Compared to widely used C-band SAR imagery, L-band SAR is a valuable complement in monitoring the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice covers, since it is very sensitive to ice deformation structures. The continuous observation of sea ice and the retrieval of sea ice properties from satellite data has received increased attention from the science community after the extreme minimum of summer arctic sea ice extent observed in 2007, which was followed by an even lower minimum in 2012. Also in operational sea ice monitoring there is an interest in investigating the potential of L-band SAR for sea ice mapping, although spatial coverage and timeliness of L-band data provided by recent satellite missions are still a critical issue for operational services. The concept of the TANGOSat mission will it make possible to address the potential of satellite tandems in gaining additional insights into the interaction between longer microwaves and sea ice. In particular the tomographic and bistatic phase may offer possibilities for specific investigations such as depth of scatterers and structures in thick multi-year ice (as found north of Greenland), quantification of ice surface roughness due to the occurrence of deformation structures, potential improvements of ice type classification, or snapshots of ice drift components by using along-track interferometry. In the presentation, different possibilities of investigations will be discussed.


N-vinylformamide (NVF), a blocked vinylamine monomer, has become an important reagent in the synthesis of water-soluble resins. NVF can be easily polymerized in aqueous solutions, in bulk, in suspension and by means of emulsions techniques. In the present paper an advantage was taken of the poor solubility of poly(N-vinylformamide) (PNVF) in organic solvents and a solution/precipitation polymerization was investigated. Toluene was used as a solvent for NVF. Polymerizations were carried out in three series differing by the type of initiator and temperature. In series I 2,2'-azobis(isobutyronitryle) (AIBN) was used, replaced in series II with benzoyl peroxide (BP) and in series III with a redox system BP/N,N-dimethylamino-p-toluidine (BP/DMAT). Optimal temperatures in series I and II were found to be 50 °C and 80 °C, respectively, whereas in series III the possibility was tested to polymerize at the room temperature (22 °C). At increasing initiator to monomer molar ratios outputs were growing up to 98 % in series I and II while simultaneously times of the cloud point appearances have become shorter. However, there is no distinct relation between molar masses of and initiator concentration. It is noteworthy that for all polymers obtained by the solution/precipitation technique all dispersity values were below 2 what is not so easy to achieve with other techniques.


A novel speed sensorless indirect field-oriented control for the full-order model of the induction motor is presented. It provides local exponential tracking of smooth speed and flux amplitude reference signals together with local exponential field orientation, on the basis of stator current measurements only and under assumption of unknown constant load torque. Speed estimation is performed through a reduced-order adaptive observer based on the torque current dynamics, while no flux estimate is required for both observation and control purposes. The absence of the flux model in the proposed algorithm allows for simple and effective time-scale separation between the speed-flux tracking error dynamics (slow subsystem) and the estimation error dynamics (fast subsystem). This property is exploited to obtain a high performance sensorless controller, with features similar to those of standard field-oriented induction motor drives. Moreover, time-scale separation and physically-based decomposition into speed and flux subsystems allow for a simple and constructive tuning procedure. The theoretical analysis based on the singular perturbation method enlightens that a persistency of excitation condition is necessary for the asymptotic stability. From a practical viewpoint, it is related to the well-known observability and instability issues due to a lack of back-emf signal at zero-frequency excitation. A flux reference selection strategy has been developed to guarantee Persistency of excitation in every operating condition. Extensive simulation and experimental tests confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Loss of brain serotonin was associated with overeating and increased body weight. Rats injected with p-chlorophenylalanine intraventricularly began overeating after 3 days and continued to display marked hyperphagia, primarily in the daytime, accompanied by increased body weight for 1 to 2 weeks. The effect was related to drug dose and to the degree and duration of serotonin depletion. Norepinephrine and dopamine levels were not significantly affected. It is concluded that p-chlorophenylalanine disinhibits feeding, as it does a number of other behaviors, by depleting serotonin. This suggests that hypothalamic lesions or dietary deficiencies which selectively and sufficiently deplete serotonin would lead to overeating.


ABSTRACT What does it take for lawyers and others to think or talk about the same legal topic—e.g., defamation, culpability? We argue that people are able to think or talk about the same topic not when they possess a matching substantive understanding of the topic, as traditional metasemantics says, but instead when their thoughts or utterances are related to each other in certain ways. And what determines the content of thoughts and utterances is what would best serve the core purposes of the representational practice within which the thought or utterance is located. In thus favoring a "relational model" in metasemantics, we share Ronald Dworkin's goal of explaining fundamental legal disagreements, and also his reliance on constructive interpretation. But what we delineate is a far more general and explanatorily resourceful metasemantics than what Dworkin articulated, which also bypasses some controversial implications for the nature of law that Dworkin alleged.


Recent evidence for an evolved fear module in the brain comes from studies showing that adults, children and infants detect evolutionarily threatening stimuli such as snakes faster than non-threatening ones. A decisive argument for a threat detection system efficient early in life would come from data showing, in young infants, a functional threat-detection mechanism in terms of "what" and "where" visual pathways. The present study used a variant of Posner's cuing paradigm, adapted to 7–11-month-olds. On each trial, a threat-irrelevant or a threat-relevant cue was presented (a flower or a snake, i.e., "what"). We measured how fast infants detected these cues and the extent to which they further influenced the spatial allocation of attention ("where"). In line with previous findings, we observed that infants oriented faster towards snake than flower cues. Importantly, a facilitation effect was found at the cued location for flowers but not for snakes, suggesting that these latter cues elicit a broadening of attention and arguing in favour of sophisticated "what–where" connections. These results strongly support the claim that humans have an early propensity to detect evolutionarily threat-relevant stimuli.


In this opinion piece, I suggest the need for a critical examination of the 'wellbeing' agenda currently being developed throughout Higher Education (HE) in the UK. I suggest that problems arise when notions of 'wellbeing' are used without being sufficiently well-defined, and are then accepted as the barometer of student health. This approach will be elucidated by contextualising the situation students find themselves in contemporary neoliberal universities; situating the crucial intermediary role that learning developers and student support services fulfil between academics and students; and exploring different modes of engagement available to those in these roles. Drawing upon the critical pedagogy of Biesta (2013), I argue that the remit of cultivating critical thinking and independent study skills means that learning developers, through one-to-one meetings, may sometimes be as well-placed as those with specific wellbeing roles (such as counsellors or mental health workers) to acknowledge and explore students' personal and social anxieties and concerns with compassion. This approach may seem to be at odds with wellbeing rhetoric, which, I argue, can act to detract from critical engagement with the explicit challenges facing students in the contemporary socio-political milieu. My aim is therefore to reintroduce the notion of criticality within the discussions taking place among academics and professional support staff, which in turn may inform practice. Central to my aim in this is to raise broader questions around the primary role of academics and professionals in HE; for example, is it to train students to passively 'fit in' within society or to educate them in a manner such that they will act agentively in society?


In 22 patients with definite multiple sclerosis (MS) we determined with monthly intervals over a period of 24 months the in vitro tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), and interleukin-2 (IL-2) production and the serum neopterin levels. The results were compared with normative data collected from 14 healthy controls over the same period. Twenty-nine relapses in 13 patients were noticed. We found increased in vitro TNF-alpha production from 4 weeks on prior to the day of an exacerbation. There was a significant correlation with in vitro IFN-gamma release, the absolute blood monocyte count and the serum neopterin levels, suggesting that monocytes stimulated by IFN-gamma play an important role in the TNF-alpha production. Serial analysis of in vitro TNF-alpha production proved to be a helpful tool in predicting relapses in MS patients. Furthermore, elevated levels of IFN-gamma and IL-2 after stimulation with OKT3 during exacerbations were demonstrated. Serial analysis of these two biological markers revealed to be of no value in predicting relapses.


carcinoma 4 months after recovery from a total penectomy with perineal urethrostomy was offered a single-port robotic antegrade bilateral inguinal lymph node dissection. The SP port was placed midline over the suprapubic region into the Space of Retzius similar to that of an extraperitoneal SP radical prostatectomy. Bilateral external iliac vessels were isolated and the spermatic cord was followed along its lateral edge distally until the inguinal ligament was seen. The external oblique aponeurosis was split anterior to the inguinal ligament, revealing the superficial compartment, where lymph nodes packets were retrieved. The deep compartment was then accessed by dissecting through fascia lata posteriorly and skeletonizing the femoral vessels. After completion of the deep inguinal lymph node dissection, bilateral 15 French drains were placed into both surgical sites. The abdominal wall fascial incision was closed with interrupted figure-of-8 absorbable sutures. RESULTS: Operative time was 3 hours and 16 minutes, with estimated blood loss 20 mL. The patient was discharged to home on post-op day 1 with both drains, which were then removed in 2 weeks. There was a total nodal yield of 15, all of which were negative for metastatic disease. There were no 30-day complications for this patient. CONCLUSIONS: An antegrade approach through a single suprapubic incision using the single-port robot gives excellent access to bilateral inguinal spaces that would be otherwise difficult with a multiport robot. Larger case series should be performed, but its potential advantages include lower risk of wound complications, decreased risk of lymphatic complications, and access to pelvic lymph node dissection when appropriate.


The system and network architecture for stationary sensornets is largely solved today with many commercial solutions now available and standardization efforts underway at the IEEE, IETF, ISA, and within many industry groups. However, the existing techniques for reliable, low-power communications in stationary sensornets fail on both counts when confronted with mobility. In this dissertation, we argue that awareness of real or potential mobility enables a solution that handles the mobile case well, and supports stationary networks as a special case. This dissertation addresses micropower mobiscopes, a nascent class of mobile sensornets – small, embedded, and battery-powered systems – that experience unpredictable but structured mobility and are severely energy-constrained. We show how awareness of mobility can simplify their communication challenges, enable low-power operation, and enhance the reliability of data delivery.
We introduce the MOV metric, a measure of mobility, and present techniques to gather it on a near nano-power budget. We also present iCount, a regulator-integrated energy meter design that allows nodes to introspect their own energy usage, and adapt their behavior to the actual energy availability and consumption. Integrating the pieces, we present three concrete hardware platforms that support our mobile sensing architecture. We develop a novel asynchronous neighbor discovery algorithm called Disco that allows nodes to operate their radios at very low duty cycles and yet still discover neighbors without any external synchronization information. Recognizing the necessity of beaconing in mobile networks, and the need for mobile-stationary node interactions, we design a link layer synchronization primitive, Backcast, and a receiver-initiated link layer, HotMac, that are suitable for mobile sensing, but also work for stationary networks across a range of conventional data collection workloads and a broad range of duty cycles.
We evaluate our thesis with three mobile sensing applications that embody our proposed architecture. The three applications – AutoWitness, SleepTrack, and CommonSense – are representative of asset tracking, health and fitness, and participatory urban sensing, and they each stress different aspects of the architecture, including motion detection, neighbor discovery, communications, interaction patterns, energy management, and data transport. These design points illustrate that our architecture is general enough to enable a range of applications but specific enough to support them well.


Chinchilla lanigera intensive breeding programmes are affected by an abnormal repetitive behaviour called 'fur-chewing', yet the aetiology is still unknown and little scientific work has been published on this condition. Recent studies have supported the idea that fur-chewing is a stress-related behaviour. In the present study, we used a questionnaire survey in order to: 1) describe general aspects on the epidemiology of fur-chewing in Argentinian farms, and 2) identify which management and/or environmental factors within the breeding facilities may be influencing the occurrence of fur-chewing. The survey consisted of 28 questions focused on farm characteristics, environmental variables and husbandry routines, and was distributed to Argentinian chinchilla farmers. All quantitative variables were tested in a multiple logistic regression model. The mean incidence of fur-chewing was 4.32 ± 0.37% (n = 107 farms). Variables negatively related to fur-chewing were the breeder experience in the activity, the total volume of the facility, and the number of wood shaving changes per week. Positive relationships were found for space index, number of rooms in the facility and presence of different rooms for fur production and reproduction. Other tendencies suggested that farms with the presence of external sound disturbance nearby had higher incidence levels. Also, we detected a tendency towards lower numbers of affected animals with an increment in the provision of dusting baths per week. Finally, results suggested a female prevalence in the development of the behaviour.


Many major marine bacterial lineages such as SAR11, Prochlorococcus, SAR116, and several Roseobacter lineages have members that are abundant, relatively slow-growing, and genome-streamlined. The isolation of phages that infect SAR11 and SAR116 have demonstrated the dominance of these phages in the marine virosphere. However, no phages have been isolated from bacteria in the Roseobacter RCA lineage, another abundant group of bacteria in the ocean. In this study, seven RCA phages that infect three different RCA strains were isolated and characterized. All seven RCA phages belong to the Podoviridae family and have genome sizes ranging from 39.6 to 58.1 kb. Interestingly, three RCA phages (CRP-1, CRP-2 and CRP-3) show a similar genomic content and architecture with SAR116 phage HMO-2011, which represents one of the most abundant known viral groups in the ocean. The high degree of homology between CRP-1, CRP-2, CRP-3 and HMO-2011 resulted in contribution of the RCA phages to the dominance of HMO-2011-type phage in the ocean. CRP-4 and CRP-5 are similar to the Siovirus roseophages in terms of gene content and organization. The remaining two RCA phages, CRP-6 and CRP-7, show limited genomic similarity with known phages and appear to form two new phage genera. Metagenomic fragment recruitment analyses reveal that these RCA phage groups are much more abundant in the ocean compared to most existing marine roseophage groups. The characterization of these RCA phages has greatly expanded our understanding of the genomic diversity and evolution of marine roseophages. Metagenomic fragment recruitment analyses suggest the critical need for isolating phages from the abundant but "unculturable" bacteria in the marine ecosystem.


While significant scholarship has documented the prevalence of racial discrimination in hiring, less is known about the forces that exacerbate or mitigate it. In this article, we develop a theoretical argument about the ability of customers to influence racial discrimination in hiring, highlighting the role of direct customer communication and its intersection with online review systems. We deploy a novel method to test our argument. Specifically, we draw on original data from a two-part field experiment that first randomly assigned restaurants to receive one of three different email messages from customers and then audited the restaurants to test for racial discrimination in hiring. While our data collection effort was cut short and disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, making our findings more exploratory than initially anticipated, our data provide evidence that customer communication can reduce racial discrimination under certain conditions. We discuss the implications of these findings for scholarship on organizational decision-making, discrimination, and methodological approaches for studying these topics.


Over the years, dissociation between the widespread use of procedures and the lack of evidence (evidence-practice dissociation) has been observed in many circumstances in cardiology. Thirty-three years ago Mc Kinley described in 7 stages the career of a new procedure: from the enthusiastic presentation of pilot research up to oblivion. The Choosing Wisely ® project in the United States and the Doing more does not mean doing better project in Italy are intended to identify very commonly prescribed procedures at high risk of inappropriateness that do not bring significant benefits to many patients. Finally, the implementation of local experience of identifying inappropriate procedure in an Italian hospital is described.


Recently, several sets of standardized food pictures have been created, supplying both food images and their subjective evaluations. However, to date only the OLAF (Open Library of Affective Foods), a set of food images and ratings we developed in adolescents, has the specific purpose of studying emotions toward food. Moreover, some researchers have argued that food evaluations are not valid across individuals and groups, unless feelings toward food cues are compared with feelings toward intense experiences unrelated to food, that serve as benchmarks. Therefore the OLAF presented here, comprising a set of original food images and a group of standardized highly emotional pictures, is intended to provide valid between-group judgments in adults. Emotional images (erotica, mutilations, and neutrals from the International Affective Picture System/IAPS) additionally ensure that the affective ratings are consistent with emotion research. The OLAF depicts high-calorie sweet and savory foods and low-calorie fruits and vegetables, portraying foods within natural scenes matching the IAPS features. An adult sample evaluated both food and affective pictures in terms of pleasure, arousal, dominance, and food craving, following standardized affective rating procedures. The affective ratings for the emotional pictures corroborated previous findings, thus confirming the reliability of evaluations for the food images. Among the OLAF images, high-calorie sweet and savory foods elicited the greatest pleasure, although they elicited, as expected, less arousal than erotica. The observed patterns were consistent with research on emotions and confirmed the reliability of OLAF evaluations. The OLAF and affective pictures constitute a sound methodology to investigate emotions toward food within a wider motivational framework. The OLAF is freely accessible at digibug.ugr.es.


How does India envision South Asia? What do Indian policymakers envisage the country's regional role to be? The issues and actors that dominate India's regional foreign policy give a glimpse of the country's priorities in the region. The much-touted "shift" in Indian diplomacy under Narendra Modi offers us a window into the priorities of the new government and the extent to which continuity from the past shapes its regional policy today. This report explores how India works both above and below the regional level in an effort to secure its regional diplomatic and economic priorities. It examines the following five issue areas that have influenced India's relations with its neighbours: the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, India as a humanitarian actor, supraregionalism and subregionalism, border politics, and democratisation. The report closes with reflections on what implications these engagements might have for Indian foreign policy in the future, arguing that a more inclusive and engaged leadership by India could help to resolve some of South Asia's most vexing and intractable challenges.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the prevalence of autoimmune thyroid antibody, goiter and levels of ioduria in the region of Lleida.

METHODS
Cross-sectional study on a randomized sample of 601 individuals above 6 years old. Examination and palpation of thyroid gland, TSH, T4, FT4, T3, peroxidase antibodies, thyroglobulin antibodies, and ioduria.

RESULTS
The prevalence of positive peroxidase antibodies was 3.4% (IC 95%: 0.9-5.9), and that of positive thyroglobulin antibodies 9.7% (IC 95%: 6.5-12.9). Palpable goiter was found in 18.3% of individuals, and visible goiter in 13.3%. The mean ioduria was 120.2 +/- 68 mg/l. The mean TSH value was higher in the individuals with thyroid autoimmunity (3.4 +/- 2.4 mU/l) than in the rest (1.6 +/- 1.2 mU/l) the difference was significant.

CONCLUSIONS
Although cases of hypothyroidism are common in populations with iodine deficiency, in regions with adequate iodine intake justifies monitoring for hypothyroidism in these populations as well.


Ubiquitous computing describes the notion that computing devices will be everywhere: clothing, walls and floors of buildings, cars, forests, deserts, etc. Ubiquitous computing is becoming a reality: RFIDs are currently being introduced into the supply chain. Wireless distributed sensor networks (WSN) are already being used to monitor wildlife and to track military targets. Many more applications are being envisioned. For most of these applications some level of security is of utmost importance. Common to WSN and RFIDs are their severely limited power resources, which classify them as ultra-low power devices. Early sensor nodes used simple 8-bit microprocessors to implement basic communication, sensing and computing services. Security was an afterthought. The main power consumer is the RF-transceiver, or radio for short. In the past years specialized hardware for low-data rate and low-power radios has been developed. The new bottleneck are security services which employ computationally intensive cryptographic operations. Customized hardware implementations hold the promise of enabling security for severely power constrained devices. Most research groups are concerned with developing secure wireless communication protocols, others with designing efficient software implementations of cryptographic algorithms. There has not been a comprehensive study on hardware implementations of cryptographic algorithms tailored for ultra-low power applications. The goal of this dissertation is to develop a suite of cryptographic functions for authentication, encryption and integrity that is specifically fashioned to the needs of ultra-low power devices. This dissertation gives an introduction to the specific problems that security engineers face when they try to solve the seemingly contradictory challenge of providing lightweight cryptographic services that can perform on ultra-low power devices and shows an overview of our current work and its future direction.


South Korean television drama often employs ghost stories as a medium for social critique, as in the series Dokkaebi: The Lonely and Great God (2016-17), Let's Fight, Ghost (2016) and Oh My Ghost (2015). Blending ghost story with other genres, these series foreground the plight of characters who are either ghosts or young people able to see ghosts. Both are isolated by their liminal condition and the multiple personalities it entails, the ghosts because they cannot communicate with the living and the ghost seers because their uncanny ability has set them apart since childhood. Both lack immediate families, which further isolates them in a society with communal values centred on family. Both thus readily symbolize people marginalized because of gender, social status or restricted economic access, but also serve as a commentary on the disintegration of the family in contemporary South Korea. The viewing audience is positioned to align and empathize with ghost and/or seer in their struggles with lost identity and the quest for justice which will free the ghost from its liminal state, and is thereby implicated in a crisis of subjectivity and prompted to reflect upon its own position in society.


Operation of integrated circuits at micropower levels requires transistors with adequate current gain at collector currents of 1 /spl mu/A and less and resistors of the order of 1 M/spl Omega/ within reasonable areas. Factors affecting current gain at low currents are discussed and design criteria presented that optimize gain at low collector current. A benefit of micropower operation is low-current noise. Factors tending to optimize noise performance are discussed. In order to obtain voltage gain at low collector current, high values of load resistance are required. Both passive and active loads suitable for incorporation in micropower integrated circuits are discussed.


Abstract The algorithms of the analysis of R-looped DNA molecules from electron micrographs are presented. We propose a two-dimensional R-loop distribution map with abscissa and ordinate axes corresponding to the positions of the left and right ends of the loop respectively. A transcription analysis of the hybrid plasmid pSCV1, which comprises heterologous genes from SV40 and pBR322, based on this map illustrates the program application.


Abstract We introduce a discrete-time dynamical system method, the Boolean network method, that may be useful for modeling, studying, and controlling nonlinear dynamics in multivariate systems, particularly when binary time-series are available. We introduce the method in three steps: inference of the temporal relations as Boolean functions, extraction of attractors and assignment of desirability based on domain knowledge, and design of network control to direct a psychological system toward a desired attractor. To demonstrate how the Boolean network can describe and prescribe control for emotion regulation dynamics, we applied this method to data from a study of how children use bidding to an adult and/or distraction to regulate their anger during a frustrating task (N = 120, T = 480 seconds). Network control strategies were designed to move the child into attractors where anger is OFF. The sample shows heterogeneous emotion regulation dynamics across children in 22 distinct Boolean networks, and heterogeneous control strategies regarding which behavior to perturb and how to perturb it. The Boolean network method provides a novel method to describe nonlinear dynamics in multivariate psychological systems and is a method with potential to eventually inform the design of interventions that can guide those systems toward desired goals.


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There is a distinguished German Protestant tradition that understands Jesus, that is, his thoughts and consciousness, as essentially Greek rather than Jewish. Included in this tradition are such luminaries as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Adolf von Harnack. Hermann Cohen is not the first Jewish thinker to oppose this notion and insist upon Jesus's Jewishness. However, his account of the Jewish Jesus, particularly as it is developed in his two major treatises on philosophy of religion, Der Begriff der Religion im System der Philosophie [The Concept of Religion in the System of Philosophy] and Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, is not only highly original and subversive in its own right, but it has yet to be studied systematically despite its centrality to his philosophy. In this article, I argue that a central element of Cohen's philosophy of Judaism is the usurpation of Christianity's theological foundations. That is, by turning Jesus into a Jew, Cohen thereby transforms Christianity into the mythical and irrational foil against which he illuminates and elaborates his philosophy of Judaism. With his philosophical account of Jesus, Cohen does not merely attempt to bring about transformations within Protestantism—to guide it toward rationality, to make it more Jewish, as it were—but he also increasingly displaces Greece as the arbiter of rationality and universality, at least in regard to religion. In Cohen's engagement with the Jewish Jesus, we find a Jewish thinker doing nothing less than challenging the Christian foundations of Western culture.


The modelling and control of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) possesses great challenges due to PEMFC system's inherent nonlinearities, time-varying characteristics and tight operating constraints. In this paper, we propose a constrained model predictive control (MPC) strategy based on a combined empirical and mechanistic model of PEMFC. First, we propose a hybrid modelling approach based on the combination of prior knowledge, under the form of mechanistic submodel, with empirical submodel devoted to the extraction of knowledge from operating data. The empirical submodel is a SVM model, which predicts the voltage at different stack currents and temperatures under the reference hydrogen and oxygen partial pressure. The mechanistic submodel calculates the correction voltage by taking account of hydrogen and oxygen partial pressure changes. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and penalty function are then employed to solve the resulting nonlinear constrained predictive control problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can deal with the constraints and achieve satisfactory performance.


Since the 1990s, sport policy research has gradually attracted increasing academic attention as a reflection of contemporary society at a particular time. This study adopted four types of theory proposed by Houlihan (2014) to analyze the research development of sport policy. It conducted a systematic review and yielded 100 policy articles related to elite sports, physical education, and sport for all. The scope of the research data was identified from 2000 to 2020 with collation from 24 international Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals, which specialized in policy and sport–related studies of social science to look forward to a comprehensive report. The four major findings were as follows: first, this study pointed to evidence that nearly half the research on the topic aimed at meso–level analyses of organizations; second, it demonstrated governance theory, the Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success (SPLISS) model, the advocacy coalition Framework (ACF), and network-related theories played a pivotal role in focusing on policy backgrounds and dynamic relationships within organizations; third, it identified some studies highlighted in the policy texts themselves, or discourse about them, and, thereby, were grouped into the fifth type; finally, the paper suggested that attention has been brought to policy formation and implementation rather than policy evaluation, which has made a contribution to the development of their own operating mechanisms.


This study suggests an integrated framework for the assessment of wetland management scenarios, based on a holistic approach of wetland ecosystems. All costs and benefits of management scenarios are estimated in terms of the value of wetland functions, which are indirectly valuated with a Contingent Valuation of goods and services they provide. The social impact of introducing the scenarios is also investigated with a stakeholder analysis, based on a survey. Scenario plausibility and acceptability are examined based on the results of the stakeholder analysis; on the other hand, the assessment of the scenarios, using cost-benefit analysis and multi-criteria analysis, provides quantitative performance indicators adequate to incorporate uncertainties and mutable policy objectives. This framework is applied to assess three management scenarios for a Greek wetland. The results indicate that the continuation of existing management practices is the most efficient alternative unless interventions for the restoration of wetland functions are conservatively budgeted, while a wetland drainage scenario performs poorly both in terms of economic efficiency and social impact.


Optoelectronic devices based on single, self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots are attractive for applications in secure optical communications, quantum computation and sensing. In this paper we show how it is possible to dictate the nucleation site of individual InAs/InP quantum dots using a directed self-assembly process, to control the electronic structure of the nucleated dots and also how to control their coupling to the optical field by locating them within the high field region of a photonic crystal nanoocavity. For application within fiber networks, these quantum dots are targeted to emit in the spectral region around 1550nm.


The goal of the present study was to extend the models explaining the missing-letter effect (MLE) to an additional language and orthography, and to test the role of phonology in silent reading in Arabic. We also examined orthographic effects such as letter position and letter shape, morphological effects such as pseudo-prefixes, and phonological effects such as pronounceability. The results showed that readers miss letters more often in function words and prefixes than in content words, more in second position than in first position, more often when the letters are silent than pronounced, and less often when the letter shape is more symmetric and stable. The results show that these aspects of the missing letter effect can be generalized over writing systems that are not alphabetic, suggesting that the models proposed to explain the MLE in all the orthographies tested may reflect a universal aspect of reading.


The electromagnetic spectrum, from 2 MHz to 94 GHz, is an evolving resource. Many uses of the spectrum include communications, radio and television broadcasting, radio navigation, sensing and radar. The region of the spectrum from 2-4 GHz has become particularly problematical due to the influx of wireless systems such as WiMAX and LTE into an area which has traditionally been associated with radar systems. Although the entire EM spectrum is becoming increasingly congested, we will focus our examples on this band as a surrogate for understanding what is happening across the spectrum, while pointing out unique requirements in other bands. This paper will discuss measurements employed for characterizing both radar and non-radar users of this spectrum, as each have unique issues to be addressed. First, the propagation physics of why spectrum users seek access to selected frequency bands. The unique spectral characteristics of radars, not generally found in communications systems will be discussed. The trade-offs in using conventional superheterodyne and FFT based spectrum analyzers versus the newer real time spectrum analyzers, as well as other measurement techniques will be presented in terms of their capability in assessing the EM spectrum and determining how to best use a finite resource. It is projected that many radiating systems will be forced to monitor the EM spectrum and adjust their operating characteristics on a real-time basis. Finally, we will conclude with a short overview of the topics covered in the special session that this paper is a part of.


Accurate analysis of meteorological and pyranometric data for long-term analysis is the basis of decision-making for banks and investors, regarding solar energy conversion systems. This has led to the development of method-ologies for the generation of Typical Meteorological Years (TMY) datasets. The most used method for solar energy conversion systems was proposed in 1978 by the Sandia Laboratory (Hall et al., 1978) considering a specific weighted combination of different meteorological variables with notably global, diffuse horizontal and direct normal irradiances, air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity. In 2012, a new approach was proposed in the framework of the European project FP7 ENDORSE. It introduced the concept of " driver " that is defined by the user as an explicit function of the pyranometric and meteorological relevant variables to improve the representativeness of the TMY datasets with respect the specific solar energy conversion system of interest. The present study aims at comparing and benchmarking different TMY datasets considering a specific Concentrated-PV (CPV) system as the solar energy conversion system of interest. Using long-term (15+ years) time-series of high quality meteorological and pyranometric ground measurements, three types of TMY datasets generated by the following methods: the Sandia method, a simplified driver with DNI as the only representative variable and a more sophisticated driver. The latter takes into account the sensitivities of the CPV system with respect to the spectral distribution of the solar irradiance and wind speed. Different TMY datasets from the three methods have been generated considering different numbers of years in the historical dataset, ranging from 5 to 15 years. The comparisons and benchmarking of these TMY datasets are conducted considering the long-term time series of simulated CPV electric production as a reference.


Measuring the similarity between documents is an essential task in Document Clustering. This paper presents a new metric that is based on the number and the category of the Named Entities shared between news documents. Three different feature-weighting functions and two standard similarity measures were used to evaluate the quality of the proposed measure in multilingual news clustering. The results, with three different collections of comparable news written in English and Spanish, indicate that the new metric performance is in some cases better than standard similarity measures such as cosine similarity and correlation coefficient.


Is the degree of external economies (at the industry level) higher than the degree of internal increasing returns (at the firm level)? If so, what is the exact source of this difference? In the general equilibrium model in which firms producing final goods choose the degree of specialization of their technologies, external economies arise from the usage of intermediate inputs and the existence of internal increasing returns. It is frequently assumed that increasing returns are absent at the firm level while present at the industry level. In this model, the existence of increasing returns at the firm level is necessary for the existence of external economies at the industry level. We show that the degree of external economies increases with the level of linkage effects. However, a higher linkage effect does not always lead firms to choose more specialized technologies.


An important, yet untested, prediction of many macro models with financial frictions is that financial market disruptions can have highly nonlinear effects on economic activity. This paper presents empirical evidence supporting this prediction, and in particular that financial shocks have substantial (i) asymmetric and (ii) state dependent effects. First, negative shocks to credit supply have large and persistent effects on output, but positive shocks have no significant effect. Second, credit supply shocks have larger and more persistent effects in periods of weak economic growth.


The study investigated the contributions of women farmers to maize production in Afijio Local Government area, Oyo state. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 128 women farmers as sample size for the study. Data collected through interview schedule were analysed using frequency counts, percentages and mean while Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Chi-square were used to test the relationships that exist between selected socioeconomic characteristics and contributions of women farmers to maize production. Results revealed the mean age of respondents was 45years, 83.5% of respondents were married and 41.4% of the respondents had no formal education. High percentage of the respondents (82.5%) engaged in farming for both commercial and subsistence purposes, and activities such as, planting, fertilizer application, harvesting, processing, storage and marketing were performed by women farmers whereas ridging, land clearing and weeding were considered laborious and were usually contracted to hired labour. The results of Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis showed that age (r = 0.950, P<0.05), farm size (r = 0.174, P<0.05), household size (r = 0.354, P<0.05) while the results of Chi-square analysis revealed that educational status (ᵡ 2 =36.864 P<0.05), marital status (ᵡ 2 =19.615, P<0.05) have significant association with contributions of women farmers to maize production in the study area. Hence, the study recommended that female education (through adult literacy) be intensified, young women be encouraged to be more involved in maize production, women should form themselves into group to learn techniques of trapping farm pests and in time of surplus, women maize farmers should form supply cooperatives to transport their produce to areas where it commands higher prices.


Background

High blood pressure is common in acute stroke and associated with a worse functional outcome. Many patients who present with acute stroke are taking prescribed antihypertensive therapy before their stroke.

Aims

ENOS tested whether lowering blood pressure and continuing pre-stroke antihypertensive therapy are each safe and effective.

Methods

This study is an international multi-centre prospective randomized single-blind blinded-endpoint parallel-group partial-factorial controlled trial of transdermal glyceryl trinitrate (a nitric oxide donor, given for seven-days) vs. no glyceryl trinitrate, and of continuing vs. stopping (temporarily for seven-days) pre-stroke antihypertensive drugs if relevant, in patients with acute ischaemic stroke or intracerebral haemorrhage and high systolic blood pressure (140–220 mmHg).

Results

Recruitment ran from July 2001 to October 2013. Four thousand eleven patients [2097 (52·3%) in the continue/stop arm] were recruited from 173 sites across 23 countries in 5 continents (Asia 14%, Continental Europe 16%, UK 64%). Baseline characteristics include: mean age 70 (standard deviation 12) years; male 57%; mean time from stroke to recruitment 26 (13) h; mean severity (Scandinavian Stroke Scale) 34 (13) of 58; mean blood pressure 167 (19)/90 (13) mmHg; ischaemic stroke 83%; and intracerebral haemorrhage 16%. The main trial results will be presented in May 2014. The results will also be presented in updated Cochrane systematic reviews and included in individual patient data meta-analyses of all relevant randomized controlled trials.

Conclusion

ENOS is a large completed international trial of blood pressure management in acute stroke and includes patients representative of many stroke services worldwide.


The Indoor Navigation Framework we have proposed allows any wheelchair user to be guided to a desired location on his own, as long as the building itself is adopted to the novel system. Unlike the state of the art, where no automation exists for guiding a wheelchair in modern buildings, this allows the owner of the least sophisticated wheelchair to explore public buildings with more ease than a normal person. In this project we intend to implement a working prototype, which fulfills the fundamental functions of the system. It can be further customized to the needs of system owners.


The accurate and reproducible measurement of the junction-to-case thermal resistance Rth-JC of power semiconductor devices is far from trivial. In the recent time several new approaches to measure the Rth-JC have been suggested, among them transient measurements with two different interface layers between the package and a heat-sink. The Rth-JC can be identified either in the structure functions or at the point of separation of the two Zth-curves or their derivatives. Further investigations revealed however that the latter approach is restricted to power packages with solder die attach and cannot be applied to devices with thermally low conductive glue die attach since an internal heat flow barrier falsifies the measurement result. After recapitulating the transient dual interface measurement and its evaluation using the derivatives of the Zth curves, a detailed investigation of this method by means of finite element simulations is presented herein.


In this paper we study the Consistent Traveling Salesman Problem with positional consistency constraints (CTSP), where we seek to generate a set of routes with minimum cost, in which all the clients that are visited in several routes require total positional consistency , that is, they need to appear in the same relative position in all the routes they are visited in. This problem was motivated by a scheduling application in healthcare. We present several compact formulations for the CTSP, which have been adapted from models known from the Time-dependent TSP (TDTSP) literature, and propose a new model, which is an aggregated version of a model adapted from the TDTSP. A preliminary computational experience allows us to identify the three most competitive models. These models were then evaluated in more detail, first through a set of instances with 2 , 3 or 5 routes and characteristics that derive from an healthcare application; and second through a set of tests with 5 routes and seven different and more general consistency configurations. The computational results show that for consistency configurations in which the consistent nodes appear in all, or most, of the routes, the new aggregated model can outperform the best model adapted from the literature. For the cases where the consistent nodes appear in fewer routes or less frequently, the original time-dependent model is more efficient.


The concepts of sustainability and reusability have great importance in engineering education. In this context, metadata provides reusability and the effective use of Learning Objects (LOs). In addition, searching the huge LO Repository with metadata requires too much time. If the selection criteria do not exactly match the metadata values, it is not possible to find the most appropriate LO. When this situation arises, the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method can meet the requirements. In this study, the SDUNESA software was developed and this software allows for the selection of a suitable LO from the repository by using an analytical hierarchy process MCDM method. This web-based SDUNESA software is also used to store, share and select a suitable LO in the repository. To meet these features, the SDUNESA software contains Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX, XML and SOA Web Services. The SDUNESA software was especially developed for computer engineering education. Instructors can use this software to select LOs with defined criteria. The parameters of the web-based SDUNESA learning object selection software that use the AHP method are defined under the computer education priorities. The obtained results show that the AHP method selects the most reliable learning object that meets the criteria.


The electrical resistivity has been measured as a function of temperature between 1.5 - 300 K for amorphous alloys with x = 0.176, 0.22, 0.26. The resistivities all show square-root temperature dependences below the minima temperatures. The high-field magnetoresistance (H varies between 0 - 120 kOe) can be accounted for in theoretical models of localization in the presence of strong spin - orbit interaction. In addition, the spin-flip scattering rate due to local spin fluctuations decreases with increasing temperature and then levels off at about T = 50 K in a manner consistent with the magnetic state of the sample, while the inelastic scattering rate in this range remains almost of the same order. Furthermore, the magnetic anisotropy of the resistivity together with the magnetization data show that the magnetic order is progressively suppressed with increasing Fe content.


This thesis investigates the perceptions and attitudes of undergraduates and academics towards grading within one UK university. It explores requests for grade uplift by investigating actual, perceived and anticipated student demands in an increasingly market-driven higher education sector. The phenomenon of 'grade grubbing', whereby students demand an uplift of their grades, has been identified as a symbol of marketisation and the student-ascustomer. There has been little formal research on this topic, however, particularly in a UK context although there is more discussion about grade grubbing in the US. A mixed methods approach involving the use of questionnaires, focus groups, interviews and concept mapping was used, together with an extensive literature review of marketisation as a key concept, in order to gather empirical evidence about attitudes to grade appeals. The perspectives of undergraduate students and academic staff were sought and compared. The key finding is that forms of student behaviour labelled as grade grubbing have been over-simplified and misunderstood. Whilst the student voice indicates a consumerist attitude towards the student experience, grade grubbing itself, when defined as seeking an uplift in the initial grade awarded, is rare. Students are much more likely to accept the grades they receive at face value and not question them (grade neutral) or seek more feedback to understand the grade awarded (grade enquiry). They also, less commonly, challenge academic judgment (grade challenge) or demand a higher grade (grade grubbing). Whilst there are no short cuts to minimising grade enquiries, a review of the landscape affords a more fine-grained understanding of this phenomenon which should be known, less pejoratively, as grade enquiry. The study concludes with future research recommendations to inform university policy.


The development of a scalable asymmetric route to a new calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist is described. The synthesis of the two key fragments was redefined, and the intermediates were accessed through novel chemistry. Chiral lactam 2 was prepared by an enzyme mediated dynamic kinetic transamination which simultaneously set two stereocenters. Enzyme evolution resulted in an optimized transaminase providing the desired configuration in >60:1 syn/anti. The final chiral center was set via a crystallization induced diastereomeric transformation. The asymmetric spirocyclization to form the second fragment, chiral spiro acid intermediate 3, was catalyzed by a novel doubly quaternized phase transfer catalyst and provided optically pure material on isolation. With the two fragments in hand, development of their final union by amide bond formation and subsequent direct isolation is described. The described chemistry has been used to deliver over 100 kg of our desired target, ubrogepant.


Biomolecular motors offer self-propelled, directed transport in designed microscale networks and can potentially replace pump-driven nanofluidics. However, in existing systems, transportation is limited to the two-dimensional plane. Here we demonstrate fully one-dimensional (1D) myosin-driven motion of fluorescent probes (actin filaments) through 80 nm wide, Al2O3 hollow nanowires of micrometer length. The motor-driven transport is orders of magnitude faster than would be possible by passive diffusion. The system represents a necessary element for advanced devices based on gliding assays, for example, in lab-on-a-chip systems with channel crossings and in pumpless nanosyringes. It may also serve as a scaffold for bottom-up assembly of muscle proteins into ordered contractile units, mimicking the muscle sarcomere.


Studies in a variety of species have shown evidence for positively selected variants introduced into one population via introgression from another, distantly related population—a process known as adaptive introgression. However, there are few explicit frameworks for jointly modelling introgression and positive selection, in order to detect these variants using genomic sequence data. Here, we develop an approach based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). CNNs do not require the specification of an analytical model of allele frequency dynamics, and have outperformed alternative methods for classification and parameter estimation tasks in various areas of population genetics. Thus, they are potentially well suited to the identification of adaptive introgression. Using simulations, we trained CNNs on genotype matrices derived from genomes sampled from the donor population, the recipient population and a related non-introgressed population, in order to distinguish regions of the genome evolving under adaptive introgression from those evolving neutrally or experiencing selective sweeps. Our CNN architecture exhibits 95% accuracy on simulated data, even when the genomes are unphased, and accuracy decreases only moderately in the presence of heterosis. As a proof of concept, we applied our trained CNNs to human genomic datasets—both phased and unphased—to detect candidates for adaptive introgression that shaped our evolutionary history.


As governments gear up to launch national vaccination programmes against swine flu, questions are beginning to emerge about how many people will be prepared to take up the offer of the vaccine.

A survey published online this week in the BMJ found that just over half of 8500 healthcare workers in Hong Kong said they would not be vaccinated against swine flu because of fears of side effects and doubts about the vaccine's effectiveness ( BMJ 2009;339:b3391, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3391).

Evidence from 11 focus groups conducted in Canada before the current pandemic also indicates that parents and healthcare workers may refuse to be vaccinated or to vaccinate their children if they believe that the risks outweigh the benefits ( Emerging Health Threats Journal 2009;2:e8, www.eht-forum.org/ehtj/journal/v2/pdf/ehtj09008a.pdf). And a survey by Israel's ministry of health similarly found that at least 25% of the population is not willing to be vaccinated against swine flu.

Last week England's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, shrugged off suggestions that NHS staff might turn down the vaccine …


Counterfactual regret minimization (CFR) is the most commonly used algorithm to approximately solving two-player zero-sum imperfect-information games (IIGs). In recent years, a series of novel CFR variants such as CFR+, Linear CFR, DCFR have been proposed and have significantly improved the convergence rate of the vanilla CFR. However, most of these new variants are hand-designed by researchers through trial and error based on different motivations, which generally requires a tremendous amount of efforts and insights. This work proposes to meta-learn novel CFR algorithms through evolution to ease the burden of manual algorithm design. We first design a search language that is rich enough to represent many existing hand-designed CFR variants. We then exploit a scalable regularized evolution algorithm with a bag of acceleration techniques to efficiently search over the combinatorial space of algorithms defined by this language. The learned novel CFR algorithm can generalize to new IIGs not seen during training and performs on par with or better than existing state-of-the-art CFR variants. The code is available at https://github.com/rpSebastian/AutoCFR.


The following sequences have been submitted to the Nomenclature Committee since the April 2008 nomenclature update and, following agreed policy, have been assigned official allele designations. Full details of all sequences will be published in a forthcoming report. The newly assigned sequences are listed in Table 1 and the confirmations of previously reported sequences in Table 2. The accession number of each sequence is given and it can be used to retrieve the sequence files from the EMBL, GenBank or DDBJ data libraries. Although accession numbers have been assigned by the data libraries and most sequences are already available, there is still the possibility that an author may not yet have allowed the sequence to be released, in such a case you will have to


OBJECTIVES
To introduce an innovative clinical service that can be used to reduce medication errors and improve quality of care in the rural environment, in order to assist in eliminating or alleviating disparities in health based on geographical location.

SUMMARY
Virtual medication therapy management (MTM) will be a tool to assist underserved populations, specifically residents of rural communities. It will use videoconferencing software to provide MTM services to populations that lack access to care. For virtual MTM to be effective, specific measures must be implemented to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and state regulations must be established to standardize the practice.

CONCLUSION
The virtual MTM model is a feasible and promising model for advancing MTM services. With commitment and cooperation from various health care fields, virtual MTM could be the cornerstone of a health care renaissance.


In Germany, young migrants and refugees whose German language skills are not sufficient for attending regular classes at school are assigned to so-called "preparation classes". As the name implies, the main objective of these classes is to teach German language skills and thereby prepare students for regular classes or vocational education and training. Teachers in these classes face special challenges: They have to teach a group of students that is highly heterogeneous in several key respects, they have to deal with a dearth of institutional support and guidance, and they have a lot of responsibility regarding their students' integration in Germany. Therefore, this paper asks what target group-specific professional knowledge teachers possess and to what extent this knowledge reduces the teachers' burdens and raises their perception of gains and contributions to their students' success. Our mixed-method survey of 48 teachers of refugees in prevocational preparation classes in Germany shows that the majority of teachers acquired useful knowledge for teaching refugees, e.g., dealing with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, building German proficiency, or language-sensitive teaching, by attending professional training. In sum, most of the teachers saw immigration to Germany as both a problem and an opportunity. The main burdens they identify are bad working conditions, a lack of support and appreciation and a high demand for high flexibility. Despite generally low stress levels and high resilience, the teachers were extremely stressed by the heterogeneity in their students' performance, especially those teachers who had completed professional training. However, teachers appreciated the students' willingness to learn and gratitude, and perceived cultural diversity in the classroom as a gain for themselves and their teaching. The teachers felt they had mostly contributed to their students' acquisition of the German language as well as their educational progress in general and their personal development. Students' chances of success are expected to be especially high in the German language acquisition and the management of everyday life in Germany. The assessments of teachers with and without target group-specific professional knowledge differ only slightly and rarely significantly.


Purpose: Amino acid transporters play important roles in cell survival and proliferation. L-Type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) is one of the major Na+-independent neutral amino acid transporters. LAT1 has an aspect of oncofetal protein. Recently, high levels of LAT1 expression have been reported in various tumors, such as prostate cancer, pancreas cancer, bile duct cancer, lung cancer and stomach cancer.We revealed LAT1 expression is an independent prognosis marker in stomach cancer, prostate cancer and pancreas cancer. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the LAT1 expression in breast carcinoma and relationship between LAT1 expression and prognosis. Materials & Methods: We enrolled 290 patients with invasive breast carcinoma surgically resected between 2006 and 2010 at Kitasato University Hospital and Toho University Omori Medical Center, Japan. We investigated LAT1 expression in the enrolled breast carcinoma cases by immunohistochemical staining. All cases were divided into two groups, 78 cases of triple negative carcinoma (TNBC) and 212 cases of non-triple negative carcinoma (NTNBC), with immunohistochemistry of estrogen and progesterone receptors and Her2. After LAT1 expression was compared between TNBC and NTNBC, correlations among LAT1 expression, Ki-67 labeling index (LI), CD98 expression, and clinicopathological findings was assessed. Results: TNBC showed significantly higher LAT1 expression than NTNBC. TNBC also showed significantly higher CD98 expression rather than NTNBC. LAT1 expression of extraductal invasive cancer cells was significantly higher than those of intraductal carcinoma cells. A significantly positive correlation was observed between LAT1 expression and CD98 expression. Further, a positive correlation between LAT1 expression and Ki-67 LI was found. Log-rank test in overall breast cancers revealed that high LAT1 expression group showed significantly poor prognosis, compared to low LAT1 group. In NTNBC, high LAT1expression cases possessed poorer prognosis than low LAT1 expression cases. Conclusion: In invasive ductal carcinoma of breast, LAT1 expression has a potential for a prognosis prediction factor. LAT1 offers a potential target for anti-cancer therapy by its inhibitor JPH203 which has been developed by us. Citation Format: Masaaki Ichinoe, Tetsuo Mikami, Kiyomi Hana, Nobuyuki Yanagisawa, Hitoshi Endou, Isao Okayasu, Yoshiki Murakumo. Expression of cancer type amino acid transporter LAT1 is a prognosis prediction factor in breast carcinoma: comparison between triple-negative and non-triple-negative types. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 5286. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-5286


This study aims at developing an experimental tool useful to define accurately the friction coefficients in bolted joints and, therefore, at relating precisely the tightening torque to the bolt preloading force in some special components used in front motorbike suspensions. The components under investigation are some clamped joints made of aluminium alloy. The preloading force is achieved by applying a torque wrench to the bolt head. Some specific specimens have been appropriately designed and realized in order to study the tribological aspects of the tightening phase. Experimental tests have been performed by applying the Design of Experiment (DOE) method in order to obtain a mathematical model for the friction coefficients. Three replicas of a full factorial DOE at two levels for each variable have been carried out. The levels include cast versus forged aluminium alloy, anodized versus spray-painted surface, lubricated versus unlubricated screw, and first tightening (fresh unspoiled surfaces) versus sixth tightening (spoiled surfaces). The study considers M8x1.25 8.8 galvanized screws.


This study aims to (1) describe the overview of the life of the Marriage (2) Explain the reason for the wives did divorce at the age of marriage has reached 20 years (3) Knowing the psychological condition of the subjects post-divorce. This study uses a qualitative method of data collection in the form of interviews and documentation. The research subjects are four and add with the informant as much as four people. The results of this research are (1) Household life subjects had massive conflicts, domestic violence and even infidelity. The conflict that often occurs and the lack of ability to make problem solving the complex problems faced. Child's attitude does not affect the subject's decision to divorce. (2) A lot of unpleasant incident in the relationship of husband and wife for households. Subjects have been feeling tired and physically to survive, while there was no sign of positive change of her husband, the kids are great, economically ex-husband and the family is quite helpful and the subjects feel life itself will be better then the subject decided to divorce. Perception wife, honored to perform contested normal divorced from the talak divorce. (3) Subject to feel more calm because of the conflict intensity dropped dramatically after the divorce for no longer live at home with her husband. Subjects had a lot of time to themselves and deepen the use of religion and worship. Only in this way, the subject may continue to be grateful and do not regret the past life. However, the subjects had to make a living despite the additional subsidy granted by the former husband. In the social interaction is often the subject of conversation to be sensitive to neighbors or group those talks about divorce.


This study examined the effects of physical fitness training and reinforcement on adults who were institutionalized and dually diagnosed as mentally retarded/emotionally disturbed. Subjects (N=5) were provided daily 1-hour fitness training sessions for 6 weeks. Fitness data were collected before initial fitness training, after 3 weeks of training, after 1 week of no fitness training, after 3 more weeks of training, and 2 weeks after training was terminated. Fitness data collected included total number of bent-knee sit-ups completed in 1 minute, total distance in feet completed in 12 minutes of running, and flexibility in centimeters measured on a sit-and-reach box. An equivalent time-series research design (A-B-A-B) with follow-up was used to test the relationship of fitness training and reinforcement to subsequent fitness component behaviors. The results for both individual and group data show improvement in all three fitness parameters after 3 weeks of training and continued improvement for the final 3 ...


Bacterial meningitis is still a common disease in Sudan. The disease has the potential to cause serious morbidity and mortality, especially within the paediatric age group. In this study, 58 children proven to have bacterial meningitis by PCR in Omdurman teaching hospital from 20042005 were assessed, managed and followed up in an attempt to point out the characteristics associated with morbidity and mortality. It was observed that cases with mortality were mainly in the less than 1 year age group (33.3% of the cases), more than half of the cases (53.3%) received breastfeeding for less than 1 year, more than of half of the cases had at least a parent who is a smoker. Males formed more than 60% of the cases. It has been observed that most cases with morbidity and mortality were associated with late presentation, presentation with coma, onset of convulsions, hypotension and petechial rash. Most of the survivors received 3 rd generation cephalosporins, 64% of the cases were sensitive to long acting benzyl penicillin, 58% were sensitive to chloramphenicol. Bacterial meningitis incidence and occurrence needs to be reduced in Sudan. Appropriate vaccination and prophylaxis methods exist and could yield excellent results in the future if implemented correctly. The use of third generation cephalosporin as empiric treatment whenever lumbar puncture is not possible is the advised management.


BACKGROUND
Overweight and obesity have been associated with a pro-inflammatory state. We aimed to assess the ability of different measures of overall and abdominal adiposity for identifying adverse levels of inflammatory and metabolic markers in adolescents.

METHODS
This is a cross-sectional analysis with 529 Portuguese adolescents (267 girls), mean age 14.3 ± 1.7 years. Weight, height, sitting height, waist circumference (WC), and body fat percentage (BF%) were measured; and BMI, waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), and waist-to-sitting-height ratio (WsHtR) were calculated. We measured C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), complements C3 and C4, leptin, and adiponectin levels. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to estimate the ability of the adiposity measures to discriminate between low/high values of biomarkers.

RESULTS
The highest areas under the ROC curves were presented by BF% for fibrinogen and complement C3 in both sexes and for ESR, complement C4, and adiponectin only in girls; by BMI for CRP in girls and for leptin in both sexes; by WHtR for leptin in both sexes and for CRP, fibrinogen, and adiponectin only in girls; by waist circumference for CRP, fibrinogen, and complement C3 only in boys and for complement C4 in girls; and by WsHtR for complement C3 in girls; p < 0.05 for all.

CONCLUSIONS
The measures that more often presented discriminatory power were, for overall adiposity, BF% in both sexes, and for abdominal adiposity, WHtR in girls and WC in boys. However, small differences in discriminatory capabilities don't allow us to clearly defend the adoption of a single measure above all others.


Purpose of review Dyslipidaemias are a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD); in particular, high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) have been associated to a higher cardiovascular risk. Reducing LDL-C levels decreases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), and the greater the LDL-C reduction, the greater the decrease in cardiovascular risk. Although statins represent the first line lipid-lowering therapy, many patients do not reach the recommended goals or exhibit adverse side effects leading to therapy discontinuation; in addition, a significant percentage of statin-treated patients continue to experience cardiovascular events even in the presence of well controlled LDL-C levels, because of alterations in other lipid/lipoprotein classes, including triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Recent findings These conditions require further therapeutic interventions to achieve the recommended lipid goals. Several drugs have been developed to address these needs. Recent studies have shown that the association of ezetimibe with rosuvastatin or atorvastatin results in a better hypolipidaemic effect; in addition to this, PCSK9 inhibitors significantly reduce LDL-C levels and cardiovascular events. Summary For patients who are intolerant to statins or not able to reach the recommended LDL-C levels, despite maximal tolerated dose of statin, or exhibiting additional lipid alterations, several drugs are available that can be used either in monotherapy or on top of the maximally tolerated dose of statins.


The sweet potato hornworm Agrius cingulata and Agrius convolvuli are destructive pests of sweet potato. This study was conducted to observe the life cycle and the feeding potential of larval instars of A. cingulata and A. convolvuli under laboratory condition (28 ± 4oC, 70 ± 4% RH and 12 L : 12 D photoperiod). The laboratory study revealed an average incubation period of 6 ± 0.50 days for A. cingulata and 4 ± 0.50 days for A. convolvuli, larval duration of 42 ± 1 days for A. cingulata and 24 ± 1 days for A. convolvuli, pupation period 26±1 days for A. cingulata and 14±1 days for A. convolvuli. The life span from egg to adult stage, on an average, was 73 days for A. cingulata and 55 days for A. convolvuli. The larval feeding potential was determined by both the maturity and availability of suitable leaves although mature larvae were observed to feed on the stems and flower of the host plant in absence of suitable leaves. The larvae of both hornworms preferred mostly the young and mature leaves. The caterpillars of A. cingulata and A. convolvuli were found voracious feeder. The nature of damage of sweet potato hornworm mostly occurred on the host-plant. The yield of sweet potato was reduced due to the infestation of the pests.


OVERVIEW For two decades it has been known that DNA supercoiling influences transcription. More recently, transcription has also been shown to affect the supercoiling of intracellular DNA. The theoretical framework and experimental results on how DNA topology and transcription are interrelated are summarized in this chapter. INTRODUCTION Studies on the relationship between DNA topology and transcription were initiated a few years after the discovery of supercoiled DNA. Vinograd was the first to recognize that the spatial contortion of a double-stranded DNA ring with intact strands is very sensitive to winding or unwinding of the double helix; small alterations of the helical How the binding of an RNA polymerase might change the double-helix structure was of particular interest. Indirect evidence and theoretical considerations suggested that RNA polymerase might unpair a short segment of DNA, so as to copy the genetic information encoded by the exposed bases of the template strand via the Watson-Crick pairing scheme (for review, see Chamberlin 1974). To test this model, pairs of differently radiolabeled nicked DNA samples were converted by DNA ligase to the closed circular form. For each pair, one sample was ligated in the presence of RNA polymerase and the other in its absence. If RNA polymerase unwinds DNA, then after ligation and removal of bound protein, the DNA ligated in the presence of the polymerase should be underwound or negatively supercoiled relative to the DNA ligated in the absence of the polymerase; the more compact shape of the supercoiled form would in turn make...


Abstract. Paleo-anthropological research has its specificity closely related with studied objects. Their complicated shape arises from anatomical features of human skull and other skeletal bones. The degree of preservation is associated with the fragility of palaeo-anthropological material which usually has high historical and scientific value. The circumstances mentioned above enhance the relevance of photogrammetry implementation in anthropological studies. Thus, such combination of scientific methodologies with up-to-date technology creates a potential for improvement of various stages of palaeo-anthropological studies. This can be referred to accurate documenting of anthropological material and creation of databases accessible for wide range of users, predominantly research scientists and students; preservation of highly valuable samples and possibility of sharing information as 3D images or printed copies, improving co-operation of scientists world-wide; potential for replication of contact anthropometric studies on 3D images or printed copies providing for development of new biometric methods, and etc. This paper presents an approach based on photogrammetric techniques and non-contact measurements, providing technological and methodological development of paleo-anthropological studies, including data capturing, processing and representing.


Sixteenth century soldiers of fortune Ulrich Schmidel of Bavaria and Hans Staden of Hesse published popular accounts of their respective American travels. As with all travel literature, these works describe not only the observed, but the observers themselves. Schmidel and Staden, like German scholars and authors of their day, attempted to explain the exotic western hemisphere in the familiar European terms they knew, but their accounts also demonstrate that the encounter between these German-speakers and a medley of Amerindian and European peoples fostered the construction of a German "national" identity. Historians Christine Johnson and Hannah C. Wojciehowski have noted that German encounters with the wider world, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, fostered a distinct German identity, but they have failed to recognize that encounters between European groups in the Americas also helped to create a nascent idea of Germanness. Adventurers like Staden and Schmidel operated with a distinct set of biases, preconceptions, and knowledge—a constructed "German" identity in its infancy—and their writings propagated these ideas in their homeland.


The type of weather anomalies that occurred in the United States during January 1977 are typical of a planetary-scale wave phenomenon called stratospheric sudden warming (SSW). Specific changes in weather parameters nearly always accompany SSW. Blocking ridges (intensified high-pressure cells) develop over the oceans, the North Pole warms, mid-latitudes cool, and continental temperatures plunge. These characteristics usually persist for at least a month. When the SSW is strong, as in January 1958, 1963, and 1977, the accompanying weather anomalies can be unusually severe.


BACKGROUND
Two forms of familial temporal lobe epilepsy (FTLE) have been described: mesial FTLE and FTLE with auditory auras. The gene responsible for mesial FTLE has not been mapped yet, whereas mutations in the LGI1 (leucine-rich, glioma-inactivated 1) gene, localized on chromosome 10q, have been found in FTLE with auditory auras.

OBJECTIVE
To describe magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in patients with FTLE with auditory auras.

DESIGN AND METHODS
We performed detailed clinical and molecular studies as well as MRI evaluation (including volumetry) in all available individuals from one family, segregating FTLE from auditory auras.

RESULTS
We evaluated 18 of 23 possibly affected individuals, and 13 patients reported auditory auras. In one patient, auditory auras were associated with déjà vu; in one patient, with ictal aphasia; and in 2 patients, with visual misperception. Most patients were not taking medication at the time, although all of them reported sporadic auras. Two-point lod scores were positive for 7 genotyped markers on chromosome 10q, and a Zmax of 6.35 was achieved with marker D10S185 at a recombination fraction of 0.0. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the LGI1 gene showed a point mutation, VIIIS7(-2)A-G, in all affected individuals. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 22 individuals (7 asymptomatic, 4 of them carriers of the affected haplotype on chromosome 10q and the VIIIS7[-2]A-G mutation). Lateral temporal lobe malformations were identified by visual analysis in 10 individuals, 2 of them with global enlargement demonstrated by volumetry. Mildly reduced hippocampi were observed in 4 individuals.

CONCLUSIONS
In this family with FTLE with auditory auras, we found developmental abnormalities in the lateral cortex of the temporal lobes in 53% of the affected individuals. In contrast with mesial FTLE, none of the affected individuals had MRI evidence of hippocampal sclerosis.


Significant attention in recent years has been given towards obtaining a better understanding of human joint ranges, measurement, and functionality, especially in conjunction with commands issued by the central nervous system. Studies of those commands often include computer algorithms to describe path trajectories. These are typically in " open-form " with specific descriptions of motions, but not " closed form " mathematical solutions of the full range of possibilities. This paper proposes a rigorous " closed form " kinematic formulation to model human limbs, understand their workspace, and delineate barriers therein where a path becomes difficult or impossible owing to physical constraints. The novel ability to visualize barriers in the workspace emphasizes the power of these closed form equations. Moreover, this formulation takes into account joint limits in terms of ranges of motion. Examples include the workspaces of a typical forearm, a typical finger, and is used to illustrate the visualization of the progress in the functionality of a wrist undergoing rehabilitation.


Abstract Pegmatites of the Pala and Mesa Grande Pegmatite Districts, San Diego County, California are typically thin, sheet-like composite pegmatite-aplite dikes. Aplitic portions of many dikes display pronounced mineralogical layering referred to as "line rock," characterized by fine-grained, gamet-rich bands alternating with albite- and quartz-rich bands. Thermal modeling was performed for four dikes in San Diego County including the 1 m thick Himalaya dike, the 2 m thick Mission dike, the 8 m thick George Ashley dike, and the 25 m thick Stewart dike. Calculations were based on conductive cooling equations accounting for latent heat of crystallization, a melt emplacement temperature of 650 ℃ into 150 ℃ fractured, gabbroic country rock at a depth of 5 km, and an estimated 3 wt% initial H2O content in the melt. Cooling to <550 ℃ at the center of each dike occurred in ~9 years for the Stewart dike, ~340 days for the George Ashley dike, ~22 days for the Mission dike, and ~5 days for the Himalaya dike. Based on these calculations, growth rates for large pegmatitic minerals such as the 10 cm long Himalaya hanging wall tourmaline crystals may have been on the order of 10-5 cm/s. Crystal size distribution (CSD) studies of garnet from layered aplites suggest growth rates of about 10-6 cm/s. These results indicate that the dikes cooled and crystallized rapidly, with variable nucleation rates but high overall crystal-growth rates. Initial high nucleation rates coincident with emplacement and strong undercooling can account for the millimeter-size aplite grains. Lower nucleation rates coupled with high growth rates can explain the decimeter-size minerals in the hanging walls, cores, and miarolitic cavities of the pegmatites. The presence of tourmaline and/or lepidolite throughout these dikes suggests that although the melts were initially H2O-Undersaturated, high melt concentrations of incompatible (or fluxing) components such as B, F, and Li (±H2O), aided in the development of large pegmatitic crystals that grew rapidly in the short times suggested by the conductive cooling models.


The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol were built on a political bargain directly involving technology transfer. On one side, industrialized countries would take the first steps to reduce GHG emissions while transferring technology to enable developing countries to make progress on carbon efficiency. However, developing countries have argued that commitments on technology transfer have not been met and that industrialized countries have largely failed to provide effective transfer of environmentally sound, climate-related technologies. Developing countries have argued that too restrictive and high intellectual property protection constrains their ability to access products and knowledge to enable them to address climate change and develop. The argument on intellectual property is two-fold: intellectual property policies in industrialized countries serve to promote and protect their own knowledge industries and prevent participation by enterprises in developing countries; the international framework on intellectual property, embodied by the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights4 (TRIPS Agreement), denies developing countries the policy space that they require to try and ensure that technology transfer takes place. Developing countries argue that they need such policy space in light of the failure of industrialized countries to deliver on their technology transfer commitments. There remains considerable disagreement in the UNFCCC as to the actuality of TRIPS as a barrier to addressing technology transfer.This Chapter will try to address two main issues raised by the UNFCCC debate on the need to address IP: what constraints does the TRIPS Agreement place on unilateral action by developing countries; what constraints does WTO and TRIPS jurisprudence place on the UNFCCC's ability to justify IP measures.


Limited information exists regarding the evolution of dyslipidemia in youth with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Understanding dyslipidemia risk factors may influence treatment. We studied 212 youth with T2D not on lipid lowering therapy (68% female, 43% non-Hispanic black, mean age 14.9±2.7y at baseline, mean follow-up 7.0±2.0y). Dyslipidemia was defined as HDL-C 100mg/dL, or triglycerides (TG)>150mg/dL. Progression was defined as normal lipids at baseline, dyslipidemia at follow-up; regression as dyslipidemia at baseline, normal at follow-up; stable abnormal as dyslipidemia at both; stable normal as normal at both. Associations of A1c and abdominal adiposity (waist to height ratio, WHtR) over time (area under the curve, AUC) with progression and stable abnormal were examined and relative risks estimated. HDL-C progressed, regressed, was stable normal and stable abnormal in 12%, 11%, 62%, and 14%, respectively. Corresponding LDL-C values were 16%, 13%, 43% and 29%; TG were 17%, 11%, 56% and 16%. Each 1% increase in A1c AUC was associated with 13% higher risk of TG>150mg/dL and 22% higher risk of LDL-C>100mg/dL, after adjusting for WHtR (Table). There were no significant associations with WHtR. In youth with T2D, 33% and 45% had progression or stable dyslipidemia of TG and LDL-C, respectively. Higher A1c over time is associated with worse TG and LDL-C, highlighting the importance of glycemic control. Disclosure R.P. Brady: None. A.S. Shah: None. E.T. Jensen: None. J.M. Stafford: None. R. Dagostino: Consultant; Self; Amgen, AstraZeneca, Celgene, Daiichi Sankyo. L.M. Dolan: None. L.M. Knight: None. G. Imperatore: None. C.B. Turley: None. A.D. Liese: None. E.M. Urbina: None. J.M. Lawrence: None. C. Pihoker: None. S.M. Marcovina: None. D. Dabelea: None. Funding Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1U18DP006131, U18DP006133, U18DP006134, U18DP006136, U18DP006138, U18DP006139); National Institutes of Health (1UC4DK108173)


Massive Open Online Courses represent a fertile ground for examining student behavior. However, due to their openness MOOC attract a diverse body of students, for the most part, unknown to the course instructors. However, a certain number of students enroll in the same course multiple times, and there are records of their previous learning activities which might provide some useful information to course organizers before the start of the course. In this study, we examined how student behavior changes between subsequent course offerings. We identified profiles of returning students and also interesting changes in their behavior between two enrollments to the same course. Results and their implications are further discussed.


This paper focuses on three aspects of rural settlements: the concept of rurality, rural settlement characteristics and development implications. The conception of rurality by the Yoruba people is sociologically defined and thus inconsistent with demographic definition. A settlement of 40 houses may be called a town (ilu) and another of 80 houses a village (abule) depending on history and the people.
The analysis showed that: (a) the cumulative total of the number of settlements conforms to the S-shaped or sigmoid growth form of biological population; (b) rural settlements do not take the form of a wave diffusion in which areas occupied by earlier settlement lay adjacent to the 'mother' town, and (c) there is no appreciable relationship between topographical factors roads and settlements.
The factors of size and spatially dispersed distribution of settlements emphasize the attendant problems of rural development. It is therefore suggested that a reorganisation of settlements for increased threshold population under the Local Government framework is desirable


Becoming one the important features of our lives, e-banking has brought us a more convenient and fast way to accomplish financial activities. Despite its growing role, it is considered a challenge for some individuals who prefer to still use traditional banking system. In order to obtain a better understanding of those customers, in the current study, two personality dimensions and four demographic variables were studied to find any relationship with using that kind of technology. A group of 329 banking customers including 197 male and 132 female individuals completed a three-section questionnaire containing a measure of banking style including traditional and available forms of e-banking, two personality factors (Neuroticism and Extraversion) scales from the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI Costa and McCrae, 1992), and four demographic questions including age, gender, education level, and marital status. In addition to descriptive statistics, multiple regression was utilized to investigate the relationships among the predictors and criterion. Results showed no significant difference in terms of the two personality factors comparing the two groups of customers including traditional and electronic banking. In conjunction with the banking style, investigating demographic variables revealed significant relationships between age, education levels and marital status with e-banking. Beside using the findings to meet individuals' needs, as traditional banking services impose more costs, determining the characteristics of that portion of customers would be important.


Wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) are composed of sensors and actuators to perform distributed sensing and actuating tasks. Most WSAN applications (e.g., fire detection) demand that actuators rapidly respond to observed events. Therefore, real-time (i.e., fast) and fault-tolerant transmission is a critical requirement in WSAN's to enable sensed data to reach actuators reliably and quickly. Due to limited power resources, energy-efficiency is another crucial requirement. Such requirements become formidably challenging in largescale WSANs. However, existing WSANs fall short in meeting these requirements. To this end, we first theoretically study the Kautz graph for its applicability in WSANs to meet these requirements. We then propose a Kautz-based REal-time, Faulttolerant and EneRgy-efficient WSAN (REFER). REFER embeds Kautz graphs into the physical topology of a WSAN for real-time communication and connects the Kautz graphs using distributed hash table (DHT) for high scalability. We also theoretically study routing paths in the Kautz graph, based on which we develop an efficient fault-tolerant routing protocol. It enables a relay node to quickly and efficiently identify the next shortest path from itself to the destination based only on node IDs upon routing failure, rather than relying on retransmission from the source.


In the UK, Personal Development Planning (PDP) is now an important part of a student's time at university. Its aim is to help students develop skills that will help them at university and in the workplace. However, research has shown that students do not always engage with this element of the curriculum. The aim of this article is to report on an intervention designed to encourage reflection in this area. For this study work was undertaken with a group of new students making the transition to higher education. This article reports on the rationale for making the intervention and the impact, or otherwise, of introducing this cohort to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).


Marfan syndrome has not been well documented in North American Indians. A 19-year old Ojibwa man had evidence of this syndrome -- specifically, tall stature, long, thin extremities (particularly, fingers and toes), increased urinary excretion of hydroxyproline, aortic aneurysm, aortic regurgitation and pathologic evidence of aortic rupture and alastic tissue fragmentation. Intimal hyperplasia was present in the extramural coronary arteries, while the intramural arteries, usually thought to be involved, were normal.


Little has been published about adnexal torsion among postmenopausal women. To address this question, we reviewed the records of all postmenopausal women with a postoperative diagnosis of ovarian neoplasm over a 10-year period. Among 301 tumors, 19 (6%) underwent torsion. Serous cystadenoma was the most frequent tumor type. No malignant neoplasm underwent torsion in this series. Adnexal torsion is not limited to women of reproductive age


Moving away from a university context, and within a framework of intercultural (ed. Burnard &co. 2016), performance (ed. Solis 2004) and social change (Baker 2014) studies, this article will explore the constant border negotiations of a professional international world music band, formed by thirteen musicians from seven countries: India, Senegal, Sweden, France, England and Scotland. Imagined as a utopian social experiment by two Swedish brothers in 2012, Varldens Band (the World's Band) quickly grew beyond the project phase and established itself as a group, performing self-branded 'transglobal roots fusion' music.
With six different nationalities and the will to create music that both reflects and transcends them, borders are a constant source of negotiation for the musicians in musical, political and touring contexts. Musically, the band chooses to represent a united ensemble featuring musicians rather than 'countries'. Although each individual strongly represents his or her own tradition, rehearsals are a vital space where musical negotiation and collective arranging shape pieces, respecting both cultural backgrounds and the will to collaborate across borders. The inclusiveness message featured in the music becomes a strong yet consciously unvoiced political message on stage of an ideal world where multiculturalism is a strength rather than a divisive force. Politically, the band reinforced its inclusiveness message over time, namely during the 2015 refugee crisis that coincided with a 10-week tour branded 'No Borders Tour'. Since, performing for schools and refugee audiences is fully integrated into their schedules with the ideology of counteracting the growing nationalist movements in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Off stage, borders continue to impact the musicians. Not only do visas have to be issued and frontiers crossed, sometimes unsuccessfully, there is also a constant cultural dialogue between the band members as they learn to understand each other. Verbal communication then becomes key and the leadership of the band manager becomes at times crucial as space is made for voicing opinions and thoughts, resulting in a better understanding of each individual. Through all these different aspects, Varldens Band offers a platform for rethinking intercultural collaboration within a professional context, beyond the popular one-off projects or groups with a high turnover (see Hughes 2004).


Description An implementation of Horn's technique for numerically and graphically evaluating the components or factors retained in a principle components analysis (PCA) or common factor analysis (FA). Horn's method contrasts eigenvalues produced through a PCA or FA on a number of random data sets of uncorrelated variables with the same number of variables and observations as the experimental or observational data set to produce eigenvalues for components or factors that are adjusted for the sample error-induced inflation. Components with adjusted eigenvalues greater than one are retained. paran may also be used to conduct parallel analysis following Glorfeld's (1995) suggestions to reduce the likelihood of over-retention.


Worldwide simultaneous effects of technologies, international challenges such as climate change as well as shifting relationships between science and society call for approaches that can address these issues on a global level. This book examines the potential of Technology Assessment (TA), as an until now mainly national and Western concept, to take on this global level and provide answers to these pressing questions.