Cultural adaptation has become central in the context of accelerated global change with authors increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding multilevel processes that operate as adaptation takes place. We explore the importance of multilevel processes in explaining cultural adaptation by describing how processes leading to cultural (mis)adaptation are linked through a complex nested hierarchy, where the lower levels combine into new units with new organizations, functions, and emergent properties or collective behaviours. After a brief review of the concept of "cultural adaptation" from the perspective of cultural evolutionary theory and resilience theory, the core of the paper is constructed around the exploration of multilevel processes occurring at the temporal, spatial, social and political scales. We do so by examining small-scale societies' case studies. In each section, we discuss the importance of the selected scale for understanding cultural adaptation and then present an example that illustrates how multilevel processes in the selected scale help explain observed patterns in the cultural adaptive process. We end the paper discussing the potential of modelling and computer simulation for studying multilevel processes in cultural adaptation.


Nearly half of all lobbying activity targeting specific bills between 1998 and 2012 happened after the Congress passed legislation, yet existing theories of lobbying generally fail to account for lobbying that occurs after a bill is passed. I argue that ex post lobbying aims to influence the distribution of particularistic benefits that will arise from legislation by targeting regulatory rule-making processes. I develop a model that describes lobbying as a collective action problem among interest groups, who must trade off between spending money to lobby for a bill's passage and spending money to lobby over the details of its implementation. The implications of the model suggest that bills with high proportions of particularistic provisions draw more ex post lobbying and that trade associations and larger firms bear a disproportionately large share of the ex ante lobbying burden. Empirical analysis of lobbying reports is consistent with these predictions.


Machine Learning (ML) has emerged as a core technology to provide learning models to perform complex tasks. Boosted by Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS), the number of applications relying on ML capabilities is ever increasing. However, ML models are the source of different privacy violations through passive or active attacks from different entities. In this paper, we present MixNN a proxy-based privacy-preserving system for federated learning to protect the privacy of participants against a curious or malicious aggregation server trying to infer sensitive information (i.e., membership and attribute inferences). MixNN receives the model updates from participants and mixes layers between participants before sending the mixed updates to the aggregation server. This mixing strategy drastically reduces privacy leaks without any trade-off with utility. Indeed, mixing the updates of the model has no impact on the result of the aggregation of the updates computed by the server. We report on an extensive evaluation of MixNN using several datasets and neural networks architectures to quantify privacy leakage through membership and attribute inference attacks as well the robustness of the protection. We show that MixNN significantly limits both the membership and attribute inferences compared to a baseline using model compression and noisy gradient (well known to damage the utility) while keeping the same level of utility as classic federated learning.


We envision wearable social-behavioral assistants which measure the nonverbal behavior of their users during social interaction. Research in psychology has linked posture mirroring, a key element of nonverbal behavior, to rapport and empathy and has been found to support communication. In this paper, we present a method to measure posture mirroring in social interaction with body-worn motion sensors. Our method is based on the detection of basic posture classes and the comparison of displayed postures across group members. We apply our method in a group discussion scenario involving 42 groups consisting of three subjects each in which group leaders express different leaderships styles. Our results show that we can measure differences in posture mirroring across groups of different leadership styles.


The Victorian age was "saturated in verse:" in songs and recitations at home, at work, in the pub, or on the stage; in hymns, at school, in love letters and election squibs; and of course in books, magazines, and newspapers. (1) This article examines the poetry found in the most popular type of Victorian newspaper, the local paper, and argues that this was the type of publication in which most Victorian poetry was published and--from the 1860s--in which most Victorian poetry was read. We estimate that in the order of four million poems were published in this way during Victoria's reign in England alone. At least half of these poems were reprinted from elsewhere, but between a third and a half of them were original and locally produced. The publication of such a huge quantity of verse raises many questions. Why did local papers publish so much poetry? Who wrote it? What did readers make of it? How did the local press relate to other parts of the poetry-publishing ecology and to literary cultures in the metropolis and the provinces? What is "local" poetry, and what functions did it serve? The answers challenge how we view Victorian poetry as a whole. This article introduces the local newspaper as a significant and major publisher of poetry and traces the links between the local press and metropolitan periodical and book publishing. Five local papers are selected as case studies, from which trends are extrapolated to present a national picture of the scale and nature of poetry publishing in the local press, providing context for a brief examination of local poetry. Local newspapers, particularly weekly titles, are studied here because more of them were printed than any other type of publication containing poetry throughout the nineteenth century. This means that, in aggregate, more poetry was published in this way than in books, magazines, or London newspapers. However, local papers had limited readerships until the 1860s (in the 1840s and 1850s most Victorians probably encountered poetry through cheap popular penny miscellanies such as the London Journal). A change began in the mid 1850s, when new local papers were launched, aggregate circulations overtook those of London newspapers and magazines, and from the early 1860s until the end of the century the local paper became the most widely read type of publication carrying poetry. (2) Provincial papers typically published one poem per issue at mid-century, rising to two per issue from 1860 onwards. This was more than London dailies such as the Times, the Morning Post and the Morning Chronicle which often carried poetry, although not every day, while others such as the Standard and the Daily News published it less often. (3) A weekly such as the Examiner, where "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was first published, carried at least one poem per issue, while popular Sunday papers such as Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper and Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper carried two or three per issue. (4) The local press was diverse and dynamic. Thousands of titles came and went, some daily, some bi- or tri-weekly, some weekly. Some were sober morning papers, modeled on the Times, others were evening papers focusing heavily on sport, serial fiction, and telegraphed news; there were city papers, small-town papers, and rural county papers, each with their own personality, geographical coverage, and political stance. Taken together, they were more "national" than London titles such as The Times. (5) This article spells out the implications for the field of Victorian poetry, as an example of the exciting new insights we can gain about Victorian culture when we start from what was read, rather than what has survived. Such an approach is now much easier, thanks to the digitization of at least 100 nineteenth-century local newspapers in databases such as Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers and the British Newspaper Archive. A study of poetry in the lowly texts of the local press emphasizes the ubiquity of what Charles LaPorte calls "Victorian 'poetic behavior"'; it also reveals the importance of seeing print culture as an ecology, through the eyes of omnivorous Victorian readers, who ranged across books, periodicals, newspapers, and other print, often produced by the same publishers and containing the same reprinted poetry. …


The effects of ultrasonic agitation on electronic components during PCB cleaning has long been the subject of controversy. This paper summarises the results of a series of studies into these effects for a range of components using CFC, aqueous and semi‐aqueous cleaning media. The variations with exposure time and power density under various ultrasonic stress conditions (loose, mounted on PCBs, or on purpose‐built test boards) are discussed. The results are encouraging and suggest that there is a large margin of safety when employing currently accepted regimes of operation and good quality components. However, the strong dependence of the damage accumulation on power density emphasises the need to specify and tightly control the power density used.


A systematic study of the precision required and of the errors committed in testing parabolic mirrors by the longitudinal aberration and by the transversal aberration methods is made, showing that these methods do not possess in general the necessary accuracy of a hundredth of a wave-length per zone. A new method is developed, which consists in determining the caustic or line of the centers of curvature of the surface elements. With this method, a precision of better than a hundredth of a wave-length per zone can easily be obtained. The zones can be comparatively wide. Secondary zones and surface detail can be detected just as well, or even better than by using a plane mirror in conjunction with the parabolic. The use of master flats is thus superfluous. The experimental procedure is explained and results of actual tests are given. By using a thin wire instead of a knife-edge systematic errors are avoided and higher precision is obtained. The caustic method can be applied to the quantitative test of convex surfaces, like Cassegrain mirrors, to the determination of astigmatism, to the study of single lenses, lens systems, Schmidt correcting plates, etc. Its accuracy does not depend on the value of the aberrations, so that surfaces departing considerably from a sphere can be tested just as well as spherical surfaces. It will thus be possible to figure such surfaces with high precision.


Can we reconstruct the entire internal shape of a room if all we can directly observe is a small portion of one internal wall, presumably through a window in the room? While conventional wisdom may indicate that this is not possible, motivated by recent work on 'looking around corners', we show that one can exploit light echoes to reconstruct the internal shape of hidden rooms. Existing techniques for looking around the corner using transient images model the hidden volume using voxels and try to explain the captured transient response as the sum of the transient responses obtained from individual voxels. Such a technique inherently suffers from challenges with regards to low signal to background ratios (SBR) and has difficulty scaling to larger volumes. In contrast, in this paper, we argue for using a plane-based model for the hidden surfaces. We demonstrate that such a plane-based model results in much higher SBR while simultaneously being amenable to larger spatial scales. We build an experimental prototype composed of a pulsed laser source and a single-photon avalanche detector (SPAD) that can achieve a time resolution of about 30ps and demonstrate high-fidelity reconstructions both of individual planes in a hidden volume and for reconstructing entire polygonal rooms composed of multiple planar walls.


The concentration of luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) in hypophysial portal plasma was determined in pentobarbital anesthetized,intact and castrated rats of both sexes, including proestrous rats following electrochemical stimulation of the medial preoptic area (MPOA). Mean LHRH levels in portal plasma obtained between 1400--1700 h from estrous and diestrous rats and from rats ovariectomized for 8 weeks were similar and ranged from 50--55 pg/ml, but the LHRH levels in proestrous rats were less than 12 pg/ml. In addition, hypophysial portal plasma collected during 1100 to 1400 h from animals orchidectomized for 8 weeks and from intact male rats contained mean LHRH concentrations that ranged from 50--65 pg/ml and 30--35 pg/ml, respectively. Electrochemical stimulation of the MPOA in the female rat on the afternoon of proestrus resulted in a marked increase in the concentration of LHRH in portal plasma. LHRH levels in portal plasma during the 0 to 30, 30 to 60, 60 to 90, 90 to 120, and 120 to 150-min periods after electrochemical stimulation of the MPOA were 105 +/- 24.2, 61 +/- 10.8, 51 +/- 8.2, 36 +/- 5.3, and 32 +/- 4.1 pg/ml, respectively. LHRH levels in portal plasma from the unstimulated rats were not detectable (less than 12 pg/ml) in most of the animals. In another group of proestrous rats, the effect of rabbit anti-LHRH serum or normal rabbit serum (NRS) on the release of LH after electrochemical stimulation of MPOA was examined. Pretreatment of proestrous rats with anti-LHRH serum blocked the release of LH due to MPOA stimulation, whereas pretreatment with NRS did not inhibit LH release. On the basis of these findings, it is concluded that electro-chemical stimulation of the MPOA in proestrous rats increases LHRH levels in portal blood and that the enhanced secretion of LHRH stimulates the release of LH from the pituitary gland.


Among numerical formats available to express probability, ratios (i.e., frequencies) are extensively employed in risk communication, due perhaps to an intuitive sense of their clarity and simplicity. The present thesis was designed to investigate how the use of superficially different but mathematically equivalent ratio formats affects the magnitude perception of the probability that is conveyed. In particular, focus of research was the influence that those expressions, when employed in risk communication of prenatal screening test results, have on prospective parents' perceptions of the chance of having a Down syndrome-affected child. No clear evidence was found in the literature, on whether the choice of one of the equivalent ratio format that can be used to state a given probability does matter in terms of subjective perception of the chance. Indeed, existent studies deliver contrasting results, and theories elaborated on those basis point in diverging directions. These could be summarised in the suggestion, on the one hand, that people tend to neglect denominators in ratios (hence they judge 10 in 100 as larger than 1 in 10: "Ratio-bias" or "denominator neglect") and, on the other hand, in a claim that people neglect numerators, rather than denominators (hence they rate 1 in 10 as larger than 10 in 100: "group-diffusion" or "reference group" effect). Nevertheless, implications of either group of theories could not entirely be transferred to the specific issue at study, mainly because of problems of ecological validity (type of scenario and stimuli, experimental design). Hence, provided the necessary adjustments to both the original experimental designs and materials, we tested empirically the applicability of those predictions to the specific case under examination. Subjective evaluations of equivalent ratios presented between-subjects in scenario paradigm were analysed by means of the magnitude assessments given by a total number of 1673 participants on Likert scales. Overall, results of a series of 12 main studies pointed to a new bias which we dubbed the "1 in X effect" given the triangulation of its source to that specific ratio format. Indeed, findings indicated, that laypeople' subjective estimation of the same probability presented through a "1 in X" format (e.g., 1 in 200) and an "N in X*N" format (e.g., 5 in 1000) varied significantly and in a consistent way. In particular, a given probability was systematically perceived as bigger and more alarming when expressed in the first rather than in second format, an effect clearly inconsistent with the idea of denominator neglect. This effect was replicated across different populations and probability magnitudes. Practical implications of these findings for health communication have been addressed in a dedicated section, all the more necessary considering that in one study on health-care professionals we had found, that they appeared themselves de-sensitized to the "1 in X effect" (seemingly because of their daily use of probabilistic ratios). While the effect was not attenuated in laypeople by a classic communicative intervention (i.e., a verbal analogy), it disappeared with one of the most employed visual aids, namely an icon array. Furthermore, in a first attempt to pinpoint the cognitive processes responsible for the bias, the affective account stemming from literature on dual-process theories has not received support, contrary to our expectations. Hence, the most likely origin for the bias seems to reside either, as suggested by some inspections, in a specific motivation to process the information, and/or in the increased ability to see oneself or others as that affected when a "1 in X" format is processed. Clearly, further empirical research is needed in order to attain this cognitive level of explanation.


Anopheles arabiensis strains reared from larvae and pupae collected from two different localities, Metehara and Melka-Worer, eastern Ethiopia, were evaluated against three insecticides. Resistance states of adult females were determined using the WHO test kits under field condition. The insecticides used were WHO discriminating doses of 4% DDT, 0.75% permethrin and 0.1% propoxur. The study revealed that 42.5% of the An. arabiensis population was resistant to DDT in Melka-Worer while only 30% of the species was resistant in Metehara to the same insecticide. In Metehara, 25% of An. arabiensis was also resistant to permethrin while the population was highly susceptible to the insecticide in Melka-Worer. Propoxur, which was not evaluated in Melka-Worer, was highly toxic to An. arabiensis in Metehara. The knocked-down time (KD50) for permethrin was 14.5 and 12.5 minutes in Metehara and Melka-Worer, respectively. The implications of these findings are discussed.


DNA-Chip Analyzer (dChip) is a software package implementing model-based expression analysis of oligonucleotide arrays and several high-level analysis procedures. The model-based approach allows probe-level analysis on multiple arrays. By pooling information across multiple arrays, it is possible to assess standard errors for the expression indexes. This approach also allows automatic probe selection in the analysis stage to reduce errors due to cross-hybridizing probes and image contamination. High-level analysis in dChip includes comparative analysis and hierarchical clustering. The software is freely available to academic users at www.dchip.org.


The bi-material elastic system consisting of the pre-stressed hollow cylinder and prestresses surrounding infinite elastic medium is considered and it is assumed that the mentioned initial stresses in this system are caused with the compressing or stretching uniformly distributed normal forces acting at infinity in the direction which is parallel to the cylinder's axis. Moreover, it is assumed that on the internal surface of the cylinder the ring load which moves with constant velocity acts and within these frameworks it is required to determine the influence of the aforementioned initial stresses on the critical velocity of the moving load. The corresponding investigations are carried out within the framework of the so-called three-dimensional linearized theory of elastic waves in initially stresses bodies and the axisymmetric stress-strain state case is considered. The "moving coordinate system" method is used and the Fourier transform is employed for solution to the formulated mathematical problem and Fourier transformation of the sought values are determined analytically. However, the originals of those are determined numerically with the use of the Sommerfeld contour method. The critical velocity is determined from the criterion, according to which, the magnitudes of the absolute values of the stresses and displacements caused with the moving load approaches an infinity. Numerical results on the influence of the initial stresses on the critical velocity and interface normal and shear stresses are presented and discussed. In particular, it is established that the initial stretching (compressing) of the constituents of the system under consideration causes a decrease (an increase) in the values of the critical velocity.


Purpose A number of optical methods for slowing myopia progression have been tested and are now available. However, data on real-world use in clinical use is scarce. Here, we present a review of the clinical outcomes for patients attending a specialist myopia control clinic at The University of Auckland Optometry School, NZ. Case Series We report a comparative case series of 110 patients (aged 4–33 years, mean: 12.13 ± 4.58 years, 62% female) who attended the clinic between 2010 and 2014. Fifty-six were prescribed orthokeratology, 32 dual focus soft contact lenses, and 22 received advice only. Initial myopia, vitreous and axial eye length, previous myopia progression, age, number of myopic parents, and gender were not significantly different between orthokeratology and dual focus soft contact lens groups. Mean follow-up time for the orthokeratology and dual focus lens groups was the same (orthokeratology: 1.30 ± 0.88 years; dual focus lens: 1.33 ± 0.80 years (p = 0.989)). There was a significant reduction in the annualized myopia progression in both groups (orthokeratology: −1.17 ± 0.55 to −0.09 ± 017 D/yr, p < 0.001; dual focus soft contact lens: −1.15 ± 0.46 to −0.10 ± 0.23 D/yr, p < 0.001). There was no difference between orthokeratology and dual focus lens treatment efficacy (p = 0.763), nor in axial or vitreous chamber length changes after treatment (p = 0.184). One adverse event was reported over the 4-year period. Conclusions Both orthokeratology and dual focus soft contact lenses are effective strategies for targeting myopia progression in the clinic. We saw no significant difference in the efficacy of the two methods in this regard, and so we believe there are very few barriers for any contact lens practitioner to be actively promoting myopia control treatment to at-risk patients.


Healthcare has witnessed a technological advancement in improving the quality of care and speeding the process of diagnosing patients due to its intervention with the internet of medical things. IoT in healthcare (H-IoT) plays a significant role in facilitating the process of diagnosing and detecting diseases. Different IoT-based medical sensors are used to measure biometrics and send them to the cloud for more analysis. However, the sensed data are massive and vary in their criticality level in which some sensed data are more critical (health-related data) than others. Moreover, computing such critical data in the cloud encounters some delay which is not preferable in real-time monitoring applications. Thus, this work proposes an IoT-fog-based framework to classify the streamed data according to their criticality level and compute the critical data in the fog to detect abnormalities with low latency and high response time. Before designing the proposed work, an analysis was conducted to explore the real data collected by IoT-based medical apps. The exploration of the data involved downloading and manually analyzing up-to-date privacy policies of eight IoT-based medical apps that provide details about data collection practices. The study showed that the streamed data in H-IoT include medical sensors data, apps registration data (personal information), device information, and other information related to cookies. The proposed work introduced the design of fog-based data classification and the algorithm for such classification. The implementation and evaluation of the proposed framework is future work.


Control charts are commonly evaluated in terms of their average run length (ARL). However, since run length distributions are typically strongly skewed, the ARL gives a very limited impression about the actual run length performance. In this study, it is proposed to evaluate a control chart's performance using risk metrics, specifically the value at risk and the tail conditional expectation. When a control chart is evaluated for an in‐control performance, the risk is an early occurrence of a false alarm, whereas in an out‐of‐control state, there is a risk of a delayed detection. For these situations, risk metric computations are derived and exemplified for diverse types of control charts. It is demonstrated that the use of such risk metrics leads to important new insights into a control chart's performance. In addition to the cases of known process parameters for control chart design, these risk metrics are further used to analyze the estimation uncertainty in evaluating a control chart's performance if the design parameters rely on a phase 1 analysis. Benefits of the risk‐based metrics are discussed thoroughly, and these are recommended as supplements to the traditional ARL metric.


Abstract: In the history of ideas some researchers have recently coined the term psycho-utopianism, denoting the notion that the ideal society presupposes a new man, i e, that the psychological nature of man must change before society can change. Cultural studies have noted this line of thinking also within the so-called New Age movement. However, the notion of a New Age is not really new, it occurred already at the beginning of the Modern Epoch; in 17th century Europe. In these times, the educational philosopher J A Comenius was writing his canonical work Didactica Magna and other texts on education, science and philosophy, with the ultimate aim of contributing to a new world order. Comenius was one of the first modern educators to argue for a general education of both boys and girls irrespective of social class. This all-inclusiveness actually seems to be an essential trait of educational psycho-utopian ideas. Three hundred years later, B F Skinner suggested psychological methods of education and upbringing, also with the ultimate aim to transform society. Skinner regarded operational conditioning as an educational mechanism applicable to everyone without exception, denying the significance of any inborn nature of the human psyche. In the paper I will look closer at the similarities and differences between these two thinkers regarding their psycho-utopian notions and their relation to the issue of insiders and outsiders. I will conclude with similar reflections on psycho-utopian tendencies in present discourses on ICT and education


The hard red spring wheat cultivars Grandin and CDC Teal were genetically examined to determine the number and identity of the leaf rust resistance genes present in both wheats. The two cultivars were crossed with the leaf rust susceptible cultivar Thatcher, and the F1 plants were backcrossed to Thatcher. Fifty-four and 80 BC1F1 plants derived respectively from Grandin and CDC Teal were selfed to produce BC1F2 families. The BC1F2 families were tested as seedlings with isolates of Puccinia recondita f. sp. tritici that differed for virulence to specific leaf rust resistance genes. The BC1F2 families were also tested in the adult-plant stage in field rust nursery tests. Segregation of BC1F2 families in the seedling tests indicated that Grandin had resistance genes Lr2a, Lr3, and Lr10, and was heterogeneous for Lr16. CDC Teal was shown to have the seedling leaf rust gene Lr1. In field rust nursery tests, both Grandin and CDC Teal were shown to have adult-plant resistance genes Lr13 and Lr34. Additional leaf rust resistance genes that condition effective field resistance should be incorporated into hard red spring wheat cultivars to diversify the leaf rust resistance in this wheat class.


The last decade has been witness to one of the largest tax experiments in economic history: the transformation from centrally-planned to market-based tax systems. The cultural and institutional legacy of central planning has had a lasting impact on tax reform in countries in transition. The fundamental choices for reform were a big-bang approach or an evolutionary approach. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now evaluate the choices made and whether or not basic advice was heeded. The tax systems that have emerged are, at least in some ways, satisfactory in terms of tax policy but deficient in terms of tax administration and enforcement. Experiences with tax reform have been diverse, and in some countries there has been very little reform at all. We conclude by examining what lessons have been learned during the first decade of transition.


The occupation and cultivation of Bentayan Wildlife Area (SM) into rubber and oil palm plantations was keep on going by the community, even up till now. As a results, its habitat condition was no longer suitable for the life of protected specific animals. This study will describe occupation patterns of Bentayan Wildlife area by the community, including its arrival. The results showed that community members arrival to Bentayan Wildlife area are  history of community migration due to economic constraints in the area of origin. There is an "opportunity" in Bentayan Wildlife area for the community to occupy this area due to lack of supervision from the authority. Economic needs and lack of supervision in Bentayan Wildlife area are the basic of community arrival which subsequently occupy this area. Occupation pattern seems relatively systematic with specific mechanism. Land occupation finally lead to conflict between community and government.


In an insecure environment like Afghanistan it is believed that many families consider establishing household members at different geographic locations, frequently abroad, as a way to hedge against risks to a sustainable livelihood. With this in mind, this study examines whether such a migration strategy rests on remittance transfers as an alternative source of income, exploiting the way in which migration is financed as a discriminating factor. Our results show remittance transfers are lower for debt-financed migrants, and the influence of certain individual and household characteristics are in line with what we would expect if altruism is the dominating motivation. In light of this finding, we speculate that the sending of household members abroad as a risk-coping strategy may be less about having an alternative source of income and more about having an alternative location to escape to if the security situation happens to take a turn for the worse.


Permeability of cement-based materials is the principal factor that provides its durability. Thus, several methodologies have been developed for measuring this property. Discrepancies in results can be generated due to large number of methods, mathematics equations and methodologies employed. Thenoz method is one method developed for measuring air permeability of porous media and have demonstrated good and satisfactory results, in accordance to several scientific researches. The aim of this work was to study the flow mechanism in a porous media, in particular a concrete media, evaluating Reynolds number and flow velocity of air outflow occurred when Thenoz method was employed to measure concrete air permeability. The Reynolds number results showed that outflow regime occurs in laminar form and validate the hypothesis to confirm the model. Tests were performed to verify the veracity of results obtained in accordance this methodology. Results have shown that air permeability measured by Thenoz method is a good test to evaluate concrete porosity.


Electron transport in an assembly of ZnO quantum dots has been studied using an electrochemically gated transistor. The electron mobility shows a step-wise increase as a function of the electron occupation per quantum dot. When the occupation number is
below two, transport occurs by tunnelling between S orbitals. Transport becomes three times faster when the occupation number is between two and eight; tunnelling now occurs between the P orbitals. Electron transport is thus critically determined by the quantum properties of the building blocks.

The results for aqueous electrolytes are compared with the results obtained with propylene carbonate solutions. The storage and long-range transport of electrons in a porous assembly of ZnO quantum dots is found to depend strongly on the interpenetrating electrolyte. The screening of the electron charge is less effective in the case of an assembly permeated with a propylene carbonate electrolyte solution. The effect of temperature on the conductance of ZnO assemblies permeated with propylene carbonate and ethanol is reported.

The optical transitions in few-electron artificial atoms strongly confined in ZnO nanocrystals with a diameter between 3 and 6 nm are reported. We use an assembly of weakly coupled ZnO nanocrystals in which electrons are injected electrochemically; the average electron number is obtained from the injected charge and the number of quantum dots
in the assembly. The charged ZnO nanocrystals show broad spectra in the near IR, the shape and total absorption intensity being determined by the average electron number only. The spectra can be explained by taking into account the allowed electric dipole transitions between the atom-like orbitals of the ZnO nanocrystals and the size-distribution of the nanocrystals in the sample.

Assemblies of ZnO nanocrystals can be charged with electrons; the average electron number can be varied in a controlled way between zero and ten. The luminescence of such charged assemblies due to UV excitation has been studied and compared with the luminescence of quantum-dot suspensions. The luminescence of ZnO assemblies depends on the electron number and the nature of the interpenetrating electrolyte. Remarkably, with increasing electron number, the green (defect) luminescence quenches, while the exciton luminescence increases. Thus, quenching of the exciton luminescence by an Auger-type process is
unimportant in charged ZnO quantum dots. This forms a strong contrast with results obtained with Si and CdSe quantum dots.

Electron transport in macroporous GaP networks permeated with an electrolyte solution has been studied by analysis of the photocurrent response upon a small-amplitude modulation of the light intensity. It is found that under conditions close to a steady-state, electron transport is non-dispersive, characterized by a single transit time that depends on the thickness of the
porous layer and the background light intensity. An analysis of the results show that the transit time is determined by multiple trapping and detrapping of electrons in interfacial states close to the electron Fermi level which is determined by the steady-state light intensity. As a result the density-of-states (DOS) function in a considerable region of the band gap can be
determined from the transit time, when the energy of the electron Fermi level is changed by means of the background light-intensity.


Modern healthcare providers rely upon Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) systems to record patient data inside their own organization. Some healthcare providers share this data to facilitate patient care with other providers. Medical devices and healthcare providers can use differing standards of recording healthcare information. The Structural and Semantic Mapper Proxy API solution offers a practical way to tackles the issues of Structural and Semantic mapping of Application Programing Interfaces (API) in a healthcare context to enable connection of all existing systems to a healthcare providers EHR creating a single source of truth regarding the treatment of patients and enabling healthcare providers to bridge the gap between external EHR systems.


Germans like to live in one-family houses. This way of living prevails more and more during recent years. However, the increase of one-family housing implies a high state of car dependence. Especially for children, youths, aged and disadvantaged people living in a car oriented city becomes difficult. Also a higher use of cars implies more air pollution and waste of energy. And additionaly, the increasing travel distances cause higher rates of traffic accidents. To avoid these disadvantages the alternative must be the high density development comprising both, high density-low-rise buildings and especially high rise buildings. By abandoning all one-family homes and using only tall buildings for dwelling and other purposes (stores, offices, schools etc.) the area of a city could be reduced to about one tenth of that what is urbanized today. Because of the short distances in such a city most of the trips could be made by walking or by using lifts. Accordingly traffic accidents could be reduced to one tenth of today's figures too. Despite of the many advantages the high density city has with respect to safety and health of its population such a city will be rarely realized because it does not meet the ideas and imaginations of many people. Nevertheless it seems to be advisable to promote high density residential areas for all those people who are willing to accept it or who prefer this way of living. This minority, however, should not be irritated by unqualified generalizing negative reports in the media. Language: de


Motorcycle exhaust particles (MEP) are among the major air pollutants, especially in urban area of Taiwan. In our previous study, data showed that MEP induce proinflammatory and proallergic response profiles in BALB/c mice. Effects of MEP on interleukin (IL)-8 production in A549 human airway epithelial cells were further investigated in this study. It was found that MEP enhanced IL-8 protein and mRNA expression in human epithelial cells. Pretreatment with an NF-κB inhibitor (1 mM PDTC), extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) inhibitor (50 μM PD98059), JNK inhibitor (25 μM SP600125), p38 inhibitor (2 μM SB203580), and three antioxidants (500 U/ml superoxide dismutase [SOD], 50 μM vitamin E, 10 mM N-acetylcysteine [NAC]) attenuated the MEP-induced increase in IL-8 production. Through further, direct detection of nuclear factor (NF)-κB activation in epithelial cells using immunoblotting of nuclear p65 and NF-κB reporter assay, data showed that MEP induced nuclear translocation of p65 and enhancement of NF-κB luciferase gene expression. MEP also induced activation of ERK, JNK, and p38 signaling pathways and produced an increase of oxidative stress in A549 cells. By using mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) inhibitors and antioxidant, it was demonstrated that ERK inhibitor, JNK inhibitor, and antioxidants but not p38 inhibitor attenuated the MEP-induced increase in NF-κB reporter activity. In conclusion, evidence shows that filter-trapped particles emitted from unleaded gasoline-fueled, two-stroke motorcycle engines induce an increase in IL-8 production by activation of NF-κB in human airway epithelial cells.


The archaeological site of Ancient Termez is located in southern Uzbekistan. Despite the arid environment, the city benefited from its strategic position near two rivers, the Amu Darya and the Surkhan Darya. Its significance was mainly related to the expansion of trade routes connecting Eurasia. The city comprises several enclosures that attest long-term human-environment interactions. In order to identify the adaptive dynamics of the settlement models during an extended chronology covering the period from c. 300 BCE to c. 1220 CE (Greco-Bactrian/Yuezhi, Kushan, Kushano-Sasanian, and Islamic periods), a multidisciplinary study has been carried out, which includes: (1) archaeological excavations in several areas of the urban complex; (2) pedestrian surveying inside some enclosures and in the urban periphery; (3) an aerial survey based on high-resolution satellite imagery; (4) AMS dating of charcoal and bone samples; (5) archaeobotanical investigation through anthracological analysis; (6) zooarchaeological studies. The results point to variations in the development of the inhabited spaces, in which abandonment and occupation took place. The zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data demonstrate the exploitation of natural resources in different environments (i.e., arid areas and irrigated land) and a certain evolution during the period considered.


The project was conducted to make an online tutoring program for math word problem solving accessible to students with visual impairments (VI). An online survey of teachers of students with VI (TVIs) guided the decision to provide the math content in the form of an iPad app, accompanied by print and braille materials. The app includes audio descriptions of images that illustrate the math problems, an integrated Scratch Pad, options to adjust color and contrast, hints, and videos showing how to solve sample problems. In order to provide access to those needing screen reading technology or screen enlargement, the app utilizes the Apple built-in accessibility features of VoiceOver and Zoom. A study with 19 TVIs and 29 students with VI was conducted to obtain feedback about the app and materials. Comments were generally positive, but both students and teachers reported that the quality of the hints varied and that the videos were not very helpful. Thus, the hints were revised, and narrated videos showing step-by-step solutions were added to each problem. A single subject study is in progress to compare students' performance when using the app and materials with the traditional way they access math materials (print, braille).


The goal of this chapter is to outline the attention machine computational framework designed to make a significant advance towards creating systems with human-level intelligence (HLI). This work is based on the hypotheses that: 1. most characteristics of human-level intelligence are exhibited by some existing algorithm, but that no single algorithm exhibits all of the characteristics and that 2. creating a system that does exhibit HLI requires adaptive hybrids of these algorithms. Attention machines enable algorithms to be executed as sequences of attention fixations that are executed using the same set of common functions and thus can integrate algorithms from many different subfields of artificial intelligence. These hybrids enable the strengths of each algorithm to compensate for the weaknesses of others so that the total system exhibits more intelligence than had previously been possible.


Using principal component analysis, a climate index is developed to estimate the linkage between climate and crop yields. The indices based on three climate projections are then applied to forecast future crop yield responses. We identify spatial heterogeneity of crop yield responses to future climate change across a number of U.S. northern and southern states. The results indicate that future hotter/drier weather conditions will likely have significant negative impacts on southern states, whereas only mild impacts are expected in most northern states.


Owing to outstanding energy density, Li-ion batteries have dominated the portable electronic industry for the past 20 years and they are now moving forward powering electric vehicles. In light of concerns over limited lithium reserve and rising lithium costs in the future, Na-ion batteries have re-emerged as potential alternatives for large scale energy storage. On the other hand, though both sodium and lithium are alkali metals sharing many chemical similarities, research on Na-ion batteries is still facing many challenges due to the larger size and unique bonding characteristics of Na ions. In this thesis, a series of sodium transition metal oxides are investigated as cathode materials for Na-ion batteries. P2 - Na₂/₃[Ni₁/₃Mn₂/₃]O₂ is firstly studied with a combination of first principles calculation and experiment, and battery performance is improved by excluding the phase transformation region. Li substituted compound, P2-Na₀.₈[Li₀.₁₂Ni₀.₂₂Mn₀.₆₆]O₂, is then explored. Its crystal / electronic structure evolution upon cycling is tracked by combing in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction, ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy and solid state NMR. It is revealed that the presence of Li-ions in the transition metal layer allows increased amount of Na-ions to maintain the P2 structure during cycling. The design principles for the P2 type Na cathodes are devised based on this in-depth understanding and an optimized composition is proposed. The idea of Li substitution is then transferred to O3 type cathode. The new material, O3 - Na₀.₇₈Li₀.₁₈Ni₀.₂₅Mn₀.₅₈₃O₂, shows discharge capacity of 240 mAh/g, which is the highest capacity and highest energy density so far among cathode materials in Na-ion batteries. With significant progress on cathode materials, a comprehensive understanding of Na₂Ti₃O₇ as anode for Na-ion batteries is discussed. The electrochemical performance is enhanced, due to increased electronic conductivity and reduced SEI formation with carbon coating. Na full cell with high operating voltage is demonstrated by taking advantage of the ultra-low voltage of Na₂Ti₃O₇ anode. The self-relaxation for fully intercalated phase, Na₄Ti₃O₇, is shown for the first time, which results from structural instability as suggested by first principles calculation. Ti⁴⁺ / Ti³⁺ is the active redox couple upon cycling based on XANES characterization. These findings unravel the underlying relation between unique properties and battery performance of Na₂Ti₃O₇ anode, which should ultimately shed light on possible strategies for future improvement


The objective of the present study is to see how the dilemma zone length and location are related to intersection safety at rural high-speed signalized intersections. For that, dilemma zones at 30 rural signalized intersection approaches where similar traffic operations and land-use conditions are present were identified, and traffic conflicts associated with the dilemma zones were investigated. Drivers' stop or go behaviors as well as vehicle dynamics (e.g., vehicle speeds and locations) during the yellow and red clearance intervals were collected and analyzed to determine the dilemma zone length and location of each site. Red-light running violations and vehicles' abrupt stops were also collected to investigate the relationship between such conflicts and dilemma zone length and location. As a result, two dilemma zone conflict models were developed. The analysis results show that the conflict models are accurate enough to predict the safety level of high-speed signalized intersections using the two dilemma zone variables. Results show that the chance of intersection angle conflicts increases if the dilemma zone is located farther from the intersection stop bar. Results also show that there would be a high chance of rear-end conflicts if the dilemma zone length is longer. The models were validated with additional datasets, and acceptable root means square error and mean absolute percentage error values were obtained as a result.


Objectives: The goal of this study was to investigate the anti-lipogenic effects of Samhwangsasim-tang(SHT), Daehwanghwangryunsasim-tang(DHT) aqueous extract on HepG2 cells with palmitate. Materials and Methods: HepG2 cells treated with palmitate were used in this study as hepatic steatosis model. Cells were treated with different concentrations of SHT, DHT aqueous extract for 24 hours. Cell viability and cytotoxicity were analyzed by MTT assay. Expressions of Bcl-2, Bax, Survivin, P21, TGF-β1, LXR-α, ChREBP, ACC1, SCD1 mRNA were determined by Real-time PCR. Apoptosis of cells was detected by ELISA and FACS. Expression level of caspase-3 was studied by Western blot. Lipid accumulation was indicated by Oil Red O staining. Results: SHT, DHT aqueous extract had no cytotoxicity, but decreased palmitate-induced lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells. SHT aqueous extract suppressed fatty acid synthesis by inhibiting LXR-α, ChREBP, SCD1 activation and increasing TGF-β1 expression level. DHT aqueous extract also suppressed fatty acid synthesis by decreasing ChREBP expression and increasing TGF-β1 expression. Apoptosis of lipid accumulated cells was increased by enhanced activities of P21, caspase-3 and inhibited expressions of Bcl-2, Survivin. Conclusions: These results suggest that SHT and DHT have an anti-lipogenic effects on lipid accumulation of hepatic cell. Also SHT and DHT have an efficacy to increase apoptosis of adipocyte without cytotoxicity. Therefore, SHT and DHT might have potential clinical applications for treatment of hepatic steatosis.


We investigate when organizational justice matters to employees' commitment in the post-acquisition process after a company is overtaken in a cross-border acquisition. There is overwhelming evidence that employees who are treated fairly during acquisitions are more committed to their new firms. We extend this finding by dividing organizational justice into three sub-dimensions: informational justice, interpersonal justice, and procedural justice. We find evidence that procedural justice is an important antecedent of affective merger commitment at an early stage of the integration period, while informational justice becomes important at a later stage. Further analysis on heterogeneity between the target firm's employees and the bidder firm's employees reveals that, immediately after the acquisition, target-firm's employees value knowing where they will be at the new firm (procedural justice), while bidder-firm employees are more concerned about communication and transparency (informational justice). Our results point to the importance of organizational justice in a cross-border M&A setting and the need for a separate study of issues related to bidder firms and target firms.


Manipulation of gas bubble behaviors is crucial for gas bubble-related applications. Generally, the manipulation of gas bubble behaviors generally takes advantage of their buoyancy force. It is very difficult to control the transportation of gas bubbles in a specific direction. Several approaches have been developed to collect and transport bubbles in aqueous media; however, most reliable and effective manipulation of gas bubbles in aqueous media occurs on the interfaces with simple shapes (i.e., cylinder and cone shapes). Reliable strategies for spontaneous and directional transport of gas bubbles on interfaces with complex shapes remain enormously challenging. Herein, a type of 3D gradient porous network was constructed on copper wire interfaces, with rectangle, wave, and helix shapes. The superhydrophobic copper wires were immersed in water, and continuous and stable gas films then formed on the interfaces. With the assistance of the Laplace pressure gradient between two bubbles, gas bubbles (including microscopic gas bubbles) in the aqueous media were subsequently transported, continuously and directionally, on the copper wires with complex shapes. The small gas bubbles always moved to the larger ones.


The present study is concerned with the propagation of Lamb waves in a homogeneous isotropic thermoelastic micropolar solid with two temperatures bordered with layers or half-spaces of inviscid liquid subjected to stress free boundary conditions. The coupled thermoelasticity theory has been used to investigate the problem. The secular equations for symmetric and skew-symmetric leaky and nonleaky Lamb wave modes of propagation are derived. The phase velocity and attenuation coefficient are computed numerically and depicted graphically. The amplitudes of stress, microrotation vector and temperature distribution for the symmetric and skew-symmetric wave modes are computed numerically and presented graphically. Results of some earlier workers have been deduced as particular cases.


Review The prevalence and incidence rate of hypertension among Orang Asli had been increasing due to modernization and assimilation of outside practices such as intake of high cholesterol food, alcohol, and smoking. Orang Asli utilize their herbs or plants to treat some illness due to the factor of logistics and the knowledge on these nature resources since decades ago that is carried out from their ancestors. In this review paper, hypertension genes of Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia and the utilization of ethno-medicinal plants in reducing the clinical manifestation in hypertension were deliberated. There are quite a number of related hypertensive genes particularly in renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) playing a pivotal role in pathogenesis of hypertension. A genome-wide association studies showed potential candidate genes in hypertension among Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia. However there is yet molecular study on these genes among Orang Asli with their unique genetic profile. Noteworthy information on mechanism of ethno-medicine in treating hypertension are scarce, even the efficacy of modern medicine in treating hypertension on Orang Asli are rare. Therefore, study on efficacy of ethno-medicine plant by Orang Asli and the regulation effect on hypertension genes are needed to be further explored and elucidated. Keywords: Hypertension, Orang Asli and ethno-medicinal plant


Future changes in climate and sea level are likely to increase the threat from storm surges in many coastal regions. Mitigation of this threat requires an understanding of storm surge magnitude and frequency, and the relationship of these variables to climate parameters. This understanding is currently limited by the brevity of instrumental records, which rarely predate the twentieth century. However, evidence of former storm surges can be recorded in coastal dunes, because the dune topography may trap high-magnitude deposits at elevated locations. Here we combine a range of techniques to extract storm-surge data from coastal dune sediment. The sediment is tracked in the subsurface with ground-penetrating radar to assess its height and extent, and its age is determined with good precision through optically stimulated luminescence dating. The probable age of the sediment (A.D. 1775 or 1776) is within a period of increased storminess in northwest Europe, and the local magnitude of the event is likely to be greater than any on instrumental record. By utilizing coastal dunes for storm surge analysis, our approach provides a valuable new source of information for understanding storm surge risk, which is vital for the protection of coastal regions.


We studied the influence of the beam ratio and intensity on the optical quality of the transmission hologram images of diffuse objects stored in a photopolymer and reconstructed in real time. The signal-to-noise ratio and the diffraction efficiency were used as measures of the optical quality. We obtained a signal-to-noise ratio of 0.94 with a diffraction efficiency of 13% for a beam ratio of 20 and an intensity of 1.2 mW/cm2.


For meaningful distribution system analysis, correct information of the feeder parameter is necessary. However, in many cases (especially in the developing countries), these parameters are not known accurately. To address this issue, a methodology for estimating the feeder parameters from the measured values of power flow and node voltages is proposed in this paper. It is shown that the resulting system of equations is extremely ill-conditioned in nature and to solve this ill-conditioned system of equations, an optimization-based procedure is developed. The feasibility of the proposed methodology has been validated on the IEEE 123-bus three-phase unbalanced radial distribution system.


U-BIOPRED is a European Union consortium of 20 academic institutions, 11 pharmaceutical companies and six patient organisations with the objective of improving the understanding of asthma disease mechanisms using a systems biology approach. This cross-sectional assessment of adults with severe asthma, mild/moderate asthma and healthy controls from 11 European countries consisted of analyses of patient-reported outcomes, lung function, blood and airway inflammatory measurements. Patients with severe asthma (nonsmokers, n=311; smokers/ex-smokers, n=110) had more symptoms and exacerbations compared to patients with mild/moderate disease (n=88) (2.5 exacerbations versus 0.4 in the preceding 12 months; p<0.001), with worse quality of life, and higher levels of anxiety and depression. They also had a higher incidence of nasal polyps and gastro-oesophageal reflux with lower lung function. Sputum eosinophil count was higher in severe asthma compared to mild/moderate asthma (median count 2.99% versus 1.05%; p=0.004) despite treatment with higher doses of inhaled and/or oral corticosteroids. Consistent with other severe asthma cohorts, U-BIOPRED is characterised by poor symptom control, increased comorbidity and airway inflammation, despite high levels of treatment. It is well suited to identify asthma phenotypes using the array of "omic" datasets that are at the core of this systems medicine approach. Severe asthma results in more airway inflammation, worse symptoms and lower lung function, despite increased therapy http://ow.ly/QznR3


This study is about incorporating social and human dimensions of the organisation into change models to support technology enabled change, also known as digital transformation. Organisations often manifest change through projects. Despite utilizing change models and frameworks, the rate of failure remains as high as 80%, leading to estimated financial losses of $900B USD a year, in addition to non-financial losses such as opportunity cost, change fatigue, loss of confidence and poor morale. Studies show that the majority of the root causes of failure are non-technical; yet change models and frameworks focus on the technical aspects, providing little guidance to the non-technical aspects (i.e. social and human). This study explores this omission with the aim of developing extensions to improve the success rate of organisational change.
The context of the study is two multi-national organisations undergoing digital transformation: a telecommunication provider and a financial institution. The researcher, by virtue of his role as digital transformation leader, is embedded in both organisations which facilitates a deeper understanding of the change context and more informed interpretation of observations and data. Action Research principles support the researcher's dual role and provide rigor and validity. The study uses Mixed Methods to collect data: two focus-groups sessions with 14 to 20 participants in each and 11 semi-structured interviews with change leaders. The researcher recognizes the ethical implications and tensions associated with Action Research, and maintains vigilance and balance throughout.
The study outcomes represent proposed extensions to change models and are model agnostic. They include language, definitions of 'social' and 'human' aspects of organisational change, themes supporting social and human dimensions of change, weaving of the themes into a practical workflow, and a stakeholder categorization framework mapped to power of influence spectrum. In addition, an interconnected Organisational Model - Human, Business, and Environment - is presented.
The proposed extensions aim to improve the success rate of digital transformation and as a result, contribute to boosting productivity, reducing operating costs and improving organisational performance.


OBJECTIVE
With an increasing number of critical care beds, a shortage of critical care physicians, and pressure from purchasers, there is a need to define the optimal intensivist-to-ICU bed ratio. The objective of this study was to determine if there are any associations between the intensivist-to-ICU bed ratio and the outcome of patients admitted to the medical ICU.

DESIGN
Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING
A tertiary care medical center.

PATIENTS
All critically ill patients admitted to a medical ICU between December 8, 2001, and July 14, 2003.

INTERVENTIONS
None.

MEASUREMENTS
Demographics, APACHE (acute physiology and chronic health evaluation) III-predicted mortality, ICU length of stay (LOS), hospital LOS, and ICU and hospital mortality rates. Four time periods based on intensivist-to-ICU bed ratios of 1:7.5, 1:9.5, 1:12, and 1:15 were identified. Regression analyses were performed to develop customized models to predict ICU and hospital LOS and mortality. The ICU LOS ratio, defined as the ratio of the observed to predicted LOS, and standardized mortality ratio (SMR) were calculated for each of the four periods.

RESULTS
A total of 2,492 patients were included in the study. There was no difference in the severity of illness at the time of ICU admission among the four periods. The mean ICU LOS ratio was longer for an intensivist-to-ICU bed ratio of 1:15 compared to the other periods. The ICU and hospital SMR did not differ significantly among the four periods.

CONCLUSION
Differences in intensivist-to-ICU bed ratios, ranging from 1:7.5 to 1:15, were not associated with differences in ICU or hospital mortality. However, a ratio of 1:15 was associated with increased ICU LOS.


We have studied the effects of a cardiac sparing thyromimetic, CGS 23425, on postprandial levels of triglycerides, abundance of apolipoprotein B (apo B) protein and hepatic apo B mRNA expression in rats. When compared with control rats, triglyceride clearance was significantly accelerated by treatment with CGS 23425. A full return to baseline values was achieved within 8 h after ingesting a large quantity of fat, as compared to >24 h in control animals. The abundance of apo B-100 protein in CGS 23425-treated hyperlipidemic rats decreased in a dose-dependent manner, but levels of apo B-48 were not significantly affected. Like L-tri-iodothyronine (L-T(3)), treatment with 30 microg/kg CGS 23425 for 6 or 9 days decreased the levels of apo B-100 protein by 80% and 40% respectively. This change was paralleled by a 27% reduction in hepatic apo B-100 mRNA. To investigate a potential mechanism of CGS 23425 action, we measured in vitro apo B mRNA editing activity in hepatocellular extract from control or CGS 23425-treated rats. Treatment with CGS 23425 increased activity of the hepatic apo B-100 editosome, apobec-1. In human hepatoma cells which lack apobec-1 activity, apo B-100 mRNA levels remained the same in cells treated with or without the agent. In summary, these observations show that CGS 23425 decreases the levels of apo B-100 in rats. This action of CGS 23425 involves apo B-100 mRNA editing activity.


In modeling fractured reservoirs, outcrops may offer useful insights about the subsurface characterization of the heterogeneous rock formation. They provide analogs that could be replicated in the reservoir to capture the fracture and matrix characteristics, which are crucial to assess the governing recovery mechanisms. Constructing outcrop-based reservoir models is a labor-intensive process, which is subject to personal interpretation and error. In this work, we propose a novel workflow for modeling fractured reservoirs within a deep learning framework. The workflow consists of three main steps that include fracture network recognition to map explicitly the fractures from digital images, fracture characterization to provide an assessment of the fracture effective hydraulic apertures, and reservoir model construction to integrate the multi-scale data and construct the up-scaled simulation model. In this paper, we focus on the first step in the workflow.
 The fracture network recognition starts with segmentation for the images of the fractured formation. The ultimate objective is to identify the fractures from RGB, greyscale, or hyperspectral images. We developed a U-Net-based algorithm to perform the segmentation using 64×64 pixel-resolution. This resolution is carefully selected to accelerate the fracture recognition process and to narrow down the variability in the training set. The inputs are images of the fractured medium with any resolution which are pre-processed before feeding it to the recognition process. The output is a list of the identified fractures, where each fracture is composed of a set of segments, and each segment is defined by the coordinates of its end-points. The output format could be readily processed by any fracture modeling software.
 We demonstrate our workflow to recognize and identify fractures from different 2D images, where we discuss the machine-learning (ML) training and testing stages. The algorithm shows accurate predictions and identifications for the fractures. This workflow has the potential to be extended and applied at the field scale.


In this letter, we explore the band structure effects on the performance of ballistic silicon nanowire transistors (SNWTs). The energy dispersion relations for silicon nanowires are evaluated with an sp3d5s* tight binding model. Based on the calculated dispersion relations, the ballistic currents for both n-type and p-type SNWTs are evaluated by using a seminumerical ballistic model. For large diameter nanowires, we find that the ballistic p-SNWT delivers half the ON-current of a ballistic n-SNWT. For small diameters, however, the ON-current of the p-type SNWT approaches that of its n-type counterpart. Finally, the carrier injection velocity for SNWTs is compared with those for planar metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors, clearly demonstrating the impact of quantum confinement on the performance limits of SNWTs.


Adversarial feature alignment is widely used in domain adaptive object detection. Despite the effectiveness on CNN-based detectors, its applicability to transformer-based detectors is less studied. In this paper, we present AQT (adversarial query transformers) to integrate adversarial feature alignment into detection transformers. The generator is a detection transformer which yields a sequence of feature tokens, and the discriminator consists of a novel adversarial token and a stack of cross-attention layers. The cross-attention layers take the adversarial token as the query and the feature tokens from the generator as the key-value pairs. Through adversarial learning, the adversarial token in the discriminator attends to the domain-specific feature tokens, while the generator produces domain-invariant features, especially on the attended tokens, hence realizing adversarial feature alignment on transformers. Thorough experiments over several domain adaptive object detection benchmarks demonstrate that our approach performs favorably against the state-of-the-art methods. Source code is available at https://github.com/weii41392/AQT.


(Meth)acrylates, α,β-unsaturated esters are Michaelresponse acceptors and have concentrated on antagonistic wellbeing exercises, for example, oral sicknesses and hypersensitive contact dermatitis. A connection between decreased glutathione (GSH) reactivity and lethality for (meth)acrylate monomers has been set up. To foresee the GSH reactivity of dental methacrylate monomers, the 13C-NMR compound movements of β-carbon (δ Cβ) and the 1H-NMR movements of the proton joined to the β-carbon (δ Ha, δ Hb) were decided for a preparation set of acrylate and methacrylate monomers having diverse nucleophiles. Writing information for monomer GSH reactivity were utilized for expectation of the GSH reactivity of dental methacrylates. Critical direct connections between GSH reactivity (log K) and δ Cβ or δ Ha were watched (p<0.001). A worthy relationship for the LD50 in mice of acrylates and methacrylates was seen as far as log K (p<0.005, exception: HEMA). The oral mouse LD50 values for some dental dimethacrylates, two Michael-response acceptors (two-twofold bonds, two β-carbons) were assessed by direct relapse bend fitting of GSH reactivityharmfulness reaction information. The present discoveries propose that NMR spectra may be helpful for anticipating the danger of dental methacrylates.


Oxford Archaeology undertook a programme of archaeological investigation and recording on the surviving walls and other remains of a water wheel pit at Anchor Island, to the south-west of Kelmscott, on the border between Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. The site forms part of the Buscot Estate and was commissioned by The National Trust in advance of proposed repair and consolidation works to the structure.
The substantial remains survive from a pair of waterwheels which were installed in the 1860s to pump water from a well adjacent to the Thames around Buscot estate as part of major agricultural improvement works and an ambitious irrigation scheme created by Robert Campbell the new
owner of Buscot Park.
The principal surviving visible structures on which the recording focussed are two brick walls which formed the pit for one of the waterwheels; the immediately adjacent pit has now been infilled, as has the main channel of water which was diverted from the river to power the wheels.
Each wall retains evidence of the former wheel including mountings, holding down bolts, guard plates, empty sockets and areas of collapse from former adjoining structures.
Although the remains of the pit form only a relatively minor structure they are of interest as evidence of Victorian attempts to apply principles of industrial efficiency and modernisation to agriculture. They are also of interest as a wider example of the range of structures required by a great country estate as well as the fact that they are located less than a mile from Kelmscott
Manor, William Morris's important country house. Kelmscott was Morris's house during the period towards the end of the 19th century when the waterwheel was in operation.
© Oxford


Instruments of Gaia is a thesis which interviews the role of architecture as an interface between nature and human experience. The contained argument is a critique on architecture's reliance on climatic mitigation; whereas relationships between site and user are nullified through concealed building systems. This thesis project as a counterpoint explores new ideas of architectural design and expression as a register for and active agent in the anthropocene where the magnification and understanding of place and site plays a key role in the development of the climatic imagination needed ever more, to grapple with human impact on the very ground we rest our foundations upon.

Architectural expression as an intuitive, didactic mechanism and amplifier of this relationship is explored through the collapsing of multidisciplinary research, and expression of the fragility, and enormity of Gaia as a new secular mythos of the cosmos, and the embedding of these new myths, through weathering and geologic time scales, into an architectural project. The experiential memories formed within this expanded field of architecture constitute a new body of sensible knowledge. The art of architecture offers the medium with which to collapse these assemblages into poetic space and memory, and the beginning of a new dialogue with the Gaia of the Anthropocene.


Beginning with a genealogical intersection of psychoanalysis and political theory in
psychiatry this study examines some ideological tracts that inform a basis for the
application of democracy in clinical mental health practice. In particular it is argued
that the Frankfurt tradition has not been fully articulated as an influencing sphere of
thought in the Therapeutic Community (TC) movement; the TC method here being
a source for the development of democratic clinical practice. Foulkes' contribution
to the 'Frankfurt tradition' following Mannheim's vision of 'democratic group
analysis' is contrasted with Bion's troublesome engagement with hierarchy and
authority. It is argued that Bion's emphasis on pursuing the obstacles to mature
functioning in group therapy (basic assumption theory) involved an experiment in
therapeutic disorder as much as it was an effort to install co-operative effort towards
democracy.
In order to generate new data on democracy in action in psychiatric
environments three focused inter-connecting studies were undertaken: i) a baseline
study gathering comparative data describing democracy in action in 14 UK
psychiatric units; ii) an extended pilot study (in a single site) which developed an
adapted tool (DemocQ for calibrating staff and patient opinions about democracy &
iii) 5 focus groups (in the pilot study site) which was used as a method of
triangulating the data from the first two surveys.
The results from the descriptive study of 14 sites suggested that the old
distinction between TC's in terms of 'hierarchical' or 'democratic' was an over
simplification of what was happening in practice. All sites in the study had evidence of various degrees of democracy in clinical practice. A provisional classification
system of therapeutic democratic is proposed based on the varying levels of
democratic engagement in practice. The results from the DemocQ pointed to a high
degree of correlation between staff and patient opinions about democratic climate in
the pilot site. The 5 focus groups offered some confirmation of the fair-to-good
threshold of democratic climate identified in the pilot DemocQ survey. The focus
group interviews threw up an 'unexpected finding' that psychiatric medication
withdrawal seemed to be a crucial factor in fostering a sense of agency among the
patients.
In conclusion a conception of 'therapeutic democracy' is proposed based on
a model of 'democratic intimacy'. Divergent clinical modalities are considered in
terms of their influence on the facilitation or inhibition of democratically inclined
treatment and these divergences are cast in terms of 'therapeutic collectivism' and
'therapeutic individualism'. The evolution of care in community and the
decarceration movement is considered in terms of the shift from rural psychiatry to
urban psychiatry. It is posited that the move towards primary community care has
created the impetus for a re-conceptualisation of the task of psychiatric social
integration. The increase in interest in democracy in the NHS emerges
simultaneously to i) the necessity of the increased levels of co-operation required by
the evolution of community care & ii) as a rhetorical device of a model of citizenship.
Some recommendations are made as to how the rhetoric of democracy might be
followed through with more rigorous therapeutic intention arising out of an adapted
TC model of 'public mental health'.


1H NMR methodology is described for the determination and characterization of the dietary supplement S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM), recently introduced to the US market, utilizing a 400 MHz spectrometer without the need of pure reference standards. The developed methodology is able to assess chemical structure, differentiate between biologically-active (S)-diastereomer and biologically-inactive (R)-diastereomer, and determine the ratio of each in the dietry supplement formulation. The determination of the percentage of declared SAM was based on the integrals for the methyl proton of 2-methyl-2-propanol served as an internal standard at delta 1.24 and the methine proton H1' of SAM ribose ring at delta 6.06. The percentage of the active diastereomer was calculated from the relative intensities of the sulfonium methyl singlets corresponding to the major component (S)-diastereomer at delta 2.98 and the minor (R)-counterpart at delta 2.93. The accuracy was established by analyzing synthetic mixtures of the analyte and the internal standard. Excellent agreement was verified between the assay results and the quantities of analyte in the mixture. The mean +/- SD recovery values for SAM and its (R)-diastereomer impurity from a set of 10 synthetic mixtures were 99.6 +/- 0.8% and 22.5 +/- 0.1%, respectively. Using 10 lots, the percentage of SAM ranged from 0 to 110.7% of the declared value and the percentage of the active (S)-diastereomer ranged from 0 to 82.3%.


The problem of the failure and/or unsatisfactory development of Southern Italy recurs insistently and from various point of view in the political and scientific debate. The contributions range from the analysis of the determinants of political ineffectiveness in promoting a better development path, to the proposition of formulas capable of correcting this situation and thereby establish paths of interregional convergence or catching-up. In this framework, is useful to studying Sardinia as a "laboratory" to examine the main institutional trends and variables at the base of the north-south dualism that characterizes the Italian economy, as well as to deepen and explore new approaches and solutions to the problem of interregional imbalances. The paper, moving from this assumption analyze the causes underlying the disappointing socio-economic development promoted in Sardinia. Moreover suggests possible reforming paths of political institutions and new economic measures of intervention with particular reference to the need for a re-enactment of the federalist principles and the idea of the guaranteed minimum income.


Reinforcing steel bars are generally procured in standard lengths. The cutting of standard steel bars to the specified lengths usually yields an appreciable amount of steel waste. Minimization of steel waste problem is of interest because reinforced concrete structures are currently in extensive use. The generated steel waste depends directly upon the selected cutting schedule. A dynamic programming method is presented for the selection of cutting schedules of minimum steel waste. Two examples are presented to illustrate the computational process of the method and to compare its results with those obtained by El-Bahrawy (1995).


Activation of NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a potential therapeutic intervention against endothelial cell oxidative stress and associated vascular disease. We hypothesized that treatment with the phytochemicals in the patented dietary supplement Protandim would induce Nrf2 nuclear localization and phase II antioxidant enzyme protein in human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAECs), protecting against an oxidant challenge in an Nrf2- dependent manner. Protandim treatment induced Nrf2 nuclear localization, and HO-1 (778% of control ± 82.25 P < 0.01), SOD1 (125.9% of control ± 6.05 P < 0.01), NQO1 (126% of control ± 6.5 P < 0.01), and GR (119.5% of control ± 7.00 P < 0.05) protein expression in HCAEC. Treatment of HCAEC with H2O2 induced apoptosis in 34% of cells while pretreatment with Protandim resulted in only 6% apoptotic cells (P < 0.01). Nrf2 silencing significantly decreased the Protandim-induced increase in HO-1 protein (P < 0.01). Nrf2 silencing also significantly decreased the protection afforded by Protandim against H2O2- induced apoptosis (P < 0.01 compared to no RNA, and P < 0.05 compared to control RNA). These results show that Protandim induces Nrf2 nuclear localization and antioxidant enzyme expression, and protection of HCAEC from an oxidative challenge is Nrf2 dependent.


In this paper, a technique is developed to compute values of the chirality, permittivity, and permeability of a dielectric reciprocal chiral slab from the knowledge of limited laboratory measurement information. The chirality parameter is a function of frequency and depth of the slab. The developed technique is based on the use of coupled differential equations for the Green functions associated with electromagnetic propagation through the slab. The technique makes use of the Nth degree interpolation polynomials to approximate the Green functions and the chiral parameter among other functions using Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto collocation points. Numerical results from a laboratory measurement simulation are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed technique.


The synthesis of ciliary-membrane phospholipids and ciliary proteins was studied after deciliation in starving Tetrahymena thermophila cells. Deciliated cells regenerated the new ciliary membrane without any induced phospholipid synthesis. The constant cell volume found during the regrowth of the cilia suggests that renewal of ciliary membranes takes place by insertion of intracellular membrane material into the cell surface. In contrast with the absence of induced phospholipid synthesis during ciliary regeneration, the synthesis of ciliary proteins was found to be induced. This enhanced synthetic activity was made possible by an increased rate of intracellular protein degradation in regenerating cells. It was found that the extent of the induced synthesis strongly depends upon the growth conditions of the cells before starvation. Furthermore, it was shown that the degree of induced protein synthesis is greater for higher-molecular-weight ciliary proteins than for lower-molecular-weight species.


Work is reported on the development of a high precision, low frequency impedance bridge, and the use of impedance measurement in characterising the induced polarisation effect of unmineralised material. Impedance spectra for a variety of laboratory model clay/rock/electrolyte systems are analysed in terms of an equivalent circuit. By measuring the dependence of the parameters of this circuit, on such variables as electrolyte type and concentration, temperature and pore geometry, an electrochemical model for membrane polarisation has been developed. Polarisation is considered to arise from diffusional limitation of cations at the membrane/electrolyte interface of clay aggregations in rock pores, and this is found to be amenable to a Warburg diffusional impedance analysis.


In courtrooms every day, fact finders rely on "evidence"—for example, a style of dress, the presence of family members in the courtroom, and of course race—that rarely passes as evidence in the formal sense, and thus breezes past evidentiary gatekeepers unseen and unchecked. "Evidence Without Rules" calls much needed attention to this other evidence and demonstrates that such unregulated evidence matters in ways that have real consequences. Jurors use this other evidence to decide whether to find for a plaintiff or defendant, whether a defendant should go free or be deprived of liberty, and whether the defendant is deserving of life or death. Even in cases that do not go to trial, this unregulated evidence has outsized consequences, since these cases are negotiated and settled in the "shadow of trial" with prospective jurors in mind. More broadly, the role of other evidence belies what we tell ourselves about the way justice works, that it is based on the "rule of law." The truth is less comforting. The determination of outcomes, notwithstanding the Rules of Evidence, is often rule-less. To address this state of affairs, this article first offers a modest proposal, a simple jury instruction and directive. It then offers a solution that is anything but modest—a radical rethinking of the Rules of Evidence.


African-Americans, as historically disadvantaged minorities, have more advanced stages of cancer when diagnosed, lower survival rates, and lower rates of accessing timely care than do Caucasians. Lung cancer incidence and mortality, in particular, are high among African-Americans. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently released an evidence-based lung cancer screening technology called low-dose computerized tomography. High-risk African-Americans might benefit greatly from such screening but not many are aware of this technology. Public health nurses can play a key role in increasing awareness of the technology among African-American communities and encouraging qualified African-Americans to obtain screening. This study discusses issues with lung cancer and smoking among African-Americans, a recently released evidence-based lung cancer screening technology, and implications for public health nurses to enhance uptake of the new screening technology among high-risk African-Americans.


It is widely accepted that infertility and involuntary childlessness, and the decision to engage with ART services as a patient, donor, or surrogate can entail wide-ranging psychosocial issues. Psychosocial counselling has, therefore, become valued as an integral element of ART services. Globally however, a very mixed picture emerges of the current state – and status – of infertility counselling. While it is relatively well developed in some jurisdictions and is even formally supported by legislative mandates in some, such as several Australian states and the United Kingdom, it is far less well advanced elsewhere.
Evidence of the paucity of systematic information regarding the state of infertility counselling globally can be gauged by the most recent International Federation of Fertility Societies' Surveillance report which makes the following specific reference to counselling: in Croatia, Ireland and the Netherlands in respect of oocyte donation; a "few" (unspecified) jurisdictions in regard to embryo donation); Nepal as regards sperm donation; Belgium in respect of "welfare of the child" requirements, and general references to counselling for gestational surrogacy.


Internet of Things (IoT) is a key topic of interest in modern communication context with the evolution of 5G and beyond ecosystems. 5G will interconnects billions of IoT devices wirelessly. The wireless communication exposes the devices to massive security risks in different dimensions. The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is one of the promising solutions to eliminate security risks. It ensures the authentication and communication integrity by using public key certificates. However, the overhead of certificate storage is a significant problem for the resource constrained IoT devices. We propose an application of Elliptic Curve Qu Vanstone (ECQV) certificates, which are lightweight in size for the resource restricted IoT devices. Furthermore, we incorporate the blockchain based smart contracts to handle the certificate related operations. We utilize the smart contracts in the certificate issuance and developed a smart contract based threat scoring mechanism to automatically revoke the certificates. The lightweight nature of ECQV certificates enables the distributed ledger to store, update, and revoke the certificates. We evaluated the proposed solution in Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform.


Correlative sequences of sandstones, silt-stones, claystones, and thin argillaceous carbonate beds of late Carboniferous-Early Permian age occupy a distinct stratigraphic position over the entire greater Arabian basin. These rocks are bracketed by a regional unconformity below and a conformable succession of Permian carbonates above them. The basal contact is marked by a pronounced angular unconformity which separates this Carboniferous-Permian succession from underlying, much older rocks. The Carboniferous-Permian rocks crop out in thin bands and scattered small exposures in the basin, but they are commonly encountered in the subsurface. The age assignment for these rocks is based on both fossil plants and palynomorphs as well as on stratigraphie position. These rocks are represented by the Unayzah formation of Arabia and the Gulf region, the Amanus formation of Syria, the Hazro formation of southeast Turkey, the Ga9ara formation of Iraq, the Faraghan formation of southwest Iran, the Asfar formation of north Oman, the Gharif and Khlata formations (Haushi group) of south Oman, and the Akbarah formation of North Yemen. Sandstones of these Carboniferous-Permian sequences are important hydrocarbon exploration targets, as significant quantities of hydrocarbons are currently produced from reservoirs of these rocks in several oilfields in the basin.


Groundwater over-exploitation is a common phenomenon in many arid and semi arid regions of the world. Within India, north Gujarat is one of such intensively exploited regions. Groundwater supports irrigated crop production and intensive dairy farming in the region. Well irrigation is critical to the region's rural economy and livelihoods. The overall objective of the study was to examine the water demand management interventions on farming system, livelihood patterns, food and nutritional security and poverty. The study was based on the primary data collected from north Gujarat. The study suggests that the micro irrigation (MI) technology adoption had resulted in reduction in water application and improvement in crop yield varied from crop to crop. On an average, the net returns from MI irrigated plots are higher than that of plots irrigated by conventional method. The water productivity of the crops irrigated by MIs, in both physical and economic terms, was found to be much higher than that of their counterparts irrigated by traditional method. The benefit-cost analysis of MI-systems shows significant variations among different crops. The overall impact of MI adoption on the income of adopter families is striking, exceeding one lac rupees per annum. Such high escalations in annual income of a farm household can change the entire household dynamics. Adoption of MI systems with the introduction of new waterefficient crops had resulted in significant reduction in water use at the farm level. The average reduction was estimated to be 7527m3 per farm, whereas at the regional level, the total groundwater saving for irrigation was estimated to be 224MCM per annum.


Twenty patients with refractory rest angina pectoris were treated with intravenously (IV) administered nitroglycerin (mean dosage, 72.4 micrograms/min; range, 15 to 226 micrograms/min). There was a considerable reduction or abolition in the number of ischemic episodes in 85% of patients without overall substantial changes in heart rate, mean arterial BP, pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), and pulmonary arterial mean pressure. However, those patients with an initial PCWP of more than 12 mm Hg or a systolic pressure of more than 130 mm Hg had a substantial reduction in PCWP and systolic BP following IV nitroglycerin. We conclude that IV nitroglycerin may relieve rest angina by different pathophysiologic mechanisms. In some patients, IV nitroglycerin favorably altered the hemodynamic determinants of myocardial oxygen consumption. In others, however, no change in these determinants occurred, suggesting a direct effect on the coronary circulation.


Abstract: Diasporas do not arise from fixed connections to objective circumstances such as dispersion or relation to a homeland, but instead constantly are negotiated and re-constituted. Ranging from internal gradual change to sudden exogenous change, the re-making of a diaspora can take diverse forms. Despite the prevalence of constructivist and processual approaches, however, research on diaspora identity change has been limited. This paper takes a comparative historical perspective to the post-2016 diasporization of the Gülen Movement (GM) and discusses how the GM responded differently to sudden exogenous shocks in 1997, 2007, and 2016. In both historical institutionalism and rational choice theories, the sudden exogenous shocks do the heavy lifting to explain change; however, it is rather the endogenous parameters that account for the variation in the GM's responses to those shocks.


Epidemiological studies have shown that obesity and cigarette smoking (CS) are major cardiovascular (CV) risk factors and when coexisting in the same individuals have additive/synergistic effects upon CVD development. We have shown that stable compounds of CS (ATVB 2004) as well as nicotine, in concentrations found in smoker's plasma, promote atherosclerotic CVD (AJP 2013). Here we studied in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats with diet -induced obesity the mechanisms involved in nicotine enhancement of CVD. SD rats (N=6-7 each group) were fed either a high fat (HF) or a standard chow (SCH) diet with or without nicotine (100 mg/kg/day in the drinking water) for 20 weeks. The HF rats developed central obesity, characterized by increased body weight gain (22%) and abdominal fat weight (53%), increased plasma levels of cholesterol (33%), non-esterified free fatty acids (68%), insulin (15%) glucose (12%)and systolic blood pressure (SBP: 146 ± 5 vs. 131 ± 5 mmHg SCH rats, p<0.05). Nicotine further increased SBP in obese HF rats (158 ± 4 mmHg, p<0.05) but not in lean SCH rats. Nicotine significantly increased O2- production in both obese (1689 ± 87 count/min/mg) and lean rats (1074 ± 105 count/min/mg) and further impaired EDR (Emax: 74 ± 5%) in obese HF rats. Nicotine also increased the expression of the macrophage marker ED1 in the aortas of obese HF rats. In peritoneal macrophages from obese HF rats TNFα, IL1β and CD36 were increased, and were further significantly increased in nicotine-treated obese HF rats. Using PCR array for inflammatory cytokines and receptor signaling pathway we found that the aortas from obese HF rats showed 2-4 fold increases in expression of several chemokines and interleukin genes expression; nicotine further increased the expression of 11 pro-inflammatory genes in the aortas from obese HF rats. Our results suggest that nicotine dramatically aggravates the CV effects of diet -induced obesity by increasing oxidative stress, vascular inflammation and endothelial dysfunction. Clinically chronic inhalation of nicotine, as that delivered by E-cigarettes, by individuals unable to quit the habit may have an important pro-atherogenic effect, particularly in obese subjects.


Language specific editors are cognisant of the syntax and semantics of the programming language they manipulate. Despite the various potential advantages of language specific editors, they have not been widely accepted by software developers for serious software development. On the other hand direct manipulation editors, which are also cognisant of the entities they manipulate, have proven to be successful in other domains such as drawing and VLSI design tools. Thus, it is worth while investigating the incorporation of direct manipulation mechanisms into program editors. This paper presents a technique for specifying direct manipulation editing of programs which is amenable to the generation of language specific editors incorporating direct manipulation from a specification of the desired editing mechanisms.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the agreement between self-reported and routinely collected administrative health-care utilization data, and the factors associated with agreement between these two data sources.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING
A representative sample of seniors living in an Ontario county within Canada was identified using the Ontario Ministry of Health's Registered Persons Data Base in 1992. Health professional billing information and hospitalization data were obtained from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (OMH) and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).

STUDY DESIGN
A cross-sectional survey was carried out to assess any contact and frequency of contacts with health professionals and hospital admissions. Similar information was obtained from routinely collected administrative data. The level of agreement was assessed using the proportion of absolute agreement, Cohen's kappa statistic (kappa), and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Logistic and linear regressions were used to identify factors that were associated with the magnitude and direction of disagreement respectively.

DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS
Telephone interviews were conducted on 1,054 seniors, and complete data were available for 1,038 seniors. Each respondent's personal health number was used to electronically link survey data with health professional billing and hospitalization databases.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Substantial to almost perfect agreement was found for the contact utilization measures, while agreement on volume utilization measures varied from poor to almost perfect. In surveys, seniors overreported contact with general practitioners and physiotherapists or chiropractors, and underreported contact with other medical specialists. Seniors also underreported the number of contacts with general practitioners and other medical specialists. The odds of agreement decreased if respondents were male, aged 75 years and older, had incomes of less than $25,000, had poor/fair/good self-assessed health status, or had two or more chronic conditions.

CONCLUSION
The findings of this study indicate that there are substantial discrepancies between self-reported and administrative data among older adults. Researchers seeking to examine health-care use among older adults need to consider these discrepancies in the interpretation of their results. Failure to recognize these discrepancies between survey and administrative data among older adults may lead to the establishment of inappropriate health-care policies.