Abstract This study primarily aims to analyze the relationship between selected board characteristics and the extent of environmental disclosure in annual reports of Turkish companies, using a sample of 62 non-financial firms listed on the BIST-100 index at the end of 2011. The content analysis is used to measure the extent of environmental disclosure. Four board characteristics, namely board size, board independence, board gender diversity and audit committee independence, are considered as the independent variables that may have an impact on the extent of the environmental disclosures of Turkish companies. According to the results of the regression analysis, only board size has a statistically significant and positive relationship with the extent of environmental disclosure. This result implies that firms with larger boards disclose more environmental information than firms with smaller boards. On the other hand, the rest of the independent variables are found to be unrelated to the extent of environmental disclosure. The low degree of independence and gender diversity on the boards of the sample companies for the time period analyzed in the study could be one possible explanation for this result.


Proteins are not only considered as a nutritional source but also are responsible for a number of functional properties such as solubility, emulsification, foaming capacity and gel formation in food products. However, insolubility of the proteins (as can be seen in gluten) and therefore their insufficient functional properties have created some limitations for their incorporation in formulated foods. Studies have indicated that chemical and/or enzymatic modifications are potential ways to improve proteins functionality. In this study gluten was extracted from two wheat varieties, Sardary and Mahdavi, and then modified by deamidation, acylation (succuinylation and acetylation) as well as enzymatic hydrolysis. Functional properties such as solubility measured as nitrogen solubility (NSI), emulsifying capacity (EC), foaming capacity (FC) and stability (FS) as well as the electrophoresis patterns of native glutens were studied and compared with those of chemicallyand/or enzymatically-treated samples. Most modifications significantly increased NSI from 20 to more than 70% and EC up to 35%. A great increase was also evidenced in foaming capacity that increased from 80 ml of foam volume in native samples to about 180 ml of foam in all the treated samples; however, only deamidated samples had stable foam over the time. Electrophoresis patterns indicated that, among chemical modifications, deamidation caused limited hydrolysis of gluten polypeptides while enzymatic hydrolysis led to a pronounced reduction in the molecular weight of wheat gluten polypeptides (less than 15 KD) of both varieties.


Detecting activity types from GPS traces has been important topic in travel surveys. Compared to inferring transport mode, existing methods are still relatively inaccurate in detecting activity types due to the simplicity of their assumptions and/or lack of background information. To reduce this gap, this paper reports the results of an endeavour to infer activity type by incorporating both spatial information and aggregated temporal information. Three machine learning algorithms, Bayesian belief network, decision tree and random forest, are used to investigate the performance of these approaches in detecting activity types. The test is based on GPS traces and prompted recall data, collected in the Rijnmond region, The Netherlands. Results show that the random forest model has the highest accuracy. The model incorporating spatial and temporal information can predict activity types with an accuracy of 96.8% for the used dataset. These findings are expected to benefit research on the use of GPS technology to collect activity-travel diary data.


This paper presents, explores and compares object-oriented approaches for roles in statically typed programming languages. We choose five solutions which support information hiding. On the one hand, we investigate the established object-oriented possibilities multiple and interface inheritance and the role object pattern, on the other hand, we examine the language extensions Object Teams and the syntactical extension of classes with roles. We discuss all approaches in turn, using a versatile example. The investigation shows that standard approaches interface inheritance and role object pattern are more appropriate for enterprise projects. New approaches are not developed far enough to be used widespread. But they are all promising proceedings, particularly the approach of roles as components


This paper explores the relationship between the duration of a vacancy and the starting wage of a new job, using linked data on vacancies, the posting establishments and the workers eventually filling the vacancies. The unique combination of large-scale, administrative worker-, establishment- and vacancy-data is critical for separating establishment- and job-level determinants of vacancy duration from worker-level heterogeneity. Conditional on observables, we find that vacancy duration is negatively correlated with the starting wage and its establishment component, with precisely estimated elasticities of -0.07 and -0.21, respectively. While the negative relationship is qualitatively consistent with search-theoretic models where firms use the wage as a recruiting device, these elasticities are small, suggesting that firms' wage policies can account only for a small fraction of the variation in vacancy filling across establishments.


Abstract Background Family abuse is a recurrent phenomenon within a select population of households. This form of abuse can include any physical or psychological harassment that occurs between family or household members, and often involves complex mental and emotional issues that are resistant to intervention. Traditional criminal justice strategies for combating this issue have evolved over time but have frequently demonstrated limited success. Within the past few decades, multiagency programs to address repeat family abuse have gained popularity. One such program, termed "second responders," teams police officers with social service workers, victim advocates, or counselors to conduct follow‐up visits with victims of family abuse following a complaint. Second responders seek to educate victims about the cyclical nature of family abuse, engage in safety planning, and/or provide service referrals. These interventions are based on the premise that victims are more likely to be receptive to crime prevention opportunities immediately following victimization. Second responder interventions have received support from the US Department of Justice and their adoption has spread in both the United States and internationally, however, there remains little conclusive evidence on their effects. Objectives To update and extend the findings of the prior second responders systematic review and meta‐analysis by synthesizing the results of published and unpublished second responder evaluations through October of 2021. This review also examines the use of victim services as a secondary outcome and incorporates a number of additional moderator analyses. Search Methods The Global Policing Database (GPD), a repository of all experimental and quasi‐experimental evaluations of policing interventions conducted since 1950, was searched using keywords related to second responder interventions and repeat family violence from 2004 to December 2019 (https://gpd.uq.edu.au/s/gpd/page/about). This search was also supplemented with additional strategies, such as reference harvesting of prior reviews, searching 2020 and 2021 volumes of leading academic journals, reviewing the reference lists of eligible studies, searching additional gray literature repositories focused on domestic violence, and consulting with eligible study authors. Selection Criteria Eligible studies were required to include a treatment group that received the second responder intervention and a comparison group that did not. Assignment to these conditions could be either experimental or quasi‐experimental, but quasi‐experimental studies were required to use either matched comparison groups or multivariate analysis methods to control for confounding factors. Eligibility was limited to studies reporting on at least one measure of repeat family abuse, such as intimate partner violence, elder abuse, or general family abuse. Measures of repeat abuse could be based on either official (i.e., police data) or unofficial (i.e., victim survey data) data sources. Data Collection and Analysis Five new studies were identified between 2004 and 2019, all of which contained sufficient data for the calculation of at least one effect size. Along with the 10 studies included in the prior review, a total of 15 studies and 29 distinct effect sizes were analyzed across three outcome constructs. Effect sizes were calculated as logged odds ratios and results were synthesized using random effects models with restricted maximum likelihood estimation. Final results were exponentiated to represent the percentage point difference in the odds of a given outcome for treatment groups relative to control groups. Risk of bias was assessed using items adapted from the Cochrane Risk of Bias tools for experimental and quasi‐experimental studies. Eligible studies were generally considered to be of low risk of bias, however, issues with survey success/contact rates and the analytical approaches to these problems led to concern in several studies. Results These analyses suggest that second responder interventions produced no significant effects on either police or victim‐reported measures of repeat family abuse, in aggregate. However, findings from the more rigorous experimental studies indicated that second responder interventions were associated with a statistically significant 22% (95% confidence interval [CI] [1.04, 1.43]) increase in the odds of a police‐reported repeat family abuse incident, with no significant variability in individual study results. Additionally, studies that measured the use of victim services as a secondary outcome were associated with a statistically significant 9% (95% CI [1.02, 1.16]) increase in the odds of service use for treatment groups relative to control groups. Several study characteristics also proved to be important moderators of treatment effects. Increases in the speed of the second response were associated with significant decreases in the odds of a victim‐reported repeat incident, and studies that measured repeat family abuse using households were associated with significantly higher odds of a police‐reported repeat incident, compared to studies that used the same victim or victim/offender pairing more generally. Authors' Conclusions Second responder interventions are undoubtedly appealing based on their logic and intentions. Yet, well‐intentioned programs with sound logic can still backfire, and the results of this updated review provide evidence that may be suggestive of a backfire effect. Even so, any firm conclusions from this review are limited by a lack of knowledge on the mechanisms operating in between the implementation of the second response intervention and the observed effects, as well as the small sample sizes involved in many analyses. While it seems clear that these programs are not producing any broad reductions in self‐reported victimization, the increase in police‐reported violence seen in experimental studies could indicate either a true increase in abuse or an increased willingness to call the police. The lack of observed impact on victim‐reported violence would suggest the latter, but without more specific measures, such conclusions should be avoided. If these results are indicative of increased reporting, however, many may consider this a desirable outcome, particularly given the often‐underreported nature of family abuse and the potential for increased reporting to lead to long‐term reductions in abuse. Furthermore, these results provide an indication that second responder programs can produce other intended effects, such as increasing the retention of victim services, and that the specific characteristics of these interventions may moderate their effects. It is unclear why elements such as the immediacy of the second response or the unit of analysis being evaluated would impact study results, but these observations are consistent with the theory that domestic violence interventions must capitalize on short windows of opportunity and create separation between victims and offenders to reduce exposure and subsequent victimization. This potential indicates a need for more research on second responder programs, but specifically research that examines these moderating characteristics and mechanisms. Even in light of this potential, second responder programs do not, on average, appear to reduce the prevalence of repeat family abuse. Given the presence of alternative (and possibly more effective) domestic violence interventions that now exist (e.g., Safe Dates, Shifting Boundaries, Green Dot, etc.), it seems that policymakers may wish to look elsewhere for efforts to reduce family abuse.


Hardware/software partitioning is a key problem in hardware/software co-design. This paper presents a new hardware/software partitioning methodology based on improved particle swarm optimization algorithm. The model of the embedded system was constructed by directed acyclic graph to obtain the objective function. Then improvement strategies are introduced in order to overcome the problems of low precision and divergence in traditional particle swarm optimization algorithm. The improved algorithm can avoid local optimal solution efficiently and be conveniently implemented in the field of hardware/software partitioning.


We tackle the problem of protein secondary structure prediction using a common task framework. This lead to the introduction of multiple ideas for neural architectures based on state of the art building blocks, used in this task for the first time. We take a principled machine learning approach, which provides genuine, unbiased performance measures, correcting longstanding errors in the application domain. We focus on the Q8 resolution of secondary structure, an active area for continuously improving methods. We use an ensemble of strong predictors to achieve accuracy of 70.7% (on the CB513 test set using the CB6133filtered training set). These results are statistically indistinguishable from those of the top existing predictors. In the spirit of reproducible research we make our data, models and code available, aiming to set a gold standard for purity of training and testing sets. Such good practices lower entry barriers to this domain and facilitate reproducible, extendable research.


In Black South African Autobiography After Deleuze: Belonging and Becoming Self-Testimony, Kgomotso Michael Masemola uses Gilles Deleuze's theories of immanence and deterritorialization to explore South African Autobiography as both the site and limit of intertextual cultural memory.


The sense finger dynamics in the capacitive MEMS accelerometer affect the performance of electromechanical mixed-domain Sigma-Delta control loop. Correct behaviour can not be correctly predicted by conventional lumped model of the mechanical sensing element. This contribution presents an improved distributed mechanical model implemented in VHDL-AMS and detailed analysis of how sense finger dynamics affect the operation of the accelerometer when the system is subjected by jolt and step excitations. Such excitations are common in typical MEMS accelerometer applications in automobile safety systems.


Meaningful connections among different types of decision making Situations are established in order to improve the development of useful decision technologies for application to real world problems. More specifically, an assertion is put forward that suggests that single participant-multiple criteria (SPMC) and multiple participant-single criterion (MPSC) decision making problems may be treated in essentially the same way. In this way, decision technologies that are already available can be suitably refined for use in studying both SPMC and MPSC decision situations. Another assertion is made that a multiple participant-multiple criteria (MPMC) decision situation can be converted to a MPSC decision situation. In order to simplify the explanation, illustrative applications are utilized throughout the paper. Finally, worthwhile directions for future research are summarized. >


In Anglo-American law, fiduciary duty is the core legal concept to address conflicts among directors/managers and shareholders. The concept is developed and constantly refined by courts in the process of adjudication. By contrast, most civil law jurisdictions, including many transition economies, either lack the procedural rules that would enable parties to bring such cases to courts, or have not developed a sufficient body of case law to determine the contents and meaning of this concept. This paper asks, whether courts should be allocated the right to define and enforce fiduciary duty principles. Based on our theory of the incompleteness of law, this paper argues that when law is highly incomplete, but the expected harm can be contained and does not cause externalities, allocating lawmaking and law enforcement to courts is optimal. Breaching fiduciary duty is such an area, as harm is typically limited to shareholders of a given company. While courts in transition economies may have difficulties living up to the task of exercising lawmaking rights in this area, we propose that there are few alternatives and that encouraging an active learning process should therefore be encouraged. We investigate emerging case law on the duty of loyalty in Poland and Russia and draw some comparisons to German case law.


This paper presents a new predictive power-factor-correction (PFC) controller for series-interleaved three-level boost (TLB) converters. Compared to the state-of-the-art TLB PFC controllers, where a two-cycle prediction and a detection of an operating region are necessary, the proposed controller achieves a low total harmonic distortion of the input current by using a single equation to predict the input current in all operating regions of the converter, in just one operating cycle. The average current control is achieved by sampling at the peak of the triangular carrier. The proposed PFC controller significantly reduces the distortion of the input ac current near the zero-crossing points, resulting in a low total harmonic distortion of the input current. The operation of the proposed controller was evaluated, and its stability and robustness to parameter changes was confirmed analytically. The controller operating principles were verified in simulations and validated by experiments on a medium-voltage 50-kW converter prototype.


BACKGROUND
Disease-related malnutrition is highly prevalent in hospital patients and varies from 25-40%. Early nutritional screening of patients at admission helps to improve recognition of malnourished patients to allow early interventions and enhance clinical outcomes.

METHOD
A total of 104 preoperative surgical patients with oesophageal (34), stomach (17) or pancreatic cancer (53) were recruited in our study. The risk of malnutrition was examined using the quick-and-easy Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST). Anthropometric data and information on percent weight change over the past six months, unintentional weight loss, dietician referrals, and history of nutritional intervention were collected.

RESULTS
A total of 75% of our participants were at high malnutrition risk with a mean (±SD) percentage weight loss of 5.18 (±6.23)%, despite a mean BMI of 26.09 (±5.73) kgm-2. Participants with a significantly higher percent weight loss, unintentional weight loss, dietician referral and nutritional intervention had a higher risk of malnutrition (p<0.05). Presence of unintentional weight loss was the only significant predictor (OR 3.22; 95%CI 1.23, 8.40) associated with risk of malnutrition after adjusted for all confounders.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our findings highlight the importance of routine screening of malnutrition in oncology patients. Medical personnel must be aware that unintentional weight loss is an important predictor of malnutrition risks even if the patient's BMI is not suggestive of malnutrition.


The gastrointestinal tract contains most of the body's 5‐hydroxytryptamine (5‐HT) and releases large amounts after meals or exposure to toxins. Increased 5‐HT release occurs in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and their peak plasma 5‐HT levels correlate with pain episodes. 5‐HT3 receptor antagonists reduce symptoms of IBS clinically, but their site of action is unclear and the potential for other therapeutic targets is unexplored. Here we investigated effects of 5‐HT on sensory afferents from the colon and the expression of 5‐HT3 receptors on their cell bodies in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Distal colon, inferior mesenteric ganglion and the lumbar splanchnic nerve bundle (LSN) were placed in a specialized organ bath. Eighty‐six single fibres were recorded from the LSN. Three classes of primary afferents were found: 70 high‐threshold serosal afferents, four low‐threshold muscular afferents and 12 mucosal afferents. Afferent cell bodies were retrogradely labelled from the distal colon to the lumbar DRG, where they were processed for 5‐HT3 receptor‐like immunoreactivity. Fifty‐six percent of colonic afferents responded to 5‐HT (between 10−6 and 10−3 M) and 30 % responded to the selective 5‐HT3 agonist, 2‐methyl‐5‐HT (between 10−6 and 10−2 M). Responses to 2‐methyl‐5‐HT were blocked by the 5‐HT3 receptor antagonist alosetron (2 × 10−7 M), whereas responses to 5‐HT were only partly inhibited. Twenty‐six percent of L1 DRG cell bodies retrogradely labelled from the colon displayed 5‐HT3 receptor‐like immunoreactivity. We conclude that colonic sensory neurones expressing 5‐HT3 receptors also functionally express the receptors at their peripheral endings. Our data reveal actions of 5‐HT on colonic afferent endings via both 5‐HT3 and non‐5‐HT3 receptors.


Leibniz standardly associates "mechanism" with extended material bodies and their aggregates. In this paper, I identify and analyze a further distinct sense of "mechanism" in Leibniz that extends, by analogy, beyond the domain of material bodies and applies to the operations of immaterial substances such as the monads that serve, for Leibniz, as the metaphysical foundations of physical reality. I argue that in this sense, Leibniz understands "mechanism" as an intelligible process that is capable of providing a sufficient reason for a series of changes. I then apply these findings to enrich our understanding of Leibniz's well-known mill argument in Monadology ¶17: although material machines and mechanisms cannot produce perceptions, the perceptual activity of immaterial monads is to be understood as "mechanical" according to this analogical sense.


Coagulation products have allowed patients with severe haemophilia to lead a normal life. This is, however, only true for patients who received an early diagnosis and could start with primary prophylaxis. The absence of a positive family history for haemophilia, in the majority of children with severe haemophilia, postpones the age that treatment can be started. This makes general awareness of the clinical presentation important and a proper diagnosis a prerequisite for progress. The long delay between joint bleeding and overt arthropathy has been an important factor in the delay of implementation of primary prophylaxis. After the development of guidelines on 'how to treat', implementation of the advised practice is needed. Data collection of current treatment regimens in haemophilia centres will support the further optimization of the care for persons with haemophilia and further optimize treatment guidelines. Episodic ('on demand') therapy as a treatment strategy for severe haemophilia needs reconsideration.


Plutonium dihydride and trihydride show strikingly similar crystal structures when viewed as close-packed Pu planes with ABC and AB stacking, respectively. The similarity serves as a framework for density functional theory (DFT) calculations of PuH2, PuH3, and intermediate compositions. Agreement between structures observed in experiment and in the DFT description of the Pu-H system requires accounting for the strong electronic correlation in the f orbitals, achieved here with the addition of a Hubbard parameter U. The hysteresis measured between hydriding and dehydriding can be attributed to the effect of stacking of the close-packed Pu planes on the energy as a function of stoichiometry, calculated using the GGA+U approach. Changes in the interstitial positions occupied by the H atoms affect the energy by amounts that are negligible compared to room temperature; changes in the magnetic structure lead to equally small energy differences.


Rhetoric scholars (Predergast, Leweicki-Wilson, Pryal) have examined the rhetorical disempowerment of the mentally ill, whose perceived lack of reason isolates them from public discourse. Such isolation can be explained using Kenneth Burke's theory of identification (and its "ironic counterpart," division) which shows how the discursive markers of "sane" and "insane" function to create an in-group, the sane, that relies upon the rhetorical and physical isolation of the insane. The article argues that the mentally ill make an ideal Burkean scapegoat, and that the criminal acts of a few mentally ill people provides the necessary justification for the scapegoating of the entire group, taking the case of Jared Loughner's shootings in Tucson, Arizona. This article examines reports of major U.S. media outlets in the weeks following the 2011 shootings to show how the public rhetorical response to such tragedies tends to be one of division, and then scapegoating, of all mentally ill people. The public reaction to a criminal perpetrator's mental illness follows a predictable rhetorical pattern, including arguments of blame (who is at fault for the crimes of the mentally ill?); arguments for greater categorization (who is mentally ill?); and arguments for prevention (what should we do with the mentally ill?). These arguments arise out of a desire for reassurance that future tragedies can be prevented, so long as we can identify, and isolate, the insane. Thus, this article reframes sanity as a culturally imposed division that is used to forge identification, especially after a traumatic event.


Active management and controlling of one's social setting is an essential basis for physical and psychological well-being. A concept which aims at building abilities for an individual responsible and autonomous life is empowerment. Due to the demographic development, this concept will become more important for the elderly. In our productive and work-life related society, this age group is often considered as a burden. Their age group-specific potential is not sufficiently recognised and utilised, e.g., regarding its possible supportive role in interactions between a community's generations. This article illustrates different levels and strategies of empowerment for the elderly and analyses some concepts. One of these concepts is health literacy, which is defined as gaining competence, e.g., for the understanding of information or for acting on health-related issues. Studies of association between health literacy and health outcomes in the elderly are represented. Additionally, the promotion of empowerment is part of the prevention and health care, e.g., in terms of "active management" and "passive management". A further focus is improving the empowerment in elderly employees.


Aquaculture of barramundi or Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer) is growing in both Australia and Southeast Asia and there is substantial interest to improve production efficiency through selective breeding. The establishment of a large and genetically diverse base population is a prerequisite for a sustainable and long-term productive breeding program. Before selective breeding programs can begin for Australian barramundi it is important to assess the overall genetic diversity of current captive broodstock populations. To address this question, 407 captive barramundi broodstock from eight separate Australian broodstock populations were genotyped using 16 polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers. A Bayesian STRUCTURE analysis indicated that captive Australian broodstock are broadly divided into two genetic stocks. Multivariate analysis between broodstock individuals and pairwise F(ST) between broodstock populations also supported the existence of two stocks. Comparisons with data obtained from natural stocks suggested that hatchery individuals were either sourced from the two stocks or represented an admixture between them. Genetic diversity was low within each broodstock population (allelic richness ranged from 2.67 to 3.42 and heterozygosity ranged from 0.453 to 0.537) and relatedness estimates within hatcheries were generally low (average r was equal to 0.141). We recommend sourcing captive individuals according to high levels of neutral genetic diversity and low levels of relatedness for the establishment of a base population. We also make recommendations about including genetically diverse wild individuals.


What would you do if your systems were hacked or compromised by a virus? How would your IT systems cope in the event of flooding or an explosion? What if your IT systems simply stopped working? IT has brought many benefits to business. However, IT failures can seriously damage your ability to deliver products and services, harm your company's reputation, and jeopardise your relationship with your customers. In short, poorly managed IT problems could threaten the survival of your business. Create a Survival Plan If you want to protect your business, you need to put in place a business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plan to help your business survive. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, a quick guide for organisations and business managers shows you how to develop a plan that will: keep your information safe safeguard your company from viruses and phishing scams. store data safely, and prevent years of work from being lost by accident. ensure your communication links are secure, and keep you connected when disaster strikes bomb-proof your data protect your data in the event of fire or flood. Read this practical guide and start building a business survival plan today About the author Thejendra B.S is the IT manager for a software development firm in Bangalore, and has over 20 years of experience in IT. Besides working in India, his career has also taken him to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain and Australia. He has dealt with customers in many different areas of business, and has written many articles for websites such as techrepublic.com and drj.com. Visit www.thejendra.com for details of his other books and articles.


Abstract Non-spatial and spatial analyses were carried out to study the effects on genetic parameters in ten-year height growth data across two series of 10 large second-generation full-sib progeny trials of western hemlock [Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.] in British Columbia. To account for different and complex patterns of environmental heterogeneity, spatial single trial analyses were conducted using an individual-tree mixed model with a two-dimensional smoothing surface with tensor product of B-spline bases. The spatial single trial analysis, in all cases, showed sizeable lower Deviance Information Criterion values relative to the non-spatial analysis. Also, fitting a surface displayed a consistent reduction in the posterior mean as well as a decrease in the standard deviations of error variance, no appreciable changes in the additive variance, an increase of individual narrow-sense heritability, and accuracy of breeding values. The tensor product of cubic basis functions of B-spline based on a mixed model framework does provide a useful new alternative to model different and complex patterns of spatial variability within sites in forest genetic trials. Individual narrow-sense heritabilities estimates from the spatial single trial analyses were low (average of 0.06), but typical of this species. Estimated dominance relative to additive variances were unstable across sites (from 0.00 to 1.59). The implications of these estimations will be discussed with respect to the western hemlock genetic improvement program in British Columbia.


BACKGROUND
Patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis frequently exhibit poor mental health. We studied the effects of frequent in-center and nocturnal hemodialysis on depressive symptoms and self-reported mental health.

STUDY DESIGN
1-year randomized controlled clinical trials.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS
Hemodialysis centers in the United States and Canada. 332 patients were randomly assigned to frequent (6-times-weekly) compared with conventional (3-times-weekly) hemodialysis in the Frequent Hemodialysis Network (FHN) Daily (n = 245) and Nocturnal (n = 87) Trials.

INTERVENTION
The Daily Trial was a trial of frequent (6-times-weekly) compared with conventional (3-times-weekly) in-center hemodialysis. The Nocturnal Trial assigned patients to either frequent nocturnal (6-times-weekly) hemodialysis or conventional (3-times-weekly) hemodialysis.

OUTCOMES
Self-reported depressive symptoms and mental health.

MEASUREMENTS
Beck Depression Inventory and the mental health composite score and emotional subscale of the RAND 36-Item Health Survey at baseline and 4 and 12 months. The mental health composite score is derived by summarizing these domains of the RAND 36-Item Health Survey: emotional, role emotional, energy/fatigue, and social functioning scales.

RESULTS
In the Daily Trial, participants randomly assigned to frequent compared with conventional in-center hemodialysis showed no significant change over 12 months in adjusted mean Beck Depression Inventory score (-1.9 ± 0.7 vs -0.6 ± 0.7; P = 0.2), but experienced clinically significant improvements in adjusted mean mental health composite (3.7 ± 0.9 vs 0.2 ± 1.0; P = 0.007) and emotional subscale (5.2 ± 1.6 vs -0.3 ± 1.7; P = 0.01) scores. In the Nocturnal Trial, there were no significant changes in the same metrics in participants randomly assigned to nocturnal compared with conventional hemodialysis.

LIMITATIONS
Trial interventions were not blinded.

CONCLUSIONS
Frequent in-center hemodialysis, as compared with conventional in-center hemodialysis, improved self-reported general mental health. Changes in self-reported depressive symptoms were not statistically significant. We were unable to conclude whether nocturnal hemodialysis yielded similar effects.


This paper is concerned with the optimization of an electrokinetic micromixer suitable for Lab-on-Chip and other microfluidic applications. The mixing concept is based on the combination of an alternating electrical excitation applied to a pressure-driven base flow in a meandering microchannel geometry. The electrical excitation induces a secondary electrokinetic velocity component which results in a complex flow field within the meander bends. A mathematical model describing the physicochemical phenomena present within the micromixer is implemented in an in-house Finite-Element-Method code. We first perform simulations comparable to experiments concerned with the investigation of the flow field in the bends. The comparison of simulation and experiment reveals excellent agreement. Hence, the validated model and numerical schemes are employed for a numerical optimization of the micromixer performance. In detail, we optimize the secondary electrokinetic flow by finding the best electrical excitation parameters, i.e. frequency and amplitude, for a given waveform. The simulation results of two optimized electrical excitations featuring a discrete and a continuous waveform are compared and discussed. The results demonstrate that the micromixer is able to achieve high mixing degrees very rapidly.


It is essential to have knowledge of changes in soil structure, as a result of agricultural use and its relationship with crop development, especially those with potential for use in new regions, such as the cultivation of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) in the Cerrado. In view of this dynamics, the objective was to evaluate the phytometric components of safflower genotypes submitted to levels of soil densities in Cerrado Oxisol. Ten safflower genotypes were then submitted to compaction (five densities: 1.0, 1, 2, 1.4, and 1.8 Mg m-3) in a completely randomized design with four replications under greenhouse conditions. The plots consisted of an overlap of three rings of polyvinylidene chloride of 0.01 m height each, and the treatments were applied in the intermediate layer. The phytometric components (plant height, number of leaves and stem diameter) and shoot dry mass of the crop were evaluated at 30, 60 and 90 days after sowing. There was no significant interaction between safflower genotypes and soil densities, with the effects being isolated for genotypes and/or densities when significant. For the phytometric characteristics evaluated, the genotypes PI250196, PI301049, PI305173, and PI305205 are more stable about the variations of soil density in comparison to the others. The phytometric components and dry mass of safflower shoot are impaired from the mean density of 1.2 Mg m-3.


Background: Acute appendicitis is a serious condition that is occasionally falsely diagnosed. The correct diagnosis of this condition helps reduce unnecessary surgeries or complications due to the lack of diagnosis. Laboratory tests are used to diagnose this condition. The present study was conducted to compare the diagnostic value of the ESR, the CRP level and leukocytosis with pathological findings in patients with acute appendicitis. Methods: This descriptive study examined 125 cases with a primary diagnosis of appendicitis from August 2015 to October 2016 at Imam Hossein Hospital in Shahroud, Iran. The patients' blood samples were collected for ESR, CRP and leukocyte testing and were then sent to the laboratory. After the appendectomies, samples of their appendices were sent to the pathology laboratory for further examination. The blood test results were compared with the pathological findings and analyzed in terms of sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values. Results: In this study, 59.2% of the cases were male and the rest were female. Acute appendicitis and other pathological appendices were confirmed in 91 patients (72.8%) based on their pathological evaluation and 34 cases (27.2%) were reported as normal. The sensitivity and specificity were obtained as 57.1% and 79.4% for ESR. These indices were 78.0% and 83.5% for CRP and 74.4% and 50% for leukocytosis. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that, in addition to basic laboratory findings, ESR, CRP and leukocytosis testing can also be helpful in the correct diagnosis of acute appendicitis; however, the predictive value of CRP was the highest.


Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) are popular models for processing sequential data and have found many applications such as speech recognition, time series prediction or machine translation. Although both models have been extended in several ways (eg. Long Short Term Memory and Gated Recurrent Unit architectures, Variational RNN, partially observed Markov models...), their theoretical understanding remains partially open. In this context, our approach consists in classifying both models from an information geometry point of view. More precisely, both models can be used for modeling the distribution of a sequence of random observations from a set of latent variables; however, in RNN, the latent variable is deterministically deduced from the current observation and the previous latent variable, while, in HMM, the set of (random) latent variables is a Markov chain. In this paper, we first embed these two generative models into a generative unified model (GUM). We next consider the subclass of GUM models which yield a stationary Gaussian observations probability distribution function (pdf). Such pdf are characterized by their covariance sequence; we show that the GUM model can produce any stationary Gaussian distribution with geometrical covariance structure. We finally discuss about the modeling power of the HMM and RNN submodels, via their associated observations pdf: some observations pdf can be modeled by a RNN, but not by an HMM, and vice versa; some can be produced by both structures, up to a re-parameterization.


Through the wast growth of information technologies, verification is of high importance in many research fields. Most of the models describing modelling procedures include verification and validation as a single step or as an accompanying activity. Unfortunately, most of these models do not give more detailed operation guidelines. In this context, it is common that verification is necessary, but in real life projects there is often no time nor men power for verification, particularly, if verifying is an accompanying activity as in simulation projects. The complexity of simulation projects complicates a proper implementation of verification. Therefore, it is a common method to tailor the procedure models. In this paper we concentrate on modelling and introduce an approach for automated verification. Petri nets are widely used as modelling method. Petri nets are well defined and based on graphs. Thus, this paper introduces an approach for mapping petri-net-based models to control flow graphs. Then it is shown, how this mapping can be utilised for applying coverage metrics. This enables projects to use software testing methods of coverage for verifying petri-net-based simulation models. As a benefit, project time and personnel can be saved.


Cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum) is a small perennial flowering plant with fragrant, showy flowers on long stems rising above the foliage. Between 2018 and 2022, about 6% of C. persicum plants belonging to diverse varieties showed stunting, leaf yellowing, virescence and phyllody in commercial nurseries at three locations (Tiszabög, Szombathely and Kecskemét) in Hungary. These symptoms are similar to those associated with the phytoplasma disease described in Italy known as cyclamen little leaf (Bertaccini, 1990) were observed in plants of six cyclamen cultivars: in 21 out of 352 plants of Super Serie Mini Winter 'Mix', 19 out of 286 plants of Super Serie Micro 'Mix', 12 out of 199 plants of Halios 'Mix', 3 out of 17 plants of Fantasia 'Purple', 1 out of 7 plants of Curly 'Early Mix Evolution' and 4 out of 66 plants of Halios Curly 'Rose' plants. Total DNA was extracted from petioles collected when possible from 10 symptomatic and 5 symptomless plants from each cultivar by a CTAB method (Ahrens and Seemüller 1992) and used as templates for PCR. Phytoplasma 16S rDNA was amplified using universal primers P1/P7 and R16F2n/R16R2 (Lee et al. 1998 and references therein). Translocase protein (secY) gene was amplified with AYsecY_F-46 (5'-AAGCAGCCATTTTAGCAGTTG-3') and AYsecY_R1450 (5'-AAGTAATCAGCTATCATTTGGTTAGT-3') primer pair, which was designed on the basis of aster yellows (AY) phytoplasma secY sequences available in Genbank. Elongation factor Tu (tuf) was amplified with fTuf1/rTuf1 (Schneider et al. 1997a) primer pairs. Thermocycler conditions consisted of 98°C for 2 min, 32 cycles at 98°C for 30 s, 60°C or 55°C (in case of tuf) for 30 s and 72°C for 1 min, followed by a final extension of 72°C for 10 min with Phusion High-Fidelity DNA Polymerase (New England Biolabs, Ipswich, MA, USA). Amplicons of the expected sizes (P1/P7: 1.8 kb, R16F2n/R16R2: 1.1 kb, AYsecY_F-46/AYsecY_R1450: 1.5 kb, fTuf1/rTuf1: 1.1 kb) were produced from all symptomatic plants but not from the asymptomatic ones. Amplified PCR products were gel purified and ligated into the pJET1.2/blunt cloning vector using a CloneJET PCR cloning kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA). The cloned PCR fragments (at least three from each PCR reaction) were sequenced from both directions by LGC Genomics (Berlin, Germany) using pJET1.2 forward and reverse primers, and the obtained sequence was deposited in GenBank. The 16S rRNA gene sequences (GenBank Accession Nos. ON594635 and ON594636) showed 100% and 99.95% identity, respectively, with Onion yellows phytoplasma strain OY-M (GenBank AP006628) from the 'Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris' 16SrI-B subgroup. . In iPhyClassifier analysis, the virtual RFLP pattern of 16S rDNA was identical (similarity coefficient 1.00) to the reference pattern of 16Sr group I, subgroup B (GenBank AP006628). This is in agreement with the results of Schneider et al. (1997b) and Seemüller et al. (1998) in Germany, where phytoplasmas associated with a cyclamen disease were enclosed in the 16SrI-B subgroup. Other researches in Italy (Alma et al., 2000) and Israel (Weintraub et al., 2007) revealed that phytoplasmas belonging to the 16SrI-C and 16SrXII-A groups have been associated with cyclamen diseases. The obtained secY and tuf gene fragments (GenBank ON564432 and ON515746) shared 99.3% and 99.9% sequence identity, respectively, with Onion yellows phytoplasma strain OY-M. To our knowledge this is the first identification of 'Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris' in cyclamen in Hungary.


Data collection from seabed by means of underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSN) has recently attracted considerable attention. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are increasingly used as UWSNs in underwater missions. Events and environmental parameters in underwater regions have a stochastic nature. Sensors to observe and report events must cover the target area. A 'topology control algorithm' characterizes how well a sensing field is monitored and how well pairs of sensors are mutually connected in UWSNs. It is prohibitive to use a central controller to guide AUVs' behavior due to ever changing, unknown environmental conditions, limited bandwidth and lossy communication media. In this research, a completely decentralized three-dimensional topology control algorithm for AUVs is proposed. It is aimed at achieving maximal coverage of the target area. The algorithm enables AUVs to autonomously decide on and adjust their speed and direction based on the information collected from their neighbors. Each AUV selects the best movement at each step by independently executing a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. In the fitness function, the global average neighborhood degree is used as the upper limit of the number of neighbors of each AUV. Experimental results show that limiting number of neighbors for each AUV can lead to more uniform network topologies with larger coverage. It is further shown that the proposed algorithm is more efficient in terms of major network parameters such as target area coverage, deployment time, and average travelled distance by the AUVs.


The need for validated nonlinear helicopter models and methods to validate these models directly is identified. Published validation methods for validating nonlinear dynamic models are reviewed and the need for an integrated approach is established. Sensitivity coefficient based validation techniques are investigated. Single value sensitivity coefficients are found to be useful for parameter and output variable selection. Examination of sensitivity coefficients time histories is found to be a useful addition to parametric validation methods. A model distortion technique is evaluated. The method is tested with simple systems and simulated data as well as a helicopter model and real ffight data. The method is discussed. Its application to helicopter dynamics is rejected because of noise problems. A nonlinear one degree of freedom yaw model for an Aerospatiale SA.330 PUMA helicopter is improved and validated using analogue matching and a parameter estimation method which uses a linear search. The importance of physical knowledge of the system being modelled is highlighted in the development of the model. A nonlinear mathematical model of a helicopter main rotor is validated in two specific areas. These are the lag damper and the engine/rotor speed model. The validation techniques used are maximum likelihood parameter estimation with sensitivity coefficient examination and analogue matching of time response data. The importance of good physical knowledge of the system being modelled is again indicated. The structure of the model in the identified areas is validated. The validation methods are brought together in a specification for an interactive inodel validation computer package. The benefits of an integrated approach are identified and the computer program is specified so as to take advantage of this. Through this package, the user will interact with the model, the available validation methods and the experimental data and will be able to develop and validate dynamic models easily and efficiently.


Power System Stability: Volumes I, 11, and 111, by Edward Wilson Kimbark. An IEEE Press Classic Reissue in the IEEE Press Power Systems Engineering Series, Paul M. Anderson, Series Editor (previously published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). IEEE Press: 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331, (908) 5623967. Softcover in slipcased 3-vol. set, 1008 pages. IEEE Order No. PP5600, ISBN 0-7803-1 135-3.


To combat the rapidly escalating COVID-19 epidemic in Italy, China's third expert team against the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy departed on March 25, 2020. I joined the expert team on March 25–April 8, 2020. As the chairman of Italian Red Cross, Francesco Rocca, said he appreciated the Chinese experts who, after their arduous work on the front lines of China for over a month, chose to move ahead by flying to Italy to offer help (1). Medical experts of Italian National Institute of infectious diseases said that Chinese experts have gained a great deal of experience that Italy urgently needs, and that due to the considerable success China has had in fighting the epidemic, they wanted to work with Chinese experts on an international level in Italy (2). However, there have been some concerns on whether China's experience in fighting COVID-19 could also be practical for European countries. In fact, making the best practices and lessons learned in China to be applicable in other regions to solve joint public health issues has been a major challenge for me. The goal of this paper is to introduce my personal experiences working in Italy, which is organized into the following several points: identifying problems through rapid assessment, forming recommendations based on evidence, and communicating for action. In addition, effective preparation is essential to ensure effective and efficient work of international aid.


Difficult to diagnose pain in the orofacial area may be a challenge to the dental practitioner.There still is uncertainty about the taxonomy of chronic orofacial pain, and even more so about its etiology. Treatment of chronic orofacial pain may aim at goals which are set in advance, but also at the underlying pain mechanisms. The disentanglement of pain into different pain mechanisms may be facilitated by applying a pharmacodiagnostic test. This test consists of intravenously administering several medications in low doses in orofacial pain patients.The response to the administration of these pharmaca is reported by means of a visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain.The profile, resulting from the consecutive VAS-scores, may be used as a guide for further treatment. Before the start of any treatment, the dentist should judge whether he himself is able to treat the patient or referral to a specialist is required


As our knowledge of the genome expands, so does our understanding of the characteristics of what we define as genes. Small Open Reading Frame (smORF) genes have eluded gene annotation until very recently, and evidence is mounting that these very short nucleotide sequences encode functional peptides that are ≤100 amino acids in size. From work conducted in the fruit fly, our lab has successfully characterised three Drosophila smORFs, of which two have been shown to have a function in higher vertebrates, including humans. The functional characterisation of one of these conserved smORF encoded peptides (SEPs), Hemotin, is presented in this thesis. Though the overall number is still low compared to the abundance of potential smORF-encoding genes in Drosophila, the information gathered here allows us to speculate on the wider role of smORF peptides through cell-based imaging studies conducted on Drosophila cells. Here, I will discuss the various techniques that can and should be employed in order to study the functions of SEPs. Chapter III describes the various phenotypic studies conducted on the Hemotin smORF which is expressed in Drosophila haemocytes, and are integral to the fruit fly immune system. This study showed that connecting subcellular localisation of an SEP to a direct functional assay in cells can reveal functional characteristics of the peptide for further study. Chapter IV details the results from a tagging-transfection assay, which began initially as a way to independently corroborate the translation of smORF mRNAs that were assessed as such by Ribosome Profiling. This experiment resulted in the discovery of several mitochondrial-localised SEPs in Drosophila S2 cells, opening the door for the direct functional assay described in Chapter V. The results from a small-scale RNAi screen conducted on the mitochondria of S2 cells provided a reliable read-out for functionality of a large proportion of the smORFs that were screened. This assay can potentially be used as a phenotypic read-out of mitochondrial-SEP function in any cell or tissue type. Elucidation of smORFs and the functions of the peptides that they encode will help us to expand the Drosophila proteome, along with providing evidence of their functionality across every organism in which they are found. Considering that characterised SEPs play very important roles in physiology and health, it is time for smORFs to be acknowledged as the important genomic elements that they are.


Context - At the mortgage department of Topicus Finance where the product FORCE is developed,
there are several challenges regarding working with multiple Scrum teams, such as knowledge
sharing and task planning. Next to the fact that there are multiple teams working on one product,
there are also three different customers, Customer X, Customer Y and Topicus itself (Pakket). Topicus
posed the question how to deal with this challenge and still remain Agile.
Research goal - Propose, test and partly implement an Agile Scaling framework to improve the
functioning of the Scrum teams working on FORCE version 3
Conclusions - Of the three researched frameworks, there is no single Agile Scaling framework which
offers a complete solution for all the challenges faced by Topicus. As part of this research we did a
case study at Company B Department C, where we observed that not one entire framework had been
implemented, but several different practices are used to fit their specific context. Based on the two
examples of Topicus and Company B it is likely that there is not one single answer to the Agile Scaling
challenges which companies face. Therefore in the future companies should clearly investigate their
Agile Scaling challenges, and select the practices from the frameworks which best fit their
organisation.
Furthermore, the adoption of Agile Scaling frameworks requires changes in the way of working of the
employees as well as in the structure of the organisation. Although the employees acknowledged
that change is needed and they were involved in the decision making, the actual change was
challenging. So knowledge from the change management field is very useful for the adoption of Agile
Scaling frameworks. While, there were some difficulties in implementing the Travellers1. However at
the end of the experiment the team members and especially the Product Owner were enthusiastic
about the Travellers method and its results.
Additionally, the chosen Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) practice, Travellers, could not be implemented in
the exact way as described by the literature. The idea of exchanging teams was kept, but the shape
of the Travellers concept had been altered to fit the context of Topicus.
Next to the implied effect of knowledge sharing, the Travellers experiment also lead to mutual
respect and understanding for the differences between the internal and external customer teams.
Also, this experiment lowered barriers between the two teams, and team members indicated that it
is more likely to approach each other in case help is needed. Lastly, the team member of Pakket who
had joined the Customer Y team, noticed personal growth by stepping out of her comfort zone.
Recommendations - The recommendations are split in recommendations for now, short-term, longterm
and recommendation for further research.
Now - Chickens2 - Topicus should repeat the Chicken experiment but with more structure and
guidance to see whether this will result in enhanced knowledge sharing. This can be achieved by the
creation of an Environment Map and a planning of which stand-ups to visit in advance.
Travellers - The Travellers should be continued in the format used with the experiment. So
briefly it can be stated that the Travellers experiment needs to be executed in the following way. o Exchange team members who voluntarily choose to join
o Plan one to two Sprints in advance
o Choose a topic which is easy to get started on (if possible)
o Let somebody from team A join team B for one Sprint, afterwards change
o The people who switch places preferably have the same function (i.e. developer)
o After the exchange plan an evaluation with both teams to share experiences on wider level
Short-term - Shared Space (LeSS) - Start with the increase of shared space, since this is also
mentioned by the team members as a necessity. This means that the Customer Y teams have to
move at least to the same side of the building as where the other FORCE teams are located.
Joint Sprint Review Bazaar (LeSS) - This can be done in addition to individual Sprint Reviews.
During this bazaar each team requires their own space where they can explain and demonstrate
what they have been doing the previous Sprint.
Open Space (LeSS) - This is a meeting where team members have the opportunity to share their
concerns with people of other teams. At the start of the meeting people share what they want to
discuss, and these topics are scheduled in parallel meeting sessions of 20 minutes.
Same start/stop day - In order to make joint meetings possible, all the teams need to have their
start/stop day on the same day.
Long-term - Uniformity/standardisation of teams - More uniformity and standardisation across
teams is needed in order to be more flexible with the planning of work. This means that there should
be one single Product Backlog, one Definition of Done and one Definition of Ready.
Joint Sprint Planning - When there is one Product Backlog and teams have the same start/stop
day, it is possible to start using the Sprint Planning as done by Company B.
SAFe® - As indicated by the Product Owners, Scrum Masters and team members there is a
demand for a translation of the strategy and vision towards a more operational level, so decisions
regarding the development of the product can be made so it supports the strategy and vision of the
company. LeSS focuses on practical coordination tools on team level. SAFe® on the other hand takes
the entire organisation in to account. SAFe® describes Agile Scaling on team, portfolio and program
level. Therefore LeSS and SAFe® complement each other. SAFe® uses the strategy, vision and
roadmap of the company as input for the Product Backlog.
Future research - Scientific Proof of Frameworks - During this research I noticed scientific proof of the
success of the different Agile Scaling frameworks is lacking. For the majority of these frameworks
cases are available which can be used for further research to get scientific proof of these frameworks.
Characteristics Frameworks - Furthermore, additional research should be done on what
framework is best in which kind of situations. So, when organisations have defined their Agile Scaling
challenges, it is easier to select the most suitable framework.


Purpose of review Historically, ephedrine has been recommended as the best vasopressor in obstetrics because animal studies showed it caused less reduction in uterine blood flow compared with α-agonists. Recent clinical evidence, however, suggests that this is not as important as initially thought. This review evaluates current data with a focus on spinal anesthesia for cesarean section. Recent findings Ephedrine and phenylephrine have been most investigated. Advantages of ephedrine include familiarity, long history and low propensity for uteroplacental vasoconstriction. Ephedrine, however, has limited efficacy, is difficult to titrate, causes maternal tachycardia and depresses fetal pH and base excess. Advantages of phenylephrine include high efficacy, ease of titration and the ability to use liberal doses to maintain maternal blood pressure near normal and then prevent nausea and vomiting without causing fetal acidosis. Phenylephrine, however, may decrease maternal heart rate and cardiac output and few data are available on its use in high-risk cases. Combination of a phenylephrine infusion and rapid crystalloid cohydration is the first method described that reliably prevents hypotension. Summary When current evidence is considered, in the authors' opinion, phenylephrine is the vasopressor that most closely meets the criteria for the best vasopressor in obstetrics.


The following is an informal and condensed version of the paper presented at the 1973 Mathematical Programming Symposium in Stanford. At that symposium the title was EXPERIMENTS IN THE FORMULATION OF INTEGER PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS. That paper has been more fully written up under that title and can be obtained from the author on request. All references are given there.


Clinical and laboratory observations of alexithymia suggest that a neurophysiologic hypothesis may be more useful than the traditional psychodynamic explanations for understanding psychosomatic processes. Current data support the concept of a functional disconnection between the two cerebral hemispheres. A mechanism for this disconnection, based on Kaplan and Wogan's experimental analogue of alexithymia, is presented. This mechanism implicates an inability to process painful stimuli through right hemispheric processes as a causitive factor in psychosomatic illness. Discussion of how this mechanism explains clinical observations of psychosomatic illness, and suggestions for further studies to elucidate and test this hypothetical mechanism are presented.


In this project the phenotypic diversity (antibiotic resistance, inhibition, pigmentation, and
hyphal structure) of antibiotic-producing streptomycetes isolated from varying soils is examined. As
a team, students (junior- and senior-level undergraduates) prepare a dilution series and perform a
plate count on their soil. As individuals, students identify, purify, and make spore suspensions of
the four best antibiotic-producing streptomycete isolates from their soil sample. They challenge
their streptomycete isolates against antibiotic-containing discs, gram-positive and gram-negative
bacteria, and other streptomycetes isolated from their soil. As a team, students prepare short oral
reports, collect data, and present their experimental results.


The thesis Prediction of Learning Difficulties by Non-verbal Praxic and Rhythmic Tests deals with the detection of learning difficulties by means of non-verbal praxic and rhythmic tests. Most children with learning difficulties are discovered in the third or fourth grade of primary school, thereby the earliest period of child development and education is missed.
Therefore, the main purpose of this thesis is to determine whether it is possible, with the help of movement imitation test (Berges - Lezine) and reproduction tests of rhythmic patterns, to extract students who show learning difficulties. We tried to avoid the use of verbal tests by using Berges - Lezine test. Furthermore, such testing is also suitable for pupils who come from a foreign langugage enviroment or have difficulties with speaking skills.

The study included 84 pupils (42 girls and 42 boys) from 1st to 5th grade of Spodnja Siska Primary School. Each pupil carried out 20 tasks of Bergez - Lezine test, consisting of hand and shoulder gestures and, 20 tasks of Bergez - Lezine test, consisting of palm and finger movements. The pupils also completed 20 tasks of reproduction of rhythmic patterns. These consist of nine samples of two-stroke rhythms and 11 patterns of three-stroke rhythms. Testing was not limited in time. On average, 15 minutes were used for each individual. The class teacher was asked to complete the questionnaire for each pupil involved. The main aim of it was to acquire the teacher's opinion on potential problems in pupil's learning and, whether these learning difficulties are diagnosed. In the empirical part, we were interested in the correlation between effectiveness of performance and, gender, age and, teacher's opinion. We were also interested in the differences between the performance of pupils with individual programme plan and the performance of pupils without individual programme plan.
The results showed:
- That the ability of imitation palm and finger movements and reproductive patterns have developed over the years.
- That girls were statistically significant more succesful in the imitation of movement test, but there was no significant difference between the sexes in the rhythm reproduction test.
- That pupils without the individual program plan passed the imitation of movement test better. However, in the rhythm reproduction test there were no statistically significant differences.
- That the teacher's opinion is of considerable importance since the pupils, for whom the teachers feel to have learning difficulties, achieve lower score and vice versa.


Purpose

The purpose of this study is to understand the strategy adopted by family firms in using social media for their business. Based on the social media usage, this paper attempts to segment family firms. To do so, a reactive – proactive – innovative (RPI) scale was developed for the study. Then, the family firms were categorised as reactive, proactive or innovative social media users. Further, based on the scale developed, clusters were created. Family firms were placed into different clusters based on the strategy that they had for using social media platforms for their business.

Design/methodology/approach

A pilot sample of 50 family firms and a main study of 256 Indian family firm entrepreneurs were surveyed through self-administered questionnaires. Factor analysis reduced the 12 scale-based questions to three distinct factors. Confirmatory factor analysis was then conducted on the main sample to confirm the constructs identified using exploratory factor analysis. Cluster analysis was used to build clusters of entrepreneurs who use social media as part of their digital marketing strategy.

Findings

Findings reveal that the Indian family firm market is largely divided into four main segments. These segments represent distinct behaviours with respect to the use of social media. The four segments of family firm entrepreneurs were named as high rollers, ignorant inhabitants, trend-setters, combative crowd based on their social media usage behaviour. These clusters give deep insights into the strategic usage of social media by family firms.

Research limitations/implications

The limitation of this study is that entrepreneurs from all Indian states were not considered in the sample because of cost implications. This research study has only created the segmentation of the family firms as reactive, proactive or innovative social media users and also has created the clusters as high rollers, ignorant inhabitants, trend-setters and combative crowd. Also, the reasons for their behaviour and root cause for the strategic usage have not been studied.

Practical implications

This study reflects on current practices of family firms with respect to usage of social media and groups them into large identifiable clusters. Equipped with the findings from this study, the RPI scale developed for the study and the clusters created, entrepreneurs can now move towards better use of social media for innovation.

Originality/value

Although past studies have advocated the use of social media to spur innovation in firms, this study segments the current market based on their practices. It allows readers to gauge the proportion of family firms using social media for innovation and paves the way for a change in behaviour amongst these firms.


Recent research has highlighted that the 'yips' in sport represents a continuum on which choking (anxiety related) and dystonia symptoms anchor the extremes (Smith et al., 2000). Previous research investigating the phenomenon has focussed on the 'yips' being a dystonia and has not considered the psychological experience of the problem in detail (McDaniel, Cummings & Shain, 1989; Sachdev, 1992). The primary aim of this thesis was to see if psychological mechanisms underpin the 'yips' experience and if so relate these to the choking model (Baumeister, 1984). The experimental studies established that individuals who have the 'yips' do experience similar underpinning mechanisms to those cited in Baumeister's (1984) model of choking. These factors included increased anxiety responses, increased self-awareness and attempts consciously to process skilled behaviour. However, the personality traits associated with Baumeister's (1984) model were not supported in this thesis. Baumeister's (1984) contention, that low self-conscious individuals would have a greater disposition towards choking, was not supported. Furthermore, the findings indicated that individuals who were dispositionally high in self-consciousness were more prone to performance decrements under pressure and could be more vulnerable to extreme forms of choking such as the 'yips'. The final aim of this thesis attempted to establish a psychological intervention package that could aid performers who experience the 'yips'. Individuals who experience the problem appear to be unable to image successful performances, and subsequently reinforce negative expectations whenever they attempt to focus on performing. Sufferers also attempt consciously to process their skilled behaviour when they experience stress (Masters, 1992), hence subsequent performances tend to be dominated by the analytical left hemisphere of the brain (Crews, 2001). The psychological intervention strategies were implemented to allow individuals to focus on positive performance expectations that could counteract conscious processing and could subsequently increase activity in the right hemisphere of the brain (Crews, 2001). The findings from these studies established that the use of external imagery and holistic trigger words could help counteract the negative effects of conscious processing and ensure a positive approach to performance. The findings within this thesis can be seen as an initial step towards an understanding of psychological components of the 'yips' experience. Future research should investigate the efficacy of psychological intervention strategies in a number of sports, and test these techniques in ecologically valid competitive conditions. Future research could also usefully examine the aetiology of the 'yips' and establish the relationship between dispositional self-consciousness and the development of the 'yips' in sport.


The study aimed to determine the prevalence of enteric pathogenic bacteria associated with diarrhoea in children less than five years of age and their sensitivity to antibiotics in Unguja Island- Zanzibar. The prevalence of pathogenic enteric bacteria were isolated and indentified by convectional method and Antimicrobial resistance by Kirbeur method while Qustionnaire were used to identify the associated factors for bacteria diarrhoea and antibiotic resistance. The common pathogenic enteric bacteria were Shigella compare to Salmonella, Pathogenic E.coli and Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Prevalence by spatial of enteric bacteria was high in urban than rural areas and rainy seasons reported high prevalence of enteric bacteria compare to dry seasons. The children at the age between 7months to 2 years old were at high risk to be infected with enteric pathogenic bacteria than any other age groups. The pathogenic enteric bacteria were more resistance to sulfamethoxazole/ Trimethoprim, Erythromycin, tetracycline and Ciproflaxin compare to Gentamycine, and Chloromphenicol and Ampicilline. Poor hygienic and sanitary practices by mothers and poor immunity of children were among of the associated factors for diarrhoea in children and lack of awareness to antibiotics resistance to community was among of the factors associated with microbial antibiotic resistance in Zanzibar. The Shigella was predominant enteric pathogenic bacteria caused diarrhoea to less than five years children. Isolated enteric pathogenic bacteria were more resistant to common used antibiotics for treatment of diarrhoaea to less than five years children in Zanzibar. Improvements of hygienic and sanitary practices to community particularly in rainy seasons could reduce the diarrhoea incidence. Zanzibar standard treatment guideline should be reviewed.


Abstract In sociological and cultural studies the relationship we have with our clothes has been mostly analyzed in terms of fashion and identity, with a focus on the ways in which we use clothing to represent ourselves to and in the world. The article argues that in all these analyses one important aspect is still missing: the feelings we experience about and in our clothes when we are dressed. It proposes a change of paradigm to find ways to incorporate in our analyses what is here called the "feeling of being dressed." This change can be performed by transgressing the boundaries of semiotic, structural and sociological explanations and by abandoning the mind‒body dualism which shapes the description of our relationship with clothes as mainly intellectual and our choices of garments as the result of a dialogue within our minds. It then shows how affect studies open up opportunities for the investigation of the body‒clothes assemblage; in particular, the notion of body as a composition of forces and the approach to practices (in this case dressing practices) as ways of becoming are central for this endeavor.


Summary.  Background: The incidence of recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE) varies depending on the nature of the initial provoking risk factor(s). Objectives: To compare the incidence and time course of recurrent VTE after unprovoked VTE vs. VTE provoked by nine different types of surgery. Methods: Retrospective analysis of linked California hospital and emergency department discharge records. Between 1997 and 2007, all surgery‐provoked VTE cases had a first‐time VTE event diagnosed within 60 days after undergoing a major operation. The incidence of recurrent VTE was compared during specified follow‐up periods by matching each surgery‐provoked case with three unprovoked cases based on age, race, gender, VTE event, calendar year and co‐morbidity. Results: The 4‐year Kaplan–Meier cumulative incidence of recurrent VTE was 14.7% (95%CI: 14.2–15.1) in the matched unprovoked VTE group vs. 7.6% (CI: 7.0–8.2) in 11 797 patients with surgery‐provoked VTE (P < 0.001). The overall risk reduction was 48%, which ranged from 64% lower risk (P < 0.001) after coronary bypass surgery to 25% lower risk (P = 0.06) after disc surgery. The risk of recurrent VTE 1–5 years after the index event was significantly lower in the surgery group (HR = 0.47, CI: 0.41–0.53). Within the surgery‐provoked group, the risk of recurrent VTE was similar in men and women (HR = 1.0, CI: 0.8–1.3). Conclusions: The risk of recurrent VTE after surgery‐provoked VTE was approximately 50% lower than after unprovoked VTE, confirming the view that provoked VTE is associated with a lower risk of recurrent VTE. However, there was appreciable heterogeneity in the relative risk of recurrent VTE associated with different operations.


Thanks to the advent of Web 2.0, the potential for opinion sharing today is unmatched in history. Making meaning out of the huge amount of unstructured information available online, however, is extremely difficult as web-contents, despite being perfectly suitable for human consumption, still remain hardly accessible to machines. To bridge the cognitive and affective gap between word-level natural language data and the concept-level sentiments conveyed by them, affective common sense knowledge is needed. In sentic computing, the general common sense knowledge contained in ConceptNet is usually exploited to spread affective information from selected affect seeds to other concepts. In this work, besides exploiting the emotional content of the Open Mind corpus, we also collect new affective common sense knowledge through label sequential rules, crowd sourcing, and games-with-a-purpose techniques. In particular, we develop Open Mind Common Sentics, an emotion-sensitive IUI that serves both as a platform for affective common sense acquisition and as a publicly available NLP tool for extracting the cognitive and affective information associated with short texts.


Abstract Summary GBS-SNP-CROP is a bioinformatics pipeline originally developed to support the cost-effective genome-wide characterization of plant genetic resources through paired-end genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS), particularly in the absence of a reference genome. Since its 2016 release, the pipeline's functionality has greatly expanded, its computational efficiency has improved, and its applicability to a broad set of genomic studies for both plants and animals has been demonstrated. This note details the suite of improvements to date, as realized in GBS-SNP-CROP v.4.0, with specific attention paid to a new integrated metric that facilitates reliable variant identification despite the complications of homologs. Using the new de novo GBS read simulator GBS-Pacecar, also introduced in this note, results show an improvement in overall pipeline accuracy from 66% (v.1.0) to 84% (v.4.0), with a time saving of ∼70%. Both GBS-SNP-CROP versions significantly outperform TASSEL-UNEAK; and v.4.0 resolves the issue of non-overlapping variant calls observed between UNEAK and v.1.0. Availability and implementation GBS-SNP-CROP source code and user manual are available at https://github.com/halelab/GBS-SNP-CROP. The GBS read simulator GBS-Pacecar is available at https://github.com/halelab/GBS-Pacecar. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Keynote Address for ANZEA Conference, 16–19 July 2018, Waipuna Lodge, Auckland
Frances Valintine is a "Futurist" thought-leader in emerging and disruptive technologies and has 20 years' experience across business, technology, and education. In 2013, Frances founded The Mind Lab, a unique collaboration between a public education provider and a specialist education lab dedicated to digital literacy capability and contemporary practice in the teaching profession. In 2016, she launched Tech Futures Lab to navigate the new world of technology-enabled businesses. In 2018, Frances was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of her lifetime of contribution to education and technology. She has won a number of awards, including the New Zealand Flying Kiwi Award, a Sir Peter Blake Leader Award, the Westpac New Zealand Woman of Influence (Innovation), and the NEXT New Zealand Woman of the Year (Education). She has also been inducted into the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame.
Frances was invited to keynote at the ANZEA Conference to share her insights on future prospects for Aotearoa New Zealand. She spoke about the need for our education system to be responsive to young people who have grown up as digital natives surrounded by technologies that open the world up to them. Conference participants shared that it was riveting to contemplate the responsiveness of evaluation to a data-rich and digitally defined world that young people took for granted.


In this paper, a set of operators suitable for digit-serial FIR filtering is presented. The canonical and inverted forms are studied. In each of these structures both the symmetrical and anti-symmetrical particular cases are also covered. In last two decades, many efficient algorithms and architectures have been introduced for the design of low complexity bit-parallel Multiple Constant Multiplications (MCM) operation which dominates the complexity of many digital signal processing systems. On the other hand, little attention has been given to the digit-serial MCM design that offers alternative low complexity MCM operations at the cost of an increased delay. In this topic, we address the problem of optimizing the gate-level area in digit -serial MCM designs and introduce high level synthesis algorithms, design architectures, and a computer aided design tool. The proposed optimization algorithms for the digit-serial MCM architectures in the design of digit-serial MCM operations and finite impulse response filters yields better performance compared with multiple Constant multipliers using Common Sub-expression Elimination (CSE) algorithm with high efficiency.


Systematic investigations including both simulation and prototype tests have been done about the interpolating resistive readout structure with GEM (Gaseous Electron Multiplier) detector. From the simulation, we have a good knowledge of the process of charge diffusion on the surface of the readout plane and develop several reconstruction methods to determine the hit position. The total signal duration time of a typical event with the readout structure was about several hundred nanoseconds, which implied an ideal count rate up to 106 Hz. A stable working prototype was designed and fabricated after the simulation. Using 55Fe 5.9 keV X-ray, the image performance of the prototype was examined with flat field image and some special geometry shapes, meanwhile, an energy resolution of about 17% was obtained.


We demonstrate an instantaneous all-optical manipulation of optical absorption at the ground state of InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) via a quantum-confined Stark effect (QCSE) induced by the electric field of incident THz pulses with peak electric fields reaching 200 kV/cm in the free space. As a result, a THz signal with the full bandwidth of 3 THz can be directly encoded onto an optical signal probing the ground state absorption in QDs, resulting in the encoded temporal features as fast as 460 fs. The optical absorption modulation at highest THz fields reaches about 30% of the total optical absorption in QDs at the ground state. The dependency of electro-absorption modulation depth on the peak THz field is found to be strongly nonlinear, as expected from the QCSE. From this dependency we conclude that the dominant contribution to the observed electro-absorption modulation in our sample is made by the overall optical absorption quenching via a reduction of the overlap integral and hence the probability of inter-band transition, rather than by the Stark shift of the QD absorption peak away from the spectrum of the optical probe. As expected from the three-dimensional geometry of a QD, the THz QCSE was found to be independent of the polarization of the THz field. The instantaneous nature of THz QCSE in QDs enables femtosecond all-optical switching at very high repetition rates. This allowed us to demonstrate the potential for applications in THz-range wireless communication systems with the data rate of at least 0.5 Tbit/s.


BACKGROUND
Patients with a history of autoimmune diseases (AIDs) have not usually been included in clinical trials with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Consecutive patients with advanced cancer, treated with anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) agents, were evaluated according to the presence of pre-existing AIDs. The incidence of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) and clinical outcomes were compared among subgroups.

RESULTS
A total of 751 patients were enrolled; median age was 69 years. Primary tumors were as follows: non-small cell lung cancer, 492 (65.5%); melanoma, 159 (21.2%); kidney cancer, 94 (12.5%); and others, 6 (0.8%). Male/female ratio was 499/252. Eighty-five patients (11.3%) had pre-existing AIDs, further differentiated in clinically active (17.6%) and inactive (82.4%). Among patients with pre-existing AIDs, incidence of irAEs of any grade was significantly higher when compared with patients without AIDs (65.9% vs. 39.9%). At multivariate analysis, both inactive (p = .0005) and active pre-existing AIDs (p = .0162), female sex (p = .0004), and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status <2 (p = .0030) were significantly related to a higher incidence of irAEs of any grade. No significant differences were observed regarding grade 3/4 irAEs and objective response rate among subgroups. Pre-existing AIDs were not significantly related with progression-free survival and overall survival.

CONCLUSION
This study quantifies the increased risk of developing irAEs in patients with pre-existing AIDs who had to be treated with anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. Nevertheless, the incidence of grade 3/4 irAEs is not significantly higher when compared with control population. The finding of a greater incidence of irAEs among female patients ranks among the "hot topics" in gender-related differences in immuno-oncology.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
Patients with a history of autoimmune diseases (AIDs) have not usually been included in clinical trials with immune checkpoint inhibitors but are frequent in clinical practice. This study quantifies the increased risk of developing immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in patients with pre-existing AIDs who had to be treated with anti-programmed death-1 immunotherapy. Nevertheless, their toxicities are mild and the incidence of grade 3/4 irAEs is not significantly higher compared with those of controls. These results will help clinicians in everyday practice, improving their ability to offer a proper counselling to patients, in order to offer an immunotherapy treatment even to patients with pre-existing autoimmune disease.


This guide provides selected references & resources to support the Geographical Sciences, covering the areas of environment and physical geography..


This paper is focused on the study and the control of a process of robotic arc welding. The system developed has been used to study the whole process and to develop an automatic controller for the arc process of deposition. The process consists of a shaped metal deposition (SMD) system that is an innovative method for the manufacturing of metal objects, which uses a layer-by-layer deposition technique. A useful software interface has been implemented in a Labview environment to study the system and to develop and tune the parameters of an automatic controller.


: Owing to the lack of synchronization between the solar energy availability and the heat demands in a specific application, the energy storing sub-system is necessary to maintain the continuity of thermal process. The present work is dealing with an active solar heating storing system in which an air solar collector is connected to storing unit where this energy is distributed and provided to the heated space in a controlled manner. The solar collector is a box type absorber where the air flows between a number of vanes attached between the collector absorber and the bottom plate. This design can improve the efficiency due to increasing the heat transfer area exposed to the flowing air, as well as the heat conduction through the metal vanes from the top absorbing surface. The storing unit is a packed bed type where the air is coming from the air collector and circulated through the bed in order to add/remove the energy through the charging / discharging processes, respectively. The major advantage of the packed bed storage is its high degree of thermal stratification. Numerical solution of the packed bed energy storage is considered through dividing the bed into a number of equal segments for the bed particles and solved the energy equation for each segment depending on the neighbor ones. The studied design and performance parameters in the developed simulation model including, particle size, void fraction, etc. The final results showed that the collector efficiency was fluctuated between 55%-61% in winter season (January) under the climatic conditions of Misurata in Libya. Maximum temperature of 52ºC is attained at the top of the bed while the lower one is 25ºC at the end of the charging process of hot air into the bed. This distribution can satisfy the required load for the most house heating in Libya.


INTRODUCTION
Operative case volumes for military surgeons are reported to be significantly lower than civilian counterparts. Among the concern that this raises is an inability of military surgeons to achieve mastery of their craft.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Annual surgical case reports were obtained from seven Army military treatment facilities (MTF) for 2012-2016. Operative case volume and cumulative operative time were calculated for active duty general surgeons and for individual MTFs. Subgroup analyses were also performed based upon rank. Results were extrapolated to calculate the amount of time it would take to reach a cumulative of 10,000 hours of operative time (the a priori definition for achieving mastery).

RESULTS
One hundred and two active duty general surgeons operated at the seven MTFs during the study period and met the inclusion criteria. The average surgeon performed 108 ± 68 cases/year. The average surgeon operated 122 ± 82 hours/year. At this rate, it would take over 80 years to reach mastery of surgery. When stratified based upon rank, Majors averaged 113 ± 75 hours/year, Lieutenant Colonels averaged 170 ± 100 hours/year, and Colonels averaged 136 ± 101 hours/year (p < 0.05). When stratified based upon individual MTF, surgeons at the busiest facility averaged 187 ± 103 hours/year and those at the least busy facility averaged 85 ± 56 hours/year (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Obtaining mastery of general surgery is a nearly impossible proposition given the current care models at Army MTFs. Alternative staffing and patient care models should be developed if Army surgeons are to be masters at their craft.


Metropolis Monte Carlo simulation is a powerful tool for studying the equilibrium properties of matter. In complex condensed-phase systems, however, it is difficult to design Monte Carlo moves with high acceptance probabilities that also rapidly sample uncorrelated configurations. Here, we introduce a new class of moves based on nonequilibrium dynamics: Candidate configurations are generated through a finite-time process in which a system is actively driven out of equilibrium, and accepted with criteria that preserve the equilibrium distribution. The acceptance rule is similar to the Metropolis acceptance probability, but related to the nonequilibrium work rather than the instantaneous energy difference. Our method is applicable to sampling from both a single thermodynamic state or a mixture of thermodynamic states, and allows both coordinates and thermodynamic parameters to be driven in nonequilibrium proposals. Whereas generating finite-time switching trajectories incurs an additional cost, driving some degrees of freedom while allowing others to evolve naturally can lead to large enhancements in acceptance probabilities, greatly reducing structural correlation times. Using nonequilibrium driven processes vastly expands the repertoire of useful Monte Carlo proposals in simulations of dense solvated systems.


This paper submits data on longevity factors and mountain water in factorial research of the longevity phenomenon in mountainous and field areas in Lovech region, Bulgaria. There are municipalities of Teteven, Yablanitsa and Ugarchin. A dependence was established among various internal and external factors on the phenomenon of longevity – residence area, water, air, health status, body mass, diet, stress, smoking, positive attitude toward life, physical activity, gender and heredity. The research was made with the author methodology of Ignatov. It is shown that mountain water is among the most important factors for longevity. Natural waters derived from various Bulgarian water springs were studied by the NES and DNES-method for spectral analysis. Water was studied with methods for its composition. As an estimation factor was researched the composition of water. Also were studied the values of the average energy of hydrogen bonds (?EH...O) among H2O molecules, as well as the local maximums in the IR-spectra of various samples of water and human blood serum. For a group of people in critical condition of life and patients with malignant tumors the greatest values of local maximums in IR-spectra were shifted to lower energies relative to the control group with healthy people. For healthy people there is local maximum at -0.1387 eV and wavelength – 8.95 ?m. The obtained results testify to the necessity of consumption of clean natural water whose qualities are covered mountain water from Bulgarian water springs. The local maximum at -0.1387 eV and wavelength – 8.95 ?m was proven in the spectrum of mountain sources. The report's authors prove that water is one of the most important factors for longevity. The most favorable are the waters with a local maximum in 8.95 ?m in the infrared spectrum, analogous to the same local maximum in the serum of a healthy person. Key words: mountain water, residence area, air, health status, body mass, diet, stress, smoking, positive attitude toward life, physical activity, gender and heredity.


" Some members of this family of plants are intensely bitter and are used medicinally for this purpose. Occasionally plants do revert and have this very bitter taste. The reason for this instability is obscure and does not appear to be due to soil conditions, as normal fruit and bitter fruit are intermingled. In a similar instance we have shown the bitter principle to be a glucoside. Many of the glucosides are intensely poisonous and would certainly give rise to the symptoms described, although the danger in this case is mitigated by the fact that the taste is so nauseating that it is unlikely anyone would eat any appreciable quantity. Bitter fruits are generally smaller and rougher in appearance compared with normal fruit."


Advanced TiC/a-C:H nanocomposite coatings have been produced via reactive deposition in a closed-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering system. In this paper, we report on the tribological behavior of TiC/a-C:H nanocomposite coatings in which ultra-low friction is tailored with superior wear resistance, being two properties often difficult to achieve simultaneously. In-situ monitoring the wear depth at nanometer scale reveals that the self-lubricating effects are induced by the formation of transfer films on the surface of ball counterpart. In addition, the CoF of TiC/a-C:H nanocomposite coatings decreases with decreasing relative humidity. This phenomenon can be interpreted in terms of water molecule interactions with the wear track. The influence of the volume fraction and grain size of TiC nanocrystallites on the coating properties has been examined. A superior wear resistance at a level of 10-17 m³/(N m lap) has been achieved under the condition of super-low friction and high toughness, both of which require fine TiC nano-particles (e.g. 2 nm) and a wide matrix separation that must be comparable to the dimensions of the nano-particles.


This research proposes a framework based on expert opinion elicitation, developed to select the software engineering measures which are the best software reliability indicators. The current research is based on the top 30 measures identified in an earlier study conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A set of ranking criteria and their levels were identified. The score of each measure for each ranking criterion was elicited through expert opinion and then aggregated into a single score using multiattribute utility theory. The basic aggregation scheme selected was a linear additive scheme. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis was carried out. The sensitivity analysis included: variation of the ranking criteria levels, variation of the weights, variation of the aggregation schemes. The top-ranked measures were identified. Use of these measures in each software development phase can lead to a more reliable quantitative prediction of software reliability.


This manuscript presents a systematic review of mutuality in psychotherapy, including meta-analysis of quantitative and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. A search with specified keyword combinations yielded 21 studies, including 10 quantitative studies with 1,071 participants and 11 qualitative studies with 81 participants. Researchers calculated effect sizes, conducted homogeneity tests, and assessed potential variables moderating the relationship between mutuality and therapeutic variables from quantitative studies; they analyzed qualitative studies to identify and synthesize themes related to mutuality in psychotherapy. Meta-analysis showed a large weighted mean effect size with a statistically significant overall relationship between mutuality and therapeutic variables (r = 0.51, 95% CI [0.37; 0.66], p < 0.001). The relationship between mutuality and session quality was strongest of the six relationships analyzed (r = 0.70, 95% CI [0.43; 0.97], p < 0.001). Qualitative meta-synthesis of studies produced six themes: 1. Lack of mutuality/strategies for disconnection, 2. Co-created relational process, 3. Meta-communication and misunderstanding, 4. Therapist congruence/being real, 5. Mutual impact and client agency, and 6. Asymmetric role power and boundaries. These findings suggest that mutuality is worthy of further research in psychotherapy, particularly in relation to its strong relationship with session quality.