This paper addresses the influence of audio segmentation on automatic transcription accuracy for large spoken archives. The work forms part of the ongoing MALACH project, which is developing advanced techniques for supporting access to the world's largest digital archive of video oral histories, collected by VHF from over 52000 survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. We present several audio-only and audio-visual segmentation schemes, including two novel schemes: the first is iterative and audio-only, the second uses audio-visual synchrony. Results show the automatic segmentation schemes give performance comparable to (exhorbitantly expensive and impractically lengthy) manual segmentation when using a single pass decoding strategy based on speaker-independent models. However, when using a multiple pass decoding strategy with adaptation, results are sensitive to both initial audio segmentation and the scheme for clustering segments prior to adaptation: the combination of our best automatic segmentation and clustering scheme has an error rate 8% worse (relative) to manual audio segmentation and clustering due to the occurrence of "speakerimpure" segments.


The geology of the Elba Island is very interesting for its structural complexity, for the relationships between Mio- Pliocene magmatism and tectonics and for its location between Corsica and Northern Apennines. In fact, it is the southwesternmost outcrop of the Northern Apennines chain.
The first tectono-sedimentary events come back to the Palaeozoic. In fact, in the Palaeozoic basement are clearly recorded the Hercynian and, probably, also the Caledonian events. The Alpine sedimentary succession began during the Triassic and its tectonic evolution begins in Late Cretaceous - Early Tertiary and goes on until Late Miocene - Pliocene. The compressive movements started with the consumption of the Mesozoic Western Tethys (Liguria-Piedmont Basin), went up to the collision of European (Corsica) and Adriatic (Tuscany Domain) margins (Abbate et al., 1980, Boccaletti et al., 1980; Bortolotti et al., 2001a), and terminated with the successive polyphase deformations, which originated the Apennine orogenic chain.
Trevisan (1950), proposed a geological frame of the Elba I. which, successively slightly modified by Barberi et al. (1967; 1969), which has been the geological starting-point for all successive studies. This model divides the nappe pile of the Island into five Complexes.
New stratigraphical and structural data modify this frame. The new scheme we propose (Bortolotti et al., 2001a), comprises nine tectonic units, built up of Tuscan (Adria continental margin), Ligurian and Liguria-Piedmont (Jurassic-Eocene oceanic domains) successions, piled up with a very complex frame.
This frame is complicated by post-orogenic extensional events, that produced the thinning of the Tuscan crust that underlies the Elba Units, the uplift of the Moho and the birth and evolution of the Tyrrhenian Basin (Boccaletti et al., 1985; Bartole et al., 1991; Bartole, 1995 cum bibl.; Carmignani et al., 1995). To this phase is linked the emplacement of the monzogranitic bodies and the formation of ore deposits and skarns. These latter constitute one of the best known geological features of the Island (Marinelli, 1975; Serri et al., 1991; Tanelli, 1977; 1983 cum bibl.).


We combine analysis of geologic and geomorphic data with observations of deformation during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in northern California to evaluate the contribution of aseismic triggered slip and creep processes to cumulative late Cenozoic deformation along the northeastern Santa Cruz Mountains range front. Deformed late Pleistocene alluvial fans and terraces provide evidence for localized late Quaternary uplift above range-bounding reverse faults within the southwestern Santa Clara Valley adjacent to the range front. On the basis of offset of late Quaternary surfaces, the long-term average slip rate on the primary range-bounding structure (Monte Vista fault) is estimated to be ∼0.2 mm/yr. Northeast of the range front are several discontinuous northwest-trending folds, indicated by alignment of late Pleistocene alluvial-fan apices, anomalous stream-channel convexities, and topographic and vegetation lineaments within a 3–5-km-wide, northwest-trending corridor. Subsurface geologic and geophysical data support the interpretation that the surface folds are a result of blind reverse faulting along the Cascade fault beneath the Santa Clara Valley. From stream incision rates we estimate an average uplift rate of 0.2 ± 0.05 mm/yr for the Cascade fault. Measurements of triggered and postseismic slip following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, combined with estimates of the average return period for Loma Prieta–type events, suggest a long-term average deformation rate along the range front of 0.25–0.4 mm/yr associated with these aseismic processes. This range of values is comparable to rates of late Quaternary deformation on the range-front faults derived from geologic and geomorphic data, and it suggests that growth of the overlying folds is at least partially the result of triggered slip and postseismic creep associated with nearby Loma Prieta–type earthquakes. If this inference is correct, then the return period for independent events on the range-front faults probably is greater than that suggested by the long-term average geologic slip rates.


Objective Understanding variations in size and pattern of development of angiotensin II (Ang II)-induced abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) may inform translational research strategies. Thus, we sought insight into the temporal evolution of AAA in apolipoprotein (apo)E−/− mice. Approach A cohort of mice underwent a 4-week pump-mediated infusion of saline (n = 23) or 1500 ng/kg/min of Ang II (n = 85) and AAA development was tracked via in vivo ultrasound imaging. We adjusted for hemodynamic covariates in the regression models for AAA occurrence in relation to time. Results The overall effect of time was statistically significant (p<0.001). Compared to day 7 of AngII infusion, there was no decrease in the log odds of AAA occurrence by day 14 (−0.234, p = 0.65), but compared to day 21 and 28, the log odds decreased by 9.07 (p<0.001) and 2.35 (p = 0.04), respectively. Hemodynamic parameters were not predictive of change in aortic diameter (Δ) (SBP, p = 0.66; DBP, p = 0.66). Mean total cholesterol (TC) was higher among mice with large versus small AAA (601 vs. 422 mg/ml, p<0.0001), and the difference was due to LDL. AngII exposure was associated with 0.43 mm (95% CI, 0.27 to 0.61, p<0.0001) increase in aortic diameter; and a 100 mg/dl increase in mean final cholesterol level was associated with a 12% (95% CI, 5.68 to 18.23, p<0.0001) increase in aortic diameter. Baseline cholesterol was not associated with change in aortic diameter (p = 0.86). Conclusions These are the first formal estimates of a consistent pattern of Ang II-induced AAA development. The odds of AAA occurrence diminish after the second week of Ang II infusion, and TC is independently associated with AAA size.


Background According to the assessment report of the European Medicines Agency (EMA, 2014), colistimethate sodium is considered a crucial therapeutic option in the context of infections caused by multiresistant gram negative pathogens. This report presents guidelines on dosage regimens: a daily dose of 9 MIU is suggested for adult patients and reduced doses are indicated when creatinine clearance (CrCL) is <50 mL/min. No special recommendations are given for elderly patients although it is known that renal function decreases with age and loss of muscular mass influences this biomarker. Purpose To evaluate prescription patterns for colistimethate sodium and dosage adjustments in our hospital, particularly concerning the elderly. To analyse the accomplishment of EMA indications and the need for dosage adjustments in the elderly. Material and methods Prescriptions over 1 year (1 August 2015 to 1 August 2016) were studied. Inclusion criteria were: patients >65 years, admitted to medicine and pulmonology services, prescribed with intravenous colistimethate sodium. Exclusion criteria were: death and transfer to another hospital during the treatment period. Results The study population consisted of 27 patients, 62.96% being older than 80 years. From all of the studied patients, 21 presented normal (or below) creatinine (CrCL >50 mL/min). Of these 21 patients only 6 (28.57%) began treatment with 9 MUI (2 were <70 years old; the others were >80 years) and for 2 of the older group, dose reduction occurred within treatment. The remaining 15 patients (aged >70 years) had other therapeutic regimens: 12 patients were prescribed 6 MIU/day, 8 older than 80 years, and 2 needed further dose reduction. For the 6 patients with renal impairment before treatment, a reduced dose of antibiotic was prescribed. However, only 2 were prescribed the daily dose in accordance with the guidelines. Conclusion These data call attention to the need to consider the limitations of creatinine as a sole biomarker of renal function in the elderly. Further studies in large populations could provide useful data to enrich the guidelines on dosage adjustment of colisthimetate sodium in this population. References and/or acknowledgements European Medicines Agency. European Medicines Agency completes review of polymyxin-based medicines. Available at: http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Press_release/2014/10/WC500176334.pdf; 2014. (accessed: 1 October 2016). No conflict of interest


Marine cyanobacteria of the genera Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are important contributors to global primary production occupying a key position at the base of marine food webs. The genetically diverse nature of each genus is likely an important reason for their successful colonization of vast tracts of the world's oceans, a feature that has led to detailed analysis of the distribution of these genetic lineages at the local and ocean basin scale. Here, we extend these analyses to the global dimension, using new data from cruises in the Pacific, Indian and Arctic Oceans in combination with data from previous studies in the Atlantic Ocean, Arabian Sea, Red Sea and a circumnavigation of the southern hemisphere to form a data set which comprises most of the world's major ocean systems. We show that the distribution patterns of Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus lineages are remarkably similar in different ocean systems with comparable environmental conditions, but producing a strikingly different 'signature' in the four major ocean domains or biomes (the Polar Domain, Coastal Boundary Domain, Trade Winds Domain and Westerly Winds Domain). This clearly reiterates the idea of spatial partitioning of individual cyanobacterial lineages, but at the global scale.


With the Lyberworld system a new approach offering the user a convenient interface to the data stored within an information retrieval system has been introduced. Accessing database contents by using the visualisation metaphors search tree and relevance sphere has achieved two main benefits: first, the user can construct and pose queries much easier than using a query language and second, query results are presented in a way which in opposition to, e.g., tabular output displays the relations between the different queries and query results. In our most recent research work we are aiming at integrating the visualisation concepts of Lyberworld with the object oriented database system VODAK, a powerful tool to implement database applications which require a complex database schema. Posing queries against such a database is a complex task which requires profound knowledge of the database schema and a query language. The approach presented within this paper integrates the Lyberworld concepts with the requirements for a visual interface to the VODAK database system. Furthermore, it develops Lyberworld towards a system which integrates and visualises data from various heterogeneous data sources.


Mandatory medical assignment bills have been presented to the legislatures of 16 states since 1985, when a bill passed in Massachusetts tied acceptance of assignment to medical licensure, In November 1987, an initiative appeared on the Washington State voter's ballot asking that it be considered a consumer protection violation for physicians to charge more than Medicare's "reasonable" fee. This was the first time that the issue was presented to the registered voters of any state. This article details the way in which the Washington State Medical Association combatted the initiative and turned around an electorate that was 68% in favor, in August, to a final ballot of 63.9% opposed.


The experience curve effect has always challenged technology-related decisions. In the electricity sector, new renewable electricity generation technologies have shown a considerably high learning rate up to now, which could differentiate the profitability of energy generation technologies in the near future. The scope of this work is to investigate the effect that the Experience Curve of the renewable energy technologies may have on the orders for new electricity generation technologies and therefore, on the future electricity generation mix of Greece. The official renewable energy generation targets are considered as a constraint of the system, and the learning rates of the various technologies are included in the calculations. Three scenarios of learning rates have been applied, to examine the experience curve effect on renewable energy penetration. The national electricity generation system is modeled for long-term analysis and a linear programming method is applied, in order to come up with the optimal generating mix that minimizes electricity generation cost, while satisfying the national emissions reduction targets. In addition, two scenarios for future emission allowance prices are considered, in order to examine the effect of changes in this very volatile parameter. Furthermore, an investigation is made to identify if a point should be expected when renewable energy will be more profitable than conventional fuel electricity generation. Keywords—energy policy, experience curve, optimization, renewable energy economics.


While some studies have revealed that social capital is shaped within civil society, the role of political institutions in forming social capital has not yet been clearly shown. This article, therefore, tries to evaluate the politico-institutional foundations of social capital mea- sured in terms of associational life in Switzerland. The purpose is to apply Putnam's method of comparing subsystems to the Swiss cantons. The empirical analyses show that govern- ment structures are strongly associated with social capital. More specifically, the availabil- ity of direct democracy promotes a lively associational life. In addition, consensus democracy and decentralized political structures contribute to social capital. In this vein, the access points of the politico-institutional structure constitute a feasible 'top-down' path to break- ing out of the vicious circle of distrust, disengagement and weak democracy.


The paper is a review of the main achievements of the NRDIBH in the field of applied biotechnology. Over the last two decades, micropropagation and virus elimination techniques were used with the final aim of establishing a virus-free plant collection for grapevine genotypes. Recently, the molecular markers have been used to characterize Romanian grapevine cultivars, to establish their taxonomical relatedness and geographical origin, or to verify genetic similarities or dissimilarities in micropropagation systems. The plant material from core collection obtained by thermotherapy and/or meristem culture is generally used as starting material for propagation and planting, as control plant material in studies concerning genetic variation of characters, and also as parental plants in breeding programmes. The methods used for establishing the core collection (in vitro multiplication of mother plant material, virus elimination procedures applied to infected vines, molecular techniques for testing the genetic stability and integrity of genetic resources) are presented. The main achievements in exploitation of the regenerative potential of various somatic tissues, such as those of the anthers, ovules, petioles, leaves, and zygotic embryos, are also discussed. Since to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology within the NRDIBH has been given recently the responsibility for the identification and detection of GMO products and foods, the paper presents also the main achievements and results in detection, identification and quantification for RR soybean and MON810 maize events.


Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) can be widely adopted to monitor the environment in agricultural, security and ecological applications. In most applications, besides underground sensor motes, aboveground motes are deployed to gather information. However, due to the different communication ranges of the channels, hidden terminal problem occurs when multiple underground motes send data to the aboveground mote. In this paper, experiments are conducted to reveal this problem in WUSNs empirically. In addition, an RTS/CTS scheme is implemented to eliminate this problem and it is shown that the communication success can be increased from 32% to 76%. More importantly, despite its improvements in collisions, RTS/CTS schemes alone cannot guarantee successful multi-access operation due to the high variance in channel quality in WUSNs, which motivates further research in this area.


This dissertation examines the impact of litigation on a social movement's dominant substantive goals and message. While scholars have devoted substantial attention to the study of social movement litigation, research in this area typically focuses on how social movements affect substantive law, or more broadly, how a movement's legal tactics bring about social change. By contrast, my focus in this dissertation is on how litigation affects the social movement itself. In particular, how does litigation as a tactic shape a social movement's collective agenda? How does it affect which perspective among possible competing visions comes to define the movement?I investigate these dynamics through a case study of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement from 1985 to 2008. The study involves three phases of original empirical research, each of which investigates a potential mechanism that may privilege litigation over other tactics in its ability to set the LGBT movement's primary substantive agenda. First, I use a content analysis of newspaper coverage of LGBT politics to determine which movement tactics have received the most media visibility. Second, I perform a statistical analysis of LGBT organizations to determine which movement tactics have been most associated with organizational survival and stability. Third, I perform a qualitative analysis of a subset of those LGBT organizations to examine variation in the strategy-formation processes used by primarily litigation-, lobbying-, or protest-based movement groups.The media content analysis revealed that litigation received more news coverage than any other LGBT movement tactic, suggesting that litigation had greater visibility than other tactics. In addition, the statistical analysis revealed that the movement organizations that used litigation had greater survival rates than other types of LGBT movement organizations, suggesting that litigation has been a particularly stable feature of LGBT politics. The qualitative analysis of LGBT organizations revealed further insights into how litigation may influence the agendas of non-legal movement actors. Whereas litigating LGBT movement groups proactively pursued preplanned organizational priorities, protest groups formed their agendas reactively, focusing on the issues covered by the mainstream media. This phenomenon appears to have diverted protest groups away from their original priorities and toward the issues that the media found newsworthy. Given my findings that litigation coverage dominated news headlines, the processes identified here may enable litigation to dominate protest activism as well. Taken together, these findings suggest that the media visibility and stability of social movement litigation may contribute to the prominence of litigation and cause legal goals to dominate the movement's overall substantive agenda. I describe this process as the legalization of a social movement's agenda.This dissertation makes a novel contribution to existing scholarship by exposing systemic processes that may privilege movement litigation relative to protest, elevating the issues being litigated to top movement priorities. Significant implications follow for theories of law and social change. Focusing on litigation narrows a movement's agenda because courts offer a forum for only those grievances that can be translated into legal claims. This may be particularly problematic for movements that base their legal claims in antidiscrimination law, which has become settled around quite limited understandings of equality as formal access to equal opportunity and discrimination as an intentional, individual harm. This interpretation not only denies remedies for the structural factors most responsible for perpetuating inequality, it also places the focus on preventing individual wrongdoing rather than producing substantive outcomes. Thus, when antidiscrimination litigation comes to define an equality movement's priorities, the movement may find itself privileging issues with little hope of creating substantive social transformation.


There is a growing concern for the long-term health effects of selenium (Se) over- or underfeeding. The efficiency of utilization of dietary Se is subject to many factors. Our study in dogs evaluated the effect of diet type (canned versus kibble) and dietary protein concentration on Se digestibility and bioactivity. Canned and kibble diets are commonly used formats of dog food, widely ranging in protein concentration. Twenty-four Labrador retrievers were used and four canned and four kibble diets were selected with crude protein concentrations ranging from 10.1 to 27.5 g/MJ. Crude protein concentration had no influence on the digestibility of Se in either canned or kibble diets, but a lower Se digestibility was observed in canned compared to kibble diets. However, the biological activity of Se, as measured by whole blood glutathione peroxidase, was higher in dogs fed the canned diets than in dogs fed the kibble diets and decreased with increasing crude protein intake. These results indicate that selenium recommendations in dog foods need to take diet type into account.


Biotic interference, especially by generalist predators, has been implicated in preventing establishment or limiting the impact of introduced weed biological control agents (Goeden & Louda 1976). Boreioglycaspis melaleuca e Moore (Homoptera: Psyllidae) was released into Florida in 2002 as part of a classical biological control program targeting the ecological weed Melaleuca quinquenervia (Cav.) S. T. Blake ('melaleuca') and is now established and contributing to the suppression of melaleuca (Tipping et al. 2008). The multicolored Asian lady beetle, Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) was introduced numerous times into the U.S. starting in 1916 as a biological control agent of Homoptera (Gordon 1985). Chapin & Brou (1991) first documented established populations in 1988 in Louisiana and Georgia. It appeared in Florida in the early 1990s where it feeds on soft scales, mealybugs, psyllids, whitefly larvae, and the eggs of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera (Michaud 2002). In 2007, we observed large populations of H. axyridis adults and larvae on melaleuca infested with B. melaleucae in our research plots at the USDA-ARS Invasive Plant Research Laboratory (IPRL) in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (N 26°05' W 80°14') . Although other predacious coccinellids were present including Brachiacantha decora Casey, Coleophora inaequalis (F.), and Olla v-nigrum (Mulsant), H. axyridis is considered a dominant intraguild species and has outcompeted many coccinellid species (Pervez & Omkar 2006). Our objective was to determine if H. axyridis would attack and sustain itself on B. melaleucae under laboratory conditions. Adult H. axyridis were collected from melaleuca growing at IPRL and provisioned with B. melaleucae nymphs in the laboratory until they oviposited. Individual egg masses were incubated at 27°C until larval emergence. First instars ( n = 27) were confined in individual plastic containers (30 mL) with plastic snap lids along with a single melaleuca leaf containing various numbers of small (instars 1-3) and large (instars 4-5) of B. melaleucae in situ . This was done in lieu of transferring exact numbers because the nymphs are extremely delicate and easily injured or killed when handled. We strove to find leaves with similar numbers of small and large psyllids whose numbers we increased steadily as the H. axyridis larvae grew. For example, an average of 3 small and 1.5 large nymphs were added daily for first instar H. axyridis while fourth instars received 30.5 small and 14 large nymphs daily. Increases in provisioning were guided by the presence of surviving nymphs, which indicated that prey numbers were not limiting. Moisture was supplied with a moistened dental wick placed in the bottom of the container. Dead or missing nymphs were tallied every 13 d and a fresh leaf with their associated nymphs was added. Missing nymphs were assumed to have been consumed. Larval testing ended when H. axyridis died or pupated. Adult feeding trials were conducted for 7 d in the same manner with 12 adults that eclosed successfully from the larval feeding trials. Larvae and adults fed readily on B. melaleucae (Table 1) . However, the mean (±SE) larval development time was 23.0 ± 0.6 d, which may indicate that the psyllid is not an optimal food source when compared to other prey. For example, H. axyridis completed larval development in 11.2 d when fed fresh eggs of Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) (Abdel-Salam & Abdel-Baky 2001), 10.5 d when fed Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Lanzoni et al. 2004), and 9.6 d when fed Aphis pisum Harris (Specty et al. 2003).


Abstract Individuals with intellectual disability may have limited narrative skills. The novelty of this study lies in the examination of strengths and weaknesses which may enable a more facilitative approach to narrative and other storytelling‐based methodologies among adults with intellectual disability who study in an academic enrichment program in comparison to typical students with the same chronological age. Seventeen adult students with intellectual disability and 16 typically developing students, produced narratives which were examined for microstructure (e.g., length, lexis, grammaticality, and complexity) macrostructure (e.g., goals, attempts, and outcomes) and Internal state terms (ISTs). The findings indicate that in spite of weakness of adults with intellectual disability in terms of coherence, syntactic complexity, and grammatical sentences, they exhibit strengths in narrative macrostructure story scheme and use IST. With increasing age, narratives performance of adults with intellectual disability continues to advance possibly due to maturity, life experience and indirect exposure to the environment.


Measuring strength or degree of statistical dependence between two random variables is a common problem in many domains. Pearson's correlation coefficient $\rho$ is an accurate measure of linear dependence. We show that $\rho$ is a normalized, Euclidean type distance between joint probability distribution of the two random variables and that when their independence is assumed while keeping their marginal distributions. And the normalizing constant is the geometric mean of two maximal distances, each between the joint probability distribution when the full linear dependence is assumed while preserving respective marginal distribution and that when the independence is assumed. Usage of it is restricted to linear dependence because it is based on Euclidean type distances that are generally not metrics and considered full dependence is linear. Therefore, we argue that if a suitable distance metric is used while considering all possible maximal dependences then it can measure any non-linear dependence. But then, one must define all the full dependences. Hellinger distance that is a metric can be used as the distance measure between probability distributions and obtain a generalization of $\rho$ for the discrete case.


In the last fifteen years great efforts have been made to establish the appropriate use of antimicrobial agents in surgery. The most common error in the use of prophylactic antibiotics is to continue the drugs beyond the time necessary for maximal benefit: the smallest dose of the drug should be given over the shortest period of time which results in a low rate of postoperative septic complications. In the selection of appropriate antimicrobial drugs for prevention or therapy of surgical infections the most important pharmacological and clinical factors affecting the choice are considered.


The cholinergic system (CS) has been assessed in 60 women with a premature onset of labor and their newborns. Labor was regulated using transcutaneous electroneurostimulation (TENS) in 40 of them. High-frequency TENS (100-120 Hz) was used for uterine contractility stimulation and low-frequency (30 Hz) was used for relaxation. A pattern of contractile uterine activity was elucidated which indicated beneficial effects of TENS on abnormal conditions in premature labor. A correlation was found out between the maternal and neonatal SC status.


The mining industry desires to cut costs and to operate in more dangerous mines, which is why companies such as Atlas Copco are developing autonomous vehicles. The problem to navigate autonomously is however complex, so the vehicles have in the recent years become more intelligent; the number of computers, actuators and sensors are increasing. For example, an autonomous LHD (Loading – Hauling – Dump) vehicle has sensors including: inertial measurement unit (IMU), odometer, hinge angle sensor, laser range finders and cameras. The parameters for the sensors needs to be calibrated before the vehicle can be used in a mine. There are also a number of electrical currents which needs to be calibrated for the actuators.The calibration of parameters has traditionally been made manually, but Atlas Copco realizes that manual calibration is not feasible once the sales of intelligent mine vehicles increases. Effort is therefore put into automation of the calibration procedures.Interviews with employees were carried out at Atlas Copco to identify the most time consuming procedures during calibration and installation of autonomous mine vehicles. The calibration of steering currents was not only identified as the most time consuming procedure, but also as one of the most complex procedures.The goal of this thesis is to enable easier and quicker installation of mine vehicles. This is done through investigation of methods for automatic calibration of steering currents. The problem is approached from two angles: a grey box model using system identification and a black box model using neural network with resilient backpropagation. The models are compared to a search algorithm, used for simulation of the manual calibration method. In the end, the models are evaluated with regard to performance and ease of implementation.The hypothesis was that the more complex grey box or black box model would have higher accuracy than a simple search algorithm. However, the search algorithm proves to outperform the other models both with regard to accuracy and calibration time, and is also easier to implement. The search algorithm is thus suggested to be implemented instead of a complex model. Moreover, it is suggested that a straightforward mapping of 20 currents may outperform even the search calibration. It is also concluded that calibration of steering currents can be done when the vehicle is standing still.


The next generation 10-Gigabit Ethernet Standard is currently under development and is expected to come out in the next few years. This paper highlights ongoing discussions regarding several aspects of 10-Gigabit Ethernet such as market requirements, implementation structures, layer interfaces, coding techniques, frame formats, media, devices, and etc. See Also: Gigabit Ethernet | Gigabit Ethernet (Audio Recording of Lecture) | Gigabit Ethernet References | Books on Gigabit Ethernet | Optical Networking And Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) | IP over DWDM Other Reports on Recent Advances in Networking Back to Raj Jain's Home Page


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate prospectively the performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for the detection of active lesions on MR enterography (MRE) in children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

METHODS
MRE of 48 children (mean age 13 years) with suspected or known IBD were blindly analysed by 2 independent readers for the presence of active lesions. Two sets of imaging including DWI and gadolinium-enhanced imaging (GEI) were reviewed. A reader consensus was obtained. The gold standard was histopathological findings. In patient-level analysis and segment-level analysis, sensitivity and specificity were calculated for DWI and GEI and compared using McNemar's test or logistic random-effects models.

RESULTS
At least 1 active lesion was confirmed in 42 (87.5%) children. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of at least one lesion were 88.1% (95% CI, 74.3-96.1) and 83.3% (95% CI, 35.9-99.6), respectively, for DWI and 66.7% (95% CI, 50.4-80.4) and 83.3% (95% CI, 35.9-99.6), respectively, for GEI. In segment-level analysis, sensitivity and specificity for the detection of specific segment lesions were 62.5% (95% CI, 48.1-75) and 97.1% (95% CI, 93.5-98.7), respectively, for DWI and 45.7% (95% CI, 30.8-61.3) and 98.2% (95% CI, 95.3-99.4), respectively, for GEI. The sensitivity of DWI was significantly better than that of GEI per patient (p = 0.004) and per segment (p = 0.028).

CONCLUSION
DWI demonstrates better performance than GEI for the detection of active lesions in children with IBD.

ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE
Examination with no intravenous injection-DWI can replace T1 weighted images when paediatric patients are screened with MRE for IBD. Examination performed in free breathing is better tolerated by children.


The privileged position of ruling the Islamic state which Abū Bakr had allotted Quraysh had no foundation in the Qur'ān. In the early Mekkan Sūra (CVI) addressed to them, the Quraysh were pointedly admonished to serve the Lord of the Ka'ba in gratitude for the prosperity and safety He had granted them. During most of Muḥammad's mission, the majority of Quraysh in Mekka were his staunchest opponents, the unbelievers ( kuffār ) and polytheists ( mushrikūn ) unequivocally condemned by the Holy Book. The Muhājirūn, those who left their homes to join Muḥammad in Medina in support of the cause of Islam, were greatly praised in the Qur'ān, given hope for God's mercy (II 218), and promised reward on earth and in the hereafter (XVI 41). By Muhājirūn the Qur'ān, however, meant not only the Mekkan, Qurayshite emigrants, but equally bedouin tribesmen and others who joined the Prophet from all over Arabia. Although more often mentioned in the Qur'ān than the Anṣār, the Muhājirūn were put strictly on a par with them (VIII 72–4, IX 100, 117) and nowhere were they given a preferred rank above them. The poor of the Muhājirūn were granted a share of the estates of the Banu l-Naḍīr on the grounds that they had been expelled from their homes and property, not because they stood higher in merit than the Anṣār (LIX 8–9).


In this work we describe an approach at multi-objective recommender system evaluation based on a previously introduced 3D benchmarking model. The benchmarking model takes user-centric, business-centric and technical constraints into consideration in order to provide a means of comparison of recommender algorithms in similar scenarios. We present a comparison of three recommendation algorithms deployed in a user study using this 3D model and compare to standard evaluation methods. The proposed approach simplifies benchmarking of recommender systems and allows for simple multi-objective comparisons.


This book has a tutorial style with step-by-step instructions and adequate screenshots for carrying out each task. If you are a system administrator or consultant who wants to implement and administer Citrix XenApp 6 farms, then this book is for you. This book will help both new and experienced XenApp professionals to deliver virtualized applications.


Background: Superior labrum anterior to posterior (SLAP) lesions are targeted on physical examination using a variety of provocative maneuvers. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose was to conduct a systematic review on the performance of physical examination maneuvers in diagnosing SLAP lesions and to perform a meta-analysis comparing the sensitivity and specificity of these examinations both individually and in combination. The null hypothesis stated that there would be no significant difference in the sensitivity or specificity of the included physical examination tests, neither individually nor in combination. Study Design: Meta-analysis and systematic review; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: A systematic review was performed with the inclusion criteria of studies that reported either the sensitivities and specificities or the number of true-positive, true-negative, false-positive, or false-negative results for at least 1 maneuver for identifying SLAP lesions. A meta-analysis was performed to determine the sensitivity and specificity of individual maneuvers. Additional analysis determined the performance of these maneuvers when combined in series and parallel. In series, all must be present to be considered positive. In parallel, any single positive test forces the overall combination to be considered positive. Only tests that were included in ≥3 studies were considered in the meta-analysis and those included in ≥4 studies were considered in the combination analysis. Results: Overall, 862 studies were identified, 18 of which were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. The physical examinations included were the O'Brien (n = 16), speed (n = 8), Yergason (n = 6), anterior slide (n = 8), crank (n = 7), Jobe (n = 5), dynamic labral shear (n = 3), Kim 2 (n = 3), and biceps groove tenderness tests (n = 3). All combinations of 2 to 5 maneuvers in both series and parallel were considered. The O'Brien and crank test combination was the most sensitive 2-test combination in both parallel and series. The Yergason and anterior slide test combination was the most specific 2-test combination in parallel and series. Conclusion: This systematic review and meta-analysis reports an updated meta-analysis considering the sensitivity and specificity of common physical examination maneuvers used in the diagnosis of SLAP lesions and considers these values for tests in both series and parallel combinations. The present analysis demonstrates improved specificities when tests are considered in series and improved sensitivities when considered in parallel combination.


RATIONALE
Desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) is the most popular ambient ionization technique for direct analysis of complex samples without sample pretreatment. However, for many applications, especially for trace analysis, it is of interest to improve the sensitivity of DESI-mass spectrometry (MS).

METHODS
In traditional DESI-MS, a mixture of methanol/water/acetic acid is usually used to generate the primary ions. In this article, dilute protein solutions were electrosprayed in the DESI method to create multiply charged primary ions for the desorption ionization of trace analytes on various surfaces (e.g., filter paper, glass, Al-foil) without any sample pretreatment. The analyte ions were then detected and structurally characterized using a LTQ XL mass spectrometer.

RESULTS
Compared with the methanol/water/acetic acid (49:49:2, v/v/v) solution, protein solutions significantly increased the signal levels of non-volatile compounds such as benzoic acid, TNT, o-toluidine, peptide and insulin in either positive or negative ion detection mode. For all the analytes tested, the limits of detection (LODs) were reduced to about half of the original values which were obtained using traditional DESI. The results showed that the signal enhancement is highly correlated with the molecular weight of the proteins and the selected solid surfaces.

CONCLUSIONS
The proposed DESI method is a universal strategy for rapid and sensitive detection of trace amounts of strongly bound and/or non-volatile analytes, including explosives, peptides, and proteins. The results indicate that the sensitivity of DESI can be further improved by selecting larger proteins and appropriate solid surfaces.


High fibrinogen is recognised as a risk factor for atherosclerosis. It seems that high fibrinogen is also a risk factor for deep vein thrombosis (DVT). It has been shown that certain polymorphisms in fibrinogen genes can influence the fibrinogen level. In this study, fibrinogen levels and the frequency of the polymorphisms Taq I, Hae III and Bcl I were studied in 114 patients with DVT and 244 healthy subjects. In non-smokers, fibrinogen levels above 5 g/l were associated with an increased risk of DVT (odds ratio 3.3, 95% confidence interval 1.6–7.0). The frequencies of common alleles were similar in patients and healthy subjects for all polymorphisms. An association between fibrinogen levels and the polymorphisms Taq I, Hae III and Bcl I was found in healthy subjects, but not in the patients. It was concluded from these data that the polymorphisms Taq I, Hae III and Bcl I are not major risk factors for DVT.


With an ever-increasing proportion of the global labour force having to change careers following a forced or unplanned end to their previous means of employment, the manner in which we view the idea of a career has dramatically changed in the last ten years. However, career change has always been present in the world of English professional football. Both press and academic enquiry regularly address the different aspects of retirement for those players who have been fortunate enough to enjoy relatively long sporting careers. In contrast, little is offered regarding the majority of professional players who get released from former clubs and experience an unplanned and early career transition away from their footballing profession.

This study is an investigation of the identity management strategies of professional footballers as part of their early career transition away from the English Premier League. Ten participants each took part in three individual vignette interviews (30 interviews). All participants had recently experienced their career transitions from their respective Premier League clubs. Additionally, single interviews were carried out with three Premier League Education and Welfare Officers. This study demonstrates how identity management and construction strategies can be understood through the working theoretical partnership of Goffman's (1959) Dramaturgy and Marcus and Nurius's Possible Selves (1986).

This thesis illustrates the existence of multiple identities belonging to footballers, directly challenging the thematic positioning of past research that lays emphasis on the conception of an exclusive athletic identity. Players offer performances portraying these multiple identities: performances that are influenced by the presence of differing social audiences and a desire to attain positive future possible selves and equally avoid negative possible selves. The career transitions of study participants proved to be smoother when audiences legitimised these performances. Difficulty arises when performances portrayed by participants are not dramatically realised by their audiences or are not supported by the context of their cultural environment. The data within this study underscore the idea that there is more to footballers than their ability to kick a ball, and that when such a fact is both understood and recognised their journey though their career transition can be a positive one.


The quality of Tombul (Round) hazelnut, grown in the Giresun province of Turkey, was determined by measuring proximate composition, minerals, vitamins, dietary fiber, amino acids, and taste active components (free amino acids, sugars, and organic acids). Fat was the predominant component in Tombul hazelnut (approximately 61%). The major minerals were potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and selenium. Hazelnut was also found to serve as an excellent source of vitamin E (24 mg/100 g) and a good source of water soluble (B complex) vitamins and dietary fiber. The major amino acids were glutamic acid, arginine, and aspartic acid. The three nonessential amino acids and the essential amino acids contributed 44.9 and 30.9% to the total amino acids present, respectively, while lysine and tryptophan were the limiting amino acids in Tombul hazelnut. Twenty-one free amino acids, six sugars, and six organic acids were positively identified; among these, arginine, sucrose, and malic acid predominated, respectively. These taste active components may play a significant role in the taste and flavor characteristics of hazelnut. Thus, the present results suggest that Tombul hazelnut serves as a good source of vital nutrients and taste active components.


The paper examines an ancient superstition evoked in Servius' commentary (Serv. ad Aen . 6, 284); Servius mentions that, according to a certain authority on dreams, visions seen in the autumn months are particularly untrustworthy. The first part of the article reviews other references to this popular belief (Plut. Quaest. conv . 8, 10, 734d–736b; Alciphr. Ep . 2, 2; Basil. Ep . 207, 1). The second part attempts to reconstruct the reasoning of the authority that Servius had used ( qui de somniis scripserunt ) and at the same time to distinguish Servius' own view on the matter. It is shown that, although the remark on the unreliability of autumn dreams in itself is of little pertinence to the understanding of Virgil's text, it is part of a larger, fairly elaborate exegetical tradition that sought to establish a connection between Aen . 6, 282–284 and 6, 893–898.


* Cadmium (Cd) stress increases cell metabolic demand for sulfur, reducing equivalents, and carbon skeletons, to sustain phytochelatin biosynthesis for Cd detoxification. In this condition the induction of potentially acidifying anaplerotic metabolism in root tissues may be expected. For these reasons the effects of Cd accumulation on anaplerotic metabolism, glycolysis, and cell pH control mechanisms were investigated in maize (Zea mays) roots. * The study compared root apical segments, excised from plants grown for 24 h in a nutrient solution supplemented, or not, with 10 microM CdCl(2), using physiological, biochemical and (31)P-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) approaches. * Cadmium exposure resulted in a significant decrease in both cytosolic and vacuolar pH of root cells and in a concomitant increase in the carbon fluxes through anaplerotic metabolism leading to malate biosynthesis, as suggested by changes in dark CO2 fixation, metabolite levels and enzyme activities along glycolysis, and mitochondrial alternative respiration capacity. This scenario was accompanied by a decrease in the net H(+) efflux from the roots, probably related to changes in plasma membrane permeability. * It is concluded that anaplerotic metabolism triggered by Cd detoxification processes might lead to an imbalance in H(+) production and consumption, and then to cell acidosis.


The beautiful luster of freshwater pearls is closely related to its multiplayer microstructure. We present the improvement of their luster by refinement their superficial microstructure of pearls by rare earth cerium (REE) inducing grown. The pearls were cultured in freshwater containing 0 (control group), 0.5, and 1 mg·L-1 REE Ce additive, respectively. As the concentration of Ce in the aqueous increasing, we find that their superficial microstructure take large change. The shape of the blocks that builds up the microstructure changes from anomalous to round discs, and finally to perfect regular square sheets. Correspondingly, the glossiness of the pearls changed with the microstructure, in which the pearls with the regular hexagonal blocks having the highest glossiness.


We report a relay catalysis for the highly stereoselective synthesis of densely substituted oxazonine-fused endoperoxides in good yields. This domino reaction is based on an Yb(OTf)3 and visible light promoted [3 + 2] cycloaddition/[3,3]-rearrangement, and in situ [4 + 2] cycloaddition with air in one pot under mild reaction conditions from N-vinyl-α,β-unsaturated nitrones and methylenecyclopropanes, leading to a practical assembly of densely substituted oxazonine-fused endoperoxides containing five stereocenters with a wide substrate scope and excellent diastereoselectivity. Mechanistic studies reveal that the O–O bond of the endoperoxide ring is derived from singlet oxygen (1O2) generated by air under a white LED. Moreover, such an asymmetric relay catalyst has also been realized to afford chiral endoperoxides in good enantioselectivity. Biological tests show that the designed oxazonine-fused endoperoxides significantly inhibited nitric oxide (NO) generation in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells and exhibited their bioactivity as good anti-inflammatory agents.


Vapour phase polymerisation (vpp) of PEDOT to incorporate high levels of a sulphonated manganese porphyrin yields a vivid green conducting polymer that, under illumination, catalyzes selective oxidation of water from seawater from ca. 0.40 V (vs. NHE; Pt counter electrode) without observable chlorine formation. This onset potential is comparable to that of certain metal oxide semiconductors that achieve higher photocurrents but are not capable of selectively oxidising the water in seawater.


The key task performed by CNCs is the generation of the time sequence of set points for driving each physical axis of the machine tool during program execution. This interpolation of axes movement must satisfy a number of constraints on axes dynamics (velocity, acceleration, and jerk), and on process outcome (smooth tool movement and precise tracking of the nominal tool path at the desired feed rate). This paper presents an algorithm that aims at solving the axes interpolation problem by exploiting an optimal control problem formulation. Unlike other solutions proposed in the literature, the approach presented here employs an original approach by assuming a predefined path tracking tolerance—to be added to the constraints listed earlier—and calculating the entire trajectory (path and feed rate profile) that satisfies the given constraints. The proposed solution is used for preprocessing a milling part program and redefining the sequence of positioning commands to cope with the solution of the OC problem. The new part program is then executed by a state-of-the-art industrial CNC, and the effectiveness in reducing execution time and axes accelerations is experimentally tested and reported.


BACKGROUND
Diabetic retinopathy is a costly and prevalent complication of diabetes mellitus.

OBJECTIVE
To assess primary care physicians' self-reported practice patterns for the screening and detection of diabetic retinopathy relative to published guidelines.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS
All primary care physicians (defined as general internists, family practitioners, and general practitioners) in Indiana were identified and surveyed using a mailed questionnaire. Of 2390 physicians, 1508 (63%) responded and were determined to be eligible. Of these 1508 physicians, 1058 (70%) completed all or some of the eye care-related questions. For each eye care practice, physicians were asked to specify the proportion of patients to which the practice was applied and the frequency (eg, every 3 months) with which the behavior was performed, if appropriate. Physicians were also asked to distinguish between patients with type I (insulin-dependent) and type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus for each practice behavior.

RESULTS
Physicians' responses were classified as "high," "moderate," or "low" based on the American Diabetes Association guidelines. Forty-five percent of the physicians' responses were classified as high for referring all of their patients with type I diabetes mellitus to an eye care specialist annually as were 35% of the physicians' responses for referring their patients with type II diabetes mellitus. Fewer physicians reported high levels of routine in-office funduscopic examination. No relationship was found between the extent to which physicians performed an in-office funduscopic examination and patterns of referral to eye care specialists. Logistic regression analysis suggested that recent graduates and general internists are most likely to report behavior that is considered high (P < .05).

CONCLUSION
The diabetic retinopathy-related practice patterns of primary care physicians in Indiana differ significantly from published guidelines.


A case study based on a wholly agglutinated Nothia-dominated assemblage from Santonian flysch strata of the Silesian Unit, Western Carpathians, shows that standard counting including each fragment of tubular taxa as a specimen leads to extreme exaggeration of their relative abundance. A method of defragmentation of fragmented foraminiferal specimens is here proposed to address this problem. Following the method we can recalculate test fragments into individuals based on comparison with complete tests known from the fossil record or modern analogs. Application of this method on the Nothia-dominated flysch type assemblage from the Carpathians turned it into a Karrerulina - Recurvoides assemblage with Nothia as a scarce element. The proportion of Nothia decreased from 46% to les then 1% and all tubular agglutinated taxa from 74% to 4%. At the same time, the defragmentation substantially increased the Shannon diversity index, equitability, and decreased the dominance in the assemblage. Defragmentation of flysch-type assemblages also decreases the faunal density (abundance) of flysch-type assemblages. A comparison of fragmentary material with complete specimens revealed that a single individual of Nothia sp. 1 produces a few hundred fragments and Rhizammina many hundreds. Simple tubular forms like Bathysiphon, Hyperammina and Saccorhiza break into fewer fragments (5 to 23). The small share of tubular agglutinated taxa in flysch-type assemblage demonstrated by the case study does not mean their small importance. They are an important trophic indicator and they may still be a dominant component in the sense of biomass. They should be treated, however, as a qualitative feature based on their presence rather then as a quantitative feature based on their share of the assemblage. A comparison of the studied assemblage after defragmentation with other wholly agglutinated assemblages from the Carpathians shows just a minor difference between lower slope and abyssal faunas in terms of taxonomic composition and diversity. Exaggeration of tubular taxa share in quantitative analysis should be avoided for more reliable comparisons of sub-CCD assemblages. In applied research, exclusion of tubular fragments from quantitative analysis may be a practical solution instead of time-demanding defragmentation. A count of defragmented assemblage does not differ substantially from a count excluding the tubular taxa. Amore accurate method is establishing the number of fragments per complete test by defragmentation of a typical sample and application of results to estimate the number of individuals.


We study the Kergin operator on the space HNb(E) of nuclearly entire functions of bounded type on a Banach space E. We show that the Kergin operator is a projector with interpolating properties and that it preserves homogeneous solutions to homogeneous differential operators. Further, we show that the Kergin operator is uniquely determined by these properties. We give error estimates for approximating a function by its Kergin polynomial and show in this way that for any given bounded sequence of interpolation points and any nuclearly entire function, the corresponding sequence of Kergin polynomials converges.


P168

 Background:
 Early ischemic changes on head CT have been reliably recorded with ASPECT scores, but have not correlated with lesion volume. We studied the effect of ASPECT score on lesion volume and how acute recanalization affected late ASPECT score and lesion volume.
 Methods:
 We evaluated consecutive patients with MCA occlusion by TCD who received IV TPA. Patients were matched with respect to persistent occlusion (GRP1) or complete recanalization of the MCA and clinical improvement (NIH stroke scale (NIHSS)improvement >4)(GRP2). ASPECT scores were measured on the acute and a subsequent CT scan. Lesion volume was calculated using the (A * B *C)/2 method. NIHSS were measured at baseline and at 24 hours.
 Results:
 16 patients were studied. Baseline NIHSS were (mean±SD) 20 ± 4 vs 15 ± 7 (NS) and ASPECT scores were 8.4 ± 1.2 vs 8.6 ± 1.7 (NS) in GRP 1 and 2 respectively. Age and time to TPA were similar. The distribution and types of abnormalities in both ASPECT scores and groups were similar. In GRP 1, 24 hr NIHSS were higher (22± 7 vs 5 ± 7 p<0.05) and ASPECT scores tended to be lower (6.4 ± 1.7 vs 8.4 ± 2.2 p=0.054). Lesion volumes were higher in GRP 1 (172.8 ± 130 vs 15.9 ± 32.2 p<0.05). Baseline ASPECT score did not correlate with lesion volume or 24 hr NIHSS, whereas, outcome ASPECT score correlated with lesion volume (r=-0.74 p<0.01) and tended to correlate with 24 hr NIHSS (r=-0.46 p<0.10). The change in ASPECT correlated with lesion volume (r=-0.73 p<0.01). 62%of the total abnormalities in ASPECT scores were noted in the caudate, lentiform, insula, and thalamus. The lentiform was abnormal in 75%. Reversibility was seen in the insula(4 patients), and in one patient each in the caudate, lentiform and MCA2,3, and 4 for a total of 9 areas.
 Conclusion:
 Baseline ASPECT scores are very sensitive to MCA ischemia and the most common areas involved have relatively small tissue volumes. Outcome ASPECT scores may differ from baseline and correlate with lesion volume. Patients with improvement have smaller volumes of infarcted tissue in similar locations compared to non responders. Our study shows that early ischemic changes may not predict lesion volume due to the confounding effect of recanalization.


On the basis of the publications and meeting reports of the Swiss Society of Psychiatry this essay examines the relationship of Swiss psychiatry and eugenics during the time between the wars. In a democratic country Swiss psychiatry, on the one hand held a leading position in the justification of eugenic measures, on the other hand a majority of Swiss psychiatrists refused coercive measures, and in World War II disassociated from the racialist eugenics and healthpolicy that were established in NS-Germany. Thus, in difference to NS-Germany the practice of eugenic sterilizations in Switzerland wasn't regulated by any specific national law.


The use of big data is revolutionizing many industries, although as with many things having to do with information technology, health care as an industry has been relatively slow in using big data. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in maternity care. Pregnancy and delivery are the most common reasons for hospital admissions in California and the nation. Notwithstanding improvements in maternity outcomes and infant mortality rates in recent decades, increasing concerns have been voiced in recent years about the high and highly variable rates of early elective deliveries and Cesarean sections (C-sections), and the costs and complications associated with these procedures. Large health care data sets are available within various state agencies that can provide a better understanding about opportunities for quality improvement (QI), but barriers to accessing those data have prevented researchers from using them to their full potential. Better methods and systems are needed to access, use, and disseminate available data so that, among other things, they can be used to support clinical decision-making and better align performance measures and payment models with care delivery. Medi-Cal is the largest single payer for maternity care in California, covering more than half of the state's deliveries. As such, it would seem evident that evaluating Medi-Cal claims data would hold great potential for identifying opportunities for improving the quality and efficiency of maternity care for hundreds of thousands of Californians each year. With the above in mind, on June 19-20, 2014, the Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI), UC Davis Health System, in collaboration with the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), convened a symposium to explore ways to improve the quality of maternity care in California through better use of Medi-Cal and other data. A diverse group of approximately 150 individuals came together for the two-day symposium, Using Data to Improve Maternity Care in California: Research Collaborations and Future Opportunities (see Appendix for the agenda). Attendees included persons who create, manage, and use data, including consumers, providers, researchers, health plans, and state and local health agency staff. This report highlights in summary form many of the issues raised at the symposium, including comments by invited panelists and presenters and comments from attendees that were made during breakout discussions and question and answer sessions.


Responsivity of silicon photodiodes was measured from -100 C to +50 C in the 3 to 250 nm wavelength range using synchrotron and laboratory radiation sources. Two types of silicon photodiodes were studied, the AXUV series having a thin nitrided silicon dioxide surface layer and the SXUV series having a thin metal silicide surface layer. Depending on the wavelength, the responsivity increases with temperature with the rates 0.013%/C to 0.053%/C for the AXUV photodiode and 0.020%/C to 0.084%/C for the SXUV photodiode. The increase in responsivity is consistent with the decrease in the silicon bandgap energy which causes a decrease in the pair creation energy. These results are particularly important for dose measurement in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography steppers and sources since the detector temperature often increases because of the high EUV intensities involved.


Atomic-scale relaxations of platinum nanoparticles (Pt NPs) for fuel-cell catalysts are evaluated by spherical-aberration corrected environmental transmission electron microscopy (ETEM) under reference high-vacuum and N2 atmospheres, and then under reactive H2, CO and O2 atmospheres, combined with ex situ durability test using an electrochemical half-cell. In high-vacuum, increasing roughness due to continuous relaxation of surface-adsorbed Pt atoms is quantified in real-space. Under H2 and N2 atmospheres at a critical partial pressure of 1 × 10−2 Pa the stability of the surface facets is for the first time found to be improved. The adsorption behaviour of CO molecules is investigated using experimentally measured Pt–Pt bond lengths on the topmost surface layer of Pt NPs. The deactivation of Pt NPs in the anode environment of a proton-exchange-membrane fuel-cell is demonstrated at the atomic-scale in the ETEM, and the transformation of NPs into disordered nanoclusters is systematically quantified using the partial size distribution of Pt atomic clusters under controlled heating experiments at 423, 573 and 723 K.


Introduction Elderly patients with haematological malignancies are a population at risk of iatrogenic for whom these activities could optimize therapeutic management. However, the limitation of human resources requires optimization of the process in order to improve the efficiency of pharmaceutical activities. The objective was to build a decision tree to optimize the pharmaceutical consultation in these population within a multidisciplinary team in haematology. Method Pharmaceutical consultations were proposed to elderly subjects with haematological malignancies followed up in a haematology day hospitalization at the University Hospital of Limoges. Risk factors for prescribing risky drugs in this population were determined by logistic regression models. A decision tree was constructed based on these results and by agreement between pharmacist, geriatrician and hematologist. Results Female gender (aOR[CI95%] = 1.71 [1.14–2.57]), polypharmacy (aOR[CI95%] = 1.89 [1.14–3.13]), hyper-polypharmacy (aOR[CI95%] = 5.73 [3.03–10.84]) and moderate cholinergic load (aOR[CI95%] = 2.15 [1.04–4.45]) were risk factors for the prescription of inappropriate medicine. Female gender (aOR[CI95%] = 1.55 [1.02–2.35]) and hyper-polypharmacy (aOR[CI95%] = 6.19 [1–1.28]) were risk factors for prescribing anticholinergic drugs or anticoagulants; in contrast, frailty status was a protective factor for prescribing anticholinergics (aOR[CI95%] = 0.51 [0.33–0.81]). Prioritization of pharmaceutical consultations is based on frailty status, prescription of a target drug and polypharmacy. Discussion Pharmaceutical consultations during the day hospitalization of elderly subjects with hematological diseases allow to propose therapeutic optimizations. The prioritization proposed in our study would increase the efficiency of pharmaceutical activities in order to improve quality and safety throughout the care pathway of these patients.


Investigations were performed to assess the effects of dichloromethanediphosphonate on the synthesis of collagen by (1) isolated rabbit articular chondrocytes, (2) isolated rat calvaria bone cells and (3) bone explants from rats treated with the diphosphonates. The studies showed that dichloromethanediphosphonate, but not 1-hydroxyethane-1,1-diphosphonate, causes articular chondrocytes to increase net collagen biosynthesis, both when measured as 3H-labelled or as non-radioactive material, in a dose-related fashion. The increment in collagen synthesis was still evident with cells that were exposed continuously to the diphosphonate in primary as well as secondary culture; however, it declined with cells in tertiary culture and was absent after the fourth subculture. The type of collagen was not affected by the diphosphonate. The synthesis of collagen by bone cells was likewise increased with dichloromethanediphosphonate. No effects were detected with 1-hydroxyethane-1,1-diphosphonate was tested. Finally, when calvaria and tibiae from diphosphonate-treated rats were cultured in vitro, the positive effect of dichloromethanediphosphonate on collagen synthesis was also evident. 1-Hydroxyethane-1,1-diphosphonate, on the other hand, decreased the incorporation of [3H]proline into the collagen of calvaria and osseous tibial shafts and showed no effect on the collagen synthesis of the cartilaginous tibial heads.


The aim of this thesis is to improve the performance of photocathode DSCs for their use in tandem DSCs. The scale of solar photovoltaic technology application is limited because of high costs. The research in the area of solar photovoltaic is focused on low cost technologies. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are one of the attractive technologies for its projected low manufacturing costs. These solar cells are lagging behind in conversion efficiencies compared to other technologies available in the market.

The efficiency of conventional DSCs can be improved with tandem solar cell architecture. In tandem solar cell approach, a photoanode DSC (n-DSC) is assembled with a photocathode DSC (p-DSC). Theoretically, efficiency improves due to the increase in the range of absorption spectra. However, the tandem DSC efficiencies are lagging behind the theoretical ones; because of underperforming photocathode DSCs. The p-DSC produces low photocurrents (5.4 mA/cm2) and has low efficiency (0.42 %) due to low open circuit voltages (350 mV).

During this work, the application of microball structured NiO in p-DSC improved dye loading and p-DSC short circuit photocurrent (7.0 mA/cm2). The high efficiency p-DSCs using a cobalt ethylenediamine based electrolyte are reported in this thesis. Cobalt ethylenediamine electrolyte has favorable rest potential which helped to improve the p-DSC efficiency up to 1.3 %. A p-type semiconductor with high ionization potential (CuCrO2) improved VOC of p-DSC up to 740 mV. A transparent thiolate/disulfide based electrolyte has been studied and investigated as an alternative electrolyte in p-DSCs and tandem pn-DSCs.


This Archival Research Guide is dedicated to different forms of women's participation in the war effort and associationism during the First World War: these two strands include active participation of women in battles; war relief associations, peace movements and women's employment in the war industry. Contemporary historiography has recognized the crucial role that women played in sustaining the war effort by replacing the labour of
men who were engaged on the front. On the other hand, the role of women was crucial in those years for a variety of reasons and occupations: in fact, their commitment to organize in soldier's relief and peace associations represents an important part of the historiography of the WW1. Moreover, the First World War was the first major belligerent event in which women could wear a military uniform: while this didn't happen in every country, it was probably a first step toward the inclusion of women in sectors which once were exclusively occupied by men.


Objective To study the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and mortality among 75-year-olds with and without diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM) or impaired fasting glucose (IFG). Design Prospective population-based cohort study with a 10-year follow-up. Participants A random sample of 618 of the 1100 inhabitants born in 1922 and living in the city of Västerås in 1997 were invited to participate in a cardiovascular health survey; 70% of those invited agreed to participate (432 individuals: 210 men, 222 women). Outcome measures All-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Results 163 of 432 (38%) participants died during the 10-year follow-up period. The prevalence of DM or IFG was 41% (35% among survivors, 48% among non-survivors). The prevalence of obesity/overweight/normal weight/underweight according to WHO definitions was 12/45/42/1% (14/43/42/1% among survivors, 9/47/42/2% among non-survivors). The hazard rate for death decreased by 10% for every kg/m2 increase in BMI in individuals with DM/IFG (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.86 to 0.97; p=0.003). After adjustment for sex, current smoking, diagnosed hypertension, diagnosed angina pectoris, previous myocardial infarction and previous stroke/transient ischaemic attack, the corresponding decrease in mortality was 9% (HR 0.92, 95% CI 0.86 to 0.99; p=0.017). These findings remained after exclusion of individuals with BMI<20 or those who died within 2-year follow-up. In individuals without DM/IFG, BMI had no effect on mortality (HR 1.01, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.07; p=0.811). The HR for BMI differed significantly between individuals with and without DM/IFG (p interaction=0.025). The increased all-cause mortality in individuals with DM/IFG in combination with lower BMI was driven by cardiovascular death. Conclusion High all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was associated with lower BMI in 75-year-olds with DM/IFG but not in those without DM/IFG. Further studies on the combined effect of obesity/overweight and DM/IFG are needed in order to assess the appropriateness of current guideline recommendations for weight reduction in older people with DM/IFG.


Thai is a discourse pro-drop language (also called "radical pro-drop" language), since it exhibits highly frequent use of null pronouns without the involvement of agreement morphology. The descriptive goal of this thesis is to describe the different syntactic contexts in Thai where null pronouns occur and where they do not occur. The theoretical goal is to explain why pronouns sometimes have to be pronounced, sometimes may, but need not be, and sometimes cannot be pronounced, in Thai, and how this relates to prodrop as found in other languages. The thesis will thereby hopefully contribute to the theory of pronouns, pronominal reference, and pro-drop. After an introduction (Chapter 1), the distribution of null/overt pronouns and the restrictions on their occurrences are discussed (Chapter 2). It is demonstrated that even though a null pronoun can appear in any argument position, it cannot take the position of a prepositional complement or occur in a conjoined NPs construction. It is also demonstrated that a null pronoun/argument in Thai always looks for an antecedent for a referential reading (Chapter 5). If there is no controlling linguistic antecedent for a null pronoun in a higher clause, then a discourse topic will be the antecedent. If there is no discourse topic either, the speaker is always available as a local antecedent of the null pronoun. The default referential reading of a null pronoun is therefore first person singular. It appears that this generalisation holds true in other discourse pro-drop languages as well (Chapter 3). Correspondingly, a pronoun without an antecedent must be overt. Pronouns with a generic or arbitrary reading are a special case of antecedentless pronouns, which can be null but only when they have generic inclusive reading (Chapter 4). I propose that null pronouns in Thai, and discourse pro-drop languages generally, have no φ-features, except for an unvalued referential feature [uR] and a general nominal feature [N]. These features are sufficient for the pronoun to function as an argument, being assigned a θ-role. They are dependent on being bound or controlled by one of the following: (i) a locally c-commanding referential NP, (ii) a null topic operator, which itself is linked to a referential NP in the discourse, (iii) "the speaker", as default, (iv) a generic operator, or (v) a higher generic argument (Chapter 6). That an inclusive generic pronoun is not pronounced (as opposed to other generic/ arbitrary pronouns, which are pronounced) is explained by the presence of a generic operator. The operator behaves just as an adverb that quantifies over the null arguments, i.e. "It is generally true for x." The [uR] feature of the pronoun is probed by this generic operator. As the pronoun has no φ-features, it gets a referentially unrestricted reading. This is the inclusive reading of a null generic pronoun. It includes the speaker, the The Syntax of Pro-drop in Thai ii addressee, and any other people. In other words, the generality of the inclusive reading is from the φ-featureless pronoun, in which case it has no restricted reference. Since exclusive generic/arbitrary and quasi-inclusive generic pronouns have more restricted reference, i.e. third person plural and first person plural, respectively, they must be overt when bound by the generic operator. If they were null, they would be indistinguishable from the unrestricted inclusive generic pronoun and the referential first person pronoun "I", since they have no antecedent providing them with features. This means Thai can have relatively unrestricted use of referential third person/impersonal null subjects and a null inclusive generic subject pronoun. I show that this pattern is also found in other discourse pro-drop languages, and is restricted to languages where agreement is not part of sentential syntax. A null argument of the type [uR, N] in turn constitutes a new category in the typology of null arguments. It explains why it cannot function as a prepositional complement, which requires a complement with φfeatures. This implies that referential null pronominal arguments do not inherit any φfeatures from their antecedents. The only thing they inherit is the referential index. To summarise, null pronominal arguments do not have φ-features, and thus are not pronounced. Pronominal arguments with φ-features can be pronounced. In this, and in several other respects, null pronouns in Thai and other discourse pro-drop languages are similar to PRO in languages like English. The Syntax of Pro-drop in Thai iii


In this paper, a new algorithm of optimal Volt/Var Control is proposed using Volt/Var control for the Distribution Automation System (DAS) with Distributed Generation (DG) based on the modeling of the distributed load and the distributed current. In the proposed, algorithm based on the modeling of the distributed load and the distributed current are estimated from constants of four terminals using the measurement of the current and power factor from a Feeder Remote Terminal Unit (FRTU) and DG data from RTU for DG. For the optimal Volt/Var Control, the gradient method is applied to find optimal solution for tap, capacity and power control of OLTC (On-Load Tap Changers), SVR (Step Voltage Regulator), PC (Power Condenser) and DG (Distributed Generation). In the case studies, the estimation and control of the voltages have been testified in a radial distribution system with DG using matlab program.


Abstract. The use of documentary evidence to investigate past climatic trends and
events has become a recognised approach in recent decades. This contribution
presents the state of the art in its application to droughts. The range of
documentary evidence is very wide, including general annals, chronicles,
memoirs and diaries kept by missionaries, travellers and those specifically
interested in the weather; records kept by administrators tasked with keeping
accounts and other financial and economic records; legal-administrative
evidence; religious sources; letters; songs; newspapers and journals;
pictographic evidence; chronograms; epigraphic evidence; early instrumental
observations; society commentaries; and compilations and books. These are
available from many parts of the world. This variety of documentary
information is evaluated with respect to the reconstruction of hydroclimatic
conditions (precipitation, drought frequency and drought indices).
Documentary-based drought reconstructions are then addressed in terms of
long-term spatio-temporal fluctuations, major drought events, relationships
with external forcing and large-scale climate drivers, socio-economic impacts
and human responses. Documentary-based drought series are also considered from
the viewpoint of spatio-temporal variability for certain continents, and
their employment together with hydroclimate reconstructions from other
proxies (in particular tree rings) is discussed. Finally, conclusions are
drawn, and challenges for the future use of documentary evidence in the study
of droughts are presented.


Financial management practices predicting good financial well-being and participation in risky assets among families were identified in this study. It also seeks to find out other factors predicting financial well-being and participation in risky assets. Associations of time horizon with risk preference, and risk preference with financial management practices, differences in financial management practices among the main ethnicities in Malaysia and among families residing in urban and rural areas were also determined. The moderating roles of self-worth between financial management practices and financial well-being of families, and between financial management practices and risky investment by families were explored. Quota sampling was employed to gather data from 800 samples who were the family financial managers using questionnaire forms through their work-place. Pearson correlation test revealed that time horizon of financial managers, measured by future time orientation was significantly associated with their risk preferences. Furthermore, the results from correlation tests showed that families having financially risk averse family financial managers were more likely to engage in financial planning, cash-flow activities, good credit practice, savings, and risk management. However, families having financially risk tolerance family financial managers were more likely to participate in diversified investment. Test of significant difference result indicated that Chinese families were more involved in diversified investment as compared to the Malay or Indian families. Moreover, the t-test resulted in the Chinese families to be more likely purchasing various types of insurance policies as compared to the Indian families. As for the differences in residential areas, the urban residents were more involved in record-keeping, diversified investment, and tend to purchase various types of insurance as compared to the rural residents. Binary logistic regression analysis revealed factors predicting financial well-being and participation in risky assets. Income, working experience, budgeting, and investment were found to be predictors for good financial well-being. A family that was financially stable tends to earn high household income with longer working experience, participated in diversified investment, and did budgeting for the family expenses. The tendency to participate in risky investment was positively influenced by their risk tolerant, savings, record-keeping, and risk practices. However good credit practices was inversely predicting participation in risky assets. These findings provided evidence that specific financial management practices did have impact on financial well-being and participation in risky assets. The socioeconomic characteristics identified for financially stable family and the financial management practices carried out by them would assist interested parties to help families who are at most risk of financial instability. Self-worth of family financial manager was found to moderate the relationships of financial planning and cash-flow with financial well-being of families. It also acts as a moderator for the relationship between risk practices and risky assets investing. The support found for the moderating roles of self-worth contributed to the family financial management and investment decision fields. The findings also offer important implications to financial educators and families in
iv
enhancing financial stability and reducing financial risks in investment through financial management strategies.


We present an unsupervised approach that converts the input speech of any individual into audiovisual streams of potentially-infinitely many output speakers. Our approach builds on simple autoencoders that project out-of-sample data onto the distribution of the training set. We use Exemplar Autoencoders to learn the voice, stylistic prosody, and visual appearance of a specific target exemplar speech. In contrast to existing methods, the proposed approach can be easily extended to an arbitrarily large number of speakers and styles using only 3 minutes of target audio-video data, without requiring {\em any} training data for the input speaker. To do so, we learn audiovisual bottleneck representations that capture the structured linguistic content of speech. We outperform prior approaches on both audio and video synthesis, and provide extensive qualitative analysis on our project page -- https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~exemplar-ae/.


OBJECTIVE: To determine the number of physician office visits by adults in which an anxiety disorder diagnosis was recorded and rates of treatment during these visits.DESIGN: We used data from the 1985, 1993, 1994, 1997, and 1998 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys, which is a nationally representative series of surveys of office-based practice employing clustered sampling.SETTING: Office-based physician practices in the United States.PARTICIPANTS: A systematically sampled group of office-based physicians.RESULTS: The number of office visits with a recorded anxiety disorder diagnosis increased from 9.5 million in 1985 to 11.2 million per year in 1993–1994 and 12.3 million per year in 1997–1998, representing 1.9%, 1.6%, and 1.5% of all office visits in 1985, 1993–1994, and 1997–1998, respectively. The majority of recorded anxiety disorder diagnoses were not for specific disorders, with 70% of anxiety disorder visits to primary care physicians coded as "anxiety state, unspecified." Visits to primary care physicians accounted for 48% of all anxiety disorder visits in 1985 and 1997–1998. Treatment for anxiety was offered in over 95% of visits to psychiatrists but in only 60% of visits to primary care physicians. Primary care physicians were less likely to offer treatment for anxiety when specific anxiety disorders were diagnosed than when "anxiety state, unspecified" was diagnosed (54% vs 62% in 1997–1998). Prescriptions for medications to treat anxiety disorders increased between 1985 and 1997–1998 while use of psychotherapy decreased over the same time period in visits to both primary care physicians and psychiatrists.CONCLUSIONS: Although there is a large number of office visits with a recorded anxiety disorder diagnosis, under-recognition and under-treatment appear to be a continuing problem, especially in the primary care sector. Medication is being substituted for psychotherapy in visits to both psychiatrists and primary care physicians over time.


Primary congenital megalo-ureter is the occurrence of enormous bilateral caliber of the ureter in cases in which there is no demonstrable obstruction to the urinary outflow as determined at necropsy or by complete examination during life. The condition has been observed in the fetus, in the new-born and in early life. Similar cases to those reported here appear in the literature under the title of congenital dilatation of the ureters. The term dilatation is ill chosen because the so-called dilated ureters of the type to be described here probably never were of normal caliber and may represent the persistence of a stage in early fetal development. The expression dilatation of the ureters should be reserved for those cases in which there is definite pathologic condition or anomaly that accounts for the widening of the ureteral lumen. These cases may be congenital or acquired. In fact, the condition may exist in


Cloud computing has been growing in popularity because of the demand of scalability and extensibility for infrastructure resources. Recent work has shown that dynamic increasing resource capacity by using public cloud infrastructure services such as Amazon's EC2 can achieve higher peak throughput with lower cost. On the other hand, dedicated server infrastructure is still suitable to frontend requests and processing average workload rather than pure cloud infrastructure. In this paper, we propose a novel extensible architecture for high-throughput task processing to self-adapt peak workload on the hybrid infrastructure combining fixed-size system with public cloud. Usually, public cloud only can loosely couple with fixed-size system without the access of local resources. Hence, bridged queues and event based instant storage are proposed to cascade the cloud queue and local task queue and to decouple the dependency of database access during task processing. Furthermore, an implementation based on the approach of bridged queues and event based instant storage is presented.


Introduction: Up to 50% of breast cancer (BC) survivors discontinue their adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) before the recommended 5 years, raising the issue of medication non-adherence. eHealth technologies have the potential to support patients to enhance their medication adherence and may offer an effective way to complement the healthcare. In order for eHealth technologies to be successfully implemented into the healthcare system, end-users need to be willing and accepting to use these eHealth technologies. Aim: This study aims to evaluate the current usability of eHealth technologiesin and to identify differences in BC SURVIVORS BC survivors accepting a medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology to support their AET to BC survivors that do not accept such a medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology. Methods: This study was conducted in 2020 including volunteering BC survivors belonging to the Seintinelles Association. Eligible participants were women, diagnosed with BC within the last 10 years, and been exposed to, an AET. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology acceptance profiles among BC survivors. The dependent variable was defined as acceptance of an electronic pillbox connected to a smartphone application (hereafter: medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology). Results: Overall, 23% of the participants already use a connected device or health application on a regular basis. The mean age of the participants was 52.7 (SD 10.4) years. In total, 67% of 1268 BC survivors who participated in the survey declared that they would accept a medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology to improve their AET. BC survivors accepting a medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology for their AET, are younger (OR = 0.97, 95% CI [0.95; 0.98]), do take medication for other diseases (OR = 0.31, 95% CI [0.13; 0.68]), already use a medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology or technique (OR = 1.74, 95% CI [1.06; 2.94]) and are willing to possess or currently possess one or more connected devices or health applications (OR = 2.89, 95% CI [2.01; 4.19]). Conclusion: Understanding acceptance profiles of BC survivors is fundamental for conceiving an effective eHealth technology enhancing AET among BC survivors. Hence, such profiling will foster the development of personalized medication adherence enhancing eHealth technology.


The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission is tasked with managing the largest industrial tuna fishery in the world. This includes a multi-nation fleet of 4-5,000 longline vessels fishing throughout (but not evenly distributed in) the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Interactions with sea turtles include incidental bycatch during longline operations, particularly when turtles actively take bait, or become entangled in the fishing gear. In the context of the concerns surrounding sea turtle conservation, and the extent of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission's longline fleets, the Commission has recognised mitigation measures may reduce sea turtle captures. The Commission has attempted to reduce sea turtle capture in the fisheries under its jurisdiction, through resolution RES2005-04 and conservation and management measure CMM2008-04. highlights longline vessels that fish for swordfish in a shallow-set manner as a particular potential risk to turtles. As part of the measure, Commission Members, Cooperating non-Members and participating Territories (CCMs) are required to establish their own operational definition of " longline vessels that fish for swordfish in a shallow-set manner ". This paper tables New Zealand's definition for longline vessels that fish for swordfish in a shallow-set manner. The paper also provides information on New Zealand's sea turtle interaction rates for these vessels.


Background and Aims: The frequency of benign stenosis in ulcerative colitis (UC) is low, reported as being 3.2–11.2%, with fibrosis in the submucosa or deeper pointed out as one of the causes. The aim of the present study was to assess stenosis in UC cases using immunostaining and to analyze differences between stenotic and nonstenotic cases, focusing on basic-fibroblast growth factor (b-FGF) expression and myofibroblasts. Methods: Totals of 9 stenotic and 17 nonstenotic UC cases were histopathologically examined and immunohistochemically stained for b-FGF, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), CD34, CD68 and IL-6. To identify b-FGF-positive cells, double immunostaining for b-FGF and myeloperoxidase or CD68 was performed. Results: In addition to submucosal fibrosis, a significant increase of b-FGF-positive inflammatory cells and myofibroblasts was observed in stenotic portions. Most b-FGF-positive cells were also positive for myeloperoxidase, and a correlation between b-FGF-positive and total neutrophil counts was found. Conclusions: One of the major causes of stenosis in long-standing UC is fibrosis in the bowel wall, possibly induced by infiltrating inflammatory neutrophils producing b-FGF.


We examine the relationship between wealth and health through prominent growth indicators and cognitive ability. Cognitive ability is represented by nutritional status. The proxy variable for nutritional status is BMI. We use the reduced form equation in the cubic specification of time preference rate, strongly related to cognitive ability, to estimate this relationship. The growth indicators utilized are GDP per capita, schooling, overall and manufacturing productivities, and savings. We estimate our models using the FE, GMM estimators, and long difference OLS and IV estimation through balanced panel data for the 1980-2009 period. We conclude that the relationship between all prominent growth indicators and BMI is inverse U-shaped. In other words, cognitive ability has a significant potential to progress growth and economic development only in a healthy status.


Data on 100 patients who had undergone resection for poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma of the stomach with serosal invasion were examined to assess the prognostic significance of the DNA distribution pattern in relation to the histologic tumor cell aggregation pattern. DNA distribution patterns were classified into low and high ploidies and tumor cell aggregation patterns were classified into free‐cell, small nest, and large nest types. The rates of high ploidy in the free‐cell, small nest, and large nest types were 23.1%, 48.0%, and 66.7%, respectively, with a significant increase according to the degree of aggregation. The high ploidy group and large nest type had a higher incidence of lymphogenous and hematogenous metastasis than the low ploidy group and free‐cell type, respectively. DNA ploidy had no prognostic value for the free‐cell type of tumor, but differences in prognosis and the incidence of metastasis between the DNA ploidies were evident in the nest‐forming type. Aneuploid tumors consisting of a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma were those with nest formation, from the standpoint of histologic structure and metastatic behavior. The DNA analysis of poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas was of prognostic value, especially in the nest‐forming type.


The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education is now central to facilitating links between learners, resources and instructors. Regardless of whether it is used in distance education or educational objects, ICT enables educators to package education opportunities in an increasing number of alternative ways so as best to meet the varying needs of the end user. Currently, one of the challenges that face instructors is to develop materials that enhance the learner-content interaction by reducing extraneous cognitive load while at the same time facilitating learning. This study explored the effectiveness of pictorial information and augmentation in instructions and educational objects. Dual coding theory is used to suggest that information that can be processed via separate but interconnected systems will facilitate faster processing and deeper learning of the information. University students were randomly assigned to six experimental conditions to perform a novel task using six different instruction manuals. A 3 (text, text-pictorial, text-pictorial-arrows) X 2 (picture of object vs. no picture of object) design was used to test whether augmenting text with pictorial information provided additional valuable information in instructional settings. Results partially support this multimedia effect; participants exhibited superior performance in a Text-Pictorial and Text-Pictorial-Arrows format over Text format. A picture of the object also facilitated superior performance on both the assembly and operating tasks, especially in a text format. Overall, combinations of text-pictorial and text-pictorial-arrows facilitated faster assembly and operation; they reduced errors, extra procedures, and unsuccessful assemblies (uncorrected errors). Results also support the idea that arrows convey unique types of information and function. In particular, arrows may attune people to important information and/or convey information movement that guides actions during tasks. Practical implications are discussed in relation to the type of information combinations that may lead to superior instructional design of instructional objects and research, including how to reduce errors of omission.


SUMMARY. A video received by faculty at North Carolina State University's Prestage Department of Poultry Science revealed a live parasite inside a chicken egg. The parasite was identified as an oviduct fluke (Prosthogonimus macrorchis), a trematode with a three-host life cycle: the primary host, a galliform bird, then an aquatic snail, and finally a dragonfly larva or adult consumed by the infected bird. The egg was from a "backyard flock" with access to a watercourse. No other instances of this parasite were seen in eggs from the flock. The presence of this parasite inside an egg suggests that the worms had migrated above the shell gland in the oviduct to be incorporated inside the egg. Currently, the occurrence of an oviduct fluke inside an egg in the United States is rare. Such parasites are not found in eggs from caged layers because those birds do not have access to watercourses. This case reinforces the view that parasites requiring intermediate hosts may become more common in birds reared under free-range conditions.


1. Three thresholds are demonstrated in the first segmental nerve and two (sometimes three) in the second and third segmental nerves together. 2. Slow potentials recorded from the ventral nerve cord consist of several peaks. The first peak is composed of three spikes which make their appearance at different thresholds. Transmission of at least some of the slow potentials is decremental. 3. Transmission speeds in the nerve cord and segmental nerves range from 0.4 to 0.6 m./sec. 4. Action potentials in the longitudinal muscle are recorded in response to slow potentials in the nerve cord. 5. Two slow reflexes, one involving elongation, the other longitudinal contraction, are described. The latter has the lower threshold with peripheral stimulation. 6. Slow activity in the nervous system is discussed in relation to reflex activity of the earthworm and the neurone anatomy of the nerve cord and segmental nerves.