The complexity of memory systems has increased considerably over the past decade. Supercomputers may now include several levels of heterogeneous and non-uniform memory, with significantly different properties in terms of performance, capacity, persistence, etc. Developers of scientific applications face a huge challenge: efficiently exploit the memory system to improve performance, but keep productivity high by using portable solutions. In this work, we present a new API and a method to manage the complexity of modern memory systems. Our portable and abstracted API is designed to identify memory kinds and describe hardware characteristics using metrics, for example bandwidth, latency and capacity. It allows runtime systems, parallel libraries, and scientific applications to select the appropriate memory by expressing their needs for each allocation without having to re-modify the code for each platform. Furthermore we present a survey of existing ways to determine sensitivity of application buffers using static code analysis, profiling and benchmarking. We show in a use case that combining these approaches with our API indeed enables a portable and productive method to match application requirements and hardware memory characteristics.


For understanding up-to-date situation with fibrosis caused by chrysotile-asbestos, the authors conducted X-ray and hygienic studies in 2 enterprises extracting and enriching asbestos--"Tuvaasbest" JSC and "Orenbourgasbest" JSC. Authors followed correlation between diffuse pulmonary changes and length of service, dust load and cumulative exposure dose of respirable fibers. The strongest correlation was demonstrated for dust load. Workers engaged into up-to-date industry extracting and enriching asbestos are diagnosed as having indistinct and moderate roentgenologic types of fibrosis. Examples of dose-effect dependence prove dust load to be informative and expedient integral parameter for hygienic regulation and evaluation of asbestos-containing dust and industrial aerosols doses.


Structures, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of (Na0.5Bi0.5)0.90Ba0.10TiO3 ceramic sintered at different temperatures were investigated. The results confirm an important role of sintering temperature on the structure and electrical properties of the ceramic. It was found that the increase of sintering temperature in the range of 1110-1160 promoted the development of crystal structure and microstructural densification, leading to an improvement in ferroelectric properties, poling process and piezoelectric properties. Further increase of the sintering temperature above 1160 resulted in a slight deformation of ceramic specimens. With respect to sintering behavior and piezoelectric properties, a relatively narrow sintering temperature range near 1150 was ascertained to be preferred for the ceramic.


Background: Cohort studies suggest that higher circulating carotenoid concentrations through food sources may reduce breast cancer events. Other intervention studies have not achieved the level of change in circulating carotenoids required to properly test this hypothesis. Methods: In a randomized trial of 2,922 breast cancer survivors, we examined blood and self-reported diet at baseline and 1 year. Intensive telephone counseling encouraged a plant-based diet in the intervention group. Diet was measured via 24-hour recalls, and a panel of plasma carotenoid concentrations was assessed at both time points. Results: The study intervention was associated with a 51% increase in total carotenoid concentration, from 2.272 ± 1.294 to 3.440 ± 2.320 μmol/L, achieved mainly by marked increases in targeted carotenoids: α-carotene, β-carotene, and lutein. For each of these targeted carotenoids, the proportion of the intervention sample remaining below the cutpoint for the lowest baseline quartile decreased by one third to one half. After 1 year of study, half of the intervention group was in the highest baseline quartile. No change in distribution was observed in comparison group. Intervention participants achieved this change by both dietary pattern and vegetable juice consumption. Participants who chose to change dietary pattern without consuming significant quantities of vegetable juice achieved 75% of the level of change observed in other intervention participants. Conclusions: Innovative telephone counseling intervention and dietary targets in the Women's Healthy Eating and Living study were associated with the level of change in circulating carotenoid concentration necessary to test the diet and breast cancer hypothesis suggested by cohort studies. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(10):1886–92)


Author(s): Friedman, Dustin Edward | Advisor(s): Bristow, Joseph E | Abstract: What is the relationship between erotic desire and aesthetic contemplation? This question was central to three of British aestheticism's most notable theorist-practitioners: Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and Vernon Lee (Violet Paget). " Erotic Negativity " contends that Pater, Wilde, and Lee exercised Hegel's concept of " the negative " to describe the relationship between aesthetic experience and erotic response. The aesthete, when he or she gazes upon homoerotic aesthetic representation, undergoes a shock that is at once both intellectual and visceral: this is the revelation of an erotic desire, previously hidden as a determinate absence in the mind, which shatters and radically reconfigures the structure of consciousness itself. This process, which Hegel terms the " encounter with the negative, " elicits not only greater self-knowledge, but also critical insight into the cultural and historical significance of the aesthetic object. " Erotic Negativity " thus demonstrates that the most profound critiques of modernity must ground themselves in the reflective freedom that is created by artistically mediated experiences of erotic desire. Chapter one discusses Walter Pater's early essays, up to and including Studies in the History of the Renaissance , as the Aesthetic Movement's most elaborate and influential explication of negative homoeroticism. Chapter two examines Pater's post- Renaissance writings, such as " A Study of Dionysus, " Marius the Epicurean , and Plato and Platonism . In these works, Pater turned to early anthropology to show how erotic violence, rather than undermining the humanist subject, actually enables the creation of that subject through an aesthetically mediated homoerotic encounter with the negative. Chapter three discusses Oscar Wilde's novella " The Portrait of Mr. W.H., " which advances a homoerotic reading of Shakespeare's sonnets to express the insight he gains from the theory of erotic negativity: namely, that language's limited ability to capture the "truth" of erotic desire need not undermine the fundamental perdurability of individual subjectivity. Finally, chapter four shows how Vernon Lee's essay " Faustus and Helena: Notes on the Supernatural in Art" " and her fantastic tales " Oke of Okehurst " and " Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady " create a feminist revision of masculine homoerotic negativity by presenting women's supernatural encounters with history as erotically charged experiences that create new forms of feminine sexual subjectivity.


This paper describes the case study of a system testing for DIVERCITY. DIVERCITY was an EU funded project undertaken by a European consortium of researchers and practitioners from the construction industry. They were working together in an attempt to develop VR based software that enables the industry to better undertake the client briefing, design review, and construction planning phases of a construction project. The project had the acronym DIVERCITY – 'Distributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry.

DIVERCITY's development and testing teams spread across four EU countries. That added an additional layer of complexity to the system testing. DIVERCITY used conformance approach for testing strategy to meet the user requirements of the system. This paper describes the methods used, and the lessons learned in the DIVERCITY project.


SIR,-In his excellent study (December 24, 1949, p. 1433) Dr. Douglas Gairdner has fulfilled an ambition which I have long cherished-namely, to follow the development of the prepuce, which is usually described as being "phimotic" at birth, and to show how this is really a normal stage in its maturation and separation. Circumcision of the newborn has seemed to me to be an unnecessary operation, and the mothers of infants referred are told that there are no medical indications for the operation, but that it will be carried out if they expressly wish it. Very often the mother is satisfied to leave Nature alone, but sometimes she says that her husband, who was in the Army, wants it done (presumably a reference to the prevalent view that a prepuce predisposes to V.D.). One mother was most anxious for the operation to be carried out because her own doctor had convinced her that when the boy gtew up lack of cleanliness would lead to local irritation, thence to masturbation, and thereafter down the steep and slippery slope of total moral degradation. What hope has one of avoiding an operation, however unnecessary and barbaric, in the face of such terrible alternatives ? In the middle of the eighteenth century in certain circles in London every newborn babe was operated upon for tonguetie. In some maternity (non-Jewish) clinics in America to-day every male baby is circumcised. Most of us have progressed so far from the former practice that severance of the lingual frenum is never now recommended, and it is high time that we curbed our ambition to improve on Nature by allowing the foreskin to remain in situ for at least the first three years of life. Many will be grateful to Dr. Gairdner for having aired this most controversial subject, which, even among medical men, is hedged about with emotion and prejudice.-I am, etc.,


Abstract Approaches to surgical management of skull base pathology and reconstruction of skull base defects have evolved over the past several decades. The goal, however, remains the same—to effectively address the pathology with minimal complications. In this article, the authors try to explore multiple complications of skull base surgery, discussing their incidence, natural course, and prevention. This will prove beneficial in optimal management of patients with a myriad of skull base disorders.


Recent years have witnessed the rapid development of translation technology, which has achieved tremendous success in both academia and industry. Due to these rapid advances, it is clear that technology has already profoundly affected the way translation is produced. More recently, translation technology – ranging from translation-specific technologies such as MT to more general-purpose speech technologies and cloud computing – calls into question some of the assumptions about how, by whom, and to what level of quality translation should be done. Commercially viable translation today is almost entirely the computer-aided variety, given the ubiquitous use of computers in text production practices (O'Hagan, 2020).


In The Calling of History Dipesh Chakrabarty develops themes he explored in his iconic book Provincializing Europe. That book was passionate and playful, radical and frustrating at the same time, because the promise of decentering Europe was tempered by the realization that it was indispensable to our thought and life worlds. In The Calling of History, it is Europe in general and Rankean positivist history in particular that are rendered indispensable to the formation of the discipline of history in India. Positivist history, or scientific history, captured the imagination of Indian historians in late colonial India and engendered a set of practices—like archiving and the valence of particular types of evidence—that continues to shape the field. Scientific history was a contagious idea, and its life in India is full of paradoxes. Various types of histories—national, parochial, communitarian, and hagiographical—are written in its name.


We propose a new guard ring geometry for n-on-p silicon particle detectors for high luminosity applications. The performance of the guard ring structure is evaluated with simulations up to a radiation fluence of 1 x 1015 neq/cm2 using an existing three level trap model for p-type FZ silicon. The post-irradiation performance improvement of guard rings with floating field plates pointing towards the sensitive region is demonstrated. The breakdown behavior of the guard ring structure is studied as a function of oxide charge, field plate length, and oxide thickness.


A significant fraction of main sequence stars observed interferometrically in the near-infrared have slightly extended components that have been attributed to very hot dust. To match the spectrum appears to require the presence of large numbers of very small (<200 nm in radius) dust grains. However, particularly for the hotter stars, it has been unclear how such grains can be retained close to the star against radiation pressure force. We find that the expected weak stellar magnetic fields are sufficient to trap nm-sized dust grains in epicyclic orbits for a few weeks or longer, sufficient to account for the hot excess emission. Our models provide a natural explanation for the requirement that the hot excess dust grains be smaller than 200 nm. They also suggest that magnetic trapping is more effective for rapidly rotating stars, consistent with the average vsini measurements of stars with hot excesses being larger (at ∼2σ) than those for stars without such excesses.


Turbulent structure of flow behind a model car is investigated with local velocity measurements with emphasis on large structures and their relevance to aerodynamic forces. Results show that two counter-rotating helical vortices, which are formed within the inner wake region, play a key role in determining the flux of kinetic energy. The turbulence is generated within the outermost shear layers due to the instabilities, which also seem to be the basic drive for these relatively organized structures. The measured terms of the turbulent kinetic energy production, which are only part of the full expression, indicate that vortex centres act similar to the manifolds draining the energy in the streamwise direction. As the approach velocity increases, the streamwise convection becomes the dominant means of turbulent transport and, thus, the acquisition of turbulence by relatively non-turbulent flow around the wake region is suppressed.


The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute has implemented Jupyterhub and the Jupyter notebook server as a general-purpose point-of-entry to interactive high performance computing services. This mode of operation runs counter to traditional job-oriented HPC operations, but offers significant advantages for ease-of-use, data exploration, prototyping, and workflow development. From the user perspective, these features bring the computing cluster nearer to parity with emerging cloud computing options. On the other hand, retreating from fully-scheduled, job-based resource allocation poses challenges for resource availability and utilization efficiency, and can involve tools and technologies outside the typical core competencies of a supercomputing center's operations staff. MSI has attempted to mitigate these challenges by adopting Jupyter as a common technology platform for interactive services, capable of providing command-line, graphical, and workflow-oriented access to HPC resources while still integrating with job scheduling systems and using existing compute resources. This paper will describe the mechanisms that MSI has put in place, advantages for research and instructional uses, and lessons learned.


This study investigates the effects of fatigue material data and finite element types on accuracy of residual life assessments under high cycle fatigue. The bending of cross-beam connections is simulated in ANSYS Workbench for different combinations of structural member shapes made of a typical structural steel. The stress analysis of weldments with specific dimensions and loading applied is implemented using solid and shell elements. The stress results are transferred to the fatigue code nCode DesignLife for the residual life prediction. Considering the effects of mean stress using FKM approach, bending and thickness according to BS 7608:2014, fatigue life is predicted using the Volvo method and stress integration rules from ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code. Three different pairs of S-N curves are considered in this work including generic seam weld curves and curves for the equivalent Japanese steel JIS G3106-SM490B. The S-N curve parameters for the steel are identified using the experimental data available from NIMS fatigue data sheets employing least square method and considering thickness and mean stress corrections. The numerical predictions are compared to the available experimental results indicating the most preferable fatigue data input, range of applicability and FE-model formulation to achieve the best accuracy.


Editor-in-Chief, East African Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief, West African Journal of Medicine Editor-in-Chief, Sierra Leone Journal of Biomedical Research Editor-in-Chief, Ethiopian Journal of Health Sciences Chief Editor, Annales Africaines de Medecine Editor-in-Chief, Annals of African Surgery University of Exeter, UK Editor-in-Chief, African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine London School of Medicine & Tropical Hygiene, UK Editor-in-Chief, Curationis Editor-in-Chief, Ghana Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief, African Journal of Reproductive Health Director of Science, Information and Dissemination Director of Health Promotion, WHO, Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal Director of Publication, Mali Médical Managing Editor, Journal de la Faculté de Médecine d'Oran Editor-in-Chief, African Health Sciences Editor-in-Chief, Evidence-Based Nursing Research Managing Editor, East African Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief, La Tunisie Médicale University of Winchester, UK


Compared with traditional sequential learning models, graph-based neural networks exhibit excellent properties when encoding text, such as the capacity of capturing global and local information simultaneously. Especially in the semi-supervised scenario, propagating information along the edge can effectively alleviate the sparsity of labeled data. In this paper, beyond the existing architecture of heterogeneous word-document graphs, for the first time, we investigate how to construct lightweight non-heterogeneous graphs based on different linguistic information to better serve free text representation learning. Then, a novel semi-supervised framework for text classification that refines graph topology under theoretical guidance and shares information across different text graphs, namely Text-oriented Graph-based Transductive Learning (TextGTL), is proposed. TextGTL also performs attribute space interpolation based on dense substructure in graphs to predict low-entropy labels with high-quality feature nodes for data augmentation. To verify the effectiveness of TextGTL, we conduct extensive experiments on various benchmark datasets, observing significant performance gains over conventional heterogeneous graphs. In addition, we also design ablation studies to dive deep into the validity of components in TextTGL.


For over one hundred years, the environment of mathematics classroom has been supported by chalk & talk teaching style, in which we use blackboard, chalk, notebooks and textbooks. In these days, we can use new teaching styles with computers and LCD projectors, which are being disposed to all classrooms (e-Japan strategy of government). We call it presentation style in this paper. In presentation style, we project the textbook to the screen with computer and LCD projector. Comparing to the printed textbook that is static, we can present electronic textbooks (e-textbook) more dynamically. The presentation software such as PowerPoint is a good tool for general use but we believe that we can develop appropriate software for educational use. In this paper, we consider the requirements of the textbook-viewer and develop our software dbook, which clears the requirements. The original ideas of the dbook had developed through the experience of developing commercial software for the presentation style. With the new developed tool, dbook, now, we can develop commercial digital textbooks (e-Textbooks) and many teachers can make their own e-Textbooks by themselves. It will be able to enlarge the presentation style to more interactive way even if teachers use the textbook. At the last part of the paper, we evaluate the power of dbook through the two years of experimental use.


Eight tracks (migrated from ADAT to an 8-track WAV file) recorded by Team Fat on ADAT tape for the game "Jane's Combat Simulations: Advanced Tactical Fighters."


Calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) are the preferred drugs for treatment of childhood steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) who are also resistant to cyclophosphamide (CYC). Although few studies have shown a benefit of one over the other, efficacy and safety of either CNIs (tacrolimus [TAC] or cyclosporine [CSA]) in this special population remained to be assessed in long-term studies. Forty-five children with SRNS who were also resistant to CYC (CYC-SRNS) from January 2006 to June 2011, were included in the study. Patients were treated with CNI either TAC or CSA based on 1:1 allocations and were prospectively observed. Patients who were nonresponsive to CNIs had been treated with mycophenolate mofetil. Outcomes were measured in terms of remission of NS, adverse effects of drugs, and progression of disease. After 6 months of treatment, 16/23 (69.5%) patients on CSA achieved remission and 18/22 (81.8%) on TAC achieved remission (P = 0.3). The side effects hypertrichosis, and gum hyperplasia were significantly less in TAC group as compared to CSA group (P < 0.001). The 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year estimated renal survival (doubling of serum creatinine as event) in CSA group was 96%, 91%, 85%, 54%, and 33% and in TAC group was 96%, 95%, 90%, 89%, and 79%, respectively (P = 0.02). Although TAC and CSA are equally efficacious, TAC has significantly less side effects. The long-term outcome of renal function was significantly better in patients who were treated with TAC as compared to CSA.


Abstract We investigated people's ability to infer others' mental states from their emotional reactions, manipulating whether agents wanted, expected, and caused an outcome. Participants recovered agents' desires throughout. When the agent observed, but did not cause the outcome, participants' ability to recover the agent's beliefs depended on the evidence they got (i.e., her reaction only to the actual outcome or to both the expected and actual outcomes; Experiments 1 and 2). When the agent caused the event, participants' judgments also depended on the probability of the action (Experiments 3 and 4); when actions were improbable given the mental states, people failed to recover the agent's beliefs even when they saw her react to both the anticipated and actual outcomes. A Bayesian model captured human performance throughout (rs ≥ .95), consistent with the proposal that people rationally integrate information about others' actions and emotional reactions to infer their unobservable mental states.


We report experimental results on spatiotemporal pattern formation during the oscillatory hydrogen electrooxidation reaction on a Pt ring-electrode under negative (desynchronizing) global coupling (GC). Spatially one-dimensional profiles of the interfacial potential drop along the angular direction of the ring electrode are recorded by means of a potential probe. The dynamics is investigated as a function of two control parameters, the applied voltage U and the strength of the global coupling. The latter is adjusted either by varying the distance between the working electrode (WE) and the reference electrode (RE) or by inserting a negative impedance device in series with the WE. In the absence of global coupling, uniform oscillations were destabilized by migration coupling, and electrochemical turbulence developed at large values of U (H. Varela, C. Beta, A. Bonnefont and K. Krischer, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2005, 94, 174104; ref. 1). Already low global coupling strengths sufficed to suppress turbulence. Instead, regular two-phase clusters formed. At higher coupling strength, a second type of two-phase cluster was observed as well as two types of irregular cluster patterns, which were connected with an irregular motion of the cluster boundaries and the emergence and disappearance of clusters through splitting and merging of the boundaries, respectively. Upon increasing the coupling strength even further, five-phase clusters were stabilized and at the highest coupling strength applied the cluster patterns transformed into strongly modulated pulses. The two types of two-phase clusters and the five-phase clusters are analyzed employing several signal processing techniques.


This article introduces a process for the growth of one-dimensional oxide nanomaterials that combines rheological phase reaction and hydrothermal self-assembling process. Fundamentals and practical approaches of hydrothermal self-assembling process and rheological phase reaction are briefly described. Particular attention is devoted to the rheological self-assembling for the growth of low dimensional oxide nanomaterials. Many examples are shown that the rheological self-assembling is an effective method to prepare one-dimensional nanomaterials, organic-inorganic hybrids and 1-D nanomaterial array for optical-electronic and electrochemical devices and catalysis. Morphologies, microstructures, properties, and application of one-dimensional oxide nanomaterials are reviewed.


The spread of developmental idealism's beliefs about how "modern" family practices help achieve a modern prosperous society did not happen spontaneously, especially in societies whose family systems bore little initial resemblance to the "modern" ideal. We examine how Kenya in the 1960s became the first sub-Saharan country to adopt a fertility reduction policy, even though Kenya's leaders and their Western advisers initially had very different population ideologies. The advisers were neo-Malthusians who viewed continued high fertility in the face of rapid mortality decline as a grave threat to Third World development, whereas most Kenyans were traditional mercantilists who viewed a larger family and a larger population as signs of wealth and prosperity. Kenyans' conversion to neo-Malthusianism is often presented as the simple result of education and reason: Kenyans came to be convinced that progress requires slower population growth and lower fertility, achieved through modern methods of fertility control. Our account differs. It recognizes that neo-Malthusianism was a Western export that faced substantial opposition and that its adoption was the result of a coordinated movement by neo-Malthusians that applied pressure on Kenyan elites to change the intimate behavior of their people. We conclude that developmental idealism has spread from its Western origins to ordinary people around the world, but that the process was not simple, inevitable, or uniform.


This paper deals with the solution of a one-phase Stefan melting problem that models the movement of the shoreline in a sedimentary ocean basin which is considered as a moving boundary problem with variable latent heat. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations via the Lie group analysis. We then propose Chebyshev wavelet analysis method for solving the resulting system. A comparison between the solutions obtained by the proposed method and those reported in the literature as well as the exact solution is made to confirm the accuracy and efficiency of the current method.


Copyright © 1984, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. The current treatment of acute lymphocytic leukemia in children continues to result in improved survival statistics. Unfortunately, some children who appear to be free of disease show a relapse because of an apparent propensity of leukemic cells to infiltrate the testis and resist conventional therapy. In an effort to detect subclinical testicular leukemia, 14 males with acute lymphocytic leukemia achieving 36 months of continuous complete remission due to protocol chemotherapy underwent routine bilateral testis biopsy immediately prior to the planned cessation of maintenance chemotherapy. Biopsy findings determined the need for testicular irradiation and reinduction of systemic chemotherapy. Thirteen patients had palpably normal testes at the time of biopsy and no histologic evidence of leukemic testicular infiltration. One patient had a normal right testis and a firm left testis with bilateral leukemic involvement as shown by the biopsy results. This represents a 7.1% incidence of occult testicular leukemia. Theoretic considerations of leukemic infiltration of the testis and the improved prognosis of patients treated for residual or persistent testicular disease suggest the need for a reliable method to detect testicular leukemia. This experience with routine testicular biopsy of palpably normal testes and with biopsy of palpably abnormal testes with testicular infiltration in patients still undergoing chemotherapy suggests that physical examination alone is a reliable method to detect leukemic testicular infiltration in most patients. Nevertheless, continued routine biopsy immediately prior to cessation of maintenance chemotherapy is still recommended to ensure that patients with occult testicular leukemia are identified.


To simplify the experimental efforts involved in the nonintrusive optical characterization of typical combustion-generated particulates, an inverse analysis of scattering measurements at only two angles is developed and evaluated based on the exact scattering computations on simulated fractallike aggregates. Two optimum angles are suggested by combination of theoretical (sensitivity analysis) and practical (spatial resolution) considerations that have led to the interpretation of spherule diameter from the ratio of large-angle scattering and absorption coefficients and the aggregate gyration radius from the ratio of scattering dissymmetry. The inferred spherule and aggregate sizes are found to be generally in good agreement with the initially prescribed values for the range of physical and optical particulate properties considered here. These computational results under precise simulation conditions demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed particulate-sizing technique by avoiding the common experimental uncertainties that prevent a definitive performance assessment of any experimental method.


Of the 133 microorganisms tested, Tetrahymena pyriformis and Volvox aureus were the most sensitive to rubratoxin B, being inhibited at 25 and 50 mug/ml, respectively.


Although the research on manipulatives reveals positive outcomes as compared to written or 2-D pictorial representations, the relative value of physical manipulatives, specifically, is mixed. In this paper, we hypothesize that computer-based haptic simulations have important advantages that are not available in a purely physical environment. We have performed several experiments in the study of the statics domain, identified the affordances of a physical manipulative setup, and proposed a way to adapt affordances from physical environments to the design of visuohaptic simulations. Statics instruction is particularly well-suited because, in many cases, the rules of statics cannot be seen, but are readily available in the virtual environment. Our guiding research question was: "To what extent can affordances of physical manipulatives be built into visuo-haptic simulations? We have designed an experiment where students moved objects with different friction on different surfaces. Our study comprised seven students who were prompted with "what-if" scenarios where they first predicted what they thought might happen, and then tested their predictions by using a physical manipulative setup. We characterized students' interactions using Gaver's (1991) classification of affordances. Our results suggest a higher level of student engagement and motivation when using the physical manipulative setup. However, they also show greater confusion about: 1) density vs. weight, 2) mass vs. surface area, and 3) softness vs. smoothness. The findings were used to adapt and improve the design of visuo-haptic simulations to teach the concept of friction.


This study focused on the association between disability and use of health services among elderly individuals in Greater Metropolitan Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The study included 1,624 elderly patients (≥ 60 years) selected by representative sampling. The dependent variable was use of health services, based on three descriptors: number of physician visits, home consultations, and hospitalizations. The target independent variable was disability, including difficulty in performing activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). IADL was only associated with hospitalization (PR = 1.62; 95%CI: 1.16-2.26), while ADL was associated with hospitalization (PR = 1.73; 95%CI: 1.24-2.42) and home consultations (PR = 8.54; 95%CI: 4.22-17.27). The findings show increased use of health services (especially more costly ones) among older adults with disabilities, and that functional health dimensions have not oriented health services, still largely conditioned on the presence of diseases.


Domain ontologies are essential in disciplines as diverse as software engineering, medicine, or political science to name just a few. This paper describes an ongoing effort to develop a methodology for collaborative ontology construction by geographically spread communities of experts and implement a web-based prototype supporting this methodology. A distinctive feature of the proposed approach is the use of conceptual exploration techniques, which make it possible to organize the process of ontology construction by automatically identifying and explicitly highlighting issues that remain to be addressed. Given a set of objects (facts, situations, etc.) of a subject domain, which is known to have considerably more such objects, and their unified descriptions in terms of presence or absence of certain attributes, a conceptual exploration system maintains a compact representation of implications behind the currently built ontology and offers them for experts to accept or falsify by entering new objects or extending the description language with new attributes. Upon termination, exploration results in identification of a (relatively small) representative part of the domain from which a conceptual hierarchy of the entire domain can be automatically constructed. We consider theoretic, algorithmic, representational, and pragmatic issues of transforming the exploration methods into a toolset useful for domain experts.


Despite an enormous amount of attention paid to the factors that shape vulnerability to human trafficking, such as poverty and a lack of economic opportunity, the debate of evidence for what enables these factors to exist in the first place is relatively less explored. Presently, discussions of the relationship between climate change and human insecurity have been marginal to broader debates about vulnerability to trafficking. This paper argues that this signifies a gap in our understanding of the underlying drivers that push individuals and communities into situations where vulnerability to trafficking amplifies, but also that increase the pull of risky migration pathways and exploitative work situations. This paper proceeds by examining and problematising dominant conceptualisations of vulnerability in human trafficking and climate change discourses. Next, it presents a case study of the Sundarbans region of India to highlight how climate change impacts compound and exacerbate the same factors that shape vulnerability to human trafficking—including environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, destitution, and forced migration. Lastly, it argues for enhanced attention to climate change-related insecurity as evidence of vulnerability to trafficking and outlines what such insights can bring to anti-trafficking efforts.


The hydrothermal reaction of Zn(CH3COO)2, NaOH and l-cysteic acid produced the title compound, [Na2Zn(C3H5NO5S)2]n. The ZnII cation is situated on an inversion centre and is in a distorted octahedral environment, being chelated by two deprotoned l-cysteic acid ligands through two amino N atoms and two carboxylic O atoms, with the two axial positions occupied by two carboxylic O atoms from two other l-cysteic acid ligands. Each l-cysteic acid ligand bridges five NaI ions via its sulfonate group and two ZnII ions via its carboxyl group, forming a three-dimensional framework. Weak N—H⋯O hydrogen bonding is observed in the crystal structure.


The human ghrelin gene, which encodes the ghrelin and obestatin peptides, contains 5 exons (Ex), with Ex1-Ex4 encoding a 117 amino-acid (aa) preproprotein that is known to be processed to yield a 28-aa (ghrelin) and/or a 23-aa (obestatin) mature peptides, which possess biological activities in multiple tissues. However, the ghrelin gene also encodes additional peptides through alternative splicing or post-translational modifications. Indeed, we previously identified a spliced mRNA ghrelin variant in mouse (In2-ghrelin-variant), which is regulated in a tissue-dependent manner by metabolic status and may thus be of biological relevance. Here, we have characterized a new human ghrelin variant that contains Ex0-1, intron (In) 1, and Ex2 and lacks Ex3-4. This human In1-ghrelin variant would encode a new prepropeptide that conserves the first 12aa of native-ghrelin (including the Ser3-potential octanoylation site) but has a different C-terminal tail. Expression of In1-variant was detected in 22 human tissues and its levels were positively correlated with those of ghrelin-O-acyltransferase (GOAT; p = 0.0001) but not with native-ghrelin expression, suggesting that In1-ghrelin could be a primary substrate for GOAT in human tissues. Interestingly, levels of In1-ghrelin variant expression in breast cancer samples were 8-times higher than those of normal mammary tissue, and showed a strong correlation in breast tumors with GOAT (p = 0.0001), ghrelin receptor-type 1b (GHSR1b; p = 0.049) and cyclin-D3 (a cell-cycle inducer/proliferation marker; p = 0.009), but not with native-ghrelin or GHSR1a expression. Interestingly, In1-ghrelin variant overexpression increased basal proliferation of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Taken together, our results provide evidence that In1-ghrelin is a novel element of the ghrelin family with a potential pathophysiological role in breast cancer.


Deep learning architectures have demonstrated state-of-the-art performance for object classification and have become ubiquitous in commercial products. These methods are often applied without understanding (a) the difficulty of a classification task given the input data, and (b) how a specific deep learning architecture transforms that data. To answer (a) and (b), we illustrate the utility of a multivariate nonparametric estimator of class separation, the Henze-Penrose (HP) statistic, in the original as well as layer-induced representations. Given an $N$-class problem, our contribution defines the $C(N,2)$ combinations of HP statistics as a sample from a distribution of class-pair separations. This allows us to characterize the distributional change to class separation induced at each layer of the model. Fisher permutation tests are used to detect statistically significant changes within a model. By comparing the HP statistic distributions between layers, one can statistically characterize: layer adaptation during training, the contribution of each layer to the classification task, and the presence or absence of consistency between training and validation data. This is demonstrated for a simple deep neural network using CIFAR10 with random-labels, CIFAR10, and MNIST datasets.


HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) epidemics may have many important similarities in their aetiology, pathogenesis and management. Evidence about the similarities and differences between the national responses HIV/AIDS and NCDs is essential for an integrated response. The objective of this study was to examine the parallels and differences between national responses to HIV/AIDS and NCDs in selected developing countries. This study applied a strategic level comparative case study approach as its study design. The main construct was national response to HIV/AIDS and NCDs. The 4 overarching themes were policy response, institutional mechanism, programmatic response and strategic information. Four countries were purposively selected as cases. Data were collected and triangulated from a multiple sources. The focus of analysis included identifying items for comparison, characteristics to be compared, degrees of similarity, and strategic importance of similarities. Analysis of data was qualitative content analysis with within-case, between-case, and across-case comparisons. While the nature of the disease and the contents of national HIV/AIDS and NCD policies are different, the policy processes involved are largely similar. Functional characteristics of programmatic response to HIV/AIDS and NCDs are similar. But the internal constituents are different. Though both HIV and NCDs require both a multi-sectorial response and a national coordination mechanism, the model and the complexity of the coordination are different. Strategic information frameworks for HIV/AIDS and NCDs use similar models. However, the indicators, targets and priorities are different. In conclusion, the national responses between HIV/AIDS and NCDs are largely similar in approaches and functions but different in content. Significance for public health This study explores the parallels and differences between national responses to HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The identified parallels can be the basis for integrated response to HIV/AIDS and NCDs. In contrast, the important differences are essential for maintaining the integrity of the responses to HIV/AIDS and NCDs in the process of integration.


Background and Purpose— The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of augmented exercise therapy on gait, gait-related activities, and (basic and extended) activities of daily living within the first 6 months poststroke. Methods— A systematic literature search in electronic databases from 1990 until October 2010 was performed. Randomized controlled trials were included in which the experimental group spent augmented time in lower-limb exercise therapy compared with the control group. Outcomes were gait, gait-related activities, and (extended) activities of daily living. Results from individual studies were pooled by calculating the summary effect sizes. Subgroup analyses were applied for a treatment contrast of ≥16 hours, timing poststroke, type of control intervention, and methodological quality. Results— Fourteen (N=725) of 4966 identified studies were included. Pooling resulted in small to moderate significant summary effect sizes in favor of augmented exercise therapy for walking ability, comfortable and maximum walking speed, and extended activities of daily living. No significant effects were found for basic activities of daily living. Subgroup analysis did not show a significant effect modification. Conclusions— Dose–response trials in stroke rehabilitation are heterogeneous. The present meta-analysis suggests that increased time spent on exercise of gait and gait-related activities in the first 6 months poststroke results in significant small to moderate effects in terms of walking ability, walking speed, and extended activities of daily living. High-quality dose–response exercise therapy trials are needed with identical treatment goals but incremental levels of intensity.


This study aims to analyze the effect of Loan to Deposit Ratio, Inflation, Intellectual Capital and Net Profit Margin on profitability. This research uses this type of research with a quantitative approach by using panel data and processed using e-Views software. The sample used was 29 Conventional Banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange 2014-2018 . The results of this study reveal that the Loan to Deposit Ratio, Inflation and Net Profit Margin have a positive effect on profitability. Intellectual Capital does not have a positive effect on profitability.


The early nineteenth century was marked by public disorder, governmental repression and correction. It was a period of revolution, reaction and reform. This pamphlet focuses on three key issues: * the factors which combined to produce the turmoil and uprisings of 1812-21 and the severity with which they were put down * the validity of the distinction between 'repressive' and 'liberal' phases of the administration * the ability of Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister.


Abstract Starting from the determination that the questione meridionale – the southern Italian question – has lost its former centrality in the Italian debate, this article suggests new avenues of research and gives an example of the results that such perspectives can provide. The first section of the article outlines some key positions in the political and historiographical debate on the questione meridionale and identifies the reasons underlying the decline of interest in the history of Italy's North-South divide in recent years. Based on this analysis, the second part presents new potential prospects for research on the history of Southern Italy, principally by connecting it to recent scholarship in global and international history. The final section of the article applies the proposed research methodology to the specific instance of the Centro studi sullo sviluppo economico, a research centre founded in the mid-1950s to disseminate the Southern Italian economic development model in the Mediterranean and Latin America. The analysis of the history of the Centro studi, born out of a collaboration between the Italian Svimez and the American Ford Foundation, illustrates the ambiguity of the relationship between Italian and American development economists and the way in which the knowledge acquired through economic intervention in Southern Italy became a tool to foster contacts between Italy and other 'southern' countries.


Recent literature suggests that the dietary imbalance between high omega-6 (n6) and low omega-3 (n3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) intake, characteristic of the Western diet (average ratio 15:1), leads to development of fatty liver disease. We aimed to determine whether 12 weeks of a low n6/n3 PUFA ratio (4:1) normo-caloric diet might impact fatty liver (MRI assessed hepatic fat content ≥5.5%). Twenty obese adolescents with fatty liver were recruited (13.2±2.9y). Abdominal MRI and OGTT were performed at baseline and after 12-weeks intervention, the oxidized derivatives of linoleic acid (OXLAM) were measured every 4 weeks to assess compliance. Food was supplied to participants isocaloric to their pre-study diet. To control for weight change variable, weight was maintained stable throughout the study. Seventeen adolescents completed the study. After 12 weeks HFF%, decreased of about 26% (Figure 1). There was also a significant decrease in plasma concentrations of ALT (Figure 1), triglycerides (p=0.04) cholesterol (p=0.03), LDL (p=0.07) and an improvement of whole-body insulin resistance (p=0.01). There was a significant decrease of the OXLAM, 9- and 13-HODE (p=0.03 and p=0.01, respectively) and 9- and 13-oxo-ODE (p=0.05 and p=0.01, respectively). These data suggest that, independent of weight loss, a low n6/n3 PUFA diet is effective to ameliorate the metabolic phenotype of adolescents with fatty liver disease. Disclosure M.A. Van Name: Research Support; Self; Novo Nordisk Inc. J.M. Chick: None. M. Savoye: None. B. Pierpont: None. B. Galuppo: None. A. Feldstein: None. N. Santoro: None. Funding National Institutes of Health; American Heart Association


We report on a preliminary design of a new Kalman-filter Hydrogen-maser time scale at NIST. The time scale is composed of a few Hydrogen masers and a Cs clock. The Cs clock is used as a reference clock, to ease operations with existing data. All the data used in this paper are real measurement data, except mentioned specifically. Unlike most other time scales, this time scale uses three basic time-scale equations, instead of only one equation. Also, this time scale can detect a clock error (i.e., time error, frequency error, or frequency drift error) automatically. A frequency step of 6.8×10 s/s (which typically corresponds to ~ 2C temperature change of a H-maser chamber) in a clock only leads to ~ 2.5 ns change in the time scale in 100 days, thanks to the advanced error-detection technique. A frequency-drift step of 5.4×10 s/s in a clock only leads to ~ 11 ns change in the time scale in 100 days. These features make the new time scale stiff and less likely to be affected by a bad clock. Tests show that the time scale deviates from the UTC by less than ± 5 ns for ~100 days, when the time scale is initially aligned to the UTC and then is completely free running. Once the time scale is steered to an external frequency standard (such as a Cs fountain), it can maintain the time with little error even if the external frequency standard stops working for tens of days. At NIST, we have the Cs fountain running in 2015 September (23 days), 2015 December (14 days) and 2016 February (18 days). Although the Cs fountain runs for only 55 days in total, the time scale steered to the Cs fountain has a deviation of less than 4 ns (peak-to-peak) from the UTC, during MJD 57265 – 57500 (235 days). This can be helpful when we do not have a continuously-running fountain, or when the continuously-running fountain accidentally stops, or when optical clocks run occasionally.


In 1999 Marmara and 2011 Van earthquakes in Turkey, majority of the existing buildings either sustained severe damage or collapsed. These buildings include masonry infill walls in both the interior and exterior R/C frames. The material of the masonry infill is the main variant, ranging from natural stones to bricks and blocks. It is demanding to design these buildings for satisfactory structural behavior. In general, masonry infill walls are considered by its weights not by interaction between walls and frames. In this study, R/C buildings with infill walls are considered in terms of structural behavior. Therefore, 5 and 8-story R/C buildings are regarded as the representative models in the analyses. The R/C representative buildings, both with and without infill walls were analyzed to determine the effects of structural behavior change. The differences in earthquake behavior of these representative buildings were investigated to determine the effects of infill walls leading structural capacity. First, pushover curves of the representative buildings were sketched. Aftermath, time history analyses were carried out to define the displacement demands. Finally, fragility analyses were performed. Throughout the fragility analyses, probabilistic seismic assessment for R/C building structures both with and without infill walls were provided. In this study, besides the deterministic assessment methodology, a probabilistic approach was followed to define structural effect of infill walls under seismic loads.


This paper presents a HMM-based speech recognition engine and its integration into direct manipulation interfaces for Korean document editor. Speech recognition can reduce typical tedious and repetitive actions which are inevitable in standard GUIs (graphic user interfaces). Our system consists of general speech recognition engine called ABrain {Auditory Brain} and speech commandable document editor called SHE {Simple Hearing Editor}. ABrain is a phoneme-based speech recognition engine which shows up to 97% of discrete command recognition rate. SHE is a EuroBridge widget-based document editor that supports speech commands as well as direct manipulation interfaces.


We address the reconfiguration problem in multi-fiber WDM networks. It consists of finding out which adaptations should be made to the virtual topology and the routing when the traffic evolves. We propose a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model solving the problem for different objective functions. We tried to make a concise model in relations with the number of variables and restrictions, to reduce the memory occupation during the optimization process. We also add some cuts to the model. We make some experiments with this model and compare the results obtained with a simple greedy algorithm and with an algorithm from the literature.


Online customer reviews are peer-generated product evaluations posted on company or third party websites. Many retailers offer consumers opportunities to participate in product reviews and share their experiences and opinions with other consumers on their online store websites. This study identifies factors that generate negative perceptions of information quality in online reviews. In addition, the influential role of negative perceptions of consumer reviews and perceived usefulness of online reviews on reading of online reviews and purchase intentions in online stores hosting the reviews are examined. Using a survey, data were collected from 312 male and female university undergraduate students with experience purchasing products online and reading reviews online. Hypotheses were tested using measurement and structural equation models. Four information quality elements (irrelevancy, incredibility, exaggeration, and untimeliness) were developed as measures of negative perceptions of review quality. Based on the results of the research model, researchers found consumers' negative perceptions of review quality decreased online purchase intentions by deterring the reading behavior of reviews while consumers' positive perceptions of the usefulness of reviews increased reading activity. This study highlights the importance of consumer review reading behavior and its effect on purchase intention in online stores. Creating supportive systems to enhance the quality of online reviews will allow consumers to make better purchase decisions.


Abstract A review is given of mathematical expressions for total and mean specific kinetic energies in the longitudinal, time, and mixed longitudinal-time domains. These coordinate domains differ from those defined earlier by Oort. Mathematical developments are extended into the vertical coordinate domain. A new symbolism is introduced for describing mean and eddy motions.


The deletion of section 107 of Part II of the Housing, Grants and Construction Act 1996 will have a profound effect on the requirements for contracts in writing under the adjudication provisions of the new Construction Act 2009. This paper presents a reflection on the legal provisions and case law concerning the requirement for contracts in writing under the provision of the 1996 Act, against the backdrop of new rules encompassing oral and partly-oral agreements between parties. While the new provisions are unlikely to have an impact in cases where there are formal contracts which incorporate adjudication clauses, the changes are more likely to have an impact where there letters of intent are involved and where contracts in writing are based on standard terms and conditions supplemented by oral agreements. While the legislative changes may not have an impact on the role of the Adjudicator, it may affect their modus operandi, requiring more efforts to ascertain the precise intentions of the parties under dispute.


"Mirabile Dictu" covers in six separate chapters the works of Virgil, Dante, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser. Its broad aim is to provide a select cross-section of works in the Middle Ages and Renaissance in order systematically to examine and compare for the first time the marvelous in the light of epic genre, of literary and critical theory (both past and present), and of historically and culturally determined representational practices.Douglas Biow organizes this volume around the literary topos of the bleeding branch through which a metamorphosed person speaks. In each chapter the author takes this "marvellous event" as his starting point for a broad-ranging comparison of the several poets who employed the image; he also investigates the ways in which a period's notion of "history" underpins its representations of the marvelous. This method offers a controlled yet flexible framework within which to develop readings that engage a multiplicity of theories and approaches."Mirabile Dictu" offers not only an insightful survey of the literary connections among this group of important poets, but also a useful point of departure for scholars and students intrigued by the reuse of epic conventions, by the peculiar role of "marvellous" events in dramatic poetry, and by the later history of classical literature.Douglas Biow is Assistant Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, University of Texas, Austin.


Effective Academic Writing, Second Edition provides the tools necessary for successful academic writing: -Step-by step Writing Process guides and refines writing skills.-Timed Writing practice prepares students for success on high-stakes tests.-Online Writing Tutor on Oxford Learn improves academic writing inside and outside the classroom.-Online Grammar Practice provides extra practice where and when your students need it the most. Step-By-Step Instruction takes students through the complete academic writing process starting at the sentence level and ending with the researched essay.


The pre-pack administrations ('pre-packs') in the UK have repeatedly been criticised for allowing the exploitation of certain types of unsecured creditors. In this context, the role of the administrators (who are qualified insolvency practitioners) is one of the key elements. This article examines the new challenges brought by the pre-pack strategy to the conventional role of insolvency practitioners as the administrators. It suggests that the pre-determination nature of pre-packs is likely to make the administration proceedings less manager-displacing in practice than the formal rules would suggest. Although this tendency can be expected to facilitate information gathering during the rescue negotiations, it raises urgent questions with respect to the potential alignment of interests between the inside players that may impair the impartiality of the administrators. In response to such challenges, the article argues that, in spite of the recent proposals of introducing drastic statutory regulation to control the controversy of the pre-pack practice, a proportionate way is to see how the existing control mechanisms can contribute more in reinforcing the independence of administrators. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The most economically deprived people tend to have the poorest quality diets. However, healthier diets can be achieved at low cost or within low-income households. This research sought to identify exemplars to facilitate improving the diet quality of people living in low-income households. The National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) dataset collected April 2012 to March 2016 (survey years 5–8) was searched and individuals (n = 203) over 16 years with the highest Diet Quality Index (DQI) scores and in the lowest two income quintiles identified as potential exemplars. Attempts were made to contact them; in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 participants (14 female, ≥25 years). Interview topics included: attitudes to food and eating; food purchasing, preparation and eating; food knowledge; food consumption environments, and interviewees' socio-cultural context. Interviews were transcribed fully and coded axially according to the interview topics. Coding was done manually in NVivo. Interviewees, who were mainly responsible for their households' food shopping and preparation, reported preparing meals that were "pretty simple" (male, >65, retired, living with partner) consisting of grilled meat or fish with several portions of vegetables, pasta and rice dishes, stews, soups and salads. "I just love fresh vegetables and we've usually got plates heaving in vegetables with a bit of dead animal on the side" (female, >65, retired, living with partner). Interviewees' food consumption behaviours were habitual: using the same stores, even when there were multiple food shops nearby; buying and cooking the same foods. Choice of food shops was influenced by convenience, though price and range were also important. Interviewees did not report seeking out nutritional information from food labels, nor educational materials, and indicated that food preparation knowledge was acquired from family, friends and school lessons. Interviewees' healthy diets (high DQI scores) appear to be the result of them eating simple meals prepared at home and making minimal use of restaurants and takeaways. However, although all interviewees were in the lowest two income quintiles (in the NDNS data), 12 owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. Thus, they are unlikely to be economically deprived and, for social and cultural reasons, are unlikely to be dietary exemplars for people who are. This study provides further evidence of the need for a more nuanced and holistic approach to healthy eating policy. The food consumption habits of one socio-cultural group cannot be generalised easily to others, and income alone is unlikely to be able to differentiate them. As food consumption patterns developed during childhood were reported to be important for the healthy eating behaviours of our interviewees, further work to embed food preparation skills into the curriculum from early years should be explored rather than seeking additional data.


Let $G$ be a graph in which each vertex initially has weight 1. In each step, the weight from a vertex $u$ to a neighbouring vertex $v$ can be moved, provided that the weight on $v$ is at least as large as the weight on $u$. The total acquisition number of $G$, denoted by $a_t(G)$, is the minimum cardinality of the set of vertices with positive weight at the end of the process. In this paper, we investigate random geometric graphs $\mathcal{G}(n,r)$ with $n$ vertices distributed uniformally at random in $[0,\sqrt{n}]^2$ and two vertices being adjacent if and only if their distance is at most $r$. We show that asymptotically almost surely $a_t(\mathcal{G}(n,r)) = \Theta( n / (r \lg r)^2)$ for the whole range of $r=r_n \ge 1$ such that $r \lg r \le \sqrt{n}$. By monotonicity, asymptotically almost surely $a_t(\mathcal{G}(n,r)) = \Theta(n)$ if $r \sqrt{n}$.


Aim: To compare the results of DNA amplification by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with immunofluorescence staining for detecting Pneumocystis carin'i in bronchoalveolar lavage specimens taken from symptomatic HIV seropositive patients with suspected P carinii pneumonia (PCP). Methods: Bronchoalveolar lavage specimens were obtained from 28 symptomatic HIV seropositive patients. Specimens were examined for P caninii using immunofluorescence, and by DNA amplification with PCR to obtain results on gel electrophoresis (gel) and a more sensitive Southern hybridisation (blot) technique. Specimens positive by immunofluorescence and gel electrophoresis were serially diluted to a 10-' concentration and each dilution strength tested for P carinii using PCR to compare quantitatively immunofluorescence with PCR. Results: Of the 28 specimens analysed, 18 were negative for P carinii by both immunofluorescence and PCR, two were positive only by the blot technique of PCR, four were equivocally positive and four unequivocally positive by immunofluorescence. Three of the four equivocally positive patients tested by immunofluorescence were negative for P carinii by PCR, although one was positive by PCR (blot) technique. This patient had clinically confirmed PCP. Of the four unequivocally positive patients tested by immunofluorescence, three were gel and blot positive by PCR and had PCP clinically, but one was negative by both gel and blot techniques, although the patient certainly had PCP on clinical grounds. This patient had received nine days of treatment with high dose co-trimoxazole before bronchoalveolar lavage specimens were obtained. The three specimens positive by gel and blot techniques remained gel positive down to dilutions of between 10-4 and 10-6. Conclusions: PCR results may become negative soon after starting treatment for PCP. Specimens should therefore be taken before, or soon after, starting treatment. PCR seems to be between 104 and 106 times more sensitive than immunoflu-


The utilization of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in large quantities for molecular electronics, optoelectronics, biosensors, and medical applications will require SWNTs of the same physical structure, electronic type, and band gap. Since current methods of synthesis produce mixtures of nanotubes with different physical structures and electrical properties, the development of strategies for the postproduction separation of these one-dimensional materials is highly desirable. In this work, we demonstrate a scalable method for separating SWNTs by diameter using density gradient centrifugation. Of particular interest for biosensing applications is the bulk purification of SWNTs through centrifugation of DNA wrapped SWNTs in aqueous density gradients. The dependence of this process on DNA sequence and length has been determined. In addition, strategies for decreasing the purification time are outlined. Overall, this nondestructive and scalable separation strategy is expected to impact a variety of applications for SWNTs where monodisperse structure and properties are essential.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


The present contribution gives an overview about recent research on a thermal barrier coating (TBC) system consisted of (i) an intermetallic MCrAlY-alloy Bondcoat (BC) applied by vacuum plasma spraying (VPS) and (ii) an Yttria Stabilised Zirconia (YSZ) top coat air plasma sprayed (APS) at Forschungszentrum Juelich, Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK-1). The influence of high temperature dwell time, maximum and minimum temperature on crack growth kinetics during thermal cycling of such plasma sprayed TBCs is investigated using infrared pulse thermography (IT), acoustic emission (AE) analysis and scanning electron microscopy. Thermocyclic life in terms of accumulated time at maximum temperature decreases with increasing high temperature dwell time and increases with increasing minimum temperature. AE analysis proves that crack growth mainly occurs during cooling at temperatures below the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature of the BC. Superimposed mechanical load cycles accelerate delamination crack growth and, in case of sufficiently high mechanical loadings, result in premature fatigue failure of the substrate. A life prediction model based on TGO growth kinetics and a fracture mechanics approach has been developed which accounts for the influence of maximum and minimum temperature as well as of high temperature dwell time with good accuracy in an extremely wide parameter range.


Summary: A study of the mechanism of breakdown of w-phenyl-substituted fatty acids by Nocardia opaca has been made. Acids with an odd number of carbon atoms in the side chain (phenylpropionic, phenylvaleric and phenylheptylic acids) were converted to benzoic acid, and cinnamic acid was an intermediate. o-Hydroxy-phenylacetic acid was identified as a common product when acids with an even number of carbon atoms (phenylacetic, phenylbutyric, phenylcaproic and phenylcaprylic) were used. This evidence supports β-oxidation as a mechanism of breakdown of short chain fatty acids by N. opaca.


ABSTRACT At the time of deposition, black shales record geochemical information related to the provenance and conditions of deposition for that rock. These initial geochemical conditions are susceptible to alteration and overprinting by the aggressive processes of black-shale diagenesis. In this study, we evaluate a sequence of Ordovician black shales from the southern Welsh Basin for the presence of such a diagenetic overprint. Through use of cathodoluminescence, backscattered electron imaging, reflected-light microscopy, fission tracks, and microprobe elemental mapping, we can discern textural relationships with in the Welsh black shales. The relationships observed constrain a paragenetic sequence and overall diagenetic history including the early diagenetic formation of pyrite, apatite (rare earth element (REE)-rich) and carbonate and later formation of diagenetic monazite (REE-, U-rich) and late-stage carbonate. The chemical reactions necessary to produce this mineral sequence require postdepositional redistribution of REE (including changing cerium anomalies (Ce/Ce*)) and uranium. As a result, REE, U, and their associated isotopic systems (Sm-Nd and U-Pb) can reflect a diagenetic overprint rather than the source area and depositional conditions. The paragenetic sequence described in this study records several postdepositional changes in the whole-rock mineralogy. Among these changes are the formation of REE-rich apatite and REE- and U-rich monazite. The formation of these phases requires that REE and U are being redistributed on at least a mineral scale and that the initial depositional and provenance information recorded by the whole rock has been disturbed. Therefore, the approach used in this study to carefully characterize the paragenetic sequence from the Llandeilo-Caradoc black shales should be considered necessary in order to fully evaluate the usefulness of trace-element proxies susceptible to diagenetic redistribution.


It was 9:00 am. Tuesday, September 6th. I was at my desk when I received a call from Tom Eckstein, saying that his dad had just passed away. Jack Eckstein, the father, the husband, our hero, our friend, had passed away.

John W. Eckstein, MD, was an Iowan who stayed home and became dean of his alma mater. He was acclaimed nationwide as the dean of deans, not just for his 21-year tenure as dean of the University of Iowa College of Medicine, but for the respect and admiration he commanded from his peers; for his integrity, the trust he engendered, the high values he championed, and his enormous accomplishments. The building that carries his name as The Eckstein Medical Research Building is a perfect tribute to a man who committed his whole life to the college. The building now harbors our very best scientists, our Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators, our members of the National Academies and of the Institute of Medicine. He established the Cardiovascular Research Center in 1974, and set it up as a model for interdisciplinary research that flourished. He established the first Department of Family Practice and worked with the legislature in designing the Statewide System of Family Practice. He cared greatly about the community and its health care system. A large majority of the thousands of students who graduated during his tenure as Dean chose primary care as their career focus and many decided to stay in Iowa to serve Iowans.

When he left the Deanship in 1991, he left a legacy of an unassuming and fair-handed leadership of a medical school that had the nation's best rural medicine program, and was on the nation's list of 15 best colleges.

It is said that our accomplishments in life are often shaped …


For the advancement and prosperity of an economy a highly developed and innovated business environment is required. In this respect the State must issue some regulations in order to establish certain standards that would allow the opening of new opportunities for business environment, encouraging entrepreneurs. The current study highlights modern trends in business development of the Republic of Moldova and exposes some recommendations for its improvement. During the research there have been used traditional research methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis, comparative analysis and logic. Preference was given to monographic study method applying the elements of observation, selection, induction and deduction. The investigations allow us to conclude that the basic pillar for development and advancement of a State under different aspects is business environment. There are many problems and constraints that hinder business development in the Republic of Moldova, but in spite of them the positive dynamics is observed in this sector. In order to increase business efficiency there must be a joint collaboration between the government, the civil society and business owners.


Recent European comparative studies in the fields of housing policy and spatial planning have been dominated by taxonomical and linear approaches, and by normative calls for convergence toward systems considered more 'mature' or 'advanced'. In this article, we adopt a genealogical perspective and consider those cultures that are central to the shaping of policy. We set out a long-term exploration of the intersection between spatial planning and housing policy in Portugal and focus on the Special Programme for Rehousing (Programa Especial de Realojamento, PER), a programme that has had changing roles (from a financial instrument to a core component of policies of urban regeneration) in connection with political and planning cultures changing in time and space. In this way, we provide evidence of the limited capacity of taxonomic and linear approaches to describe planning and housing systems undergoing processes of change and, conversely, show the potential of genealogical research.


This investigation described the effects of exercise, walking, and cycling for transportation, as well as the effect of overall nonexercise physical activity, on mortality in the Shanghai Women's Health Study (1997-2004). Women without heart disease, stroke, or cancer were followed for an average of 5.7 years (n = 67,143), and there were 1,091 deaths from all causes, 537 deaths from cancer, and 251 deaths from cardiovascular diseases. Information about physical activity and relevant covariates was obtained by interview. Proportional hazards models were used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Exercise and cycling for transportation were both inversely and independently associated with all-cause mortality (p(trend) < 0.05), but walking for transportation was less strongly associated with reduced risk (p(trend) = 0.07). Women reporting no regular exercise but who reported 10 or more metabolic equivalent (MET)-hours/day of nonexercise activity were at 25-50% reduced risk (p(trend) < 0.01) relative to less active women (0-9.9 MET-hours/day). Among women reporting the least nonexercise activity (0-9.9 MET-hours/day) but reporting regular exercise participation, exercise was associated with reduced mortality (hazard ratio = 0.78, 95% confidence interval: 0.62, 0.99). These findings add new evidence that overall physical activity levels are an important determinant of longevity, and that health benefit can be obtained through an active lifestyle, exercise, or combinations of both.


There has been a surge of research interest in developing tools and analysis for Bayesian optimization, the task of finding the global maximizer of an unknown, expensive function through sequential evaluation using Bayesian decision theory. However, many interesting problems involve optimizing multiple, expensive to evaluate objectives simultaneously, and relatively little research has addressed this setting from a Bayesian theoretic standpoint. A prevailing choice when tackling this problem, is to model the multiple objectives as being independent, typically for ease of computation. In practice, objectives are correlated to some extent. In this work, we incorporate the modelling of intertask correlations, developing an approximation to overcome intractable integrals. We illustrate the power of modelling dependencies between objectives on a range of synthetic and real world multi-objective optimization problems.


ABSTRACT The turbidites in the Rock Stream Member of the Sonyea Group (Upper Devonian of New York State) are flat lying, structurally undisturbed and have consistent sole mark orientations indicating current flow toward west-northwest. Measurements of internal sedimentary structures have been analyzed using the ABC percentage index recently proposed by Walker. It is hypothesized that values of 100 percent indicate fully proximal environments of deposition, with values gradually decreasing to zero percent in fully distal environments. In the Rock Stream Member, values were found to range from 96 to 3 percent. Graphs of sedimentary features against ABC index percentages show that with decreasing percentages, bed thicknesses decrease exponentially, and parallel lamination and cross- amination become more abundant. One graph shows that cross-lamination is abnormally abundant in geographically the most proximal area, and here, the cross-lamination vector mean directions differ significantly from sole mark directions. Ocean current reworking by a northwestward flowing current is indicated. ABC index values calculated from successive outcrops in a downcurrent direction do not show gradually depending creasing percentages. It is concluded that individual beds are not continuous along the length of the basin. An alternative model of basin filling is proposed, in which turbidites are deposited in a series of wedges. The wedges are stacked imbricately one in front of another, and gradually build forward into the basin during sedimentation.


Infrastructure projects around the world have long been notorious for exceeding their budgets.  To address persistent cost overruns, the American Planning Association urged planners to adopt reference class forecasting alongside traditional methods but the practice has not caught on in the U.S.  Conversely, the U.K. adopted Kahneman's Nobel Prize-winning theory to challenge biases in human judgment and mandated reference class forecasting for major projects in 2003.  Has reference class forecasting, originally developed to rectify honest mistakes, brought the promised success in the public sector wherein political pressure is significant?  Through before-and-after and with-and-without comparisons of 107 major projects, this empirical study examines the practical relevance of reference class forecasting for infrastructure investments.  A before-and-after comparison reveals that the average cost overrun declined from 38% to 5% following the introduction of reference class forecasting.  A with-and-without comparison also demonstrates that the U.K. surpassed its targeted probability of completing projects within budget by 12% using reference class forecasting, whereas the U.S. underperformed by 17%.  Thus, reference class forecasting has engendered notable improvements in estimation in the U.K.  This empirical study demonstrates the benefits of supplementing or replacing the current forecasting method.  The findings can be used to reduce substantial financial risks for the government as well as social and economic welfare losses for society.


This study proposed a longitudinal Hamming distance discrimination (Long-HDD) method to improve the application of longitudinal cognitive diagnosis in practical teaching by introducing a simple computation and less time-consuming nonparametric classification method—HDD—into longitudinal diagnostic data processing. Compared with the HDD, the proposed method represents correlation or dependence between adjacent time points of the same student using Hamming distance in anticipation of using information from the previous time point to improve the classification accuracy at the current time point. A simulation study was conducted to explore the performance of the proposed method in longitudinal diagnostic data analysis and to compare the performance of the proposed method with the HDD and a parametric longitudinal diagnostic classification model. The findings suggest that (1) the Long-HDD can provide high classification accuracy in longitudinal diagnostic data analysis; (2) compared with the parametric model, the Long-HDD is almost unaffected by sample size and performs better than the parametric model in small sample sizes; and (3) the Long-HDD consumes much less computing time than the parametric model. Overall, the Long-HDD is well suited to analyzing longitudinal diagnostic data and can provide speedy diagnostic feedback due to its convenient computation, which is especially significant in small-scale assessments at the classroom and school levels.


This thesis aims to improve our understanding of intrinsic resistive switching behaviour in silicon suboxides using transmission electron microscopy characterisation and density functional theory modelling. The main new results of this thesis can be summarised as follows. In sputter-deposited silicon suboxides, oxide-wide structural reorganisation occurs during electrical stressing. This is a result of large-scale oxygen dynamics, which can result in oxygen outmigration from the oxide and electrode deformation. The fabrication of sputter-deposited silicon suboxides greatly influences device performance. Firstly, growing the oxide layer on a rougher substrate surface promotes lower electroforming voltages and greater device endurance. This is consistent with enhanced columnar microstructure in the oxide. Secondly, thin oxide layers (< 5 nm) will lead to electrode migration into the oxide layer as a result of high electric fields. This will limit the thickness of the oxide layer needed for intrinsic switching behaviour. The formation of oxygen vacancy dimers and trimers is energetically favourable at some sites in amorphous silicon dioxide, with maximum binding energies of 0.13 eV and 0.18 eV, respectively. However, neutral oxygen vacancies are immobile under room temperature operating conditions and diffuse with a mean adiabatic barrier height of 4.6 eV. In amorphous silicon dioxide, double electron trapping is energetically feasible at oxygen vacancies at Fermi energies above 6.4 eV. This greatly improves vacancy mobility; however, vacancy diffusion competes with thermal ionisation of the electrons into the conduction band. Oxygen vacancies also compete with intrinsic sites for electron trapping. This results in an inefficient diffusion process, which cannot explain the formation of a silicon-rich conductive path. These results will help guide the optimisation of future silicon suboxide-based resistive random access memory and provide new insights into the role of oxygen vacancies during the electrical stressing of silicon oxides.


The 802.11 IEEE Standard has enabled low cost and effective wireless LAN services (WLAN). With the sales and deployment of WLAN based networks exploding, many people believe that they will become the fourth generation cellular system (4G) or a major portion of it. However, the small cell size of WLAN creates frequent hand-offs for mobile users. If the latency of these hand-offs is high, as previous studies have shown, then the users of synchronous multimedia applications such as voice over IP (VoIP) will experience excessive jitter. The dominating factor in WLAN hand-offs has been shown to be the discovery of the candidate set of next access points. In this paper, we describe the use of a novel and efficient discovery method using neighbor graphs and non-overlap graphs. Our method reduces the total number of probed channels as well as the total time spent waiting on each channel. Our implementation results show that this approach reduces the overall probe time significantly when compared to other approaches. Furthermore, simulation results show that the effectiveness of our method improves as the number of non-overlapping channels increases, such as in the 5 GHz band used by the IEEE 802.11a standard.


Work-related upper limb disorders (WMSDs), also known as repetitive strain injuries, affect a large subsection of the US population. These disorders are a significant source of injury, morbidity, loss of work, and pain. We have developed a rat model of upper extremity repetitive work at high forces, and observed exposure-dependent increased inflammatory responses in all tissues involved in performing the task. A 2- to 8-week regimen of oral ibuprofen provided to rats while they continued to perform a high-repetition high-force task ameliorated these inflammatory responses as well as several motor declines. Ibuprofen treatment also attenuated task-induced tissue fibrosis, carti lage degeneration, and bone osteopenia, indicating their link to inflammatory processes. However, ibuprofen did not significantly attenuate persistent nocifensive pain behav iors (reflexive grip strength results are presented) likely because of persistent increases in inflammatory cytokines in the spinal cord, suggestive of central sensitization. Since long-term ibuprofen use can induce a number of negative side effects, such as gastritis, multi-pronged approaches should be considered with anti-inflammatory drugs included for only short time periods.


Optimization of the lifetime of the battery within wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is challenging due to communication infrastructure. Subsequently, minimizing the amount of power required for data collection and processing to serve the intended purposes has become an open research problem. Conventional and compressive sensing-based (CS) query processing being the candidates to perform these tasks, require a comparative analysis in the current WSN application context. In this paper. Simulations have been carried out to compare the performance of conventional and compressive sensing-based (CS) query processing with respect to energy efficiency, sensing reliability and normalized estimation error within WSN. A significant reduction in the computational complexity reaching 70% is noticed using CS compared to conventional query processing algorithms. Moreover, it is observed that up to 90% sensing reliability can be achieved with CS compared to existing query processing. Hence, the reduction in computational complexity has not compromised the sensing reliability with an observed reduction in the normalized estimation error.


Background Prevention of the onset of depression in adolescence may prevent social dysfunction, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, suicide, and mental health conditions in adulthood. New technologies allow delivery of prevention programs scalable to large and disparate populations. Objective To develop and test the novel mobile phone delivery of a depression prevention intervention for adolescents. We describe the development of the intervention and the results of participants' self-reported satisfaction with the intervention. Methods The intervention was developed from 15 key messages derived from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The program was fully automated and delivered in 2 mobile phone messages/day for 9 weeks, with a mixture of text, video, and cartoon messages and a mobile website. Delivery modalities were guided by social cognitive theory and marketing principles. The intervention was compared with an attention control program of the same number and types of messages on different topics. A double-blind randomized controlled trial was undertaken in high schools in Auckland, New Zealand, from June 2009 to April 2011. Results A total of 1348 students (13–17 years of age) volunteered to participate at group sessions in schools, and 855 were eventually randomly assigned to groups. Of these, 835 (97.7%) self-completed follow-up questionnaires at postprogram interviews on satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and adherence to the intervention. Over three-quarters of participants viewed at least half of the messages and 90.7% (379/418) in the intervention group reported they would refer the program to a friend. Intervention group participants said the intervention helped them to be more positive (279/418, 66.7%) and to get rid of negative thoughts (210/418, 50.2%)—significantly higher than proportions in the control group. Conclusions Key messages from CBT can be delivered by mobile phone, and young people report that these are helpful. Change in clinician-rated depression symptom scores from baseline to 12 months, yet to be completed, will provide evidence on the effectiveness of the intervention. If proven effective, this form of delivery may be useful in many countries lacking widespread mental health services but with extensive mobile phone coverage. ClinicalTrial Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN): 12609000405213; http://www.anzctr.org.au/trial_view.aspx?ID=83667 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/64aueRqOb)


As semifluorinated alkanes (SFA) present an unusual class of mesogenic units for supramolecular structure formation, the study of their physical properties and self-assembly at fluid interfaces is of substantial relevance. To this end, the two-dimensional phase behavior and the viscoelastic properties of semifluorinated alkanes with symmetric number of carbon atoms in the fluorinated and hydrogenated side chains (F(CF2)12–(CH2)12H and F(CF2)11CH2–core–(CH2)12H with dibromophenyl core were investigated at the air/water interface and compared to the asymmetric F(CF2)12(CH2)20H system. Surface pressure/area isotherms and compression–expansion cycles were recorded at 20 °C, 40 °C, and 50 °C. Depending on the molecular details, an unexpected phase transition and hysteresis in compression–expansion cycles could be observed. Interfacial rheology revealed for all monolayer systems a solid-like viscoelastic response over the investigated range of surface pressures. The interfacial storage modulus G′i and interfacial loss modulus G′′i increased with increasing surface pressure. More importantly, at constant surface pressure the simple semifluorinated alkanes, forming nearly circular 2D micellar structures at the interface, exhibited rheological properties reminiscent of glass-like colloid systems. On the other hand, the SFA with the dibromophenyl core formed 2D interfacial micelles of highly elongated shape with dendritic domains and exhibited gel-like rheological properties, similar to those of the asymmetric alkane. Moreover, with increasing surface pressure the response of the asymmetric system alters from glassy to gel-like. These findings suggest that fine differences in the molecular structure are reflected in the linear viscoelastic response of the Langmuir films, and hence offer the possibility to molecularly tune the rheology of fluid interfaces.


A direct method is described of measuring the thickness of cell fragments and histological structures isolated from freeze-dried tissue sections and a planimetric method of measuring their surface area is presented. A special device mounted on the object holder of the microscope has been used to smooth out and to turn the fragments. The thickness of fragment of the rabbit Deiter's nucleus neuron and that of the molecular layer of the rat cerebellar cortex was measured with errors of 3.1 and 1.5, respectively, and their surface areas were measured with errors of 2.2 and 0.8%, respectively. The methods can be used in quantitative cyto- and histochemistry for obtaining data needed for calculation of the volumes cell fragments or structures isolated from freeze-dried tissue sections. The mean thickness of the freeze-dried section may differ from the cryostat microtome feed setting by 20-50%; therefore the cryostat microtome feed setting cannot be used in calculations of the volume of a fragment isolated from the freeze dried section.


BACKGROUND
Mental health concerns in older adults are common, with increasing age-related risks to physical health, mobility and social isolation. Community-based approaches are a key focus of public health strategy in the UK, and may reduce the impact of these risks, protecting mental health and promoting wellbeing. We conducted a review of UK community-based interventions to understand the types of intervention studied and mental health/wellbeing impacts reported.

METHOD
We conducted a scoping review of the literature, systematically searching six electronic databases (2000-2020) to identify academic studies of any non-clinical community intervention to improve mental health or wellbeing outcomes for older adults. Data were extracted, grouped by population targeted, intervention type, and outcomes reported, and synthesised according to a framework categorising community actions targeting older adults.

RESULTS
In total, 1,131 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility and 54 included in the final synthesis. Example interventions included: link workers; telephone helplines; befriending; digital support services; group social activities. These were grouped into: connector services, gateway services/approaches, direct interventions and systems approaches. These interventions aimed to address key risk factors: loneliness, social isolation, being a caregiver and living with long-term health conditions. Outcome measurement varied greatly, confounding strong evidence in favour of particular intervention types.

CONCLUSION
The literature is wide-ranging in focus and methodology. Greater specificity and consistency in outcome measurement are required to evidence effectiveness - no single category of intervention yet stands out as 'promising'. More robust evidence on the active components of interventions to promote older adult's mental health is required.


In accordance with the mandate of  Decree of Minister for the Empowerment of State Apparatus or Menteri Pendayagunaan Aparatur Negara (MENPAN), Regional Public Hospital (RPH) Banjar City has changed in the organizational structure and working procedures in order to create the effectiveness and efficiency of services provided to the community. In previous service system has a fairly fundamental change, which few public services are already integrated.The method used in this study is descriptive and verification methods and used survey techniques such as interviews and observations. Implementation of these activities using a variety of stages such as preparation of the study design, drafting instruments, sampling technic, field data collection, tabulation of data, data processing, data analysis, and data interpretation. The types of data collected for analysis is primary data obtained from the questionnaires. Results of research on Public Service Agency or Badan Layanan Umum of RPH Banjar City based on 14 indicators on KEPMENPAN No.25/M/PAN/2/2004 of Community Satisfaction Index (IKM) which indicates good category. The value of the index in the service unit after conversion = index value x basic value = 3.01 x 25 = 75.15 and categorized Good. Of the overall existing elements can all be categorized as 'Good' but there are still some questions to be answered by the respondents were less satisfied; as relating to conditions of service, the ability of service personnel, speed of service, certainty schedule of service, comfort and service. Keywords : Community satisfaction, Public Service, Regional Public Hospital.


 Jon Kolko Our previous issue of interactions issued a loud challenge to practitioners: Richard Seymour's cover story asked readers to consider that the problems you choose to solve are as important as how you solve them; he and others demanded that you focus your creative energy on issues that resonate in a large and prominent manner; and several of our authors pushed you to look at things differently—from sales cycles to randomness, from architecture to design, and cultures, both others and your own. This issue, our fourth, takes a quieter approach. Each of the articles is subtle this time around—and solid, and focused. These articles don't make demands but instead insist that the call to arms is personal. The work we do on a daily basis must make incremental steps toward value and positive cultural and social change. Perhaps you can think of this as a quiet issue, one that underscores a sense of Big Stick Diplomacy for undertaking creative efforts in corporations and consultancies alike. We focus this issue on three major themes, each softly contributing to a larger, more resonant point about change. The first theme, the change in dynamic between producers and consumers, considers how technology is changing the nature of the "game" of business, dramatically shifting the power struggle between those who make or market things and those who buy things (and even what those "things" are). Conor Brady introduces us to methods used at Organic. Michael Graber describes the shift toward including playful interactions in marketing experiences—less utility, but more resonance. The second theme suggests we step back to reconsider a few things—how we conduct and what we expect from user research, how we think of emerging cultures and what we think helpful visualizations really are—in order to look at things differently, as compelled by the authors of issue three. The final theme of this issue addresses how we can enable more positive experiences through our creative efforts. David Bishop posits a theory of conservation of complexity, while others offer new ways to approach the development of products and digital artifacts. In our cover story, Eli Blevis introduces us to David Roedl and James Pierce, who look at how we can change energy use through our creative and productive efforts. Their feature poses a softly spoken challenge to all practitioners of products, services and systems: "Sometimes using less energy requires only small changes in behavior. At other times, it requires more radical shifts in lifestyles and values. When designing for sustainability in everyday life, we need to find ways to design products that both create needed behavioral and intellectual change and are easily adapted into daily routines. Finding ways to meet both of these criteria is among the most fundamental challenges for sustainable interaction design." The modern-day designer is caught in a difficult space, pulled by the siren songs of marketing and profitability and yet firmly rooted in responsibility to the earth and to society. Technology has enabled great things on both fronts, and this speaks to the quiet themes introduced in this magazine. We hope you can find the right balance between marketing, technology, and sustainability. And just as we hope you answer Richard Seymour's loud challenge, we hope you will respond with equal enthusiasm to the quieter, and potentially more difficult, challenge found in this issue. —Richard Anderson and Jon Kolko firstname.lastname@example.com