Factor models are widely used for dimension reduction in the analysis of multivariate data. This is achieved through decomposition of a p x p covariance matrix into the sum of two components. Through a latent factor representation, they can be interpreted as a diagonal matrix of idiosyncratic variances and a shared variation matrix, that is, the product of a p x k factor loadings matrix and its transpose. If k<<p, this defines a sparse factorisation of the covariance matrix. Historically, little attention has been paid to incorporating prior information in Bayesian analyses using factor models where, at best, the prior for the factor loadings is order invariant. In this work, a class of structured priors is developed that can encode ideas of dependence structure about the shared variation matrix. The construction allows data-informed shrinkage towards sensible parametric structures while also facilitating inference over the number of factors. Using an unconstrained reparameterisation of stationary vector autoregressions, the methodology is extended to stationary dynamic factor models. For computational inference, parameter-expanded Markov chain Monte Carlo samplers are proposed, including an efficient adaptive Gibbs sampler. Two substantive applications showcase the scope of the methodology and its inferential benefits.


We present the multi-timescale collaborative tracker for single object tracking. The tracker simultaneously utilizes different types of "forces", namely attraction, repulsion and support, to take advantage of their complementary strengths. We model the three forces via three components that are learned from the sample sets with different timescales. The long-term descriptive component attracts the target sample, while the medium-term discriminative component repulses the target from the background. They are collaborated in the appearance model that can benefit each other. The short-term regressive component combines the votes of the auxiliary samples to predict the target's position, forming the context-aware motion model. The appearance model and the motion model collaboratively determine the target state, and the optimal state is estimated by a novel coarse-to-fine search strategy. We have conducted an extensive set of experiments on the standard 50 video benchmark. The results confirm the effectiveness of each component and their collaboration, outperforming current state-of-the-art methods.


The traditional indicators of insomnia (i.e. difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, nonrestorative sleep, early morning awakening) were assessed in a representative sample of 1,722 French-speaking Montrealers (Canada) aged 15 to 100 years. These subjects were interviewed over the telephone (81.3% of contacted sample) by means of the Sleep-Eval software. Subjects were classified as either satisfied or dissatisfied with quality of sleep (SQS or DQS), with or without insomnia indicators (+I or -I). Sociodemographics, sleep-wake schedules, evening activities, medication intake, recent medical consultations, and social life were also investigated. DQS subjects composed 17.8% of the population (DQS + I: 11.2%; DQS - I: 6.5%), and 21.7% of subjects were classified as either DQS + I or SQS + I. Overall, 3.8% of subjects reported using a sleep-enhancing medication. Nonrestorative sleep did not significantly distinguish SQS and DQS subjects. The complaint of nonrestorative sleep is not a useful indicator of insomnia, despite its inclusion in all medical classifications. DQS - I and SQS + I subjects defy traditional classifications. A better understanding of sleep complaints and more accurate classifications will help physicians identify patients with insomnia and meet their needs more appropriately.


Since the 1970's, the scientific field of model-based performance and dependability evaluation has been flourishing. Starting with breakthroughs in the area of closed queueing networks in the 1970's, the 1980's brought new results on state-based methods, such as those for stochastic Petri nets and matrix-geometric methods, whereas the 1990's introduced process algebra-type models. Since the turn of the century, techniques for stochastic model checking are being introduced, to name just a few major developments. The applicability of all these techniques has been boosted enormously through Moore's law; these days, stochastic models with tens of millions of states can easily be dealt with on a standard desktop or laptop computer. A dozen or so dedicated conferences serve the scientific field, as well as a number of scientific journals. However, for the field as a whole to make progress, it is important to step back, and to consider how all these as-such important developments have really changed the way computer and communication systems are being designed and operated. The answer to this question is most probable rather disappointing. I do observe a rather strong discrepancy between what is being published in top conferences and journals, and what is being used in real practice. Blaming industry for this would be too easy a way out. Currently, we do not see model-based performance and dependability evaluation as key step in the design process for new computer and communication systems. Moreover, in the exceptional cases that we do see performance and dependability evaluation being part of a design practice, the employed techniques are not the ones referred to above, but instead, depending on the application area, techniques like discrete-event simulation on the basis of hand-crafted simulation programs (communication protocols), or techniques based on (non-stochastic) timed-automata or timeless behavioral models (embedded systems). In all these cases, however, the scalability of the employed methods, also for discrete-event simulation, forms a limiting factor. Still, industry is serving the world with ever better, faster and more impressive computing machinery and software! What went wrong? When and why did "our field" land on a side track? In this presentation I will argue that it is probably time for a change, for a change toward a new way of looking at performance and dependability models and evaluation of computer and communication systems, a way that is, if you like, closer to the way physicists deal with very large scale systems, by applying different type of abstractions. In particular, I will argue that computer scientist should "stop counting things". Instead, a more fluid way of thinking about system behavior is deemed to be necessary to be able to evaluate the performance and dependability of the next generation of very large scale omnipresent systems. First successes of such new approaches have recently been reported. Will be witness a paradigm shift in the years to come?


We present a novel self-taught framework for unsuper-vised metric learning, which alternates between predicting class-equivalence relations between data through a moving average of an embedding model and learning the model with the predicted relations as pseudo labels. At the heart of our framework lies an algorithm that investigates contexts of data on the embedding space to predict their class-equivalence relations as pseudo labels. The algorithm enables efficient end-to-end training since it demands no off-the-shelf module for pseudo labeling. Also, the class-equivalence relations provide rich supervisory signals for learning an embedding space. On standard benchmarks for metric learning, it clearly outperforms existing unsupervised learning methods and sometimes even beats supervised learning models using the same backbone network. It is also applied to semi-supervised metric learning as a way of exploiting additional unlabeled data, and achieves the state of the art by boosting performance of supervised learning substantially.


Abstract Objective/Background: The standard treatment for tethered cord syndrome (operative vs nonoperative management) that presents in adulthood remains controversial. A comparative study of tethered cord syndrome in adulthood is needed. Design: A retrospective chart-based analysis. Methods: Patients admitted to Gulhane Military Medical Academy Department of Neurosurgery for management of caudal spinal cord tethering from June 1999 through December 2006 (N = 22). Results: Conus level was normal in 1 patient with split cord malformation and dermal sinus. Tight terminal filum was found in 21 patients, including postrepair myelomeningocele tethered cord in 4, lipomyelome- ningocele/meningocele in 8, split cord malformation in 3, dermal sinus in 7, and syringomyelia in 3. The most common complaints were back pain (15 patients, 68.1%), bladder dysfunction (8, 36.3%), fecal incontinence (2, 9.09%), and leg pain (7, 31.8%). One patient had hydrocephalus (4.5%). Ten of 22 patients underwent surgery; 8 of 10 patients had detethering; and 12 patients refused surgery. Postoperative cerebrospinal fluid leakage requiring reinforcement sutures occurred in 1 patient. There were no infectious complications. Neurologic status and outcomes were compared with preoperative findings. Conclusions: Some patients refuse surgery despite severe neurologic disturbances. Neurosurgeons should fully explain the risks and benefits of surgery for tethered cord to the patient and family. A much larger and prospective randomized series is needed to determine the effects of operative vs nonoperative management of tethered cord syndrome in adulthood.


Snowpack displacement and resulting full depth gliding snow avalanches are a widespread problem in alpine regions during springtime after snow-rich winters. This is a major threat for infrastructures nearby. Today field observers detect gliding snow visually. However, they can only detect suspicious snowpack displacement after gliding cracks opened. Many wet snow avalanches release without formation of visible tension cracks in an early stage so that they appear to happen spontaneously. Terrestrial radar interferometry has recently proven to be an effective method for the detection and monitoring of snow glide activity on a slope scale. Movements of the snowpack less than 0.5 mm/h can be detected as validated with a total station. Detection of snow glide activity is therefore achievable at a very early stage. Continuous measurements with rates of up to one scene per minute allow the immediate assessment of snow glide activity on the monitored slope. Therefore this method might be applied in future to detect precursors for full depth gliding snow avalanches.


In this commentary I argue that option price data offer useful insights into the long-run macroeconomic uncertainty perceived by investors. Data on inflation options in the United States show substantial dispersion in the risk-neutral distribution of long-run inflation rates. This may indicate that substantial uncertainty about the inflation target still exists. However, I argue that a high dispersion in the risk-neutral distribution could also reflect disagreement among investors who are confident in their own forecasts and do not necessarily perceive a high degree of subjective uncertainty. Disagreement could potentially reconcile the relative stability of inflation in recent years with the substantial dispersion in the risk-neutral distribution of long-run inflation and in survey forecasts of long inflation.


[1] We develop a new forward algorithm for the retrieval of effective size and ice water content (IWC) of ice crystals in clouds by using collocated 95-GHz (3.16 mm) cloud radar and lidar with the wavelength of 0.532 μm. Use of radar or lidar alone has a fundamental difficulty to obtain cloud microphysics because of the wide variety of size distributions of cloud particles, though it is effective to obtain cloud macrophysical information such as cloud boundaries. The combined use of radar and lidar can overcome this problem. One unique feature of the algorithm is the attenuation-correction to the lidar signals according to the cloud microphysics determined by look-up tables of backscattering and extinction for the radar and lidar signals. Consequently, the combined system enables the retrieval of vertical profiles of the effective radius (reff) and ice water content (IWC). We perform several numerical analyses of the retrieved values for potential sources of errors, that is, the shape of the size distribution, biases in the radar and lidar signals, and the effect of multiple scattering. Then we provide the formulations that describe the retrieval errors as a function of the given bias and optical thickness. Finally, we demonstrate retrieval of microphysics for ground-based observation of cirrus clouds in February 2000 in Kashima, Japan. We examine the vertical distributions of reff, IWC, fall velocity, and depolarization ratio as well as the interrelationships between them. The radius of the particles turns out to be the largest near the cloud bottom, and the fall velocity also shows a trend consistent with the reff tendency. There are no in situ measurements to validate the retrieved parameters for the observations. Instead, supporting arguments are given on the basis of information about the expected behavior of the relationships between the cloud microphysical parameters from the literature.


Since the mid-1980s, family self-sufficiency programs have been set up in over 1,000 cities and counties across the United States. These programs are aimed at helping public-housing residents and Section 8 tenants, who often have very little or no wage income, become economically self-sufficient and move into private housing. Though much has been written about the potential of such programs, research examining their benefits is virtually nonexistent. This article seeks to partly fill this void. The research reported here examined data on 135 participants of the City of Rockford, Illinois' s Family Self-Sufficiency program. Using logistic regression techniques, the effects of several factors on program completion were explored. The author reports that Rockford's Family Self-Sufficiency program graduates derived significant economic and housing benefits, and that race did not seem to affect graduation while other factors, such as age and the number of skills acquired in the program, seemed to.


The research described herein was carried out by the mechanical engineering staff at the mechanical laboratory of Miguel Hernandez University (UMH) in Elche, Spain. This study compares the braking of a vehicle on two different Ministry of Transport (MOT) brake testers. We have analyzed mathematical formulas about braking on MOT brake testers, and we indicate which factors could have a theoretical influence in braking on a rolling road. If the tire pressure is varied, false results might be obtained from the brake tester, meaning that if tires are inflated at a low pressure, the vehicle will not pass the MOT brake test even if the brakes are in good condition. Conversely, if the brakes are in bad condition but the tire pressure is higher than that recommended by the manufacturer, a false passing rating might be produced. This article attempts to show that the MOT brake testing equipment is often wrong and inexact, and it provides data and graphs to prove that tire pressure can be a determining factor when assessing the condition of brakes. We also study the influence of the wheel base between rollers in brake and slip data measurements. A car is placed on a bank of rollers with the handbrake released; the rollers then move at a constant speed of 5 km/h, and the brake pedal is depressed until 100 % slippage is obtained. A velocity of 5 km/h is sufficient to obtain 100 % slippage. The pressure in the hydraulic brake circuit on the right front wheel of the vehicle is also measured with a hydraulic sensor in the hydraulic pipe of the right front wheel. We can obtain the slippage by measuring the angular velocity of the wheel and the roller. The angular velocity is determined by two encoders, the first fitted on the brake roller tester and the second on the wheel of the vehicle. At UMH we have one MOT brake roller tester with a 450 mm distance between each roller where we have measured brake and slip. We also compare the results with those from another MOT station at which the roller tester has only 410 mm between the rollers and analyze the difference. This article demonstrates that the MOT brake and slide data results depend on the distance between rollers, the tire type, and the pneumatic pressure. Data and graphs are provided to substantiate the findings.


Two different Ti oxide films produced by anodic oxidation were submitted to in vitro bioactivity and cell culture tests. The oxide films were produced in 1.0M H2SO4/150V and 1.0M Na2SO4/100V. Surfaces were found to be homogeneous and rough, with the presence of pores. Both oxide films presented anatase and rutile phases. Ti oxide film produced in Na2SO4 was rougher than the film grown with H2SO4 and composed of a rutile-rich phase. Both films were constituted by TiO2 and Ti2O3 oxides. Despite the differences observed, after 7 days, a calcium phosphate layer was precipitated on both surfaces. Indeed, these two treatment conditions seem to be efficient to spread and attach osteoblast-like cells within 4h.


Perlin noise is the most widely used tool in procedural texture synthesis. It is a simple and fast method to enhance the quantity of detail or to render natural materials with no use of storage resources. However, this technique is very sensitive to aliasing artifacts, especially when composed with shape and color functions. Moreover, it is computationally intensive and can become slow, especially when generating procedural volumes of density in real time. This study aims at analyzing Perlin noise properties in order to control the apparition of artifacts and optimize the computational cost. We present a method for computing a maximum and minimum frequency threshold per noise component, we propose an idea to handle the case of non linear transforms of the noise, and show an optimization method for volume generation.


On many oceanic tropical islands the trade winds blow from the east and as the air passes over the island it loses moisture to rain. The two hypotheses for this study are that the western part of the island is less humid and has a larger diurnal air temperature cycle. Using data available on the Internet, the two hypotheses were assayed 7 times on 6 different islands in the Pacific and Caribbean. The islands used in this study are Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Big Island of Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai. The first hypothesis was tested only on Hispaniola and is true. The second hypothesis was tested on all the islands and is true on all the islands except on the Big Island of Hawaii and Maui. Using a p-value of 0.05, these hypotheses are as predicted 5 of the 7 times, which has a p-value of 6 x 10-6. These findings should apply to thousands oceanic tropical islands where data are sparse.


Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis (Oporto) owns a pair of Japanese folding screens belonging to the early 17th century – Namban genre. As the pieces manifested structural conservation issues, they were subjected to an intervention between 2000 and 2002 in the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo. According to the restoration report, an unknown substance had been applied to the overall surface, adding a glossy finish, as well as some colors inconsistent with the original painting. These materials seem to correspond to a restoration work conducted in the Western countries, but this intervention does not appear neither in the museum records nor in other historical sources.

The aim of this work is to determine the materials used in this restoration work of which very little is known and to understand why these new materials appear in a worse condition of preservation than some of the original ones. Preliminary, in situ , Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence analyses were performed, and right from the beginning, elements such as Cr, Ba, and Co appear in the spectra of orange, yellow, brown, and blue areas, accusing the anachronism of the used materials. Nineteen microsamples were collected to be analyzed with two different confocal Raman equipments using 514, 532, 638, and 785-nm laser sources. Interesting results were obtained for the blue decoration of one of the houses: whereas the energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrum showed the odd combination of Cr, Fe, Co, Cu, and Zn, the Raman spectra indicated mostly the use of Phthalocyanine blue. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A group of 25 patients treated with maprotiline was studied to test the question of second-generation antidepressant effectiveness in chronic pain. Of this group, 18 (72%) responded with a greater than 50% reduction in their pain syndrome. It appears that maprotiline is as effective as earlier antidepressants in the treatment of pain. The enkephalin induction hypothesis is discussed as an explanation for the mechanism of action of antidepressants in chronic pain.


Investigation of centimeter-scale snow surface chemistry has been carried out at two polar sites with different site characteristics–in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica and on the Greenland ice sheet, respectively. Large variations in both impurity content and stable oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) were found on the submeter scale. δ18O and the concentration of nitrate correlated at both sites (r = 0.81 and 0.82, respectively). At the Antarctic site, δ18O is also correlated to concentrations of methanesulphonate (r = 0.84) and sulphate (r = 0.83) while no such correlation exists at the Greenland site. Instead, a strong anticorrelation (r = –0.85) between sulphate and methanesulphonate is found among the samples from the Greenland site. The ions correlating with δ18O at the two sites were probably deposited as acids. Our tentative explanation is that local redeposition of water vapour enriching the snow surface with the lighter isotopes is associated with simultaneous enhanced scavenging of the acids. The responsible process thereby significantly alters the chemical signals of the snow surface.


Luigi Luciani (1840-1919) was an illustrious Italian citizen and physiologist whose research scope covered mainly cardiovascular subjects, the nervous system, and fasting. He published in 1891 a modern landmark of the study of cerebellar physiology - "Il cervelletto: nuovistudi di normal and pathologia physiology" / "The cerebellum: new studies on normal and pathological physiology." In his experiment, a dog survived after cerebellectomy, reporting a triad of symptoms (asthenia, atonia, and astasia). In this way, the eminent neurophysiologist improved the operative technique and sterile processes to redirect the issue of cerebellar symptoms. Luciani died at age 78, a hundred years ago, and left mainly the understanding of the role of the cerebellum in regulating postural tone and muscle strength, which represented a step forward in understanding cerebellar motor physiology. In recent decades, cognitive / affective function has been added to the cerebellar motor, and there has also been a better understanding of cerebellar circuits.


The popular encrypted messaging and chat app WhatsApp played a key role in the election of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. The present study builds on this knowledge and showcases how the app continued to be used in a governmental operation spreading false and misleading information popularly known in Brazil as the Office of Hatred (OOH). By harnessing in-depth expert interviews with documentarians of the office's daily operations—researchers, journalists, and fact-checkers (N = 10)—this study draws up a chronology of the OOH. Via this methodological approach, we trace and chronologize events, actions, and actors associated with the OOH. Specifically, findings (a) document the rise of antipetismo and disinformation campaigns associated with attacks on the Brazilian Worker's party from 2012 until the election of Bolsonaro in 2018, (b) describe the emergence of the OOH at the heels of the election and subsequent radicalization in WhatsApp groups, (c) provide an overview of the types of disinformation that are spread on the app by the OOH, and (d) illustrate how the OOH operates by mapping key actors and places, communicative strategies, and audiences. These findings are discussed in light of ramifications that government-sponsored forms of disinformation might have in other antidemocratic polities marked by strongman populist leadership.


Collaborative Filtering (CF) is widely applied to personalized recommendation systems. Traditional collaborative filtering techniques make predictions through a user-item matrix of ratings which explicitly presents user preference. With the increasingly growing number of users and items, insufficient rating data still leads to the decreasing predictive accuracy with traditional collaborative filtering approaches. In the real world, however, many different types of user feedback, e.g. review, like or not, votes etc., co-exist in many online content providers. In this paper we integrate rating data with some other new types of user feedback and propose a multi-task matrix factorization model in order for flexibly using multiple data. We use a common user feature space shared across sub-models in this model and thus the model can simultaneously train the corresponding sub-models with every training sample. Our experiments indicate that new types of user feedback really work and show improvements on predictive accuracy compared to state-of-the-art algorithms.


Power electronics products such as inverters and converters involve the use of Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs) between high power packages and a heat exchanger for thermal management. Conventional TIMs such as thermal greases, gels, solders and phase change materials (PCMs) face challenges to meet the need of these products to operate reliably at much higher temperatures. This has driven the development of new TIMs such as Transient Liquid Phase Sintering (TLPS) Conductive Adhesives. TLPS adhesives have been developed for many potential applications due to various advantages like lead free, flux-less and particularly their low temperature processability , which enables the use of heat sensitive components in the design. With all these motivations, a project was launched and completed to assess TLPS adhesives as a unique TIM for high temperature automotive applications due to its high bulk thermal conductivity and metallic joint formation at interfaces. This paper reports the evaluation of three different TLPS conductive adhesives with different formulations. All the TLPS adhesives contain lead-free eutectic SnBi fillers, together with other fillers with much higher melting point (Tm) so as to process them using low temperature profiles. Different processing profiles were applied to process different TLPS adhesives. After processing, the assemblies could meet high temperature application requirements due to the shift of Tm of SnBi alloy from 139°C to a much higher value >200°C. Three different heat exchanger materials including bare Cu, Al and AlSiC with solder wettable surface finishes were assessed. X-ray was used to check void formation and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was conducted on the cross sections to study the quality of the whole metallurgical network. Die shear force was used to verify the joint strength. Thermal resistance measurement was carried out to verify thermal performance of TLPS assemblies. Thermal cycling test (−40 °C to +135 °C) had been performed to assess the reliability performance of the assemblies. TLPS samples built on Al and Cu substrates exhibited higher thermal resistance due to higher mis-match of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) with that of AlN, while TLPS samples assembled on AlSiC substrates were much more reliable and showed low thermal resistance throughout the thermal cycling test.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue for the sustained need for the physical workplace and real-life encounters in higher education even in the digital age despite being seemingly transformable into the virtual sphere as seen during the COVID-19 situation.

Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a collaborative autoethnography by a group of seven higher educators with an overall 2,134 student encounters during the study's time span. The authors then connect these practitioner observations with relevant COVID-19-related studies thereby adding to research on higher education as a workplace.

Findings
The data suggest that the physical workplace strongly bolsters the personal experience and effectiveness of higher education through contributing to its dynamics. Spaces predetermine the scope and levels of human interaction of teaching and learning. In a physical setting, all senses serve as mediators, whereas, online, only two senses are involved: vision and hearing. The two-dimensional screen becomes a mediator of communications. In the physical space, actors are free to adjust the working space, whereas the online working space is limited and defined by platforms.

Practical implications
Although higher education institutions may indeed fully substitute most practices formerly in a physical setting with online solutions, real-time encounters in the physical working space belong to its deeper raisons d'être.

Originality/value
This paper highlights the necessity of the physical workplace in higher education and describes the depriving potential of the exclusively online higher education teaching setting.


Coolness has been studied by scholars from different disciplines: semiotics, sociology, anthropology and psychology. In defining coolness, scholars do agree that this concept was related to rebellious attitudes and behaviours before it started being commercialized.
In this thesis the researcher builds on current literature on Coolness by linking rebellious behaviours to disadvantaged financial, social, or cultural backgrounds, which are often presented in the companies narratives describing the background of their founders. Telling stories about disadvantaged background and narrating how difficult and hard was for the owner to establish the venture has been shown to increase consumers' connection with the brands. In this study, the researcher claims that when a brand is positioned as a rebel, consumers will consider the brand as more Cool if the brand has a disadvantaged rather than and advantaged biography, because disadvantaged brand biography seems more congruent with rebellious positioning.
The researcher also argues that Brand Authenticity influences this relationship. Previous studies have pointed out how consumers perceive a company as authentic if they think that it consistently behaves in accordance with its values and beliefs. In other words, the more a brand acts in congruence with these values at all stages - production, promotion, or customer care - the more this brand will be perceived as authentic by consumers. The author here points out that being considered as an underdog may justify the actions a rebellious brand implements against the mainstream rules in order to succeed, increasing the authenticity of its claim and boosting, in turn, Coolness.
Consumers may, nevertheless, evaluate rebelliousness in different ways depending on how important it is for them to be connected with or to be independent from other consumers. Self-construal is therefore tested as a potential moderator of the relationship between rebelliousness and brand authenticity.
The results of five experiments showed that a disadvantaged background together with a rebellious conduct or positioning influences consumers' evaluation of coolness. Furthermore, Brand Authenticity was found to mediate the direct effect of rebelliousness on coolness, demonstrating that a rebellious positioning is considered 'Cool' as long as the company acts in line with its core values. In addition, the findings indicated that the consumers' level of independence moderated the relationship between the rebelliousness of the brand and the evaluation of the company authenticity. Lastly, the results demonstrate that the effect of a disadvantaged background sustain Coolness also when a company becomes a 'superbrand' and in product categories that are not necessarily evaluated as 'Cool' (like, for example, appliances).
This research extends the literature on brand biographies and brand authenticity, demonstrating how these constructs can be applied to different domains and how they impact consumers' evaluation of advertising clues (such as a rebellious positioning). On a managerial level, this research contributes in demonstrating that the use of a disadvantaged brand biography can help branding practitioners to enhance the level of coolness for their brands in spite of the size of the company and the product category.


Demands in the labour market are developing rapidly with increasing emphasis on skills and competences. The teaching methods and assessment in the educational system must change in parallel to these changing demands from only being knowledge-based to being based more equally on knowledge, skills and competences. This paper describes the effects of using a simulation teaching method to improve the learning outcomes for students in a Master of Project Management (MPM) programme in Reykjavík University. In a cohort of 26 MPM students, using a series of four simulation exercises led to an incremental improvement in all intended learning outcomes, based on knowledge, skills and competences in project management. The students, when interviewed, described a wish for increased use of simulation in their teaching and more varied simulation subjects, the importance of debriefing after each exercise and a perceived highest impact on the People and Practice areas of competency in the Eye of Competency.


He was famously hostile to biography as a literary form. And yet this life of Adorno by one of his last students is far more than literary in its accomplishments, giving us our first clear look at how the man and his moment met to create "critical theory." An intimate picture of the quintessential twentieth-century transatlantic intellectual, the book is also a window on the cultural ferment of Adorno's day - and its ongoing importance in our own.The biography begins at the shining moment of the German bourgeoisie, in a world dominated by liberals willing to extend citizenship to refugees fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. Detlev Claussen follows Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) from his privileged life as a beloved prodigy to his intellectual coming of age in Weimar Germany and Vienna; from his exile during the Nazi years, first to England, then to the United States, to his emergence as the Adorno we know now in the perhaps not-so-unlikely setting of Los Angeles. There in 1943 with his collaborator Max Horkheimer, Adorno developed critical theory, whose key insight - that to be entertained is to give one's consent - helped define the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century.In capturing the man in his complex relationships with some of the century's finest minds - including, among others, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Benjamin, Thomas Mann, Siegfried Kracauer, Georg Lukacs, Hannah Arendt, and Bertolt Brecht - Claussen reveals how much we have yet to learn from Theodor Adorno, and how much his life can tell us about ourselves and our time.


Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the automated oscillometric upper arm blood pressure (BP) monitor AVITA BPM64 for home BP monitoring according to the International Protocol of the European Society of Hypertension revision 2010. Methods Systolic and diastolic BPs were measured sequentially in 33 adult Chinese (14 women, mean age 47.0 years) using a mercury sphygmomanometer (two observers) and the AVITA BPM64 device (one supervisor). A total of 99 pairs of comparisons were obtained from 33 participants for judgments in two parts with three grading phases. Results The AVITA BPM64 device achieved the targets in part 1 of the validation study. The number of absolute differences between device and observers within 5, 10, and 15 mmHg was 91/99, 98/99, and 98/99, respectively, for systolic BP and 92/99, 99/99, and 99/99, respectively, for diastolic BP. The device also fulfilled the criteria in part 2 of the validation study. Thirty-two participants for both systolic and diastolic BP had at least two of the three device–observer differences within 5 mmHg (required ≥24). Only one participant for systolic BP had all three device–observer comparisons greater than 5 mmHg. Conclusion The AVITA upper arm BP monitor BPM64 has passed the requirements of the International Protocol revision 2010, and hence can be recommended for home use in adults.


Service is a key business for a growing amount of companies. Especially in highly competitive markets, companies can secure their revenue generation and turnover through services. The ongoing change in present companies is associated with the change of existing and emergence of new business models. Especially the co-creation, as a key characteristic of services, and its impact on the business logic should be represented in the business model in a comprehensive way. This paper contributes to this field of research by assessing proposed business model extensions for services to evaluate the state of the art in representing service business models. For this reason the state of the art was considered and examined by defining comparison criteria and analyzing different approaches.


This service record is an account of military actions during the American Civil War by veteran J. L. Brown dated from 1900.


Discusses the relationships between finite schedulers which operate on output from a higher level in a conventional MRPII system, and so‐called stand‐alone schedulers which essentially operate directly on orders. Presents two graphical models – a demand flow model and a flowpipe model – which help to explain the differences between such schedulers and are used to illustrate the key features of each. Coupled schedulers tend to work on demand which has already been smoothed or planned in some way and can be described as planning‐led, whereas stand‐alone schedulers work from unfiltered data, with the operator reacting to schedule quality (due‐date performance, resource activation levels, etc.) and thence adjusting resource and rerunning. Ascribes the growth of the stand‐alone scheduler, at least in part, to the greatly increased computing power available quite inexpensively on modern equipment.


Managerial shared leadership is a practice that goes beyond traditional ways of organising leadership functions. It is an organisational phenomenon where a few individuals share responsibility for the tasks of a managerial position. This paper reviews 67 empirical papers published in scientific journals. The review covers 55 years (1965–2019). The aim is to contribute knowledge about managerial shared leadership as a research field and offer some relevant theoretical concepts. No review to date has specifically focused on managerial shared leadership, and this paper intends to close this knowledge gap. The paper details the start of managerial shared leadership as a research field, presents a bibliometric analysis and the methodological approaches used, and describes the structural characteristics of managerial shared leadership. The paper includes a thematic content analysis of necessary and enabling antecedents and outcomes. Historically, the imprecise use of concepts has hampered managerial shared leadership's development into a cohesive research field, so this paper develops and uses theoretical concepts to form a theoretical construct for the entire field. This construct is briefly discussed in relation to general shared leadership theory and critical leadership studies. In practice, managerial shared leadership may provide leadership solutions where there is an imbalance between demands and resources while managing complex situations.


Recent debate has focused on the introduction of a central stabilisation capacity as a completing element of the Economic and Monetary Union. Its main objective would be to contribute cushioning country-specific economic shocks, especially when national fiscal stabilisers are run down. There are two main potential objections to such schemes proposed so far: first, they may lead to moral hazard, i.e. weaken the incentives for sound fiscal policies and structural reforms. Second, they may generate permanent transfers among countries. Here we present a scheme that is relatively free from moral hazard, because the transfers are based on changes in world trade in the various sectors. These changes can be considered as largely exogenous, hence independent from an individual government's policy; therefore, the scheme is better protected against manipulation. Our scheme works as follows: if a sector is hit by a bad shock at the world market level, then a country with an economic structure that is skewed towards this sector receives a (one-time) transfer from the other countries. The scheme is designed such that the transfers add up to zero each period, hence obviating the need for a borrowing capacity. We show that the transfers generated by our scheme tend to be countercyclical and larger when economies are less diversified. Cumulated over time, a country's transfers generally tend to stabilise and to move towards zero, thus suggesting that permanent transfers are inherently ruled out under this scheme. Finally, we show that transfers are quite robust to revisions in the underlying export data.


Remote sensing image vectorization; edge enhancement; boundary tracking; Abstract. This paper researched and implemented remote sensing image vectorization process using semi-automated way. Remote sensing image can be vectored as the following five steps:vertical and horizontal edge enhancement, open operation, close operation, binarization, and finally the boundary tracking. The paper presented an improved tracking algorithm to avoid the shortcomings of traditional edge tracking algorithm. In our tracking algorithm, for image maps, we first use open operation and then use close operation to remove noise.This vectorization method changed the traditional data collection mode and improved data collection efficiency.


As a typical roof-supporting system of tunnels, Cable bolts are subjected to static and dynamic loading conditions caused by ground movements and mining activities. As mining goes deeper, the chance of undetermined ground stress concentrations increases and subsequently, the probability of sudden unexpected failures such as rock bursts increases. Many studies have been carried out to simulate the axial loading condition of the tendons, especially cable bolts, under static and dynamic loading modes; however, it barely can be seen that both behaviours have been studied and compared simultaneously. From other points of view, although research has been conducted on Barrel and Wedge and load-bearing plates, these components have hardly been considered together in axial loading studies. In this laboratory study, a new pullout testing mechanism has been introduced, which is capable of implementing axial loading of cable bolts in both static and dynamic loading conditions. In addition, in a parametric study, the role of bulbs of the cable bolts as well as barrel and wedges on the load-bearing capacity of the anchors have been examined. The bond between cable bolts and grout material in the bulbed cables behaves almost 30% stronger in static and 40% stronger in dynamic tests in comparison with plain cables. In general, the required pullout energy in dynamic tests was 25-50% less than in static tests.


Research shows that UK Caribbean patients with psychosis have more aversive pathways in psychiatric care compared with the white British population. This may indicate "cultural mistrust" of services which is attributed by Caribbean patients to racism, explaining their poorer adherence and engagement with services. Mistrust may reflect a mismatch in the attribution of illness between patient and psychiatrist: whereby the patient perceives both his predicament and services as racist and oppressive, whilst the psychiatrist over-estimates the "dangerousness" of the patient. No study to-date has examined the association between the perception that society and services are racist and adherence with psychiatric treatment in Caribbean patients with psychosis. This is a London-based prospective cohort study of 100 Caribbean patients with psychosis. It uses the Perceived Racism Scale (PRS - a multi-dimensional measure of self-reported racism), the Drug Attitudes Inventory (DAI) and the Kemp seven-point scale (a commonly used self-report and multi-sourced measure of adherence, respectively). Perceived racism was measured at baseline using the PRS, with adherence and hospital admission data determined after 12 months, using the DAI and Kemp Scale. The study found small but independent and significant associations between measures of total perceived racism for the previous year, over a lifetime, and everyday racism for the previous year, with medication adherence one year later. It also found that feeling ashamed and powerless about any racism that was personally experienced within the health system were associated with increased adherence and fewer hospital bed-days in the subsequent year. Finally, the strongest positive association was between perceived racism within the system and both the number of subsequent hospital bed-days and length of hospital admission over the next year. This implies that in this group of UK Caribbean patients with psychosis, perceived racism is a determinant of adherence with psychotropic medication over a twelve-month period.


A high spatial and temporal resolution global soil moisture product is essential for understanding hydrologic and meteorological processes and enhancing agricultural applications. Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals at L-band frequencies that reflect off the land surface can convey high-resolution land surface information, including surface soil moisture (SM). Cyclone global navigation satellite system (CYGNSS) constellation generates Delay-Doppler Maps (DDMs) that contain important Earth surface information from GNSS reflection measurements. DDMs are affected by soil moisture and other factors such as complex topography, soil texture, and overlying vegetation. Including entire DDM information can help reduce the uncertainty of SM estimation under different conditions along with remotely sensed geophysical data. This work extends our previously developed deep learning (DL) framework to a global scale by utilizing processed DDM measurements (analog power, effective scattering area, and bistatic radar cross-section) and ancillary data (elevation, slope, water percentage, soil properties, and vegetation water content). The DL model is trained and evaluated using the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission's enhanced SM products at 9-km resolution. This study comprehensively evaluates the DL model against publicly available CYGNSS-based SM products at a quasi-global scale. In addition to the typical comparison against in-situ measurements, a robust triple collocation technique is used to evaluate the DL-based SM product and other CYGNSS-derived SM products.


Excavations at Sheep Hill hillfort, West Dunbartonshire, took place at weekends between 1966 and 1969, with a small team of volunteers. The fort is sited on a volcanic plug of basalt with extensive views up and down the river Clyde. The finds are in the Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow, and a preliminary account of the discoveries was published a few years later (MacKie 1976).
 The hilltop stronghold was found in fact to have been two successive forts. The first (Fort 1) was a timber-framed dun – a drystone enclosure on the summit of the hill. This was destroyed by fire and partly vitrified near the end of the Bronze Age, and most of the rubble from the walls was re-used in the larger Iron Age hillfort (Fort 2) which was built on top of it. A midden from this early fort was found under the rampart of the later one and contained gritty Dunagoil pottery as well as pieces of fired clay moulds for bronze implements. It is possible that a palisaded enclosure preceded the vitrified fort. Nearby on the north was once one of the finest cup-and-ring carved rocks in the country which may have been damaged for building material. The later hillfort consisted of several enclosures defended by rubble and earth ramparts. An important element in the associated material culture was the shale armlet, several examples of which were found. They appear to have been made on the site. The fort is difficult to date precisely but was almost certainly pre-Roman. No Roman artefacts were found although the fort at the west end of the Antonine wall is only a short distance to the east.


The present study investigates the use of gestures by 18-, 24- and 30-month-old Swedish children, as well as their practical actions in coordination with verbs. Previous research on connections between children's verbs and gestures has mainly focused only on iconic gestures and action verbs. We expand the research foci in two ways: we look both at gestures and at practical actions, examining how the two are coordinated with static verbs (e.g. sleep) and dynamic verbs (e.g. fall). Thanks to these additional distinctions, we have found that iconic gestures and iconic actions (the latter in particular) most commonly occurred with dynamic verbs. Static verbs were most commonly accompanied by deictic actions and deictic gestures (the latter in particular). At 30 months, deictic bodily expressions, including both gestures and actions, increased, whereas iconic expressions decreased. We suggest that this may reflect a transition to less redundant ways of using bodily expressions at 30 months, where bodily movement increasingly takes on the role of specifying verb arguments rather than expressing the semantics of the verb itself.


We propose a new type of re-writable bitmap image display component using the MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) -controlled light scattering. The device is made of a light-guided transparent substrate (glass) and a thin sheet of semi-transparent plastic film (PDMS; Poly Di Methyl Siloxane) with magnetic nickel and light-diffusing glass powders formed in an electrostatic parallel-plate actuator. The membrane segment under a moderate drive voltage (110V), is designed to suspend itself at the rest position over the glass substrate, in which an illumination light travels at the condition of internal total reflection. When an extra force is applied for instance, by manually pressing with a glass rod (diameter 1mm), the membrane is electrostatically brought into contact with the glass substrate, where the light scatters through the membrane to the eyes of a viewer. The trace of the glass-rod stroke persists in the membrane as long as the driving voltage is applied. The image can also be partially erased by magnetically pulling up the magnetic membrane using a tiny permanent magnet scanned over the device. In other words, the developed device has a function of blackboard to which the bitmap image data is written manually. Thanks to the simplicity of the structure and operation principle, the device can be made in large area by the recent "Large Area MEMS" such as a roll-to-roll printing, inkjet printing and plastic molding.


Abstract. Tropospheric ozone (O3) is a known greenhouse gas responsible for impacts on human and animal health and ecosystem functioning. In addition, O3 plays an important role in tropospheric chemistry, together with nitrogen oxides. The determination of surface-atmosphere exchange fluxes of these trace gases is a prerequisite to establish their atmospheric budget and evaluate their impact onto the biosphere. In this study, O3, nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) fluxes were measured using the aerodynamic gradient method over a bare soil in an agricultural field. Ozone and NO fluxes were also measured using eddy-covariance and automatic chambers, respectively. The aerodynamic gradient measurement system, composed of fast response sensors, was capable to measure significant differences in NO and O3 mixing ratios between heights. However, due to local advection, NO2 mixing ratios were highly non-stationary and NO2 fluxes were, therefore, not significantly different from zero. The chemical reactions between O3, NO and NO2 led to little ozone flux divergence between the surface and the measurement height (less than 1% of the flux on average), whereas the NO flux divergence was about 10% on average. The use of fast response sensors allowed reducing the flux uncertainty. The aerodynamic gradient and the eddy-covariance methods gave comparable O3 fluxes. The chamber NO fluxes were down to 70% lower than the aerodynamic gradient fluxes, probably because of either the spatial heterogeneity of the soil NO emissions or the perturbation due to the chamber itself.


Some peculiar macroscopic properties of crude oils are ascribed to their densest, heaviest and most polar fraction: the asphaltenes. The comprehension of the origin of these properties relies on a fine structural description of these fractions. We present a nanometre length scale characterisation of asphaltene solutions based on new or recent scattering experiments (X-rays and neutrons) from which structural parameters of asphaltene aggregates (M w , R g and A 2 ) are extracted. The mutual dependence of these parameters is consistent with a mass fractal model. This single model accounts for very different macroscopic solution properties. Solvent trapping in fractal aggregates enables asphaltene solution viscosity to be fully predicted as a function of asphaltene concentration. Asphaltene adsorbs at liquid-liquid and liquid-solid interfaces as a monolayer whose thickness is of the same order of magnitude as the characteristic size of the asphaltene aggregate in bulk. Adsorption isotherm analysis, neutron reflectivity experiments and contrast-matching SANS allow one to highlight a densification of the asphaltene aggregates in the adsorbed layer in comparison with the solvated aggregates in bulk. Finally, the repulsive/attractive interaction balance between aggregates can be related to the relative stability of water in oil emulsions and to the stability of hydro-conversion effluents. This structure/property approach allows one to assess the mass fractal model which is discussed.


IC 166 is an intermediate-age open cluster (OC) (∼1 Gyr) that lies in the transition zone of the metallicity gradient in the outer disk. Its location, combined with our very limited knowledge of its salient features, make it an interesting object of study. We present the first high-resolution spectroscopic and precise kinematical analysis of IC 166, which lies in the outer disk with RGC ∼ 12.7 kpc. High-resolution H-band spectra were analyzed using observations from the SDSS-IV Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment survey. We made use of the Brussels Automatic Stellar Parameter code to provide chemical abundances based on a line-by-line approach for up to eight chemical elements (Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Al, K, Mn, and Fe). The α-element (Mg, Si, Ca, and whenever available Ti) abundances, and their trends with Fe abundances have been analyzed for a total of 13 high-likelihood cluster members. No significant abundance scatter was found in any of the chemical species studied. Combining the positional, heliocentric distance, and kinematic information, we derive, for the first time, the probable orbit of IC 166 within a Galactic model including a rotating boxy bar, and found that it is likely that IC 166 formed in the Galactic disk, supporting its nature as an unremarkable Galactic OC with an orbit bound to the Galactic plane.


Women, though, have some structural disadvantage over men in respect to physical strength, but stamina and skill and also the prejudices of consequent ill effect have started participating increasingly more in sports proving marriage and motherhood is not the end of active life. Studies were conducted to examine the post marital changes in both sedentary and active women in respect to structural variables for verifying the utility of physical activities even after marriage. Data collected before marriage from 50 each sedentary and active women on the structural variables like height, weight, biepicondylar humerus width, biepicondylar femur width and fat percentage were compared by paired 't' test to that collected 6–9 months after marriage. Significant effect of marriage on both active and sedentary women in respect to almost all the variables was noticed. Before marriage, no significant difference in the value of body weight among the active and sedentary women was found. Sedentary women, before marriage, had higher fat percentage (10.18%) and BMI (5.01%) but lower biepicondylar humerus width (19%) and biepicondylar femur width (21%). In active women body weight (4.78%), BMI (5.01%) and the biepicondylar femur width increased while fat percentage (5.90%) and the biepicondylar humerus width (3.84%) decreased after marriage but in sedentary women all the values increased in the tune of 4.04%, 4.08%, 1.05% and 2.49%, respectively, for body weight, BMI, fat% and the biepicondylar humerus width after marriage. In respect to fat% active women had significant post marital loss (6%), while sedentary women had gain (1%), difference in fat% between active and sedentary women being wider from 10% higher in sedentary women before marriage to 18% after marriage. Biepicondylar humerus width had 4% loss in active and 2.49% gain in sedentary women. The study thus revealed important facts about the structural changes that marriage brings to women, particularly in respect to body weight and BMI which is negative from physical fitness point of view thus showing the importance of physical exercise and fitness activities of the women even after marriage.


The paper (Compact Routing Messages in Self-Healing Trees, TCS 2017) introduced CompactFTZ, the first self-healing compact routing algorithm that works in a distributed network with each node using only O(log n) words (i.e. O(log2 n) bits) memory and thus O(log n) sized messages. The routing uses only O(1) and O(log n) words routing table and packet labels respectively on a self-healing tree that also works using only O(1) words repairing the network in face of a strong adversary deleting nodes. This deterministic algorithm sets up its data structures in a preprocessing phase and then updates the required data structures in only O(1) parallel time per healing round during execution of the algorithm. However, CompactFTZ has no constraints in its preprocessing phase which could be done in distributed large memory or even centrally. In this paper, we correct that by developing the algorithms for preprocessing of CompactFTZ in a fully distributed manner using only O(log n) words memory in optimal time. In fact, the preprocessing for the self-healing tree (ForgivingTree) component takes only O(1) memory. We develop a local function which each node invokes to instantly compute and then relay its repair instructions (known as its Will) in only O(1) time. We formalise the low memory CONGEST model setting used in previous low memory algorithms (e.g.[24]); nodes' working memory is restricted to be much smaller (in our case, O(log n)) than the numbers of their neighbours to whom they communicate through their I/O ports. We expand the model to allow for non-contiguous ports (e.g. empty ports or neighbours unmarked or lost in dynamic settings) and adversarial order of inputs from neighbours. Besides the Wills, we set up the tree structures and traversals for the routing scheme using only O(log n) memory and O(D) parallel time, where D is the diameter. Thus, we devise the first self-healing compact routing algorithm that can be fully set up and executed in low memory.


Abstract Hudson Bay Basin is one of the largest Palaeozoic sedimentary basins in North America. It was explored for hydrocarbon resources, at a reconnaissance scale, more than 30 years ago, although the exploration potential remains largely untested. The lower part of the basin succession comprises approximately 600–1040 m of Upper Ordovician (Bad Cache Rapids and Churchill River groups and Red Head Rapids Formation) and Lower Silurian (Severn River, Ekwan River, Attawapiskat and Kenogami River formations) strata. These formations mainly comprise carbonate rocks consisting of alternating fossiliferous limestone, evaporitic and reefal dolostone, and minor shale. A study of 4500 conodonts from 390 conodont-bearing samples from continuous cores and well cuttings from six exploration wells in the Hudson Bay Lowlands and offshore area has revealed 50 species representing 28 genera. The conodont studies have significantly improved our understanding of the Early Paleozoic geology by providing: 1. clear definition of conodont zones and their stratigraphic ranges. Seven zones are established for the Upper Ordovician–Lower Silurian interval, namely the Belodina confluens, Amorphognathus ordovicicus, Rhipidognathus symmetricus, Ozarkodina elibata, Kockelella? trifurcata and Distomodus staurognathoides interval zones, as well as the Pterospathodus celloni–P. eopennatus Assemblage Zone. 2. precise biostratigraphic control for the different formations. Upper Ordovician formations are dated as late Caradocian–late Ashgillian with the Maysvillian or part of Maysvillian and Gamachian missing: Lower Silurian formations are dated as early Rhuddanian–middle Telychian, Llandovery. 3. recognition of sea-level events based on the stratigraphic distribution and known ecologic partitioning of key conodont species in wells representing a shallow to deep gradient. 4. definition of the position of the Ordovician–Silurian boundary, typically associated with the global hiatus created by the terminal Ordovician glaciation. Most of the conodonts from the six wells studied have a Colour Alteration Index (CAI) value of 1, indicating little alteration of organic matter and that the strata have not reached burial temperatures greater than 80°C. However, slightly higher CAI values are recorded from the deepest part of the wells in the offshore area of the basin, indicating burial temperatures just within the oil window. The Late Ordovician Boas River oil shale, which is inferred to have significant potential as a source rock and occurs at the surface along the northern part of the basin, does not appear to be present in the wells.


The main objective of the present research was the possibility of predicting library anxiety (LA) concerning students' emotional intelligence (EI). This study's objective, practical research, data gathering, and research method are descriptive correlational studies. Graduate students of Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University and Tabriz University make up the statistical population of this research. Based on Morgan's formulae for sample size determination, 298 and 350 students were selected as the study's sample size. Then, the random sampling method was used to prepare the questionnaires, which were distributed and collected. The required information in preparing the questionnaires was taken from Siberia Schering's Emotional Intelligence and the "library anxiety questionnaire." For examining the research hypotheses, Pearson Correlation Test and stepwise regression were used. Based on the present study's findings, the average emotional intelligence scores of students of Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University and Tabriz University were aboveaverage, i.e. 3.003 and 3.169, respectively. The correlation of the coefficients of emotional intelligence and library anxiety turned out to be -0.38. Also, the multiple regression analysis results showed that 17% of the changes in library anxiety can be predicted or revealed based on students' emotional intelligence, and that 83% percent of them depend on other reasons. The findings of this research can raise the awareness about the status of students' emotional intelligence and library anxiety among officials of Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University and Tabriz University and help with future decision-making and planning.


In this article we synthesise the findings of previous research to explore the question: How can exercise and sport contribute to mental health promotion in the context of serious mental illness? We used an interpretive approach to gain insights into the sport and exercise experiences of 11 men with serious mental illness. Data were gathered through interviews and participant observation, and analysed through a content analysis and a narrative analysis of structure and form. These analyses suggest that exercise and sport contributed in three distinct ways: acting as a vehicle for other outcomes, facilitating recreation of a previous athletic identity, and providing a means to re-story self and identity through adventure experiences. We conclude that the ways in which exercise and sport can help promote mental health in the context of serious mental illness are varied, complex and closely related to the meaning the activity holds for the individual.


In this article, we give hands-on instructions to obtain translatome data from different Arabidopsis thaliana root cell types via the translating ribosome affinity purification (TRAP) method and consecutive optimized low-input library preparation. As starting material, we employ plant lines that express GFP-tagged ribosomal protein RPL18 in a cell type-specific manner by use of adequate promoters. Prior to immunopurification and RNA extraction, the tissue is snap frozen, which preserves tissue integrity and simultaneously allows execution of time series studies with high temporal resolution. Notably, cell wall structures remain intact, which is a major drawback in alternative procedures such as fluorescence-activated cell sorting-based approaches that rely on tissue protoplasting to isolate distinct cell populations. Additionally, no tissue fixation is necessary as in laser capture microdissection-based techniques, which allows high-quality RNA to be obtained. However, sampling from subpopulations of cells and only isolating polysome-associated RNA severely limits RNA yields. It is, therefore, necessary to apply sufficiently sensitive library preparation methods for successful data acquisition by RNA-seq. TRAP offers an ideal tool for plant research as many developmental processes involve cell wall-related and mechanical signaling pathways. The use of promoters to target specific cell populations is bridging the gap between organ and single-cell level that in turn suffer from little resolution or very high costs. Here, we apply TRAP to study cell-cell communication in lateral root formation.


In order to calculate the raditaion from plasmas placed in waveguides it is necessary to know the field produced by arbitrarily moving charged particles in a waveguide. In this paper modal expansions for the vector and scalar potentials due to arbitrarily moving charged particles in a waveguide are derived and provide the extension of the Lienard-Wiechert potentials to a waveguide environment. In addition, for a plasma filled waveguide, a modal expansion is given of the electric field directly in terms of mode coupling with the charge motion. Expressions for the spectral distribution of the radiation are given, both in general and for cyclotron radiation. Some specific results for the H/sub 10/ mode excited in a rectangular guide by cyclotron motion are also presented.


Purpose This study aimed to examine the clinical effect of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and improvements in CRF after cardiac rehabilitation (CR) in heart failure (HF) patients for their risk for all-cause mortality and unplanned hospitalization and to investigate possible factors associated with the absence of improvement in CRF after rehabilitation. Methods We included 155 HF patients receiving CR between October 2009 and January 2015. Patients performed an incremental bicycle test to assess CRF through peak oxygen uptake (V˙O2-peak) before and after CR-based supervised exercise training. Patients were classified as responders or nonresponders on the basis of pre-to-post CR changes in V˙O2-peak (≥6% and <6%, respectively). Cox proportional hazards models evaluated all-cause mortality and unplanned hospitalization during 5 yr of follow-up. Patient characteristics, HF features, and comorbidities were used to predict changes in V˙O2-peak using logistic regression analysis. Results Seventy HF patients (45%) were classified as responder. Nonresponders had a significantly higher risk for all-cause mortality or hospitalization (hazard ratio, 2.15; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.17–3.94) compared with responders. This was even higher in nonresponders with low CRF at baseline (hazard ratio, 4.88; 95% CI, 1.71–13.93). Factors associated with nonresponse to CR were age (odds ratio (OR), 1.07/yr; 95% CI, 1.03–1.11), baseline V˙O2-peak (OR, 1.16 mL·min−1·kg−1; 95% CI, 1.06–1.26), and adherence to CR (OR, 0.98/percentage; 95% CI, 0.96–0.998). Conclusions Independent from baseline CRF, the inability to improve V˙O2-peak by CR doubled the risk for death or unplanned hospitalization. The combination of lower baseline CRF and nonresponse was associated with even poorer clinical outcomes. Especially older HF patients with higher baseline V˙O2-peak and lower adherence have a higher probability of becoming a nonresponder.


This habilitation thesis comprises a compilation of publications that address central determinants of positive behavior across group boundaries, and that, taken together, significantly contribute to our knowledge about the processes that facilitate genuinely positive cross-group behavior. The thesis consists of four major parts. In a first part, I will provide a brief overview of traditional and emerging perspectives on positive cross-group behavior with special emphasis on research showing that forms of positive cross-group behaviors should be understood as a unique phenomenon that requires unique theoretical explanations (Publication 1). In a second and third part, I will introduce two research lines focusing on determinants of positive cross-group behavior in two different intergroup contexts – benign contexts of dyadic cross-group helping (Publications 2 to 6), and conflictual contexts characterized by direct or structural violence (Publications 7 to 10). Both lines address determinants that have not received much empirical attention in previous work. In a final part, I will discuss theoretical and practical implications of these two research lines, and outline two possible ways of integrating them by referring to two recent works (Publications 11 and 12).

(Bei dieser Publikation handelt es sich um den Manteltext als Teil der kumulativen Habilitationsschrift.)


Theme identification is one of the most fundamental tasks in qualitative research. It also is one of the most mysterious. Explicit descriptions of theme discovery are rarely found in articles and reports, and when they are, they are often relegated to appendices or footnotes. Techniques are shared among small groups of social scientists, but sharing is impeded by disciplinary or epistemological boundaries. The techniques described here are drawn from across epistemological and disciplinary boundaries. They include both observational and manipulative techniques and range from quick word counts to laborious, in-depth, line-by-line scrutiny. Techniques are compared on six dimensions: (1) appropriateness for data types, (2) required labor, (3) required expertise, (4) stage of analysis, (5) number and types of themes to be generated, and (6) issues of reliability and validity.


Kenneth Arrow, perhaps the most influential economist after John Maynard Keynes in the 20th century, viewed trust as a lubricant that fosters cooperative behaviour and thus facilitates mutually advantageous economic exchanges in the presence of incomplete contracts and imperfect information. Recent research has confirmed the beneficial effects of trust in government on economic performance. The obverse, that an erosion of trust in public institutions (state, judiciary and police) has deleterious effects on economic performance, is equally true. Various recent accounts do not just corroborate an erosion of trust in governance, but also point to the imperative of strengthening it to break out of the deep recession that India's economy is in. The fiscal stimulus has been too little, too late.


In order to face increasing electric power exchanges, the interconnection of networks appears an adequate solution. Associated technical problems (such as deregulated electrical networks) must be taken into account in the conception of any system of electric power transmission. In particular, physical behaviour of a transmission line must be viewed in order to include it in any system of control. In this paper, specific modelling of a transmission line is developed and an example of such a control system is presented.


The development of frameworks for better-understanding ecological syndromes and putative evolutionary strategies of plant adaptation to fire has recently received a flurry of attention, including a new model hypothesizing that plants have diverged into three different plant flammability strategies due to natural selection. We provide three case studies of pyromes/taxa (Pinus, the Proteaceae of the Cape Floristic Region, and Eucalyptus) that, contrary to model assumptions, reveal that plant species often exhibit traits of more than one of these flammability and post-fire recovery strategies. We propose that such multiple-strategy adaptations have been favoured as bet-hedging strategies in response to selective pressure from mixed-fire regimes experienced by these species over evolutionary time.


Background Ambulance service performance measurement has previously focused on response times and survival. We conducted a systematic review of the international literature on quality measures and outcomes relating to pre-hospital ambulance service care, aiming to identify a broad range of outcome measures to provide a more meaningful assessment of ambulance service care. Methods We searched a number of electronic databases including CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Medline, and Web of Science. For inclusion, studies had to report either research or evaluation conducted in a pre-hospital setting, published in the English language from 1982 to 2011, and reporting either outcome measures or specific outcome instruments. Results Overall, 181 full-text articles were included: 83 (46%) studies from North America, 50 (28%) from Europe and 21 (12%) from the UK. A total of 176 articles were obtained after examining 257 full-text articles in detail from 5,088 abstracts screened. A further five papers were subsequently identified from references of the articles examined and studies known to the authors. There were 140 articles (77%) which contained at least one survival-related measure, 47 (34%) which included information about length of stay and 87 (48%) which identified at least one place of discharge as an outcome. Limitations We encountered the problem of incomplete information, for instance studies not specifying which pain scales when these had been used or using survival without a specific time period. Conclusion and recommendations In addition to measures relating to survival, length of stay and place of discharge, we identified 247 additional outcome measures. Few studies included patient reported or cost outcomes. By identifying a wide range of outcome measures this review will inform further research looking at the feasibility of using a wider range of outcome measures and developing new outcome measures in prehospital research and quality improvement.


PEG1000 was used as template to prepare porous TiO2 film by sol-gel method. The functions of applied potential and concentration of NaHCO3 to the photoelectrocatalytic degradation of methyl orange on porous and smooth TiO2 films were investigated. Methyl orange degradation rate has two optimal values at the applied potential of 0.8 V and 1.8 V. The addition of PEG may have negative effect on photoelectrocatalytic activity of TiO2 film. The degradation rate increases with increasing NaHCO3 concentration from 0 up to 0.05 mol/l, and then it declines after further increase of electrolyte concentration. After 100 min of reaction, the degradation rates on the films prepared without and with PEG addition are 63.78% and 65.22%, respectively.


Abstract Cognitive impairments in schizophrenia are associated with suboptimal psychosocial performance. Several lines of evidence have suggested that endoplasmic reticulum protein sigma-1 receptors were involved in cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia and that the sigma-1 receptor agonist fluvoxamine was effective in treating cognitive impairments in animal models of schizophrenia and in some patients with schizophrenia. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel trial of fluvoxamine adjunctive therapy in patients with schizophrenia was performed. A total of 48 patients with chronic schizophrenia were enrolled. Subjects were randomly assigned to an 8-week administration of add-on fluvoxamine (n = 24, titrated up to 150 mg/d) or placebo (n =24) in a total 12-week double-blind trial. The primary outcome measure was the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), assessing visual memory, working memory, attention, and executive function. The secondary outcome measures were the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms, the Quality of Life Scale, and the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale. Fluvoxamine was well tolerated. No significant time × group interaction effects were observed in the scores of the CANTAB, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms, Quality of Life Scale, or the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale. However, in secondary analyses, the change from baseline to end point on the Spatial Working Memory strategy score (executive function) of CANTAB improved in the fluvoxamine group. This study suggests no major benefit of fluvoxamine adjunctive therapy to improve cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia. Nevertheless, a further study using a large sample size will be needed to confirm the secondary analyses findings.


This paper proposes a novel tracking algorithm for efficiency improvement of photovoltaic(PV) system using sensor method. PV system of sensor method is exactly impossible to track a sun position when insolation is low or rapidly changed by the clouds and fogs. Also, in this case, tracking device is occurred energy consumption by unnecessary operating. This statement of reason, real power of PV system is not increased than fixed PV system in specified location. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel tracking algorithm considered insolation for efficiency improvement of PV system using sensor method. And this paper analyzes the generation volume and proves the validity of proposed algorithm as compared with the conventional PV tracking system using sensor method.


In this paper, a new technique that can suppress the dominant phase-induced intensity noise (PIIN) in general delay-line signal processor structures is presented. It is based on a delayed differential technique using a complementary output electro-optic modulator together with appropriate time delay and polarization effects to cancel the PIIN noise at the filter passband frequency. Experimental results using the delayed differential technique demonstrate a PIIN noise reduction of 19 dB at the filter passband for an amplified recirculating delay-line bandpass filter, together with a fourfold increase in the free spectral range and a 10 dB increase in the bandpass filter rejection level.


This paper presents an experimental study analyzing the effects of surface treated Polyimide (PI) on dielectric anisotropy and response time of Liquid Crystal (LC) in an In-Plane Switching (IPS) cell design. A Co-Planar Waveguide (CPW) transmission line is used as an in-plane interrogation architecture, with a layer of LC enclosed on top of the CPW. By applying different surface preparations of PI, we are able to derive an optimum condition to maximize birefringence and minimize response times at 20 GHz. Measured phase change is increased from 28 deg to 72 deg for the same length of the CPW line. At the same time, measurement results show that fall time is decreased from 9.32 s down to 4.1 s. These improvements will facilitate realization of LC in microwave devices in need of fast and tunable materials.


Thirty patients with metastatic malignant melanoma of unknown primary origin treated at Emory University Clinic between 1940 and 1975 are presented. This group represents the 4.4% of all melanomas treated during the same period of time at Emory. Nineteen (63.3%) patients had nodal metastases only, and they were handled by radical lymphadenectomy of the involved area. The remaining 11 patients presented with lung or widespread subcutaneous metastatic disease and treated with biopsy and radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The former group experienced 28.6% five‐and ten‐year actuarial survival while patients with lung metastases succumbed within four months after diagnosis. Spontaneous regression of a typical melanoma skin lesion has been reported in three patients prior to development of metastatic disease.


Fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of poly(2-[2-methoxyethoxy]ethyl methacrylate) (PMEO2MA) in water at temperatures below and above its lower critical solution temperature (LCST) were performed to improve the understanding of its LCST behavior. Atomic trajectories were used to calculate various structural and dynamic properties. Simulation results show that PMEO2MA undergo a distinct coil-to-globule transition above LCST. Detailed analyses of the number of first hydration shell water molecules around various atomic regions are revealed that the water solubility of PMEO2MA below LCST is mainly provided by the hydrophobic hydration around the side chain carbon atoms. This is achieved by the cage-like water network formations which are disrupted when the temperature is increased above LCST, accompanied by significant amount of water molecule release and local water-ordering reduction, which leads to the LCST phase transition. Furthermore, other analyses such as the number of hydrogen bonds and hydrogen bond lifetimes suggest that intermolecular hydrogen bondings between polymer and water molecules have little effect on the phase transition. Our results will contribute to a better understanding on the LCST phase transition of oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (OEGMA)-based homopolymers at atomistic level that will be useful when designing homo- and co-polymers of OEGMAs with desired properties. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2018, 56, 429–441


As the crisis in Israel does not show any signs of abating, this remarkable collection, edited by an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar and with contributions by Palestinian and Israeli women, offers a vivid and harrowing picture of the conflict and of its impact on daily life, especially as it affects women's experiences that differ significantly from those of men. The (auto)biographical narratives in this volume focus on some of the most disturbing effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a sense of dislocation that goes well beyond the geographical meaning of the word; it involves social, cultural, national and gender dislocation, including alienation from one's own home, family, community, and society. The accounts become even more poignant if seen against the backdrop of the roots of the conflict, the real or imaginary construct of a state to save and shelter particularly European Jews from the horrors of Nazism in parallel to the other side of the coin: Israel as a settler-colonial state responsible for the displacement of the Palestinian nation.


Purpose
This paper aims to advance understanding regarding a particular religious belief and buying behavior.

Design/methodology/approach
Two online experiments were conducted among diverse respondents. Study 1 used a one-way, between-subjects design with three conditions: afterlife salience, control and mortality salience. The dependent measure was built on the notion of first-price sealed-bid auction. Study 2 used a similar procedure with two conditions: afterlife salience and control. Mortality was made salient in both conditions.

Findings
Making afterlife salient boosted the willingness to pay. This effect did not result from mortality salience, which suggests that this research is a unique contribution beyond works rooted in Terror Management Theory. This effect was mediated through positive product thoughts.

Originality/value
There has long been an imbalance between theoretical speculation concerning religion and cognition and actual empirical documentation. The present research adds to the emerging body of empirical investigations into this relation. It contributes to the conceptual richness of the stream of literature by examining one aspect of religiosity that has rarely been studied: the belief in afterlife. In addition, the findings go beyond correlational patterns toward discovering nonobvious cause and effect. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this research is one of the few works that experimentally manipulate the notion of afterlife belief. This research also extends the understanding of pricing and willingness to pay by identifying a subtle environmental influence not recognized before.


Via Ferrata's began as part of the war machine (WW1) developed to prosecute and defend a war frontier (the mountain war in the Dolomites) - the frontiers that later crystallised the borders of European states. Essentially Via Ferrata's (meaning 'iron way') were steel cables and stemples installed as a means to ascess strategic summits. In this they are implicitly connected to the 'modern' nation state, international borders and the creation of those bounded identities. Their contemporary status now carries a weird potential with that history - as the boundaries and solidilty of that history loses coherence and mutates to new forms and understandings. Today they offer access to a humbling personal and social recreation - a place of jeopardy, fun, beauty and transformation - layered over a material and cultural history that in places acts as a museum history. Amazingly they also channel lightening strikes and audio waves from the summit skies down to the valleys - like some strange form of atmospheric communication.Via Ferrata (ACCA) is a rope drawing - made insitu climbing and descending the Coreten clad ACCA building. The rope is attached by magnets placed to maintain and shape the position of the route.Here the drawn line develops the Via Ferrata concept - exploring the idea of the mountain wires as both a linear drawn line and also apparatus of borders, states and nationhood where the line forms a shape or body. In one sense the line is a space in itself - as it carries a tragectory - a temporal space - a period of time from the start to finish or between any one point and another. This 'space' seems fractal in that it opens up on itself combining the lived experience of the creative act with the record of it's own making. This is in a connected tension with the shapes and forms the lines bound, close around or suggests - not least the top and bottom of the wall. In this sense it connects with Paul Klee's description of drawing - taking a line for a walk (or climb) which acknowledges the sequential 'linear' act of drawing and the consequential forming of a gestalt 'thing'.


This paper studies the spectral efficiency (SE) of a space-constrained multi-pair two-way massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) decode-and-forward (DF) relay system with channel aging for device-to-device (D2D) communications in the Internet of Things (IoT) environments. Maximum ratio combininy-Maximum ratio transmission (MRC/MRT) processing is employed at the relay and imperfect channel estimation is assumed. With the consideration of the spatial correlation due to insufficiently spaced antennas, and the time correlation due to channel aging, we study the closed-form large-scale approximations of the SE performance. Our analytical studies and performance results demonstrate that a degree of both spatial correlation due to antenna proximity, and time correlation due to channel aging can be tolerated in the massive MIMO regime without significant performance degradation.


The aim of this prospective, open study was to evaluate the efficacy and tolerance of the Levocabastine eye drops in daily practice. 273 patients with allergic (rhino)conjunctivitis were treated during 2 weeks. Objective findings and subjective assessments made by the patients were analyzed. The global efficacy was evaluated by the investigator as good or excellent in 73.8% (eye) and 53.6% (nose) of the patients. The results were not age-dependent. The tolerance was scored as good or excellent in 89% of the patients. Less than 6% of the patients stopped the treatment due to intolerance.


Adipic (hexane-1,6-dicarboxylic, adpH2) and trans,trans-muconic (trans,trans-hexa-2,4-diene-1,6-dicarboxylic, mucH2) acids have been reacted with uranyl cations under solvo-hydrothermal conditions, yielding nine homo- or heterometallic complexes displaying in their crystal structure the effects of the different flexibility of the ligands. The complexes [PPh4]2[(UO2)2(adp)3] (1) and [Ni(bipy)3][(UO2)2(muc)3]·5H2O (2), where bipy is 2,2'-bipyridine, crystallize as diperiodic networks with the hcb topology, the layers being strongly puckered or quasiplanar, respectively. Whereas [(UO2)2(adp)3Ni(cyclam)]·2H2O (3), where cyclam is 1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradecane, crystallizes as a diperiodic network, [(UO2)2(muc)3Ni(cyclam)]·2H2O (4) is a triperiodic framework in which the NiII cations are introduced as pillars within a uranyl-muc2- framework with the mog topology. [UO2(adp)(HCOO)2Cu(R,S-Me6cyclam)]·2H2O (5), where R,S-Me6cyclam is 7(R),14(S)-5,5,7,12,12,14-hexamethylcyclam, is a diperiodic assembly with the sql topology, and it crystallizes together with [H2NMe2]2[(UO2)2(adp)3] (6), a highly corrugated hcb network with a square-wave profile, which displays 3-fold parallel interpenetration. In contrast, [(UO2)3(muc)2(O)2Cu(R,S-Me6cyclam)] (7) is a diperiodic assembly containing hexanuclear, μ3-oxido-bridged secondary building units which are the nodes of a network with the hxl topology. The two related complexes [PPh3Me]2[(UO2)2(adp)3]·4H2O (8) and [PPh3Me]2[(UO2)2(muc)3]·H2O (9) crystallize as hcb networks, but their different shapes, undulated or quasiplanar, respectively, result in different entanglements, 2-fold parallel interpenetration in 8 and 2-fold inclined 2D → 3D polycatenation in 9.


This article is based on a master's level capstone project involving planning, execution, and evaluation of seven meals toward deeper understanding of Agape Meals (Love Feasts) and the Eucharist, in the context of a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS) run in Cape Town, South Africa. Participants were from South Africa, the United States, Zimbabwe and Malawi, representing a broad spectrum of spiritual maturity, cultural, and economic backgrounds, and ranged in age from late teens to early sixties. DTS students, staff, staff family members and the DTS speaker for that week participated in the meal each Sunday afternoon for two hours. Group size averaged thirty-five. Meals were found to facilitate enriched understanding of the table as a place of spiritual formation, addressing common misconceptions surrounding Communion.


With few exceptions, science studies has neglected potential insights that could be gained by studying sociology, a discipline that has played an important role in its own development. This thesis addresses the specificities of sociology from the perspective of constructivist science studies and explores the tensions that arise as a result of this encounter. The theoretical framework is based on actor-network theory (the work of Bruno Latour in particular), and supplemented with the work of Pierre Bourdieu (his theory of sociology in particular) to examine issues specific to sociology. Via a document and interview-based study of sociology in Latvia set against the background of Soviet science, the thesis argues that an open-ended and normatively saturated conception of knowledge hampers the stability of the discipline. I suggest, however, that these qualities matter vitally to the long-term development of sociology as a form of knowledge. Applied to sociology, a science studies understanding of science illustrates what happens when the intimate connection between political representation and scientific representation is not concealed, and hybridity is acknowledged.


Renal tubular fluid in the distal nephron is supersaturated favoring nucleation of the most common crystals in renal stones, which are composed of calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate. The mechanisms whereby these newly formed crystals can be retained in the nephron and develop into calculi are not known. Calcium oxalate monohydrate and hydroxyapatite (calcium phosphate) crystals rapidly adhere to anionic sites on the surface of cultured renal epithelial cells, but this process is inhibited by specific urinary anions such as citrate, glycosaminoglycans, uropontin, or nephrocalcin, each of which can coat the crystals. Therefore, competition for the crystal surface between soluble anions in tubular fluid and anions anchored on the apical cell surface could determine whether a crystal binds to a tubular cell. Crystals of calcium oxalate dihydrate can also nucleate directly on the surface of cultured BSC-1 cells in a face-specific manner, suggesting another potential pathway for crystal deposition in the nephron. Once present on the cell surface, calcium oxalate monohydrate, calcium oxalate dihydrate, and hydroxyapatite crystals are quickly internalized by renal cells; alterations in gene expression and initiation of proliferation may then ensue. Calcium oxalate crystals can also dissolve after renal cells internalize them, but this process may require up to several weeks. Increased knowledge about cell-crystal interactions, including identification of molecules in tubular fluid and on the cell surface that modulate the process, appear critical for understanding the pathogenesis of nephrolithiasis.


Objective: The current study examined the performance of a healthy ageing population on the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) neuropsychological test battery in order to determine norms for use in an Australian setting. The effects of age, education, gender and mood on cognitive performance in healthy older individuals were also explored. Method: The CERAD neuropsychological battery was administered to a sample of healthy elderly subjects (n = 243). Subjects also completed an anxiety inventory and a depression scale. Means and standard deviations of different age, gender and education groups are reported as normative data. A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was also calculated. Linear regression was applied to the five factors extracted from the PCA using age, education, gender and mood as independent variables. Results: All recorded means were within 1 SD of those reported in the original CERAD normative study. Five factors that loaded on measures of memory and learning, language, praxis and executive function were extracted. The independent variables age, education and gender all had significant effects on cognitive performance. However, mood had no such effect. Conclusions: Risk factors for cognitive decline indicated by the CERAD battery include age, education and gender. Anxiety and depression are not associated with CERAD cognitive performance. The CERAD battery is a valid and reliable neuropsychological tool that may assist in the detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in Australian populations.


The two-volume set LNCS 8269 and 8270 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptology and Information, Asiacrypt 2013, held in Bengaluru, India, in December 2013. The 54 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from 269 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: zero-knowledge, algebraic cryptography, theoretical cryptography, protocols, symmetric key cryptanalysis, symmetric key cryptology: schemes and analysis, side-channel cryptanalysis, message authentication codes, signatures, cryptography based upon physical assumptions, multi-party computation, cryptographic primitives, analysis, cryptanalysis and passwords, leakage-resilient cryptography, two-party computation, hash functions.