Iron(II) complexes of a series of N-acylated dipyridin-2-ylmethylamine ligands (R-DPAH) have been investigated as catalysts for the cis-dihydroxylation of olefins to model the action of Rieske dioxygenases that catalyze arene cis-dihydroxylation. The Rieske dioxygenases have a mononuclear iron active site coordinated to a 2-histidine-1-carboxylate facial triad motif. The R-DPAH ligands are designed to provide a facial N,N,O-ligand set that mimics the enzyme active site. The iron(II) complexes of the R-DPAH ligands activate H(2)O(2) to effect the oxidation of olefin substrates into cis-diol products. As much as 90% of the H(2)O(2) oxidant is converted into cis-diol, but a large excess of olefin is required to achieve the high conversion efficiency. Reactivity and mechanistic comparisons with the previously characterized Fe(TPA)/H(2)O(2) catalyst/oxidant combination (TPA = tris(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)amine) lead us to postulate an Fe(II)/Fe(IV) redox cycle for the Fe(R-DPAH) catalysts in which an Fe(IV)(OH)(2) oxidant carries out the cis-hydroxylation of olefins. This hypothesis is supported by three sets of observations: (a) the absence of a lag phase in the conversion of the H(2)O(2) oxidant into a cis-diol product, thereby excluding the prior oxidation of the Fe(II) catalyst to an Fe(III) derivative as established for the Fe(TPA) catalyst; (b) the incorporation of H(2)(18)O into the cis-diol product, thereby requiring O-O bond cleavage to occur prior to cis-diol formation; and (c) the formation of cis-diol as the major product of cyclohexene oxidation, rather than the epoxide or allylic alcohol products more commonly observed in metal-catalyzed oxidations of cyclohexene, implicating an oxidant less prone to oxo transfer or H-atom abstraction.


Fireworks are a very popular promotion for Minor League Baseball teams. In recent years, fireworks displays have moved beyond holidays to a frequent staple on promotional schedules throughout the baseball season. With increased frequency, the possibility exists that the market for fireworks may become saturated. This paper examines the 2011 season for AAA and AA baseball and finds, controlling for other factors influencing attendance, that increased usage of fireworks does not generate overly detrimental effects in terms of its marginal impact on attendance. Fans appear to continue to enjoy fireworks throughout the season, without growing tired of seeing this post-game promotion.


It is well documented that raising a child with an intellectual disability negatively affects the mental health and marital relationships of the parents as they encounter additional social, psychological, financial, and physical burdens. But little is known about the phenomena from the context of Bangladesh. This study aimed to investigate the effect of having a child with an intellectual disability on marital satisfaction and the mental wellbeing of the parents. It assessed the depression and marital satisfaction of randomly selected 60 parents (both father and mother) having a child with an intellectual disability and compared with the same number of parents without a child of intellectual disability. It used an improvised Bangla version of the beck depression inventory (BDI-II) and a relationship assessment scale (RAS) to measure the severity of depression and the level of marital satisfaction among the participants. Most of the parents of children with intellectual disabilities suffer from moderate depression. Meanwhile, most of the parents of children without intellectual disabilities suffer from mild mood disturbance. Parents of children with intellectual disabilities suffer from a higher level of depression and have a higher level of marital satisfaction compared to the parents of children without intellectual disabilities in Bangladesh.


Welcome! This guide has information and resources to help with your research for the Bachelor of Business Administration - Hospitality program.


A full account is given of the relatively new astronomical technique of multiobject spectroscopy with optical fibre lightguides. The thesis begins with a survey of the number densities of a wide range of astronomical object classes, and, after comparing the merits of the various techniques for multiobject spectroscopy, shows (by defining the "effective aperture" of a multiple fibre coupled telescope) that the multi -fibre technique is very wellsuited to the real distribution of celestial objects. A review of the properties of optical fibres is given, together with an exposition of the important considerations in the design of fibre feeds for astronomy. This is followed by a description of the requirements in the design of telescopes, spectrographs and detectors to render them suitable for the multi -fibre technique. Equations are derived for the performance of these systems in terms of signal -to -noise ratio, and an example is given. A survey of the equipment that has been built for multi -fibre spectroscopy at observatories throughout the world is presented, and special attention is paid to the FOCAP fibre system at the 3.9 -metre AngloAustralian telescope. The thesis gives an example of the use of FOCAP in work carried out by the writer to investigate the kinematics of RR Lyrae variables in the nuclear bulge of the Galaxy. Evidence is found in the preliminary results for the existence of non -circular motions along the galactic centre line -ofsight. A description is then given of the FLAIR wide -field fibre -coupled multiobject spectroscopy system built by the writer for the 1.2 -metre UK Schmidt Telescope. Reports are presented on a series of observational programmes designed to test the system, including the classification of stars in the Chamaeleon dark cloud, spectroscopy of Orion cluster flare stars, spectroscopy of objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the measurement of galaxy redshifts, and the observation of quasar candidates. An experiment in time -resolved multiobject photometry is also described. It is shown that for spectroscopy, the prototype system will perform well on stellar targets to V "16 -17, but, although galaxy redshifts have been obtained, its usefulness for the systematic measurement of redshifts is hampered by its low sensitivity in the blue region of the spectrum. An account is then given of the relatively simple steps needed to rectify this, together with a brief description of a proposed, fullyoptimised FLAIR system. Finally, the future prospects for multi -fibre astronomical spectroscopy are briefly reviewed, from the point of view of the new instrumentation becoming available, and the astronomical results that will be produced.


The study of communicative strategies and communicative tactics are in central attention in modern linguistics. The article is devoted to the study of communicative strategies that are encountered in travel blogs. The main purpose of the article is to analyze communicative strategies applied in English language tourism blogs. Empirical materials are taken from "BBC Travel", "Two monkeystravel" blogs, which are considered as the best travel blogs according to 2019 and to show that the strategies aligned with travel blogs can definitely assist tourism destinations competitively. The theoretical and practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the results will not only expand the study of the problem of "communicative strategies and tactics," but will be useful as recommendations for creating tourist promotional materials aimed at tourists. Travel blogs as an integral part of media communication play a significant role through interacting directly with addressees via different internet platforms to promote tourism destinations using persuasive communication strategies and tactics. Reacting to visitor's opinions and satisfying their demands are also peculiar to travel blogs.


Proteins are the core machinery in any living organism. Understanding their structure means understanding their function and the mechanism with which they carry out this function. In many diseases, the structure of a protein is altered through amino acid exchange usually as a result of mutations in the encoding DNA. The changes in the structure in turn alter the functions and mechanisms in proteins. Being able to understand these changes on an atomic level, offers the opportunity to design drugs to manipulate, regulate and control these proteins with the aim to reduce or even eliminate the effects they cause on an organism. X-ray crystallography, besides cryo-EM and NMR, is one of the methods with which a protein's structure can be revealed to atomic level. Synchrotron facilities such as Diamond have made great investments over the last decade to push for automation and high-throughput. On the other hand, the large data amounts produced as a result, require a new thinking of how to automate data analysis in turn. As a proof-of-principal work, a machine learning (ML) based decision maker has been implemented into the automated data analysis pipelines at Diamond. The aim is, to explore ML based applications for decision making in the data analysis process to change the current threshold-based, brute-force system to one that offers more flexibility. This in turn will reduce the number of executed jobs but does not diminish the success rate and makes more efficient use of the limited, shared compute resources.


Computation of contact points is a critical sub-component of physics-based animation. The success and correctness of simulation results are very sensitive to the quality of the contact points. Hence, quality plays a critical role when comparing methods, and this is highly relevant for simulating objects with sharp edges. The importance of contact point quality is largely overlooked and lacks rigor and as such may become a bottleneck in moving the research field forward. We establish a taxonomy of contact point generation methods and lay down an analysis of what normal contact quality implies. The analysis enables us to establish a novel methodology for assessing and studying quality for mesh-based shapes. The core idea is based on a test suite of three complex cases and a small portfolio of simple cases. We apply our methodology to eight local contact point generation methods and conclude that the selected local methods are unable to provide correct information in all cases. The immediate benefit of the proposed methodology is a foundation for others to evaluate and select the best local method for their specific application. In the longer perspective, the presented work suggests future research focusing on semi-local methods.


In the following essay I argue that psychological continuity provides the most suitable account of a person's persistence. This is in accordance with Derek Parfit's claim that what's important in cases of survival is not personal identity, but psychological continuity. The essay focuses on a criticism raised by Marya Schechtman. She argues that Parfit's account doesn't sufficiently distinguish between the metaphysical and practical concerns of a person's persistence, which she takes to create significant problems. I respond to her criticisms to show that these problems are not as significant as she claims, and that by attempting to address them, her own view suffers. The difficulty with her view results from too broad a concept of personhood. This is the result of confusing the causal with the constitutive features of personhood. Once these features are distinguished, we can see why psychological continuity provides a better account of a person's persistence.


The Future of Architecture Since 1889 is the definitive history of this extraordinary period. Author Jean-Louis Cohen, one of the world's leading architectural historians, has written a wide-ranging and compelling account of the developments that have shaped the world we live in today.Covering the entire twentieth century and beyond, from the Paris Universal Explosition of 1889 to the early twenty-first century's globalized architecture culture, this book contains not only hundreds of drawings and photographs, but also publications, portraits, diagrams, film stills and more, placing the radical developments in architecture in this period in a larger context, which includes art, technology, urbanism and critical theory. Global in scope, both comprehensive and incisive, The Future of Architecture Since 1889 is sure to become a canonical text.


Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent complex neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in reciprocal social interactions, abnormal development and use of language, and monotonously repetitive behaviors. With an estimated heritability of more than 90%, it is the most strongly genetically influenced psychiatric disorder of the young age. In spite of the complexity of this disorder, there has recently been much progress in the research on etiology, early diagnosing, and therapy of autism. Besides already advanced neuropathologic research, several new technological innovations, such as sleep functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (1H-MRS) divulged promising breakthroughs in exploring subtle morphological and neurochemical changes in the autistic brain. This review provides a comprehensive summary of morphological and neurochemical alterations in autism known to date, as well as a short introduction to the functional research that has begun to advance in the last decade. Finally, we mention the progress in establishing new standardized diagnostic measures and its importance in early recognition and treatment of ASD.


INTRODUCTION
This study was designed to determine the influence of bariatric surgery on changes in the body mass index (BMI), and the control of diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidaemia among obese patients in Malaysia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This was a retrospective cohort study undertaken at a public tertiary care centre in the state of Perak, Malaysia. Information of obese patients who underwent bariatric surgery was obtained from their medical records. The changes in the BMI, HbA1C, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), and lipid levels between three months before and after the surgery were assessed.

RESULTS
The patients (n=106) were mostly Malay (66.0%), had at least one comorbidity (61.3%), and had a mean age of 40.38±11.75 years. Following surgery, the BMI of the patients was found to reduce by 9.78±5.82kg/m2. For the patients who had diabetes (n=24) and hypertension (n=47), their mean HbA1C, SBP and DBP were also shown to reduce significantly by 2.02±2.13%, 17.19±16.97mmHg, and 11.45±12.63mmHg, respectively. Meanwhile, the mean total cholesterol, triglyceride and low-density lipoprotein levels of those who had dyslipidaemia (n=21) were, respectively, lowered by 0.91±1.18mmol/L, 0.69±1.11mmol/L and 0.47±0.52mmol/L.

CONCLUSION
The findings suggest that in addition to weight reduction, bariatric surgery is helpful in improving the diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidaemia control among obese patients. However, a large-scale trial with a control group is required to verify our findings.


Three-dimensional integrated circuits (3-D ICs), i.e., stacked dies, can alleviate the interconnect problem coming with the decreasing feature size and increasing integration density, and promise a solution to heterogenous integration. The vertical connection, which is generally implemented by the through-the-silicon via, is a key technology for 3-D ICs. In this paper, given 3-D circuit placement or floorplan results with white space reserved between blocks for inter-layer interconnections, we proposed methods for assigning inter-layer signal via locations. Introducing a grid structure on the chip, the inter-layer via assignment of two-layer chips can be optimally solved by a convex-cost max-flow formulation with signal via congestion optimized. As for 3-D ICs with three or more layers, the inter-layer signal via assignment is modeled as an integral min-cost multi-commodity flow problem, which is solved by a heuristic method based on the lagrangian relaxation. Relaxing the capacity constraints in the grids, we transfer the min-cost multi-commodity flow problem to a sequence of lagrangian sub-problems, which are solved by finding a sequence of shortest paths. The complexity of solving a lagrangian sub-problem is $O(n_{nt}n_g^2)$, where nnt is the number of nets and ng is the number of grids on one chip layer. The experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the method.


As the pace of modern battle has increased, headquarters and Electronic Warfare (EW) staff need to process increasing volumes of information in a decreasing amount of time. Assistance in this critical task is proposed by developing the Electronic Warfare Intelligent Information System (EWIIS) that deals with processing of electronic warfare, communications, radar, maps, war missions ... etc. This system is aimed at achieving the best performance with a friendly system in spite of the existence of hostile actions. EWIIS deals with different sources of data. It helps visualize mission scenarios and suggests the best combination of weapons to successfully complete the mission with minimum loss.


In this paper, we consider the problem of steering complex dynamical systems among equilibria in their state space in efficient ways. Efficiency is considered as the possibility of compactly representing the (typically very large, or infinite) set of reachable equilibria and quickly computing plans to move among them. To this purpose, we consider the possibility of building lattice structures by purposefully introducing quantization of inputs. We consider different ways in which control actions can be encoded in a finite or numerable set of symbols, review different applications where symbolic encoding of control actions can be employed with success, and provide a unified framework in which to study the many different possible manifestations of the idea.


This thesis explores the implications of nation-state cyberwarfare and cyber conflict in the context of geopolitics and international studies. The emergence of nation-state cyber conflict has increased in frequency and severity in the last decade. In order to investigate what renders cyberwarfare a new and unique challenge to specific geopolitical climates and international systems at large, research on state-level cyber conflict within bilateral relationships—all of which cyber activity is significantly prevalent—is presented in the following three case studies: USChina, US-Iran, and US-Russia. Findings of these three case studies are used in subsequent analysis to articulate the specific ways in which state cyber conflict differs from conventional state kinetic warfare. Finally, after characterizing cyber conflict and the new challenges it presents to geopolitics, these defining qualities are situated into the current debate surrounding the deterioration of the liberal international order. I conclude that nation-state cyberwarfare exploits the postwar interconnected transparency of liberalism, and fundamentally challenges the continuity of US hegemony and the liberal order.


Using the finite-difference time-domain method, we model the propagation of spatial optical solitons having two orthogonal electric field vector components, and the scattering of such solitons by compact subwavelength air holes (i.e., abrupt dielectric discontinuities in the direct paths of the solitons). Our propagation and scattering studies assume a realistic glass characterized by a three-pole Sellmeier linear dispersion, an instantaneous Kerr nonlinearity, and a dispersive Raman nonlinearity. An unexpected spatial soliton scattering phenomenon is observed: the coalescence of the scattered electromagnetic field into a propagating lower-energy spatial soliton at a point many tens of wavelengths beyond the scattering air hole. Overall, our computational technique is general, and should permit future investigations and design of devices exploiting spatial soliton interactions in background media having submicrometer air holes and dielectric and metal inclusions.


This article discusses the notion of "digital literacy", which is the subject of a significant number of scientific publications. The goal of this study is to develop a theoretical model that would summarise the numerous practices and theoretical approaches regarding digital literacy. It provides international and domestic Internet usage statistics obtained by various research organisations. The study demonstrates the existence of problems in how the concept of digital literacy is transforming. This is caused by sociocultural changes, which are based on scientific and technological progress, and the emergence of a large number of "partial literacies" that are closely related to each other. The ideas of Albert Boekhorst are further developed, with paticular attention to notions related to the digital literacy concept (computer literacy, Internet literacy, media and information literacy, etc.). The author presents a new theoretical model named "The Digital Literacy Four-Component Model" that constitutes a synthesis of current approaches to the understanding of digital literacy within the conditional semantic space of two constructs: firstly, the "technical and socio-humanitarian" and, secondly, "opportunities and threats". Four components of the field of theoretical approaches and practices relating to digital literacy are located in these two semantic constructs. The first one is "Technical and pragmatic opportunities", which is a utilitarian, pragmatic tool empowering human development in the digital environment. The second is a "Meaningful and communicative opportunities", and considers mediatised communication, advanced features for creating and receiving media texts from other participants of communication processes, their perception and interpretation. The third component is "Technical and technological threats" it emphasises safety devices used and software. The final component is "Sociopsychological threats".and examines the social, psychological and ethical aspects of work in the digital environment that creates danger, including Internet addiction and cyberbullying. On the basis of the above Digital Literacy Four-Component Model, researchers may measure literacy levels or monitor its current state in Russia.


Lentivirus-based vectors have been used for the development of potent gene therapies. Here, application of a multigenic lentiviral vector (LV) producing multiple anti-angiogenic microRNAs following subretinal delivery in a laser-induced choroidal neovascularization (CNV) mouse model is presented. This versatile LV, carrying back-to-back RNApolII-driven expression cassettes, enables combined expression of microRNAs targeting vascular endothelial growth factor A (Vegfa) mRNA and fluorescent reporters. In addition, by including a vitelliform macular dystrophy 2 (VMD2) promoter, expression of microRNAs is restricted to the retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. Six days post injection (PI), robust and widespread fluorescent signals of eGFP are already observed in the retina by funduscopy. The eGFP expression peaks at day 21 PI and persists with stable expression for at least 9 months. In parallel, prominent AsRED co-expression, encoded from the VMD2-driven microRNA expression cassette, is evident in retinal sections and flat-mounts, revealing RPE-specific expression of microRNAs. Furthermore, LV-delivered microRNAs targeting the Vegfa gene in RPE cells reduced the size of laser-induced CNV in mice 28 days PI, as a consequence of diminished VEGF levels, suggesting that LVs delivered locally are powerful tools in the development of gene therapy-based strategies for treatment of age-related macular degeneration.


In 1994 Rene de Groot and Steven Bartels published an article in Ars Aequi, a Dutch, completely student run journal, about the future of property law in the European Union. The Treaty of Maastricht had just entered into force and a new era in the European integration process was about to begin. Before any of the challenges brought with EU enlargement in 2004, the financial crisis from 2007 onwards, or the migration crisis in 2015, De Groot and Bartels devoted their attention to a thought experiment: what could the role of property law be in the European Union? Their answers are, looking at it from a 2016 perspective, very accurate, both in terms of developments and their predictions what action would be needed for these to come about.In their contribution De Groot and Bartels focus on security rights, use rights and rules of third party protection (also known as the bona fide purchaser). The main core of their argument is that because property law systems are divergent, comparative research is needed before the European Union can take appropriate action. This statement holds true today and each of these themes deserves attention in the 2016 context, before I return to the main argument on the need for comparative research.


The production of titanium parts from powder metallurgy is one of the tendencies of modern metallurgy, since it allows obtaining structures with complex geometries and controlled porosity. The purpose of this study was to produce two types of dental implant prototype, and compare them biologically. Smooth surface prototypes were obtained, by the conventional turning process and porous surface prototypes using Metal Injection Molding (MIM). The prototypes were implanted in rats that were euthanized after 3 weeks, and the bone/implant interface was analyzed. The results showed that all prototypes were clinically stable at the end of the healing period, but those produced by the MIM process presented a significantly higher percentage of osseointegration (bone/implant contact) than the milled prototypes in the same healing period. It is concluded that the bone tissue grew independent of type of implant, enabling quick, rigid fixation already in the third week of the healing process.


Eighty-one patients were treated for injuries to the main vessels. They underwent operations at the Novgorod Regional Hospital and in surgical departments of the Novgorod Region. The injuries of the vessels were open in 90.1% and closed in 9.9% of patients. Among 125 reconstructive operations good results with restoration of arterial and venous blood flow and maintained function of the limb were produced in 67.9% and satisfactory results in 9.9% of patients. Amputation of the limb was carried out in 13 patients (16.0%). Mortality was 7.4% (six patients). The authors emphasize that early admission of patients to the hospital and the therapeutic tactics in a vascular trauma guarantee preservation of the injured limb, restoration of its function, and save the patient's life.


Keynote paper presented at the International Leucaena Conference, 1‒3 November 2018, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.The impacts of leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala) feeding systems on cattle production, environmental services and animal welfare in Mexico are discussed. A total of about 12,000 ha of leucaena have been established in the tropical regions of México, where most of the information for the current review was obtained. Incorporating leucaena in a grass pasture increases dry matter intake of grazing cattle and reduces the level of methane produced. This results in improved liveweight gains and milk yields as well as a reduction in the level of greenhouse gas released. Additional benefits are increases in soil carbon and nitrogen levels and less stress on animals as the leucaena plants provide shade and reduce environmental temperatures. While these benefits are substantial, the area developed to leucaena represents less than 0.1% of the area which could potentially be developed. Strategies to increase adoption of these grass-legume systems by farmers need to be developed to make effective use of the systems for increasing beef and milk production while reducing the undesirable environmental outcomes normally associated with ruminant production.


Background: Evaluators are often called to be flexible in response to changing programmatic and contextual circumstances. However, the field offers little guidance around issues to consider before modifying an in-progress evaluation.
Purpose: This article describes the evaluation of an organization that underwent significant mid-evaluation changes, with a focus on factors that went into the evaluator's recommendations about whether to modify evaluation design and instrumentation.
Setting: Community collaborative in Wake County, North Carolina
Intervention: NA
Research Design: NA
Data Collection and Analysis: The evaluator noted factors that went in to decisions about modifying evaluation design and instrumentation.
Findings: Issues around validity and sustainability push evaluators to update our evaluation designs to keep pace with changes, whereas issues around continuity and accountability pull us to back to the current course.


The commonly used value of the intrinsic carrier density of crystalline silicon at 300 K is ni=1.00×1010 cm−3. It was experimentally determined by Sproul and Green, J. Appl. Phys. 70, 846 (1991), using specially designed solar cells. In this article, we demonstrate that the Sproul and Green experiment was influenced by band-gap narrowing, even though the dopant density of their samples was low (1014 to 1016 cm−3). We reinterpret their measurements by numerical simulations with a random-phase approximation model for band-gap narrowing, thereby obtaining ni=9.65×109 cm−3 at 300 K. This value is consistent with results obtained by Misiakos and Tsamakis, J. Appl. Phys. 74, 3293 (1993), using capacitance measurements. In this way, long-prevailing inconsistencies between independent measurement techniques for the determination of ni are resolved.


A series of experimental and quasi-experimental research were conducted to investigate gender differences and differences across levels of skill amongst elite dart players.
Experiments 1 and 1a employed an identical experimental setting and were designed to investigate gender differences in target throwing accuracy and attitudes towards target throwing among undergraduate students and elite dart players. A further aim was to investigate differences between level of skill for the elite players. Results showed an overall significant superiority for men in target throwing accuracy, moreover, analyses of questionnaire data found significant gender differences in attitudes towards target throwing.
Experiment 2 examined whether gender differences in target throwing accuracy may be eliminated if elite dart players undertook the same target throwing task as in Experiment 1 a using their non-preferred hand. The results of Experiment 2 showed that when using their non-preferred hand gender differences in target throwing accuracy were eliminated.
In Study 1 data from the same elite dart players employed in Experiments 1 a and 2 were correlated with archival data, in the form of single dart averages, taken from a 'real world' dart playing environment. A strong relationship was found between the two dependent measures for the men's data whereas results for women, although in the same direction, did not reach statistical significance.
Using single dart averages as the dependent measure, Study 2 investigated the extent of gender differences across three levels of skill. Results showed that the extent of gender differences was far-reaching with data from the lowest skill level of men players 8 being significantly superior to that of the highest skill level for women players. There were also uniformly predictable significant within gender differences for men across levels of skill but, interestingly, this was not the case for women.
Study 3 explored whether physical and experiential factors, namely, height, arm length and career span may have an impact on the significant gender differences found in dart playing performance. Analysis of the data found that even when physical and experiential factors were controlled for there were still significant gender differences in dart playing performance.
By way of an ex-post facto research approach Study 4 employed a semi-structured interview technique, similar to that used by Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer (1993), the aim of which was to investigate the development of elite dart players representing two levels of skill. The results revealed no significant differences on demographic variables namely, age, starting age and career span. Variables related to particular dart playing activities were also investigated. In brief, results showed evidence to suggest that deliberate practice could account for differences in performance across levels of skill but not for the superiority of men over women.
Implications of these findings and suggestions for follow up research are discussed.


Background and Aims: The number of new cancer cases with considerable mortality is increasing worldwide. Since the inability of current therapies in treatment of patients and prevention the progress of tumors with fewer side effects, implementation of new methods is needed. Gene therapy has widespread systemic cytotoxic effects against tumor cells. Rotavirus NSP4 has been shown to elicit extensive cytotoxic activities in transfected or infected cells. In this study, the biological cytotoxic effect of NSP4 rotavirus protein was investigation on TC-1 tumor cell integrity. Materials and Methods: NSP4 gene of rotavirus was cloned into the pCDH plasmid and then TC-1 tumor cells were transfected with plasmids. After reviewing the presence of this protein by SDS-PAGE and confirming NSP4 expression by western blotting using antiNSP4 antibody, the cytotoxic effect of NSP4 expression in TC-1 tumor cells was measured by the MTT assay. Results: Significant differences were observed in the cell viability between the control groups and the group of cells that received NSP4 gene. Conclusion: Rotavirus NSP4 gene posses specific cell cytotoxicity and is potentially effective in tumor destruction.


The Multi-Grid detector technology has evolved from the proof-of-principle and characterisation stages. Here we report on the performance of the Multi-Grid detector, the MG.CNCS prototype, which has been installed and tested at the Cold Neutron Chopper Spectrometer, CNCS at SNS. This has allowed a side-by-side comparison to the performance of 3He detectors on an operational instrument. The demonstrator has an active area of 0.2 m2. It is specifically tailored to the specifications of CNCS. The detector was installed in June 2016 and has operated since then, collecting neutron scattering data in parallel to the He-3 detectors of CNCS. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of this data, in particular on instrument energy resolution, rate capability, background and relative efficiency. Stability, gamma-ray and fast neutron sensitivity have also been investigated. The effect of scattering in the detector components has been measured and provides input to comparison for Monte Carlo simulations. All data is presented in comparison to that measured by the 3He detectors simultaneously, showing that all features recorded by one detector are also recorded by the other. The energy resolution matches closely. We find that the Multi-Grid is able to match the data collected by 3He, and see an indication of a considerable advantage in the count rate capability. Based on these results, we are confident that the Multi-Grid detector will be capable of producing high quality scientific data on chopper spectrometers utilising the unprecedented neutron flux of the ESS.


This paper studies the role of faces in animal life to gain insight into Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, especially his later ontology. The relation between animal faces and moving, animal bodies involves a peculiar, expressive logic. This logic echoes the physiognomic structure of perception that Merleau-Ponty detects in his earlier philosophy, and exemplifies and clarifies a logic elemental to his later ontology, especially to his concept of an invisible that is of (endogenous to) the visible. The question why the logic of the face can manifest this analogy or homology with the logic of perception and ontology is treated through a study of embryology, which suggests that the logic of the face ramifies a deeper logic of being. Methodologically, the face is taken as something like a lens into the onto-logic of being. This lens suggests that what underlies Merleau-Ponty's later ontology is a logic of animality.


The purpose of this thesis is to identify the Components of International Social Cataloging Sites in users and expert's perspective by exploring the wourlds most visited populer social cataloging sites.This is an applied research and the research method is library and descriptive scrolling. First, by reviewing the scientific literature and resources, a list consists of 14 criteria (display features, screen organization, search facilities, links, options and visual icons, text customization, user help and guidance, error messages , The possibility of interaction and feedback, user interface language, user control, template types (format), resources available on the site, the possibility of studying the source retrieved from the site, and other facilities), which included 73 extracted components, then finalized in Delphi and evaluated was used. The results of this study showed that all of the components examined in this study are important. The ability to provide regular advice to readers with an average of 4.52 has the highest significance from the perspective of users and experts, and then, the access to the site and the rest of the main sectors from the homepage and vice versa is at the second rank with a score of 4.42.


Neural machine translation (NMT) has recently become popular in the field of machine translation. However, NMT suffers from the problem of repeating or missing words in the translation. To address this problem, Tu et al. (2017) proposed an encoder-decoder-reconstructor framework for NMT using back-translation. In this method, they selected the best forward translation model in the same manner as Bahdanau et al. (2015), and then trained a bi-directional translation model as fine-tuning. Their experiments show that it offers significant improvement in BLEU scores in Chinese-English translation task. We confirm that our re-implementation also shows the same tendency and alleviates the problem of repeating and missing words in the translation on a English-Japanese task too. In addition, we evaluate the effectiveness of pre-training by comparing it with a jointly-trained model of forward translation and back-translation.


The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the complex phenomenon of tax effects in value and profitability analyses. The aim is to examine, describe and evaluate where and how taxes and relevant (for value) tax effects should be considered in value and profitability analysis based on discounted cash flow. This report deals with important and complicated issues: - How should taxes be treated when dealing with value and profitability analysis of the past, today and the future? - How do we incorporate effects from taxes into the framework of value and profitability analysis from a Value Based Management perspective? How to properly deal with tax effects in value and profitability analysis is a difficult question. In some companies, the general opinion is that by neglecting tax effects, they are "being careful" - that they take a conservative approach. But, on the contrary, the problem is just being accelerated, which should come as no surprise. The calculation's value is often "out of control", but without the companies knowledge of it. Whatever situation and whatever the aim of an analysis might be, it is important though to be aware of the general problems when dealing with taxes in value and profitability analysis. This report will therefore not cover the entire issue. However, it raises some important issues and presents some potential solutions. A matrix has been developed for pedagogic reasons, the Tax/WACC matrix, displaying all possible and available combinations of tax treatment. By making your choices, you specify your preferred formula for calculating WACC, the outline in the cash flow.


Glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcements are a viable replacement for corroding steel rebars. GFRP rebar tension lap splices combined with ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) can improve the efficiency of materials and construction in bridge deck construction joints. This thesis investigates the bond performance of high modulus (HM) GFRP rebar splices using UHPC. UHPC slab/beams of 100 -170 MPa concrete having 150 - 300 mm tension splices were tested along with several beams constructed from prefabricated high strength concrete sections with central GFRP spliced UHPC joints. Theoretical analysis was also conducted to evaluate critical splice lengths. Based on comparisons with code design values, recommendations are made on potential failure modes and minimum splice lengths. The serviceability, fatigue, and environmental performance of GFRP in UHPC are also considered. Recommendations from this research will improve the safety and efficiency of GFRP tension lap joints used in bridge decks and other construction


Purpose – Given the immense gains in productivity in agriculture and mining over the last decades, the purpose of this paper is to study knowledge transfer from Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) into primary sector producers. The authors inquire which of these RTOs are successfully competing for public funding, and how these funds are used. Also, the authors study what makes an RTO more (financially) successful in technology transfer than their peers and which RTOs transferred technology that was new to the Russian market. Design/methodology/approach – This research is based on 62 RTOs which reported technology transfer to enterprises with main economic activities classified by NACE rev 1 as "A – agriculture, hunting and forestry" and "B – fishing" and "C – mining and quarrying," including oil and gas extraction. Findings – The authors found remarkable differences between the Russian RTOs and their OECD peers, but also differences between agriculture and mining. Interestingly, competitive funding plays a different role in both industries. In agriculture, a more conservative funding paradigm prevails, and competitive funding is less important and more reliance on classical annually revolving funds is given. Competitive funding here is more used to strengthen basic R&D and to generate patentable knowledge, while in mining, these funds support technology transfer. Originality/value – This is, to the knowledge, the first detailed study on Russian RTOs servicing her primary sector. The authors believe that studying these RTOs is of great value as RTOs are broadly under-researched and various scholars have called for more fine-grained analyses to better understand their role in the innovation system.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Functional MR imaging (fMRI) is used to determine preoperatively the laterality of cortical language representation along with the relationship of language areas to adjacent brain tumors. The purpose of this study was to determine whether changing the statistical threshold for different language tasks influences the language laterality index (LI) for a group of controls, patients with tumor without prior surgery, and patients with tumor and prior surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seven controls, 9 patients with tumor without prior surgery, and 4 patients with tumor and prior surgery performed verb-generation, phonemic fluency, and semantic fluency language tasks during fMRI. Interhemispheric activation differences between the left and right Broca regions of interest were determined by calculating language LIs. LIs were compared within each group, between groups, and between language tasks. Intraoperative electrocortical mapping or the presence of aphasia during postoperative neurology examinations or both were used as ground truth. RESULTS: The language LI varied as a result of statistical thresholding, presence of tumor, prior surgery, and language task. Although patients and controls followed a similar shape in the LI curve, there was no optimal P value for determining the LI. Three patients demonstrated a shift in the LI between hemispheres as a function of statistical threshold. Verb generation was the least variable task both between tasks and across groups. CONCLUSION: For preoperative patients with tumor, the LI should be examined across a spectrum of P values and a range of tasks to ensure reliability. Our data suggest that the LI may be threshold- and task-dependent, particularly in the presence of adjacent tumor.


The interaction between visco-elasto-plastic and adhesive particles is the subject of this study, where "meso-particles" are introduced, i.e., simplified particles, whose contact mechanics is not taken into account in all details. A few examples of meso-particles include agglomerates or groups of primary particles, or inhomogeneous particles with micro-structures of the scale of the contact deformation, such as core-shell materials. A simple, flexible contact model for meso-particles is proposed, which allows to model the bulk behavior of assemblies of many particles in both rapid and slow, quasi-static flow situations. An attempt is made to categorize existing contact models for the normal force, discuss all the essential mechanical ingredients that must enter the model (qualitatively) and finally solve it analytically. The model combines a short-ranged, non-contact part (resembling either dry or wet materials) with an elaborate, visco-elasto-plastic and adhesive contact law. Using energy conservation arguments, an analytical expression for the coefficient of restitution is derived in terms of the impact velocity (for pair interactions or, equivalently, without loss of generality, for quasi-static situations in terms of the maximum overlap or confining stress). Adhesive particles (or meso-particles) stick to each other at very low impact velocity, while they rebound less dissipatively with increasing velocity, in agreement with previous studies. For even higher impact velocities an interesting second sticking and rebound regime is reported. The low velocity sticking is due to non-contact adhesive forces, the first rebound regime is due to stronger elastic and kinetic energies with little dissipation, while the high velocity sticking is generated by the non-linearly increasing, history dependent plastic dissipation and adhesive contact force.


During the autumn, the third-instar larvae of the gall fly Eurosta solidaginis acquire freeze tolerance and their crystallization temperatures increase into the -8 to -10 °C range. Despite conflicting reports, efficient endogenous ice nucleators have not been identified in this freeze-tolerant insect. We found large crystalloid spheres within the Malpighian tubules of overwintering larvae. Energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis and infrared spectroscopy indicated that the spherules were a hydrate of tribasic calcium phosphate. To test for ice-nucleating activity, we placed the calcium phosphate spherules in 10 µl of Schneider's insect medium and cooled them in a refrigerated bath. The addition of spherules increased the crystallization temperature of Schneider's medium by approximately 8 C, from -18.4±0.8 °C to -10.1±0.9 °C (mean ± s.e.m., N=20). Ice-nucleating activity (-10.9±0.9 °C) was also demonstrated in fat body cells suspended in 10 µl of Schneider's medium. Both calcium phosphate spherules and fat body cells have ice-nucleating activity sufficiently high to explain whole-body crystallization temperatures. Furthermore, other crystalloid deposits, commonly found in diapausing or overwintering insects, also exhibited significant ice-nucleating activity. These endogenous crystalloid deposits represent a new class of heterogeneous ice nucleators that potentially regulate supercooling and promote freeze tolerance in E. solidaginis and possibly in other overwintering insects.


Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are widely employed in modern computer vision algorithms, where the input image is convolved iteratively by many kernels to extract the knowledge behind it. However, with the depth of convolutional layers getting deeper and deeper in recent years, the enormous computational complexity makes it difficult to be deployed on embedded systems with limited hardware resources. In this paper, we propose two computation-performance optimization methods to reduce the redundant convolution kernels of a CNN with performance and architecture constraints, and apply it to a network for super resolution (SR). Using PSNR drop compared to the original network as the performance criterion, our method can get the optimal PSNR under a certain computation budget constraint. On the other hand, our method is also capable of minimizing the computation required under a given PSNR drop.


The effects of charged solar particles hitting the Earth's magnetosphere are often harmful and can be dangerous to the human organism. The aim of this study was to analyze the associations of geomagnetic storms (GSs) and other space weather events (solar proton events (SPEs), solar flares (SFs), high-speed solar wind (HSSW), interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and stream interaction regions (SIRs)) with morbidity from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and mortality from ischemic heart diseases (IHDs) during the period 2000–2015 in Kaunas (Lithuania). In 2000–2015, 12,330 AMI events (men/women n = 6942/5388) and 3742 deaths from IHD (men/women n = 2480/1262) were registered. The results showed that a higher risk of AMI and deaths from IHD were related to the period of 3 days before GS—a day after GS, and a stronger effect was observed during the spring–autumn period. The strongest effect of HSSW was observed on the day of the event. We found significant associations between the risk of AMI and death from IHD and the occurrence of SFs during GSs. We also found a statistically significant increase in rate ratios (RRs) for all AMIs and deaths from IHD between the second and fourth days of the period of ICMEs.


ABSTRACT Background Dissatisfaction with the inflexibility of the group home model has led to the growth of supported living that separates housing from support and is thought to have greater potential for better quality of life outcomes. Comparative studies have had mixed findings with some showing few differences, other than greater choice in supported living. By investigating service user experiences of supported living this study aimed to identify how the potential of supported living might be better realised. Method Thirty-four people with intellectual disability participated in 7 focus group interviews and 6 people in an individual interview. Data were analysed using grounded theory methods. Results Although participants experienced greater choice and control over their everyday lives, they did not feel they controlled the way support was provided and experienced restrictions on lifestyle associated with low income. Despite their use of community places and varied social connections to family, friends, and acquaintances, most experienced loneliness. Conclusions If the potential of supported living is to be realised, shortcomings of support arrangements must be addressed by, for example, greater consistency of support worker skills, consumer control over recruitment and rostering, and more skilled support to build friendships and manage difficult relationships.


The psychosocial care of persons living with HIV/AIDS is a crucial factor for their health improvement. The needs of people living with HIV (PLHIV) are not limited to access to medicine and medical care. They require other dimensions of care such as psychological, social and spiritual support. This support can help reduce the perceived inevitable causal relationship between HIV infection and death. It can also diminish social exclusion and promote better social integration. The objective of this work is to study the psychosocial care of PLHIV provided by social services of the city of Porto-Novo to users (PLHIV), their parents, resource persons and social and health workers. A range of techniques was used for data collection, including observation, interviews, document analysis and a questionnaire survey. The results showed the existence of a fairly good organizational structure, a relatively good performance of staff in terms of care provision and a good level of user satisfaction; nevertheless, patient mistrust of staff due to a lack of privacy and intimacy was also noted. Despite considerable efforts in this direction, it is essential to establish a specific policy for psychosocial care based on interventions of specialists from different sectors.


Neural sequence-to-sequence networks with attention have achieved remarkable performance for machine translation. One of the reasons for their effectiveness is their ability to capture relevant source-side contextual information at each time-step prediction through an attention mechanism. However, the target-side context is solely based on the sequence model which, in practice, is prone to a recency bias and lacks the ability to capture effectively non-sequential dependencies among words. To address this limitation, we propose a target-side-attentive residual recurrent network for decoding, where attention over previous words contributes directly to the prediction of the next word. The residual learning facilitates the flow of information from the distant past and is able to emphasize any of the previously translated words, hence it gains access to a wider context. The proposed model outperforms a neural MT baseline as well as a memory and self-attention network on three language pairs. The analysis of the attention learned by the decoder confirms that it emphasizes a wider context, and that it captures syntactic-like structures.


Danish Greenland-literature and the hunt for the anthropocene
This article examines the role of climate change and the Anthropocene in contemporary Danish literature about Greenland. I argue that even though Danish literature in general has been very concerned with anthropogenic climate change in recent years, this is not the case for Danish literature specifically about Greenland. To illustrate this, I begin with a short literary overview, after which I focus on the novel Korsveje i Nord (2015) by Bjarne Ljungdahl. This book, I define as an example of cli-fi ("climate fiction" or "climate change fiction") that does engage with Greenland, and I analyze its view on the Anthropocene. Following this main part of the article, I briefly discuss what potentials cli-fi's such as Korsveje i Nord might hold in the discussion of anthropogenic climate change and the Anthropocene, and I turn my attention to literature about Greenland from outside Denmark.


Germany has a federal type of political structure. Three libraries form the "national virtual library": the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (SBB); the Deutsche Bibliothek (DDB); and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB). They are the basis of many activities of the UBC, which are carried on with the most varied and always different partners: university and state libraries, other research libraries, agencies for collective catalogues and the central agency for public reading libraries. Germany has its own cataloguing rules, the Regeln fur alphabetische Katalogisierung, (RAK), which are based on international principles, the Regeln fur den Schlagwortkatalog, (RSWK), and a German form of exchange, Maschinenlesbares Austauschformat fur Bibliotheken (MAB). There has been very intense official discussion in recent years on the future of cataloguing rules. The cataloguing community has three objectives in mind when these developments are discussed: a strong drive towards the internationalisation of the rules, the need to consider the modern possibilities offered by automated catalogues and the desire to harmonize cataloguing rules alphabetically and by subject. The Deutsche Bibliothek produces the national German bibliography, containing all publications published in Germany and German publications published abroad. All records of the national bibliography from 1945 to February 2002 are now available on DVD. The data base of periodicals, Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB), has an important role in Germany's approach to the UBC. A total of 4300 libraries continuously register periodicals and works in this collective data base. There is only one bibliographic record with the locations of all the libraries that possess the periodical. The date base contains a million titles and five million six hundred thousand locations. Cataloguing of periodicals is done through ZDB, while the national collection is catalogued through the Deutsche Bibliothek. All records are integrated into six collective catalogues. Three authorities in Germany share the file at national level, all three hosted by the Deutsche Bibliothek: one for authorities, one for subject titles and a third for names of persons.


Many legal, political and informal "community processes" were undertaken to shape the future of the land created by the underground rerouting of Boston's Central Artery. In order to assess whether these processes were valuable, the Essay proposes an approach to determining what constitutes a successful community process in the context of a complicated urban development challenge. First, a typology of community processes is developed, involving both different layers of community and a spectrum of processes from the legal to the political. Next, four criteria are proposed for evaluating the efacacy of community processes: inclusiveness, integrity, inouence and implementation. Finally, these evaluation criteria are applied to determine the extent to which the different types of community processes used to shape the Central Artery Project's open spaces were successful. The Essay concludes that the lessons learned in Boston can be used to shape more effective community processes


The literature on business process reengineering (BPR) has promoted business process reengineering as an essential element in helping organizations to achieve their goals. The literature has further claimed that Information Technology (IT) is a major enabler of business process reengineering. Despite all these claims, there has been hardly any effort to demonstrate the interrelationship between business process and information technology infrastructure, and which modeling technique can be used to demonstrate the relationship. This paper investigates how simulation modeling can demonstrate the impact of IT infrastructure on business process. The dynamic synthesis methodology is used with data collected from five commercial banks. The same collected data is used to validate the model. The results indicate that network infrastructure and data integration were significantly related to the process improvement thrust, such that network infrastructure is critical in improving business processes and enhancing customer service.


An interesting and still not well‐understood example for old medical wisdom "Sola dosis facit venenum" is the increased prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) in athletes. Numerous studies have shown a fourfold to eightfold increased risk of AF in athletes compared to the normal population. Analysis of the existing data suggests a dose‐dependent effect of exercise. Moderate exercise seems to have a protective effect and decreases the risk of AF, whereas excessive exercise seems to increase the risk of AF. The described cases illustrate clinical manifestations within the spectrum of AF in elderly athletes, that is, exercise‐induced AF, vagal AF, chronic AF, and atrial flutter. As the arrhythmia worsened quality of life and exercise capacity in all patients, recovery of sinus rhythm was desired in all described cases. As the atrial disease was advanced on different levels, different treatment regimes were applied. Lifestyle modification and temporary anti‐arrhythmic drug therapy could stabilize sinus rhythm in one patient, whereas others needed radiofrequency ablation to achieve a stable sinus rhythm. The patient with the most advanced atrial disease necessitated anti‐arrhythmic drug therapy and another left atrial ablation. All described patients remained in sinus rhythm during the long‐term follow‐up.


In disease and senescence, the balance between cells and the surrounding interstitium is altered. Cell injury and inflammation induce fibrosis, with collagen deposition leading to expansion of the interstitium. When diffuse, this expansion can affect the structure and function of the whole organ. Examples of diffuse fibrosis include liver cirrhosis and myocardial fibrosis, which are becoming more prevalent as the population ages. Traditional assessment of such diseases involves invasive biopsy, but for many tissues, biopsy is poorly tolerated and carries a significant complication risk. Recently our group has developed a new technique (equilibrium imaging) that utilises the extracellular contrast agents employed widely in MRI and CT to quantify tissue fractional extracellular volume (ECV). Early work demonstrated a significant elevation in myocardial ECV in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and aortic stenosis. Equilibrium contrast imaging potentially offers a powerful new non-invasive tissue biomarker for 'extracellular disease', and promises new insights into the biology of these conditions. In this thesis I develop the equilibrium imaging technique, beginning with an evaluation of the basic principles of extracellular volume estimation by EQ-MRI - using a 3-dimensional engineered tissue model. I show an association between ECV quantified during construction of six engineered models with ECV measured using EQ-MRI (R2=0.77, p=0.02). I then explore the use of equilibrium imaging in quantifying two disease processes that alter the extracellular volume – diffuse fibrosis and amyloidosis. EQ-MRI is used in systemic amyloidosis to demonstrate significant elevation in ECV within the liver (0.32) and spleen (0.39) compared with healthy volunteers (p<0.01). I then translate the basic EQ method to a new modality – computed tomography, a potentially simpler and more widely available imaging platform. EQ-CT is used to show an association between ECV and a histological comparator in cardiac valve disease (r=0.71); and in liver cirrhosis (r=0.64). EQ-MRI is also used as a reference test to investigate diffuse 99mTc-DPD skeletal muscle uptake in systemic ATTR amyloidosis. Using a novel scoring system to quantify uptake, I show that skeletal muscle ECV increases with 99mTc-DPD soft tissue score (R2=0.34) - suggesting that skeletal muscle is a significant target organ for amyloid deposition. Technical development of the CT technique required the optimisation of image acquisition and processing for quantitative attenuation measurement within tissues, and advancement of the contrast protocol to allow rapid ECV estimation using a bolus only dynamic equilibrium technique. In summary, this research thesis presents methological development and validation of EQ imaging for tissue extracellular volume fraction quantification.


The primary purpose of this study is to identify predictors of complete household enrollment into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) among inhabitants of the Barekese sub-district in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Heads of households in 20 communities from the Barekuma Collaborative Community Project site were interviewed to gather data on demographic, socioeconomic status (SES) indicators and complete household subscription in the NHIS. Logistic regression model was used to predict enrollment in the NHIS. Of the 3228 heads of households interviewed, 60 percent reported having all members of their respective households enrolled in the NHIS. Residents in the classified Middle and High SES brackets had 1.47 (95% CI: 1.21-1.77) and 1.66 (95% CI: 1.27-2.16) times higher odds, respectively, of complete household enrollment compared to their counterparts in the Low SES category. The odds of enrolling in the program tend to increase progressively with the highest level of education attained by the head of the family unit. Eight years after the introduction of the national health insurance policy in Ghana, the reported subscription rate for complete households was about 60 percent in the 20 rural communities that participated in the study. This finding calls for the need to step up further national strategies that will help increase enrollment coverage, especially among the poor and less educated in the rural communities.


The accusation that Black Pete—the blackface character at the center of the annual Sinterklaas festival—is a racist caricature has recently become a staple of the Dutch culture wars, leaving media and cultural producers in a quandary over the figure's meaning and fate. This essay focuses on two recent seasons of the widely popular children's television program Sinterklaasjournaal. The show deployed new storylines to maintain the innocence of the traditional celebration in the face of mounting antiracist critique by refabricating truths that not only erase the colonial roots of Black Pete's blackness but also deny any connection to race altogether. In so doing, however, these storylines further destabilized the main Sinterklaas narrative, akin to an everyday lie that is about to be discovered. Endeavors by storytellers to disconnect the Black Pete figure from racial blackness resulted in representing the character as racially white but covered in soot, while conveying the message that the origin of dark skin is dirt. The narrative strife over Black Pete illustrates the fragility of the Dutch absencing of race, as the latter proves to resurface in the very effort to obliterate it. Instead of artificially reconstructing the semantic unity of discrete stories, the essay introduces a deconstructive approach that apprehends consistency as an effect of power. It shows how various actors work at making changes in the hegemonic story to maintain its coherence in response to threats from alternative accounts, in the process generating new contradictions and challenges that require further narrative work.


Simulated Kalman Filter (SKF) is an estimation-based optimization algorithm which is established based on the Kalman filtering framework. Even since the SKF algorithm is introduced in 2015, there is no tutorial been published on SKF. One may find that the equations and flowchart of the algorithm is not easy to understand. Hence, this paper provides a tutorial on SKF algorithm that emphasizes on a numerical example for easy and intuitive explanations. This tutorial would be important to those who work on the fundamentals and applications of SKF as well as to students who are new to optimization research.


The aim of this paper is to provide a (local) stability analysis of an extremum seeking controller that we have designed in order to achieve the mode-matching condition in vibrating microgyroscopes. It is shown that the proposed adaptive add-on control scheme reaches the mode-matching condition at least locally about the driving mode, i.e. when the initial mismatch of the vibrating modes in the microgyro is sufficiently small (local convergence). To prove that, we make use of several interwound steps in which the averaging and the singular perturbation methods are applied.


An input generalization problem is one of the most important ones in applying reinforcement learning to real robot tasks. To cope with this problem, we propose a self-partitioning state space algorithm which can make non-uniform quantization of the state space. To show that our algorithm has generalization capability, we apply our method to two tasks in which a soccer robot shoots a ball into a goal and prevents a ball from entering a goal. To show the validity of this method, the experimental results for computer simulation and a real robot are shown.


Abstract. A simple two-dimensional rainfall model, based on advection and conservation of mass in a vertical cloud column, is investigated for use in short-term rainfall and flood forecasting at the catchment scale under UK conditions. The model is capable of assimilating weather radar, satellite infra-red and surface weather observations, together with forecasts from a mesoscale numerical weather prediction model, to obtain frequently updated forecasts of rainfall fields. Such data assimilation helps compensate for the simplified model dynamics and, taken together, provides a practical real-time forecasting scheme for catchment scale applications. Various ways are explored for using information from a numerical weather prediction model (16.8 km grid) within the higher resolution model (5 km grid). A number of model variants is considered, ranging from simple persistence and advection methods used as a baseline, to different forms of the dynamic rainfall model. Model performance is assessed using data from the Wardon Hill radar in Dorset for two convective events, on 10 June 1993 and 16 July 1995, when thunderstorms occurred over southern Britain. The results show that (i) a simple advection-type forecast may be improved upon by using multiscan radar data in place of data from the lowest scan, and (ii) advected, steady-state predictions from the dynamic model, using "inferred updraughts", provides the best performance overall. Updraught velocity is inferred at the forecast origin from the last two radar fields, using the mass-balance equation and associated data and is held constant over the forecast period. This inference model proves superior to the buoyancy parameterisation of updraught employed in the original formulation. A selection of the different rainfall forecasts is used as input to a catchment flow forecasting model, the IH PDM (Probability Distributed Moisture) model, to assess their effect on flow forecast accuracy for the 135 km2 Brue catchment in Somerset. Keywords: rainfall forecasting, flood forecasting, weather radar, satellite, storm model


This paper constructs a theoretical model to study labor market regulations in developing countries within the context of structural transformation. When workers are risk averse and the market for insurance against labor income risk is missing, regulations that provide insurance to workers (such as severance payments) are efficiency enhancing and promote structural transformation. However, regulations that simply create barriers to the dismissal of workers not only impede structural transformation, they also end up reducing the welfare of workers. The implications of some other issues like general regulatory burden, weak state capacity, and minimum wage regulations are analyzed as well. The paper provides some empirical evidence broadly consistent with the theoretical results using cross-country data. While dismissal regulations increase the share of informal employment, severance payments to workers do not.


We present a theoretical analysis of pulse propagation in a waveguide with a side-coupled Kerr nonlinear cavity. As a specific application, we demonstrate how the nonlinearity has a profound influence on transport properties of a photon-added coherent state. We find that the fields provided by the coherent states facilitate a tunable nonlinearity on the few-photon level, allowing for a robust gating of single photons.


ABSTRACT Saginaw Bay is a southwest extension of Lake Huron on the east shore of the Southern Peninsula of Michigan. It is a shallow-water derivative of the Pleistocene Lake Saginaw. Sixty-one bottom samples were collected on a semigrid pattern and analyzed physically. Findings were treated statistically. Sediments range in size from large pebbles to clay. Medium- to fine-grained clear quartz sand is common to all parts of the bay. Currents and wave action are primarily responsible for both median diameter and sorting distribution patterns. Only a very general correlation can be established between depth and median diameter. Heavy minerals occur in abundance locally and show an affinity to shallow-water areas subject to prevailing currents. Shape also locally determines heavy mineral concentra ions. Only general conclusions can be established from roundness and sphericity and acid-soluble content. Increased organic content is correlative with quiet water environments. The shallow-water, heterogeneous nature of Saginaw Bay is not conducive to the recognition of sedimentary criteria suitable for correlations in other than a local environment.


Introduction Cobas® 4800 HPV assay has been evaluated as a screening and triage application recently. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of the Cobas® 4800 HPV assay for the detection and identification of high-risk (HR) HPV genotypes after treatment of high grade lesion by comparison with the Hybrid Capture 2® (HC2), Amplicor (Amp), and Linear Array (LA) HPV tests. Methods Four hundred and six PreservCyt® specimens from women undergoing management for a high-grade Pap abnormality were evaluated and results compared with the HC2, Amp, and LA HPV test results, in addition to histological diagnosis of a contemporaneously collected biopsy. Results The sensitivity in detection of underlying high-grade histological diagnosis by Cobas® 4800 HPV was 90.6%, for HC2 86.1%, whilst for Amp and LA 92.9% and 91.8% respectively. Restricting detection of Cobas® 4800 HPV to only types 16 and 18 resulted in sensitivity of 60.0%. Detection of HR genotypes by Cobas® 4800 HPV showed a concordance of 86.9%, 96.1%, and 96.3% when compared to HC2, Amp and LA respectively. Detection of HPV 16 and 18 by Cobas® 4800 HPV showed a concordance of 97.3% and 99% respectively when compared to LA. Conclusion The performance of Cobas® 4800 HPV was equivalent to the Amp and LA HPV tests for HR HPV detection. Cobas® 4800 HPV identified more underlying histologically-confirmed high-grade lesions than the HC2 HPV test, with the added advantage of identifying HPV 16 and 18 genotypes present.


This study investigated the relationship between inflation and economic growth in Nigeria, from 1970 to 2009. It adapted the Khan and Sendhadji's (2001) threshold regression technique to examine the existence of optimal inflation. The Granger causality test was utilised to test the causal relationship between inflation and growth. The results revealed a unidirectional causality, moving from inflation to real GDP, with no response from output growth to inflation. The findings from the threshold model showed a negative relationship between inflation and growth. The estimated threshold regression model indicated eight per cent as the optimal level of inflation consistent with sustainable economic growth in Nigeria. The study corroborated the idea of a single digit inflation being pursued by the monetary authorities in Nigeria. Keywords: Inflation, Economic growth, Threshold regression, Nigeria. JEL Classification : C50, E31, O40


Marital instability is an emerging and increasing phenomenon in Kenyan societies. This study examined, the nature of marital instability among women in the rural areas, the major causes, and its impact on the femaleheaded household livelihoods. The study adapted a cross-sectional case study design and it involved women of the 15-49 age interval years who were separated, divorced or deserted by their husbands. The collected data were subjected to descriptive analysis, and inferential statistical analysis using Chi-square (χ2) test, correlation analysis, and logistic regression. Results indicate that, irresponsibility (74%) and infidelity (51.3%) were found to be the leading factors influencing marital instability. Violence (42.3%), alcoholism (38.7%), in-law problems (24%), unemployment (11%), age difference (10%), and polygamy (10%) were the other cited reasons. Most of the separated mothers are faced with challenges of achieving and maintaining their livelihood due to financial hardships. From the research findings, it was recommended that, there is need to sensitize the public about the causes and outcomes of family conflicts and to create livelihood opportunities and poverty reduction schemes for separated/divorced parents in the rural areas. These policies will improve livelihoods and reduce poverty especially among the affected female headed households in the rural area.


Meloidogyne enterolobii is considered to be an aggressive root-knot species. The goal of this work was determine the M. enterolobii reproduction factor on 42 vegetable crops and on 18 plants used as green manure. The experiments were carried in a greenhouse. The substrate inoculation was made with 5,000 eggs and second stage juveniles of M. enterolobii/plot. The experimental delineations were entirely randomized, with six replications. Resistance was found in 'Brasilia', 'Brasilia Irece' and 'Planeta' carrot, 'Grand Rapids' lettuce; 'Tokyo' and 'Nebuka' chive; 'Poro Gigante' leeks; 'Comum HT' and 'Grauda Portuguesa' parsley and all brassicas plants studied: 'Teresopolis Gigante' and 'Piracicaba Precoce' cauliflower; 'Chato de Quintal' and 'Coracao de Boi' cabbage; 'Piracicaba', 'Brasilia', 'Santana' and 'Cabeca' broccoli and 'Bruxelas' and 'Tronchuda Portuguesa' cole. Lollium multiflorum, Crotalaria breviflora, C. juncea, C. spectabilis, C. mucronata, C. ochroleuca, Dolichos lablab, Pennisetum glaucum, Mucuna deeringiana, M. cinereum, M. aterrima and Raphanus sativus green manures were resistant. These plants are viable options to crop rotation in M. enterolobii infested areas.


Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) tow were continuously pretreated with cuprous chloride on line. The structure and properties of untreated and treated PAN precursors were characterized by IR, DSC, X-ray diffraction and other analysis, and the paper made a preliminary discussion on the effect of modification on PAN precursors. It was suggested that PAN precursors pretreated with CuCl can enhance the rate of cyclization, lower the temperature of cyclization reaction, reduce the time required for stabilization. At the same time the resulting oxidized fibers achieved an elongation of 17.6% for the temperature range of exothermic process, and an improvement in tensile strength of 46%.


A quick search in Google Scholar for documents containing both keywords "Japan" and "collectivism" revealed 28,100 results. This fact alone is enough to support the notion that collectivism is a commonly reoccurring descriptive in discussions about Japanese society. This is also enough to give serious consideration to the impact of collectivism when thinking about the development of educational programs that foster the development of creativity. More specifically it raises the question: if some people within Japan believe in the collectivist nature of themselves and their society how does that belief influence creative self-identity and creative self–efficacy? Since creativity and innovation require the ability to think divergently, understanding the impact of the alleged pressure towards conformity on creativity should be a top priority. Furthermore, understanding this relationship becomes important when considering methodologies and potential barriers to learning in the creativity classroom or workshop. With this in mind, a questionnaire was given to 50 Japanese participants of various ages and backgrounds. Using open-ended questions and a Likert scale, the questionnaire examines the collectivist self-identity, the collectivist social-identity, creative self-identity, and creative self-efficacy. Through narrative qualitative analysis of the open-ended questions and quantitative analysis of the scaled questions the relationships between the four categories were examined to see if any influenced the others. From this study we can see that the quantitative data and the qualitative data both showed the similar findings. Within the group the majority did not identify as having a collectivist self-identity, the results on collectivist socialidentity were split down the middle, and a majority of the participants did identify with having a creative self-identity. It is also clear from both the qualitative and quantitative data that creative self-identity and creative self-efficacy are linked. It appears that if the person does not believe that he or she is a creative person then that same individual is very likely to believe they do not have the capacity to do creative things.


Despite the increasing number of reports in the literature on the immobilization of cells or enzymes for the production of more complex compounds involving multistep enzyme systems and coenzymes, no such systems are yet known to be used commercially on a large-scale basis (vaccine production by microcarrier-attached animal cells being an exception). Various systems that have been described are reviewed, including plant and animal cells. Special emphasis is given to the choice to be made between the use of immobilized cells or immobilized enzyme sequences. In this context alternative regeneration methods for coenzymes are discussed. Special attention is brought to the potential for such biosyntheses with immobilized-permeabilized cells. It is likely that the list of immobilized cells and enzymes used at present and restricted to single enzymic steps will be extended in the not too distant future by more complex systems.


The silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus, from the pufferfish family Tetraodontidae) and the Pacific red lionfish (Pterois miles, family Scorpaenidae) have recently invaded the Mediterranean Sea. Lagocephalus sceleratus has spread throughout this entire sea with the highest concentrations in the eastern basin, while more recently, Pterois miles has spread from the Eastern to the Central Mediterranean Sea. Their effects on local biodiversity and fisheries are cause for management concern. Here, a comprehensive review of predators of these two species from their native Indo-Pacific and invaded Mediterranean and Western Atlantic ranges is presented. Predators of Tetraodontidae in general were reviewed for their native Indo-Pacific and Western Atlantic ranges, as no records were found specifically for L. sceleratus in its native range. Tetraodontidae predators in their native ranges included mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda), lizardfish (Synodus spp.), tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris), sea snakes (Enhydrina spp.), catfish (Arius spp.), cobia (Rachycentron canadum), skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), and common octopus (Octopus vulgaris). The only reported predator of adult L. sceleratus in the Mediterranean was loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), whereas juvenile L. sceleratus were preyed by common dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) and garfish (Belone belone). Conspecific cannibalism of L. sceleratus juveniles was also confirmed in the Mediterranean. Pufferfish predators in the Western Atlantic included common octopus, frogfish (Antennaridae), and several marine birds. Predators of all lionfish species in their native Indo-Pacific range included humpback scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis spp.), bobbit worms (Eunice aphroditois), moray eels (Muraenidae), and bluespotted cornetfish (Fistularia commersonii). Lionfish predators in the Mediterranean included dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus), white grouper (Epinephelus aeneus), common octopus, and L. sceleratus, whereas in the Western Atlantic included the spotted moray (Gymnothorax moringa), multiple grouper species (tiger Mycteroperca tigris, Nassau Epinephelus striatus, black Mycteroperca bonaci, red Epinephelus morio, and gag Mycteroperca microleps; Epinephelidae), northern red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), greater amberjack (Seriola dumerilli), and nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum). The sparse data found on natural predation for these species suggest that population control via predation may be limited. Their population control may require proactive, targeted human removals, as is currently practiced with lionfish in the Western Atlantic.


We have developed a cylindrical RF plasma source by the inductive coupling of multiple low-inductance antenna (LIA) units and analyzed the plasma density profile of this source using fluid simulation. Experiments using four LIA units showed a stable source operation even at 2000 W RF power, attaining plasma densities as high as 1011–1012 cm-3 in an argon pressure range of 0.67–2.6 Pa. The amplitude of antenna RF voltage was measured to be less than 600 V, which is considerably smaller than those obtained using conventional ICP antennas. The radial distribution of plasma density sustained using four LIA units showed excellent agreement with profiles numerically predicted using a fluid-simulation code.


Abstract:The battle lines that currently animate politics in Central Africa's autocracies reach well beyond these countries' borders. As Western governments proved their willingness to sanction human rights abuses, Central Africa's autocrats sought to inoculate themselves by using their governments' financial resources to capture policy makers abroad. For recourse, citizens and diaspora communities turned to international judicial institutions, which they viewed—rightly, it turns out—as less susceptible to capture. In response, Central Africa's autocrats have developed new tools of survival. They have launched strikingly professional "image laundering" campaigns, a sustained assault on international law, and private financial institutions that enable sophisticated money laundering.


[1] Isoprene, monoterpenes, β-caryophyllene, and toluene are known to be important secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursors. In this study, characteristic SOA tracers of these precursors were quantified in ambient samples of PM2.5 taken in Hong Kong and their contributions to SOA were estimated using a tracer-based method. Samples were collected every other day from four sampling sites during a field measurement campaign in the summer of 2006. Fourteen SOA tracers, along with 24 other polar oxygenated compounds, were identified and quantified using gas chromatography/ion trap mass spectrometry with prior trimethylsilylation. Concentrations of the individual tracers ranged from a few tenths to a few hundreds ng m−3. The tracer concentrations were found to be 1 order of magnitude higher on days under regional transport influences due to elevated oxidant levels than on days under mainly local emissions influences. Using the measured SOA tracer concentrations in the ambient aerosols and laboratory-derived tracer mass fractions reported by Kleindienst et al. (2007), we estimated that the average SOA attributable to isoprene, monoterpenes, β-caryophyllene, and toluene was 8.83 μg m−3 on days under regional transport influences versus 0.99 μg m−3 on days under mainly local emissions influences, accounting for approximately 49% and 21%, respectively, of the ambient OC concentrations. The tracer-based estimates indicate that monoterpenes and β-caryophyllene are significant contributors to ambient PM2.5 in the summer, which may be due to the high emissions of these biogenic hydrocarbons in Hong Kong.


POLYMER SCIENCE
Shape-memory metal alloys, which can be restored to an original or "remembered" shape after deformation, have found uses in the medical industry. Lendlein et al. have now extended shape memory to polymers—in this case, a family of oligo(η-caprolactone) dimethacrylate/ n -butyl acrylate networks. The memory effect is obtained by connecting a crystallizable segment [the oligo(η-caprolactone)] that can form a temporary physical network to a component (the n -butyl acrylate) that can soften the network and improve the strain recovery. These materials possess application advantages over their metal counterparts in that they can be programmed at 70°C and can tolerate significantly larger deformations. The polymers can be tailored to specific shape transition temperatures and deformation characteristics by changing the proportions of the network components. The biocompatibility of the two components should allow these materials to find use in the biomedical sector. — MSL

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98 , 842 (2001).


Background: The rates and outcomes of treatments for intracranial aneurysms have not been exclusively determined within the pediatric population. We determined the rates of endovascular and microsurgical treatments for unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIA) and associated rates of favorable outcome.

Methods: We analyzed the data obtained as part of the Kids' Inpatient Database between 2003 and 2009 with primary diagnosis of UIA (identified by the International Classification of Disease codes, Ninth Revision). Patients undergoing endovascular treatment (ET) were compared to those undergoing microsurgical treatment (MT). Outcomes were defined as rates of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), in-hospital mortality, or favorable outcome (discharge disposition of home/self-care).

Results: There were 818 cases of UIAs during the timeline examined. A total of 111 patients (mean age 14±6 years, 37.6% female) underwent MT and another 200 patients (mean age 13±7 years, 42.5% female) underwent ET. There were no significant differences in rates of ICH (MT 4.4% versus ET 2%, p=0.4) and SAH (MT 15.5% versus ET 9.3%, p=0.2). There was no in-hospital mortality among those who received MT, and 3 patients died among those who received ET. A high rate of favorable outcome was observed in patients who received either treatment (MT 87.7% versus ET 91.6%, p=0.4). There was a trend towards a significantly shorter mean hospitalization stay among those who received ET as opposed to MT (6±12 days versus 9±11 days, p=0.06). There was also a significant trend towards higher utilization of ET as opposed to MT from 2003 to 2009 (p=0.02).

Conclusion: Although outcomes except for length of stay are comparable between ET and MT patients, there is a trend towards higher utilization of ET among children with UIAs from 2003 to 2009.


l-Arogenate (also known as l-pretyrosine) is a primary metabolite on a branch of the shikimate biosynthetic pathway to aromatic amino acids. It plays a key role in the synthesis of plant secondary metabolites including alkaloids and the phenylpropanoids that are the key to carbon fixation. Yet understanding the control of arogenate metabolism has been hampered by its extreme instability and the lack of a versatile synthetic route to arogenate and its analogues. We now report a practical synthesis of l-arogenate in seven steps from O-benzyl l-tyrosine methyl ester in an overall yield of 20%. The synthetic route also delivers the fungal metabolite spiroarogenate, as well as a range of stable saturated and substituted analogues of arogenate. The key step in the synthesis is a carboxylative dearomatization by intramolecular electrophilic capture of tyrosine's phenolic ring using an N-chloroformylimidazolidinone moiety, generating a versatile, functionalizable spirodienone intermediate.


We report three-dimensional (3D) endoscopic microscopy findings in Barrett's esophagus, using an endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT) system in one patient before and in one patient after radiofrequency ablation (RFA). Findings were compared with those in a normal patient without Barrett's esophagus. In the normal patient, findings were of regular flat squamous mucosa with small subepithelial vessels and glands. In the Barrett's esophagus patient, findings were of large, densely packed glands with distortion of mucosal architecture. In the post-RFA case, findings were of a small number of isolated glands buried beneath 300–500 μ m of neosquamous epithelium and lamina propria. Neosquamous epithelium is a marker of successful ablative therapy, while buried glands may have potential for dysplastic progression and are difficult to detect using conventional methods. These results indicate a potential role of 3D-OCT endoscopic microscopy for follow-up, including subsurface assessment, of ablative treatments for Barrett's esophagus.


English and Power is a corporate learning and development programme and a process for doing sociolinguistic leadership research. At a practical level, the workshop helps women leaders strip back the meaning in meetings and interactions and develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of power and how this is established, maintained, and challenged. In terms of research, the preparatory and workshop activities elicit linguistic data about professional identities and about the lived experience of influence, inclusion and exclusion. In this paper I explain the steps and activities involved in the English and Power programme in detail, concentrating first on the intervention as a learning and development event. I then go on to give an overview of the sociolinguistic analysis of the data from the four programmes run in conjunction with the Professional Women's Network in Spain between April 2013 and July 2014. Finally I ask how far it is possible to do intervention and research at the same time.


Oxidative stress plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of many heart diseases. Patients with diabetes mellitus for instance exhibit an increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Approximately 25 % of the diabetics develop a pathological prolongation of the cardiac action potential (AP) the so-called long QT syndrome (LQTS). This AP prolongation can be attributed to an inhibition of the repolarizing potassium current IKr. The hERG potassium channel was identified as the main component of IKr. Both IKr in cardiac myocytes of rabbit and heterologous hERG currents in human cells are inhibited by endogenous ROS. Such a ROS induced inhibition of hERG could contribute to the AP prolongation of diabetics and to there higher mortality rates. Therefore hERG is an important target for the treatment of cardiomyopathies. The aim of this study was to identify the molecular basis for the ROS induced modulation of hERG. We focused on the modification of methionines (Met) und cysteines (Cys), because these residues are most susceptible to redox regulation. The main effect of Chloramin T as a Met- and Cys-specific substance and Sodium (2-sulfonatethyl)-methanthiosulfonat as a Cys- specific substance is a reduction of the current amplitude by up to 80%. This reduction of the current amplitude was observed for heterologously expressed and endogenous hERG channels. We show in this work for the first time that the ROS induced reduction of hERG current is mediated via specific amino acids and/or structures of the channel protein. We found that a ROS modulation of hERG occurs predominantly at cysteine residues, especially at Cys 723 in the C-linker. This Cys confers responsiveness of hERG to ROS and is located such it can interact directly with structural elements of the gating machinery and/or accessory proteins.


The second labour of Heracles, the epic struggle with the Hydra, is used in this paper as a metaphor for the diffi culties that may be encountered in analysing and measuring social capital. In Greek mythology, the Hydra 'had a prodigious dog-like body, and eight or nine snaky heads, one of them immortal'. In a sense, social capital is the intellectual equivalent of the Hydra in that it is conceptualised in many different ways. While the many heads of social capital appear relatively harmless compared to the Hydra, the unquestioning adoption and application of social capital rhetoric is potentially harmful, especially if it distracts policy makers from the real causes of Indigenous poverty and ongoing social exclusion. This paper outlines the conceptual and empirical issues that are likely to plague attempts to measure social capital. After discussing some possible roles for social capital in describing Indigenous poverty, the paper advocates a modest conceptualisation of social capital that focuses on the structure of social networks. Apart from anything else, this minimalist position should limit the scope for misunderstandings arising from cross-cultural differences in the views about the social, cultural and institutional contexts of such networks.


Background:The impact of publicly reporting risk-adjusted outcomes for hospitals and surgeons remains controversial, with particular concern about unintended consequences. Objectives:We evaluated the impact of 3 reports from the voluntary California CABG Mortality Reporting Program (CCMRP) on hospital market share, hospital mortality, and patient selection for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Research Design and Participants:We analyzed data from January 2000 to December 2005 for all patients receiving isolated CABG surgery in California. We compared hospital groups based on their quality classification, including low-mortality outliers ("better"), high-mortality outliers ("worse"), and nonoutliers, as well as participation in the CCMRP. Measures:We compared changes in market share, risk-adjusted mortality, and hospital caseload of high-risk patients for isolated CABG surgeries before and after the public release of 3 CCMRP reports (July 2001, August 2003, and February 2005). Results:Low-mortality outlier hospitals experienced significantly increased market share for isolated CABG surgery in the first 6 months after the public release of the CCMRP reports (relative change in adjusted mean market share=8.9%, P=0.002). We found no evidence to suggest reduced risk adjusted mortality after the release of the CCMRP reports, but high-mortality outlier hospitals, on average, operated on less sick patients (relative change in mean expected mortality=25%, P=0.02). Conclusions:The release of public CABG hospital performance reports in California was associated with increased volume at low-mortality hospitals, and may have reduced referrals of high-risk patients to high-mortality hospitals (or risk avoidance).