This paper presents measurements of mineral dust concentration in the diameter range from 0.4 to 14.0 μm with a novel balloon-borne optical particle counter, the Universal Cloud and Aerosol Sounding System (UCASS). The balloon launches were coordinated with ground-based active and passive remote-sensing observations and airborne in situ measurements with a research aircraft during a Saharan dust outbreak over Cyprus from 20 to 23 April 2017. The aerosol optical depth at 500 nm reached values up to 0.5 during that event over Cyprus, and particle number concentrations were as high as 50 cm−3 for the diameter range between 0.8 and 13.9 μm. Comparisons of the total particle number concentration and the particle size distribution from two cases of balloon-borne measurements with aircraft observations show reasonable agreement in magnitude and shape despite slight mismatches in time and space. While column-integrated size distributions from balloon-borne measurements and groundbased remote sensing show similar coarse-mode peak concentrations and diameters, they illustrate the ambiguity related to the missing vertical information in passive sun photometer observations. Extinction coefficient inferred from the balloon-borne measurements agrees with those derived from coinciding Raman lidar observations at height levels with particle number concentrations smaller than 10 cm−3 for the diameter range from 0.8 to 13.9 μm. An overestimation of the UCASS-derived extinction coefficient of a factor of 2 compared to the lidar measurement was found for layers with particle number concentrations that exceed 25 cm−3, i.e. in the centre of the dust plume where particle concentrations were highest. This is likely the result of a variation in the refractive index and the shape and size dependency of the extinction efficiency of dust particles along the UCASS measurements. In the future, profile measurements of the particle number concentration and particle size distribution with the UCASS could provide a valuable addition to the measurement capabilities generally used in field experiments that are focussed on the observation of coarse aerosols and clouds. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 6782 M. Kezoudi et al.: Balloon-borne in situ dust profiling


Coombs test negative. There was a gross deficiency of erythrocyte G-6-PD. The patitnt was transferred to another job. After a month the blood findings had returned practically to normal; the urine contained no urobilin; and the serum bilirubin was 0-5 mg/100 ml. We believe that the acute haemolytic crisis in this patient was due to nalidixic acid. The patient had not eaten broad beans nor taken any haemolysing drugs, nor had he come into contact with any other haemolysing substances in his work. We record this case to draw attention to the importance of G-6-PD-screening in subjects who are occupationally exposed to nalidixic acid or other haemolysing drugs.-We are, etc.,


14-3-3sigma belongs to the 14-3-3 family of proteins, which are involved in the modulation of diverse signal transduction pathways. Loss of 14-3-3sigma expression has been observed in a number of human cancers, suggesting that it may have a role as a tumor suppressor gene. The aim of the study was to investigate the expression and the functional role of 14-3-3sigma in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Expression of 14-3-3sigma was analyzed using laser capture microdissection (LCM), quantitative real-time-PCR (QRT-PCR), DNA arrays, immunohistochemistry and western blot analysis. The role of 14-3-3sigma in apoptosis and cell cycle regulation was evaluated by western blotting, immunoprecipitation and FACS analysis. By QRT-PCR, 14-3-3sigma mRNA levels were 54-fold increased in pancreatic adenocarcinoma in comparison with normal pancreatic samples and localized in pancreatic cancer cells as determined by LCM. In pancreatic cancer cells, the degree of 14-3-3sigma expression was not decisive for the maintenance of G(2)/M cell cycle checkpoint or induction of apoptosis. Responses to radiation or apoptosis-inducing agents were neither accompanied by a significant 14-3-3sigma accumulation nor by a change in association of 14-3-3sigma with cdc2, bad and bax. In conclusion, the marked over-expression of 14-3-3sigma in PADC together with multiple known genetic and epigenetic alterations of potential 14-3-3sigma interacting partners suggests an important role of aberrant 14-3-3sigma downstream signaling in pancreatic cancer.


The research aim was to critically examine the two sides of co-creation from the small business and GCU researcher perspectives. The interest is in the value created and delivered. Previous studies have suggested the importance of identity and trust in these types of collaborative projects. The approach used a single case study to explore indepth the development of identity and trust, and the subsequent movement of the project participants to the creation of value. The results of the study revealed important action learning and knowledge management developments. A strong focus at the beginning on identifying key propositional knowledge needs, later led to more opportunities to co-create value for both parties. The understanding of the processes and importance of trust in these significant knowledge exchange projects reveals both a strength and weakness in these university-business collaborative projects. The indepth undersrtanding and interpretation of the value derived in-action and on-action speaks highly of the role of these university-business collaborative projects. Suggesting that the university has a key role to play in future economic development.


Water quality is of great importance for ecosystems and society. This thesis characterized and modeled the variation in several key constituents of Swedish surface waters, with particular consideration given to intra-annual variability and sensitivity to climate change. Cyanobacterial data from 29 lakes and basins as well as total organic carbon (TOC) from 215 watercourses were used. Extensive data on catchment characteristics, morphometry, discharge, temperature and other water chemistry data were also analyzed. Models characterizing the seasonality in cyanobacterial concentration and relative cyanobacterial abundance were developed with common lake variables. Concentrations of TOC, iron and absorbance were simulated using discharge, seasonality and long-term trend terms in the Fluxmaster modeling system. Spatial patterns in these model terms were investigated, and the sensitivity of cyanobacteria and TOC to future climate was explored.Nutrients were the major control on cyanobacterial concentration seasonality, while temperature was more important for relative cyanobacterial abundance. No cyanobacterial blooms occurred below a total phosphorus threshold of 20 µg l-1. Discharge and seasonality explained much of the intra-annual variability in TOC, but catchment characteristics could only explain a limited amount of the spatial patterns in the sensitivity to these influences. North of Limes Norrlandicus the discharge term had a larger impact on the TOC concentration in large catchments than in small catchments, while south of Limes Norrlandicus the seasonality had a larger impact in small catchments than in larger catchments. According to the climate change scenarios, both TOC and cyanobacterial concentrations will be higher in the future. The cyanobacterial dominance will start earlier and persist longer. The spring TOC concentration peak will come earlier. The changes in TOC loads are more uncertain due to predicted declines in discharge.Parsimonious statistical regression models could explain observed variability in cyanobacteria and TOC. For predictions, these models assume that future aquatic ecosystems will exhibit the same sensitivity to major drivers as in the past. If this proves not to be the case, the modeling can serve as a sentinel for changing catchment function as indicated by degradation in model performance when calibrations on older data are used to model later observations.


The biorefinery concept facilitates the extraction of different constituents from seaweed, ensuring full usage of resources and generating few residues through a succession of steps. Innovative and environmentally-friendly extraction techniques, dubbed "green processing technologies," have been developed in recent years. Using the bioprocess simulation software SuperPro Designer®, a model was developed and used to demonstrate the feasibility of two different multi-product biorefinery scenarios applying green technologies to one of the most promising species in Europe, the brown alga Saccharina latissima (sugar kelp). Analyzing the current state of the art and commercial applications, enzyme-assisted extraction was chosen as an emerging sustainable technology to simulate the production of alginate and the functional saccharides laminarin and fucoidan. These simulations were compared to an additional simulation of alginate production using the low-yield alkaline extraction technique currently used in the industry, which has been proven not feasible for the expected prices of cultivated seaweed in Europe. Complete biomass valorization is achieved by the sub-processing of the by-streams into complementary products such as biostimulants and animal feed. The valorization of up to 1.07 € per kilogram of fresh weight biomass was achieved using enzyme-assisted extraction and prioritizing laminarin and fucoidan as main products. Extraction yields and raw biomass alginate composition have the largest sensitivity effects on the profitability of biorefineries. This provides further insight into the crucial research opportunities on downstream processing and seaweed cultivation targets.


Software architecture is undergoing a transition from monolithic architectures to microservices to achieve resilience, agility and scalability in software development. However, with microservices it is difficult to diagnose performance issues due to technology heterogeneity, large number of microservices, and frequent updates to both software features and infrastructure. This paper presents MicroRCA, a system to locate root causes of performance issues in microservices. MicroRCA infers root causes in real time by correlating application performance symptoms with corresponding system resource utilization, with-out any application instrumentation. The root cause localization is based on an attributed graph that model anomaly propagation across services and machines. Our experimental evaluation where common anomalies are injected to a microservice benchmark running in a Kubernetes cluster shows that MicroRCA locates root causes well, with 89% precision and 97% mean average precision, outperforming several state-of-the-art methods.


This  study  investigated  the  effect  of  language  complexity  and  group  size  on  knowledge construction in two online debates. Knowledge construction was assessed using Gunawardena et al.'s Interaction Analysis Model (1997). Language complexity was determined by dividing the  number  of  unique  words  by  total  words.  It  refers  to  the  lexical  variation.  The  results showed  that  knowledge  construction  and  group  size  are  significantly  and  negatively correlated. Also, the study revealed that knowledge construction and language complexity are significantly  and  positively  correlated.  Furthermore,  the  study  demonstrated  that  language complexity  is  a  significant  predictor  of  knowledge  construction  in  online  debates.  Some actions  should  be  undertaken  to  increase  language  complexity  in  order  to  foster  knowledge construction in online debates.


Online Social Networks become the medium for a plethora of applications such as targeted advertising and recommendation services, collaborative filtering, behavior modeling and pre- diction, analysis and identification of aggressive behavior, bullying and stalking, cultural trend monitoring, epidemic studies, crowd mood reading and tracking, revelation of terrorist net- works, even political deliberation. They mainly aim to promote human interaction on the Web, assist community creation, and facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions and content. Social Networking Analysis Research has lately focused on major Online Social Networks like Face-book, Twitter and Digg [Chelmis and Prasanna, 2011]. However, research in Social Networks [Ereteo et al., 2008] has extracted underlying and often hidden social structures [Newman, 2010] from email communications [Tyler et al., 2003], structural link analysis of web blogs and personal home pages [Adamic and Adar, 2003] or recently explicit FOAF networks [Ding et al., 2005], structural link analysis of bookmarks, tags or resources in general [Mika, 2007], co-occurrence of names [Kautz et al., 1997] [Mika, 2007], and co-authorship in scientific publications references [Wasserman and Faust, 1994], and co-appearance in movies or music productions [Yin et al., 2010]. Interactive visualizations is employed by visual analytics in order to integrate users' knowledge and inference capability into numerical/algorithmic data analysis processes. It is an active research field that has applications in many sectors, such as security, finance, and business. The growing popularity of visual analytics in recent years creates the need for a broad survey that reviews and assesses the recent developments in the field. This paper reviews the state of the art of sentiment visualization field. The growing popularity of sentiment visualization systems in recent years is an active research area. In this paper, we will present a survey that reviews and assesses the recent visualization techniques and systems in the field. This report classifies and reviews the recent approaches in visual analysis. The motivations in conducting this survey are twofold. First, we aim to review the most recent research trends and developments of sentiment visualization techniques and systems and provide a precise review of the field. Second, this survey aims to provide a critical assessment of the research which can help enhance the understanding of the field.


20th century growth has been an exceptional period in the history of mankind, relying mostly on increase in total factor productivity (TFP). Using a 1890-2013 17-OECD country database, this paper improves the measurement of TFP by taking into account production factor quality, i.e. the education level of the working-age population for labor and the age of equipment for the capital stock. However, our main contribution is to assess the role of technology diffusion to TFP growth through two emblematic general purpose technologies, electricity and information and communication technologies (ICT). Using both growth decomposition methodology and instrumental variables estimates, this paper finds that, among factor quality, education levels have posted the largest contribution to growth, while the age of capital has a significant, although limited, contribution. Quality-adjusted production factors explain less than half of labor productivity growth in the largest countries but Japan, where capital deepening posted a very large contribution. As a consequence, the "one big wave" of productivity growth (Gordon, 1999), as well as the ICT productivity wave for the countries which experienced it, remains only partially explained by quality-adjusted factors, although education and technology diffusion contribute to explain the US earlier wave in the 1930s-1940s. Finally, technology diffusion, as captured through our two general purpose technologies, leaves between 0.6 and 1 point of yearly growth, as well as a large share of the two 20th century technology waves, unexplained. These results support both a significant lag in the diffusion of general purpose technologies and a wider view on growth factors, encompassing changes in the production process, management techniques or financing practices.


ABSTRACT Prion diseases are associated with the presence of PrPSc, a disease-associated misfolded conformer of the prion protein. We report that superparamagnetic nanoparticles bind PrPSc molecules efficiently and specifically, permitting magnetic separation of prions from a sample mixture. Captured PrPSc molecules retain the activity to seed protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) reactions, enabling the rapid concentration of dilute prions to improve detection. Furthermore, superparamagnetic nanoparticles clear contaminated solutions of PrPSc. Our findings suggest that coupling magnetic nanoparticle capture with PMCA could accelerate and improve prion detection. Magnetic nanoparticles may also be useful for developing a nontoxic prion decontamination method for biologically derived products.


: In the review it has been systematized data on the vascular effects of ginsenosides in vivo. It has been shown that ginsenosides increase a tolerance of isolated arteries to oxidative stress, hypoxia-reoxigenation, homocysteine and other pathogenic factors. It has been performed an analysis published works on the effects of triterpene saponines on the NO synthesis in the isolated endothelial cells, a proliferation of these cells, an apoptosis of endotheliocytes, a secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor by endothelial cells. It was exhibited data on the potency of ginsenosides to inhibit a proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells. It has been discussed a molecular mechanisms of triterpene saponines action, their interaction with steroid hormone receptors, proteinkinases, NO-synthase, guanilyl cyclase, K(Ca)-channels, Ca(2+)-channels.


The governments of the EU Member States have agreed to potentially enlarge the Union with seven South East European countries (Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244) and Turkey. However, these countries will be granted full member status only when all political, legislative and administrative requirements for membership are fulfilled. Transposition, implementation and enforcement of the EU Nitrate Directive (91/676/EC) is one of these requirements.
Many policy makers, farmers and consumers from the EU accession countries perceive the Nitrate Directive as a very demanding piece of legislation with little relevance for their countries. Moreover, there is a widespread belief that the Nitrate Directive can potentially limit the competitiveness of their agricultural sector. Limited or partial information and misconceptions about the Nitrate Directive in these countries provokes fear (and sometimes anger), notably by farmers. Consequently, the adoption of the Nitrate Directive receives low political priority. In most countries aspiring to EU membership, there are no other driving forces besides EU accession pushing Governments to adopt the Nitrate Directive. Pressure exerted by health, consumer or environmental protection NGOs hardly exists. Training and education on the Nitrate Directive is poorly covered and addressed by the curricula at higher education organisations, as well as by NGO training programmes. Consequently experts from these countries do not have much opportunity to get acquainted with the Nitrate Directive. The problem persists when these people become governmental officials, extension officers, farm managers, etc., and are supposed to make policy decisions and administer the Nitrate Directive – or advise farmers and manage farms according to EU Nitrates Directive requirements.
In order to remedy this problem, several international projects, financed by the Global Environmental Facility fund (administered by the World Bank or the UN Development Programme), the European Commission, and the EU Member State Governments (notably the Netherlands) have been initiated recently. The experience from these projects shows that transfer of information - capacity building and public awareness raising programmes – play a vital role in understanding the rationale behind the Nitrate Directive and in accepting the farming practices it requires. Participatory training, demonstration of nutrient management planning software, on-farm water quality testing with mobile kits, experiments using piezometers/lysimeters and field trials involving various cover crops, buffer strips, etc. accompanied with Web pages, demonstration videos, posters, leaflets, etc. have been shown to be powerful tools to demonstrate the link between water quality and (adverse) agricultural practices. The valuation ("monetisation") of ecosystem services and environmental costs generated by the fertiliser industry and farming is a newly emerging concept that seems to be a particularly promising tool for awareness raising on the Nitrate Directive. Emerging assessments from the accession countries suggest that hidden costs (public investments and environmental costs) associated with elevated content of nitrates in water can be substantial. Making policy makers and the public at large aware of these costs and of potential savings on them by practising water friendly farming methods (e.g. organic or pastoral farming) can foster the adoption of the EU Nitrate Directive in EU candidate counties and beyond.


The concept of structure functions, which is an extension of the variance approach, is useful to determine the variance (the structure function) which is optimized for a type of noise and for an order of drift. The multi-variance method was developed to use different variances over the same signal. It is then possible to select a set of variances in which each variance is optimized to the determination of one parameter (of one noise level, drift, or cut-off frequency). Recently, we adapted this method to irregularly spaced timing data. In this connection, we replaced the structure functions by another method of spectral density estimation: the lowest mode estimator, introduced by J.E. Deeter and P.E. Boynton (1982, 1984) for the analysis of pulsar timing data. Different lowest mode estimators can be constructed according to two priorities: the order of drifts that must be removed and the type of noise for which the sensitivity must be maximum. Thus, a multivariance system is developed using a set of different estimators. The details of this method are described and the results for different signals are discussed in this paper.


A trifunctional separator fabricated by using a light-weight layer-by-layer multi-walled carbon nanotubes/polyethylene glycol (MWCNT/PEG) coating has been explored in lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries. The conductive MWCNT/PEG coating serves as (i) an upper current collector for accelerating the electron transport and benefiting the electrochemical reaction kinetics of the cell, (ii) a net-like filter for blocking and intercepting the migrating polysulfides through a synergistic effect including physical and chemical interactions, and (iii) a layered barrier for inhibiting the continuous diffusion and alleviating the volume change of the trapped active material by introducing a "buffer zone" in between the coated layers. The multi-layered MWCNT/PEG coating allows the use of the conventional pure sulfur cathode with a high sulfur content (78 wt%) and high sulfur loading (up to 6.5 mg cm−2) to achieve a high initial discharge capacity of 1206 mA h g−1 at C/5 rate, retaining a superior capacity of 630 mA h g−1 after 300 cycles. The MWCNT/PEG-coated separator optimized by the facile layer-by-layer coating method provides a promising and feasible option for advanced Li–S batteries with high energy density.


Recently, due to increasing popularity of the magnesium alloys, many studies on corrosion resistance of the magnesium alloys have been reported to improve their corrosion resistance. However, it is not clarified yet whether an electrochemical polarization curve or a corrosion rate is a good measure for the corrosion fatigue resistance or not. In the present study, corrosion fatigue tests, the weight loss test, and measurement of the electrochemical polarization curve were performed in 3% sodium chloride solution using both the extruded and the rolled Mg alloys. It was clarified that there are no differences in the corrosion fatigue lives between the extruded and the rolled Mg alloys, though they have different corrosion resistance. So, it was concluded that the corrosion fatigue characteristic does not correspond well with the trend in corrosion resistance.


We proposed new method of blood removal using Ho:YAG laser(λ=2.1μm)-induced water-vapor bubble to prevent distal tissue ischemia during angioscopic imaging. We successfully demonstrated capability of this blood removal method using blood-filled pocine coronary artery ex vivo. We used laser irradiation conditions of 200mJ in pulse energy and 2Hz in repetition rate. Ho:YAG laser for blood removal and flash lamp lighting for endoscopic illumination were irradiated in the porcine coronary artery through individual fiber optics. Timing of the flash lamp lightning of 2μs in duration was arranged to illuminate the maximum blood removal space, i.e. the laser induced water-vapor bubble. We successfully obtained intra-lumen view via a thin angioscope using the laser blood removal without using saline injection. We studied to determine the optimum laser-induced bubble formation which indicated the minimum invasion against the blood vessel. The time resolved photography in vitro, transient pressure measurement in vitro, and acute historogical study on irradiated vessel wall in vivo were employed for this determination.


In many ways, male farmers can be considered to be a vulnerable group in relation to mental health, experiencing high rates of suicide, psychological distress and low use of health services. This study highlights important connections between rurality, farming and masculinities in the context of men's mental health. In-depth interviews with 32 male farmers from Quebec, Canada were completed focusing on stress and coping strategies. Findings include informal and formal strategies. Many participants had previous positive experience of formal help and would be willing to use such help again and to recommend it to others in need. Those without such experience are sceptical about services but recognise the courage it requires to seek help. Pride and lack of knowledge about services are the main barriers to help-seeking, but it can be legitimated in certain contexts, such as divorce or other psychosocial crisis, and by alignment with particular male ideals. Role models at national or local levels can also help farmers prioritise their own and their family's wellbeing over stigmas and rigid, traditional masculine ideals. Furthermore, gender-based strengths and recommendations for practice are also discussed.


Various static-removal methods; hand-picking, time-difference refraction statics, EGRM Gauss-Seidel refraction statics and Monte-Carlo simulated annealing statics are applied to the radial component of a compressional-source, three-component, seismic data set from northern Alberta; Slave Lake, Line EUEOOl. While hand-picking provides the most continuous solution, it is extremely tedious and time-consuming for the processor. The refraction statics methods are also quite time-consuming since the Swave refraction had to be hand-picked. However, these methods provide a more realistic long-wavelength statics solution since refraction methods derive the longwavelength static shifts from an actual model of the Earth, rather than by arbitrarily comparing the shifts seen on reflections across the section. Monte-Carlo simulated annealing provides a reasonable solution with very little processor input, but it takes hours of computer time.


Objective:
  To
  determine
  if
  ethyl
  chloride
  spray
  provides
  adequate
  analgesia
  prior
  to
  injections. Design:
  Systematic
  literature
  review.
  Methods:
  A
  search
  was
  conducted
  in
  both
  Pubmed
  and Scopus
  using
  search
  terms
  ethyl
  chloride
  and
  injection.
  The
  Pubmed
  search
  was
  narrowed
  to include
  studies
  within
  a
  10-‐year
  publication
  range.
  Articles
  were
  excluded
  based
  on:
  population age
  range,
  date
  of
  publication,
  and
  if
  ethyl
  chloride
  was
  used
  in
  conjunction
  with
  another analgesic.
  There
  were
  no
  relevant
  articles
  in
  the
  Scopus
  search.
  Results:
  Franko
  O,
  Stern
  P. demonstrated
  that
  there
  was
  no
  statistically
  significant
  improvement
  in
  anxiety
  or
  pain perceived
  with
  ethyl
  chloride
  treatment
  as
  compared
  to
  the
  control.
  Irkoren
  et
  al.
  found
  that ethyl
  chloride
  spray
  and
  Eutectic
  Mixture
  of
  Local
  Anesthetic
  (EMLA)
  cream
  each
  significantly decreased
  the
  pain
  associated
  with
  forehead
  botulinum
  toxin
  (BTX)
  injections
  when
  compared to
  the
  control.
  The
  majority
  of
  patients
  preferred
  the
  ethyl
  chloride
  spray
  over
  the
  EMLA cream
  as
  an
  analgesic.
  Moon
  et
  al.
  determined
  lidocaine
  and
  ethyl
  chloride
  are
  equally effective
  methods
  for
  decreasing
  pain
  associated
  with
  injections.
  Ethyl
  chloride
  spray
  had
  the added
  benefit
  of
  a
  lack
  of
  metallic
  taste.
  Conclusion:
  We
  cannot
  conclude
  that
  ethyl
  chloride spray
  is
  an
  effective
  analgesic
  prior
  to
  injections
  in
  men
  and
  women.
  However,
  we
  do recommend
  its
  use
  prior
  to
  BTX
  forehead
  injections
  and
  dorsal
  hand
  propofol
  injections
  in women
  age
  18
  and
  older,
  based
  on
  results
  from
  Irkoren
  et
  al.
  and
  Moon
  et
  al.


We study the effect of local stellar radiation and ultraviolet background (UVB) radiation on the physical properties of damped Lyα systems (DLAs) and Lyman limit systems (LLSs) at z = 3 using cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We post-process our simulations with the authentic radiation transfer (ART) code for radiative transfer of local stellar radiation and UVB radiation. We find that the DLA and LLS cross-sections are significantly reduced by the UVB radiation, whereas the local stellar radiation does not affect them very much except in the low-mass haloes. This is because the clumpy high-density clouds near young star clusters effectively absorb most of the ionizing photons from young stars. We also find that the UVB model with a simple density threshold for the self-shielding effect can reproduce the observed column density distribution function of DLAs and LLSs very well, and we validate this model by direct radiative transfer calculations of stellar radiation and UVB radiation with high angular resolution. We show that, with a self-shielding treatment, the DLAs have an extended distribution around star-forming regions typically on ∼10–30 kpc scales, and LLSs are surrounding DLAs on ∼30–60 kpc scales. The DLA gas is less extended than the virial radius of the halo, and LLSs are distributed over the similar scale to the virial radius of the host halo. Our simulations suggest that the median properties of DLA host haloes are Mh = 2.4 × 1010 M⊙, SFR = 0.3 M⊙ yr−1, M★ = 2.4 × 108 M⊙ and Z/Z⊙ = 0.1. About 30 per cent of DLAs are hosted by haloes having SFR = 1–20 M⊙ yr−1, which is the typical star formation rate (SFR) range for Lyman break galaxies (LBGs). More than half of DLAs are hosted by the LBGs that are fainter than the current observational limit. Our results suggest that fractional contribution to LLSs from lower mass haloes is greater than for DLAs. Therefore, the median values of LLS host haloes are somewhat lower with Mh = 9.6 × 109 M⊙, SFR = 0.06 M⊙ yr−1, M★ = 6.5 × 107 M⊙ and Z/Z⊙ = 0.08. About 80 per cent of total LLS cross-section are hosted by haloes with SFR ≲ 1 M⊙ yr−1, hence most LLSs are associated with low-mass haloes with faint LBGs below the current detection limit.


Objective: It is evident that immune cytokines are involved in the pathophysiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but results of different studies are still inconsistent. Here, serum interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6 and IL-8 levels were compared between earthquake survivors with PTSD, those with non-PTSD and normal controls to investigate whether there is any relationship between cytokine levels and PTSD. In addition, the relationship of these cytokines with psychological parameters of the disorder was examined as well. Methods: Thirty-four earthquake survivors with PTSD (according to DSM-IV criteria), 30 earthquake survivors with non-PTSD and 34 controls were recruited in northern China using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview instrument. Serum IL-2, IL-6 and IL-8 levels were compared. IL-2 levels were measured by radioimmunometric assay, while serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels were measured using sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Psychological symptoms were assessed using 3 subscales of the Symptoms Checklist (SCL-90-R), including depression, anxiety and somatization. Results: Only earthquake survivors diagnosed with PTSD had significantly lower serum IL-8 levels. Also, we found that earthquake survivors (either with PTSD or non-PTSD) had significantly lower serum IL-2 levels and more severe psychological symptoms. The severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms in earthquake survivors was positively related to serum IL-6 levels. Conclusions: PTSD may be associated with a reduced level of serum IL-8, and traumatic survivors may be associated with a lower level of serum IL-2.


The carbohydrate metabolism of human spermatozoa in seminal plasma was studied by measuring the fructose utilization and lactate production of semen specimens. The recovery of two moles of lactate for each mole of fructose utilized suggests that, as in Ringer's solution, glycolysis is the main pathway of carbohydrate metabolism in this system. Sperm concentration and initial fructose level were found to influence the fructolytic activity of this system but there was no relationship apparent between sperm motility and fructolysis. Significant differences in fructose utilization were demonstrated among the donors in this study. This was further examined by a seminal plasma reversal experiment which clearly indicated that the plasma has a marked influence on fructolysis and that the plasmas of individual donors have strikingly different effects on sperm metabolism.

Submitted on May 9, 1958


In the US alone, the chronic pain condition of fibromyalgia affects approximately 10 million people. Current treatment protocols focus heavily on pharmacological interventions; however, such treatments are unfavorable due to debilitating side effects and a lack of effectiveness in 2/3 of patients. Two non-pharmacological interventions which have been shown to produce meaningful pain relief are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Aerobic Exercise. However, the combinatorial effects of these treatments have never been fully explored and it is unknown if these treatments interact in an additive manner or if the benefits of one negate the benefits of the other. In this work we conducted a literature review using the databases of Pubmed, OVID MEDLINE, PsychInfo, and Embase from 1995 to May 2020 to determine if the combinatorial effects of these two treatments on pain relief and pain interference are significantly greater than that of aerobic exercise alone. We reviewed over 200 potential articles for relevance. Seven papers were found to directly address our target question, two from the US and five from Europe with sample sizes ranging from 34 to 442. One paper showed improvement in pain intensity and two papers showed improvement in pain interference due to combinatorial treatment over aerobic exercise alone. When evaluating our results, we weighted these papers based on sample size, length of treatment and observation, method of CBT administration, and surveys chosen for data collection. We were unable to definitively show that CBT in combination with aerobic exercise is more effective than aerobic exercise alone at decreasing pain intensity and/or interference in patients with fibromyalgia. However, most of these papers identified several psychological and design based confounding factors that could influence their results. We recommend that more research be conducted in this area to further ascertain the effectiveness of this specific combinatorial treatment for fibromyalgia.


One of the most important problems of strawberry cultivation in temperate regions is winter cold injuries. Current study investigated impacts of foliar application of glycine betaine (GB) at 0, 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 mM concentrations on the cold hardiness of strawberry. The plants were divided into two groups: one group for evaluation of cold hardiness at temperatures of -6, -9, -12, -15 and -18 °C; and the other for study of some biochemical characteristics. Results showed that GB treatment increased soluble carbohydrate and proline concentrations in both leaf and crown tissues, total protein concentration in leaf, and relative water content in leaf as compared to those in control. Based on LT50 calculated from electrolyte leakage and tetrazolium staining test, the GB application increased cold hardiness in strawberry plant based on its concentration. The highest cold hardiness was found in the 2 mM GB concentration based on electrolyte leakage and tetrazolium staining tests at -13.3 and -15.3 °C. Meanwhile, the lowest values of cold hardiness were observed in the control treatments based on electrolyte leakage and tetrazolium staining tests at -10.2 and -11.0 °C. Significant correlations were found between soluble carbohydrate and proline concentrations in leaf and crown, and total protein concentration with LT50 calculated from electrolyte leakage and tetrazolium staining test. We conclude that application of 2 mM GBhas the capacity to increase the freezing tolerance of strawberry and could be used as a prophylactic tool to reduce winter cold injury.


Dung's abstract argumentation theory can be seen as a general framework for nonmonotonic reasoning. An important question is then: what is the class of logics that can be subsumed as instantiations of this theory? The goal of this paper is to identify and study the large class of logic-based instantiations of Dung's theory which correspond to the maxi-consistent operator, i.e. to the function which returns maximal consistent subsets of an inconsistent knowledge base. In other words, we study the class of instantiations where every extension of the argumentation system corresponds to exactly one maximal consistent subset of the knowledge base. We show that an attack relation belonging to this class must be conflict-dependent, must not be valid, must not be conflict-complete, must not be symmetric etc. Then, we show that some attack relations serve as lower or upper bounds of the class (e.g. if an attack relation contains canonical undercut then it is not a member of this class). By using our results, we show for all existing attack relations whether or not they belong to this class. We also define new attack relations which are members of this class. Finally, we interpret our results and discuss more general questions, like: what is the added value of argumentation in such a setting? We believe that this work is a first step towards achieving our long-term goal, which is to better understand the role of argumentation and, particularly, the expressivity of logic-based instantiations of Dung-style argumentation frameworks.


Screening for early reading problems is a critical step in early intervention and prevention of later reading difficulties. Evaluative frameworks for determining the utility of a screening process are presented in the literature but have not been applied to many screening measures currently in use in numerous schools across the nation. In this study, the accuracy of several Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) subtests in predicting which students were at risk for reading failure in first grade was examined in a sample of 12,055 students in Florida. Findings indicate that the DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency, Initial Sound Fluency, and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency measures show poor diagnostic utility in predicting end of Grade 1 reading performance. DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency in fall of Grade 1 had higher classification accuracy than other DIBELS measures, but when compared to the classification accuracy obtained by assuming that no student had a disability, suggests the need to reevaluate the use of classification accuracy as a way to evaluate screening measures without discussion of base rates. Additionally, when cut scores on the screening tools were set to capture 90 percent of all students at risk for reading problems, a high number of false positives were identified. Finally, different cut scores were needed for different subgroups, such as English Language Learners. Implications for research and practice are discussed.


Reports of livestock depredation by large predators were systematically collected at three study sites in northwestern Zimbabwe from 2008–2013. We recorded 1,527 incidents (2,039 animals killed and 306 injured). Lions (Panthera leo) and spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta) were mostly responsible, and cattle and donkeys most frequently attacked. Patterns of predation were variable among study sites. Nevertheless, some overall patterns were apparent. Predators selected livestock close to the size of their preferred wild prey, suggesting behaviours evolved to optimise foraging success may determine the domestic species primarily preyed upon. Most attacks occurred when livestock were roaming outside and away from their 'home' protective enclosures at night. Hyaena attacks were largely nocturnal; lions and leopards (Panthera pardus) were more flexible, with attacks occurring by day and at night. Livestock fitted with bells suffered a disproportionate number of attacks; the sound of bells appears to have conditioned predators to associate the sound with foraging opportunities. Lion and hyaena attacks on cattle were more frequent in the wet season suggesting that seasonal herding practices may result in cattle vulnerability. Only a small proportion of conflict incidents were reported to wildlife management officials with a bias towards lion predation events, potentially prejudicing conflict management policies. Predation on domestic stock involves an intricate interplay between predator behaviour and ecology on the one hand and human behaviour and husbandry practices on the other. Our data suggest that improved livestock husbandry (supervision of grazing animals, protection at night in strong enclosures) would greatly reduce livestock depredation.


Texture evolution in plastically deformed HCP metals is strongly influenced by the nucleation and growth of deformation twins and twin variant selection. Statistically based EBSD analyses of deformed microstructures in HCP metals indicate that the nucleation of deformation twins depends on, among other factors, the local stress fields arising from neighboring grain interactions at grain boundaries [1]. Inspired by these findings a probability model for twin nucleation was developed [2,3], based on the activation of defect sources statistically occurring in grain boundaries. This nucleation model was implemented in a Visco-Plastic Self-Consistent (VPSC) code. Because the latter is based on an Effective Medium assumption and the inclusion formalism, it only provides average stress values in the grains, and the nature of local stress fields at grain boundaries had to be considered in a heuristic manner. In order to have better insight on the effect of local textures on twin nucleation, in this work we employ a viscoplastic full field Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) method as a numerical tool for conducting virtual experiments to study the role of crystal orientation and local neighbor grain interactions on stress localization close to the interfaces and, consequently, on twin nucleation in hexagonal materials, such as Zr and Mg.


Nutr Diet 2003;60:16–22) Objective: To evaluate the vitamin and mineral intakes of two to 18-year-old participants in the National Nutrition Survey 1995 (NNS95) against recommended dietary intakes (RDIs) and a previous national survey (1985) of ten to 15-year-olds. Design: Secondary analysis of the NNS95. Subjects: Nationally representative sample of 3007 two to 18-year-olds surveyed in the NNS95. Main outcome measures: Percentage of subjects in each of five age groups by sex with nutrient intakes < 0.7 RDI. Statistical analysis: Data were adjusted for non-respondents and day-to-day variation using weighting and correction factors respectively, provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Descriptive statistics and Pearson's chi-square tests for comparisons by age and sex and between 1995 and 1985. Results: Among two to 11-year-olds calcium was the only nutrient for which more than 6% subjects had intakes < 0.7 RDI. In 12 to 18-year-old males more than 10% had intakes of vitamin A and calcium < 0.7 RDI, and in females intakes of these two nutrients plus iron, magnesium, zinc and phosphorus were < 0.7 RDI in between 12% and 50% of subjects. Among 12 to 18-year-olds, 5% males and 23% females had three or more nutrient intakes < 0.7 RDI. Subjects who had nutrient intakes < 0.7 RDI ate less food but also food of lower nutrient density. The proportions of subjects with intakes < 0.7 RDI were similar to 1985. Conclusion: Many adolescents, particularly females are at risk of inadequate micronutrient intakes which may put them at risk of disease. Food and nutrient intake of children and adolescents must continue to be monitored in order to guide the development of appropriate health promotion strategies with the potential to reduce future disease burden.


The world population is growing and alternative ways of satisfying the increasing demand for meat are being explored, such as using animal cells for the fabrication of cultured meat. Edible biomaterials are required as supporting structures. Hence, we chose agarose, gellan and a xanthan-locust bean gum blend (XLB) as support materials with pea and soy protein additives and analyzed them regarding material properties and biocompatibility. We successfully built stable hydrogels containing up to 1% pea or soy protein. Higher amounts of protein resulted in poor handling properties and unstable gels. The gelation temperature range for agarose and gellan blends is between 23–30 °C, but for XLB blends it is above 55 °C. A change in viscosity and a decrease in the swelling behavior was observed in the polysaccharide-protein gels compared to the pure polysaccharide gels. None of the leachates of the investigated materials had cytotoxic effects on the myoblast cell line C2C12. All polysaccharide-protein blends evaluated turned out as potential candidates for cultured meat. For cell-laden gels, the gellan blends were the most suitable in terms of processing and uniform distribution of cells, followed by agarose blends, whereas no stable cell-laden gels could be formed with XLB blends.


Database systems serving cloud platforms must serve large numbers of applications (or tenants). In addition to managing tenants with small data footprints, different schemas, and variable load patterns, such multitenant data platforms must minimize their operating costs by efficient resource sharing. When deployed over a pay-per-use infrastructure, elastic scaling and load balancing, enabled by low cost live migration of tenant databases, is critical to tolerate load variations while minimizing operating cost. However, existing databases---relational databases and Key-Value stores alike---lack low cost live migration techniques, thus resulting in heavy performance impact during elastic scaling. We present Albatross, a technique for live migration in a multitenant database serving OLTP style workloads where the persistent database image is stored in a network attached storage. Albatross migrates the database cache and the state of active transactions to ensure minimal impact on transaction execution while allowing transactions active during migration to continue execution. It also guarantees serializability while ensuring correctness during failures. Our evaluation using two OLTP benchmarks shows that Albatross can migrate a live tenant database with no aborted transactions, negligible impact on transaction latency and throughput both during and after migration, and an unavailability window as low as 300 ms.


This paper will examine the political and ideological background to the ' credit crunch' and will consider the role of British state agencies in generating the market downturn. The paper will examine the consequences of the fall in housing market

transactions and housebuilding on wider government policy objectives on housing

production targets, the affordable housing programme, the estate regeneration

programme and the development of sustainable communities. Through using

development appraisal methodology the paper will assess the impact of the fall in sales values on specific major developments proposals in London.

The paper will then consider the successive policy initiatives proposed by the British government and government agencies, including the newly established Homes and

Communities Agency, to maintain the housing programme within the changed

economic context. It will assess the potential impact of these initiatives and consider the prospects of further interventionist measures. The paper concludes that the 'credit crunch' has demonstrated the need for a fundamental shift in British housing policy based on abandoning the dependence on an unregulated housing market and

replacing it by public sector led intervention to ensure effective long term stability in the housing market and the affordable housing programme.


Chronic liver disease encompasses a wide spectrum of disorders, including infectious, metabolic, genetic, drug-induced, idiopathic, structural, and autoimmune diseases. The clinical presentation and initial laboratory data in many of these diseases are similar, and a definitive diagnosis often relies on specialized laboratory investigation and histologic examination of liver tissue.
 The aim of this article is to: 1) Define chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis; 2) Review briefly the clinical presentation, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management of the more common pediatric causes of chronic liver disease; 3) Review the complications associated with chronic liver disease and discuss their appropriate management; and 4) Review the indications for hepatic transplantation.
 Chronic Hepatitis
 Chronic hepatitis is defined as ongoing inflammation within the liver that is capable of progression to cirrhosis, liver failure, and death. The presence of continued hepatic inflammation, as confirmed by clinical manifestations and laboratory studies, for a period of greater than 10 weeks usually excludes a self-limited hepatitis and implies chronicity. However, to fulfill the international criteria for chronic disease strictly, evidence of continued hepatic inflammatory activity needs to be present for a period of at least 6 months. Most pediatricians, however, allow 3 months for an acute liver insult to clear before undertaking specialized laboratory investigations and invasive studies.


This paper presents a result of an analysis of the nonlinear interaction and response of the coupled ISSC-TLP System to the random seas in the time domain. The environmental load also includes the effect of the concurrent steady winds and currents. The first- and second-order wave-exciting forces are calculated using a robust higher-order boundary element method (HOBEM), while the nonlinear tendon dynamic analysis is performed using the three-dimensional hybrid element method with the upgated Lagrangian formulation. The Morison equation is employed for the wave and current load on slender structures. The analysis is focused on the nonlinear responses due to the nonlinear environmental load and nonlinear interaction between the platform and tendons that includes the offset, setdown, large coupled surge-heave motion in the low frequency and resonant heave/pitch responses with the springing loads in the high frequency.


This paper explores whether value orientation (VO) and trust in the state (TIS) are linked to support for environmental intervention and steering among Swedish students in economics, law, and political science. Furthermore, we considered whether environmental personal norms mediate the link between VO and support for environmental policy instruments and finally, whether TIS moderates the link between environmental personal norms and support for environmental policy instruments, testing this on a sample of over 800 Swedish students. We found a positive link between both a self-transcendence VO and TIS on environmental policy support; however, we cannot confirm a moderating effect of TIS on the relation between environmental personal norms and policy support. Furthermore, left-wing students displayed stronger support for environmental intervention. We conclude that more knowledge on programme-specific characteristics regarding environmental values, beliefs, and attitudes among freshman students can enhance sustainability teaching intended to develop the students' critical and reflective capabilities.


Biological nitrogen fixation has been extensively researched for over four decades, yet due to the complex nature of this process, numerous questions still remain regarding the catalytic mechanism, and investigation of this system has relevance across a number of disciplines. Nitrogen is a fundamental element to all biological systems, primarily occurring in proteins and nucleic acids. However, most nitrogen on Earth is found in the form of nitrogen gas, a form that is biologically unavailable to most organisms owing to the strength of the triple bond between the two nitrogen atoms. The limited abundance of biologically accessible (or fixed) nitrogen has driven an anthropomorphic thrust to supplement the nitrogen cycle with nitrogenous fertilizers, thereby boosting agricultural output. The primary industrial method to produce these fertilizers, derived from the Haber-Bosch synthesis, is an energy intensive process that consumes approximately 1-2% of the world's energy portfolio. This process utilizes metal iron catalysis, high temperatures and high pressures, along with hydrogen usually obtained from reformed fossil fuels, to reduce atmospheric nitrogen gas to ammonia. Aside from the environmental consequences that arise from the production of nitrogenous fertilizers, long-term agricultural application may also have disastrous ecological ramifications, such as eutrophication. Additionally, biological nitrogen fixation supports more than half the human population, and having a more complete understanding of this complex process has the potential to displace some of the demand for fertilizer production. The aforementioned reasons are clearly enough to warrant serious investigation into biological nitrogen fixation, however, the fascinating intricacies and comparative relevance to other biochemical systems further motivates the study of this system. The enzyme committed to this task, nitrogenase, orchestrates an elegant unidirectional multiple electron reduction and activation of the nitrogen triple bond. Historically, mechanistic characterization of this enzyme has been difficult for a number of reasons; however, studies to date have revealed many aspects of the process as biochemical techniques have improved. Nitrogenase is an oxygen sensitive, complex two-component enzyme that is mechanistically pertinent to many other biochemical processes. . Presented here are studies revealing insight into substrate binding and the unique gated electron transfer mechanism of this fascinating enzyme. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Academic Preparation: 2000-2006 Montana State University, B.S in Biotechnology


The perovskite / silicon-heterojunction (SHJ) tandem solar cell can theoretically overcome the efficiencies of the single junction solar cells with experimental results not far behind. Here, we use optical simulations to analyze the potential of such currently feasible monolithic perovskite / SHJ tandem devices. We consider three different device designs in the optical simulations: planar device, device built on back-side textured Si wafer, and device with textured UV Nanoimprint Lithography light management foil. For each of these three designs, the current matching point is simulated to evaluate device efficiencies. While the device with backside textured Si wafer causes light trapping and therefore enhanced photocurrent generation for longer wavelengths, the antireflection foils prove to be overall more efficient as the foil significantly reduces the reflection in almost full wavelength range. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of The European Materials Research Society (E-MRS).


Passwords continue to dominate the authentication landscape in spite of numerous proposals to replace them. Even though usability is a key factor in replacing passwords, very few alternatives have been subjected to formal usability studies, and even fewer have been analyzed using a standard metric. We report the results of four within-subjects usability studies for seven web authentication systems. These systems span federated, smartphone, paper tokens, and email-based approaches. Our results indicate that participants prefer single sign-on systems. We report several insightful findings based on participants' qualitative responses: (1) transparency increases usability but also leads to confusion and a lack of trust, (2) participants prefer single sign-on but wish to augment it with site-specific low-entropy passwords, and (3) participants are intrigued by biometrics and phone-based authentication. We utilize the Systems Usability Scale (SUS) as a standard metric for empirical analysis and find that it produces reliable, replicable results. SUS proves to be an accurate measure of baseline usability. We recommend that new authentication systems be formally evaluated for usability using SUS, and should meet a minimum acceptable SUS score before receiving serious consideration.


This paper describes a walking stabilization control based on gait analysis for a biped humanoid robot. We have developed a human-like foot mechanism mimicking the medial longitudinal arch to clarify the function of the foot arch structure. To evaluate the arch function through walking experiments using a robot, a walking stabilization control should also be designed based on gait analysis. Physiologists suggest the ankle, hip and stepping strategies, but these strategies are proposed by measuring human beings who are not "walking" but "standing" against force disturbances. Therefore, first we conducted gait analysis in this study, and we modeled human walking strategy enough to be implemented on humanoid robots. We obtained following two findings from gait analysis: i) a foot-landing point exists on the line joining the stance leg and the projected point of CoM on the ground, and ii) the distance between steps is modified to keep mechanical energy at the landing within a certain value. A walking stabilization control is designed based on the gait analysis. Verification of the proposed control is conducted through experiments with a human-sized humanoid robot WABIAN-2R. The experimental videos are supplemented.


ABSTRACT Bioregenerative life support systems may be necessary for long-term space missions due to the high cost of lifting supplies and equipment into orbit. In this study, we investigated two biological wastewater treatment reactors designed to recover potable water for a spacefaring crew being tested at Johnson Space Center. The experiment (Lunar-Mars Life Support Test Project—Phase III) consisted of four crew members confined in a test chamber for 91 days. In order to recycle all water during the experiment, an immobilized cell bioreactor (ICB) was employed for organic carbon removal and a trickling filter bioreactor (TFB) was utilized for ammonia removal, followed by physical-chemical treatment. In this study, the spatial distribution of various microorganisms within each bioreactor was analyzed by using biofilm samples taken from four locations in the ICB and three locations in the TFB. Three target genes were used for characterization of bacteria: the 16S rRNA gene for the total bacterial community, the ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) gene for ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, and the nitrous oxide reductase (nosZ) gene for denitrifying bacteria. A combination of terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP), sequence, and phylogenetic analyses indicated that the microbial community composition in the ICB and the TFB consisted mainly of Proteobacteria, low-G+C gram-positive bacteria, and a Cytophaga-Flexibacter-Bacteroides group. Fifty-seven novel 16S rRNA genes, 8 novel amoA genes, and 12 new nosZ genes were identified in this study. Temporal shifts in the species composition of total bacteria in both the ICB and the TFB and ammonia-oxidizing and denitrifying bacteria in the TFB were also detected when the biofilms were compared with the inocula after 91 days. This result suggests that specific microbial populations were either brought in by the crew or enriched in the reactors during the course of operation.


A retrospective study was conducted to compare history of middle ear disease children with an attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD-H) and children with a learning disability. Of 138 children evaluated in a child development clinic, learning disability without ADD-H was diagnosed in 45 (29 boys, 16 girls; mean age = 9.5 years) and ADD-H without learning disability was diagnosed in 21 (17 boys, 4 girls; mean age = 8.5 years). Based on parental report, children with ADD-H had significantly more complaints of earaches during the preceding 3 months and significantly more ear infections during the preceding year. Specifically, no between-group differences were observed for total number of ear infections since birth, extended antibiotic therapy, tympanostomy tube placement, or recent hearing problems. Although middle ear disease in preschool children has repeatedly been linked to later language deficits, this study suggests that middle ear disease in school-age children may also be associated with hyperactivity and/or inattention, independently of learning disability.


In this study, a comparison was made between disease-specific (oral health-related) quality of life (OHQoL), measured with the OHIP-14 questionnaire, and generic (general health-related) quality of life (GHQoL), measured with the EQ5D-5L questionnaire, in patients with and without extreme dental treatment anxiety. A total of 76 patients who could not be treated due to extreme dental treatment anxiety were referred to a centre for special dentistry. These patients were matched, according to age, gender and socioeconomic status, with participants in an epidemiological study on oral health (n = 1125). Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used on both groups to compare GHQoL and OHQoL. The total OHIP score was higher (representing a lower quality of life) in the patient group than in the control group. Anxiety patients scored higher on all 7 domains of the OHIP-14. With respect to general quality of life, patients with extreme treatment anxiety were found to report lower utility scores than the matched control group. With these results, a total disease burden of 74,000 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) was calculated for extreme treatment anxiety in the Netherlands. The findings of this study reveal that having extreme dental treatment anxiety results in a significant disease burden in the Netherlands.


The transmission of adult T cell leukemia virus, a human retrovirus, into fresh leukocytes from normal humans was examined. One of three virus-carrying cell lines, tested after being subjected to lethal x-irradiation, consistently transformed leukocytes from adult peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. All the transformed cell lines expressed adult T cell leukemia virus-associated antigen, but transformed lines originating from adult and umbilical cord blood exhibited T cell and non-T, non-B cell surface natures, respectively. Efforts to transform human leukocytes with cell-free virus were unsuccessful.


The next generation of intelligent surveillance system should be able to recognize human's spontaneous emotion state automatically. Compared to speaker recognition, sensor signals analyzing, fingerprint or iris recognition, etc, facial expression and body gesture processing are two mainly non-intrusive vision modalities, which provides potential action information for video surveillance. In our work, we care one kind of facial expression, i.e. anxiety and gesture motion only. Firstly facial expression and body gesture feature are extracted. Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is used to select feature subset and parameters optimization. The selected features are trained or tested for cascaded Support Vector Machine to obtain a high-accuracy classifier.


The purpose of this report is to discuss the advantages and disadvantages accruing to woolgrowers of using the Sydney Greasy Wool Futures Market. No reference will be made to the general advisability of having such a market. The discussion proceeds on the basis that a Futures Market has now been established and the question to be examined is how far growers can use it to advantage. The report will proceed in three stages. The first section will discuss under what conditions a woolgrower is likely to find futures trading of value. This will be followed by a hypothetical example of how a grower would use the market. It will be shown that the usefulness of futures depends on the degree of correspondence between movements in auction prices and movements in futures prices. The second section examines how close this correspondence is likely to be in practice. The third section discusses the mechanics of using the market - in other words, the technical points about futures which a grower needs to consider, how he would go about trading in futures, and the costs involved.


: We reviewed the characteristics of 58 episodes of septicemia which occurred in 53 HIV infected adults over a 30-month period. This cases represented 10.1% of HIV infected hospitalized patients. At the time of septicemia, 79.3% patients were at AIDS stage; mean CD4 count was 72/mm3. Nosocomial septicemia occurred significatively more often in patients with previous AIDS defining illness and in neutropenic patients (p < or = 0.05 and p < or = 0.001 respectively). Staphylococcus coagulase negative (n = 17), Staphylococcus aureus (n = 11) and Salmonella (n = 8) were the most common organisms. The source of infection was found more frequently in nosocomial septicemia than in community-acquired septicemia (78% versus 46%; p < 0.02), mainly intravenous catheter (60%). Staphylococcus aureus, AIDS stage and nosocomial septicemia have high fatality rates. Mortality was not higher than previously reported in the general population.


After addition of a low concentration of thrombin to normal plasma, a progressive and significant increase in crosslinked fibrin polymers was found by sodium dodecyl sulfate agarose gel electrophoresis, reaching 27% of total fibrinogen and fibrin before gel formation. As measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with a monoclonal antibody specific for an epitope near the yy crosslink site, increased immunoreactivity of plasma did not occur after adding thrombin despite formation of crosslinked fibrin polymers, which indicates that the antibody does not recognize the epitope in the polymers. Addition of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) to plasma resulted in a more rapid degradation of fibrin polymers than of fibrinogen, indicating that the fibrin specificity of t-PA is retained with soluble fibrin. Coincident with degradation of plasma crosslinked fibrin polymers, plasma DD immunoreactivity increased 70-fold from 50.3±4.5 (mean±SD) to 3,560±1,235 ng/ml. The presence of increased crosslinked fibrin polymers produced by adding thrombin to plasma significantly increased maximum immunoreactivity after t-PA-induced degradation to 18,500±11,780 ng/ ml. The increase in DD immunoreactivity was dependent on t-PA concentration; no elevation occurred below 0.01 ug/ml, and maximal increases occurred above 100 ,ug/ml. Analysis of gel electrophoretic patterns of thrombin and t-PA-treated plasma samples suggests that the DD reactivity of t-PA-treated plasma is mainly due to degradation of soluble crosslinked fibrin polymers. Our findings indicate that plasmic degradation of soluble fibrin polymers in plasma may be an important source of fragment DD during thrombolytic therapy. (Circulation 1989;79: 666-673)


There is a growing consensus around the pivotal role of interdisciplinary research (hereafter IDR) in achieving innovative results and addressing the challenges of modern societies, whose solutions are often beyond the scope of a single discipline. This paper builds on this literature to explore the trends in IDR and its evaluation in research quality assessments in the context of accounting studies by Italian scholars, even in comparison with disciplinary research. This exploratory study covers a da- taset of all articles published by Italian accounting scholars in international journals indexed in Scopus from 1985 to 2015 (1,233 articles). We operationalise IDR as diversity in the subject area of journals where the articles are published and diversity in the disciplinary sector of coauthors. Thus, the novelty of this article is that instead of using a single indicator of IDR, we consider the interaction of two alternative perspectives of analysis. The main findings reveal a relevant increase in disciplinary and interdisciplinary articles, with a comparatively smaller increase for IDR. Additionally, we observe that IDR by Italian accounting scholars is strongly oriented towards medical publi- cations. Regarding quality evaluation, the findings show a significantly higher eval- uation of disciplinary studies compared to IDR according to the criteria followed by the national assessment exercise (VQR). This explorative study contributes to the debate on IDR in two different ways. On the one hand, our study shows a relatively low growth of IDR in the under-re- searched context of social sciences in a non-Anglo-Saxon setting, where national research evaluations have stimulated radical changes in the features and outlets of scientific production. On the other hand, our results are consistent with the view that papers with a clear disciplinary focus receive comparatively higher evaluations be- cause the standards established for assessment are usually defined within the disci- pline.


Introduction and objectives Pre-treatment Vitamin D deficiency (VDD) is well described amongst adult TB patients in Malawi and has been associated with impaired mycobacterial immunity. Anti-TB drugs and antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV may induce hepatic Vitamin D metabolism, further reducing the serum concentration of active metabolites including 25-OH D3. This study identified risk factors for baseline VDD, assessed the effect of therapy on 25-OH D3 concentrations, and evaluated whether VDD deficiency has prognostic implications for treatment response. Methods Adults with pulmonary TB were treated with standard 6 month therapy. Serum 25-OH D3 concentrations were measured at baseline, 8 weeks and end of treatment. Serial sputum samples were used to model the rate of bacterial elimination for each patient. Patients were followed until 1 year post-treatment and final outcomes were defined as favourable (stable cure) or unfavourable (failure/relapse). Linear and logistic regression analyses were used to identify risk factors for VDD and assess relationships between VDD and treatment response. Results 133 patients were studied. 75 (56%) were HIV-infected and 24 (18%) were on ART. 118 (89%) had favourable and 15 (11%) had unfavourable outcomes. The median baseline 25-OH D3 concentration was 57.3 nmol/l. 47 (28%) patients had concentrations <50 nmol/l, representing VDD. On multivariate analysis, neither HIV status nor ART influenced baseline 25-OH D3 levels, but lower concentrations were reported in patients who were recruited during the cold months of July/August (p = 0.001), suffered food insecurity (p = 0.035) or had a lower baseline Body Mass Index (p = 0.047). Without specific supplementation, 25-OH D3 levels improved during TB therapy (see figure). There were no associations between 25-OH D3 levels at any time-point and the sputum bacillary elimination rate or final clinical outcome. Conclusions The presence and extent of VDD in Malawian TB patients was determined by environmental factors (sunlight exposure and dietary intake) rather than HIV status or ART. 25 OH D3 levels improved during therapy, suggesting that induction of Vitamin D metabolites by anti-TB drugs or ART is adequately compensated by improved Vitamin D uptake during disease recovery. VDD did not have prognostic implications for treatment response. Abstract S75 Figure 1 Time on therapy


One of the most promising approaches to achieve high-speed wireless communication in the terahertz regime is by designing and fabricating devices based on the unique electrical properties of graphene. Certain bands in the THz range (300 GHz – 3 THz) encounter minimal water absorption over short distances and high-speed information transfer is possible. Nonetheless, conventional bulk devices cannot operate at that speed. In the more basic wireless communications system, there are three basic components: a source, a modulator and an antenna. With the use of the Rochester Institute of Technology Semiconductor manufacturing and Fabrication laboratory a graphene-based modulator was designed and fabricated. Electrical testing was performed using the TeraNova THz testbed at the Ultra-Broadband Nano Communication and Networking Lab at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As proof of concept, a passive modulator was preliminary fabricated following a simple capacitor design. The top plate is an aluminum diffraction grating and couples a THz signal to the underlying graphene monolayer, which acts as the bottom plate. This passive graphene-based device showed a 50% higher absorbance of a 1 THz signal when compared to a device without graphene. The active modulator was then fabricated and tested. Varying the applied DC bias between the aluminum grating and the buried p+ silicon well, modifies the electric field on the graphene layer and its conductivity. It was found to modulate a THz signal by up to 18 dBm when a +24 Volt bias was applied. These are very promising results for future wireless THz communications and provides practical devices for the THz gap.


The adhesion and micro-structure of the primary scale formed in LNG combustion gas on steels containing Si, up to 3.0mass%, have been studied using a hot-compression test at 1273K, Raman spectroscopy, and X-Ray absorption fine structure analysis (XAFS). The Fe2SiO4 at the scale/steel interface is increased as the Si content increases, suppressing the diffusion of Fe ions from the steel and forming dense and highly-adhesive subscale, when oxidized below the temperature at which the Fe2SiO4 melts. The behavior of the secondary scale growth in air up to 1173K on these has been studied using in-situ XRD. It is apparent that the formation behavior of Fe2SiO4 ,FeO and Fe2O3 is influenced by the Si content.


Arborists and landscape managers frequently encounter injuries to trees caused by incorrectly or inap-propriately applied herbicides. It is important that arborists and managers of landscape properties learn to recognize herbicide injury symptoms, mimicking symptoms, and steps that can be taken to alleviate the injury. This article summarizes more than 16 years of on-site observations of herbicide injuries to trees with laboratory documentation of the amounts of soil and tissue residues that will result in damage from a wide variety of herbicides.


Good conservation outcomes depend on sound science that underpins management actions.
Good data are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain as competing philosophies and emotive debate interfere with the processes that regulate conservation science. Iconic wildlife species are highly vulnerable to decline and are subject to intense scrutiny, particularly attracting people whose philosophies are closer to animal liberation than animal welfare. We demonstrate through a case study just how vulnerable conservation projects are to emotive pressures on the operation of Animal Ethics Committees (AECs). Our research, which was stopped, used proximity sensing radiocollars to obtain information on disease transmission important for managing a novel contagious cancer that is threatening the Tasmanian devil with extinction. Important lessons include the need for a governance structure of AECs that allows for independent review of decisions, the need to carefully screen potential committee members, and the need for AECs to both apply the code appropriately and then to stand by their decisions and the research in the case of emotive attack. We suggest that AECs and institutions should be less risk--averse about emotive attack in the media and focus on the more important goal of preventing extinction and the broader benefits of the proposed research.


Composite histo-cytoenzymochemical characteristics of local (pulmonary tissue) and general (polymorphonuclear leukocytes, PMNL, blood lymphocytes) changes in inflammatory lung diseases were obtained. Local and general changes were found to be interrelated and to reflect morphological and clinical features of inflammatory lung diseases. Differential diagnosis between acute and protracted bronchopneumonia, chronic pneumonia, bronchoectases is possible on the basis of the condition of PMNL and blood lymphocytes.


Rice papers made of non-glutinous rice are a common food item in Vietnam and Thailand. Called as Banh Da Nem in Vietnam, rice papers are used very often in the making of a traditional dish called Nem, i.e., Vietnamese spring rolls. The amino acid content in the rice papers extracted with water was found to be 2 to 3 fold higher than that in cooked rice, showing that the protein was resolved by microbial enzymes during the rice paper processing. Among organic acids, Iactic acid is most common in rice papers, indicating that lactic bacteria is involved in the manufacturing. Many Gram-positive bacteria: Streptococcus constellatus, Streptococcus acidominimus, Staphylococcus capitis, Lactobacillus curvatus, Lactobacillus salivarius, and Gram-negative bacteria: Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella sp., Pseudomonas sp., along with wild type yeast were isolated from the milled-rice.


Since the subprime mortgage crisis in the United Sates, stock markets around the world have crashed, revealing their instability. To stem the decline in stock prices, short-selling regulations have been implemented in many markets. However, their effectiveness remains unclear. In this paper, we discuss the effectiveness of short-selling regulation using artificial markets. An artificial market that is an agent-based model of financial markets is useful to observe the market mechanism. That is, it is effective for analyzing causal relationship between the behaviors of market participants and the transition of market price. We constructed an artificial market that allows short-selling and an artificial market with short-selling regulation and have observed the stock prices in both of these markets. We have demonstrated that our artificial market had some properties of actual markets. We found that the market in which short-selling was allowed was more stable than the market with short-selling regulation, and a bubble emerged in the regulated market. We evaluated the values of assets of agents who used three trading strategies, specifically, these agents were fundamentalists, chartists, and noise traders. The fundamentalists had the best performance among the three types of agents.


The Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol-II (J-SOAP-II) is a tool used to aid clinicians in assessing the sexual and criminal reoffense risk of male youths who have committed a sex offense. Despite its popularity, the factor structure has not been thoroughly assessed. The present study used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the factor structure of the four subscales of the J-SOAP-II in a group of youths aged 12-18 who were confined for sexual offenses (N = 909), and whether the fit is affected by youth race. The results showed a poor fit to the data. An ad-hoc goal was added, to propose a new factor structure using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on one half of the data, and CFA on the second half of the data. The EFA identified three-factors: Sexual Offending and Victimization History, Risk for General Delinquency, and Antisocial Beliefs and Attitudes. This three-factor model, provided an improved, but not good, fit, indicating that further modifications to the J-SOAP-II are required to meaningfully capture risk-relevant latent constructs.


There are three dimensions to the current, unprecedented global crisis of capitalism: economic, ecological, and political.… Let us look first at the economic dimension, which will be our main concern in this article. Capitalism is facing a major realization crisis—an inability to sell the output produced, i.e., to realize, in the form of profits, the surplus value extracted from workers' labor. Neoliberalism can be viewed as an attempt initially to solve the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by abandoning the "Keynesian consensus" of the "golden age" of capitalism (relatively high social welfare spending, strong unions, and labor-management cooperation), via an attack on labor. It succeeded, in that profit rates eventually recovered in the major capitalist economies by the 1990s This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


Purpose of review Significant improvements in unrelated donor hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in recent years have solidified its therapeutic role in severe aplastic anemia (SAA) and led to the evolution of treatment algorithms, particularly for children. Recent findings Advances in understanding the genetics of inherited bone marrow failure syndromes (IBMFS) have allowed more confidence in accurately diagnosing SAA and avoiding treatments that could be dangerous and ineffective in individuals with IBMFS, which can be diagnosed in 10–20% of children presenting with a picture of SAA. Additionally long-term survival after matched sibling donor and matched unrelated donor HSCT now exceed 90% in children. Late effects after HSCT for SAA are minimal with current strategies, and compare favorably to late effects after upfront immunosuppressive therapy, except for patients with chronic graft versus host disease. Summary Careful assessment for signs or symptoms of IBMFS, along with genetic screening for these disorders, is of major importance. Matched sibling donor HSCT is already considered the standard of care for upfront therapy and some groups are evaluating matched unrelated donor HSCT as primary therapy. Ongoing studies will continue to challenge treatment algorithms and may lead to an even more expanded role for HSCT in SAA.


Review EssayLove and Terror in the God Encounter: The Theological Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Vol. I, by David Hartman. Woodstock VT: Jewish Lights, 2001. 212 pp. $25.00.Those of us who are students and sometime teachers of modern Jewish philosophy and theology owe a great deal to David Hartman. Since the 1970s Hartman's books and essays have explored central themes and figures in Jewish philosophy, offering creative and provocative ways of understanding, interpreting, and utilizing Jewish philosophy and theology for constructive purposes. While his new book Love and Terror in the God Encounter: The Theological Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Volume I is no exception, it also offers a more focused portrait of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, one of Hartman's most important influences. A reader of Hartman's earlier works can justifiably ask the question, "Aren't all David Hartman's books about Soloveitchik?" The answer is both yes and no. Yes, Soloveitchik plays a major, perhaps even dominant, role in Hartman's oeuvre. No, Hartman's other books are more widely construed, Soloveitchik being one of many voices that inform his theological thinking.In this book Hartman becomes a reader, defender, and critic of Soloveitchik's approach to religiosity in general and Judaism in particular. More to the point, Hartman seeks to defend his thesis, argued in earlier works, that (a) Soloveitchik is more than an apologist for Orthodoxy and (b) that his "theology" should not be viewed as secondary and subordinate to his legal and Talmudic essays and lectures.There are two important prefatory remarks for the interested reader. First, this is not an academic book. That is, Hartman does not engage the myriad of secondary sources on Soloveitchik's theological works nor does he seek to place Soloveitchik in the larger philosophical discourse of the twentieth century. For Hartman, Soloveitchik is a thoroughly Jewish thinker, even though he suggests in places that he uses Judaism to make claims about the general human condition. Yet, while it is Judaism alone that concerns him, Judaism, argues Hartman, is only possible for Soloveitchik by venturing outside it through philosophy.Second, this book is, in many ways, a book for insiders. It is engaged in a polemic in the Orthodox world (and also to some extent in learned non-Orthodoxy) concerning the legacy, viability, and contribution of Soloveitchik as a meta-halakhic thinker. This agenda consistently underlies (and sometimes undermines) Hartman's analysis of Soloveitchik's writings. It is, therefore, not an introduction to his work (even though it sometimes reads as such) but a focused attempt to vindicate Soloveitchik (and, by extension, Hartman) against his critics from the right and the left.Hartman makes the context and agenda of this book clear at the outset. Hartman's context, as he explains it, is the polar opposite of what was likely the context that inspired Soloveitchik originally to write these works. Whereas Soloveitchik lived and wrote in a world (mid-twentieth- century America) where traditionalism was dying and both humanism and liberalism (including non-Orthodox Judaisms) were thriving, Hartman states that his context (late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century Jewry) is the upsurge of traditionalism, even ultra-traditionalism, perhaps the "haredization" of world Jewry (pp. 4, 5). While Soloveitchik wrote to enable Orthodox Jews to be "modern" and remain "traditional," Hartman writes to temper and even counter the popularity of ultra-traditionalism among modern traditional Jews. Soloveitchik wrote to create Modern Orthodoxy as a response to a turn to the "left"; Hartman writes to save it from collapsing to the "right." Implied in this stance, I think, is that the failure of Modern Orthodoxy is due either to the marginalization of Soloveitchik's theological writings or to a misunderstanding of them. As I will argue in my conclusion, this theory is only partially correct. …


A previously published kinetic model for the production of luminescence signals in quartz is used to investigate the production of thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence (TT-OSL) signals. This paper provides a mathematical description of the thermal transfer mechanism for two different phenomena that have been observed in previously published experiments (Aitken and Smith 1988 Quat. Sci. Rev. 7 387–93). The starting point is the model proposed by Bailey (2001 Radiat. Meas. 33 17–45). The numerical values of some of the parameters are varied so that they match the experimental data. The effect caused by varying these values is investigated. The first of these phenomena takes place after storing optically bleached samples at room temperature; this involves the traps responsible for the 110 °C thermoluminescence (TL) peak of quartz acting as a refuge trap. The second phenomenon concerns OSL signals that are induced by heating the samples after the bleaching of the OSL signal and involves a putative TL peak at ∼230 °C associated with the refuge trap; specifically, the paper presents a simulation of the temperature dependence of the OSL signal measured by successively heating the quartz samples to higher temperatures up to ∼400 °C.


Perennial grass mixtures planted on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land are a potential source of dedicated bioenergy feedstock. Long‐term nitrogen (N) and harvest management are critical factors for maximizing biomass yield while maintaining the longevity of grass stands. A six‐year farm‐scale study was conducted to understand the impact of weather variability on biomass yield, determine optimal N fertilization and harvest timing management practices for sustainable biomass production, and estimate economic viability at six CRP sites in the United States. Precipitation during the growing season was a critical factor for annual biomass production across all regions, and annual biomass production was severely reduced when growing season precipitation was below 50% of average. The N rate of 112 kg ha−1 produced the highest biomass yield at each location. Harvest timing resulting in the highest biomass yield was site‐specific and was a factor of predominant grass type, seasonal precipitation, and the number of harvests taken per year. The use of N fertilizer for yield enhancement unambiguously increased the cost of biomass regardless of the harvest timing for all six sites. The breakeven price of biomass at the farmgate ranged from $37 to $311 Mg−1 depending on the rate of N application, timing of harvesting, and location when foregone opportunity costs were not considered. Breakeven prices ranged from $69 to $526 Mg−1 when the loss of CRP land rental payments was included as an opportunity cost. Annual cost of the CRP to the federal government could be reduced by over 8% in the states included in this study; however, this would require the biomass price to be much higher than in the case where the landowner receives the CRP land rent. This field research demonstrated the importance of long‐term, farm‐scale research for accurate estimation of biomass feedstock production and economic viability from perennial grasslands.


Kidney biopsies were examined in 73 children with some forms of obstructive uropathies: vesico-renal reflux and obstructive megaurether. In 59 patients (80%), chronic pyelonephritis was detected. The predominant morphological form of chronic pyelonephritis in patients with obstructive uropathies is a mixed form with a combination of tubulo-stromal-vascular changes. In most patients chronic pyelonephritis was extensive up to the development of nephrosclerosis, in 22% it developed against the background of renal dysplasia. The nature and intensity of pyelonephritis was shown to depend on the severity of congenital pathology of the urinary tracts and the age of the patients.


We synthesized a series of cross‐linked photoresponsive polymeric particles with photolabile monomers and cross‐linkers through miniemulsion polymerization. These particles are quite stable in dark, while light irradiation caused the breakage of particles and the efficient release of encapsulated contents up to 95% based on Nile red fluorescence. Photoswitches of particle systems were confirmed by fluorescence spectroscopy, SEM and colorimetry. Particle uptake and triggered release in RAW264.7 cells were confirmed by fluorescein diacetate loaded particles.


Of all of the wars in which the U.S. has been engaged, none has touched a chord as deeply as the conflict in Vietnam. The repercussions of this unsettling episode in American history still resonate in our society. Although it ended more than 20 years ago, the Vietnam War continues to fascinate Americans. This updated and revised edition of Light at the End of the Tunnel is an exhaustive account of the Vietnam War that gives a total overview of the conflict. Starting with Ho Chi Minh's revolt against the French, Andrew J. Rotter takes the reader through the succeeding years as scholars, government officials, journalists, and others recount the important events and examine issues that developed during this tumultuous time. Light at the End of the Tunnel offers a broad selection of some of the best writing on the war, with such notable contributors as Stephen Ambrose, Noam Chomsky, and Frances FitzGerald. Vietnam contemporaries such as Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger lend their voices and perspectives to events surrounding the war. In addition, the subject matter is not just limited to the conflict itself, but also focuses on social issues that affected the American landscape. This book is essential for anyone who has an interest in truly understanding the Vietnam War. These readings will both educate and entertain students about this turning point in the history of the United States and, indeed, the world.


There are over 20,000 people certificated to operate cranes in West Australia and there are currently approximately 2000 construction cranes operating in the state of West Australia. The safe operation of these machines in the workplace is critical to safety on the job. As is often the case when machinery is invobed in an accident or event, when something goes wrong there is the possibility of people being injured or for damage to occur to the machine and the surrounding infrastructure. The number of events that have been reported in the medja during recent months highlights this fact. To help minimise the likelihood of accidents occurring on the work-site, it is crucial that the people responsible for the operation of these machines are fully trained in all aspects oithe task. This includes the provision to these people during their training phase, of all of the relevant warning signals that 1~ot only the machines would present in the lead-up phase of an accident, but also those of the surrounding environs. The aim of this study was to try and ascertain if crane opewtors who were certificated prior to 1994 are involved in more crane accidents than those operators who were certificated after 1994. To help answer this question data was collected from government departmental records, committee reports, questionnaires and published literature. The SPSS statistical package (version 10) was used for the analysis of the data that was collected. Prior to 1994 a crane operator would need to gain their experience and training onthe-job under the direct supervision of a certificated operator. This training could take several months and would often involve the trainee operating many different types, makes and capacities of construction cranes. In 1994 as part of the national economic refom1 agenda, the delivery of crane operator training changed to a classroom-based system with minimal practical operation of a crane (as little as 2 hours). This new certification system has seen the market over the last 10 years (1994/2003) flooded with people with certificates of competency, with figures suggesting that over 14,000 people have gained certification in that period. Figures relating to this research may reveal that there could be more accidents occurring amongst the group of crane operators who were certificated prior to 1994, under the old training regime than those certificated post 1994. These figures may at first glance reveal that this could be the case, however the critical variable in relation to each group, their exposure patterns, were not able to be established. The other crucial variable that could not be measured and which has the potential to have the most profound effect on the continuation of learning, was the employers attitude to the current system of training delivery. Ifthe employer, as the gatekeeper, takes a negative view to the current method of training delivery, then the new trainees will not be able to reinforce their training and the skill will be lost in a short time. Worksafe need to alter their "Occupational Safety and Health Regulations" (1996) reporting requirements in relation to accidents, so as to reflect the same requirements that are set down in the West Australian "Mines Safety Inspection Act" (1994) for the reporting of such events. The intention of this study was to add to the body of knowledge in the area of crane operator training in the construction and mining sectors of industry and if possible, to identify ifthere is a need for further research in this field.