decline is observable only in the evolution of the March–May seasonal rainfall. In most of the stations there is a precipitation increase during the September‐November rainy season. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society


As newcomers, immigrants and refugees contribute to social and cultural diversity, and play an important role in communities' social and economic development. However, their talent, energy, and entrepreneurial spirit and skills can only be fully harnessed when the communities are welcoming and inclusive. Drawing from a two-year qualitative research study conducted in the Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada, this paper examines the degree of civic capacity, along with policies and practices related to building a welcoming and inclusive community for immigrants and refugees. Through examining civic capacity and high-impact practices and programs to support the integration of immigrants and refugees, this paper shares new insights on how community stakeholders interact with each other to support or subvert the inclusion and equity in the community and offers policy implications and practical recommendations on building welcoming communities for immigrants and refugees in small communities.


In preclinical studies, drugs that increase cyclic guanosine monophosphate levels have been shown to influence platelet function/aggregation; however, the effect of riociguat on human platelets is unclear. Aspirin, a platelet inhibitor, is likely to be given concomitantly in patients receiving riociguat. It is therefore important to establish clinically whether (1) riociguat affects platelet function and (2) aspirin and riociguat interact. This randomized, open-label, crossover study investigated potential pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic interactions between these drugs in healthy male volunteers (N = 18). There were 3 treatment regimens: a single morning dose of riociguat 2.5 mg, aspirin 500 mg on 2 consecutive mornings, and both treatments together, with riociguat given on the second morning. Fifteen participants were available for pharmacodynamic/pharmacokinetic analysis. There was no effect of riociguat alone on bleeding time, platelet aggregation, and serum thromboxane B2 levels. The effects of aspirin on these parameters were not influenced by concomitant administration of riociguat. The pharmacokinetic profile of riociguat showed interindividual variability, which was independent of aspirin coadministration. Six of 17 participants available for safety evaluation reported at least 1 treatment-emergent adverse event. All adverse events were of mild severity, apart from 1 report of moderate headache. No serious adverse events occurred. In conclusion, riociguat demonstrated no clinically relevant pharmacodynamic or pharmacokinetic interactions with aspirin at the doses used in this study in healthy men; coadministration of riociguat and aspirin should therefore not require any dose adjustment for either drug.


The global responses of two atmospheric general circulation models (AGCM), the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Medium Range Forecast (NCEP-MRF9) and the University of Hamburg climate model-3 (ECHAM), to simultaneous global SST forcing are examined on a 3-month timescale. Rotated principal components analysis of the model and observations is also used to identify and compare their leading modes of coherent variability. The scope of the present analyses is largely descriptive and does not attempt to explain the differences in model behavior in terms of their formulations. The authors' main focus is to quantify the simulation skill of the two comprehensive AGCMs on seasonal timescales and compare it to skill obtained using empirical prediction models. Both models are found to exhibit realistic responses to El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related forcing, with the ECHAM response slightly more accurate in the spatial phasing and structure of the atmospheric anomalies. The ECHAM model exhibits realistic atmospheric responses to tropical Pacific SST forcing as well as patterns associated with extratropical internal atmospheric dynamics (e.g., North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) and a high latitude north-south dipole in the Pacific). It shows a slightly higher signal-to-noise ratio than that found in the real world, while the NCEP model's signal-to-noise ratio is approximately equal to that in nature. The NCEP model responds with more zonally symmetric atmospheric patterns than observed, although this does not prevent it from forming realistic responses to ENSO over the Pacific-North American region. The NCEP model's NAO variability is only about half as strong as that observed. In terms of simulation skill with respect to observations, the ECHAM model generally tends to outperform the NCEP model for global 500-hPa geopotential height and surface climate. A decomposition of the observed and model data into rotated principal components indicates that both models reproduce the ENSO-related anom- alies in circulation and surface climate of the real atmosphere quite well. The ECHAM model, which handles ENSO variability and impacts slightly better than the NCEP model, shows a larger increment of capability in reproducing other global climate processes. Two linear statistical benchmarks, which are used as skill control measures, sometimes outperform the NCEP model but are more comparable, on average, to the skill of the ECHAM model. Thus as noted in other recent studies, the dynamical models and the statistical models have roughly the same simulation skill and would be expected to have similar forecast skill if the models used forecasted SSTs as their boundary conditions. To first order, the linear component of the relationships appears to be modeled well by the two dynamical models. It is undetermined whether instances of better performance of the dynamical models than the statistical benchmarks are partly attributable to the models' effective exploitation of nonlinearities in the relationships between tropical SST and global climate. One reason for this inconclusiveness is that evidence for nonlinearities in the present analyses is not compelling. Hence, the question of whether dynamical models have untapped potential to consistently outperform statistical models on the seasonal timescale remains open and may require close examination of each physical formulation in the dynamical models.


A series of multitarget directed propargylamines, as well as other differently susbstituted piperidines have been screened as potential modulators of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Most of them showed antagonist actions on α7 nAChRs. Especially, compounds 13, 26, and 38 displayed submicromolar IC50 values on homomeric α7 nAChRs, whereas they were less effective on heteromeric α3β4 and α4β2 nAChRs (up to 20-fold higher IC50 values in the case of 13). Antagonism was concentration dependent and noncompetitive, suggesting that these compounds behave as negative allosteric modulators of nAChRs. Upon the study of a series of less complex derivatives, the N-benzylpiperidine motif, common to these compounds, was found to be the main pharmacophoric group. Thus, 2-(1-benzylpiperidin-4-yl)-ethylamine (48) showed an inhibitory potency comparable to the one of the previous compounds and also a clear preference for α7 nAChRs. In a neuroblastoma cell line, representative compounds 13 and 48 also inhibited, in a concentration-dependent manner, cytosolic Ca(2+) signals mediated by nAChRs. Finally, compounds 38 and 13 inhibited 5-HT3A serotonin receptors whereas they had no effect on α1 glycine receptors. Given the multifactorial nature of many pathologies in which nAChRs are involved, these piperidine antagonists could have a therapeutic potential in cases where cholinergic activity has to be negatively modulated.


Background Home care service in Norway is struggling to meet the increasing demand for health care under restricted budget constraints, although one-fourth of municipal budgets are dedicated to health services. The integration of Web-based technology in at-home care is expected to enhance communication and patient involvement, increase efficiency and reduce cost. DigiHelse is a Web-based platform designed to reinforce home care service in Norway and is currently undergoing a development process to meet the predefined needs of the country's municipalities. Some of the main features of the platform are digital messages between residents and the home care service, highlighting information on planned and completed visits, the opportunity to cancel visits, and notifications for completed visits. Objective This study aimed to test the usability and economic feasibility of adopting DigiHelse in four districts in Oslo by applying registry and behavioral data collected throughout a one-year pilot study. Early health technology assessment was used to estimate the potential future value of DigiHelse, including the predictive value of behavior data. Methods Outcome measures identified by stakeholder insights and scenario drafting in the project's concept phase were used to assess potential socioeconomic benefits. Aggregated data were collected to assess changes in health consumption at baseline, and then 15 and 52 weeks after DigiHelse was implemented. The present value calculation was updated with data from four intervention groups and one control group. A quasi-experimental difference-in-difference design was applied to estimate the causal effect. Descriptive behavioral data from the digital platform was applied to assess the usability of the platform. Results Over the total study period (52 weeks), rates increased for all outcome estimates: the number of visits (rate ratio=1.04; P=.10), unnecessary trips (rate ratio=1.37; P=.26), and phone calls (rate ratio=1.24; P=.08). A significant gap was found between the estimated value of DigiHelse in the concept phase and after the one-year pilot. In the present pilot assessment, costs are expected to exceed potential savings by €67 million (US $75 million) over ten years, as compared to the corresponding concept estimates of a potential gain of €172.6 million (US $193.6 million). Interestingly, behavioral data from the digital platform revealed that only 3.55% (121/3405) of recipients actively used the platform after one year. Conclusions Behavioral data provides a valuable source for assessing usability. In this pilot study, the low adoption rate may, at least in part, explain the inability of DigiHelse to perform as expected. This study points to an early assessment of behavioral data as an opportunity to identify inefficiencies and direct digital development. For DigiHelse, insight into why the recipients in Oslo have not made greater use of the Web-based platform seems to be the next step in ensuring the right improvement measures for the home care service.


For computerized analysis of textures in interstitial lung disease, manual annotations of lung tissue are necessary. Since making these annotations is labor-intensive, we previously proposed an interactive annotation framework. In this framework, observers iteratively trained a classifier to distinguish the different texture types by correcting its classification errors. In this work, we investigated three ways to extend this approach, in order to decrease the amount of user interaction required to annotate all lung tissue in a CT scan. First, we conducted automatic classification experiments to test how data from previously annotated scans can be used for classification of the scan under consideration. We compared the performance of a classifier trained on data from one observer, a classifier trained on data from multiple observers, a classifier trained on consensus training data, and an ensemble of classifiers, each trained on data from different sources. Experiments were conducted without and with texture selection. In the former case, training data from all 8 textures was used. In the latter, only training data from the texture types present in the scan were used, and the observer would have to indicate textures contained in the scan to be analyzed. Second, we simulated interactive annotation to test the effects of (1) asking observers to perform texture selection before the start of annotation, (2) the use of a classifier trained on data from previously annotated scans at the start of annotation, when the interactive classifier is untrained, and (3) allowing observers to choose which interactive or automatic classification results they wanted to correct. Finally, various strategies for selecting the classification results that were presented to the observer were considered. Classification accuracies for all possible interactive annotation scenarios were compared. Using the best performing protocol, in which observers select the textures that should be distinguished in the scan and in which they can choose which classification results to use for correction, a median accuracy of 88% was reached. The results obtained using this protocol were significantly better than results obtained with other interactive or automatic classification protocols.


This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological nonreductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on system criticality and self. It develops a distinction between simulated and formal consciousness based on this emphasis, reviews Tani's and colleagues' work in light of this distinction, and ends by forecasting the increasing importance of synthetic neurorobotics studies for cognitive science and philosophy of mind going forward, finally in regards to mostand myth-consciousness. 1. KNOCKING ON THE DOOR OF THE CHINESE


This article discusses the unprecedented heat waves affecting the city of Buenos Aires—between December 2013 and January 2014—and the extended power outages that ensued. It focuses on this particular extreme case to examine a broader spectrum of shortcomings regarding energy in Argentina, such as an increasing demand that is not matched by investment in supply, aging infrastructure, and lack of coordination between different programs. The article argues that these issues affect the city's preparedness to confront the challenges of climate change and result in the failure to control demand, encourage energy saving, and reduce emissions.


LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Arab Folklore: A Handbook, by Dwight F. Reynolds. Westport, CT and London, UK: Greenwood Press, 2007. xiv + 226 pages. Gloss. to p. 232. Bibl. to p. 241. Web resources to p. 245. Index to p. 258. $55. Reviewed by Laura Rice Arab Folklore follows the same format as other recent Greenwood Handbooks, giving a brief introduction to the culture covered in the study, a discussion of the definitions and classifications that apply, a series of examples and texts as illustrations, a historical explanation of the scholarship on and approaches to the topic, and a brief overview of various contexts in which the folklore occurs. Where Arab Folklore differs from many other handbooks is in the extraordinary geographical, historical, and generic sweep Dwight Reynolds has orchestrated in writing this guide to Arab folklore covering some 20 countries and multiple regional folk cultures. To manage a task of this size in a limited space, Reynolds provides readers with a series of miniature case studies chosen to illustrate the major themes and genres of folklore studies and to highlight the importance of performance and context in Arab folklore. Reynolds defines folklore as "all of the many different ways we express who we are as members of a group" (p. 25) and describes the group he is covering, Arabs, as including "anyone whose mother tongue is the Arabic language and who identifies with Arabic culture" (p. 1). He suggests that one way we might conceptualize and define folklore is to think of it as "the multitude of artistic forms of communication that we learn directly from other people and then perform and transmit repeatedly over time" (p. 26). Given that many of the categories used to describe the objects of folklore have been imposed from outside the indigenous cultures, Reynolds also draws our attention to the differences in interpretation that arise from etic (outsider) and emic (insider) understandings of the same folk objects, customs, and performances. The greater part of the handbook is devoted to the examples and texts Reynolds marshals to give readers concrete examples of Arab folklore from across the region. He has divided these examples into four broad categories: verbal arts (oral poetry, folk tales, epic poetry, proverbs, riddles, classic comparisons, jokes, etc.); musical arts (folk songs, musical instruments, dances); material arts (vernacular architecture, dress and jewelry, folk painting and crafts); and customs and traditions (weddings, birth rituals, games, festivals, pilgrimages, folk medicine, fortune-telling, beliefs about the supernatural, popular entertainments, etc. …


Human pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a major nuclear receptor that upregulates the expression of drug-metabolizing enzymes such as CYP3A4. In our recent study, it was revealed that PXR interacts with DAZ-associated protein 1 (DAZAP1), which is an essential component of the paraspeckle, a membraneless nuclear body, and the interaction was disassociated by rifampicin, a ligand of PXR. The purpose of this study was to clarify the roles of paraspeckles in PXR-mediated transcriptional regulation. Immunoprecipitation assays using PXR-overexpressing HepG2 (ShP51) cells revealed that PXR interacts with not only DAZAP1 but also NEAT1_2, a long noncoding RNA included in the paraspeckle, and that the interaction between PXR and NEAT1_2 was disassociated by rifampicin. These results suggest that PXR is trapped in paraspeckles and that the activation of PXR by its ligands facilitates its disassociation from paraspeckles. Induction of CYP3A4 by rifampicin was significantly enhanced by the knockdown of NEAT1_2 or DAZAP1 in ShP51 cells and their parental HepG2 cells. A luciferase assay using a plasmid containing the PXR response elements of CYP3A4 revealed that the increased CYP3A4 induction by siNEAT1_2 or siDAZAP1 was due to the increased transactivation by PXR. These results suggest that paraspeckles play a role in trapping nuclear PXR in the absence of the ligand to negatively regulate transactivation of its downstream gene. Collectively, this is the first study to demonstrate that the paraspeckle components NEAT1_2 and DAZAP1 negatively regulate CYP3A4 induction by PXR.


urrently, reproductive and child health services in India are tax financed and provided through supply side financing mechanisms. Some of the limitations of supply side financing are the inability to target the poor, lack of user choice, and the absence of linkages between provider payments and performance. Hence, there is a need to develop innovative financing mechanisms, which are able to target scarce resources at those who cannot afford to pay. One option is demand side financing. Demand side subsidies are not only better at targeting subsidies to the poor, but by linking subsidies with output, also provide the right incentives for efficiency. This paper discusses the concept of demand side financing and recommends piloting of a competitive voucher scheme as a mechanism for RCH services in India.


After the 2009 L'Aquila Mw 6.1 earthquake, particular attention was paid to the large difference of Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg (MCS) macroseismic intensity between the nearby villages of Onna (9.5 MCS) and Monticchio (6 MCS). Several authors estimated that in Onna, settled in the Aterno river valley, ground motions were amplified at 2–3 Hz by up to a factor of 5 with respect to Monticchio, settled on more competent rocks. Although there was a general agreement that the spectral peak was caused by the resonance of the uppermost 40 m layer, a satisfactory fit of the amplitudes was not provided. Here, we apply spectral ratio techniques to 1437 aftershock seismograms (magnitude between 1.8 and 3.9) to compare ground motions within Onna and between Onna and Monticchio. Spectral amplitudes at stations located outside and inside the "red zone" of Onna show that the seismic response was uniform, confirming that vulnerability was crucial for the heavier damage of the ancient part of the village. We have also estimated the empirical transfer function of Onna through the spectral ratios between Onna and Monticchio. Although in a 1D simplification, a model with a further velocity contrast of ∼2 at 200 m of depth produces a more accurate fit of observations. Using the new velocity profile, we modeled the mainshock ground motion at Onna in an equivalent-linear approach. Accelerations are amplified by a factor of 2 and spectral ordinates increase from 0.7g at 0.2 s to 1g at 0.5 s, a shaking level that can be destructive for nonductile ancient buildings. This study shows that accurate estimates of empirical transfer functions, even in a simplified 1D approach, provide useful constraints to the deeper velocity structure where measurements are shallow or lacking.


Central banks have become more and more transparent about their monetary policy making process. In the central bank transparency literature the distinction between actual and perceived central bank transparency is often lacking. However, as perceptions are crucial for the actions of economic agents this distinction matters. A discrepancy between actual and perceived transparency may exist because of incomplete or incorrect transparency knowledge and other (psychological) factors. Even financial experts, the most important channel through which the central bank can influence the economy, might suffer from misaligned perceptions. We investigate the mismatch between actual and perceived transparency and its relevance by analyzing data of a Dutch household survey on the European Central Bank's transparency. To benefit from higher transparency perceptions the European Central Bank might feel tempted to stress its transparency strengths, but hide its transparency weaknesses.


We investigated the characteristics and limitations in the event of hydrofluoric acid (HF) leakage by comparing and analyzing the offsite consequence analysis (OCA) tools based on the chemical plant operating conditions. We reviewed the tools Korea Offsite Risk Assessment (KORA) from South Korea and Risk Management Plan*Comp (RMP*Comp™) and Areal Location of Hazardous Atmospheres (ALOHA) from the United States. The scenario studied was based on a leak event from a 50% HF aqueous solution storage tank, and the operating conditions taken into consideration were the operating temperature and dike installation conditions. The results from the OCA differed; KORA presented a smaller range of offsite impact than did ALOHA. The offsite impact ranges of KORA and ALOHA increased as the operating temperature and dike installation area increased. However, RMP*Comp differed greatly in its offsite impact range results in the operating temperature range of 25 °C to 30 °C. Moreover, in the alternative scenario, a limitation existed in that the offsite impact range was not changed by the dike installation conditions. The offsite impact range analyzed via KORA and ALOHA reflected the reality of an HF leak accident better than that analyzed via RMP*Comp. Therefore, it is more reasonable to use KORA and ALOHA instead of RMP*Comp in OCA. Moreover, users should realize that ALOHA has a somewhat wider range of offsite impact than KORA does in OCA. The separation distance from the storage tank when installing a dike is effective between 1 and 1.5 m in consideration of securing the minimum workspace for workers. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2018;14:205–211. © 2017 SETAC


We present new evidence on how employment growth varies across firm types (size, productivity, and wage) and over the business cycle using Danish data covering almost 30 years. We decompose net employment growth into two recruitment margins: net hirings from/to employment (poaching) and net hirings from nonemployment. High-productivity firms are the most growing firms due to poaching. High wage firms poach almost as many workers, but shed an almost equal amount to non-employment. Large firms do not poach workers from smaller firms. In terms of employment cyclicality, we find that low-productive and low-wage firms shed proportionally more jobs in recessions. We relate our findings to recent models of employment fluctuations that jointly analyze worker and firm dynamics.


OBJECTIVE
To examine sexuality narratives of Black women who have sex with women and men and explore factors that influence their sexual safety and sexual security.

DESIGN
Secondary qualitative content analysis.

SETTING
We recruited young self-identified Black women from beauty salons and community-based organizations.

PARTICIPANTS
Our sample included a subset of five sexually active, Black women age 19 to 25 who reported engaging in sexual relationships with women and men. Participants were selected from a larger parent study that included sexuality narratives from 25 women.

METHODS
We analyzed interview transcripts in which participants described sexual relationships. We used constant comparative techniques and conventional content analysis methodology.

RESULTS
We uncovered three themes illustrating influences on sexual safety and sexual security: institutional expectations, emotional connectedness, and sexual behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS
From this analysis, we derive valuable insights into decision-making processes within sexual relationships from the perspectives of young Black women who have sex with women and men. Clinicians and investigators can use these findings to inform programs designed to improve the sexual health of this often invisible group of women. Nurses are uniquely positioned to support young women as they navigate societal institutions and emotional experiences that inform future sexual decisions and behaviors.


Polyelectrolytes are an important class of functional polymers that have the advantages of both polymers and electrolytes due to the presence of charges, and have prospective applications in many fields. The charge of the backbone is an important factor affecting the properties of polyelectrolytes. Therefore, the complex interactions caused by the charges in polyelectrolyte solutions pose a challenge to the study of polyelectrolyte systems, and there is no consensus on the distinction between the behavior of strong and weak polyelectrolytes in solution. Based on single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), the distinction of strong and weak polyelectrolytes is clarified for the first time at the single molecular level by comparing the single-chain elasticity in different environments. It is expected that the single-molecule study will provide the theoretical and experimental basis for the further application of polyelectrolytes.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the cultural sensitivity of the Breathe Easier mobile health application for African American lung cancer survivors and their families. Breathe Easier is an intervention designed to teach strategies to combat symptoms related to lung cancer.

PARTICIPANTS & SETTING
12 African American lung cancer survivors and their family members were recruited from an American College of Surgeons-approved cancer program in South Carolina.

METHODOLOGIC APPROACH
Participants completed in-depth interviews, which were guided by the Cultural Sensitivity Assessment Tool and the Cultural Sensitivity Checklist. Two researchers performed open and axial coding to conceptually organize the data.

FINDINGS
Multiple culturally relevant themes emerged, including benefits, concerns, and suggestions related to content literacy and inclusiveness, as well as acceptability of and motivations for using the mobile application. However, lung cancer survivors and their family members reported being more concerned about accessing accurate survivorship information.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Attention to health literacy, eHealth literacy, and cultural sensitivity may enhance patient outcomes, and nurses can advocate for patients regarding these communication issues.


Background: REOLYSIN is a unique, dearing strain oncolytic live virus which has demonstrated the ability to replicate in tumor cells with an activated RAS pathway. It has synergistic antitumor activity in combination with chemotherapy in both preclinical and clinical studies. Based on the promising activity of the combination of REOLYSIN with P/C in 2 trials in SCC of the head and neck, we elected to test this regimen in this Phase 2 trial in SCCLung.

Methods: Goals of this single-arm, open-label phase II study were to determine, first, the objective response rate (ORR) and second, the 6-month progression-free survival (PFS) and the overall survival (OS) of patients with metastatic or recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, treated with REOLYSIN in combination with standard doses of P/C. The study had a two-stage design, with 19 patients in the first stage. The trial would be terminated if 3/19 or fewer patients obtained an objective response. If the trial continued to the second stage, a total of up to 36 patients would be studied. The primary endpoint wouldbe met if patients in both stages had an ORR of at least 35%. Eligible patients had ECOG PS 0-2, adequate organ function, and no prior systemic chemotherapy for their metastatic or recurrent disease. Prior adjuvant chemotherapy or chemo-XRT for treatment of primary disease was allowed, provided that ≥ 6 months had elapsed since the last chemotherapy. Treatment dosages were: P200 mg/m2 IV over 3 hours; carboplatin at AUC 6 mg/mL minute calculated using standard formula(s)and REOLYSIN 3x1010 TCID50IV over 1 hour daily for 5 days every 21 days.

Results: 32 patients (20 males) entered the study and received at least one dose of study drug. Median age was 62 years (range 37-80)and all were Caucasian. 25evaluable patients received more than one cycle of therapy and a total of 125 cycles were administered in that group (per patient mean=5, median=6, range 2-12). The 7 non-evaluable patients received 1 cycle or less. Of the 25 evaluable patients who received more than one cycle, 12 (48%)had a PR, 10(40%) had stable disease (SD), and 3 (12%) had progressive disease (PD) for overall disease control(CR + PR + SD) in 22/25 (88%). Of 21 patients with >6 months follow-up, 7 (33.3%) have PFS of at least 6 months. The most common adverse events (AEs) seen were those expected with P/C—neutropenia 17 (9=Gr 3-4) and thrombocytopenia 15 (5=Gr 3-4) and those expected with REOLYSIN—fever 6 (1=Gr 3) and fatigue 11 (4=Gr 3). The AE profile of P/C therapy did not appear to be significantly altered by the addition of REOLYSIN. The only serious adverse eventreported as unexpected and related to study therapy was reversible Gr 2 elevation of creatinine (and increased BUN) which occurred 3 weeks after Cycle 8 in a 65-year-old woman.

Conclusions:REOLYSIN in combination with P/C was well-tolerated in patients with recurrent/metastatic SCClung and the response results justify further studies.

Citation Information: Mol Cancer Ther 2013;12(11 Suppl):C70.

Citation Format: Alain C. Mita, Athanassios Argiris, Matt Coffey, George Gill, Monica Mita. A phase 2 study of intravenous administration of REOLYSIN® (reovirus type 3 dearing) in combination with paclitaxel (P) and carboplatin (C) in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2013 Oct 19-23; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2013;12(11 Suppl):Abstract nr C70.


Ocean bottom pressure (OBP) variability serves as a proxy of ocean mass variability, the knowledge of which is needed in geophysical applications. The question of how well it can be modeled by the present general ocean circulation models on time scales in excess of one day is addressed here by comparing the simulated OBP variability with the observed one. To this end, a new multi-year data set is used, obtained with an array of bottom pressure gauges deployed deeply along a transect across the Southern Ocean. We present a brief description of OBP data and show large scale correlations over several thousand kilometres at all time scales red using daily and monthly averaged data. Annual and semi-annual cycles are weak. Close to the Agulhas Retroflection, signals of up to 30 cm equivalent water height (EWH) are detected. Further south, signals are mostly intermittent and noisy. It is shown that the models simulate consistent patterns of bottom pressure variability on monthly and longer scales except for areas with high mesoscale eddy activity, where high resolution is needed to capture the variability due to eddies. Furthermore, despite good agreement in the amplitude of variability, the in situ and simulated OBP show almost no correlation.


The nationwide DPT vaccine program was started in 1969 for infants under 12 months of age. In order to estimate the tetanus immune status among the general population of various age groups, we measured the serum tetanus antibody level in randomly selected outpatients from Metropolitan Tokyo (n = 211, 6 months-60 years) and Hamamatsu, a city of 510 thousand population (n = 128, 3 years-80 years) between January 1987 and June 1989. Among the 211 subjects from Tokyo, the antibody value exceeding effective level of 0.01 HAU/ml was observed in 102 subjects (48.3%). The antibody positive rate was 90.8% in subjects of 3 to 21 years and was 27.7% in subjects of 22 years or older. The positive rate was significantly higher in subjects of 21 years or younger (p less than 0.005). Among 128 subjects from Hamamatsu, 60 (46.1%) had a positive antibody and the antibody positive rare was 96.9% in subjects of 3 to 21 years and was 29.5% in subjects of 21 years or younger (p less than 0.005). The above findings indicate that our DPT vaccination program has been functioning well for the last 20 years and that the immunized population is adequately protected against tetanus.


When water bodies with unique biogeochemical constituents mix together there is potential for diverse responses by aquatic microbial communities and associated ecosystem functions. Here we evaluate bulk respiration under varying mixtures of turbid Amazon River water and two lowland tributaries—the Tapajos and Xingu rivers—based on O2 drawdown in dark rotating incubation chambers. Experiments containing 5%, 17%, 33%, and 50% tributary water mixed with Amazon River water were performed for the Tapajos and Xingu rivers at 3 different rotation velocities (0, 0.22, and 0.66 m s-1) during the falling water period. Pseudo first order reaction coefficients (k), a measure of respiration potential, ranged from -0.15 to -1.10 d-1, corresponding to respiration rates from 1.0 to 8.1 mg O2 L d-1. k values consistently increased with the rate of chamber rotation, and also was generally higher in the tributary-mainstem mixtures compared to pure endmembers. For both the Tapajos and Xingu rivers, the 17% mixture of tributary water yielded maximal k values, which were up to 2.9 and 2.2 times greater than in the tributary endmembers, respectively. The 50% mixtures, on the other hand, did not result in large increases in k. We hypothesize that enhanced respiration potential after mixing unique water is driven, in part, by microbial priming effects that have been previously identified on a molecular level for these rivers. The results of this study suggest that there may be an optimal mixture for priming effects to occur in terms of the relative abundance of "priming" and "primed" substrates.


Most studies of responses to change in competitive environments focus on competitor-specific adaptations. However, rivals are often acutely aware of one another, and this awareness should influence their competitive behavior. In this study, we focus on three market structures that affect competitive behavior: competitive parity, status disparity, and multipoint contact. In particular, we examine how securities analysts responded to a regulatory discontinuity, Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg-FD), which promoted competitive parity by eliminating privileged access to proprietary firm information as a critical source of competitive advantage. We predict and find that Reg-FD activated mutual forbearance among analysts linked through multipoint contact. We also predict and find that high-status analysts forbear more strongly. Analysts' responses to heterogeneity in competitive advantage thus depend importantly on their competitive overlap and status, with notable implications for their behavior and the information they provide to investors.


Two cycles of reciprocal recurrent selection at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka shifted the average percentage amylopectin of the eight populations of maize ( Zea mays L.) from 74.50 to 81.30 per cent, 74.00 to 82.00 percent , 77.50 to 82.50 percent, 76.00 to 82.00 percent, 77.00 to 82.5 per cent, 74.50 to 82.05 per cent, 75.50 to 82.30 per cent and from 77.00 to 82.32 percent. Selection was not effective in developing high amylose strain. The average percentage amylose of the eight populations of maize decreased from 25.50 to 20.00 percent, 26.00 to 19.30 percent,22.50 to 20.00 percent, 24.00 to 20.10 percent, 23.00 to 19.31 percent, 25.50 to 19.40 percent, 24.50 to 20.41 percent, and 23.00 to 19.23 percent. The developed synthetics can be used as commercial varieties per se, as reservoirs of germplasm for further improvement, and for the extraction of superior inbred lines for use in hybrid maize production. Key words: Reciprocal Recurrent Selection, Amylopectin, Amylose, Maize synthetics, Germplasm


ABSTRACT The objective of the present study was to assess the effect of combining CBT-I with wearing blue-light blocking glasses 90 min prior to bedtime on subjective and objective sleep parameters and daily symptoms (anxiety, depression, hyperarousal). Thirty patients (mean age 48.1 ± 16.13 years, range 21–71, 15 men/15 women) completed a CBT-I group therapy program, with groups randomly assigned to either "active" (blue-light filtering glasses) condition or "placebo" (glasses without filtering properties) condition. Patients were continually monitored by wristwatch actigraphy, kept their sleep diaries and completed a standard questionnaire battery at admission and after the end of the program. Statistical analyses showed a greater reduction of BAI score in "active" (4.33 ± 4.58) versus "placebo" (−0.92 ± 3.68) groups of patients [F = 6.389, p = .019, Cohen's d = 1.26] and significant prolongation of subjective total sleep time in "active" (−36.88 ± 48.68 min.) versus "placebo" (7.04 ± 47.50 min.) [F = 8.56, p < .01, d = 0.91] group. When pre- and post-treatment results were compared in both groups separately, using paired-samples t-tests, significant differences were observed also in the active group for BDI-II score (t = 3.66, p = .003, Cohen's d = 0.95) and HAS score (t = 2.90, p = .012, Cohen's d = 0.75). No significant differences were found in the placebo group. In active group, there was also a significant reduction of subjective sleep latency (t = 2.65, p = .021, d = 0.73) and an increase of subjective total sleep time (t = −2.73, p = .018, d = −0.76) without change in objective sleep duration which was significantly shortened in the placebo group. We provide further evidence that blocking short-wavelength light in the evening hours may be beneficial for patients suffering from insomnia.


As the year 2000 approached, so too did the years 5760, 2544, and 1420, according to the Jewish, Buddhist, and Moslem dating systems, respectively. Still, the coming of the year 2000 held meaning for most Western societies, serving as an opportunity for broader speculation about the new millennium and the 21st century. In the field of management, cycles of boom and bust in Asia had called into question new ways of organizing hailed in the 1980s, and questions and concerns mounted about inadequacies of 20th century views of business firms. Opinions were astonishingly diverse and often contradictory, but the central theme was change--dramatic change--and the idea that, to cope with it, managers ought to strategize anew and shape and reshape their firms.


The author takes the stance that children are always Othered or unfamiliar in research. The child as Other is intensified by adults' memories of their own childhoods. The author discusses what it means to be Othered, reviews images of children, and the roles early childhood research methodologists recommend a researcher should hold. Through narratives the author interrupts the text and reflects on her own childhood, research and teaching young children. Finally, methodological recommendations for utilizing or minimizing the researcher/child Othered relationship are set forth in the following areas: ethical consideration, reflexivity, intersubjectivity, innovative methods, children are experts, and being with children.


The green bulk amorphous silicon nitride was prepared by cold isostatic pressing without the presence of sintering additives, using an amorphous silicon nitride as raw powder. The crystallization behavior of amorphous silicon nitride was investigated under N2, Ar atmosphere and vacuum using X-ray diffractometry (XRD). The effect of atmosphere on the process and the end products of crystallization of amorphous silicon nitride was studied. The single phase beta-Si3N4 and Si2N2O could be prepared in the different sintering atmosphere as the end product. The possible reaction process was discussed also.