Key points BAL, an important tool in assessing occupational lung diseases, is an invasive technique and thus unsuitable for screening programmes, the evaluation of exposure and the monitoring of hazardous dust. Examination of induced sputum is a noninvasive method to directly study particulate burden and inflammatory processes in the lung. The correlation between cells retrieved by BAL and induced sputum shows different proportions of leukocytes, but similar eosinophil cell counts and qualitative/quantitative analyses of particles. Many accumulating lines of evidence have shown that the eosinophil count is a useful marker for monitoring OA. Educational aims To introduce induced sputum methodology in the field of occupational lung diseases. To describe the eosinophil count as a method of monitoring occupational asthma. To explain how to use quantitative and qualitative analysis of inhaled particles in hazardous dust exposure. Summary Induced sputum is a particularly promising procedure, since it provides specific information on both the cellular and molecular constituents in inflammation. In the period 1950–1970, sputum cells were examined on stained smears in both research and clinical settings. After their recovery by spontaneous coughing, the cells were used to study lung cancer and respiratory infections, and, later on, to diagnose Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in patients infected with HIV. The method was widely improved upon by the induction of sputum with aerosol of hypertonic saline, and then extended to become part of the assessment of airway inflammation in bronchial asthma and COPD. However, less attention was given to the use of induced sputum in occupational exposures. This review analyses the value of induced sputum and presents its applications in pulmonary occupational and environmental medicine.


If promises are binding there must be a reason to do as one promised. The paper is motivated by belief that there is a difficulty in explaining what that reason is. It arises because the reasons that promising creates are content-independent. Similar difficulties arise regarding other content-independent reasons, though their solution need not be the same. Section One introduces an approach to promises, and outlines an account of them that I have presented before. It forms the backdrop for the ensuing discussion. The problems discussed in the paper arise, albeit in slightly modified ways, for various other accounts as well. It is, however, helpful to use a specific account as a springboard leading to one explanation of promissory reasons, namely of the reasons that valid promises constitute for performing the promised act (Section Two). We can call it the bare reasons account. Sections Three and Four will raise difficulties with that account, leading to its abandonment in favour of an alternative in Sections Five and Six. The revision corrects mistakes and clarifies the way the different elements in the account are related.


In solid state lasers, only a small fraction of electrical input power is converted to laser radiation. The remainder of the input power is converted to heat. Therefore, solid state lasers require cooling for the pump source and active medium. In the case of flashlamp pumping usage, a cooling system in the chamber is desirable. Without adequate cooling, the laser seals, pumping cavity, lamps and the rod itself would be damaged by overheating. Thus, the aim of this project is to develop a water cooling system such that the lowest practical operating temperature is produced, and to monitor temperatures of the laser chamber during the pumping process. In order to achieve these objectives, a refrigerated water cooling system was developed which included an internal and external water cooling system. Measurements of various parameters of this water cooling system were made in order to determine its appropriateness in solid state laser chamber. A laser chamber was set-up, which comprised of a Nd:YAG laser rod, flashlamp, chamber heat sink and stainless steel blocks. An aluminium laser house was designed inclusive with electrical and water piping system. After assembling the whole system, the circulation of water in the cooling system was tested. This is to ensure no leakage occurred during the pumping process. The flow rate of water during circulation is 9.83 ± 0.01 liter / min. The minimum temperature of the cooling system that could be achieved was 18.00 ± 0.05 oC. The temperature distribution during pumping process was monitored at different points on the laser chamber. The information obtained leads to the calculation of heat dissipation from the laser chamber which operated with and without chilled distilled water. The comparison results shows that 20% improvement in heat liberated from flashlamp, whereas, 90% and 86% improvement in heat absorption in chamber heat sink and stainless steel blocks respectively. This indicated that the cooling system provided in the laser chamber was very effective in carrying out the excess heat from pumping process.


The fact that geophysics is alive and well today is quite obvious and this fact has generated a high level of optimism within all of us. The exploration geophysicist must, by nature, be an optimist when he probes the unknown subsurface with various sensing devices and techniques to locate the earth's hidden resources. The pessimist is not inclined to take the risk of predicting anything he cannot put his finger on. There is an oft‐quoted rhyme that fits the situation well: Between the optimist and the pessimist, The difference is droll: The optimist sees the doughnut, But the pessimist sees the hole. In reviewing present activities and technology in exploration, we can appreciate why the geophysicist is not concerned with the hole — dry, empty, or otherwise — but is more optimistic than ever. In the last several years, our industry and SEG have seen an explosive growth in practically all areas of exploration geophysics, and in many respects 1981 is unique in the history of milestones in our profession.


Infectious conjunctivitis of the newborn is caused by a wide variety of microorganisms. The ocular findings may be part of a widespread systemic infection. Clinical presentations are not diagnostic of the cause, and a microbiologic work-up with cytology, cultures, and microbial sensitivities is mandatory. The selection of specific antimicrobial therapy is based on the findings of laboratory studies. Prophylaxis with silver nitrate solution, 1.0% tetracycline, or 0.05% erythromycin ointment is effective for the prevention of gonococcal and chlamydial conjunctivitis in the newborn.


ISSUE ADDRESSED
There has been a growing national and global focus on the need to address social determinants of health to better achieve equitable health outcomes. In Australia, this focus is now being embedded into state, territory and Commonwealth government health policies. In this paper I use the National Primary Health Care Strategic Framework as a case study to examine the way in which 'health equity' and other related terms have been framed within a current national health policy context.

DISCUSSION
Using a critically reflective approach, I argue that primary health care and health promotion professionals need to capitalise on the inclusion of terms such as 'action on social determinants of health', 'health equity' and 'reducing inequity' through emerging national health policies, such as the National Primary Health Care Strategic Framework. Yet, there is also a need to proceed with caution. The way in which these terms are framed appears to deviate from the principles, values and ideologies on which they are historically based. The implications for contemporary health promotion practice in Australia are discussed.

CONCLUSIONS
Primary health care and health promotion professionals working in both policy and practice contexts are encouraged to engage in critical reflective practice when interpreting and considering the implementation requirements of national health policies that incorporate a health equity focus. So what? To build health equity in Australia, primary health care and health promotion professionals will be required to engage in the skilful reframing of current primary health care policy discourses relating to health equity during health promotion planning, implementation and evaluation processes.


Little is known whether diet or certain components in the diet can modulate the efficacy of 5-fluorouracil (5FU) in patients with colon carcinoma. Glutathione (GSH), an important antioxidant and anticarcinogen, is present in many foods in varying amounts. This study examined whether a moderately increased or decreased cellular GSH level had any effect on the growth of human colon adenocarcinoma cells HT-29 and on the cytotoxic activity of 5FU in these cells. GSH and buthionine sulfoximine were used to enhance or reduce the GSH level respectively in these cells. A 34% increase in cellular GSH level had no effect on the growth of HT-29 cells, nor on the cytotoxic activity of 5FU as determined by the MTT colorimetric assay and cell counts. A 50% reduction in the cellular GSH level was found to enhance 5FU cytotoxicity by 20% to 31% as determined by the MTT colorimetric assay, depending on the 5FU concentration. This study shows that a moderate change in the GSH level in HT-29 cells had little or no effect on the cells' growth, but a decrease in cellular GSH level slightly enhanced the cytotoxic activity of 5FU in these cells.


Supramolecular topologies of OMC-Bi(V) and OMC-Co(II) were derived from antibiotic drugs i.e. tetracycline and amoxicillin. To find out coordination sites in organic metal complexes; therefore, several techniques were used spectral analysis (electronic, vibrational, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR, and TOF-MS), physiochemical investigations (elemental analyses, X-ray powder diffraction) and molecular modeling, revealed coordination modes between Bi(V) and Co(II) of L, and ML entirely within moiety OMCs and specifically molecular modeling findings to predict accurately existed bond distance and bond angles. Quantum structures of OMC-Bi(V) and OMC-Co(II) were derived by molecular modeling. The electronic spectrum of OMC-Bi(V) and OMC-Bi(V) showed different transitions corresponding to five and four-coordinate arrangements. XRPD and molecular modeling were also provided information related to fitness of metal and their bonding ability to organic framework and crystal system. XRPD spectral data were used to calculate cell dimension and other parameters lattice parameters for OMC-Bi(V) and OMC-Co(II). Bi-L1; a = 15.95464 (A),b = 15.95464 (A),c = 16.47710 (A),a = 90.00°,b = 90.00°,,g = 120.00° and Co-L2 ; a = 14.27390 (A),b = 14.27390 (A), c =  9.51192  (A), a = 90.00°, b = 99.000°, g = 120.00°. Particle size (nm) was also calculated for OMC-Bi(V) and OMC-Co(II) and found 11.66 nm and 10.09 nm respectively. Molecular modeling provided better understanding related to arrangements of atoms in crystal systems. Electron set for bonding groups presented in ligands moieties display extensive biological activity that may be responsible for increase in hydrophobic character and liposolubility of supramolecular topologies of OMC-Bi(V) and OMC-Co(II) ultimately enhanced biological activity.


1. Injection of 10-4 molar solutions of normal nucleic acid nitrogen bases (adenine, guanine, uracil, thymine, and cytosine) in Holtfreter's saline into the area of the larval testis failed in all cases to increase the sex-linked lethal mutation rate. 2. The use of a naturally occurring purine, xanthine, in a 10-4 concentration also failed to increase the lethal mutation rate. 3. Thiouracil (10-4 molar concentration in Holtfreter's saline), a sulphydril analogue of the pyrimidine, uracil, did not increase the mutation rate when injected into male larvae. 4. The direct action of superoxol fumes on male larvae and adults gave negative results. This was true also for the larval series injected with 3 per cent hydrogen peroxide. 5. Treating the adults by injecting with urethane in Holtfreter's saline did not increase significantly the number of lethals; however, combining urethane injections and treatment with superoxol fumes did raise the sex-linked lethal mutation rate significantly. This positive result is deemed to be a synergistic effect.


Marked transformation and involution phenomena were observed in relation to lynestrenol-induced pseudogravidal changes of mucus membrane in a small (nut-size) retrocervical endometriosis. At 1st plump-papillary hyperproliferation occurred in the glandula epithel, followed by cytoplasma eosinophilia, -granulation, pseudo-apocrinal structures, intense epithel desquamation with cavity formation, loss of cell and nucleus polarity, epithel atrophy, gland collapse, and gland contraction. The large cellular, polymorph nuclear decidual stroma was swollen, free from endometrial granule cells and spiral arteries, and tissue destruction was very slow. Sparse glands of the basalis type characterized the predominating functionalis-endometriosis. Determination of the type of endometriosis is significant for successful therapy.


In today's military medical environment interoperability is a regular occurrence. During the First World War a small group of eminent medical men from England and America combined their skills to endeavour to save the life of the son of another eminent physician.


BACKGROUND
New therapies for the treatment of mucopolysaccharidoses that target the brain, including intrathecal enzyme replacement, are being explored. Quantitative analysis of the glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) that accumulate in these disorders is required to assess the disease burden and monitor the effect of therapy in affected patients. Because current methods lack the required limit of quantification and specificity to analyze GAGs in small volumes of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), we developed a method based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS).

METHODS
Samples of CSF (25 μL) were evaporated to dryness and subjected to methanolysis. The GAGs were degraded to uronic acid-N-acetylhexosamine dimers and mixed with internal standards derived from deuteriomethanolysis of GAG standards. Specific dimers derived from heparan, dermatan and chondroitin sulfates (HS, DS and CS) were separated by UPLC and analyzed by electrospray ionization MS/MS using selected reaction monitoring for each targeted GAG product and its corresponding internal standard.

RESULTS
CSF from control pediatric subjects (n = 22) contained <0.38 mg/L HS, 0.26 mg/L DS, and 2.8 mg/L CS, whereas CSF from patients with Hurler syndrome (n = 7) contained concentrations of DS and HS that were at least 6-fold greater than the upper control limits. These concentrations were reduced by 17.5% to 82.5% after allogeneic transplantation and treatment with intrathecal and intravenous enzyme replacement therapy.

CONCLUSIONS
The method described here has potential value in monitoring patients with mucopolysaccharidoses receiving treatment targeted to the brain.


This paper is devoted to the R package JSM which performs joint statistical modeling of survival and longitudinal data. In biomedical studies it has been increasingly common to collect both baseline and longitudinal covariates along with a possibly censored survival time. Instead of analyzing the survival and longitudinal outcomes separately, joint modeling approaches have attracted substantive attention in the recent literature and have been shown to correct biases from separate modeling approaches and enhance information. Most existing approaches adopt a linear mixed effects model for the longitudinal component and the Cox proportional hazards model for the survival component. We extend the Cox model to a more general class of transformation models for the survival process, where the baseline hazard function is completely unspecified leading to semiparametric survival models. We also offer a non-parametric multiplicative random effects model for the longitudinal process in JSM in addition to the linear mixed effects model. In this paper, we present the joint modeling framework that is implemented in JSM, as well as the standard error estimation methods, and illustrate the package with two real data examples: a liver cirrhosis data and a Mayo Clinic primary biliary cirrhosis data.


Cord blood transplantation offers several significant advantages over bone marrow transplantation such as reduced graft versus host diseases and low vulnerability of rejection if human leukocyte antigen (HLA) is mismatched. However, the probability of a successful engraftment is reduced in case of cord blood transplantation since the volume of haematopoietic stem cells isolated from cord blood is insufficient for adults. Perceiving the clinical potential of cord blood many public and private banks sprouted up in different parts of the world to store this biological entity for future use. While public blood banks use the stored blood for the benefits of common people, the private enterprises are set up for autologous applications. The hike in the number of private banks is however questioned since various data have suggested that cord blood transplantation has been insignificant for autologous use and making money out of people's anxiety and incognizance is not only unethical but also treacherous. In this review we will discuss the basics of cord blood transplantation and the perspective of stem cell research in developing nations like India.


Survival and growth are the key challenges for SMEs on B2B platforms. As the entry barrier is low, the competition is keener than in the conventional business environment. Some SMEs adopt an aggressive competition strategy to ward off competitors. Whether competitive aggressiveness, which is a dimension of entrepreneurial orientation, improves performance and whether the legitimacy status of an SME helps its website gain acceptance in an environment of aggressive competition are hitherto unanswered questions. Conducting legitimate actions is both crucial and challenge for SMEs, as they have little reputation and no brand name to rely on. On B2B platforms, SMEs face a greater legitimacy problem than in the conventional context. A B2B service provider, such as Alibaba.com, provides a platform for SMEs to link to an e-marketplace. Consumers are more likely to trust the platform's endorsement than the self-descriptions of the SMEs. It is thus common for an e-commerce platform to provide services to SMEs and help them acquire the trust of customers. For example, integrity protection seal is a kind of unofficial certification provided by B2B platforms that is widely accepted by buyers, sellers, and other stakeholders. Thus, if integrity protection seal has become a symbol of legitimacy, then SMEs who join integrity protection scheme may gain better acceptance from customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders on B2B platforms. We use secondary data collected from Alibaba.com, the largest B2B platform in China, to address these issues. We find that adopting an aggressive strategy, joining an integrity protection scheme, and obtaining a good credibility score improves SME website performance in B2B.


This paper analyzed the velocity field of the section between outlet orifice and the conical swirl chamber with a kind of single inlet pressure atomizer using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) method. A method of modifying the outlet orifice position referring to the swirl chamber in order to improve the spray angle and its homogeneity is proposed. The result of the experiments shows that it is a feasible method to improve the quality of this kind of atomizer.


High wage industrial countries like Germany face a number of unique challenges, like the demographic change, globalization, and the need for a constant technological competitive edge. Optical imaging is a key technology to address these challenges. Lithography for example is one of the core technologies in the production of integrated circuits as well as camera chips and displays. This drives an abundant computational capacity giving rise to other technologies like computational imaging, machine learning , big data analysis and virtual/augmented reality. The resulting digitalization of optics in turn pushes miniaturized optics ranging from smartphone cameras, to microoptics, down to plasmonics and metamaterials. On system side the trend to lightfield-imaging, 3D-imaging and multimodal imaging continues and finds applications in research and healthcare. For that high imaging speed and large fields are key. The German academic and industrial landscape, in this regard, will be addressed, too. Article not available.


Extraction of foreground is a basic task in surveillance video analysis. In most real cases, its performance is heavily based on the efficiency of shadow detection and on the analysis of lighting conditions and reflections caused by mirrors or other reflective surfaces. This correspondence is focused on the improvement of foreground extraction in the case of planar reflective surfaces. We show that the geometric model of a scene with a planar reflective surface is reduced to the estimation of vanishing-point for the case of an auto-epipolar (skew-symmetric) fundamental matrix. The correspondences for the vanishing-point estimation are extracted from motion statistics. The knowledge of the position of the vanishing point allows us to integrate the geometric model and the motion statistics into image foreground-extraction to separate foreground from reflections, and thus to achieve better performance. The experiments confirm the accuracy of the vanishing point and the improvement of the foreground image mask by removing reflected object parts.


Does trade improve prospects for women's employment and promote greater gender equality in wages? Trade creates or expands some activities and destroys or diminishes others. If an individual works in an expanding sector or is able to switch to one, she or he is likely to benefit. Evidence shows that trade tends to increase the availability of wage jobs for women, particularly in export sectors. But certain factors-such as discrimination, lower skills, and gender inequalities in access to resources-may impede women's ability to benefit from trade expansion. Some of these factors may be especially prevalent among female farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.


Purpose. This report presents findings from a randomized, controlled trial of colorectal cancer (CRC) genetic and environmental risk assessment (GERA). Predictors of positive change in CRC screening decision stage (SDS) were identified among participants who completed a baseline and follow-up survey. Methods. A total of 493 primary care patients who were 50 to 79 years of age, were eligible for CRC screening were randomized to a GERA Group (n=328) or a usual care Control Group (n=165). GERA Group participants underwent decision counseling about GERA, had a blood draw to assess CRC risk, and received risk feedback (modestly-elevated or average risk) based on the combined presence of SNPs 677C>T and/or 1298A>C of the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene and serum folate level. Participants received a CRC screening kit and completed a follow-up telephone survey. Univariable analyses and multivariable regression were performed to determine if baseline screening sociodemographic and lifestyle factors, knowledge, psychosocial factors, stress about CRC, SDS, and risk status predicted self-reported change in SDS. Results. Participants were: female (56%), white (61%), 50 to 59 years of age (66%), > high school education (71%), and married (55%). Overall, SDS was as follows: decided against (1%), undecided (11%), and decided to do (87%) screening. 38% of participants exhibited a positive change in SDS to a higher decision stage, including actual screening. Positive SDS change by study group was: GERA Group (39%) and Control Group (34%). Multivariable analyses for all participants showed that knowledge was a positive predictor (p=0.006) of SDS change, as were lower CRC stress and lower SDS (p=0.023 and p<0.001, respectively). 12% of GERA Group participants had an elevated risk for CRC. Positive SDS change in the GERA Group by risk status was: elevated risk (36%) and average risk (42%). In the GERA Group, knowledge was a positive, nonsignificant predictor (p=0.107) of SDS change, while lower CRC stress and lower SDS were significant positive predictors (p=0.038 and p<0.001, respectively). Conclusion. Exposure to GERA and feedback indicating modestly-elevated risk influenced change in SDS among participants who had greater knowledge about CRC screening, reported lower CRC stress, or had decided against about or were uncertain about CRC screening. Citation Format: Ronald E. Myers, Sharon Manne, Karen Ruth, James Cocroft, Randa Sifri, Barry Ziring, David Weinberg. Predictors of change in colorectal cancer screening decision stage among participants in a randomized, controlled trial of genetic and environmental risk assessment. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2012 Oct 16-19; Anaheim, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Prev Res 2012;5(11 Suppl):Abstract nr CN03-01.


Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) found in the blood of cancer patients are a promising biomarker in precision medicine. Yet, CTCs are very rare and it is very challenging to manually detect, characterize and count them in images of fluorescently labeled cells. Therefore, this thesis aims to develop image analysis and machine learning models to automatically and accurately detect and classify CTCs in fluorescent images and prove the added benefit of automated methods for cancer patients. CTCs and their fluorescent signals strongly vary in size, shape and signal intensity. We addressed the presence of multiple size and intensity scales by the development of a multiscale segmentation model. We combined nonlinear segmentation with scale spaces and spectral decompositions. This results in an accurate segmentation of the cells combined with a cell clustering based on their size and intensity. We further adapted the model to a purely size-based clustering of the cells which excels in segmenting also very dim fluorescent signals. Based on the segmentation of all cells, we extracted quantifiable features of the immunofluorescent expression of each cell. These features were used for an accurate and reproducible assessment of expression levels of CTC treatment targets. Moreover, they allowed the identification of new cell populations which were also overexpressed by cancer patients compared to healthy subjects. We further analyzed the consensus of multiple reviewers in manually scoring cells as a "CTC" or "no CTC". Their significant disagreement motivated the development of an automated learning algorithm to reproducibly classify CTCs and other cell populations of interest. Therefore, we used a convolutional neural network with an architecture based on autoencoders and combined it with an advanced visualization of the low-dimensional latent space. The chosen network allows to not only classify cells but to reveal new cell populations and subclasses of known populations. The work presented in this thesis resulted in the development of an open-source software for CTC analysis called ACCEPT (Automated CTC Classification, Enumeration and PhenoTyping). The toolbox facilitates and automates the process of detecting and classifying CTCs and other cell populations in fluorescent images.


Abstract Benzene-induced cancer in humans was first reported in the late 1920s. Carcinogenesis findings in animals were not reported conclusively until 1979. Industry exploited this "discrepancy" to discredit the use of animal bioassays as surrogates for human exposure experience. The cardinal reason for the delay between first recognizing leukemia in humans and sought-after neoplasia in animals centers on poor design and conduct of experimental studies. The first evidence of carcinogenicity in animals manifested as malignant tumors of the zymbal glands (sebaceous glands in the ear canal) of rats, and industry attempted to discount this as being irrelevant to humans, as this organ is vestigial and not present per se in humans. Nonetheless, shortly thereafter benzene was shown to be carcinogenic to multiple organ sites in both sexes of multiple strains and multiple species of laboratory animals exposed via various routes. This paper presents a condensed history of the benzene bioassay story with mention of benzene-associated human cancers.


A burgeoning paradigm in algorithm design is the field of algorithms with predictions, in which algorithms can take advantage of a possibly-imperfect prediction of some aspect of the problem. While much work has focused on using predictions to improve competitive ratios, running times, or other performance measures, less effort has been devoted to the question of how to obtain the predictions themselves, especially in the critical online setting. We introduce a general design approach for algorithms that learn predictors: (1) identify a functional dependence of the performance measure on the prediction quality and (2) apply techniques from online learning to learn predictors, tune robustness-consistency trade-offs, and bound the sample complexity. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by applying it to bipartite matching, ski-rental, page migration, and job scheduling. In several settings we improve upon multiple existing results while utilizing a much simpler analysis, while in the others we provide the first learning-theoretic guarantees.


Complex strategies in free-recall tasks are uncovered using technique of pairwise comparison of recall strings. The technique is used to parse recall trials into distinct sets, thus identifying trials in which the subject used a distinct strategy. The parsing is based on an index of dissimilarity between all pairs of recall strings, where the index is based on the structure of ordered trees. Using this technique, it was possible to identify multiple outliers, circular patterns of recalls, and multiple strategies. The implications of multiple recall strategies on free-recall experiments are discussed.


The causes of childhood cancers are largely unknown. Birth order has been used as a proxy for prenatal and postnatal exposures, such as frequency of infections and in utero hormone exposures. We investigated the association between birth order and childhood cancers in a pooled case‐control dataset. The subjects were drawn from population‐based registries of cancers and births in California, Minnesota, New York, Texas and Washington. We included 17,672 cases <15 years of age who were diagnosed from 1980 to 2004 and 57,966 randomly selected controls born 1970–2004, excluding children with Down syndrome. We calculated odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals using logistic regression, adjusted for sex, birth year, maternal race, maternal age, multiple birth, gestational age and birth weight. Overall, we found an inverse relationship between childhood cancer risk and birth order. For children in the fourth or higher birth order category compared to first‐born children, the adjusted OR was 0.87 (95% CI: 0.81, 0.93) for all cancers combined. When we examined risks by cancer type, a decreasing risk with increasing birth order was seen in the central nervous system tumors, neuroblastoma, bilateral retinoblastoma, Wilms tumor and rhabdomyosarcoma. We observed increased risks with increasing birth order for acute myeloid leukemia but a slight decrease in risk for acute lymphoid leukemia. These risk estimates were based on a very large sample size, which allowed us to examine rare cancer types with greater statistical power than in most previous studies, however the biologic mechanisms remain to be elucidated.


Non-reproductive sex practices in Asia have historically been a source of fascination, prurient or otherwise, for Westerners, who being either Catholic or Protestant, were often struck by what they perceived as the widespread promiscuity and licentiousness of native inhabitants. Graphic descriptions, and pious denunciations, of sodomy, bestiality, transvestitism, and incest, abound in Western travel narratives, missionary accounts, and ethnographies. But what constituted indigenous sexual morality, and how was this influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity over time and place? What sex practices were tolerated or even encouraged by society, community, and religious ritual, and what acts were considered undesirable, transgressive and worthy of punishment? Sexual Diversity in Asia, c. 600-1950 is the first book to foreground same- sex acts and pleasure seeking in the histories of India, China, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. Drawing on a range of indigenous and foreign sources, the contributors, all renowned experts in their fields, shed light on indigenous notions of gender and the body, social hierarchies, fundamental ideas concerning morality and immorality, and episodes of seduction. The book illuminates - in striking case studies – attitudes toward non-procreative sex acts, and representations and experiences of same-sex pleasure seeking in the histories of Asia. This path-breaking book is an important contribution to the study of gender and sexuality in Asian cultures and will also interest students and scholars of world history.


Microelectromechanical switches are of interest for low-power circuit applications due to their minimal OFF state leakage current. This paper uses 22-nm CMOS fabrication technology and the clamped cantilever geometry as the basis for establishing design rules for electrostatic nanorelays and estimates the design parameters needed for nanorelay actuation. The adhesive pull-off force of various substrate/cantilever combinations is simulated using molecular dynamics with a force field that parameterizes van der Waals interactions, and measured using atomic force microscopy. Both methods show that for the substrates studied, H-passivated Si produces the least adhesive surface with adhesive pressure close to the critical pressure required for pull-out. Experimental results quantifying adhesion and electrical current conduction show that it is impossible to simultaneously meet the adhesion and current conduction requirements of a nanorelay. We show that contact adhesion is the key parameter limiting the scalability of electromechanical relays at the nanoscale.


Embedding words in a vector space has gained a lot of attention in recent years. While state-of-the-art methods provide efficient computation of word similarities via a low-dimensional matrix embedding, their motivation is often left unclear. In this paper, we argue that word embedding can be naturally viewed as a ranking problem due to the ranking nature of the evaluation metrics. Then, based on this insight, we propose a novel framework WordRank that efficiently estimates word representations via robust ranking, in which the attention mechanism and robustness to noise are readily achieved via the DCG-like ranking losses. The performance of WordRank is measured in word similarity and word analogy benchmarks, and the results are compared to the state-of-the-art word embedding techniques. Our algorithm is very competitive to the state-of-the- arts on large corpora, while outperforms them by a significant margin when the training set is limited (i.e., sparse and noisy). With 17 million tokens, WordRank performs almost as well as existing methods using 7.2 billion tokens on a popular word similarity benchmark. Our multi-node distributed implementation of WordRank is publicly available for general usage.


The electric power consumed by servers has to be reduced in a cluster in order to realize eco society. We take a macro level approach to reducing the total electric energy consumption of servers to perform application processes in a server cluster. Servers are now equipped with multi-core CPUs. In this paper, we discuss a multi-level power consumption (MLPC) model of a server with a multi-core CPU. Here, the power consumption of a server depends on the number of active cores and active threads where at least one application process is performed. We also discuss a multi-level computation (MLC) model which gives the expected execution time of a process which is concurrently performed with other processes on a server with a multi-core CPU. Based on the MLPC model and the MLC model, we discuss an energy-aware (EA) algorithm to select a server for each process requested by a client in a cluster so as to reduce the total electric energy consumption while satisfying deadline requirements of the processes. We evaluate the EA algorithm and show not only the total energy consumption but also the average execution time of each process is reduced in the EA algorithm compared with the round-robin (RR) and random (RD) algorithms.


A serious problem facing contemporary athletic departments is increasing bureaucratization. Further, many management scholars feel that bureaucracies inhibit human creativity and organizational communication. Ironically, the traits of creativity and communication are the very ingredients that helped athletic departments achieve success. This paper discusses the idea of integrating athletic administration and staff into a unified community of achievers by implementing a Japanese participative management technique known as quality circles into the organization. The paper (a) defines quality circles, (b) gives their origin, (c) presents an overview of quality circles in U.S. industry, (d) points to the need for quality circles in university athletic departments, and (e) discusses the implementation of quality circles into athletic departments.


Impact craters, as "lunar fossils", are the most dominant lunar surface features and occupy most of the Moon's surface. Their formation and evolution record the history of the Solar System. Sixty years of triumphs in the lunar exploration projects accumulated a large amount of lunar data. Currently, there are 9137 existing recognized craters. However, only 1675 of them have been determined age, which is obviously not satisfactory to reveal the evolution of the Moon. Identifying craters is a challenging task due to their enormous difference in size, large variations in shape and vast presence. Furthermore, estimating the age of craters is extraordinarily difficult due to their complex and different morphologies. Here, in order to effectively identify craters and estimate their age, we convert the crater identification problem into a target detection task and crater age estimation into a taxonomy structure. From an initial small number of available craters, we progressively identify craters and estimate their age from Chang'E data by transfer learning (TL) using deep neural networks. For comprehensive identification of multi-scale craters, a two-stage craters detection approach is developed. Thus 117240 unrecognized lunar craters that range in diameter from 532 km to 1 km are identified. Then, a two-stage classification approach is developed to estimate the age of craters by simultaneously extracting their morphological features and stratigraphic information. The age of 79243 craters larger than 3 km in diameter is estimated. These identified and aged craters throughout the mid and low-latitude regions of the Moon are crucial for reconstructing the dynamic evolution process of the Solar System.


The current pier scour design in the USA is mainly based on the CSU equation, yet a recent incisive evaluation indicates a need to change it because substantial advances were made in the last two decades for understanding the pier scour processes. The objective of this research is then to propose a simplified scour mechanism and a physically-based scour depth equation for practical design purposes. A critical review on selected previous studies is first made to form the basis of this research. A simplified scour mechanism is next proposed in terms of the pressure gradient through flow–structure, flow–sediment and sediment–structure interactions. A hypothesis on the equilibrium scour depth equation is then proposed based on the understanding of the scour mechanism and tested by flume data. Finally, the proposed scour depth equation provides a criterion and a rule of thumb for scour design and evaluation.


DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTIs) such as 5-azacytidine (5-AZA) have been used for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and other malignancies. Although inhibiting global/gene-specific DNA methylation is widely accepted as a key mechanism behind DNMTI anti-tumor activity, other mechanisms are likely involved in DNMTI's action. Because telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) plays key roles in cancer through telomere elongation and telomere lengthening-independent activities, and TERT has been shown to confer chemo- or radio-resistance to cancer cells, we determine whether DNMTIs affect telomere function and whether TERT/telomerase interferes with their anti-cancer efficacy. We showed that 5-AZA induced DNA damage and telomere dysfunction in AML cell lines by demonstrating the presence of 53-BP1 foci and the co-localization of 53-BP1 foci with telomere signals, respectively. Telomere dysfunction was coupled with diminished TERT expression, shorter telomere and apoptosis in 5-AZA-treated cells. However, 5-AZA treatment did not lead to changes in the methylation status of subtelomere regions. Down-regulation of TERT expression similarly occurred in primary leukemic cells derived from AML patients exposed to 5-AZA. TERT over-expression significantly attenuated 5-AZA-mediated DNA damage, telomere dysfunction and apoptosis of AML cells. Collectively, 5-AZA mediates the down-regulation of TERT expression, and induces telomere dysfunction, which consequently exerts an anti-tumor activity.


We present preliminary results of the effect of Expo-Based Learning (EBL) applied to a course on information visualization. We define EBL as project-based learning (PBL) augmented with constructively-aligned large public demos [RTP14]. In this paper, we analyze the results of challenging and grading enrolled students to compete and present their projects publicly at an open student competition organized by a second university. We surveyed the students at the end of the course before the competition started and the end of the competition. We present the result of the impact of the student competition as it relates to the intended learning outcomes from the perspective of the students.


This study analyzes changes in the HR policy of Japanese corporations led by Nikkeiren (the Japan Federation of Employers' Association), based on the Nikkeiren reports and oral history documents that we created by interviewing former staff. The study focuses on the "New Japanese-Style Management System—Direction and Concrete Practices that Should Be Attempted," which was announced in 1995, and examines the novelty and continuity of its HR policy. The results revealed the following four findings: (1) During the 1970s and 1980s, HR policies were primarily ability-based systems. The job-ability-based grade system and pay-for-job-qualifications systems caused problems, such as having excess numbers of qualified people and a lack of open positions. Internal professional systems were introduced to overcome such issues. (2) New Japanese-style management has been criticized as the origin of the "employment portfolio" and associated with reductions in labor costs and unstable employment after the collapse of the bubble economy. However, employment portfolios applied to two categories of human resources (i.e., "flow" human resources and "stock" human resources) during the economic bubble in the late 1980s. (3) New Japanese-style management practices were positioned such that they should have inherited a long-term perspective and emphasized human resource development in a similar fashion to the HR policies of the 1970s and 1980s. (4) The novelty of new Japanese-style management as an HR policy lies in the fact that it further separated the two categories of human resources to include the new category of "employment portfolio" (resulting in three categories) human resources. Advanced, professional skills-oriented groups that were supposed to be short-term employees were different from the internal professional systems in vogue until the 1980s. This new category of employment portfolio—personnel that created high added value—was embodied within the HR policy of integrating outside talent. However, a debate remained regarding whether the threefold classification system of categories of human resources should be maintained as opposed to the twofold system. Moreover, no confirmation of the increase in advanced, professional skills-oriented groups was provided until the early 2000s. In other words, it was presented as an HR policy but was not put into practice. Discussions on how advanced, professional skills-oriented groups should be developed still continue to this day.


A simple accurate method, which automatically takes full account of the discontinuities in the normal electric field components across any arbitrary distribution of internal dielectric interfaces, is presented for the determination of polarised solutions of the Helmholtz wave equation. The application of the shifted inverse power iteration method to the resulting matrices, enables any required propagation eigenvalue (not necessarily the fundamanetal mode) to be determined, together with its corresponding electric field profile. It is found that the results, which are presented for various semiconductor rib waveguide structures, compare favourably with published vector finite element and scalar results.


CONTEXT
African Americans disproportionately experience greater smoking attributable morbidity and mortality. Few clinical trials for smoking cessation in African Americans have been conducted, despite a different profile of both smoking and quitting patterns.

OBJECTIVE
To compare a sustained-release form of bupropion hydrochloride (bupropion SR) with placebo for smoking cessation among African Americans.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted from February 11, 1999, to December 8, 2000, of 600 African American adults treated at a community-based health care center. Volunteers, who smoked 10 or more cigarettes per day were recruited by targeted media and health care professionals.

INTERVENTION
Participants were randomly assigned to receive 150 mg of bupropion SR (n = 300) or placebo (n = 300) twice daily for 7 weeks. Brief motivational counseling was provided in-person at baseline, quit day, weeks 1 and 3, end of treatment (week 6), and by telephone at day 3 and weeks 5 and 7.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Biochemically confirmed 7-day point prevalence abstinence at weeks 6 and 26 following quit day.

RESULTS
Using intention-to-treat procedures, confirmed abstinence rates at the end of 7 weeks of treatment were 36.0% in the bupropion SR group and 19.0% in the placebo group (17.0 percentage point difference; 95% confidence interval, 9.7-24.4; P<.001). At 26 weeks the quit rates were 21.0% in the treatment and 13.7% in the placebo groups (7.3 percentage point difference; 95% confidence interval, 1.0-13.7; P =.02). Those taking bupropion SR experienced a greater mean reduction in depression symptoms at week 6 (2.96 [9.45] vs 1.13 [8.84]) than those taking placebo, and after controlling for continuous abstinence, those taking bupropion SR also gained less weight than those taking placebo.

CONCLUSIONS
Bupropion SR was effective for smoking cessation among African Americans and may be useful in reducing the health disparities associated with smoking.


Composting is an efficient technology for the utilisation of by-products and waste. It is also suitable for treating raw materials to convert fertilisers that are not recommended for application without pre-processing. Such is the case with poultry manure, which is very important to pre-treat due to its hazardous properties. An increasingly common form of compost is compost tea, which is made by soaking compost in water. In our experiment, we made compost tea from a composted and granulated poultry manure product. Three mixing ratios were used (1/5, 1/10, 1/10) and compost teas were set for three different extraction times (24–48–72 hours). After elimination of the experiment, the pH, EC, and nitrate and ammonium contents of the samples were measured. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference between each mixing ratio and different extraction times. Based on our results, it can be said that the fluctuation of pH values during the experiment was low. Regardless of the mixing ratio and extraction time, the samples were in the slightly acidic range. The electrical conductivity, nitrate and ammonium content follow a similar trend, the values decrease significantly with the increase of the mixing ratio. Similar tendency was observed at the incubation time. The concentrations of both EC and nitrogen forms increase with increasing incubation time, in most cases significantly.


This study aimed to describe and assess whether the submission of Cassation public prosecutor by reason Judex factie erroneous of interpreting state losses in a corruption case in accordance with the provisions of Article 253 Criminal Procedure Code. This research is a  normative legal research which is prescriptive with the approach of the case (case approach) that is done in a way conduct a review of cases which deals with the issues faced and has been a court decision who already have legally enforceable. Technique analysis of legal materials being used is to use legal reasoning with the deduction method.The research instrument is the Supreme Court Decision No. 1022 K / Pid.Sus / 2014. This case shows the misinterpretation of state losses by Judex factie in the ruling  Medan District Court No. 80 / Pid.Sus.K / 2013 / PNMdn, Where which are supposed to calculate the loss of state is BPKP be based Article 23E paragraph (1) The Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia of 1945, Government Regulation No. 60 of 2008 and the Constitutional Court Decision No. 31 / PUU-X / 2012.The results of research by the author shows that the submission of Cassation Prosecutor General with  reason Judex factie erroneous of interpreting state losses in a corruption case conformable with the provisions of Article 253 paragraph (1) letter a Criminal Procedure Code. In this case Judex Factie had misapplied the law or had not apply the law as it should be with ignore the facts revealed at the hearing thus erroneous of interpreting state losses. This resulted in Judex facti in dropping its decision  not meet humanity and justice. Keywords: Cassation, State Losses, The Criminal Procedure Code


This thesis analyses the ways in which histories of same-sex love are presented to the public. It provides an original overview of the themes, strengths and limitations encountered in representations of same-sex love across multiple institutions and examples of public history. This thesis argues that positively, there have been many developments in archives, museums, historic houses, monuments and digital public history that make histories of same-sex love more accessible to the public, and that these forms of public history have evolved to be participatory and inclusive of margnialised communities and histories. It highlights ways that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*, Queer (LGBTQ) communities have contributed to public histories of same-sex love and thus argues that public history can play a significant role in the formation of personal and group identities. It also argues that despite this progression, there are many ways in which histories of same-sex love remain excluded from, or are represented with significant limitations, in public history. This thesis shows that the themes of balancing trauma and celebration, limited intersectionality, complex terminology, shared authority and the ghettoisation of same-sex love have emerged across a variety of public history types and institutions. It discusses examples of successful and limited representations of same-sex love in order to suggest ways that public history can move forward and better represent such histories.


This paper is a report from an ongoing project directed to marketing in Public libraries. The authors outlines the aims and strategy for the marketing effort which is designed in three basic steps: First; the building of a new brand for the libraries, second; conducting a general marketing campaign and third; conducting partial campaigns directed to some selected segments of the population. The project is wide in scope and involves 25 different local libraries in the south-east of Sweden. This papers also presents three different strategies for evaluating the project, and gives a brief description of the theoretical perspecitives as well as the empirical base used in the research. The paper also discuss some of the preliminary results of the marketing campaign this far in the project, especially the results related to the second step; the general marketing campaign.


Since the 2008 economic crisis, network research has become increasingly prominent in the world of finance. The complex interrelations and financial interdependencies formed among financial market participants have proved to be critical in times of crisis. In this paper, we explore the network properties of the Hungarian RTGS (VIBER) and also seek an answer to the question of whether the network properties of the system have changed over the long term across the time windows considered, and if so, to what extent. Furthermore, we identify systemically important participants using a variety of network theory tools. We also explore methodologies which – by providing new perspectives for monitoring the evolution of systemically important participants – may contribute to improving the effectiveness of oversight in Hungary. To identify systemically important participants, we apply four methodologies, namely: the LSI index, the model capturing the relation of eigenvector and betweenness, diffusion centrality, and the model exploring the effect of combining multiple nodes. In the Hungarian RTGS, two distinct groups emerge: the first is comprised of participants that play a key role in the transmission of liquidity ("core"), and the other is the cluster of periphery participants. As the composition of the core has remained virtually unchanged, it can be considered stable. While the risk of contagion arising from an operational disruption increased at both the individual and aggregated level during the period under review, it is also apparent that no such link exists in the graph the removal of which would ultimately cut the communication between the banks originally connected by it. The results of each indicator showed that there were no significant changes regarding the network properties across the three time windows, confirming the robustness of the network properties of the Hungarian RTGS and its stability over time.


Single-event double transients (SEDTs) in 65-nm bulk CMOS inverter chains designed with different transistor widths are measured under pulsed laser irradiation. A 3-D TCAD simulations coupled with Monte Carlo calculation are performed to explain the experimental results. It is shown that the SEDTs result from the charge sharing between electrically connected inverters. Inverter chains designed with larger transistors are more resistant to SEDTs than those with smaller transistors for normal incidence. However, it is found through simulation that the advantage of inverter chains designed with larger transistors in suppressing SEDTs is compromised for ion incidence along the well direction. In addition to the transistor size optimization technique, an extra hardened design is needed for better mitigation of SEDTs.


Software has become the main value driver of medical devices. Improvements of already developed medical devices are often only achieved through the further development of software components. These are often usability enhancements and the ability to connect with other medical devices or information systems. To ensure the integrity of patients' and operators' health, the development of medical software is regulated by law. However, there are two opposing requirements here. On one hand, the medical software must be continually developed, for example to update an algorithm or to improve the usability of the user-interface. On the other hand, development must comply with legal requirements, which may be cumbersome and requires a lot of documentation and testing.

The architecture of a medical software must be easily extensible and modifiable to meet both requirements. This thesis shows how an extensible and modifiable system can be ensured using an Event-Driven Architecture. Using a medical application scenario an event-driven architecture is designed and implemented. The system is composed of individual applications which are loosely coupled and communicate only via the exchange of events. It is demonstrated, how this structure allows the extension of the architecture by adding applications during operation. Different tools and technologies for the implementation of the event-driven approach are compared and selected. Moreover, solution strategies are presented, which address the challenges when implementing the event-driven architecture.

Such architectures also simplify automated integration tests. For this purpose, a domain specific language is developed which allows to simulate and test the interaction between different sub-applications of the system. The test cases created can be easily integrated into the build process and thus shorten the release cycles of the application significantly. All presented advantages of the designed event-driven architecture optimize the development of medical software for compliance with the IEC 62304 standard and a successful declaration of conformity. Thus, the time-to-market for new product features of a medical device will be significantly reduced.


The site of Ugwuele-Uturu was discovered in 1977 and excavated on two occasions between then and 1981. A number of general accounts were produced by the excavators, but to a large extent the site remains unpublished. No detailed account of the excavations or of the excavated material is widely available. In the meantime, controversy as to what the site represents continues, in the light of F.N. Anozie's claim that it is Acheulean. This paper provides a record of the author's visits to the site in 1978 and 1981, when he was a staff member of the University of Ibadan, and also presents some results from his study of the artefacts kept at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Nigeria Nsukka in 1980. In his view, on the basis of the available evidence, the site represents an axe factory of likely Holocene date. It is hoped that this record, apart from its historical documentary value, will stimulate new work on the site and the material from it, so that its nature can be established beyond doubt.


A death from chloroquinoresistant falciparum malaria contracted by a traveller under chloroquine chemoprophylaxis during a stay in the Cameroon provides the authors with an opportunity to analyze the extension of chloroquinoresistance in Africa. Having appeared there about 10 years ago, it remained for a long time localized in East Africa. In recent years, it has moved West. Today, 17 countries located from the North to the South between Sudan and Mozambique, and from East to West between Kenya and the Cameroon are affected, as are the Malagasy Republic, the Comores and Zanzibar. The strains resistant to chloroquine are still sensitive to amodiaquine. In certain regions which are widespread in the continent, resistance to pyrimethamine has become evident in the last 30 years; resistance to pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine and pyrimethamine-dapsone has appeared in the last 3 years in East Africa. In the light of the complexity of the problem of malaria chemoprophylaxis, the authors emphasize the necessity of resensitizing the public at large with respect to personal protection against biting anopheline mosquitos, especially during the hours of darkness. The medical profession should equally be made aware of these new problems. Three types of chemoprophylaxis in relation to the areas visited are proposed: the first for West Africa; the second for Central Africa, neighbouring regions and the Malagasy Republic and the Comores; the third for the 3 East Africa countries the most affected, which are Kenya, Burundi and Tanzania.


The F4 soybean progenies derived from two cross combinations and their three parent varieties were evaluated for their heritability and expected genetic advances of quantitative traits, at Ngale Experimental Station, Ngawi, East Java during the dry season of 2009. The experiment was arranged in a randomized block design with three replications. Seeds of each F4 progenies and their parents were sown in two rows of 4.5 m length of plots with a 40 cm x 15 cm plant spacing, two plants/hill. Plant population of each F4 progenies and their parents were 120 plants in each replication. Among the characters observed, seed yield per plant, number of pods per plant, and days to maturity had the highest coefficient of variability, with the means of 50.4%, 47.4% and 43.9%, respectively. Number of branches, number of nodes per plant and days to flowering had the lowest coefficient of variability, and the means were 14.0%, 14.3% and 17.2%, respectively. The heritability estimates of the 8 quantitative characters ranged from 19.4% to 55.9%. Plant height, number of pods per plant, and days to maturity had the highest heritability estimates for the two crosses, namely 55.9%, 51.5% and 41.2%, respectively. The mean heritability estimate for seed yield per plant and number of nodes per plant were the lowest, namely 19.7% and 19.4%, respectively. Based on the F4 data, selection on the number of pods per plant had the highest expected genetic advances of 41.8%, followed by the days to maturity (40.7%) and the plant height (38.0%). The mean of expected genetic advances for the number of branches and the number of nodes per plant were the lowest, namely 13.7% and 13.5%, respectively. In relation to the grain yield, the mean heritability estimate for seed yield per plant was low (19.7%). However, considerable genetic variability (50.4%) and genetic advances (35.8%) was present on the seed yield per plant.


Abstract Assuming a society of conditional cooperators (or moody conditional cooperators), this computational study proposes a new perspective on the structural advantage of social network clustering. Previous work focused on how clustered structure might encourage initial outbreaks of cooperation or defend against invasion by a few defectors. Instead, we explore the ability of a societal structure to retain cooperative norms in the face of widespread disturbances. Such disturbances may abstractly describe hardships like famine and economic recession, or the random spatial placement of a substantial numbers of pure defectors (or round-1 defectors) among a spatially structured population of players in a laboratory game, etc. As links in tightly clustered societies are reallocated to distant contacts, we observe that a society becomes increasingly susceptible to catastrophic cascades of defection: mutually-beneficial cooperative norms can be destroyed completely by modest shocks of defection. In contrast, networks with higher clustering coefficients can withstand larger shocks of defection before being forced to catastrophically low levels of cooperation. We observe a remarkably linear protective effect of clustering coefficient that becomes active above a critical level of clustering. Notably, both the critical level and the slope of this dependence is higher for decision-rule parameterizations that correspond to higher costs of cooperation. Our modeling framework provides a simple way to reinterpret the counter-intuitive and widely cited human experiments of Suri and Watts (2011) while also affirming the classical intuition that network clustering and higher levels of cooperation should be positively associated.


The threat of domestic terrorism today looms larger than ever. Bombings at the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City's Federal Building, as well as nerve gas attacks in Japan, have made it tragically obvious that American civilians must be ready for terrorist attacks. What do we need to know to help emergency and medical personnel prepare for these attacks? Chemical and Biological Terrorism identifies the R&D efforts needed to implement recommendations in key areas: pre-incident intelligence, detection and identification of chemical and biological agents, protective clothing and equipment, early recognition that a population has been covertly exposed to a pathogen, mass casualty decontamination and triage, use of vaccines and pharmaceuticals, and the psychological effects of terror. Specific objectives for computer software development are also identified. The book addresses the differences between a biological and chemical attack, the distinct challenges to the military and civilian medical communities, and other broader issues. This book will be of critical interest to anyone involved in civilian preparedness for terrorist attack: planners, administrators, responders, medical professionals, public health and emergency personnel, and technology designers and engineers.


BACKGROUND It is critical that speech-language pathologists engage in evidence-based practice (EBP). According to ASHA (2005), EBP integrates: 1. clinical expertise/expert opinion, 2. externalscientific evidence, and 3.the perspectives of clients/families to provide high-quality servicesthat reflect their needs, values, interests, and choices.Resonating with this third aim of EBP, Black and Wells (2007) define cultural competence as an attitude and practice in which the treating professional is knowledgeable about and sensitive to their clients' beliefs and values and works with them to develop appropriate and meaningful treatment plans. Many individuals do not share information about their utilization of alternative practices and remedies with their health care professionals (Wong & Smith, 2006), potentially due to concerns with professionals' lack of acceptance and cultural mismatches. SLPs may sense a dilemma. It is critical that SLPs provide treatments that are evidence-based and avoid promoting practices that are not, yet they must also display cultural competence and sensitivity to the values and choices of their clients and families. METHODS Participants: Parents/guardian participants were recruited via email and online community and parent groups. SLPs were recruited via email, ASHA Special Interest Groups, Multicultural Constituency groups, and online professional networks throughout the United States. Respondents included 105 parents/guardians of children with special needs in 24 U.S. states and 115 SLPs who serve children ages 0-18 in 29 states.Methods: Surveys were broadly distributed to encourage participation from demographically representative and culturally diverse samples. Participants completed online surveys that included both closed-and open-ended questions. The survey for parents/guardians included 26 specific questions about their views, use and experiences with alternative practices for their children with special needs and how comfortable they feel sharing such information with their SLPs. The survey for SLPs included 28 questions about their clients' utilization of and their own experiences, education, and opinions on alternative therapeutic practices, also known as Complimentary Alternative medicine (CAM). DISCUSSION More than half (58%) of parents reported using complementary and alternative methods to treat their child's disorder; in addition, 11% reported that physicians, 15% reported that SLPs, and 7% reported that other professionals have recommended CAM methods. Of SLP respondents, approximately one-third reported that their clients/families use CAM to address their child's special needs prior to pursuing SLP services; additionally, 21% reported having recommended CAM to families, and 75% reported having used CAM personally. The majority of SLP respondents reported rarely or never discussing the use of alternative methods with parents/guardians. Overall, these research findings highlight the importance of continued investigation of the effectiveness of these methods, sensitivity to clients' and families' values and choices, increased education, and open communication between SLPs and the clients/families they serve.


This paper is focused on the design of a mobile robot whose objective is to apply thermal insulation spray in underfloor voids, to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. Solving robustly the mapping and localization problems is crucial to achieve a high degree of autonomy during the development of this task. Nevertheless, underfloor voids constitute specially challenging environments mainly owing to the extreme unevenness of the terrain and the changes the environment experiences as the insulation process is carried out. Taking these issues into account, this work presents the implementation of the localization module of the robot, which is equipped with a laser scanner and an RGB (Red, Green and Blue) camera. The data captured by both sensors is combined to build point clouds that describe the appearance of the environment. While the robot traverses the a priori unknown environment, several point clouds are built and an alignment between each pair of consecutive clouds is carried out. From this information, the current position of the robot is estimated with respect to the previous one. The method has been tested with several datasets captured in real underfloor environments (building crawl spaces) and under real operating conditions.


With the growing salience of ideas and reforms concerning women's human rights and gender equality, violence against women (VAW) has received heightened policy attention. Recent global calls for ending VAW identify health care systems as having a crucial role in a multisector response to tackle this social injustice. Scholars emphasize the transformative potential of such response in its ability to not only address the varied health consequences but also prevent future recurrence by enabling wider access to support and justice. This wider consensus on the role of health systems, however, demands stronger empirical basis. This article reports findings from an exploratory research developed around the core question: What are the perceived strengths and challenges confronting health systems in offering a comprehensive response to VAW in India? Drawing on site visits, observations, and interviews with front-line staff and program managers of an integrated intervention to tackle violence in Kerala and nongovernment organisation staff in Delhi and Mumbai, the article presents its historical context and key barriers to effective implementation. While promising in terms of outreach and incremental changes in attitudes, barriers include deficits in infrastructure and institutional practices that reinforce inequities in gender–power relations, hostile attitudes, and limited capacities of health workforce to tackle the complex and diverse needs of women experiencing abuse. Locating these experiences in relation to other models rooted in feminist approach, I argue how conventional intervention models of provisioning fail to challenge institutional contexts and structural inequalities that underpin violence and compound vulnerabilities experienced by women, thereby serving a functional response. Health systems are social institutions embedded in prevailing gender norms and power relations that must be tackled alongside addressing imminent needs of women victims of abuse. To this end, feminist approaches to counselling and relational perspectives to social justice can strengthen responsiveness (and transformative potential) of integrated sector-wide interventions.


Four Tanzanian open pollinated maize varieties namely; Kito, Situka M-1, Staha and TMV-1 were regenerated in vitro using immature zygotic embryos as ex-plants. Callus induction was achieved using Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal medium supplemented with 1, 1.5, 2 or 2.5 mg/l of 2, 4-D. Callus induction was significantly affected by the genotype of the varieties. Among the varieties tested, Kito, Situka M-1 and Staha had significantly higher callus induction frequency of 84.4, 92.7 and 88.7%, respectively compared to TMV-1 (43.3%). Embryogenic callus induction percentage was significantly influenced by the genotype, 2, 4-D concentrations and their interaction effect implying differential response of the genotypes to 2, 4-D concentrations. Among the genotypes tested, Kito gave significantly (p<0.05) the highest embryogenic callus frequency of 69.5%. Great variations were observed among the genotypes with regard to regeneration frequencies. Staha was comparatively the most regenerable variety with RF of 32.6% than even Kito which had the highest callus induction and embryogenic callus formation. MS medium amended with 1 mg/l 2, 4-D was observed to be the optimum formulation for the induction of embryogenic calli for genotypes tested in this study. Using this regeneration system Situka M-1, Staha and TMV-1 can now be improved against various production constraints through genetic engineering. Key words : 2, 4-dichlorophexyacetic acid, embryogenic callus, immature zygotic embryos, regeneration frequency, somatic embryos, Tanzanian open pollinated maize.


A 92-year-old woman presented with signs and symptoms of heart failure, including marked bilateral lower extremity edema, jugular vein distention, and difficulty in breathing at rest. Her medical history was significant for hyperthyroidism, chronic asthmatic bronchitis, and senile dementia. Medications included oral methimazole, 10 mg/d, and oral theophylline, 200 mg/d.


Re-distribution layer (RDL) is one key enabling technology for advance packaging. RDL is usually fabricated in wafer level by photolithography process. An alternative approach for implementing RDL by additive manufacturing (AM) method is proposed in this study. This allows RDL to be fabricated on singulation chip. Nano-silver (nano-Ag) ink is printed on the silicon chip to form routing traces and bond pads. However, the Ag pad may be consumed by solder quickly if the process is not properly controlled. This paper studied the effect of nano-Ag ink sintering condition on the solderability of Ag pad. The solder joint mechanical integrity was evaluated by solder ball shear test. High temperature storage test was also carried out to evaluate the solder joint reliability. Experiment results showed that Ag pad fabricated by AM is SMT compatible. High temperature storage did not cause early failure to the samples. There was not significant change in the Ag3Sn IMC layer thickness and mechanical strength. The finding of the present study will serve as a very useful reference for future practice of forming solder joints on sintered nano-Ag pads.


. Necessary and sufficient conditions for choice functions to be rational have been intensively studied in the past. However, in these attempts, a choice function is completely specified. That is, given any subset of options, called an issue, the best option over that issue is always known, whilst in real-world scenarios, it is very often that only a few choices are known instead of all. In this paper, we study partial choice functions and investigate necessary and sufficient rationality conditions for situations where only a few choices are known. We prove that our necessary and sufficient condition for partial choice functions boils down to the necessary and sufficient conditions for complete choice functions proposed in the literature. Choice functions have been instrumental in belief revision theory. That is, in most approaches to belief revision, the problem studied can simply be described as the choice of possible worlds compatible with the input information, given an agent's prior belief state. The main effort has been to devise strategies in order to infer the agents revised belief state. Our study considers the converse problem: given a collection of input information items and their corresponding revision results (as provided by an agent), does there exist a rational revision operation used by the agent and a consistent belief state that may explain the observed results?


We have used ant ibody to chicken gizzard alpha-actinin to identify and localize this molecule in chicken intestinal epithelium. The ant ibody binds only to alphaactinin when tested against a crude extract of chicken gizzard. Extracts of purified epithelial cells contain a molecule which has a subunit molecular weight of 100,000 on sodium dodecyl sulphate gels and which is able to inhibit the interaction of alpha-actinin ant ibody and lz~I-labeled chicken gizzard alphaactinin. By indirect immunofluorescence, alpha-actinin is localized in the apical port ion of chicken intestinal epithelial cells. Ethanol-f ixed cryostat sections of intestine taken th rough the apical port ion of the epithelial cells and in a plane perpendicular to the long axis of the cells show that alpha-actinin is organized in a polygonal pat tern which corresponds to the outlines of the polygonally packed epithelial cells. We interpret the data as indicating that alpha-actinin is a componen t of the tight junction (zonula occludens) and/or the belt desmosome (zonula adherens), both of which are membrane structures known to encircle the cell and to be confined to its apical portion.


BACKGROUND
A minority of adults in developed countries engage in sufficient physical activity (PA) to achieve health benefits. This study aims to identify modifiable perceived resources and barriers to PA among New Zealand adults.

METHODS
Secondary analysis of a 2003 nationally representative cross-sectional mail survey, stratified by region, age, and ethnicity, and analyzed utilizing ordinal logistic regression.

RESULTS
Overall, n = 8038 adults responded to the survey, of whom 49% met updated guidelines for sufficient PA. Perceived accessibility of local resources was associated with PA; however, for some resources there was more awareness among individuals whose predominant activity was not commonly associated with that resource (eg, health clubs and walkers). Perceived local environmental barriers demonstrated negative (steep hills, crime, dogs) and positive (unmaintained footpaths) associations. The absence of perceived environmental barriers was strongly associated with increased activity, suggesting the number of barriers may be a critical factor.

CONCLUSION
Complex relationships between perceptions of local environments and activity patterns among adults were found. Although complex, these results demonstrate positive associations between awareness of resources and perceived lack of barriers with being sufficiently physically active for health. Therefore, investments in provision and/or promotion of local resources have the potential to enable active healthy communities.


A 68-year-old woman with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy suffered from drug-resistant monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT). Electrophysiological study revealed a re-entrant VT circuit located just beneath the inferior mitral valve annulus. The VT was considered to be related to the mitral valve isthmus and was abolished by radiofrequency ablation. The patient died 2 years after the ablation due to worsening of heart failure and an autopsy was performed. Pathological examination revealed ablation scar tissue on the localized myocardial bundle running parallel to the mitral valve annulus. Therefore, this bundle appeared to comprise the slow conduction area of the re-entrant VT in this case.


Masquerading animals have evolved striking visual resemblances to inanimate objects. These animals gain protection from their predators not simply by avoiding detection, but by causing their predators to misclassify them as the 'models' that they appear to resemble. Using domestic chicks as predators and twig-mimicking caterpillars as prey, we demonstrated that masquerading prey were more likely to be misclassified as their models when viewed in isolation from their models than when viewed alongside examples of their model, although they benefitted from masquerade to some extent in both conditions. From this, we predict a selection pressure on masqueraders to use microhabitats that reduce the risk of them being viewed simultaneously with examples of their model, and/or to more closely resemble their model in situations where simultaneous viewing is commonplace.


Bi0.9Ho0.1Fe0.95O3 and Bi0.9Ho0.1Fe0.9Ti0.05O3 ceramics were prepared and compared to reveal the effects of Ho and Ti codoping in BiFeO3. X-ray diffraction indicated that both ceramics had a high rhombohedral perovskite phase content, and microstructural analyses showed that the grains of the Bi0.9Ho0.1Fe0.9Ti0.05O3 ceramics were much smaller than those of Bi0.9Ho0.1Fe0.95O3. An electrical resistivity of more than 1 × 1014?·cm at room temperature, and a magnetic hysteresis loop with a remnant magnetization 2Mr of ~ 0.485 emu/g were obtained for Bi0.9Ho0.1Fe0.9Ti0.05O3; both were much higher than those of Bi0.9Ho0.1Fe0.95O3. Changes in the defect subsystem of BiFeO3 induced by Fe-deficiency and(Ho,Ti) codoping are proposed as being responsible for the improvement in the properties.


Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has emerged as a fast-paced epidemic in late 2019 which is disrupting life-saving immunization services. SARS-CoV-2 is a highly transmissible virus and an infectious disease that has caused fear among people across the world. The worldwide emergence and rapid expansion of SARS-CoV-2 emphasizes the need for exploring innovative therapeutic approaches to combat SARS-CoV-2. The efficacy of some antiviral drugs such as remdesivir, favipiravir, umifenovir, etc., are still tested against SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, there is a large global effort to develop vaccines for the protection against COVID-19. Because vaccines seem the best solution to control the pandemic but time is required for its development, pre-clinical/clinical trials, approval from FDA and scale-up. The nano-based approach is another promising approach to combat COVID-19 owing to unique physicochemical properties of nanomaterials. Peptide based vaccines emerged as promising vaccine candidates for SARS-CoV-2. The study emphasizes the current therapeutic approaches against SARS-CoV-2 and some of the potential candidates for SARS-CoV-2 treatment which are still under clinical studies for their effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2. Overall, it is of high importance to mention that clinical trials are necessary for confirming promising drug candidates and effective vaccines and the safety profile of the new components must be evaluated before translation of in vitro studies for implementation in clinical use.


Anticipating species movement under climate change is a major focus in conservation. Bioclimate models are one of the few predictive tools for adaptation planning, but are limited in accounting for (i) climatic tolerances in preadult life stages that are potentially more vulnerable to warming; and (ii) local‐scale movement and use of climatic refugia as an alternative or complement to large‐scale changes in distribution. To assess whether these shortfalls can be addressed with field demographic data, we used California valley oak (Quercus lobata Nee), a long‐lived species with juvenile life stages known to be sensitive to climate. We hypothesized that the valley oak bioclimate model, based on adults, would overpredict the species' ability to remain in the projected persisting area, due to higher climate vulnerability of young life stages; and underpredict the potential for the species to remain in the projected contracting area in local‐scale refugia. We assessed the bioclimate model projections against actual demographic patterns in natural populations. We found that saplings were more constricted around surface water than adults in the projected contracting area. We also found that the climate envelope for saplings is narrower than that for adults. Saplings disappeared at a summer maximum temperature 3 °C below that associated with adults. Our findings indicate that rather than a complete shift northward and upward, as predicted by the species bioclimate model, valley oaks are more likely to experience constriction around water bodies, and eventual disappearance from areas exceeding a threshold of maximum temperature. Ours is the first study we know of to examine the importance of discrete life stage climate sensitivities in determining bioclimate modeling inputs, and to identify current climate change‐related constriction of a species around microrefugia. Our findings illustrate that targeted biological fieldwork can be central to understanding climate change‐related movement for long‐lived, sessile species.


Background: Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are growing worldwide in both developed and developing countries. Parents are primary caregivers to recognize the signs and symptoms of children's behavior or mental -illness. This study is to obtain basic knowledge and awareness about NDDs in children in Nepali community. People in Nepali community have various religions and outdated belief. This study analyzes misconceptions and factors that influence the knowledge regarding NDDs among general populations, which can help to build early recognition and give support towards families with children diagnosed as mental and psychiatric disorders. Methods: This is a descriptive study conducted among parents of children visited in out-patients department in Nirmala Devi hospital. This survey is based on questionnaire interview with parents regarding socio-demographic information and their knowledge and opinion about NDDs. A total of 500 parents were recruited. Data were collected in excel sheet and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Results: Among our study population, 54.4% were female and 45.4% of them were from age 30 to 39 years. The majority of participants (57.8%) live in village, 75.6% were Hinduism and 52.2% were formal educational status. In general, the participants' knowledge and opinions regarding NDDs were poor. When asked about autism symptoms, 65.4% of the female respondents were more positive than the male counterparts. When comparison of religion and mental illness are related to God, all religions of respondents were positive. Residency from both city and village agreed that fear of using drugs for treatment of psychiatric disorder resulted from negative media coverage. Highly educated respondents were more likely to consider psychiatric illness as treatable where as formal educated respondent take it the other way. Conclusion: Public knowledge and awareness regarding NDDs need to improve. Formal educated participants should be the target for mental health education and several misconceptions. Anti-stigma and mental health knowledge programmed should be increased in public and community to improve the quality of life.


When the shape memory alloy(SMA) completely consists of austenite phase that shows the super-elastic property, if the external energies, such as stress, crack, propagation and lamination, etc. are increased in this alloy until the austenite phase was transformed into the martensite phase, they are enough to change the mean free path of electrons correlated with the electrical resistivity of materials in the microscopic point of view. On the basis of the above concept, we carried out the feasible study for SMA wire as a strain sensor using the super-elastic property of SMA. The SMA wires of diameter 41 ㎛ were utilized for a sensor material. The relationship between electrical resistivity and tensile properties of the Ni-Ti based SMA wires during tensile loading was investigated. Since the strain is very sensitive to the minute change of electrical resistance of SMA wire, it is possible to use the SMA wire as a sensor of such physical quantities. In the study, the possibility for the application of Ni-Ti SMA wire as a sensor was investigated. The sensing system was able to measure the strain up to 6 % with 0.22 % measuring error. The sensitivity described by the ratio of electrical resistivity showed 0.00005.


Vocational education is a large part of the high school curriculum, yet we have little understanding of what drives vocational enrollment or whether these courses help or harm early careers. To address this deficiency, we develop a framework for curriculum choice, taking into account ability and preferences for academic and vocational work. We test model predictions using detailed transcript and earnings information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997). Our results are twofold. First, students positively sort into vocational courses, suggesting that the belief that low-ability students are funneled into vocational coursework is unlikely true. Second, we find higher earnings among students taking more upper-level vocational courses—a nearly 2 percent wage premium for each additional year, yet we find no gain from introductory vocational courses. These results suggest: (1) policies limiting students' ability to take vocational courses may not be welfare-enhancing, and (2) the benefits of vocational coursework accrue to those who focus on depth over breadth.


Systems based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm must be able to bind to arbitrary Web services at runtime. However, current service frameworks are predominantly used through precompiled service-access components, which are invariably hard-wired to a specific service provider. The Dynamic and Asynchronous Invocation of Services framework is a message-based service framework that supports SOA implementation, allowing dynamic invocation of SOAP/WSDL-based and RESTful services. It abstracts from the target service's internals, decoupling clients from the services they use.


617 children in high and low liver cancer incidence areas of Guangxi were observed for a study on the relationship between the dietary Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) levels and Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) excretion amounts in urine. The average amount of Aflatoxin B1 absorbed by children within 24 hours was 0.0883 x 10(-9) micrograms, (0.1232 x 10(-9)) in high liver cancer incidence area (LCIA), and 0.0306 x 10(-9) in low LCIA (P < 0.001). The average amount of AFM1 excreted in the children's urine within 24 hours was 0.0020 x 10(-9) micrograms, (0.0027 x 10(-9) in high LCIA, and 0.0010 x 10(-9) in low LCIA (P < 0.001). The conversion ratio from AFB1 to AFM1 excreted from urine was 2.27% in 24 hours after the children consumed AFB1 from foods. The ratio of conversion was 2.19% and 3.27% for the children who life in high and low LCIA respectively, it was 1.75% for the boys, 2.97% for the girls.


Background : The rapid improvement in immunization services has resulted in significant decline in infant and childhood mortality and morbidity associated with vaccine preventable disease. However, because these diseases have become less visible, the public tends to be more concerned with adverse events following immunization (AEFI) than with the threat of the disease itself. Aim : To asses the knowledge of AEFI among mothers and also to determining the prevalence, the most common antigen associated with AEFI and mother's responses to the adverse reactions. Method : This is a descriptive cross-sectional study of the mothers who brought their children for immunization in three randomly selected immunization centers in Enugu Urban. A systematic sampling method was used to select 331 mothers. An informed consent was obtained from each participant. Data was collected using a pre-tested, semi-structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire with open and closed ended questions. Data was entered and analyzed using Epi-info version 3.3 software package. Results : Two hundred and seventy-three (82.5%) studied knew that fever is a possible adverse event. Pain and swelling at the site of injection was identified by 77 (23.3%), rash 10.3%, convulsion 3.9% boils 3.0% paralysis / weakness of limbs 2.7% and ulcers 0.6%. Among the 331 mothers, 220 (66.5%) had experienced adverse reactions following immunization of their children. The most commonly reported adverse reaction by these mothers were fever 199 (90.4%), pain / swelling 61 (27.7%), rashes and convulsion 6 (2.7%) each. Ulcer was reported by 2(0.9%) while collapse and paralysis were reported by 1(0.5%) each. Two hundred and five (93.2%) of these reactions out of the reported 220(66.5%) occurred within 24 hours. The antigens responsible as identified by the mothers were DPT 176(80.0%), HBV 37(16.8%), BCG 36(16.4%), OPV 21(9.5%), measles 12(5.5%), yellow fever 10(4.5%) and CSM 7(3.2%). About 190(57.4%) of the mothers responded to these reactions by giving the child paracetamol, 31(21.1%) stopped further immunization temporarily, while 43(19.5%) took the child to hospital. Two (0.9%) of the mother each either took their children to native doctors or gave native mixtures. Sixty-two (88.6%) of those temporarily stopped immunization re-started after a while. Conclusion : The mothers had a fair knowledge of the possible adverse reactions following immunization and actions to take when such occurs. The most reported reactions were associated with DPT and occurred within 24hours of vaccination. Some of the women subsequently did not complete immunization of the affected children. Therefore, health education should be regularly organized for these women on the appropriate actions to be taken when adverse reactions uccur to dispel false rumours, emphasizing the fact that immunization programmes are still one of the safest and most effective health intervention.


Sloshing is a violent fluid motion and is of current interest for many branches of the industry, among them gas shipping. Numerical methods are an important tool for analyzing sloshing. Among them, methods based on the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) are particularly promising for analyzing violent fluid impacts. Previous work shows a good agreement in terms of free surface elevation between SPH simulation and experiments. An extensive comparison in terms of pressure in the tank is missing. This is due to the fact that availability of reliable and accurate pressure measurements is limited. Therefore sloshing experiments in a two-dimensional tank are performed. A regular one-degree-of-freedom motion with small amplitude is imposed for various frequencies around fluid natural frequency and three filling levels in range 17–40% of the tank length. By means of pressure sensors mounted on the vertical tank wall the pressure is measured for a non-impact type fluid motion. Free surface elevation is measured by wave probes and a high speed video recording is taken. An in-house SPH code is presented in detail. Standard SPH formulation is modified with the focus on implementation of the Verlet time scheme. The Verlet time integration scheme makes it possible to perform long time sloshing simulations due to its good momentum and energy conservation properties. A diffuse term coefficient is applied in the continuity equation. Investigated sloshing cases are without violent fluid impacts. Using artificial mass diffusion term in SPH simulations is expected not to significantly influence the pressure field. The paper shows that applying this technique with carefully chosen coefficient does not lead to any nonphysical phenomena in the SPH simulation for such a sensitive phenomenon as sloshing. By comparing the SPH simulations to the quasi-analytical multimodal method and experiments the code and diffuse term coefficient are validated.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


ABSTRACT This paper seeks to understand key dimensions of reflection in experience-based workplace learning for research being collaboratively undertaken by scholars in Dutch and US research institutions. We systematically explore and compare Tara Fenwick's analysis of five perspectives on cognition to distinguish among constructivist, psychoanalytic, situative, critical-cultural, and enactivist perspectives on reflection. Our aim is to examine how to conceptualize reflection so that one or more perspectives can complement our understanding of learning through experience at work. We position reflection not only from a practical but also from a theoretical perspective that moves beyond the individual focus of the constructivist perspective. Fenwick's five perspectives are described in terms of whether and how reflection is utilized, key activities in the process of reflection, relative focus on the individual and/or the context, triggers for reflection, role of power and positionality, role of emotions, and reflection outcomes. We conclude that adding other lenses to the dominant constructivist perspective helps expand our understanding of reflection as well as identify and attend to other tools, people, and factors in the work situation that influence reflection processes and learning outcomes. The paper closes with a discussion of promising new approaches that have emerged since Fenwick's analysis.


We measure differences in the emission-line flux from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies in different environments. Such differences could be a critical clue in explaining a range of galaxy properties that depend on environment. Using large samples of stacked archival spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we find that the Hα + [N ii] emission-line flux from the CGM within 50 kpc of ∼L* galaxies is lower both for galaxies that lie within a projected distance of ∼500 kpc from a massive (M* > 1011 M⊙) galaxy and for galaxies in richer/denser environments. The environmental differences are statistically significant even after we control for galaxy mass and morphology. We interpret these observations as a direct signature of environmentally caused strangulation. We present a simple, heuristic model for the effect of a massive parent galaxy. In this model, the CGM cool gas fraction within 50 kpc is significantly decreased for galaxies that lie within 700 kpc of a massive galaxy, with about 80% of the cool gas removed even when the galaxy is at a distance of 500 kpc from its massive parent. However, we discuss alternative physical causes for the observed behavior and discuss ways forward in addressing open questions.