A survey of 52 smallholder fresh produce farmers was conducted in the Gauteng province of South Africa to grasp how risk and its management affect the mainstreaming of smallholder farmers into formal, high-value markets. The study employed a supply chain analysis approach, which focused on the functions and risks that occur along the fresh produce chain. The results highlight the risks that impede the participation of smallholder farmers in formal, high-value chains. At the production level, risk is prominent from input procurement through to the post-harvest stage of the chains. At the retail and consumption level, risks are linked to the adherence to quality and quantity standards, including prescribed packaging, grading, labelling and traceability and transport requirements. As a result of these risks across the formal chain, smallholder farmers often resort to distributing their products in low-value informal markets. The consequence is that smallholder farmers tend to remain trapped in poverty, in part, because of their risk appetites and their ability to bear risk. 8Further research is required in the areas pertaining to smallholder farmers' risk appetite and risk-bearing ability and mechanisms to deal with the particular risks in the value chain that impede their all-round ability to escape the "smallholder dilemma".


Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the commonest inflammatory arthritis, is a debilitating disease leading to decreased functional capacity, social disability and reduced quality of life. RA affects multisystems with chronic inflammatory disease characterized by destructive synovitis and muscular dysfunction leading to premature musculoskeletal aging, which has been coined with many terms including myopenia, sarcopenia, cachexia, muscle failure and muscle wasting. Myopenia is described as the presence of clinically relevant muscle wasting due to any illness at any age, associated with impaired muscle function, increased morbidity and mortality. RA myopenia has significantly less muscle mass compared to the general population muscle loss showing preservation or slight increase in fat mass. RA myopenia is unique compared to chronic disease-related myopenia in cancer, chronic heart failure, kidney disease and chronic infection as it is rarely accompanied by a net weight loss. RA myopenia has younger-age onset compared to elderly primary sarcopenia, while higher-grade inflammation has been considered as the pathophysiology of muscle wasting. Research, however, indicates that inflammation itself cannot fully explain the high prevalence of muscle wasting in RA. This chapter aims to review the literature on the casual relationships among RA myopenia, premature musculoskeletal aging and management strategies to delay musculoskeletal aging.


We examined implicit memory using priming and procedural learning tasks in patients with probable Dementia-Alzheimer's Type (DAT) to examine whether priming and procedural processes could be dissociated and whether task specificity was a factor in DAT patient performance. Priming was tested using a word recognition paradigm (perceptual priming) and by repeated administrations of a fragmented objects test (long term priming). Procedural learning was tested using repeated and random sequences on a choice serial reaction time task and by repeated administration of a puzzle map of the United States. DAT patients were compared to hospitalized depressed patients, patients suffering from Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), and normal controls. We found that DAT patients demonstrated marginal but significant implicit learning on both procedural learning and perceptual priming tasks. DAT patients performed relatively better on the procedural learning task than a perceptual priming task compared to PSP patients, suggesting that priming of meaningful stimuli is subserved by cortical structures whereas procedural motor responses to simple serial visual stimulus patterns can be maintained by subcortical systems. Furthermore, our findings suggest that priming and procedural processes can be dissociated and that task specificity is a factor in interpreting the results of implicit learning paradigms in DAT patients. The implications of these results for models of knowledge representation and memory processes as well as the way they can serve as models for testing nootropic drug effects are discussed.


We have examined the response of the mouse embryonic cell line C3H10T1/2 to transfection with the activated human c-H-ras oncogene and the gag-myc oncogene from avian myelocytomatosis virus 29. C3H10T1/2 cells are not morphologically transformed following transfection with the gag-myc oncogene. A low level of focus formation is observed following transfection of the c-H-ras oncogene. When C3H10T1/2 cells are cotransfected with the ras and myc oncogenes, focus formation is increased by an average of 13 fold. In addition, C3H10T1/2 ras/myc foci have a distinct, transformed morphology which correlates with an increased potential for anchorage-independent growth. Although morphological transformation in this system is largely a function of ras oncogene expression, our studies demonstrate that it is potentiated by the presence of a functional gag-myc protein. Oncogene-mediated multistep transformation, which was first described in primary embryo cultures, is not a general property of established cell lines. The C3H10T1/2 cell line is an exception and provides a model system in which partially transformed phenotypes, in a progression toward malignant transformation, can be isolated and studied.


Aims. We present the first results of an ambitious ground-based observation programme conducted on 1–4 m class telescopes. Our sample consists of 1097 active and presumably young stars, all of them being optical (Tycho Catalogue) counterparts of ROSAT AllSky Survey X-ray sources in the northern hemisphere. In this paper, we concentrate on the optically brightest (VT 9. m 5) candidates (704 objects). We acquired high-resolution optical spectroscopy in the Hα and/or lithium spectral regions for 426 of such stars without relevant data in the literature. We describe the star sample and the observations and we start to discuss the physical properties of the investigated stars. Methods. We used a cross-correlation technique and other tools developed by us to derive accurate radial and rotational velocities and to perform an automatic spectral classification for both single stars and double-lined systems. The spectral subtraction technique was used to derive chromospheric activity levels and lithium abundances. We estimated the fraction of young single stars and multiple systems in stellar soft X-ray surveys and the contamination by more evolved systems, like RS CVn binaries. We classified stars on the basis of their lithium abundance and give a glimpse of their sky distribution. Results. The sample appears to be a mixture of quite young Pleiades-like and Hyades-like stars plus an older lithium-poor population probably born within the last 1–2 Gyr. Seven stars with a lithium abundance compatible with the age of IC 2602 (about 30 Myr) or even younger were detected as well, although two appear to be lithium-rich giants.The discovery of a large number of highly or moderately lithium-rich giants is another outcome of the present survey. Conclusions. The contamination of soft X-ray surveys by old systems in which the activity level is enhanced by tidal synchronisation is not negligible, especially for K-type stars. Five stars with lithium content close to the primordial abundance are probably associated with already known moving groups in the solar neighbourhood. Some of them are good post-T Tauri candidates according to their positions in the HR diagram.


The thermal behavior of discrete phases formed in the respective systems of malic acid enantiomers and L-enantiomers of the amino acids valine and isoleucine was studied using the temperature-resolved PXRD method. In the (S)-malic acid–(R)-malic acid system, thermal deformations in crystal structures of stable compounds (enantiomer S, racemates RSI and RSII, and non-equimolar compound S3R) and polymorph transformations of metastable compounds (racemate RSIII and non-equimolar compound 3S1R) were examined. In the L-valine–L-isoleucine system, thermal deformations in crystal structures of stable compounds L-Val and L-Ile and non-equimolar compound V2I were investigated. Thermal deformation analysis included plotting the temperature dependence of the unit cell parameters and volume, calculating thermal deformation tensors, plotting figures of thermal expansion coefficients (CTE), and estimating the extent of thermal deformation anisotropy. In all the cases studied, the maximal thermal expansion was observed in the direction of the weakest hydrogen (malic acid) or van der Waals (valine and isoleucine) intermolecular bonds, i.e. in the directions closest to that perpendicular to the dimer molecule chains (malic acid) or to molecular layers (valine and isoleucine). The strongest anisotropy of thermal deformations in monoclinic crystals was observed in the ac plane, in which the symmetrically unfixed angle β can vary.


This paper describes microprocessor-based control of photovoltaic power conditioning system, where the microprocessor is responsible for control of output power in accordance with the generated array DC power. The microprocessor includes the control algorithm of maximum power point tracking and converter control algorithm. In this power, we have designed a MPPT(Maximum Power Point Tracker) algorithm with environment factors and a PWM(Pulse Width Modulation) algorithm for high efficiency. The controller has been tested in the laboratory with the power conditioner and shows excellent performance.


Double resonance excitation, where the energies of vibrational and electronic molecular transitions are combined in a single, sequential excitation process, was introduced in the 1970s but has only been recently applied to microscopy due to the immense progress in Raman spectroscopy. The value of the technique is in combining the chemical selectivity of IR or Raman excitation with the much larger cross-sections of electronic transitions. Recently, it has been shown to be particularly suited for the detection and identification of chromophores at low concentrations and in the presence of spectral crosstalk. However, despite its low quantum yield per pulse sequence, we believe the technique has potential for selective photochemical transformations. There are some cases (e.g., the selective excitation of optogenetic switches) where the low yield may be overcome by repeated excitations to build up biochemically relevant concentrations. Here we show that double resonance excitation using general, non-resonant Raman pre-excitation is a viable candidate for selectively promoting molecules to chemically active energy levels. The use of non-resonant Raman pre-excitation is less constraining than resonant Raman (used in previous double resonance microscopy works) since the choice of Raman pump-Stokes frequencies may be rather freely chosen.


Proof automation is a common bottleneck for industrial adoption of formal methods. Heuristic search techniques fail to discharge every proof obligation (PO), and significant effort is spent on proving the remaining ones interactively. Luckily, they usually fall into several proof families, where a single idea is required to discharge all similar POs. However, interactive formal proof requires expertise and is expensive: repeating the ideas over multiple proofs adds up to significant costs. The AI4FM research project aims to alleviate the repetitive effort by "learning" from an expert doing interactive proof. The expert's proof attempts can give rise to reusable strategies, which capture the ideas necessary to discharge similar POs. Automatic replay of these strategies would complete the remaining proof tasks within the same family, enabling the expert to focus on novel proof ideas. This thesis presents an architecture to capture the expert's proof ideas as a highlevel proof process. Expert insight is not reflected in low-level proof scripts, therefore a generic ProofProcess framework is developed to capture high-level proof information, such as proof intent and important proof features of the proof steps taken. The framework accommodates branching to represent the actual proof structure as well as layers of abstraction to accommodate different granularities. The full history of how the proof was discovered is recorded, including multiple attempts to capture alternative, failed or unfinished versions. A prototype implementation of the ProofProcess framework is available, including integrations with Isabelle and Z/EVES theorem provers. Two case studies illustrate how the ProofProcess systems are used to capture high-level proof processes in examples from industrial-style formal developments. Reuse of the captured information to discharge similar proofs within the examples is also explored. The captured high-level information facilitates extraction of reusable proof strategies. Furthermore, the data could be used for proof maintenance, training, proof metrics, and other use cases.


The quality of statistical calibration of hydraulic and transport soil properties is studied for infiltration experiments in which, over a given period, tracer-contaminated water is injected into an hypothetical column filled with a homogeneous soil. The saturated hydraulic conductivity, the saturated and residual water contents, the Mualem-van Genuchten shape parameters and the longitudinal dispersivity are estimated in a Bayesian framework using the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler. The impact of the kind of measurement sets (water content, pressure inside the column, cumulative outflow and outlet solute concentration) and that of the solute injection duration is investigated by analyzing the calibrated model parameters and their confidence intervals for different scenarios. The results show that the injection period has a significant effect on the quality of the estimation, in particular, on the posterior uncertainty range of the parameters. All hydraulic and transport parameters of the investigated soil can be well estimated from the experiment using only the outlet concentration and cumulative out-flow, which are measured non-intrusively. An improvement of the identifiability of the hydraulic parameters is observed when the pressure data from measurements taken inside the column are also considered in the inversion.


An increasing number of statistical problems arise in connection with functional calibration. In each case, inexpensive indirect data in a particular context are combined with direct expensive-to-acquire data from different but related settings to estimate quantities in the former case. Sometimes (e.g., in chemometrics problems where spectroscopic calibration is used) the indirect data are functional. But more commonly, they are scalar or vector-valued, and the functional component is the quantity that we wish to estimate. The problem treated here is of the latter type. We observe data that give us access to the distribution of U given V, and from these and data on U, we wish to estimate the density of V. The motivating real datasets are of age and covariate information in fish populations. We suggest two methodologies, each of which is based on transforming the problem to one involving inversion of a symmetric linear operator. Our techniques have connections to methods for functional data analysis and for a variety of mixture and deconvolution problems, as well as to calibration techniques.


The MammoSite radiation therapy system is a novel technique for treatment of patients with early‐stage breast cancer. It was developed to overcome the longer schedules associated with external‐beam radiation therapy. It consists of a small balloon (4 cm in diameter) connected to an inflation channel and a catheter for the passage of a high dose rate  192Ir brachytherapy source. The device is placed into the tumor resection cavity and inflated with a mixture of saline and radiographic contrast agent to a size that fills the cavity. A high dose rate  192Ir source is driven into the balloon center using a remote afterloader to deliver the prescribed dose at a point 1 cm away from the balloon surface. There are several uncertainties that affect the dose distribution in the MammoSite brachytherapy. They include source position deviation, balloon deformation, and the concentration of the contrast medium inside the balloon. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of the dose perturbation for various concentrations of the contrast medium in a MammoSite balloon using Monte Carlo simulations and thermoluminescent dosimetry. This study also combines the impact of these uncertainties on the MammoSite treatment efficacy. The current study demonstrates that the combined uncertainties associated with the MammoSite brachytherapy technique — up to the value of 2 mm balloon deformation, 1 mm source deviation, and 15% contrast concentration — have no impact on the tumor control probability. PACS number: 87.53.‐j


"Disease-causing microbes have threatened human health for centuries. The Institute of Medicine's Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health believes that this threat will continue and may even intensify in coming years" (1). Thus begins the Institute of Medicine's 1992 Report on Emerging Infections. The Institute of Medicine indicated that "emergence may be due to the introduction of a new agent, to the recognition of an existing disease that has gone undetected, or to a change in the environment that provides an epidemiologic bridge." The recommendations encompassed both the ability to detect (surveillance) and respond to emerging infections. These recommendations laid the groundwork for establishment of the Emerging Infections Program (EIP).

This issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases marks the 20th anniversary of the EIP. Sponsored and organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the EIP is a multifaceted collaboration of CDC with 10 state health departments and their academic partners, with the goal of conducting a portfolio of work that can be characterized as enhanced public health surveillance and applied research to detect, prevent, and control emerging infectious diseases. Collaboration derives from the Latin word "collaboratus," meaning to labor together. The collaboration has been profound and successful, with marked commitment, creativity, and passion contributed by all participants.

This special issue incorporates a Festschrift for the EIP, celebrating the accomplishments of this distinctive enterprise over the past 2 decades. The first article of the series uses a tree metaphor to describe the history of the EIP over the past 20 years and discusses future directions for the network. The following article provides a state-based perspective, which includes the enhancement of public health infrastructure and the development of new academic and public health partnerships. Another article describes the considerable training and teaching activities undertaken by EIP investigators. Although training was among the consortium's explicit goals when EIP was initiated, its funding has been evanescent, thus requiring commitment and imaginative flexibility to create training opportunities in the context of active investigations. However, EIP investigators have derived great pleasure in training the next generation of public health epidemiologists, and this has yielded dividends for mentees, mentors and public health.

These initial articles are followed by a series of reviews that summarize and assess core EIP areas and some related noteworthy projects. The network has successfully established population-based surveillance for many pathogens of public health importance and has been able to provide insights into risk factors for disease, and characterization of pathogens. EIP data have been used to inform public health recommendations for the prevention and control of multiple infectious diseases and to evaluate public health interventions. Not resting on their laurels, the authors of these articles also look to future challenges, including those directly related to the infections, as well as others imposed by health inequities and changes in technology. A series of original research contributions by EIP investigators and their collaborators follows the reviews.

The scientific work of the EIP is directed through a genuinely collaborative steering committee comprised of lead investigators from all sites in the field, as well as CDC. It is co-chaired by a CDC investigator and a site senior investigator. Priority-setting discussions are open and genial, informed equally by national views and local perspectives. Formal votes are rare; consensus building is the norm. The participants have longevity; many have been with the program since its inception and have nurtured it through 2 decades of administrative, fiscal, and scientific labyrinths. As such, the participants have become true partners and value the mutual trust, sense of harmony, and friendships that have flourished over the years. These qualities, along with a shared commitment to science-based public health practice, have led to the success of the EIP and bode well as the network looks forward to tackling the next generation of emerging issues of public health importance.


We studied the influence of two overwintering microenvironments on survival and potential fecundity of goldenrod gall flies, Eurosta solidaginis (Fitch) (Diptera, Tephritidae). These freeze-tolerant larvae overwinter above the snow on standing goldenrod stems (elevated) or below the snow on broken stems (ground-level). When covered by snow, the ground-level larvae were well insulated and thus protected from the lowest temperatures of the winter, but, because they were warmer, they consumed more energy than their elevated counterparts. The ground-level group also experienced greater warming from the soil during sunny spring days, and their galls were less prone to drying than their elevated counterparts. By winter's end the groundlevel larvae exhibited significantly lower rates of emergence (83.5% vs 93.0%) and reduced potential fecundity (27411 eggs/female vs 33617 eggs/female). Models of seasonal energy use indicate that these differences were due to higher metabolic rates in the ground-level microenvironment due to insulation by snow and warming from the soil, which reduced the energy available for morphological development and egg production in the spring. We conclude that colder winter microenvironments can have a strong positive effect on overwintering ectotherms, particularly those that rely on energy stores accumulated during the autumn to produce eggs in spring. The enhanced reproductive output of insects overwintering in colder microenvironments may be a selective force promoting the evolution of increased cold-hardiness.


In her 2017 book, Rules for a Flat World, Gillian Hadfield upbraids the legal profession and the legal academy for ascribing supremacy, even exclusivity, to traditional legal institutions. Legal infrastructure, especially in the poorest countries, depends on entrepreneurs willing to shatter these myths. Hadfield prescribes possible solutions to the problem of inspiring and fostering entrepreneurship for legal infrastructure. This review essay describes how Rules for a Flat World envisions the reinvention of markets for legal rules and institutions in the image of Silicon Valley startups. This essay also describes humans' intrinsic longing for social ordering and dispute resolution. If the legal instinct is biologically based and mediated, then lawmaking should be evaluated as a branch of biolaw.


Abstract. Phytoplankton population dynamics play an important role in biogeochemical cycles in the Southern Ocean during austral summer. Recent environmental changes such as a rise in sea surface temperature (SST) are likely to impact on net primary productivity (NPP) and phytoplankton community composition. However, their spatiotemporal relationships are still unclear in the Southern Ocean. Here we assessed the relationships between NPP, dominant phytoplankton groups, and SST in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean over the past decade (1997–2007) using satellite remote sensing data. As a result, we found a statistically significant reduction in NPP in the polar frontal zone over the past decade during austral summer. Moreover, the decrease in NPP positively correlated with the dominance of diatoms (Kendall's rank correlation τ = 0.60) estimated by a phytoplankton community composition model, but not correlated with SST. In the seasonal ice zone, NPP correlated with not only the dominance of diatoms positively (τ = 0.56), but also the dominance of haptophytes (τ = −0.54) and SST (τ = −0.54) negatively. Our results suggested that summer NPP values were strongly affected by the phytoplankton community composition in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean.


Since the Institute of Medicine highlighted the devastating impact of medical errors in their seminal report, "To Err is Human" (2000), efforts have been underway to improve patient safety. A portion of medical errors are due to medication errors, and a large portion of these can be attributed to inadequate laboratory monitoring. In this thesis, I attempt to address this small but important corner of this patient safety endeavor. Why are patients not getting their laboratory monitoring tests? Do they fail to complete them or do doctors not order the tests in the first place? Which prescribers and which patients are least likely to do what is needed for testing to happen and what interventions would be most promising? To address these questions, I conducted a systematic review of existing interventions. I then proceeded with three aims: 1) To identify reasons that patients give for missing monitoring tests; 2) To identify patient and provider factors associated with monitoring test ordering; and 3) To identify patient and provider factors associated with completion of ordered testing. To achieve these aims, I worked with patients and data at the Fallon Clinic. For aim 1, I conducted a qualitative analysis of their reasons for missing tests as well as reporting completion and ordering rates. For aims 2 and 3, I used electronic medical record data and conducted a regression with patient and provider characteristics as covariates to identify factors contributing to test ordering and completion. Interviews revealed that patients had few barriers to completion, with forgetting being the most common reason for missing a test. The quantitative studies showed that: older patients with more interactions with the health care system were more likely to have tests ordered and were more likely to complete them; providers who more frequently prescribe a drug were more likely to order testing for it; and drug-test combinations that were particularly dangerous, indicated by a black box warning, were more likely to have appropriate ordering, though for these combinations, primary care providers were less likely to order tests appropriately, and patients were less likely to complete tests. Taken together, my work can inform future interventions in laboratory monitoring and patient safety.


Background: Physiologic processes such as childbirth and menopause can alter vulvovaginal aesthetic appearance, reduce sexual satisfaction, and cause symptoms of vulvovaginal atrophy which affects a woman's quality of life. There is debate about whether dynamic quadripolar radiofrequency (DQRF) can be used to improve such conditions. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies among patients undergoing treatment with DQRF. Methods: We conducted a literature search without language or article type restriction in PubMed, Cochrane library and Web of Science from inception to June 1, 2022. We included studies that reported outcomes of DQRF treatment. Article selection and data extraction in a predesigned data extraction form were conducted in duplicate. Individual studies reported outcomes in terms of the pre- and post-intervention repeated measures. Meta-analysis combined results across studies to produce effect sizes using random effects model with 95% confidence intervals (CI) taking into account sampling variance to adjust the estimated precision. PROSPERO: CRD42021227752. Results: The search yielded 781 articles, from which 4 case series (127 participants) were included. Two studies reported a significant improvement in patient and medical evaluation assessments of vulvovaginal aesthetic appearance. Significant improvements were reported by three studies for patient assessed sexual satisfaction/discomfort, vaginal laxity and symptoms of genitourinary syndrome of menopause. Meta-analysis showed a trend towards improvement in aesthetic appearance (4 studies; 0.89; 95% CI –0.15 to 1.93; I2 75.0%) and sexual satisfaction (2 studies; 0.62; 95% CI –0.03 to 1.27; I2 0.0%). Conclusion: Dynamic quaripolar radiofrequency is a potentially promising intervention to improve vaginal laxity, appearance and sexual satisfaction, as observed in four monocentric case series. Further studies with a control group, well-defined methods of patient selection and longer follow-up periods are necessary to reach a definitive conclusion.


Body size, shape and proportionality have been discovered to impose constraints upon capacity for optimal performance in sports. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the body proportions of percent body fat, fat mass and fat-free mass, and muscle mass of basketball players participated in All India Inter-Collegiate basketball tournament organised at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India from 27 January 2009 to 1 February 2010. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 55 basketball players (15 guard, 22 forward and 18 post players) who represented the state at National Basketball Championships. The instruments for data collection were weighing scale used to measure body weight, stadiometer to measure body weight, Harpenden skinfold caliper to measure skinfold thickness – biceps, triceps, supra-iliac and subscapular to calculate % body fat, fat mass and fat-free mass. All the measurements were taken by the ISAK level-2 accredited anthropometrists. The descriptive statistics of mean and SD and one-way analysis of variance were used to test inter-players positional differences in height, weight and body proportion estimations. The result reveals that basketball players has high fat free mass, muscle mass and a normal BMI, but low fat mass and % body fat which was at a risk zone even for wellness when compared with standard norms. This low % body fat and a high muscle mass calls for nutritional interventions, since the more muscle mass the higher the metabolic rate and a need for more calories to meet up their energy need.


Re-establishment of heritable latitudinal clines in growth-related traits has been recognized as evidence for adaptive evolution in invasive plants. However, less is known about latitudinal clines in defense and joint clinal evolution of growth and defense in invasive plants. We planted 14 native Argentinean populations and 14 introduced Chinese populations of Alternanthera philoxeroides in replicate common gardens in China. We investigated the latitudinal clines of traits related to growth and defense, and plasticity of these traits in relation to experiment site and soil nitrogen. We found that chemical defense decreased with latitude in introduced populations but increased with latitude in native populations. For growth rate, latitudinal clines were positive in introduced populations but nonexistent in native populations. There were also parallel positive latitudinal clines in total/shoot biomass and specific leaf area. Experiment site affected the occurrence or magnitude of latitudinal clines in growth rate, branch intensity and triterpenoid saponins concentration. Introduced populations were more plastic to experiment site and soil nitrogen than native populations. We provide evidence for rapid evolution of clines in growth and defense in an invasive plant. Altered herbivory gradients and trade-off between growth and defense may explain non-parallel clines between the native and introduced ranges.


Programmers of concurrent applications are faced with a complex performance space in which data distribution and concurrency management exacerbate the difficulty of building large, complex applications. To address these challenges, the Illinois Concert system provides a global names-pace, implicit concurrency control and granularity management, implicit storage management, and object oriented programming features. These features are embodied in a language ICC++ (derived from C++) which has been used to build a number of kernels and applications. As high level features can potentially incur overhead, the Concert system employs a range of compiler and runtime optimization techniques to efficiently support the high level programming model. The compiler techniques include type inference, inlining and specialization; and the runtime techniques include caching, prefetching and hybrid stack/heap multithreading. The effectiveness of these techniques permits the construction of complex parallel applications that are flexible, enabling convenient application modification or tuning. We present performance results for a number of application programs which attain good speedups and absolute performance.


A novel amino acid ionic liquid [C4mim][Gly] (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium glycine) was prepared by a neutralization method. The molar enthalpies of dilution, ΔDHm(mi→mf), of aqueous [C4mim][Gly] at various molalities were measured at (298.15 ± 0.01) K. The values of the apparent relative molar enthalpy, φL, were calculated by using both the extended Debye−Huckel equation and the Pitzer equation, which were in good agreement within experimental error. In terms of φL, the molar enthalpies of solution of [C4mim][Gly], ΔsHm, at various molalities were estimated. The estimated values of ΔsHm were consistent with the experimental values previously obtained.


The co-crystal of phenazine and chloroanilic acid is known to display paraelectric properties at room temperature. It shows a paraelectric to ferroelectric phase transition at 253 K and has an incommensurately modulated ferroelectric phase below 137 K. High-resolution synchrotron X-ray data were collected at 160 K to model the experimental electron-density distributions, and derived topological properties from the electron density were used to quantify the weak interactions responsible for the origin of the ferroelectric phase. The structure and non-covalent interactions are analysed using Hirshfeld surfaces and energy frameworks. The topological properties, energies, atomic charges and molecular electrostatic potential surfaces are determined from the experimental data, further supported by theoretical calculations. The results from the ferroelectric phase are compared with the paraelectric phase. Although the structural descriptions indicate neutral phenazine and chloroanilic acid molecules in the ferroelectric phase, the topological properties of the electron density indicate a considerable amount of proton transfer in the O-H...O hydrogen bond. Indeed, the displaced H atom in the O-H...O hydrogen bond suggests a mixed covalent/polar nature of chemical bonding. Subtle changes in the chemical bonding and proton-transfer pathways could be detected from the high-resolution electron-density studies.


SUMMARY: Exocellular penicillinases from strains 569 and 5/B of Bacillus cereus gave almost identical activity-neutralization curves when titrated with antisera prepared against the enzyme from either strain; but were easily distinguishable by differences in their neutralization reaction with an anti-569 penicillinase serum previously partially absorbed with either the 5/B or the 569 enzyme. By contrast, no differences in neutralization reaction were detected between basal and induced penicillinase from strain 569 and the constitutive penicillinase from strain 569/H (a mutant derived from strain 569), when treated with samples of the anti-569 penicillinase serum, previously partially absorbed with each penicillinase preparation separately.
Strain 569 was not found to produce any substance in significant quantities capable of combining with anti-penicillinase neutralizing antibodies other than penicillinase itself.


Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to seek to shed light on the practice of incomplete corporate disclosure of quantitative Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and investigates whether external stakeholder pressure influences the existence, and separately, the completeness of voluntary GHG emissions disclosures by 431 European companies. Design/methodology/approach - – A classification of reporting completeness is developed with respect to the scope, type and reporting boundary of GHG emissions based on the guidelines of the GHG Protocol, Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Disclosure Project. Logistic regression analysis is applied to examine whether proxies for exposure to climate change concerns from different stakeholder groups influence the existence and/or completeness of quantitative GHG emissions disclosure. Findings - – From 2005 to 2009, on average only 15 percent of companies that disclose GHG emissions report them in a manner that the authors consider complete. Results of regression analyses suggest that external stakeholder pressure is a determinant of the existence but not the completeness of emissions disclosure. Findings are consistent with stakeholder theory arguments that companies respond to external stakeholder pressure to report GHG emissions, but also with legitimacy theory claims that firms can use carbon disclosure, in this case the incomplete reporting of emissions, as a symbolic act to address legitimacy exposures. Practical implications - – Bringing corporate GHG emissions disclosure in line with recommended guidelines will require either more direct stakeholder pressure or, perhaps, a mandated disclosure regime. In the meantime, users of the data will need to carefully consider the relevance of the reported data and develop the necessary competencies to detect and control for its incompleteness. A more troubling concern is that stakeholders may instead grow to accept less than complete disclosure. Originality/value - – The paper represents the first large-scale empirical study into the completeness of companies' disclosure of quantitative GHG emissions and is the first to analyze these disclosures in the context of stakeholder pressure and its relation to legitimation.


Objectives: Hemolysis is a known complication of pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation associated with renal failure and mortality. We sought to identify predictors of hemolysis in pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients and determine its influence on outcomes. Design: Retrospective, single-center study. Setting: Urban, quaternary care center pediatric and neonatal ICU. Patients: Ninety-six patients requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Daily measurements of plasma-free hemoglobin were obtained while patients were on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Patients with a prior extracorporeal membrane oxygenation run, on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for less than 24 hours, or without complete medical records were excluded from the study. Ninety-six patients met inclusion criteria, of which, 25 patients (26%) had plasma-free hemoglobin greater than 30 mg/dL. Of those patients, 15 of 25(60%) had plasma-free hemoglobin greater than 50 mg/dL, and 21 of 25(84%) occurred during the first 7 days on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Compared with patients without hemolysis, those with hemolysis were younger (0.2 mo [0.06–3.2 mo] vs 8.2 mo [0.6–86 mo]; p < 0.001), had a higher pericannulation international normalized ratio (3.9 [3.5–5.5] vs 2.6 [1.8–3.7]; p = 0.003), lower pericannulation platelet count (33 × 103/&mgr;L [22–42 × 103/&mgr;L] vs 61 × 103/&mgr;L [38–86 × 103/&mgr;L]; p < 0.001), and had a less negative inlet pressure (–3.5 mm Hg [–14 to 11.5 mm Hg] vs –19 mm Hg [–47 to 0 mm Hg]; p = 0.01). A greater proportion of patients with hemolysis had a heparin assay less than 0.2 mg/dL (50% vs 17%; p = 0.001) and had fluid removal via slow continuous ultrafiltration (32% vs 6%; p < 0.001). Patients with hemolysis had increased risk of in-hospital mortality (odds ratio 10.0; 95% CI 3.4–32; p < 0.001). On multivariable analysis, continuous ultrafiltration (odds ratio, 8.0; 95% CI, 1.9–42; p = 0.007) and pericannulation international normalized ratio greater than 3.5 (odds ratio, 7.2; 95% CI, 2.3–26; p = 0.001) were significantly associated with hemolysis. Conclusions: Hemolysis is a common complication of pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. We found that patients with hemolysis (plasma-free hemoglobin > 30 mg/dL) had a 10-fold increase in in-hospital mortality. In our study cohort, hemolysis was associated with continuous ultrafiltration use, but not continuous renal replacement therapy. Additionally, our results suggest that the degree of coagulopathy (international normalized ratio > 3.5) at the time of cannulation influences hemolysis. Additional prospective studies are necessary to define further strategies to prevent hemolysis and improve outcomes in pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients.


Approximately half of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) are nonfunctioning, and insulinoma and gastrinoma are frequent forms of functioning tumors. The treatment of patients with PNETs should be based on the consideration that more than half are malignant except for insulinomas. Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is often complicated with gastrinoma. Endoscopic ultrasound and somatostain receptor scintigraphy are useful in diagnosing PNETs, and the selective arterial secretagogue injection test is performed if necessary. WHO2010 is available as a histopathologic grading system of malignancy. Although surgical resection should first be considered as a treatment for PNETs, liver metastasis is a major factor hindering resection. In Japan, the choices of drugs to treat liver metastases are too few. In patients with MEN1 in whom PNETS are frequently multiple, we should perform procedures that preserve pancreatic function, although some patients may require total pancreatectomy for the complete resection of tumors. The indications for total pancreatectomy should be determined individually based on the tumor status and patient age.


The phase separation of globular protein clusters formed by heat-denatured beta-lactoglobulin (beta-lg) in mixtures with the polysaccharide kappa-carrageenan (kappa-car) has been studied at pH 7 and 20 degrees C. The effect of the protein cluster size on the phase separation was investigated by preparing clusters with radii between 20 nm and 1 mum. The formation of protein rich microdomains led to an increase of the turbidity starting at a minimum kappa-car concentration that decreased with increasing cluster size, but was only weakly dependent on the protein concentration. The size and number of microdomains do not depend much on the cluster size, but their density decreases with increasing cluster size leading to a lower turbidity.


Summary
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of different concentrations of xanthan and guar gums and their blends on staling of gluten-free rice cakes baked in microwave-infrared combination oven (MW–IR) and to compare the cakes with conventionally baked ones. Gums were added at concentrations of 0.3% and 1.0%. For preparation of gum blend, 0.5% xanthan gum was mixed with 0.5% guar gum. In order to understand the staling behaviour of cakes, cakes were stored at 22 ± 2 °C for 120 h. Xanthan-guar gum blend decreased hardness, weight loss, retrogradation enthalpy and the change in setback viscosity values of cakes during storage for both types of ovens as compared to control formulation. It was found that oven type was a significant factor in affecting staling parameters of gluten-free cakes.


This study analyses alcohol-related articles appearing in Finnish women's magazines from the 1960s to the present day. Women's magazines are approached as institutions constituting feminine publicities that address issues of interest as well as problems and contradictions in women's everyday life. Influenced by Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital, data analysis focuses around three main questions: (1) in what kinds of fields do the texts locate drinking; (2) what kinds of drinking-related subject positions do the texts offer their readers; and (3) what kinds of economic, social, cultural, physical, emotional and symbolic resources do they discursively construct and attach to these subject positions? The analysis shows that throughout the study period, women's magazines' alcohol-related texts position women readers into the realm of home and family and construct capitals that reinforce a 'caring ethics'. On the other hand, from the 1990s onwards, alcohol-related texts in women's magazines also begin to assign women to consumer positions of hedonistic consumer, rational consumer, status-oriented consumer, expert consumer and the consumer who is keen to break away from formality and construct capitals for these positions as well as wage through them a symbolic struggle over which lifestyles are 'in' and which are 'out'.


Abstract Cellular response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) includes both reversible redox signaling and irreversible nonenzymatic reactions which depend on the nature and concentration of the ROS involved. Changes in thiol/disulfide pairs affect protein conformation, enzymatic activity, ligand binding, and protein–protein interactions. During spermatogenesis and epididymal maturation, there are ROS-dependent modifications of the sperm chromatin and flagellar proteins. The spermatozoon is regulated by redox mechanisms to acquire fertilizing ability. For this purpose, controlled amounts of ROS are necessary to assure sperm activation (motility and capacitation). Modifications of the thiol groups redox status of sperm proteins are needed for spermatozoon to achieve fertilizing ability. However, when ROS are produced at high concentrations, the established oxidative stress promotes pathological changes affecting sperm function and leading to infertility. Sperm proteins are sensitive to high levels of ROS and suffermodifications that impact onmotility, capacitation, and the ability of the spermatozoon to recognize and bind to the zona pellucida and damage of sperm DNA. Thiol oxidation, tyrosine nitration, and S-glutathionylation are highlighted in this review as significant redox-dependent protein modifications associated with impairment of sperm function and alteration of paternal genome leading to infertility. Peroxiredoxins, the primary antioxidant protection in spermatozoa, are affected by most of the protein modifications described in this review. They play a significant role in both physiological and pathological processes in mammalian spermatozoa. Summary Sentence Reactive oxygen species promote redox-dependent protein modifications that lead to impairment of sperm function.


At Bose Institute Prof. Debendra Mohan Bose and his co-workers made globally recognised contributions in the field of cosmic rays including the first recording of mu-meson tracks. Prof. D. M. Bose and Dr. Biva Choudhury did their cosmic ray experiments at the Darjeeling campus of Bose Institute (along with Sandakphu and Pharijong). Presently the Darjeeling campus hosts a National facility for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science. In Kolkata also there is a Centre for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science (CAPSS). In these two campuses, we are still working on the R\&D of plastic scintillation detectors for the study of the cosmic rays to preserve the legacy of Prof. D. M. Bose.
The only cosmic ray air shower array in the eastern part of India, consisting of seven plastic scintillator detectors is commissioned at an altitude of about 2200~meters above sea level (a.s.l.) in the Eastern Himalayas (Darjeeling) at the end of January 2018. The cosmic ray air shower array has a hexagon shape with six detectors kept at the vertices ofthe hexagon and one at the center of it. The distance between two consecutive detectors is 8 meters. Each detectorelement is made up of four plastic scintillators of dimension 50~cm~$\times$~50~cm~$\times$~1~cm thereby forming a totalactive area of 1~m$^2$. These scintillators are fabricated indigenously in the Cosmic RayLaboratory (CRL), TIFR, Ooty, India. All four scintillators of a detector are coupled with a singlePhoto Multiplier Tube (PMT) using wavelength shifting (WLS) fibers. A custom-built module withseven inputs is used to generate a multi-fold trigger. Measurement of the number of cosmic ray airshower is going on since the end of January 2018. The secondary cosmic ray flux and its variation overtime are also recorded at the laboratory in Darjeeling using a three-fold coincidence technique withplastic scintillators. All the details of the experimental setup, techniques of measurement are reported earlier. The updates in the results are presented in this article.
In this review article, the details of the R\&D program of plastic scintillation detectors carried out during the last five years, for the study of cosmic ray is reported.


UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh started the Genetic Testing Clinic (GTC) in January 2018. The GTC is a genetic counseling-only clinic that offers same-day and advance-scheduled appointments for referrals from non-genetic providers ordering a genetic test. This clinic is unique in that it incorporates utilization management (UM) for the requested genetic test while providing comprehensive genetic counseling. After one year and 459 patients, outcomes of the clinic, such as test order modifications, family history risk assessment and triage, and genetic test uptake were assessed. Upon IRB approval, retrospective chart review of the electronic medical record and internal databases were performed for 206 of the GTC patients to obtain detailed outcomes of the clinic. Additionally, chart review of genetic testing completed by non-genetics providers prior to the GTC's inception in 2017 was performed for a comparison. Chart review identified 14.6% (30/206) of the GTC patients had unrelated family history risk factors, for which a referral to cancer genetics or cardiogenetics was provided and 7.3% (15/206) of GTC patients had their test modified based upon genetic counselor review. Finally, review of possible results, risks, benefits and limitations of genetic testing were discussed and documented routinely for GTC patients. In contrast, non-genetics providers often lacked documentation of the informed consent process. 77/150 (51%) of the non-genetics providers did not document any of the possible types of genetic testing results, 67/150 (45%) documented one type of possible genetic testing result; 112/150 (75%) did not document any risks, benefits or limitations; and 149/150 (99%) did not document the possibility of incidental findings. Genetic counseling is valuable for patients undergoing genetic testing; however, not every patient receives genetic counseling. This clinic represents a service delivery model that provides genetic counseling and UM for patients who may not have otherwise received it. This has public health significance as it improves access to genetic counseling services, ensures comprehensive pre- and post- test counseling, and has improved insurance authorization approval.


Mass unbalance of magnetically levitated rotors causes deteriorations of dynamic and static characteristics. To avoid this problem, it is necessary that mode matrices (i.e., a mode selection/distribution matrices) are adjusted appropriately. This is because these matrices are set based on the rotor's centre of gravity and magnetic force coefficients of electromagnets. It takes long time to adjust the parameters of the mode matrices by trial and error. To design these parameters efficiently, we propose an adjustment method based on experimental analysis. Experimental results of step response show effectiveness of the proposed method. On the other hand, the eccentricity of the rotor causes unbalanced vibration, which is a common problem in rotating machinery. To suppress the vibration, automatic balancing system (ABS) and peak-of-gain control (PGC) are utilised. By using the ABS (the PGC), the bearing stiffness at rotational frequency is decreased (increased). In previous works, implementation methods for these have not been presented fully. Thus, in this paper, we considered the implementation of the ABS and the PGC. Moreover, practical advantages of the PGC/ABS are demonstrated by rotational tests of a turbo molecular pump.


In this study, art history and classics students were asked to perform descriptive tasks for art images from an Images for Teaching Collection. The descriptive terms that the participants assigned to the images were recorded and compared to the existing descriptive metadata for these images. Correspondence between the existing metadata and the participant-assigned subject terms was analyzed and characterized. Through this comparison, the researcher was able to determine approximate retrieval rates for subject based searching, analyze the types of subject analysis being done by each group, and test, through the use of a variable group, a potential framework for providing visual literacy outreach.


Abstract In 1925 Alfons Loogman, a Holy Ghost Father, established the Catholic Swahili monthly paper Rafiki Yetu ('Our Friend') in Kenya. In the literature little is known about this journal, although it developed into the most important Catholic Swahili
 journal of East Africa. Loogman did not get much support of the apostolic vicar and his confreres for his initiative, so the publication of the journal became a personal enterprise. Rafiki Yetu was targeting a broad public, not only Catholics but all African inhabitants of East Africa,
 no matter their faith. The content of the journal was a mixture of religious and secular topics. The journal had a wide circulation in Kenia, Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Uganda. In contrast to two other Catholic papers, Rafiki Yetu was published in Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa.
 Loogman developed the Rafiki Yetu enterprise into a small printing press. However, Loogman could not realise his dreams of publishing a weekly or even a daily journal because he was transferred to another vicariate and other missionaries continued publishing Rafiki Yetu until
 1964.


Meixner's historical remark in 1969 "... it can be shown that the concept of entropy in the absence of equilibrium is in fact not only questionable but that it cannot even be defined...." is investigated from today's insight. Several statements --such as the three laws of phenomenological thermodynamics, the embedding theorem and the adiabatical uniqueness-- are used to get rid of non-equilibrium entropy as a primitive concept. In this framework, Clausius inequality of open systems can be derived by use of the defining inequalities which establish the non-equilibrium quantities contact temperature and non-equilibrium molar entropy which allow to describe the interaction between the Schottky system and its controlling equilibrium environment.


Fuscheriid haptorids are characterized by meridionally extending ciliary rows clearly separated from the dikinetidal circumoral kinety; a two- or three-rowed dorsal brush; and oral basket rods (nematodesmata) originating from both, the circumoral dikinetids and from some oralized monokinetids in the anterior portion of the ciliary rows. Using standard morphological methods, we describe four new fuscheriid taxa, each discovered in a specific biogeographic region. Fuscheriides tibetensis nov. gen., nov. spec. has rod-shaped extrusomes and two dorsal brush rows. It is a small (~ 80 x 10 μm), slender ciliate with only seven ciliary rows, and was discovered in grassland soil of southern Tibet, about 4600 m above sea-level. Aciculoplites ethiopiensis nov. gen., nov. spec. has acicular extrusomes and two dorsal brush rows. It is a middle-sized (~ 100 x 30 μm), oblong ciliate with about 22 ciliary rows, and was discovered in floodplain soil from a lake in Ethiopia. Fuscheria uluruensis nov. spec., which we discovered in mud and aeolic soil from pools on top of the Ayers Rock in the red centre of Australia, is unique in having the macronucleus split into about 12 oblong nodules. The nodules originate post-divisionally via the branching macronucleus strand, as in multinucleate spathidiids. Fuscheria nodosa salisburgensis nov. sspec., which was discovered in mud and soil of a meadow pool in Salzburg (Austria), has a long, tortuous macronucleus and about 45 ciliary rows. The resting cyst has an escape apparatus absent from the cyst of F. uluruensis, indicating that Fuscheria is non-monophyletic.


Dynamic and unexpected events are defining characteristics of numerous application domains. These environments often require decision-makers to solve many problems with insufficient time and resources. To effectively assess options, decision-makers require situation analysis and decision-support tools that model the dynamism of these environments to make rapid, robust decisions. Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems satisfy these requirements for decision-making in dynamic environments. Developing a multi-agent system (MAS) is a challenging task, considering sophisticated agent interactions and uncertain environmental dynamics and domain requirements. This demonstration addresses the comprehensive development process for multi-agent systems; illustrating tools for the initial design of the agent system, the capabilities encoded in the individual agents, and analysis tools that enhance developer comprehension of system behavior.


Recently, Chang et al., (2004) proposed a new digital signature scheme with message recovery and claimed that neither one-way hash functions nor message redundancy schemes were employed in their scheme. However, in this letter, two forgery attacks are proposed to show that Chang et al.'s signature scheme is not secure. To resist these attacks, the message redundancy schemes may still be used.


Collaboration is frequently proposed as a way to increase access to higher education in urban areas. Policy makers sometimes use the absence of voluntary collaboration to force partnerships or avoid investments that address critical needs. The authors make the case that collaborations in higher education are difficult to achieve. They argue that in spite of attempts to build collaborative structures, the natural path of organizational development ultimately leads to stronger individual institutions.


Considering the soft constraint characteristics of voltage constraints, the Interior-Point Filter Algorithm is applied to solve the formulation of fuzzy model for the power system reactive power optimization with a large number of equality and inequality constraints. Based on the primal-dual interior-point algorithm, the algorithm maintains an updating "filter" at each iteration in order to decide whether to admit correction of iteration point which can avoid effectively oscillation due to the conflict between the decrease of objective function and the satisfaction of constraints and ensure the global convergence. Moreover, the "filter" improves computational efficiency because it filters the unnecessary iteration points. The calculation results of a practical power system indicate that the algorithm can effectively deal with the large number of inequality constraints of the fuzzy model of reactive power optimization and satisfy the requirement of online calculation which realizes to decrease the network loss and maintain specified margins of voltage.


Most Americans live at risk of experiencing a natural disaster. Such disasters are often accompanied by power outages, sometimes for extended periods. Six formal focus groups were conducted, two in North Carolina and four in Tennessee, to assess consumers' food safety knowledge and practices during extended power outages. Forty-seven adults of various ethnicities, ages, and genders participated in the focus groups held in libraries, extension offices, or other community centers. Participants' knowledge of safety precautions that should be taken during and after a power outage and the actions that participants had taken to be prepared for a possible power outage in the future were evaluated. Few participants were prepared for their most recent extended power outage, and most participants had not taken additional measures to prepare for a future outage. To determine the safety of food during or after a power outage, some participants relied on their senses. Barriers to not following recommended practices included not being aware of specific recommendations, not believing specific recommendations, procrastination, cost, and limited space for storing emergency supplies. Motivators to following the recommended practices included having concerns about contracting foodborne illness, believing the messages, and having recently experienced an extended power outage. It was concluded that few consumers were prepared to keep their food safe during an extended power. In anticipation of a natural disaster that may cause an extended power outage, food safety educators should work with the media to provide information to consumers on actions they should take to prepare for an extended power outage.


Abstract For more than 50 years, two exotic ant species, Linepithema humile (Mayr) and Pheidole megacephala (F.), have been battling for ecological supremacy in Bermuda. Here we summarize known ant records from Bermuda, provide an update on the conflict between the dominant ant species, and evaluate the possible impact of the dominant species on the other ants in Bermuda. We examined ant specimens from Bermuda representing 20 species: Brachymyrmex heeri Forel, B. obscurior Forel, Camponotus pennsylvanicus (De Geer), Cardiocondyla emeryi Forel, C. obscuriorWheeler, Crematogaster sp., Hypoponera opaciceps (Mayr),H. punctatissima (Roger), L. humile, Monomorium monomorium Bolton, Odontomachus ruginodisSmith, Paratrechina longicornis (Latreille), P. vividula (Nylander), P. megacephala, Plagiolepis alluaudi Forel, Solenopsis (Diplorhoptrum) sp., Tetramorium caldarium Roger, T. simillimum (Smith), Wasmannia auropunctata (Roger), and an undetermined Dacetini. Records for all but three (H. punctatissima, P. vividula, W. auropunctata) include specimens from 1987 or later. We found no specimens to confirm records of several other ant species, including Monomorium pharaonis(L.) and Tetramorium caespitum(L.). Currently, L. humile dominates most of Bermuda, while P. megacephala appear to be at its lowest population levels recorded. Though inconspicuous, B. obscurior is common and coexists with both dominant species. Paratrechina longicornis has conspicuous populations in two urban areas. Three other ant species are well established, but inconspicuous due to small size (B. heeri, Solenopsis sp.) or subterranean habits (H. opaciceps). All other ant species appear to be rare, including at least one, O. ruginodis, which was apparently more common in the past.


Context: Schizophrenia is not only a complex and disabling illness, but also costly. Cognitive impairment is a major determinant of functional outcome of patients. Aims: To determine the relationship between the direct cost of treatment and the cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. Settings and Design: This is a longitudinal study at a tertiary mental health facility in northern Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This study involved 270 patients with schizophrenia aged 15–64 years. Instruments used included Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS), the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview PLUS and a modified cost of illness (COI) questionnaire. Statistical analysis used: All tests of statistics were carried out at 5% level of probability. Results: A total of 270 participated in this study with a male: female ratio of almost 1. The mean age of participants 33.04 years. Majority were unemployed (51.5%), single (45.6%) and of low socioeconomic class (88.5%). Lower SCoRS for stable patients was significantly associated with higher educational attainment, occupational and marital status, high socioeconomic status and absence of caregiver. SCoRS had a significant correlation with duration of untreated psychosis, COI, age at onset, duration of illness, length of caregiving and number of caregivers. Conclusion: Cognitive impairment experienced by patients with schizophrenia are numerous, not only by the suffering and limitations it imposes on them, but also the enormous cost and burden that comes with caregiving. Efforts geared toward early detection and presentation of schizophrenia patients, and subsidizing cost of drug by government will go a long way in reducing cognitive impairment among patients.


The reaction of (4-methyl-pyridin-2-iloxy)ditertbutylsilane (NSitBu-H, 1) with [IrCl(coe)2]2 affords the iridium(iii) complex [Ir(H)(Cl)(κ2-NSitBu)(coe)] (2), which has been fully characterized including X-ray diffraction studies. The reaction of 2 with AgCF3SO3 leads to the formation of species [Ir(H)(CF3SO3)(κ2-NSitBu)(coe)] (3). The iridium complexes 2 and 3 are effective catalysts for the reduction of formamides with HSiMe2Ph. The selectivity of the reduction process depends on the catalyst. Thus, by using complex 2, with a chloride ancillary ligand, it has been possible to selectively obtain the corresponding O-silylated hemiaminal by reaction of formamides with one equivalent of HSiMe2Ph, while complex 3, with a triflate ligand instead of chloride, catalyzed the selective reduction of formamides to the corresponding methylamine.


The e-government maturity model has dissimilar stages that range from basic to advance online interaction competence. E-government's portals use the stages to determine maturity. The aim of this paper is to evaluate e-government maturity models through a comprehensive review of related literature by identifying and mapping cohesions across the models. Apparently, the paper picks seventeen different e-government maturity models and makes contrasts and comparisons using a qualitative meta-synthesis method. Ideally, the paper draws two key results namely presence, communication and integration are main stages involved in all the maturity models and the level of interaction and complexity are found in all models


A name given by Molina in 1782 and again in 1810 to a new Phaseolus species after a food legume crop grown for millennia mostly in the western part of the Quechua realm in South America refers to that crop (in the text of his essay) as well as to a weed (in his short Latin description), thus raising taxonomical uncertainty. Obviously, a taxonomical epithet cannot refer to two different botanical entities within the same genus. An example of that uncertainty was the naming of a specimen likely of Macroptilium lathyroides collected in northern Colombia and kept in the negative series of Berlin-Dahlem at the Field Museum. That crop spread so widely and fast that it received several names that Molina and a fortiori Philippi should have considered.


BACKGROUND
post-operative delirium (POD) is a common complication in older patients, though a possible link between metabolic changes and POD development has yet to be investigated.

METHODS
older patients with hip fracture who underwent hemi-arthroplasty were recruited, and delirious states were assessed for 3 days after surgery using the confusion assessment method-Chinese revision. Simultaneously, fasting blood samples were collected on the morning of surgery and on the first post-operative day. Ultimately, 244 older patients who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were assessed. Blood samples from 60 patients with POD and 60 matched controls were analysed using metabolomics platforms.

RESULTS
sixty patients (24.6%) developed POD. Principal component analysis scores plot and cross-validated scores plots from orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis were implemented to visualise the differences in metabolites between the two groups before and after surgery (P < 0.05). Our data indicate that levels of ω3 and ω6 fatty acids were lower in the POD group than in the NPOD (non-POD) group both before and after surgery; tricarboxylic cycle intermediate levels were lower in the POD group than in the NPOD group, but glycolysis products were higher in the POD group than in the NPOD group after surgery. Furthermore, the branched-chain amino acid (BCAA)/aromatic amino acid ratio was lower in the POD group than in the NPOD group after surgery.

CONCLUSIONS
metabolic abnormalities, including deficiencies in ω3 and ω6 fatty acids, perturbations in tricarboxylic cycle and oxidative stress and metabolic imbalances in BCAA and AAA might contribute to POD development.


Fishing that takes place on flag-of-convenience vessels, outside the international regulatory structure, is increasingly undermining the ability of fishery conservation organizations to manage fish stocks. Among the most affected are high seas and highly migratory stocks such as tuna, swordfish, and toothfish. The traditional approach to addressing this problem, efforts to persuade non-member flag states to join international agreements, has met with little success. Recently, efforts by regional fishery management organizations to allow, or require, member states to refuse to allow the importation or transshipment of fish products that cannot be shown to be caught under the rules of the organization, have had much more of an effect in reinforcing conservation efforts. In response to these measures, some flag states have joined international agreements and some have taken steps to stop fishing activity by ships in their registries. Even ships that do not comply with these rules may cease to find markets for their products. The case of fishing regulations suggests both that, in an era of globalization, individual actors are willing and able to avoid international rules, and that collective international action to exclude them from the benefits of doing so can improve global regulatory efforts.


When we train a machine learning model, we don't just want it to learn to model the training data. We want it to generalize to data it hasn't seen before. Fortunately, there's a very convenient way to measure an algorithm's generalization performance: we measure its performance on a held-out test set, consisting of examples it hasn't seen before. If an algorithm works well on the training set but fails to generalize, we say it is overfitting. Improving generalization (or preventing overfitting) in neural nets is still somewhat of a dark art, but this lecture will cover a few simple strategies that can often help a lot.


This essay in its first part firstly affirms the methodological necessity to avoid a merely formal approach in the legal study of the role of the Head of State. Starting from this methodological assumption, the essay analyzes some of the most debated issues regarding the presidential role: the President's accountability or its lack thereof; the function to guarantee the continuity of the legal order; the President's role within a parliamentary form of government and more generally the possibility to attribute a prescriptive value (instead of a merely descriptive one) to the classification of the form of government. In its second part, the paper looks at some of the defining moments, from a constitutional perspective, of Napolitano's presidency.


In Genome Projects, biological sequences are aligned thousands of times, in a daily basis. The Smith-Waterman algorithm is able to retrieve the optimal local alignment with quadratic time and space complexity. So far, aligning huge sequences, such as whole chromosomes, with the Smith-Waterman algorithm has been regarded as unfeasible, due to huge computing and memory requirements. However, high-performance computing platforms such as GPUs are making it possible to obtain the optimal result for huge sequences in reasonable time. In this paper, we propose and evaluate CUDAlign 2.1, a parallel algorithm that uses GPU to align huge sequences, executing the Smith-Waterman algorithm combined with Myers-Miller, with linear space complexity. In order to achieve that, we propose optimizations which are able to reduce significantly the amount of data processed, while enforcing full parallelism most of the time. Using the NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti board and comparing real DNA sequences that range from 162 KBP (Thousand Base Pairs) to 59 MBP (Million Base Pairs), we show that CUDAlign 2.1 is scalable. Also, we show that CUDAlign 2.1 is able to produce the optimal alignment between the chimpanzee chromosome 22 (33 MBP) and the human chromosome 21 (47 MBP) in 8.4 hours and the optimal alignment between the chimpanzee chromosome Y (24 MBP) and the human chromosome Y (59 MBP) in 13.1 hours.


We report new developments in the TAS: the Test of Adult Speechreading, a test designed to be appropriate to the needs of both deaf and hearing users [1]. Profoundly prelingually deaf people outperform hearing users on this test. Subtests of TAS showed different patterns of inter-correlation in deaf and hearing people, suggesting different underlying factors accounting for individual variability in speechreading which depended on hearing status. Although reading was poorer in deaf than hearing groups, it correlated with phonological awareness and with TAS scores. Phonological awareness may have performed a mediating role in the relationship between reading and silent speechreading in deaf participants. There was no relationship between reading and TAS in the hearing users.


The purpose of this volume is to illustrate the use of psychological tests within the "ego psychological" framework of personality assessment deriving from the work of David Rapaport and Roy Schafer. The authors undertake to demonstrate principles of interpretation and integration of varied aspects of test response into a comprehensive description of personality functioning. Their approach to test administration, scoring, and interpretation is presented clearly and concisely, although without sufficient breadth of illustrative material to serve as a manual or comprehensive text. What this small volume lacks in breadth of coverage it makes up in depth. Essentially, the book is a single case study demonstrating an exquisitely detailed examination of personality from the multiple perspectives provided by the subject's responses to the standard battery of clinical psychological techniques: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Thematic Apperception Test, and the Rorschach. Approximately one


Aberrant glycosylation is a hallmark of a cancer cell. One prevalent alteration is an enrichment in α2,6-linked sialylation of N-glycosylated proteins, a modification directed by the ST6GAL1 sialyltransferase. ST6GAL1 is upregulated in many malignancies including ovarian cancer. Prior studies have shown that the addition of α2,6 sialic acid to the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) activates this receptor, although the mechanism was largely unknown. To investigate the role of ST6GAL1 in EGFR activation, ST6GAL1 was overexpressed in the OV4 ovarian cancer line, which lacks endogenous ST6GAL1, or knocked down in the OVCAR-3 and OVCAR-5 ovarian cancer lines, which have robust ST6GAL1 expression. Cells with high expression of ST6GAL1 displayed increased activation of EGFR and its downstream signaling targets, AKT and NFκB. Using biochemical and microscopy approaches, including Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, we determined that the α2,6 sialylation of EGFR promoted its dimerization and higher order oligomerization. Additionally, ST6GAL1 activity was found to modulate EGFR trafficking dynamics following EGF-induced receptor activation. Specifically, EGFR sialylation enhanced receptor recycling to the cell surface following activation while simultaneously inhibiting lysosomal degradation. 3D widefield deconvolution microscopy confirmed that in cells with high ST6GAL1 expression, EGFR exhibited greater co-localization with Rab11 recycling endosomes and reduced co-localization with LAMP1-positive lysosomes. Collectively, our findings highlight a novel mechanism by which α2,6 sialylation promotes EGFR signaling by facilitating receptor oligomerization and recycling.


A changing communicative environment represents both opportunities and risks to professional organisations. Both public and private bodies are experimenting with the new contact tools in order to adapt them to daily tasks. In a survey of the use of contact tools such as voice calls (landline, mobile, VoIP ), and texts (e-mail, SMS, IM) the respondents were asked to indicate on a Likert-scale their preferences for the respective contact tools depending on context and situations. Taken together, the findings indicate that the choice of contact tools is less contingent on contextual matters as was hypothesised. Instead the results suggest that people choose the tool that they believe is most suitable for the person to be contacted.


A solid introduction to mathematical modeling for a range of chemical engineering applications, covering model formulation, simplification and validation. It explains how to describe a physical/chemical reality in mathematical language and how to select the type and degree of sophistication for a model. Model reduction and approximation methods are presented, including dimensional analysis, time constant analysis and asymptotic methods. An overview of solution methods for typical classes of models is given. As final steps in model building, parameter estimation and model validation and assessment are discussed. The reader is given hands-on experience of formulating new models, reducing the models and validating the models. The authors assume the knowledge of basic chemical engineering, in particular transport phenomena, as well as basic mathematics, statistics and programming. The accompanying problems, tutorials, and projects include model formulation at different levels, analysis, parameter estimation and numerical solution.


The share of global wine supplied by New World producers has increased dramatically since the late 1980s. Australia and Chile have emerged as major exporters of wine. USA has also increased production sharply though its sales have grown mainly in the domestic rather than export markets. This paper uses the World Wine Model to project the wine markets of the world from 2005 to 2015. The model includes different types of wine, so as to distinguish the growing premium segment of the market from the non-premium segment. USA is set to become the largest consumer and importer of wine in the world. Hence, growth prospects for wine exporting nations will centre increasingly on the US market. The Chinese market is likely to follow the pattern set by the Japanese market, in which per capita consumption of wine has remained relatively low despite real income growth. Nevertheless, exports to China of non-premium wine will grow over the next decade. Paper prepared for a seminar in Chile in August 2007. Research funded by the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC) of Australia.


The recent increase in the use of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) for cotton production in the Texas High Plains has resulted in questions concerning drip lateral position and orientation relative to crop rows. Field experiments were conducted at Halfway, Texas to evaluate traditional SDI installations with crop rows spaced at 0.76 and 1.02 m; crop row to lateral offsets of 0.0, 0.13, 0.25, and 0.38 m; and crop rows perpendicularly crossing SDI laterals spaced at 0.76, 1.02, and 1.52 m. Traditionally installed SDI with cotton rows spaced at 0.76 m resulted in generally higher yield than those spaced at 1.02 m; however, differences were not significant over the 5-year period. Yields were significantly different between individual rows of adjacent row pairs irrigated with single SDI laterals when row offsets were greater than 0.25 m on 0.76-m row spacing. However, cotton plants from rows closest to the SDI lateral largely compensated for yield losses of rows farthest from the lateral. When considering perpendicularly crossing 1.52-m spaced laterals with 0.76-m wide crop rows, only modest declines in cotton lint yield (1.5% and 3.3%) occurred compared to traditional parallel row-lateral orientation with the same lateral and row spacing. With crop rows perpendicular to laterals, SDI lateral spacings resulted in average yields of 1802, 1869, and 1903 kg ha-1 at distances of 1.52, 1.02, and 0.76 m, respectively. Orienting rows perpendicular to drip laterals using 0.76-m crop row widths resulted in significantly higher yields and irrigation water use efficiencies than 1.02-m row widths at high irrigation capacity. As water availability declines, these results will provide producers additional information on SDI installation and management.


Acoustics in the Physics Department at Brown began in the 1870s and faded in the 1970s. Some memories of the way up and the way down, from Eli Whitney Blake and his dealings with Alexander Graham Bell to Bruce Lindsay and the rest of us, with additional remarks about personalities in the subfields of ultrasonics, underwater sound, and nonlinear acoustics in and out of Brown.


In this increasingly advanced age, globalization has influenced most of the community to behavior that is not commendable. For that spiritual intelligence must be considered because of the highest human intelligence that can guide humans in finding the true meaning of life. One way (approach) to change society is by strengthening spiritual intelligence. This study uses a qualitative approach which is how to get the data by doing research directly with the descriptive analysis method. Data analysis is done so that the collected data can be analyzed by analyzing all data generated from observations, interviews and documentation that have been carried out. The results showed that (1) The development of spiritual intelligence through Islamic Religious Education at SDN Gajah 1 Ngoro Jombang was carried out through the cultivation of Islamic values to students, including the values of love, value of tawadhu ', sincere values, and courageous values. The implementation of Islamic activities in schools includes daily activities, weekly activities, monthly activities and annual activities. (2) supporting factors and inhibitors of spiritual i students of SDN Gajah 1 Ngoro Jombang namely the existence of collaboration between the principal and the teacher, the existence of adequate facilities, the existence of Islamic symbols in the school, the hard work of the teacher in motivating students to be of good character, exemplary from the teacher, as well as regulations that apply at school. While the inhibiting factors are the absence of teachers of local religious content and the absence of a mosque building. Based on the analysis of research results, it is recommended to; (1) Principals, to improve the quality of teacher performance in motivating and exemplary to students and are advised to strive to improve facilities and infrastructure related to learning Islamic Education in schools. (2) Teachers, to improve the existing model of spiritual intelligence development by increasing their role as motivators by motivating and giving examples to students so that they are always noble.


history of abdominal aortic aneurysms. The essential techniques of resection and replacement are standardized. The near certainty of death when rupture occurs makes rupture a compelling indication for operation. The decision for or against operation in the individual case of unruptured aneurysm must still be influenced by the surgeon's assessment of many factors other than those related to the aneurysm and atherosclerosis.


We examine the challenge of identifying a route towards a sustainable global Information Society: a society that adequately meets economic, social, cultural and environmental concerns of the world, with a long-term perspective. Clearly, a model of development which simply extends the current resource-intensive lifestyles of the OECD to the entire population of the world would threaten both global ecological stability and many local cultures, eventually posing a threat to social harmony in Europe. The present patterns of economic globalization are forcing ever more deregulation, increasingly short-term orientation and an ever faster rate of change, which makes sustainability increasingly hard to attain. However, European experience can make a valuable contribution to developing a global sustainable Information Society, and to the work of policy-making bodies around the world.


Focusing on the account of synthesis in Kant's Transcendental Deduction allows us to see a greater degree of compatibility between the two editions of the Critique of Pure Reason than is sometimes thought. The first Deduction shows that while it emphasizes an account of empirical synthesis it also includes a more properly transcendental account of the synthetic unity required for cognition. The second edition simply focuses on this feature of synthesis to the exclusion of the empirical. The result: a complete account of synthesis with the A-edition starting "bottom up" from sense and the B-edition working "top-down" from thought.


Machine learning allows learning accurate but inadmissible heuristics for hard combinatorial puzzles like the 15-puzzle, the 24-puzzle, and Rubik's cube.
In this paper, we investigate how to exploit these learned heuristics in the context of heuristic search with suboptimality guarantees. Specifically, we study how Focal Search (FS), a well-known bounded-suboptimal search algorithm can be modified to better exploit inadmissible learned heuristics. We propose to use Focal Discrepancy Search (FDS) in the context of learned heuristics, which uses a discrepancy function, instead of the learned heuristic, to sort the focal list. In our empirical evaluation, we evaluate FS and FDS using DeepCubeA, an effective learned heuristic for the 15-puzzle. We show that FDS substantially outperforms FS.
This suggests that in some domains, when a highly accurate heuristics is available, one should always consider using discrepancies for better search.


We demonstrate how successful entrepreneurship depends on a collaborative innovation bloc (CIB), a system of innovation that evolves spontaneously and within which activity takes place through time. A CIB consists of six pools of economic skills from which people are drawn or recruited to form part of a collaborative team, which is necessary for innovation-based venturing to flourish. The six pools include entrepreneurs, inventors, early- and later-stage financiers, key personnel, and customers. We show how the application of the CIB perspective can help make institutional and evolutionary economics more concrete, relevant, and persuasive, especially regarding institutional prescriptions. Generally, we envision an institutional framework that improves the antifragility of CIBs and the economic system as a whole, thus enabling individual CIBs and the broader economic system to thrive when faced with adversity.


The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of barefoot versus shod running on working memory. I recruited exercise science students from the University of North Florida who exercised recreationally. Participants ran both barefoot and shod while hitting targets (poker chips) on a running track and without targets. I measured working memory using backward digit recall and also recorded participants' heart rate, speed, and target accuracy. The main finding from this study was that working memory performance increased in the barefoot condition when participants hit targets (poker chips). This result supports the idea that additional attention is needed when running barefoot to avoid stepping on objects that could potentially cause harm to the foot. Significant increases in participant's heart rate were also found in the barefoot condition but not in the shod condition. No significant differences found in participants' speed in the barefoot or shod condition, nor were there any in the target or no target condition. Together, these findings suggest that individuals working memory increases after at least sixteen minutes of barefoot running if they have to look at the ground to avoid objects that may cause harm to their feet. Barefoot running may help individuals of all ages; from delaying the onset of cognitive deterioration in the elderly, obesity prevention for individuals of all ages, to providing a boost in cognitive performance for children who are behind their peers in school.


The evolution of the telecommunications sector is of keen interest from both a development and a political economy perspective. Telecommunications is critical to economic dynamics, to the quality of life, to social service provision, and to citizen engagement. This paper explores the political economy of telecommunications in three middle income countries - Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey. It undertakes an interpretation of the processes at work through the lens of these comparative cases. It is also intended as a case study of a set of broader questions over the development process, as this is shaped by the central nexus of relations between business and state actors. The paper is specifically concerned with the following questions: how does policy change in real polities, in terms of both policy design and implementation?; how is this shaped by the underlying nature of business-state relations, and to the overall political settlement in a country?; is there a tendency for economic entrenchment in typical middle income countries?; by this the authors mean consolidation of economic activities in ways that support sustained economic rents, underpinned by various mixes of regulatory capture and market power. And what countervailing forces are there to support a more dynamic and competitive equilibrium?; how is the state understood in the context of these business-state relations?; how is it useful to deconstruct the state, and in particular, do checks and balances institutions have the autonomy to provide a check on entrenchment?; and how do these processes interact with technological change? These questions relate to the broader issue of whether governance arrangements can countervail unequal political and economic power in ways that foster inclusive development.


In structural analysis, the finite element method has shown to be a strong numerical technique to provide good engineering accuracy. In the present work, the flow induced stresses in a Francis turbine runner is presented by using the finite element analysis. Loads due to pressure on the blade and centrifugal force based on the rotational speed were considered. Load due to pressure was derived from CFD computations of the runner at different power conditions. In order to increase understanding about combined loads acting on blades, stress distribution over the blades were obtained for three operating conditions at a medium head hydro power plant.


Changes in production variability and their sources were measured for six crops - Aus rice, Aman rice, Boro rice, jute, wheat, and sugarcane between two time periods - pre-modern technology adoption period (1947/48 - 1967/68) and modern technology (MT) adoption period (1968/69 - 1986/87). For wheat, these periods were 1947/48 - 1971/72 and 1972/73 - 1986/87 respectively. The results showed that in MT period (i) both the absolute and relative variability decreased in case of Aus, Aman and sugarcane; (ii) both the absolute and relative variability increased in case of jute; and (iii) absolute variability increased but relative variability decreased in case of Boro rice and wheat. The decrease in coefficient of variation (CV) of Aus, Aman and sugarcane production is due to decrease in variance and increase in production . The decrease in CV of Boro rice and wheat production is attributed to an increase in average production of Boro rice and wheat. But the increase in production variance is not attributed to MT. The increase in relative variability of jute is due to increase in absolute variability and decrease in average production of jute during MT period.


The paper is based on a survey we have designed to document the feeding practices in China's hog industry. We estimate the live weight FCR to be 2.99, in which commercialized farms (>500 head/year) are the most efficient with FCR of 2.73, followed by specialized farms (50-499 head/year) of 2.90, and the main inefficiency in feeding comes from backyard (<10 head/year) and small household farms (10-49 head/year), with FCRs to be 3.03 and 3.99.The FCRs and the farm size have a clear inverse relationship, but the correlation between profit and farm size is not significant, suggesting further structural change toward larger operations will be slow. In addition, managerial variables have significant impacts on FCRs: participating training in disease control and using compound feed in the grower/finisher phase can lower the FCR significantly.


Smoking during pregnancy has been shown to have significant adverse health effects for new born babies. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of low birth weight of infants who in turn, need more resources at delivery and are more likely to have related health problems in infancy and beyond. Despite these outcomes, many women still smoke during pregnancy. The main question for policy makers is whether tobacco control policies can influence maternal smoking and reduce adverse birth outcomes. We examine this question using data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System data from 2000 to 2005. This is a time period during which states significantly changed their tobacco control policies by raising excise taxes and imposing strong restrictions on indoor smoking. We estimate reduced form models of birth weight and gestational weeks, focusing on the effects of taxes and workplace restrictions on smoking as the policies of interest. We also estimate demand equations for the probability of smoking during the third trimester. Results show that the smoking policies are effective, but limited to babies born to mothers of certain age groups. For babies born to teenage mothers, higher cigarette taxes are associated with small increases in birth weight and gestational weeks. For babies born to mothers ages 25-34, restrictions on smoking in the workplace are associated with small increases in gestational weeks.


Abstract Cybernetics, the study of principles governing goal-directed, self-regulating systems, offers a useful approach to understanding psychopathology or psychological dysfunction, overcoming limitations of other naturalistic approaches. Whereas influential theories of psychopathology have relied on definitions of dysfunction rooted in evolution and fitness, we define psychopathology in terms of cybernetic dysfunction, failure to make progress toward important goals. Cybernetic function in organisms is not identical to evolutionary function, despite their causal phylogenetic relationship. We define psychopathology as persistent failure to move toward one's goals, due to failure to generate effective new goals, interpretations, or strategies when existing ones prove unsuccessful. This definition allows a thorough integration of dimensional approaches to psychopathology and personality and provides a new perspective on the nosology of mental disorder. We review evidence that the major dimensions of psychopathology correspond to major trait dimensions of personality, but we assert that extremity on these dimensions is neither necessary nor sufficient for psychopathology, which requires cybernetic dysfunction. Drawing from psychological and neurobiological research on personality and psychopathology, we present a theory of the mechanisms underlying the five major dimensions of psychopathology, some of their subdimensions, and the general risk factor for psychopathology. We conclude by discussing implications of our theory for research, diagnosis, and mental health interventions.


The operating principles of Laser Doppler Perfusion Imaging (LDPI) for visualization of the tissue blood perfusion are explained. Using this emerging technology skin perfusion has been investigated in healthy volunteers and in patients with various conditions that affect skin blood flow. LDPI is anticipated to be particularly useful in evaluation of peripheral circulation in diabetics, as an objective tool in irritancy patch testing, assessment of burnt skin and visualization of spot-wise hyperperfusion in breast skin in association with carcinoma.


Causal confusion is a phenomenon where an agent learns a policy that reflects imperfect spurious correlations in the data. Such a policy may falsely appear to be optimal during training if most of the training data contains such spurious correlations. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in domains such as robotics, with potentially large gaps between open- and closed-loop performance of an agent. In such settings, causally confused models may appear to perform well according to open-loop metrics during training but fail catastrophically when deployed in the real world. In this paper, we investigate whether selectively sampling appropriate points from the dataset may enable offline RL agents to disambiguate the underlying causal mechanisms of the environment, alleviate causal confusion in offline reinforcement learning, and produce a safer model for deployment. To answer this question, we consider a set of tailored offline reinforcement learning datasets that exhibit causal ambiguity and assess the ability of active sampling techniques to reduce causal confusion at evaluation. We provide empirical evidence that uniform and active sampling techniques are able to consistently reduce causal confusion as training progresses and that active sampling is able to do so significantly more efficiently than uniform sampling.