Intraabdominal abscess formation is the most common septical complication after perforated appendicitis. An appendiceal fecalith favours appendicitis and is a high risk for complications like perforation or abscess formation. In a 6 year period 554 patients have been treated operatively for appendicitis in our institution. In 4 patients, 6 to 12 1/2 years, operated for perforated appendicitis, a fecalith was initially overlooked. This unrecognised fecalith at operation led to an intraabdominal abscess 14 days up to 17 months postoperatively. After laparatomy with extraction of the fecalith, drainage of the abscess and antibiotical therapy all patients attained definitive healing. An appendicolith can escape into the abdominal cavity before or during appendectomy, causing complications. An unrecognised fecalith is a rare cause for intraabdominal abscess formation. Nevertheless in patients with an intraabdominal abscess after appendectomy a thorough radiological search for a fecalith by means of plain abdominal radiograph and abdominal ultrasound is mandatory. Surgical removal of the intraabdominal fecalith is the only way to definitive healing.


Within the past few years, neuroscientists have seen the first signs that it may be possible to prevent or delay the devastating neurodegeneration of Alzheimer's disease. Currently, only one drug is approved for treating Alzheimer's patients, and it is only modestly effective in reducing their symptoms. But epidemiological studies, as well as studies of neurons in lab culture, suggest that other drugs, including antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and the female hormone estrogen, can protect against the neuronal losses of the disease, and clinical trials with these agents are getting under way. In addition, several other potential therapeutic drugs are beginning to move through the pipeline. All in all, Alzheimer's researchers say they are more optimistic than they have been in a long time. For more information on Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association's Web site.


The aim of this study was to investigate effects of different early life transport-related factors on health, behavior, use of medicines and slaughter characteristics of veal calves. An experiment was conducted with a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with 3 factors: (1) provision of rearing milk or electrolytes before transport, (2) transport duration (6 or 18 h), and (3) type of vehicle (open truck or conditioned truck). The study included male Holstein-Friesian and cross-bred calves (N = 368; 18 ± 4 days; 45.3 ± 3.3 kg). Data on health status of calves were collected at the collection center and at the veal farm until week 27 post-transport. Behavior of calves was recorded during transport and at the veal farm until week 13 post-transport. Use of herd and individual medical treatments was recorded at the veal farm. The prevalence of loose or liquid manure at the veal farm from day 1 until week 3 post-transport was lower in electrolyte-fed calves transported in the conditioned truck compared to electrolytes-fed calves transported in the open truck or milk-fed calves transported in both the conditioned and open truck (Δ = 11% on average; P = 0.02). In comparison with the open truck, calves transported in the conditioned truck had lower prevalence of navel inflammation in the first 3 weeks post-transport (Δ = 3 %; P = 0.05). More milk-fed calves received individual antibiotic treatments compared to electrolyte-fed calves at the veal farm (P = 0.05). In conclusion, the transport-related factors examined in the present study affected health and behavior of calves in the short-term, but there was no evidence for long-term effects. It remains unknown why no long-term effects were found in this study. Perhaps this absence of transport-related effects was due to multiple use of medical treatments in the first weeks at the veal farm. Alternatively, it might be that the collective effects of the transition from the dairy farm to the veal farm, and of the husbandry conditions during the subsequent rearing period, on the adaptive capacity of calves were so large that effects of individual transport-related factors were overruled.


An active learner is given a model classΘ, a large sample of unlabeled data drawn from an underlying distribution and access to a labeling oracle that can provide a label for any of the unlabeled instances. The goal of the learner is to find a model θ ∈ Θ that fits the data to a given accuracy while making as few label queries to the oracle as possible. In this work, we consider a theoretical analysis of the label requirement of active learning for regression under a heteroscedastic noise model, where the noise depends on the instance. We provide bounds on the convergence rates of active and passive learning for heteroscedastic regression. Our results illustrate that just like in binary classification, some partial knowledge of the nature of the noise can lead to significant gains in the label requirement of active learning.


Reducing health disparities, primarily those based on race/ethnicity and gender, has long been a public health priority in the United States, but the first official goal to eliminate health disparities came with Healthy People 2010.1 Recent developments led by the World Health Organization (WHO), however, have accelerated the thinking about the causes of health inequities—i.e., disparities that are systematic, avoidable, and unjust2—and how best to address their reduction.3,4 The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health concluded in 2008 that the social conditions in which people are born, live, and work are the single most important determinant of one's health status.3 Certainly, individual choices are important, but factors in the social environment are what determine access to health services and influence lifestyle choices in the first place.

In addition to the WHO's work, state and local health departments, national government agencies (such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services in the U.S.), and other national organizations have recognized the need to address health inequities in a systematic way by addressing more than individual behavioral factors.5–12 This global movement recognizes that to reduce health inequities, it will be necessary to incorporate a social determinants of health approach with existing approaches. Social determinants are defined as follows: "… the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics."13

Broadening our collective approaches to reducing health inequities by addressing the social and structural conditions needed for good health for all is urgently needed now. These social and structural conditions include education; housing; employment; living wages; access to health care; access to healthy foods and green spaces; justice; occupational safety; hopefulness; and freedom from racism, classism, sexism, and other forms of exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination based on social status. The inequitable distribution of these social conditions across groups contributes to persistent health inequities. While a social-determinants approach is important for people of all ages, it is critically valuable for children, whose positive early development can improve their health throughout the life span.14

As a former U.S. Surgeon General, I am committed to eliminating health disparities in the United States and providing care to vulnerable populations such as the indigent, foreign-born, and homeless. I urge a more broad-based and systematic approach to adequately address the health inequities that have been abundantly documented in the U.S. and which I have seen on a daily basis across the country. I call on people from all disciplines and sectors to come together and work toward achieving the Healthy People 2020 objectives, especially as they relate to social determinants of health.

We need a new way of thinking, one where, as public health professionals, we lead by taking an interdisciplinary approach and collaborating across a wide range of disciplines, developing our own workforce to effectively address social determinants of health, and insisting health and non-health policies incorporate a social-determinants approach.

We all have a role to play. The federal government should raise the profile of social determinants and communicate to the public what is meant by this somewhat unfamiliar approach. Public health and the work we do can be framed around health equity. Communities and local governments and organizations will have to be educated about the growing movement. Clear, concise language and concrete examples of how people can affect change will be needed. We should have "health in all policies" because nearly all social determinants are outside the direct control of the health sector. Although the goal of many social and economic policies may not be to affect health outcomes, the fact is they will.14 From funding opportunity announcements to accountability mechanisms, all facets of public health should include addressing social determinants.

Our partnerships will have to be stronger if we are to have an impact. We must reach out to nontraditional partners in the private sector, industry, and other parts of government in the transportation, education, and justice sectors, for example. Analyses of equity effectiveness should be conducted alongside those of cost-effectiveness to ensure that the impact of various policies on health outcomes is given equal consideration.14,15 Finally, we must expand resources to address these underlying determinants. Public resources could be better leveraged and collaborations with the private sector and foundations should also be sought.

In short, we must be proactive, collaborative, inclusive, and deliberate as we advance the use of a social-determinants approach to reducing health inequities among and between populations.


Democracy is not merely a political and legal system; it depends on social and economic commitments as well. Democracy is not only realized through elections; it requires civic participation through permanent dialogue. This volume addresses this central, yet often overlooked, issue in a series of essays by renowned scholars from Europe and the United States, reviving a concept that dates back to the foundation of the European Union: social dialogue as a fundamental part of the construction of the union. Having neglected the social dimensions of its institutions, the European Union is currently in deep crisis. European democracy is confronted with a radical new situation and new definitions of work and family, as well as of growth and economic achievement, must be embedded in European public policy. The contributors to this book identify social and civil dialogue as key institutional processes that will help overcome the current crisis. Civic participation can no longer be limited to representative institutions as we know them; a new combination of deliberation, bargaining and social experimentation is required. This book maps out the complexity of this vital issue and its implications for the future of the European democratic project.


On classical phase spaces admitting just one complex–differentiable structure, there is no indeterminacy in the choice of the creation operators that create quanta out of a given vacuum. In these cases the notion of a quantum is universal, i.e., independent of the observer on classical phase space. Such is the case in all standard applications of quantum mechanics. However, recent developments suggest that the notion of a quantum may not be universal. Transformations between observers that do not agree on the notion of an elementary quantum are called dualities. Classical phase spaces admitting more than one complex–differentiable structure thus provide a natural framework to study dualities in quantum mechanics. As an example we quantise a classical mechanics whose phase space is a torus and prove explicitly that it exhibits dualities.


This article on fuzziness in medieval language use is the second part of a three-part contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium "Fuzzy Studies: On the Consequence of Blur." Each part corresponds broadly to Clifford Geertz's trifold instances of blur as involving "face-to-face interaction" ("life as game"), "collective intensities" ("life as stage"), and "imaginative forms" ("life as text"). Part 2 discusses "collective intensities" by means of some of the key examples of diplomatic negotiations in the Hundred Years War. The main focus of interest is the Treaty of Brétigny, the funeral of Jean II, and the Treaty of Leulinghen. The article asks how English and French negotiators worked collectively through language to create, identify, and maintain borderlines in their public, political relationships.


Model-based reinforcement learning (RL) allows an agent to discover good policies with a small number of trials by generalising observed transitions. Data efficiency can be further improved with a probabilistic model of the agent's ignorance about the world, allowing it to choose actions under uncertainty. Bayesian modelling offers tools for this task, with PILCO [1] being a prominent example, achieving state-of-theart data efficiency on low dimensional RL benchmarks. But PILCO relies on Gaussian processes (GPs), which prohibits its applicability to problems that require a larger number of trials to be solved. Further, PILCO does not consider temporal correlation in model uncertainty between successive state transitions, which results in PILCO underestimating state uncertainty at future time steps [2]. In this paper we extend PILCO's framework to use Bayesian deep dynamics models with approximate variational inference, allowing PILCO to scale linearly with number of trials and observation space dimensionality. Using particle methods we sample dynamics function realisations, and obtain lower cumulative cost than PILCO. We give insights into the modelling assumptions made in PILCO, and show that moment matching is a crucial simplifying assumption made by the model. Our implementation can leverage GPU architectures, offering faster running time than PILCO, and will allow structured observation spaces to be modelled (images or higher dimensional inputs) in the future.


Clonal propagation by in vitro means of adult forest trees is often difficult or not possible with current technology. This problem, generally described as recalcitrance, has been approached from several angles by researchers and reviewers. However, it has not yet been reviewed from the point of view that it may eventually be possible to overcome recalcitrance by mimicking the rejuvenation process that occurs during sexual reproduction. It is suggested that somatic cell nuclear transfer, in a manner similar to the one used for animal cloning, could be helpful. Furthermore, application of controlled stress and autophagy, or inducing apomixes by halting natural or artificially induced meiosis before chromosome segregation, could perhaps assist in overcoming recalcitrance. The discussion below indicates that mimicking the sexual or apomictic process in vitro is worthy of further exploration and should be evaluated as a means of genetically improving tree species, especially those of high economic value. Studies along these lines may also be helpful in improving our knowledge of the epigenetic, cytogenetic, and genomic mechanisms involved.


Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate nurses' levels of knowledge about port catheters (PCs), define factors effecting them and to define the subjects in which more education strategies should be developed.
Patients and Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in cancer centers in Turkey. Participants were evaluated with structured questionnaires to assess the levels of knowledge about PCs and management strategies of PC related complications. The questions were designed to evaluate their knowledge in different subscales.
Results: 363 nurses in 7 cancer centers in 4 different cities in Turkey participated in the study.  While 147 (40.5%) nurses had a more than 10 years of experience, 13.8% of them had a less than 1 year of job experience in oncology. Knowledge about "Port catheter usage and complications" and "difficulties while using PC" was worse than other subscales. The effects of the job experience on knowledge showed a negative correlation between them (r= -168, p= 0.001). In addition, participants with an experience of more than 10 years have worse scores when compared with others ( 27.2±11.4 vs. 30.6±9.4, P=0.003). There was no significant difference between nurses working in a university hospital and public hospital (28.5 ± 10.9 vs. 30.4±10.4, P= 0.086).
Conclusion: The study concluded that experience in the field is negatively correlated with knowledge about PCs. Nurses actively caring PCs should be routinely updated, especially about complications of PCs and management strategies of them.


The nature distribution and associated GTP gamma S binding activity of phosphatidylinositol phospholipase C (PI-PLC) has been studied in non-pregnant and pregnant guinea pig uterine smooth muscle. Cytosolic fractions partially purified by Q-Sepharose and heparin-Agarose chromatography show two isoenzyme forms, one with an apparent molecular weight of 58 kD that crossreacts with PI-PLC alpha and a has Km for phosphatidylinositol of 292 +/- 72.6 microM, designated alpha, and a form that has an apparent molecular weight of 86 kD and a substrate Km of 54 +/- 20 microM designated delta. Approximately 80% of the total PI-PLC activity was recovered in the cytosolic fraction and this increased 8-10 fold for both isoenzymes from the non-pregnant to the late pregnant uterus and the proportion of the alpha isoenzyme increased from approximately 40% to 55% of the total. PI-PLC alpha but not delta activity had GTP gamma S binding activity associated with it after Q-Sepharose or heparin-Agarose chromatography. This associated activity accounted for 2% of the total GTP gamma S-binding activity in the non-pregnant uterus and 31% of that in the near-term uterus. On separation of the PI-PLCa-GTP gamma S-binding complex by gel filtration on Sephacryl S200 gave two peaks one of 118 kD accounting for two-thirds of all the binding and two-thirds of the enzyme activity and a 58 kD peak. The 118 kD peak could not be separated by treatment with 0.5% cholate, but in this form enzyme activity was protected from detergent inactivation found with the 58 kD form. In sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis PI-PLC alpha was released from the 118 kD complex and showed an apparent molecular weight of 61.5 kD. All the activity in the residual membrane fraction could be released by washing with buffer followed by, 2 M KCl and then 2 M KCl plus 0.5% cholate. This released isoenzyme forms that appeared identical to those in the cytosolic fraction and with GTP gamma S-binding activity associated with PI-PLC alpha. It is concluded that in the near term guinea pig uterus there is a dramatic increase in the capacity for inositol polyphosphate production. Moreover the dramatic increase in GTP gamma S-binding activity associated with PI-PLC alpha implies large changes in the extent and possibly nature of the putative G-protein activation of this pathway.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


The measurement of the volatility is key in financial markets. This is true not only because decisions are made in an environment of uncertainty, but because sometimes the volatility element overpowers all the remaining aspects in the decision process. Huge movements in the prices of the assets (volatility) can lead to huge losses and also huge gains. There are models to establish the fair prices for certain kind of assets, in that the only parameter that is not directly observable is the parameter characterizing the volatility. However, it is well established in the literature that the evolution of the volatility can be forecasted. Several parametric models have been proposed for modeling the volatility evolution, for example, the Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (ARCH) and the Stochastic Volatility model (SV). Nowadays, we live in a "Big Data" world, and even for non-professionals of financial markets, it is possible to record data obtained at every second. Recently, measures of volatility have been developed using intraday data, for example, the measure of realized volatility. One of the main aspects to consider is that intraday data and measures of realized volatility are associated with unequal time-spaced observations. In this paper, we compare the forecasts of the volatility evolution using intradaily observations and daily observations, and by trying to conciliate both kind of forecasts, for the data obtained from US and European stock markets, we find out that the use of measures of realized volatility represent an important improvement in volatility forecasting, that can be added to the more well established models that are used in this context, ARCH and SV models.


We study the problem of 3D shape reconstruction from 2D landmarks extracted in a single image. We adopt the 3D deformable shape model and formulate the reconstruction as a joint optimization of the camera pose and the linear shape parameters. Our first contribution is to apply Lasserre's hierarchy of convex Sums-of-Squares (SOS) relaxations to solve the shape reconstruction problem and show that the SOS relaxation of minimum order 2 empirically solves the original non-convex problem exactly. Our second contribution is to exploit the structure of the polynomial in the objective function and find a reduced set of basis monomials for the SOS relaxation that significantly decreases the size of the resulting semidefinite program (SDP) without compromising its accuracy. These two contributions, to the best of our knowledge, lead to the first certifiably optimal solver for 3D shape reconstruction, that we name Shape*. Our third contribution is to add an outlier rejection layer to Shape⋆ using a truncated least squares (TLS) robust cost function and leveraging graduated non-convexity to solve TLS without initialization. The result is a robust reconstruction algorithm, named Shape#, that tolerates a large amount of outlier measurements. We evaluate the performance of Shape⋆ and Shape# in both simulated and real experiments, showing that Shape⋆ outperforms local optimization and previous convex relaxation techniques, while Shape# achieves state-of-the-art performance and is robust against 70% outliers in the FG3DCar dataset.


Nematodes compose an abundant and diverse invertebrate phylum with members inhabiting nearly every ecological niche. Panagrellus redivivus (the "microworm") is a free-living nematode frequently used to understand the evolution of developmental and behavioral processes given its phylogenetic distance to Caenorhabditis elegans. Here we report the de novo sequencing of the genome, transcriptome, and small RNAs of P. redivivus. Using a combination of automated gene finders and RNA-seq data, we predict 24,249 genes and 32,676 transcripts. Small RNA analysis revealed 248 microRNA (miRNA) hairpins, of which 63 had orthologs in other species. Fourteen miRNA clusters containing 42 miRNA precursors were found. The RNA interference, dauer development, and programmed cell death pathways are largely conserved. Analysis of protein family domain abundance revealed that P. redivivus has experienced a striking expansion of BTB domain-containing proteins and an unprecedented expansion of the cullin scaffold family of proteins involved in multi-subunit ubiquitin ligases, suggesting proteolytic plasticity and/or tighter regulation of protein turnover. The eukaryotic release factor protein family has also been dramatically expanded and suggests an ongoing evolutionary arms race with viruses and transposons. The P. redivivus genome provides a resource to advance our understanding of nematode evolution and biology and to further elucidate the genomic architecture leading to free-living lineages, taking advantage of the many fascinating features of this worm revealed by comparative studies.


OBJECT
Rigid fixation of the upper cervical spine has become an established method of durable stabilization for a variety of craniocervical pathological entities in children. In children, specifically, the use of C1-2 transarticular screws has been proposed in recent literature to be the gold standard configuration for pathology involving these levels. The authors reviewed the use of rigid fixation techniques alternative to C1-2 transarticular screws in children. Factors evaluated included ease of placement, complications, and postoperative stability.

METHODS
Seventeen patients, ranging in age from 3 to 17 years (mean 9.6 years), underwent screw fixation involving the atlas or axis for a multitude of pathologies, including os odontoideum, Down syndrome, congenital instability, iatrogenic instability, or posttraumatic instability. All patients had preoperative instability of the occipitocervical or atlantoaxial spine demonstrated on dynamic lateral cervical spine radiographs. All patients also underwent preoperative CT scanning and MR imaging to evaluate the anatomical feasibility of the selected hardware placement. Thirteen patients underwent C1-2 fusion, and 4 underwent occipitocervical fusion, all incorporating C-1 lateral mass screws, C-2 pars screws, and/or C-2 laminar screws within their constructs. Patients who underwent occipitocervical fusion had no instrumentation placed at C-1. One patient's construct included sublaminar wiring at C-2. All patients received autograft onlay either from from rib (in 15 patients), split-thickness skull (1 patient), or local bone harvested within the operative field (1 patient). Nine patients' constructs were supplemented with recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein at the discretion of the attending physician. Eight patients had surgical sacrifice of 1 or both C-2 nerve roots to better facilitate visualization of the C-1 lateral mass. One patient was placed in halo-vest orthosis postoperatively, while the rest were maintained in rigid collars.

RESULTS
All 17 patients underwent immediate postoperative CT scanning to evaluate hardware placement. Follow-up was achieved in 16 cases, ranging from 2 to 39 months (mean 14 months), and repeated dynamic lateral cervical spine radiography was performed in these patients at the end of their follow-up period. Some, but not all patients, also underwent delayed postoperative CT scans, which were done at the discretion of the treating attending physician. No neurovascular injuries were encountered, no hardware revisions were required, and no infections were seen. No postoperative pain was seen in patients who underwent C-2 nerve root sacrifice. Stability was achieved in all patients postoperatively. In all patients who underwent delayed postoperative CT scanning, the presence of bridging bone was shown spanning the fused levels.

CONCLUSIONS
Screw fixation of the atlas using lateral mass screws, in conjunction with C-2 root sacrifice in selected cases, and of the axis using pars or laminar screws is a safe method for achieving rigid fixation of the upper cervical spine in the pediatric population.


The design of an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is presented using 'single spin logic' where classical binary bits 0 and 1 are encoded in orthogonal spin polarisations of single electrons hosted in semiconductor quantum dots. The logic signal (spin state) is transmitted from one spin to the next via nearest-neighbour exchange interaction. The ALU circuits are implemented by placing the quantum dots in specific geometric patterns on a wafer so as to realise the desired relationships between the input and output spin states.


The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was enormously newsworthy; coverage interlaced discussions of health, economic, and environmental impacts and risks. We analyzed 315 news articles that considered Gulf seafood safety from the year following the spill. We explored reporting trends, risk presentation, message source, stakeholder perspectives on safety, and framing of safety messages. Approximately one third of articles presented risk associated with seafood consumption as a standalone issue, rather than in conjunction with environmental or economic risks. Government sources were most frequent and their messages were largely framed as reassuring as to seafood safety. Discussions of prevention were limited to short-term, secondary prevention approaches. These data demonstrate a need for risk communication in news coverage of food safety that addresses the larger risk context, primary prevention, and structural causes of risk.


The adsorption of water on alkali halide (KBr, KCl, KF, NaCl) nanocrystals on SiO 2 and their deliquescence was investigated as a function of relative humidity (RH) from 8% to near saturation by scanning polarization force microscopy. At low humidity water adsorption solvates ions at the surface of the crystals and increases their mobility. This results in a large increase in the dielectric constant, which is manifested in an increase in the electrostatic force and in an increase in the apparent height of the nanocrystals. Above 58% RH the diffusion of ions leads to Ostwald ripening, where larger nanocrystals grow at the expense of the smaller ones. At the deliquescence point droplets were formed. For KBr, KCl and NaCl, the droplets exhibit a negative surface potential relative to the surrounding region, indicative of the preferential segregation of anions to the air-solution interface. polarizable halogen ions at the surface of aqueous solutions. Our results imply that this phenomenon occurs also in nanometer thick solution films, which is now limited by two interfaces, the air/liquid and the liquid/SiO


In the present study, we investigated the effect of long-acyl chain SFA, namely palmitic acid (16 : 0) and stearic acid (18 : 0), at sn-1, 3 positions of TAG on obesity. Throughout the 15 weeks of the experimental period, C57BL/6 mice were fed diets fortified with cocoa butter, sal stearin (SAL), palm mid fraction (PMF) and high-oleic sunflower oil (HOS). The sn-1, 3 positions were varied by 16 : 0, 18 : 0 and 18 : 1, whilst the sn-2 position was preserved with 18 : 1. The HOS-enriched diet was found to lead to the highest fat deposition. This was in accordance with our previous postulation. Upon normalisation of total fat deposited with food intake to obtain the fat:feed ratio, interestingly, mice fed the SAL-enriched diet exhibited significantly lower visceral fat/feed and total fat/feed compared with those fed the PMF-enriched diet, despite their similarity in SFA–unsaturated fatty acid–SFA profile. That long-chain SFA at sn-1, 3 positions concomitantly with an unsaturated FA at the sn-2 position exert an obesity-reducing effect was further validated. The present study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that SFA of different chain lengths at sn-1, 3 positions exert profound effects on fat accretion.


Aplastic anemia developed in 9 of 32 patients (28 percent) undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation for acute non-A, non-B hepatitis, at one to seven weeks after the procedure. No patient previously had evidence of hematologic dysfunction or conditions known to be associated with aplastic anemia. No other cases of aplastic anemia were identified among 1463 patients undergoing liver transplantation for all other indications at the four centers participating in the study (chi-square = 415, P less than 0.001; 95 percent confidence interval for the incidence of aplastic anemia after transplantation for non-A, non-B hepatitis, 13 to 44 percent, vs. 0.00 to 0.13 percent for all other indications). The operative and postoperative treatment of these patients was not otherwise different, indicating that the aplastic anemia was a complication of the hepatitis, not of the transplantation procedure. Four of the nine patients died of complications due to infections. Three of the surviving patients have been followed for less than six months, one for one year, and one for two years. The two patients followed the longest have recovered marrow function to an appreciable degree, and two of the others have evidence of early recovery. We conclude that patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation for non-A, non-B hepatitis are at a high risk for the development of aplastic anemia.


Little narrative exists within the literature which focuses on the understanding of cyber security and digital forensics to a much wider audience: the public. This paper's aim is to capture and examine the perceptions of the public by adding insight into what is understood by the terms and disciplines of 'digital forensics' and 'cyber security'. While cyber security and digital forensics can be recognised by their interdisciplinary nature, the two disciplines are distinct in their approach to criminality. At its simplest, cyber security is concerned with the prevention of an incident and implementation of robust systems, while digital forensics focuses on the response to crime and recovering digital evidence. Public perceptions of these areas are important, as security of systems and digital technologies have been heightened in recent years due to high profile cases where notable and large corporations have seen breaches of sensitive information. This study draws on responses from the public using an online survey taken by 102 participants that asked their views on cyber security and digital forensics. This paper demonstrates that there is an awareness among respondents of both disciplines where participants have associated cyber security predominately with the protection of data and systems and digital forensics as the examination and inspection of digital devices. Additionally, responses have also shown there is a need for further awareness in these fields.


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) includes a wide spectrum of liver injury ranging from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and cirrhosis. Whereas simple steatosis has a benign clinical course, steatohepatitis is a recognized cause of progressive liver fibrosis and can develop into cirrhosis. NAFLD and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are the two most common chronic liver diseases in United States general population with a prevalence of 20% and 3%, respectively. Hepatic steatosis is frequently associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hyperlipidemia with insulin resistance as a key pathogenic factor. A two-hit theory best describes the progression from simple steatosis to NASH, fibrosis, or cirrhosis. These two hits consist of the accumulation of excessive hepatic fat primarily owing to insulin resistance, and oxidative stress owing to reactive oxygen species (ROS). Mitochondria are the major cellular source of ROS in cases of NASH. Currently, treatment is focused on modifying risk factors such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia. Antioxidants such as vitamin E, N-acetylcysteine, betaine, and others may be beneficial in the treatment of NASH.


. Ideal DNA extraction techniques must be efficient in terms of time, labor, and costs, optimizing yield and quality of the DNA for the desired applications. We tested six DNA extraction methods: DNeasy® Blood & Tissue Kit, Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), Modified salting-out protocol (SA), Boiling Tissue, Proteinase K (PK) and Mini Kit Applied Biosystems, on fin clippings from tambaqui ( Colossoma macropomum ). DNA yield, purity, quality, and cost of each method were evaluated. The effectiveness of extraction was evaluated by PCR amplification and genotyping efficiency, repeatability and accuracy. DNA yield and purity were quantified using NanoDrop absorbance ratios. Cost was estimated in terms of time and material expenses. The results showed differences between the tested methods, with the PK method having the best performance, followed by SA and CTAB. PK was identified as the most economical and efficient technique in terms of time, cost, and scalability/potential automation, while also generating DNA of good quality for performing PCR amplification and SNP genotyping with tambaqui samples.


Numerous Mesoproterozoic alkaline intrusions belonging to the Pilanesberg Alkaline Province are present within the Transvaal sub-basin of the Kaapvaal Craton. The Pilanesberg Complex is the best-known example; it represents one of the world's largest alkaline complexes, and is associated with a northwest-southeast trending dyke swarm that extends from Botswana to the southwest of Johannesburg. This paper documents the results of a petrological and geochemical study of a thin mafic sill (here referred to as an alkaline igneous body, AIB), which intrudes the ca. 2 200 Ma Silverton Formation close to the southernmost part of the Pilanesberg dyke swarm. The AIB has only been observed in cores from a borehole drilled close to Carletonville. It is hypocrystalline, containing randomly oriented elongated skeletal kaersutite crystals and 6 to 8 mm varioles mainly composed of radially oriented acicular plagioclase. These two textures are related to undercooling, probably linked to the limited thickness (70 cm) of the AIB coupled with a probable shallow emplacement depth. Ar-Ar dating of the kaersutite gives an age of ca. 1 400 Ma, similar to the age of Pilanesberg Complex. However, the AIB is an alkaline basaltic andesite and is thus notably less differentiated than the Pilanesberg Complex and some of its associated dykes, such as the Maanhaarrand dyke, for which we provide whole-rock geochemical data. Literature data indicate that the Pilanesberg dyke swarm also contains mafic hypabyssal rocks suggesting a link between the dyke swarm and the AIB. The AIB is characterized by strongly negative εNd and εHf, that cannot be related to crustal contamination, as shown by positive Ti and P anomalies, and the absence of negative Nb-Ta anomalies in mantle-normalised trace element diagrams. The AIB magma is interpreted to have been derived from a long-lived enriched, probably lithospheric mantle reservoir. The AIB thus provides important information on the magma source of the Pilanesberg Alkaline Province.


This article addresses questions of method, focus and research strategy in environmental history and political economy for policy analysis and policy-making. While most environmental history is seen as having to do with landscapes past and how they got that way, environmental history can also have practical contemporary applications. By coming to understand the sources and origins of environmental degradation, and the patterns of social organization that led to them, we may be better positioned to foster environmental protection and conservation in ways that may resolve and/or support local efforts around the world. Such studies can help to address conflicts that arise over conservation policies, especially when these studies illuminate the origins and historical trajectories of places, and provide insights into ways of working with, rather than against, local cultures, knowledges, and social arrangements.


As an anthropologist who works in West Africa, I have ambivalent feelings towards the 1982 song 'Africa' by Toto. It is a song that lyrically does not make sense, although powerfully draws its audience into a romanticized mental imagery of the continent with "drums echoing," "wild dogs crying," and "old men" with "long forgotten words or ancient melodies." Despite my annoyance at and critique of the lyrics and music video, I often found myself humming the lyrics "I bless the rains down in Africa" during my fifteen months fieldwork in the small town in south-eastern Ghana. This paper explores how the song came to signify for me a plea for disconnection from the relations I had worked to develop and a celebration when that disconnection was momentarily achieved during the downpours in the rainy seasons. Fieldwork, participant observation, culture shock, West Africa


Film dosimetry using radiochromic EBT film in combination with a flatbed charge coupled device scanner is a useful method both for two-dimensional verification of intensity-modulated radiation treatment plans and for general quality assurance of treatment planning systems and linear accelerators. Unfortunately, the response over the scanner area is nonuniform, and when not corrected for, this results in a systematic error in the measured dose which is both dose and position dependent. In this study a novel method for background correction is presented. The method is based on the subtraction of a correction matrix, a matrix that is based on scans of films that are irradiated to nine dose levels in the range 0.08-2.93 Gy. Because the response of the film is dependent on the film's orientation with respect to the scanner, correction matrices for both landscape oriented and portrait oriented scans were made. In addition to the background correction method, a full dose uncertainty analysis of the film dosimetry procedure was performed. This analysis takes into account the fit uncertainty of the calibration curve, the variation in response for different film sheets, the nonuniformity after background correction, and the noise in the scanned films. The film analysis was performed for film pieces of size 16×16 cm, all with the same lot number, and all irradiations were done perpendicular onto the films. The results show that the 2-sigma dose uncertainty at 2 Gy is about 5% and 3.5% for landscape and portrait scans, respectively. The uncertainty gradually increases as the dose decreases, but at 1 Gy the 2-sigma dose uncertainty is still as good as 6% and 4% for landscape and portrait scans, respectively. The study shows that film dosimetry using GafChromic® EBT film, an Epson Expression 1680 Professional scanner and a dedicated background correction technique gives precise and accurate results. For the purpose of dosimetric verification, the calculated dose distribution can be compared with the film-measured dose distribution using a dose constraint of 4% (relative to the measured dose) for doses between 1 and 3 Gy. At lower doses, the dose constraint must be relaxed.


Music psychological research has either focused on individual differences of music listening behavior or investigated situational influences. The present study addresses the question of how much of people's listening behavior in daily life is due to individual differences and how much is attributable to situational effects. We aimed to identify the most important factors of both levels (i.e., person-related and situational) driving people's music selection behavior. Five hundred eighty-seven participants reported three self-selected typical music listening situations. For each situation, they answered questions on situational characteristics, functions of music listening, and characteristics of the music selected in the specific situation (e.g., fast - slow, simple - complex). Participants also reported on several person-related variables (e.g., musical taste, Big Five personality dimensions). Due to the large number of variables measured, we implemented a statistical learning method, percentile-Lasso, for variable selection, which prevents overfitting and optimizes models for the prediction of unseen data. Most of the variance in music selection behavior was attributable to differences between situations, while individual differences accounted for much less variance. Situation-specific functions of music listening most consistently explained which kind of music people selected, followed by the degree of attention paid to the music. Individual differences in musical taste most consistently accounted for person-related differences in music selection behavior, whereas the influence of Big Five personality was very weak. These results show a detailed pattern of factors influencing the selection of music with specific characteristics. They clearly emphasize the importance of situational effects on music listening behavior and suggest shifts in widely-used experimental designs in laboratory-based research on music listening behavior.


This work covers the effectiveness of the White tea extract as a green corrosion inhibitor and is correlated to the strength and stability bonding between the phenolic molecule and the Fe atoms in mild steel and how this interaction can be studied by altering the concentration and temperature. White tea has received considerable attention due to its capability as a corrosion inhibitor and has been extensively studied using electrochemical techniques. However, accurate and systematic functional group identification and surface modification have been missing. Our study sought to demonstrate the quantitative measurement of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) complemented by the FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), Total Phenolic Test, and Raman Spectroscopy. The SEM (Scanning Electronic Microscope)/EDX (Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy), and AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) were used to study the surface modification. The EIS results show that the optimum inhibition efficiency was 96 % in a solution of 80 ppm at 60 °C. Acetone 70 % was used to extract White tea and gives 14.17±0.25 % phenolic compound. Spectroscopic studies show -OH, Aromatic C=C, C=O and C-O-C become major contributors in the adsorption process and are found on the surface of metals as corrosion protection. Meanwhile, the thermodynamic calculation shows the White tea was adsorbed chemically. The nearness of R2 to 1 shows the adsorption agrees with the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Eventually, the surface modification revealed that phenol molecules are responsible to reduce the corrosion rate at 16.38×10-3 mpy. Our results are expected to provide a guideline for future research in White tea as a green corrosion inhibitor


Abstract-Bandpass sampling can be used by radio receivers to directly digitize the radio frequency (RF) signals. Although the bandpass sampling theory for single-band RF signals is well established, its counterpart for multiband RF signals is relatively immature. In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient method to find the ranges of valid bandpass sampling frequency for direct downconverting multiband RF signals. Simple formulas for the ranges of valid bandpass sampling frequency in terms of the frequency locations of the multiple RF bands are derived. The result can be used to design a multiband receiver for software defined radios.


Very fast transient overvoltages (VFTO) comprising oscillating waveforms generate a voltage oscillation in transformer windings. The behaviour of the voltage oscillation in the winding is investigated experimentally on 500 kV class transformers using a pulse and a sinusoidal voltage. The interturn voltages are directly measured using an optical fiber transmission system. In the case of a pulse application, it is found that an interturn traveling wave is generated at either end of the coil and propagates along the winding. In the case of a sinusoidal voltage application, a resonance phenomenon, probably due to the superposition of the traveling waves, is found in the interturn voltage, which could reach 0.25 times the applied voltage. In the tested transformers, the estimated interturn voltage level at incoming VFTO can be 3 times higher than that in the lightning impulse voltage test.


The current financial crisis influenced the whole economy around the world. Almost all sectors of human activities and all countries are affected by its impacts. While in the past all kinds of crises had an effect on developing countries and in case of developed countries only selected sectors of the national economy were involved, the current crisis, which started in the second half of 2008, seriously affected not only developing countries but also developed countries. During the last several decades, we became witnesses of a permanently increasing gap between developing and developed countries. While only few developed countries with about 1.2 billion people produced about 80 % of the world GDP, the rest of the world represented by developing countries with about 5.8 billion people produced only 20 % of the world GDP. Many different ideas were proposed to improve the situation in case of developing countries and to eliminate the gap between the rich "North†and the poor "South†. All initiatives are based on a cooperation between developed and developing countries. This cooperation is based not only on the economical and political cooperation, but also on a very intensive developing aid provided by developed countries and international institutions. The aid is offered in many forms (financial, food or development aid). The main aim of our paper is to evaluate the value and flows of possible forms of aid which were offered to developing countries in the period before the financial crisis and the next step is to estimate how the current financial crisis affects developing aid flows.


This paper presents an approach to the 3D visual tracking problem into multi-camera environments. This proposal executes the markerless visual tracking observing the environment through a model based in a volumetric reconstruction technique, called 3D Probabilistic Occupancy Grids, which is still seldom used for this purpose. The target is tracked by the use of Expectation-Maximization algorithm with an object representation model constructed with Gaussians blobs representing the object body parts.


The debates about organizational responses to economic crisis have focussed on the need for strategic and structural realignment. Work organization is rarely considered as an integral element of competitive strategy. Current shifts in the contours of previously stable mass markets and product and process innovation demand equally profound organizational change to maintain competitiveness. In this context maintaining or regaining competitive advantage is critically dependent upon striking an optimal balance between maximizing the productivity and versatility of work organization. We examine the impetus, dynamics and impact of pervasive change processes in three contrasting organizations, Pilkingtons, Rank Xerox and Ford U.K. While Pilkingtons relied entirely upon existing managerial expertise, the latter two companies were distinctive in that they drew vital conceptual elements of their change agendas from their organizational links with, respectively, a Japanese and American company. From these case studies we conclude that significant business turnarounds were achieved by these companies because strategic choice, work organization, company culture and organizational realignment were conceived of and operationalized as complementary elements of their competitive strategy.


ABSTRACT Measuring the dynamic shape of digital practices and their near-ubiquitous relationship to daily life is an elusive quest, one that must contend with temporal and relational limits. Research instruments employing categories and indicators struggle with the transient and interconnected character of the digital 'social fact'. Longitudinal studies pose special difficulties: a 1990s study of browsing and searching would need to be updated to account for the rise of blogging, gaming and media sharing in the 2000s, and again for mobile devices, virtual reality and home automation in the 2010s. Accounting for the volatility of digital life requires, we argue, an adaptive theoretical approach that acknowledges its integral temporal and relational character. We introduce 'digital capacity' as the key organising concept for this approach. Alongside the productive capacities of digital objects, the concept doubles as a description of the responsive and generative abilities of digital users. Such capacities are not invariant, and evolve reflexively through multiple sociotechnical milieu: local neighbourhoods, regional configurations of law and infrastructure, and global networks, standards and platforms. Today, capacities respond, for example, to complex arrangements of face-to-face relations, nation-state norms, and the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, telecommunications and platforms. Despite the rapidity and complexity of this change, practitioner and research communities need some stability in definitions and measures of capacities, and we further discuss an approach, based on community indicator work, to research instrument design that admits both comparison and sensitivity to time, place and context. We include illustrative data from a pilot study of Australian digital capacities.


OBJECTIVE
Bertolotti syndrome is a clinical diagnosis given to patients with low-back pain arising from a lumbosacral transitional vertebra (LSTV). While biomechanical studies have demonstrated abnormal torques and range of motion occurring at and above this type of LSTV, the long-term effects of these biomechanical changes on the LSTV adjacent segments are not well understood. This study examined degenerative changes at segments superjacent to the LSTV in patients with Bertolotti syndrome.

METHODS
This study involved a retrospective comparison of patients between 2010 and 2020 with an LSTV and chronic back pain (Bertolotti syndrome) and control patients with chronic back pain with no LSTV. The presence of an LSTV was confirmed on imaging, and the caudal-most mobile segment above the LSTV was assessed for degenerative changes. Degenerative changes were assessed by grading the intervertebral disc, facets, degree of spinal stenosis, and spondylolisthesis using well documented grading systems. All computations were performed in R, version 4.1.0. All tests were two-sided, and p values < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Separate logistic regression analyses were run with the associated dependent variables for each aim, with age at MRI and sex included as covariates. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were computed.

RESULTS
A total of 172 patients were included, 101 with Bertolotti syndrome and 71 controls. Control patients consisted of patients with low-back pain but no diagnosis of Bertolotti syndrome or an LSTV. Fifty-six Bertolotti (55.4%) and 27 control (38.0%) patients were female, (p = 0.03). After adjusting for age at MRI and sex, Bertolotti patients had pelvic incidence (PI) that was 9.83° greater than control patients (95% CI 5.15°-14.50°, p < 0.001). Sacral slope was not significantly different between the Bertolotti and control groups (beta estimate 3.10°, 95% CI -1.07° to 7.27°; p = 0.14). Bertolotti patients had 2.69 times higher odds of having a high disc grade at L4-5 (3-4 vs 0-2), compared with control patients (OR 2.69, 95% CI 1.28-5.90; p = 0.01). There were no significant differences between Bertolotti patients and controls for spondylolisthesis, facet grade, or spinal stenosis grade.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with Bertolotti syndrome had a significantly higher PI and were more likely to have adjacent-segment disease (ASD; L4-5) compared with control patients. However, after controlling for age and sex, PI and ASD did not appear to have a significant association within the cohort of Bertolotti patients. The altered biomechanics and kinematics in this condition may be a causative factor in this degeneration, although proof of causation is not possible in this study. This association may warrant closer follow-up protocols for patients being treated for Bertolotti syndrome, but further prospective studies are needed to establish if radiographic parameters can serve as an indicator for biomechanical alterations in vivo.


This article offers detailed consideration of three distinct approaches to the development of a social dimension to regional integration in the Americas, in NAFTA, CARICOM and MERCOSUR. It also analyzes the developments at the level of the OAS's Inter-American Conference of Ministers of Labor, to assess the potential of that parallel process of summitry to influence the FTAA process. The author acknowledges that each initiative is strikingly unequal to the task of counterbalancing the adverse impacts of deepening economic integration. However, the author argues that the more telling story is not in what is obviously missing, but in the regional pressures to challenge neo-liberal globalization, and in the opportunity to realize regionally what may be more difficult to achieve in the first instance internationally. In the process, an integrated vision of the social and the economic in regional trade, or "social regionalism", is emerging.


A 12-month drug monitoring program targeting the use of H2 antagonists was initiated at the Erie County Medical Center, a 650-bed academic teaching hospital in Buffalo, NY. Discussed in this article are the development of indicators used to determine appropriateness of therapy, implementation of a H2 antagonist monitoring and screening program, examination of the effect of the program on budgetary expenditures for H2 antagonist therapy, evaluation of adverse effects and potential drug interactions associated with drug use, and measurement of possible drug cost savings resulting from the implementation of the program.


Background: With the
rapid aging of society, the number of patients with heart failure has also increased.
Implantable devices for heart failure have become standardized. Remote
monitoring using cardiac devices has grown in popularity for medical efficiency
and the early detection of abnormalities. Our first aim was to develop a tablet-PC-based
nursing intervention program for patients requiring remote monitoring of implantable
cardiac devices. The second purpose was to evaluate the efficacy of the program
by using mixed-methods research. Methods: The study consisted of two phases. In
phase 1, we designed a tablet-PC-based nursing intervention program, on the
basis of a literature review and qualitative data collected via semi-structured
interviews. In phase 2, we conducted a randomized controlled trial that served
as a preliminary investigation of the program. The outcome measures were
readmission, unexpected visits to the clinic for heart problems, quality of
life, self-care behavior, and self-efficacy. After the study, we interviewed
each participant about his or her experiences with the program. Interviews were
audio recorded, coded, and thematically analyzed. Results: The 33 patients with
heart failure were randomized into two groups as follows: 17 patients in the telenursing
group and 16 in the control group. During 6 months of follow-up, the
readmission for heart failure occurred in 11% of the intervention group and 18%
of the control group. There were no statistically significant differences
between the groups at any outcome measures. Three themes were extracted via
qualitative analysis: "getting a sense of safety," "triggering a health
behavior change," and "feeling like a burden." Conclusion: No improvements in
rates of rehospitalization or unexpected clinic visits were seen in the quantitative
study. However, signs of behavior modification were seen in the qualitative
study. This program has the possibility of improving patient outcomes.


The sea surface temperature (SST) distribution can modulate the development of extratropical cyclones through sensible and latent heat fluxes. However, the direct and indirect effects of these surface fluxes, and thus the SST, are still not well understood. This study tackles this problem using idealized channel simulations of moist baroclinic development under the influence of surface fluxes. The model is initialized with a zonal wind field resembling the midlatitude jet and a different SST distribution for each experiment, where the absolute SST, the SST gradient, and the meridional position of the SST front are varied. The surface latent heat flux associated with the absolute SST plays a key role in enhancing the moist baroclinic development, while the sensible heat fluxes associated with the SST gradient play a minor role that can be detrimental for the development of the cyclone. The additional moisture provided by the latent heat fluxes originates from about 1000 km ahead of the cyclone a day prior to the time of the most rapid deepening. When the SST in this region is higher than 16°C, the additional latent heat is conducive for explosive cyclone development. For SSTs above 20°C, the cyclones feature characteristics of hybrid cyclones with latent heat release close to their core, maintaining their intensity for a longer period due to continuous and extensive moisture supply from the surface. A high absolute SST with a weak SST gradient, however, can lead to a delay of the deepening stage, because of unorganized convection at early stages reducing environmental baroclinicity.


In a parallel EA one can strictly adhere to the generational clock, and wait for all evaluations in a generation to be done. However, this idle time limits the throughput of the algorithm and wastes computational resources. Alternatively, an EA can be made asynchronous parallel. However, EAs using classic recombination and selection operators (GAs) are known to suffer from an evaluation time bias, which also influences the performance of the approach. Model-Based Evolutionary Algorithms (MBEAs) are more scalable than classic GAs by virtue of capturing the structure of a problem in a model. If this model is learned through linkage learning based on the population, the learned model may also capture biases. Thus, if an asynchronous parallel MBEA is also affected by an evaluation time bias, this could result in learned models to be less suited to solving the problem, reducing performance. Therefore, in this work, we study the impact and presence of evaluation time biases on MBEAs in an asynchronous parallelization setting, and compare this to the biases in GAs. We find that a modern MBEA, GOMEA, is unaffected by evaluation time biases, while the more classical MBEA, ECGA, is affected, much like GAs are.


Giftedness, or the existence of remarkable natural talents, is believed to occur once in every hundred individuals, and exceptional giftedness once in every ten thousand as per current definitions. The phenomenon of giftedness has caught the attention of psychologists, pedagogists, educationists and neuroscientists from the from the mid-19th to the 20th centuries. Giftedness research is the basis of various specially developed tests and programmes the world over. These tests and programmes are intended to identify gifted children and to encourage them to develop their talents and realize their potential, as well as to handle the social and emotional issues that may arise from their differentness. Giftedness has been defined in many ways, pointing to the complexities associated with its identification. Inevitably, special programmes for the gifted draw as much criticism as applause, triggering debates on elitism vs. equity in education. The present review of literature of giftedness research attempts to outline the phenomenon of giftedness in children in its various manifestations, the methods of evaluation and tests in current use, the need for gifted programmes and their efficacy, the developmental trajectory of giftedness, the social and emotional issues accompanying giftedness, and the impact of the socio-cultural, educational internation options for gifted children are also discussed.


In this paper, we address the removal of severe back-to-front interferences in archival documents, when recto and verso images of the page are available. The problem is approached from a modeling point of view, considering the ideal images of the two separated texts as individual source patterns that overlap in the observed images through some parametric mixing operator. Earlier approaches were based on linear mixtures of the ideal reflectance maps, or of the ideal optical densities and absorptance maps, through unknown coefficients or blur kernels. Some approximations and/or partial user supervision were then adopted to jointly estimate the sources and the model parameters. Nevertheless, a feasible and reliable data model for this problem should at least be non-linear and space-variant, to cope with occlusions, ink saturation, and large variability of the mixing level. This is especially true for ancient documents affected by ink seeping (bleed-through). The search for such a model is still far from being concluded, or even impossible to pursue, due to the unavailability of information about the chemical and physical processes at the origin of the phenomenon. Hence, here, we propose the use of pixel-dependent parameters, within a model additive in the optical densities, to compensate not only for non-stationarity, but also for the lack or the imprecise knowledge of the non-linearity, and for modeling errors more in general.


Nickel electroplating is used to fabricate a widely tunable micromachined capacitor. From an initial capacitance of 0.7 pF, the device has a tuning ratio of 5.1:1 including parasitics: this is better than twice any previously reported figure for such devices. A process flow is presented which includes electrode surface roughening for stiction avoidance.


The hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanorods on graphene draws a specific interest for the advantages of low-temperature processability over a large area and low cost, but challenges still remain in directly growing uniform ZnO seed layers on pristine graphene without impairing its beneficial properties. In this work, the direct growth of ZnO seed layers on graphene via H2O-based atomic layer deposition (ALD) has been investigated. It is found that uniform ZnO thin films can be deposited on graphene via ALD using a combination of single-layer graphene/Cu stacks as substrates and a facile pre-H2O treatment process. After growing ZnO nanorods on graphene, its photovoltaic application in a Cu2ZnSn(SxSe1-x)4 (CZTSSe) solar cell is demonstrated. The performance of graphene-based cells approaches that of ITO-based cells with similar architectures, highlighting that graphene is a potential replacement for ITO in optoelectronic devices. The method reported herein for fabricating ZnO nanorods on graphene using ALD-ZnO as seed layers preserves its properties, and is thus applicable to a wide variety of graphene-based nanoelectronic devices.


Justine Dexter and Gerri Mortimore explore ways to manage the common lung infection bronchiolitis in small children Bronchiolitis is an acute inflammation of the bronchioles that predominately affects children but is most common in the first 12 months of life. Viral bronchiolitis is the principal cause of admission in England and Wales, with numbers exceeding 30 000 annually. Occurrence is seasonal, in winter months incidence is typically at epidemic proportions for approximately six weeks. Bronchiolitis presents initially with coryza and a persistent cough; as the infection progresses, tachypnoea, chest recession, or both, may be present alongside wheeze or crackles. The assessment of an unwell child is challenging and as an advanced nurse practitioner, working in an out of hours service, the importance to prevent further deterioration should focus on spotting the sick child at an early stage. Therefore, an initial assessment should be undertaken, prior to taking a history and examination, to ensure patient safety. Bronchiolitis is usually a self-limiting illness, that requires supportive management only with treatment directed at fluid input. However, management approaches to bronchiolitis continue to be a subject of substantial debate with vast differences in practice exhibited in the UK, and beyond. with a lack of consensus regarding management. Therefore, the appropriate management of children presenting with bronchiolitis is challenging and can be overwhelming. Nurses must be aware of the pathophysiology, presentation, diagnosis, and management of children presenting to an out of hours service with bronchiolitis, to manage patients safely.


Eighty-four patients with primary end stage renal disease (ESRD) of varying duration and severity were investigated by a single determination of facial nerve latency and determination of motor nerve conduction velocities of the peroneal, median, and ulnar nerves. Electrophysiologic evidence of motor neuropathy was found in 72 patients. In the facial nerve, conduction was abnormal in 82% of the patients; in the peroneal nerve it was abnormal in 68%; in the median nerve it was abnormal in 36%; and in the ulnar nerve it was abnormal in 22%. The facial nerve was the most sensitive indicator of uremic neuropathy of the 4 motor nerves studied. Information obtained from monitoring the facial nerve in patients with chronic renal failure will add significantly to the data used to identify uremic neuropathy. Combined studies of the facial, peroneal, and median nerves should identify most patients with uremic neuropathy.


Purpose
This paper aims to propose and evaluate a pedagogically sound and innovative strategy to teach a higher education course that prepares future professionals to intelligently use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their personal and professional lives.

Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual framework used for the design of the course was the socio-constructivism and activity theories. The implementation of the course was evaluated using the intrinsic case study methodology by including several instruments.

Findings
The pedagogical strategy proposed proved to be sound, as the evaluation showed that students were able to describe, use and propose innovative uses of a wide range of cutting-edge technologies in their both everyday lives and professional settings; they also had the skills to analyse the opportunities and challenges that these presented. Moreover, students liked this innovative way of learning and ended with a positive attitude towards ICT.

Originality/value
Although several courses prepare students to be digital citizens or use ICT to enhance the teaching-learning process, millennials are ill prepared to use cutting-edge technologies in an innovative, responsible and critical way in their future professions. The course that was designed is original in that it goes beyond preparing digital citizens to prepare professionals in any domain to use ICT in an informed and responsible way. Moreover, it is a documented, successful example of an undergraduate universal course in a highly important current society dimension. The authors believe that its pedagogical proposal could be transferred to courses dealing with other global issues such as the environment, economy and peace.


Corporate law is dominated by a series of metaphors that present corporations as private, individualized, egalitarian and market-like, hiding their organizational, institutional, political and power distributing aspects. These metaphors - property, contract/market, agency and individuality - drive current interpretations of the law but remain in strong conflict with it, in part because historic corporate law stemmed from explicitly political conceptions. Although the metaphors have taught us to ignore the group and institutional characteristics of corporations, treating them as powerless and passive players in the markets, corporations in fact are powerful governance and economic institutions.


A novel strain of coronavirus, namely, Corona Virus Infection Disease 19
has been identified in Wuhan city of China in December 2019, continues to
spread at a rapid rate worldwide. There are no specific therapies available and
investigations regarding the treatment of this disease are still lacking. In order
to identify a novel potent inhibitor we performed docking studies on the main virus
protease with eight drugs belonging to four pharmacological classes: anti-malarial,
anti-bacterial, anti-infective and anti-histamine. Among the eight studied
compounds, Lymecycline and Mizolastine appear as potential inhibitors of this protease.
These two compounds revealed a minimum binding energy of -8.87 and -8.71
Kcal/mol with 168 and 256 binding modes detected in the binding substrate
pocket, respectively. Lymecycline and Mizolastine interact with specific
residues in substrate binding cavity. Thus, Lymecycline and Mizolastione may serve
as a tool to fight COVID-19 disease. However, this data need further in vitro and in vivo
evaluation to repurpose these two drugs against COVID-19 disease.


LoRa has emerged as a promising Low-Power Wide Area Network (LP-WAN) technology to connect a huge number of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. The dense deployment and an increasing number of IoT devices lead to intense collisions due to uncoordinated transmissions. However, the current MAC/PHY design of LoRaWAN fails to recover collisions, resulting in degraded performance as the system scales. This article presents FTrack, a novel communication paradigm that enables demodulation of collided LoRa transmissions. FTrack resolves LoRa collisions at the physical layer and thereby supports parallel decoding for LoRa transmissions. We propose a novel technique to separate collided transmissions by jointly considering both the time domain and the frequency domain features. The proposed technique is motivated from two key observations: (1) the symbol edges of the same frame exhibit periodic patterns, while the symbol edges of different frames are usually misaligned in time; (2) the frequency of LoRa signal increases continuously in between the edges of symbol, yet exhibits sudden changes at the symbol edges. We detect the continuity of signal frequency to remove interference and further exploit the time-domain information of symbol edges to recover symbols of all collided frames. We substantially optimize computation-intensive tasks and meet the real-time requirements of parallel LoRa decoding. We implement FTrack on a low-cost software defined radio. Our testbed evaluations show that FTrack demodulates collided LoRa frames with low symbol error rates in diverse SNR conditions. It increases the throughput of LoRaWAN in real usage scenarios by up to 3 times.


Article history: A state-space formulation for the aerodynamics of flapping flight is presented. The Duhamel's principle, applied in linear unsteady flows, is extended to non-conventional lift curves to capture the LEV contribution. The aspect ratio effects on the empirical formulae used to predict the static lift due to a stabilized Leading Edge Vortex (LEV) are provided. The unsteady lift due to arbitrary wing motion is generated using the static lift curve. Then, state-space representation for the unsteady lift is derived. The proposed model is validated through a comparison with direct numerical simulations of Navier-Stokes on hovering insects. A comparison with quasi-steady models that capture the LEV contribution is also performed to assess the role of unsteadiness. Similarly, a comparison with classical unsteady approaches is presented to assess the LEV dominance. Finally, a reduced-order model that is more suitable for flight dynamics and control analyses is derived from the full model.


Practiced worldwide for its environmental and social benefits as much as for its food-growing potential, urban and peri-urban agriculture is exposed to various forms of pollution related to cultivation methods and urban air and soil quality, as well as to the varied reactions to pollutants exhibited by different crop types. Faced with this broad spectrum of factors, empirically proven methodological frameworks make it possible to assess health risks and oversee practices in close contact with all actors involved. This is the aim of the work undertaken by teams from AgroParisTech and INRA working on the T4P and REFUGE programs on urban farms in the Paris region, and the Franco-Madagascan ADURAA and QUALISANN programs studying vegetables-growing in Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar.


Here we report an effective approach for preparing hollow carbon nanospheres with Cu–TiO2 from a Ti precursor encapsulated surface mounted MOF (SURMOF) coating. Firstly a core–shell structured Cu-based SURMOF HKUST-1 on SiO2 nanospheres (SiO2@HKUST-1) with a thin and homogeneous shell coating has been prepared by a liquid-phase epitaxial layer by layer immersion method. Then the uniform SiO2@HKUST-1 nanospheres were loaded with a Ti precursor Ti(O-ipr)4, followed by calcination at 800 °C; hollow carbon nanospheres with Cu–TiO2 (Cu–TiO2/C) could be obtained after etching SiO2 nanosphere templates. As a result of their unique structure, such hollow, thin, uniform and homogeneous Cu–TiO2/C nanospheres had efficient photocatalytic H2 production and excellent recyclability under simulated sunlight irradiation. The method developed here provides a new approach for the preparation of hollow hybrid carbon nanospheres with various applications.


Focus groups have become an important method in qualitative psychological research and are also used widely in evaluation studies. However, there has been a surprising lack of attention in the literature in terms of exploring the entire process of conducting focus groups with young people on potentially psychologically sensitive issues such as sexual health. This article draws on our experiences of using focus groups during a specific piece of qualitative research that involved three discrete but inter-related evaluations of sexual health services for young people in the South of England. We focus particularly on the process of using focus groups as an important and useful empirical method to generate primary qualitative data. In doing so, we consider a number of both practical and ethical considerations when planning, facilitating, and following up focus groups with young people that aim to investigate psychologically sensitive issues, in this case, sexual health. As a result, we propose a heuristic framework for conducting focus groups 'from start to finish' including preparing focus groups, facilitating focus groups and following up participants, that offers a contribution to the advancement of qualitative inquiry in psychology. Key recommendations are elicited both for the teaching of qualitative psychological research methods and for the training of qualitative researchers interested in psychological phenomena.


: Fast repair in diploid yeast cells Saccharomyces cerevisiae XS800 exposed to the combined irradiation (alpha-particles + high-velocity electrons) was studied. It has been shown that fast repair was significantly more effective after combined irradiation with high doses than after exposure to high-velocity electrons or alpha-particles alone. The regions of radioresistance in the cell survival curves after combined irradiation can be explained by fast post-irradiation repair.


BACKGROUND
To study the incidence of Cryptosporidium infections over an eight year period in an urban area, together with the patients background and the season of the year.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
From January 1989 to December 1996, all 32,733 stool samples from 13,639 patients: children and immunocompromised adults, with presumed infective diarrhoea, were investigated for Cryptosporidium oocysts by the Department of Microbiology, Miguel Servet Hospital, Zaragoza (Spain).

RESULTS
Cryptosporidial infection was identified in a 3% of the total children, been the positivity rate highest in the 2-year old group. We visualized oocysts in the 8% of the immunocompromised patients, all of them HIV-positive. The prevalence was higher in winter (February-March).

CONCLUSIONS
According to these findings we conclude that Cryptosporidium should be systematically searched by clinical laboratories, specially in children and in immunocompromised patients suffering from infectious diarrhoea.


At present, insurance companies have been an indispensable institutional investor in China's capital market, playing an important role in optimizing the structure of investors and stabilizing the capital market. By the end of 2020, the total market value of the shares held by insurance funds has been 2.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 3.44% of the market value of A-shares, and it was the second largest institutional investor after securities investment funds. However, due to the negative events such as "Insurance Capital Raising" and "Baoneng Versus Wanke Dispute" in 2016, the radical investment strategy of insurance companies has attracted wide attention from the public and regulators, and regulatory authorities had to introduce a series of measures to strictly constraint the investment of insurance funds.However, previous literature only regards insurance companies as a kind of institutional investors, and studies their overall behavior, preference and characteristics of holding, but ignores the heterogeneity on the operating attribute of insurance companies. Obviously, it is more important to study the positive (negative) externality of the holding behavior of insurance companies with different operating attributes on the stability of capital market from the perspective of operating attribute diversity. In 2017, regulatory authorities exerted a series of regulations, proposing the "insuring attribute" to correct the industry chaos, and regulate the use of insurance funds and corporate governance, which provided an effective natural laboratory for studying the impact of insurance institutional investors on the stability of financial market.On this basis, this paper manually collates the financial data and shareholding data of 67 life insurance companies from 2010 to 2018, and studies the impact of the operating attribute diversity of life insurance institutions on the stability of capital market. Firstly, according to the operating characteristics of life insurance companies, this paper designs the evaluation indexes of financial attributes and security attributes, and then assigns the corresponding indexes. It is found that from 2010 to 2018, the overall financial attribute of China's life insurance industry showed an upward trend, while the security attribute showed a downward trend, and reached the lowest level in 2015. Then, from the perspective of the heterogeneity of operating attributes, this paper studies the specific differences of the impact of different types of life insurance companies on the stability of capital market. The results show that the shareholding of life insurance companies with strong financial attributes can significantly increase the risk of stock price crash, while the shareholding of life insurance companies with strong security attributes can significantly inhibit the risk of stock price crash. After subdividing the shareholding ratio, this paper finds that the higher the shareholding ratio of insurance companies with strong financial attributes is, the higher the risk of stock price crash of listed companies is. After the tightening of supervision in 2017, the negative impact of life insurance companies with strong financial attributes has been effectively suppressed. Mechanism test results show that life insurance companies with strong financial attributes have short holding period and poor holding stability, enhancing the synchronization of stock price and easily leading to a herding effect, which is not conducive to the realization of long-term value preservation and appreciation function of insurance funds, violates the essence of insurance protection function, and seriously endangers the stability of financial system. Therefore, regulatory authorities need to identify the operating attribute of insurance companies from the micro and meso levels and conduct governance.


OBJECTIVE Anaplastic meningiomas represent 1%-2% of meningioma diagnoses and portend a poor prognosis. Limited information is available on practice patterns and optimal management. The purpose of this study was to define treatment patterns and outcomes by treatment modality using a large national cancer registry. METHODS The National Cancer Database was used to identify patients diagnosed with anaplastic meningioma from 2004 to 2012. Log-rank statistics were used to compare survival outcomes by extent of resection, use of adjuvant radiotherapy (RT), and use of adjuvant chemotherapy. Least-squares linear regression was used to evaluate the utilization of RT over time. Logistic regression modeling was used to identify predictors of receipt of RT. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to evaluate the effect of RT, gross-total resection (GTR), and chemotherapy on survival. RESULTS A total of 755 adults with anaplastic meningioma were identified. The 5-year overall survival rate was 41.4%. Fifty-two percent of patients received RT, 7% received chemotherapy, and 58% underwent GTR. Older patients were less likely to receive RT (OR 0.98, p < 0.01). Older age (HR 1.04, p < 0.01), high comorbidity score (HR 1.33, p = 0.02), and subtotal resection (HR 1.57, p = 0.02) were associated with increased risk of death on multivariate modeling, while RT receipt was associated with decreased risk of death (HR 0.79, p = 0.04). Chemotherapy did not have a demonstrable effect on survival (HR 1.33, p = 0.18). CONCLUSIONS Anaplastic meningioma portends a poor prognosis. Gross-total resection and RT are associated with improved survival, but utilization of RT is low. Unless medically contraindicated, patients with anaplastic meningioma should be offered RT.


Alpha-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) activities were evaluated on serum samples from 67 persons in a large black family. These data were analyzed in conjunction with those from 126 previously tested unrelated blacks [Vance et al, 1980]. After loge transformation, admixture analysis indicated a significantly better fit (P less than .01) of a mixture of 2 normal distributions for NAG activity versus a single normal distribution. Segregation analysis using the transmission probability model of Elston and Stewart [1971] demonstrated that a genetic model fits the data better than the random "environmental" model. Thus, the existence of a major gene is suggested in the family, although the possibility of polygenic or other familial effects cannot be ruled out. These results confirm the existence of a polymorphism for NAG reported earlier in a series of White half-sib twin families [Vance et al, 1980]. However, the estimates of the means of the three genotypes (AA, AA', A'A') appear to differ in the two racial groups. Thus, the data suggest either a racial polygenic effect and/or different alleles segregating in the two populations. In fact, thermal stability data [Vance et al, 1981a] suggest that at least two alleles are structurally distinct. Linkage analysis of the pedigree with 20 marker loci gave no clear indication of linkage. A lod score of 1.44 was found at 0 recombination with orosomucoid (ORM).


This paper seeks to understand the landscape of social TV, which takes place when an audience member engages with social media while watching television programming, and second screen experiences, and more specifically how these technologies can be employed by advertisers. By reviewing existing literature, examining field studies and data, and analyzing case studies, the report identifies how marketers can best tie their television advertising to social media to increase engagement and keep brands top of mind, even during breaks from traditional programming. The paper will conclude by discussing the current limitations of the emerging technologies surrounding the phenomenon of social TV, as well as providing recommendations that can be applied to brands and marketers alike.


For African countries like Nigeria, democratic transition is conceived as not only in terms of advancing human rights and political freedoms, but also for improving political accountability, or quite simply, reducing corruption; and the role of the press is said to be central to both through watchdog and investigative journalism (Lynch and Crawford, 2011; Adebanwi and Obadare, 2011b). This research therefore asks: How and to what extent do Nigerian newspapers cover corruption and what specific role does investigative reporting play in that coverage?

For answer, I content analysed front page news coverage in a sample of 2746 newspapers from four national dailies over twelve years by selecting every 6th edition in each publication from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2012. This is supplemented with a total of 8 weeks of two newsroom observation in two of the dailies in Abuja and Lagos, and in-depth interviews with 24 respondents, including investigative reporters, political reporters, editors, two members of staff of anticorruption agencies, and one official of an NGO promoting investigative journalism in Nigeria.

I find three types of corruption stories in the newspapers. First, corruption scandals of real or alleged instances of corruption and in which persons and sums involved are clearly named in the stories. These constitute 45.72% of the total or slightly less than half. But corruption scandals tend to generate follow-up stories, or subsequent reports of the arrest, trial or conviction of officials involved in previously reported scandals. Finally, corruption talk which are stories of corruption but without involving any specific instances of corrupt act by any person. Corruption is the subject of the story but without the act itself, as the statements by two Nigerian presidents indicate above. Furthermore, I find that corruption is extensively and prominently reported in the press, accounting for over 8% of total front page news coverage, or an average over two corruption stories every week throughout the 12-year the period. Indeed, nearly 10% of newspapers in the sample carry two or more different stories of corruption on the same front page, further indicating a high extent of coverage. However, only a small fraction (4.76%) of this coverage issues from independent journalism by the four newspapers combined. Almost 90% of scandals, or stories of actual or alleged corruption is generated by official or state-level sources such as anti-corruption agencies, parliamentary investigations, commissions of inquiry and sometimes foreign media, through various practices of information subsidy like press releases and conferences. Equally significant, corruption stories subsidized for the press tends to involve higher a scale of corruption than those independently reported by the newspapers through investigative journalism.

However, whereas existing research conceives information subsidy as having the potential to compromise the fourth estate role of the press, I argue that this is not the case in the specific instance of corruption stories in Nigerian newspapers. Indeed, information subsidy supplied by corruption investigating agencies may in fact be a necessary condition for more watchdog journalism investigated by newspapers. Watchdog role of the press with regards to exposing corruption is positively served, rather than harmed, by information subsidy resulting from horizontal accountability functions of state agencies. Furthermore, I argue that in the specific context of corruption stories in Nigerian newspapers, information subsidy itself should be understood, not only as a strategic agenda of sources for gaining coverage, but that it reflects a deeply entrenched 'anti-corruption culture' in Nigerian politics and society. That is, the general tendency for virtually all Nigerian governments to make 'the fight against corruption' the centre of policy or political action, and for citizens to demand that their governments fight corruption. With the onset of democracy over a long period never witnessed before in Nigeria however, this tendency finds free expression. This manifests, first, in the establishment of more anticorruption agencies, investigative committees, and probe panels, across all levels of government, and then in their high-profile investigations and reports which then generates most of the news about corruption in the newspapers. I illustrate these arguments in chapters four through seven and examine the role of the press in these processes, that is, the press as strong watchdogs but weak investigators.


This paper discusses design of vapor cleaning systems and how proper design can reduce solvent losses from these units. It addresses such items as proper freeboard, work openings, heat balance, compartment dimensions, covers, operational controls, and heating elements. Solvent loss mechanisms are discussed in detail, such as diffusional losses, solvent drag-out, leakage, and poor maintenance. One section is devoted to choosing the proper solvent for a cleaning system and how the physical characteristics of solvents can contribute to high losses if the solvent is improperly chosen. Solvent emission reduction devices, such as hoods, transport systems, freeboard chillers, containment of sprays, hot vapor drying, carbon adsorbers, and solvent cool-down coils, are detailed in regard to their effectiveness. The final section is dedicated to process control of the cleaning system through the use of computers.


The distribution and abundance of littoral ascidians were analyzed with respect to thelr possible relationships with environmental stress. As part of a multidisciplinary research project on the benth~c communities in Algeciras Bay, southern Spain, a suite of environmental variables was measured (hydrodynamism, silting, suspended solids and organic matter). After displaying the similalities of fauna through clustering and ordination of sampling sites, the relationships between community differences and changes in the abiotic component were established based on the BIO-ENV procedure and Canonical Correspondence Analysis. Hydrodynamism and the percentage of organic matter in the silt is the variable combination that best explains (Spearman correlation of 0.82) the biotic structure. While all ascidians show a certain tolerance to diverse environmental factors, some species such as Ciona intestinalis. Diplosoma spongiforme, Phallusia mammillata, Microcosmus squamiger, Styela plicata and Synoicum argus could be considered as indicators of areas which have been subject to intense stress (substrate transformation, water stagnation and sedimentation excess) over long periods of time, whereas others such as Aplidium conicurn, Aplidium punctum. Clavelina dellavallei, Halocynthia papillosa and Stolonica socialis, which live only in natural and non-perturbed rock areas, could be categorized as species very sensitive to stress, as well as ind~cators of good conditions.


In order to study the effect of impermeability of concrete under tensile load, the influences of water cement ratio, mineral admixture, air entraining and fiber content on gas permeability coefficient of concrete surface under tensile load are studied in this paper. The results show that water cement ratio is smaller, the change trend of surface gas permeability coefficient with the ultimate load proportion is smaller, when the water cement ratio is greater than 0.4, the limit load ratio is greater than 30%, the increase of surface gas permeability coefficient with the growth of the ultimate load ratio is rapidly. Fly ash and slag can improve the impermeability of concrete properties of different level, when the dosage of fly ash is about 10%, the surface of the gas permeability coefficient is minimal, lower limit load ratio to improve the performance of slag against seepage effect is better than that of fly ash, and under the high proportion of limit load is opposite.The addition of air-entraining agent can make the permeability resistance of concrete decreases, adding appropriate fiber can obviously improve the permeability resistance of concrete under tensile load, and the permeability in the significant increase in the proportion limit load of a significant degradation, fiber content should be in about 1%.


Study Design: Retrospective clinical study. Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of combined anterior-posterior fixation and fusion for the treatment of completely dislocated hangman's fracture. Summary of Background Data: A completely dislocated hangman's fracture describes the complete anterior displacement of the C2 vertebral body onto the C3 body. This type of fracture is exceptionally unstable, and for which the management is challenging. Specific treatment strategies need to be further clarified. Methods: From January 2003 to January 2012, 11 patients with completely dislocated hangman's fracture underwent combined anterior-posterior fixation and fusion at our institution; an anterior-posterior approach was used in 9 patients, and an anterior-posterior-anterior approach was used in 2 patients. The operative time, hospital duration, neurological improvement, fusion rate, and complications were assessed. Results: The operation times of the 2 anterior-posterior-anterior surgeries (165 and 210 min) were longer than the anterior-posterior approach surgeries (mean, 133 min; range: 110–155 min). The average hospital duration was 8.5 days (range: 7.0–13.0 d). Postoperative reduction and solid fusion were achieved in all patients. Neurological status was significantly improved, as the mean Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) score significantly increased from a preoperative score of 8.9±1.7 to 14.6±1.6 at the final follow-up (P<0.01). The mean neurological recovery rate was 51%. Moderate postoperative neck pain occurred in 2 patients, which was relieved after 2 months of conservative treatment with oral celecoxib. The mean visual analog scale pain score was 1.4±0.8 at the last assessment. Hoarseness was found after surgery in 1 patient who recovered 1 month later without any treatment. No graft-related or plate-related complications occurred during the entire follow-up period. Conclusions: Combined anterior-posterior fixation and fusion is an effective and safe treatment for completely dislocated hangman's fracture.