After more than a century of sustained work by mathematicians, biologists, epidemiologists, probabilists, and other experts, dynamic models have become a vital tool for understanding and describing epidemics and disease transmission systems. Such models fulfill a variety of crucial roles including data integration, estimation of disease burden, forecasting trends, counterfactual evaluation, and parameter estimation. These models often incorporate myriad details, from age and social structure to inform population mixing patterns, commuting and migration, and immunological dynamics, among others. This complexity can be daunting, so many researchers have turned to stochastic simulation using agent-based models. Developing agent-based models, however, can present formidable technical challenges. In particular, depending on how the model updates state, unwanted or even unnoticed approximations can be introduced into a simulation model. In this article, we present computational methods for approximating continuous time discrete event stochastic processes based on a discrete time step to speed up complicated simulations which also converges to the true process as the time step goes to zero. Our stochastic models is constructed via hazard functions, and only those hazards which are dependent on the state of other agents (such as infection) are approximated, whereas hazards governing dynamics internal to an agent (such as immune response) are simulated exactly. By partitioning hazards as being either dependent or internal, a generic algorithm can be presented which is applicable to many models of contagion processes, with natural areas of extension and optimization. Author summary Stochastic simulation of epidemics is crucial to a variety of tasks in public health, encompassing intervention evaluation, trend forecasting, and estimation of epidemic parameters, among others. In many situations, due to model complexity, time constraints, unavailability or unfamiliarity with existing software, or other reasons, agent-based models are used to simulate epidemic processes. However, many simulation algorithms are ad hoc, which may introduce unwanted or unnoticed approximations. We present a method to build approximate, agent-based models from mathematical descriptions of stochastic epidemic processes which will improve simulation speed and converge to exact simulation techniques in limiting cases. The simplicity and generality of our method should be widely applicable to various problems in mathematical epidemiology and its connection to other methods developed in chemical physics should inspire future work and elaboration.


The adsorption behavior of sulfamethoxazole as inhibitor for mild steel in 3% HCl solution at 298K has been studied by the methods of polarization curves, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, weight loss, and quantum chemical calculation in this paper. Results revealed that the sulfamethoxzole acted essentially as the mixed-type inhibitor, and the spontaneous adsorption process involved in both chemical adsorption and physical adsorption. In addition, the adsorption of inhibitor on the steel surface followed Temkin adsorption isotherm model. However, the repulsion among the neighboring adsorbed molecule, as well as the single adsorption center of benzene ring, leaded the failure to form ideal protection film on the metal surface.


PTEN is a lipid phosphatase responsible for down-regulating the phosphoinositide 3-kinase product phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-triphosphate. Phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-triphosphate is involved in the activation of the anti-apoptotic effector target, Akt. Although the Akt pathway has been implicated in regulating NF-κB activity, it is controversial as to whether Akt activates NF-κB predominantly through mechanisms that regulate nuclear translocation or transactivation potential. In this report, we utilized PTEN as a natural biological inhibitor of Akt activity to study the effects on tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced activation of NF-κB. We found that the reintroduction of PTEN into prostate cells inhibited TNF-stimulated NF-κB transcriptional activity. PTEN failed to block TNF-induced IKK activation, IκBα degradation, p105 processing, p65 (RelA) nuclear translocation, and DNA binding of NF-κB. However, PTEN inhibited NF-κB-dependent transcription by blocking the ability of TNF to stimulate the transactivation domain of the p65 subunit. PTEN also inhibited the transactivation potential of the cyclic AMP-response element-binding protein, but this was not observed for c-Jun. The transactivation potential of p65 following TNF stimulation could be rescued from PTEN-dependent repression by re-introducing expression constructs encoding activated forms of phosphoinositide 3-kinase, Akt, or Akt and IKK. The ability of PTEN to inhibit the TNF-induced transactivation function of p65 is important, because expression of PTEN blocked TNF-stimulated NF-κB-dependent gene expression, thus sensitizing cells to TNF-induced apoptosis. Maintenance of the PTEN tumor suppressor protein is therefore required to modulate Akt activity and to concomitantly control the transcriptional activity of the anti-apoptotic transcription factor NF-κB.


Boundary conditions have great impact on the stability of three dimensional geo-material, like slope, which is one of the oldest applications in geotechnical engineering. In order to analyze the impact of boundary condition to factor of safety of slope, the 3D stability analysis was then extended to the "rough-smooth" and "smooth-smooth" boundary. By studying slopes with the same geometric condition and shear strength parameters, the results show that the safety factors obtained from "rough-smooth" boundary are smaller than those got from "rough-smooth" boundary and bigger than those got from "smooth-smooth" boundary. The study also indicates that when the width to height ratio (W/H) of homogeneous symmetric slope satisfies certain condition, the "rough-rough" boundary equals to the "rough-smooth" boundary. The factor of safety and shape of slip surface got from these two kinds of boundary condition are of the same. Study results can give guidance for the real practice.


The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), as many other DOT's, moved towards utilizing a high-speed profiler to measure the International Roughness Index (IRI) as a part of the state smoothness acceptance specifications. Although high-speed profilers have been in use for a long time as a tool to collect network-level IRI data for Pavement Management System (PMS) applications, the use of this type of device for project-level smoothness acceptance is relatively new. Therefore, NJDOT conducted a two-phase research study with the objectives of standardizing the testing protocols and identifying/addressing the equipment related issues, such as repeatability, effects of testing speed and the use of high- and low-pass filters, manufacturers versus standard IRI computations (Proval and RoadRuf) and the impact of summary intervals. Also, the study objectives included selecting a pavement profiling device as the Standard Pavement Profiler (SPP) for NJDOT, which will be used to calibrate other profilers, developing a procedure to calibrate and correlate other high speed profilers with NJDOT SPP and evaluating a standard software to process profile data and calculate IRI for NJDOT smoothness specifications. As a part of this study, detailed investigations were performed on the IRI algorithm and a new ride statistic was developed. Also, advanced profile analysis was performed to diagnose the profile characteristics that impact the rideability and user opinion. Comparisons were made between different ride statistics, traditional ride statistics (IRI, RN, PI and %DL) and the newly developed ride statistic.


Background Survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is associated with the quality of cardio-pulmonary-resuscitation (CPR). The European Resuscitation Council (ERC) and American Heart Association (AHA) define high quality CPR as compression depth of 5–6 centimeters, compression rate of 100–120 compressions/minute, full recoil (>400 milliseconds) after each compression and a hands-on time (compression fraction) of at least 60% (ERC) or 80% (AHA). The aim of this study was to investigate if unguided CPR performed by Copenhagen Emergency Medical Services (EMS) met these recommendations. Method From October throughout December 2018, OHCA data were collected from ambulances within the Capital Region of Denmark using Zoll X-series defibrillator (without CPR feedback dashboard or metronome). Only cases where EMS performed CPR were included. Data was uploaded to a central database and extracted to EXCEL for descriptive statistics and preliminary results. Results EMS CPR was performed in 330 cases of which 252 were available for analysis. Mean (SD) compression depth was 5.6±1.7 centimeters, compression rate was 110±9.8 compressions/minute, release velocity was 410±125.1 milliseconds, compression quality (correct compression depth + correct compression rate) was 13.8%±15.6 and compression fraction was 69.7%±22.2. Conclusion The quality of EMS-delivered CPR, unguided by feedback or metronome, was within recommendations for compression depth, compression rate and release velocity. CPR fraction was between ERC and AHA guidelines. Compression quality, which is not included in ERC/AHA recommendations, did not reach the manufactures recommended >60%. Further work is ongoing to evaluate the effect of adding real-time feedback to guide EMS CPR. Conflict of interest None. Funding Trygfonden.


A putative carbon monoxide dehydrogenase large subunit gene (BMS putative coxL) was amplified from genomic DNA extracts of four recent (42-300 year old) Hawaiian volcanic deposits by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Sequence databases derived from clone libraries constructed using PCR products were analysed phylogenetically and statistically. These analyses indicated that each of the deposits supported distinct BMS putative coxL gene assemblages. Statistical analyses also showed that the youngest deposit (42 years old) contained the least diverse sequences (P<0.05), but that diversity did not vary significantly among three older deposits with ages from about 108-300 years. Although diversity indices did not vary among the older deposits, mismatch analyses suggested population structures increased in complexity with increasing deposit age. At each of the sites, most of the clone sequences appeared to originate from Proteobacteria not currently represented in culture or recognized as CO oxidizers.


Lysogenization by a c1ts variant of coliphage P1, P1c1.100, markedly increased the frequency of reversion of a galT::IS1 mutation. The formation of Gal+ colonies presumably occurs by microhomologous recombination between the 9-base-pair repeats in galT (CGCCGCTAC) generated by the transposition of IS1. The responsible P1 gene, ref, has been cloned and sequenced. ref encodes a 22.8-kilodalton protein and is located near the P1 site-specific recombination function, cre. Expression of ref was repressed by P1 c+. The absence of a distinctive ribosome-binding site is consistent with a poor translation of ref from an expression vector in vivo. Placement of a ribosome-binding site before ref resulted in the extensive synthesis of the Ref protein. Ref stimulated precise excision in recB or himA cells, but not in recA mutants. Ref was active in lexA3 mutants, suggesting that the recombination activity of RecA was directly involved in the reaction. We have constructed a P1c1.100 ref::Tn10 mutant. The absence of Ref did not appear to restrict dramatically the ability of P1 to grow lytically or to form lysogens. Thus, the role of ref in the physiology of P1 remains to be determined.


It has been suggested that resonant mode conversion of compressional MHD waves into kinetic Alfvén waves at the magnetopause can explain the abrupt transition in wave polarization from compressional to transverse commonly observed during magnetopause crossings [Johnson and Cheng, 1997b]. We analyze magnetic field data for magnetopause crossings as a function of magnetic shear angle (defined as the angle between the magnetic fields in the magnetosheath and magnetosphere) and compare with the theory of resonant mode conversion. The data suggest that amplification in the transverse magnetic field component at the magnetopause is not significant up to a threshold magnetic shear angle. Above the threshold angle significant amplification results, but with weak dependence on magnetic shear angle. Waves with higher frequency are less amplified and have a higher threshold angle. These observations are qualitatively consistent with theoretical results obtained from the kinetic-fluid wave equations.


Articular cartilage injuries are challenging to treat because of the limited healing potential of articular cartilage. Various cartilage restoration procedures have been developed to restore the protective role of articular cartilage and to delay or prevent additional damage to the articular surface. ProChondrix® Cartilage Restoration Matrix is a cryopreserved hyaline cartilage allograft with viable chondrocytes and growth factors necessary to promote its incorporation and viability. We describe a 19-year-old man with a well-contained, full-thickness cartilage defect on his patella. He subsequently underwent cartilage restoration with a ProChondrix® osteochondral allograft. At 1-year postoperatively, the patient had both clinical and radiographic evidence of an excellent outcome and had returned to sport.


Omnidirectional mobility is required for the efficient movement of transport vehicles in factories and warehouses. To meet this requirement, the active omni wheel with barrel-shaped rollers (AOWBR) was previously proposed. The barrel-shaped rollers are arranged around the outer circumference of the main wheel of the AOWBR. This structure is expected to be effective in suppressing vibration during vehicle movement. The transmission roller drives the outer roller via a friction drive, which actively moves the AOWBR in the lateral direction. However, the friction drive may cause slippage between the transmission roller and the outer roller. To solve this problem, this study investigates the effects of the design parameters for an AOWBR on vibration and wheel slippage. The kinetic models of the wheel main body, transmission roller, and outer roller are established. Then, simulations are carried out using the kinetic models for various structural parameter values. The simulation results show that a softer rubber block installed in the support mechanism of the outer roller contributes to reduce wheel slippage but cause larger vibration, and that a larger setting angle between the transmission and outer rollers contributes to reduce slippage and vibration. Finally, comparison experiments are conducted on two types of prototype to verify the simulation results.


Intraamniotic instillation of urea is a common mode of legal second-trimester pregnancy termination. Associated mortality rarely occurs and is most commonly due to amniotic fluid embolism, pulmonary thromboembolism, infection, hemorrhage, and disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). We present the case of an 18-year-old gravida 2, para 1 white woman at 18 weeks' gestation who underwent intraamniotic instillation of hyperosmolar urea and intracervical insertion of laminaria tents; 19 h later, she became unresponsive, acidemic, and went into shock. Coagulation studies were diagnostic of DIC. Bacilli were seen on peripheral blood smear. Autopsy showed marked subcutaneous emphysema of the anterior abdominal wall, necrosis and emphysema of the uterus, diffuse pulmonary alveolar damage, and renal cortical necrosis. Antemortem blood cultures grew Clostridium perfringens and Escherichia coli. Postmortem culture of the uterus grew E. coli. The source of infection was most likely the introduction of vaginal organisms via laminaria insertion. This is apparently the first reported case of death caused by Clostridium perfringens and E. coli sepsis following urea instillation.


An archaeological evaluation was carried out by Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) in June 2003 at East View, Newton Reigny, Cumbria centred on NY48020 31550. The work
was undertaken on behalf of Myles Morley, in advance of a residential development. An archaeological evaluation was required due to the archaeological potential of the area.
Newton Reigny is a medieval village, with a medieval pele tower and manor house, Catterlen Hall (SM 23776). to the north of the village. A medieval moated enclosure (SMR
2924 and SM 23778) is located less than 100m to the east of the site. The development area is within the area of a former toft, belonging to a roadside croft, and the eastern edge of the development site is defined by an historic back lane.
One evaluation trench, 5.7m x 2m, (orientated north/south) was excavated within the footprint of a proposed building. No archaeological remains of any significance were
encountered. Given the absence of any confirmed archaeological remains within the evaluation trench it was recommended by O A North that the development may proceed
without any further archaeological works


Since the 1950s, mathematicians and scientists have theorised the concept of artificial intelligence and tried to understand the relationship it would have with humans. Although, originally viewed as the creation of humanesque machines, modern artificial intelligence tends to be applied to situations involving complex information and intelligent application of reasoning. Taking many different forms, the information technology industry has begun to actively invest in the creation of artificial intelligence systems at a never-seen-before scale. These systems have already begun to appear in common digital technology available today. The complexity of these systems offers both benefits and dangers to the community at large. A matter of particular concern is the obfuscated nature in which these systems work, creating a 'black box' over the internal functioning of the system, which, in extreme circumstances, could lead to a denial of legal and human rights. Currently, most artificial intelligence systems can be characterised as intelligent agents, as they take into consideration past knowledge, goals, values, and environmental observations to evaluate the situation and take actions appropriately. The conception of artificial intelligence systems as intelligent agents allows for a focused understanding of this novel legal problem, based upon which evaluations relating to accountability can be better framed. In this paper, I will focus on why it is important to hold artificial intelligence accountable and the most significant obstacles that prevent this goal from being achieved.


In Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)/Multi-Carrier CDMA (MCCDMA),
Walsh-Hadamard codes are widely used for its orthogonal characteristics, and hence, it leads
to good contextual connection property. These orthogonal codes are important because of their various
significant applications.

To use the Mach–Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) for all-optical Walsh-Hadamard codes is
implemented in this present paper.

The Mach–Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) is considered for the Tree architecture of Semiconductor
Optical Amplifier (SOA). The second-ordered Hadamard and the inverse Hadamard matrix
are constructed using SOA-MZIs. Higher-order Hadamard matrix (H4) formed by the process of
Kronecker product with lower-order Hadamard matrix (H2) is also analyzed and constructed.

To experimentally get the result from these schemes, some design issues e,g Time delay, nonlinear
phase modulation, extinction ratio, and synchronization of signals are the important issues. Lasers
of wavelength 1552 nm and 1534 nm can be used as input and control signals, respectively. As
the whole system is digital, intensity losses due to couplers in the interconnecting stage may not create
many problems in producing the desired optical bits at the output. The simulation results were obtained
by Matlab-9. Here, Hadamard H2 (2×2) matrix output beam intensity (I ≈ 108 w.m-2) for different
values of inputs.

Implementation of Walsh-Hadamard codes using MZI is explored in this paper, and experimental
results show the better performance of the proposed scheme compared to recently reported
methods using electronic circuits regarding the issues of versatility, reconfigurability, and compactness.
The design can be used and extended for diverse applications for which Walsh-Hadamard codes
are required.


Radiological imaging of the liver is an important medical problem. The ever increasing amount of data acquired when imaging the liver makes integration of information desirable and crucial in building up a comprehensive diagnostic picture of the patient. The foundation of all such image integration is image registration. Image registration is the process of aligning images so that corresponding features can easily be related, including: (1) landmark-driven methods, (2) surface-based methods, and (3) voxel similarity-based methods. A challenge with registering the liver is that the liver moves within the abdomen with respiration. Therefore any effective alignment of the liver must first separate the liver from the remainder of the image. With this as a constraint, the goal of this research effort was to determine the feasibility and efficacy of surface-based and voxel similarity-based schemes in registering abdominal CT and MR images with and without contrast. A multi-scale surface fitting technique was implemented based on the Head and Hat algorithm. Equivalent surfaces from the in vivo images were extracted manually. The hand segmentation approach was validated by ensuring the volume of the liver of each image from the same patient was consistently within +/- 7% of one another. The registration transformation was determined by iteratively transforming the hat with respect to the head surface, until the closest fit of the hat onto the head was found. In addition, registration of in vivo CT and MR images was performed using a multi-resolution mutual information scheme distributed with the ITK Insight software package (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD). As an independent measure of registration accuracy, the mean displacement of automatically selected point landmarks was evaluated. For the multi-resolution mutual information approach, mean misregistrations were in the range of 7.7-8.4mm for CT-CT intramodality registration, 8.2mm for MR-MR intramodality registration, and 14.0-18.9mm for CT-MR intermodality registration. For the Head and Hat surface registration scheme, mean misregistrations were in the range of 9.6-11.1mm for CT-CT intramodality registration, 9.2-12.4mm for MR-MR intramodality registration, and 15.2-19.0mm for MR-CT intermodality registration.


The paper concerns the feasibility and achievable performance of adaptive filtering in an interference-limited multipath fading environment as encountered in indoor wireless communications. In a typical cellular radio application, the performance-limiting impairment is interference due to synchronous data streams from other co-channel and adjacent channel users (CCI and ACI). The receiver under consideration employs an adaptive fractionally spaced decision feedback equalizer (DFE) Which exploits the correlation of the cyclostationary interference to achieve superior performance relative to the worst case when the interference is stationary noise. The paper presents ideal calculations which confirm that significant DFE performance gains are potentially achievable by explicitly accounting for the cyclostationary CCI. Two adaptive DFE strategies are considered. One approach is to adapt the DFE directly using iterative algorithms such as least mean square (LMS) or recursive least squares (RLS). Another approach is to compute the minimum mean square error DFE using an RLS channel impulse response (CIR) estimate and a sample estimate of the CCI autocorrelation obtained from the CIR estimation error during training. The best approach for adaptive equalization, in terms of adaptation speed and system performance, is to employ an RLS DFE which does not explicitly estimate the CIR or the CCI autocorrelation. >


Prasad et al. (1988) have shown that slow cooling of dental porcelain produces increases in thermal expansion sufficient to make a compatible metal-porcelain system incompatible. The present study was undertaken to determine whether the increase in porcelain thermal expansion might be attributable to crystallization of additional leucite during slow cooling of the porcelain. Eight x-ray diffraction specimens for each of six commercial dental porcelains and for the Component No. 1 frit of the Weinstein and Weinstein (1962) and Weinstein et al. (1962) patents were fabricated and divided into two groups. Specimens in the first group (termed fast-cooled) were cooled in the conventional manner by removing them from the furnace at the maximum firing temperature immediately into room air. Specimens in the second group (termed slow-cooled) were cooled slowly by interrupting power to the furnace muffle and allowing them to cool inside the closed furnace. Quantitative x-ray diffraction was performed on the fast- and slow-cooled porcelain specimens with standards containing leucite volume fractions of 0.111, 0.223, 0.334, and 0.445. Unpaired, one-tailed t tests were performed on the fast- and slow-cool data, and a significant increase (p<0.05) in the amount of leucite (as a function of the slow cooling) was found for each of the porcelains. The increases in the leucite volume fractions resulting from the slow cooling ranged from a low of 8.5% to a high of 55.8%, with an average increase of 26.9%. Because of the strong dependence of the coefficient of thermal expansion of dental porcelain on its leucite content, slow cooling of porcelain-metal dental restorations would be capable of producing severe porcelain-metal thermal incompatibilities.


This thesis comprises an assessment of a novel concept to produce high purity hydrogen using mixed oxide ion/electronic conductor (MIEC) membranes and energy provided by solar concentrators (i.e. parabolic troughs or parabolic dishes). The vision of this concept is that it will be used to produce tons of high purity hydrogen for fuel cells, which is a scarce commodity with an increasing demand from residential and transportation power generation applications. The MIEC membrane activates a steam reforming reaction between water and methane to produce hydrogen of high purity on the water side and syngas on the fuel side. Expectations are that this concept has cost advantages over other thermo-chemical water-dissociation methods, using a lower temperature and no electricity for the reaction process.The thesis' focus is on techno-economic aspects of the concept, as part of an application process for project financing by the European Commission of Research and Innovation. The assessment in the thesis shows that the overall efficiency of the concept is expected to be very low. It also identifies the difficulties of providing stable working conditions for the concept. Suggestions to improve the concept are proposed to address the most urgent problems of the concept. These suggestions illuminate the opportunities that actually do exist to combine MIEC membranes, solar energy and thermo-chemical water splitting into a working concept. These improvements include using parabolic dishes instead of parabolic troughs, using furnaces with control systems and using a viable flow rate. The production capacity of high purity hydrogen is expected to be approximately 89 mg per minute in a membrane bundle (i.e. 150 thin membrane fibers with an oxygen permeation flux of 1 ml cm-2 min-1) if these improvements were implemented. This would imply that the studied concept needs further development to produce high purity hydrogen in quantities that could meet the shortage on the commercial fuel cell markets.


Similarity learning is an active research area in machine learning that tackles the problem of finding a similarity function tailored to an observable data sample in order to achieve efficient classification. This learning scenario has been generally formalized by the means of a $(\epsilon, \gamma, \tau)-$good similarity learning framework in the context of supervised classification and has been shown to have strong theoretical guarantees. In this paper, we propose to extend the theoretical analysis of similarity learning to the domain adaptation setting, a particular situation occurring when the similarity is learned and then deployed on samples following different probability distributions. We give a new definition of an $(\epsilon, \gamma)-$good similarity for domain adaptation and prove several results quantifying the performance of a similarity function on a target domain after it has been trained on a source domain. We particularly show that if the source distribution dominates the target one, then principally new domain adaptation learning bounds can be proved.


When jet vane is exposed to exhaust gas and deflected at a typical angle, side force is produced and the missile is controlled. The vane is subjected to severe thermal and mechanical loadings by combustion gas. In this study, the high temperature tension tests of refractory metals, 3-D nonlinear numerical simulations and motor firing tests were performed to evaluate structural safety factor of the jet vane. The structural safety factor of jet vane was evaluated by comparing the numerical results with cold and hot structural tests of jet vane system. It has been found that a shaft supports most of thermal and mechanical loadings on the system and is structurally safe below 1400°C. From the comparison of firing tests and numerical results, the evaluation criterion of structural safety using the load and shaft deformation is more useful than using the equivalent stress.


The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is now a pandemic with devastating social and economic consequences. The extent of the spread of COVID-19 within populations is uncertain since diagnostic tests have not been carried out on all eligible persons and doing such diagnostic tests on everyone is much less feasible in developing countries such as Nigeria. Tests for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are more affordable, readily available, and require minimal training than current diagnostic tests. Employing a seroepidemiological strategy, serological tests were conducted on 66 volunteering staff and patients at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), a Federal Government owned tertiary healthcare facility, to determine the extent of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, from 17th to 25th June 2020. Using a COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette with emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States, it was observed that of the 66 samples tested, 5 (7.6%) were both IgG and IgM positive and 17 (26%) were IgG positive. Moreover, for 44 of the 66 participants, simultaneous tests were carried out using a rapid test kit from a different manufacturer but without FDA-EUA and all the results completely matched with the FDA-EUA kit, except one case where the FDA-EUA kit showed positive for both IgG and IgM while the other kit was positive only for IgM. The 26% positive IgG indicates a high exposure rate for the hospital staff and patients and points to community transmission where the facility is situated. Hence, immediate activation of WHO guidelines for controlling community transmission is called for. These results can further serve as a pilot study to guide public health policies in response to COVID-19 pandemic in both the general population and in healthcare settings.


Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have shown promising clinical activity in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that harbors ALK rearrangement. The next-generation ALK-TKI, alectinib, has been reported to have potent efficacy in ALK-positive NSCLC patients including on mutations that confer resistance to crizotinib, which was the first ALK-TKI approved for ALK-positive NSCLC. The efficacy and safety of ALK-TKIs, including crizotinib and alectinib, as the first-line treatment in critically ill patients is unclear. We report one ALK-positive NSCLC patient with poor performance status (PS) and disseminated intravascular coagulation because of respiratory failure and multiple metastases, and experienced the rapid and dramatic response to alectinib without adverse events that can lead to discontinuation and dose reduction of the drug. After a couple of months of treatment with alectinib, radiological review indicated a complete response. The present case is the first reported case of rapid and marked response to alectinib in ALK-positive NSCLC patients who had poor PS and severe organ dysfunction, such as disseminated intravascular coagulation. Further investigation of the safety and efficacy of ALK-TKI for ALK-positive NSCLC patients who are critically ill is warranted.


An ordinary family house in a quiet West Country town - 25 Cromwell Street, Glouster. Now known throughout the world as the House of Horror: The home of Fred and Rosemary West and the scene of one of the most shocking cases of serial murder England has ever seen. United by acts of unimaginable cruelty, the West's partnership was one of the most deadly in criminal history. And serial killers are increasing. Triggered by either sexual fantasies or a need to infilct pain and fear, their sadistic addiction to frenzied killing is the most horrifying of all crimes.But with the fromation of the world's first National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Virginia, made famous in the hugely popular Silence of the Lambs, the methods of tracking these elusive killers have been revolutionised.


Introduction: The association of partner autonomy support with women's motivation for healthy eating, weight-related health behavior change, and psychological well-being has been largely overlooked. Results of 2 studies showed that the positive association between autonomy support and a variety of motivational and psychological outcomes was especially pronounced for women with high body mass index (BMI) (+1 SD) compared to low BMI (−1 SD). Method: In Study 1, autonomy support was measured as male partners' report of their behavior in a cross-sectional design. In Study 2, autonomy support was measured as female participants' perceptions of their partners' behavior in a longitudinal home environment–based behavioral weight loss intervention. Results: Study 1 showed that autonomy support from partners was associated with greater self-determined motivation for healthy eating and self-reported well-being among women with higher BMI. Study 2 showed that changes in partner autonomy support over 18 months of a home-based weight loss intervention were associated with increases in motivation for treatment and greater weight loss, especially for women who had higher baseline BMI. Discussion: Both studies demonstrated that autonomy support was associated with adaptive functioning across weight status but that it was especially potent for women with higher BMI. This pattern of findings is explained in terms of the pressures women with higher BMI may feel about their weight-related behaviors.


The task of RDF-to-text generation is to generate a corresponding descriptive text given a set of RDF triples. Most of the previous approaches either cast this task as a sequence-to-sequence problem or employ graph-based encoder for modeling RDF triples and decode a text sequence. However, none of these methods can explicitly model both local and global structure information between and within the triples. To address these issues, we propose to jointly learn local and global structure information via combining two new graph-augmented structural neural encoders (i.e., a bidirectional graph encoder and a bidirectional graph-based meta-paths encoder) for the input triples. Experimental results on two different WebNLG datasets show that our proposed model outperforms the state-of-theart baselines. Furthermore, we perform a human evaluation that demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method by evaluating generated text quality using various subjective metrics.


We revisited the stratigraphy, structure and petroleum geology over an area of about 60,000 km2 in the Ucayali basin, Peru, integrating the work minutely done during the last years over a region that was once perceived as one of the most promising sub-Andean basins after the giant Camisea discovery. This paper presents the integration of the analysis on biostratigraphy, sedimentology, geochemistry and wells, along with a pervasive mapping over compiled, reprocessed and acquired seismic that allowed us to reconstruct the pretty complex geological history of the study area that ranges from the early Paleozoic to the late Tertiary. Three proven and one speculative petroleum systems are present in this basin: the oil prone Jurassic/Cretaceous system - restricted to the north -, the gas/light oil prone early Carboniferous -Paleozoic system, the oil prone early Permian- Paleozoic/Cretaceous system and finally the speculative Devonian-Paleozoic system. We performed 1D, seriated 2D and a 2½ dimension basin modeling to address the main processes controlling the efficiency of the Ucayali petroleum system, investigating the relations between startigraphic, tectonic overburden and the viability of long lateral versus short hydrocarbons migration mechanism. We analyzed the petroleum occurrences and the prospect failures to characterize the main play concepts of the Andean front and the basin border to determine the critical play element in the area and highlight the future exploration potential of the area.


In late 2015, the European Commission announced a monumental U-turn on Value Added Tax rates policy. After decades of advocating the benefits of harmonization of VAT rates across the EU Member States, and after many failed legislative attempts at achieving it, the Commission declared its intention to do the opposite, namely to disharmonize VAT rates across Europe. The announcement was followed by a VAT Action Plan, and a public consultation on the reform of VAT rates, which, under the guise of modernization and consistency with the destination principle, presented two options for reform, both of which would give Member States further freedom and flexibility in the application of reduced rates. Against this background, the aim of this article is not to restate the benefits of VAT rate harmonization, but to assess whether the EU has legislative competence to approve disharmonizing VAT legislation. The article concludes that Article 113 TFEU could not be used as a legal basis for a Directive aimed at disharmonizing VAT rates, and that any such Directive, would lack legal basis and, consequently, be unlawful under the EU constitutional principle of conferral of powers.


This study explores teacher conceptions of play and its relationship to children's learning. It also explores how this influenced the role teachers took during play and the way they approached assessment. This case study research involved three teachers across three early childhood education centres in Wellington, New Zealand. Data drawn on included teacher interviews, observations, document, and field notes. Piaget's (1973) and Vygotsky's (1978) Constructivist theories of learning through play provided the theoretical framework informing both data collection and analysis. Findings suggested that teachers held various conceptions about how learning through play could be practiced and how children learn. These beliefs and assumptions were further influenced by an ad hoc range of contextual factors, including the children's ages, differing centre philosophies and goals. Teachers revealed that the professional development they had been able to access concerning learning through play and assessment had been limited, largely relying on professional development provided by their own centre, discussions with their head teacher, peers, and their own initiative and understanding. This research suggests there is a need to provide ongoing professional development to assist teachers to engage with the place of learning in play-based activities; strategies to assess learning during play activities; and effective documentation. This might help teachers work through the complex and sometimes contradictory ideas about play and children's learning they encountered and the inconsistencies there were at times between their espoused beliefs and practices.


There is a paradigm shift from research based on a single discipline or sub-discipline to interdisciplinary research which is defined as a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and / or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline. Most of the hot topics of today are interdisciplinary in nature and, similarly, most of the great research triumphs are products of interdisciplinary research. The writer argues that Nigeria's developmental problems can be better solved if subjected to interdisciplinary research. There is so many whys that cries for explanation and such explanations must draw from the knowledge embedded in two or more disciplines. Using monodisciplinary approach cannot unfathom the reasons behind the "whys" and "hows". Problems can and invariably, do cut across the borders of any subject matter or discipline. The paper therefore recommends interdisciplinary research and explains the role of the guidance counsellor in fostering it.


The study is aimed at examining the effect of transformational leadership on employee performance through employee empowerment and organizational commitment as a mediating variables of the cluster of carving copper in Cepogo Boyolali. The research samples cover 30 employees of the CV. Intermedia Logam as part of a cluster of carving copper. Sample determination applies totals sampling or population sampling in which all members of the population are used as research samples. In examining the established model relationship, the data are analyzed by using path analysis. The results revealed: transformational leadership gives positive and significant effect on employee empowerment; transformational leadership gives positive and significant effect on employee performance; employee empowerment gives positive and significant effect on employee performance; organizational commitment as a mediating variables between transformational leadership and employee performance, employee empowerment as a mediating variables between transformational leadership and employee performance, and organizational commitment as a mediating variables between employee empowerment and employee performance. This research suggests that companies disseminate the vision, mission and goals; conduct of training; and providing incentives to the agreement in order to achieve employment targets.


Using qualitative and quantitative measures, this study explores the mentoring experiences and challenges among 48 members of the academic staff in a Nigerian university social science faculty, where the mission was to enhance the skills of academic staff members through mentoring programmes. The findings of the survey revealed that the few existing mentoring relationships are informal and were developed on the basis of similarity of research interests, initial delegation of work activity by mentors to their proteges, the delegation of conference/workshop attendance by mentor to proteges, inclusion of proteges in research projects and supervision of the protege's thesis. Results showed that areas in which mentors have supported their proteges include enlistment in group and international research networks, publication, counselling and advice, and financial support. The unresponsive attitude of junior academics, the pressure of administrative duties, lack of funds and formal mentor/protege structures were commonly reported as barriers to mentoring. The implications of these findings for faculty policy formulation, training and effective delivery of mentoring are discussed.


In the not-so-distant past the skin was generally viewed as a passive target for immune-mediated injury. Over the last decade, however, concepts of a previously unrecognized role for the skin have unfolded, whereby resident bone marrow-derived leukocytes (e.g. Langerhans cells and T cells) initiate and regulate the immune responses that protect it. Their combination with other immunomodulatory resident cells (e.g. keratinocytes, melanocytes, endothelial cells, fibroblasts) led to the idea that the skin may function as a self-sustaining lymphoid tissue. Although T lymphocytes or, at least, certain subpopulations thereof have the general propensity to populate epithelial tissues, there exist major species differences regarding the phenotype of intraepidermal T cells. The purpose of this review is to fill gaps in our understanding of the relationship of rodent skin T cells to T cells identified in human skin and the normal physiologic and pathologic role(s) of these cells.


Mixed models have been extended to make them applicable to description of inheritance of quantitative traits in pedigrees obtained via interbreed or interpopulation hybridization. Additional assumptions specify definite relationships between the parameters that characterize the inheritance of the trait in two parental populations. It is assumed that (1) parental populations differ from each other only in the allelic frequencies in the major gene locus and polygenic loci and (2) the patterns of phenotype formation based on an individual genotype and the transmission of genes to the next generation are the same in both parental populations, as well as in their hybrids. Based on these assumptions, the likelihood function for a hybrid pedigree is derived, and the heterosis effect is formalized. The results of this study offer new possibilities for estimating the contribution of the major gene effect to interpopulation and interbreed differences in the expression of quantitative traits.


The relationship between humans and non-human primates in South Africa is problematic. On the one hand, vervet monkeys were formerly designated vermin species and could be destroyed at will. On the other hand, many people keep young vervets as pets even though this is illegal, and the animals are confiscated if discovered. Sanctuaries were established to accommodate large numbers of orphaned and confiscated animals. Owners of some of these sanctuaries attempt to establish normal troop structures in the hopes of releasing these animals back into the wild and relieving overcrowding. However, local farmers, fearing crop damage, resist this release. Nature conservation authorities also resist release fearing possible disruption of natural patterns of genetic variability even though there is no consensus on the number of subspecies or evolutionary significant units among South African vervets. We have designed a sampling strategy to aid in resolving some of the taxonomic issues preventing release. Data from microsatellite loci suggest no genetic structuring linked to geographic distribution. Coefficients of population differentiation (AMOVA) show that 96.72% of variation within South Africa occurs within populations. Addition of a reference group from Kenya in East Africa still yielded a within population value of 90.20%, suggesting limited differences between populations. This information can contribute to informed management decisions, since there is no evidence from the populations sampled to date to support the hypothesis of genetic structuring within the overall South African vervet monkey population. There is therefore no genetic support for the current restrictions on the mixing of animals at sanctuaries or releases into the wild.


While the comparative sociological and social policy literatures on income inequality and poverty have focused on the impacts of different state welfare systems in different societies, the evidence from individual countries suggests that changes in the labour market and in family structure have been at least as important in generating changes in income distributions. Moreover work such as that of Esping-Andersen emphasises the interactions between different types of welfare state regime and particular labour market structures and family roles. This paper seeks to extend these findings by exploring how differences in the labour market and in family and household structures may explain the structures of inequality in different societies.


Aim: The association between subjects with metabolic syndrome (MS) who were considered not to require medication by their attending physicians and all-cause mortality, ischemic heart disease (IHD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains unknown and should be clarified. Methods and results: This is an observational longitudinal cohort study with a median follow-up of 7.5 years performed for 25,471 Japanese men aged 20–61 years who were not on medication. We used a modified definition of MS from the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine and the NCEP ATPIII, both of which employed body mass index instead of waist circumference. MS was associated with increased rates of all-cause death (adjusted hazard ratio (HR): 4.88 [95% confidence interval, 2.96–7.66]), IHD (3.17 [1.06–7.65]), and CVD (2.63 [1.32–4.72]). In contrast, overweight subjects with no component or one component had similar rates to subjects of normal weight. Any combination of the three MS components was associated with significantly greater rates of all-cause mortality (HR: 3.18–11.2) and IHD (HR: 3.17–8.24), whereas blood pressure elevation plus dyslipidaemia was associated with a significantly higher rate of CVD (HR: 3.27). In any endpoint, MS defined by Japanese criteria had higher HRs than defined by NCEP ATP III criteria. Conclusion: Young and middle-aged Japanese men with MS who had been viewed as not needing medication already showed increased rates of all-cause mortality, IHD and CVD. Additionally, the event rate depended on the specific combination of metabolic syndrome components.


This thesis seeks to make sense of the complexity of the experience of becoming a disabled mother as made and lived in a dynamic process that is social, embodied, emotional, and temporal. There is limited empirical research that has investigated the experience of disabled motherhood and a relative absence of research that has followed disabled women's processes of identity over the course of the first year of motherhood. This thesis seeks to fill that gap. The empirical base for this thesis includes material collected from six longitudinal case studies, with disabled women interviewed three times in the first-year transition to becoming a mother. By focusing on what women do with their bodies, or their pursuit of distinct body projects, I reveal insights into my participants' experience and understanding of disability at this stage in the life-course, during which the embodied experience is subject to change and transformation. Drawing on post-structural concepts of power and agency, I explore the possibilities and limitations within my participants' strategies of sense-making for engineering a liveable life in relation to dominant social norms. These in sights speak to a debate within the disability movement about the nature of disability (as experience) as the basis of individual and collective identity and the kind of support disabled mothers need, which can inform social and healthcare practice. Methodologically, I utilise an innovative psycho-social longitudinal research design and method to enrich and develop my understanding of this process. Researcher subjectivity, difference and temporality are all regarded as important tools for revealing emotional dynamics and processes of intelligibility.


Scripture on the playground of hermeneutical ethics. As a tribute to Jan G. van der Watt, in this article I offer a reflection on the authority of Scripture in ethics, in attempted loyalty to the motto of our theological faculty: Fides Quaerens Intellectum. The main thesis of this article is that ethics not only requires hermeneutics, but that the core task of ethics itself is interpretation. From an evangelical-reformed perspective, I will present a phenomenological and hermeneutical model, inspired by thinkers such as Gadamer and Ricoeur, defining ethics itself as a hermeneutical exercise, an act of interpretation, inherent to life itself. Defining ethics as such will influence the way in which we will integrate Scripture in our moral discourse. The playing field of hermeneutical Christian ethics is described by four points we will briefly discuss. Firstly, we will describe ethics as a philosophical and theological discipline with a hermeneutical task. Next, I offer three anchor points for the unique contribution of Scripture to this hermeneutical process: (1) faith as the entry point for interpreting Scripture as a source for Christian ethics; (2) the church in the world as the context in which one uses Scripture; and (3) in the Augustinian tradition, the double commandment of love as the ultimate rule of interpretation, the measure against which every text should be read. Despite the fact that these three anchor points all have their negative counterparts (idolatry, individualism and resentment), they are vital to the interpretation of Scripture in Christian ethics. Pastors who use Scripture for moral direction have to be aware of the characteristics of moral


Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is an eye disease caused by the increase of insulin in blood and may cause blindness if not treated at an early stage. Exudates are the primary sign of DR. Currently there is no fully automated method to detect exudates in the literature and it would be useful in large scale screening if fully automatic method is available. In this paper we developed a novel method to detect exudates that based on interactions between texture analysis and segmentation with mathematical morphological technique by using multimodel inference. The texture analysis involves three components: they are statistical texture analysis, high order spectra analysis, and fractal analysis. The performance of the proposed method is assessed by the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy using the public data DIARETDB1. Our results show that the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy are 95.7%, 97.6% and 98.7% (SE = 0.01), respectively. It is shown that the proposed method can be run automatically and also improve the accuracy of exudates detection significantly over most of the previous methods.


Luminescent liquid crystals have received significant research interest due to their wide range of applications. Here, new pyridine derivatives were designed as liquid crystalline materials. They were successfully synthesized via appropriate synthetic routes, their structures confirmed by various spectral techniques, and finally characterized for their mesogenic, optical and optoelectronic properties.


The Qussuk gold occurrence, located in southern West Greenland (North Atlantic Craton), is a flattened, transposed, and metamorphosed, 20 km long Au ± Cu system interpreted as an epithermal mineralization system of Mesoarchean age. The Qussuk mineralization is hosted in the 3.075 Ga volcanosedimentary rocks of a relict andesitic arc. The volcanic arc component is embedded in 3.06 to 3.0 Ga plutonic, predominantly tonalitic rocks and was gradually deformed and metamorphosed as the original arc matured into a microcontinent. Metamorphism culminated with a sillimanite-grade amphibolites-facies thermal event and mobilization of granite at around 2.995 to 2.975 Ga. The premetamorphic hydrothermal alteration associated with the mineralization includes acid leaching revealed by quartz-alumina rocks with very high rare earth element (REE) contents and Ga-Al fractionation, and subsequent reintroduction of LIL elements including K, Th, and U together with the mineralizing agents. Premetamorphic carbonate alteration is widespread but unrelated to the mineralized system. Complexly zoned zircon with igneous-hydrothermal-metamorphic histories and metamorphic monazite bracket the mineralizing event to 3.075 to 3.02 Ga (most likely >3.06 Ga) in age. The zoned zircons have volcanic/igneous, 3.075 Ga oscillatory zoned cores with igneous-type REE distributions, <3.07 Ga hydrothermal spongy growth phases, diverse REE distributions and abundant inclusions of quartz and biotite, and homogeneous metamorphic, 2.995 Ga rims. Geochronological, petrographical, and geochemical evidence demonstrates that the gold mineralization at Qussuk was formed prior to peak deformation and metamorphism. The Qussuk gold occurrence illustrates that epithermal gold deposits existed at the Archean, and that they can be preserved up to upper amphibolite metamorphic conditions, further highlighting the prospectivity of ancient high-grade cratons and volcanic belts worldwide for primary gold deposits.


Reduced order models have been reported in the literature that can be used to predict the harmonic response of mistuned bladed disks. It has been shown that in many cases they exhibit structural fidelity comparable to a finite element analysis of the full bladed disk system while offering a significant improvement in computational efficiency. In these models the blades and disk are treated as distinct substructures.This paper presents a new, simpler approach for developing reduced order models in which the modes of the mistuned system are represented in terms of a sub-set of nominal system modes. It has the following attributes: the input requirements are relatively easy to generate; it accurately predicts mistuning effects in regions where frequency veering occurs; as the number of degrees of freedom increases it converges to the exact solution; it accurately predicts stresses as well as displacements; and it accurately models the deformation and stresses at the blades' bases.Copyright © 1999 by ASME


We examine the ongoing transition from centrally planned to market agriculture in rural China. In particular, we examine the devolution of land rights from village governments to villagers and the corresponding evolution of tenure security in agricultural land. We find econometric support for the statistical and economic importance of four explanations for local government behavior. Three of these explanations indicate a link between the incentives and constraints faced by village leaders and property rights in agricultural land, and hence suggest policy levers to encourage more secure property rights.


Septic shock, caused by exaggerated host responses to various microbial products typified by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), remains the leading cause of death in trauma patients. Gaining insight into the nature of host interactions with LPS will certainly facilitate attempts to develop effective anti-sepsis drugs. Tremendous progress has been made during the past few years in understanding the mechanisms of pathogen-induced host responses. Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 and 2 have been implicated as major receptors for signaling initiated by LPS and many other microbial products following their binding to CD14. In addition, many signaling intermediates involved in LPS-induced cell activation, particularly activation of the transcription factor NF-kappaB, have been identified and characterized. Further investigations with these molecules will certainly reward us with more effective therapeutic drugs to treat septic shock as well as many other inflammatory and infectious disorders.


Worldwide declines of marine turtle populations have forced a need for sound conservation policies to prevent their extinction. Loggerhead turtles, Caretta caretta, are declining rapidly at eastern Australian nesting beaches, which are visited by females from all feeding areas for the stock. In some feeding areas of eastern Australia, loggerheads have been protected from deleterious anthropogenic effects. Using long-term mark-recapture data from one such protected group of turtles feeding on Heron Island Reef, Queensland, we created a matrix model to analyse loggerhead demography. We also produced a model for the females nesting at Mon Repos, Queensland, a major rookery where the annual nesting population has declined at rates approaching 8% per year. As indicated by a similar model for loggerheads in the USA, our models predicted that small declines in annual survival rates of adult and subadult loggerheads can have a profound impact on population dynamics. A loss of only a few hundred subadult and adult females each year could lead to extinction of the eastern Australian loggerheads in less than a century. Survival in the first year of life is relatively less important in these long-lived and slow-maturing animals. At Mon Repos, nesting female survival is apparently so low that even beach protection efforts resulting in 90% hatchling emergence success would not prevent population decline. Our research suggests that continued mortality pressure on subadult and adult turtles in their dispersed feeding areas of eastern and northern Australia is a major threat to the eastern Australian loggerhead turtle population. Measures that protect adult and subadult loggerhead turtles should be supported, including the use of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) on prawn trawls.


One of the recent trends at the level of academic libraries has been the development of large electronic collections. Currently in many such institutions they almost reach the size of printed collections and many say that they will soon exceed them. In Romania, academic libraries have also started to give special attention to electronic documents and they provide at present access to a large range of electronic resources. However, research conducted by the author among the users of academic medical libraries in 2007, 2008 and 2011 revealed a low level of interest and usage of electronic information resources. An extended and more detailed investigation of these aspects was considered necessary and this paper presents the results of a 2013 research conducted among the users of two branches of the "Carol I" Central University Library of Bucharest, the Faculty of Political Sciences Library and the Faculty of Letters Library, and analyzes user behaviour in accessing library services and information resources.


BACKGROUND
Clarity about indications and techniques in extracorporeal life support (ECLS) in trauma is essential for timely and effective deployment, and to ensure good stewardship of an important resource. ECLS deployments in a tertiary trauma centre were reviewed to understand the indications, strategies, and tactics of ECLS in trauma.

METHODS
The provincial trauma registry was used to identify patients who received ECLS at a level 1 trauma centre and Extracorporeal Life Support Organization accredited site between January 2014 to February 2021. Charts were reviewed for indications, technical factors, and outcomes following ECLS deployment. Based on this data, consensus around indications and techniques for ECLS in trauma was reached and refined by a multidisciplinary team discussion.

RESULTS
A total of 25 patients underwent ECLS as part of a comprehensive trauma resuscitation strategy. Eighteen patients underwent venovenous ECLS and 7 received venoarterial ECLS. Nineteen patients survived the ECLS run, of which 15 survived to discharge. Four patients developed vascular injuries secondary to cannula insertion while four patients developed circuit clots. On multidisciplinary consensus, three broad indications for ECLS and their respective techniques were described: gas exchange for lung injury (GE), extended damage control for severe injuries associated with the lethal triad (EDC), and circulatory support for cardiogenic shock or hypothermia (CS).

CONCLUSIONS
The three broad indications for ECLS in trauma (GE, EDC, and CS) require specific advanced planning and standardization of corresponding techniques (cannulation, circuit configuration, anticoagulation, and duration). When appropriately and effectively integrated into the trauma response, ECLS can extend the damage control paradigm to enable the management of complex multisystem injuries.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
IV, Therapeutic/Care Management.


This thesis concerns a man and his home country, exploring the physical, the emotional and the imaginative bonding of the two. The man is Robert Louis Stevenson. A frail, consumptive novelist, poet and Scot, who transcended his infirmities to create romantic heroes of magnificent adventures, and transcended his self-imposed exile by setting them amidst the heather. The country is Scotland, a country which nurtured and debilitated, inspired and repelled Stevenson. It was also one in which he was ultimately unable to survive. Stevenson was not solely a Scottish writer, just as he is not solely a children's writer. His work does reflect his peripatetic life, but the purpose of this thesis is to focus upon his Scottish fiction. It will argue that it was in these works that his imagination and his artistic skills fused best. Scotland's influence upon Stevenson will be seen as twofold. Firstly, the geographical and historical impressions which were made upon him, and secondly, the traditions of superstion which so characterised its people. A study of Stevenson's non-fictional portrait of Edinburgh will be made to elucidate his continued impulse to write about Scotland and what it meant to be Scottish. Stevenson's Scottish fiction will be shown as far more than the laments of a homesick ex-pat. In recognising the viciousness of his fairyland, perceiving the skull beneath the skin, Stevenson gave to his fiction and his Scotland a richness and vitality which might not have been possible had he been a comfortable resident of a comfortable Edinburgh house.


Introduction In endemic countries, Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection occurs mainly during infancy and early childhood, with vertical transmission from an infected mother being a major route of infection. This study aimed at identifying the prevalence and sexual behavioural risk factors for HBV infection among pregnant women in Ibadan, Nigeria. Methods A cross-sectional study was done at the antenatal clinic of the University College Hospital Ibadan. One hundred and eighty pregnant women were recruited over a six month period, and their serum was tested for Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) (BIORAD FRANCE) using third generation ELISA and HIV-1 and 2, using Uni-Gold Recombigen and ALERE determine. Positive HBsAg samples were tested for Hepatitis B envelope antigen (HBeAg), antibody (HBeAb) and Hepatitis B core antibody (HBcAb) (DIAPRO Italy) while serum HBV DNA was detected using PCR. Data were obtained using questionnaires and analysed using SPSS-20 Results The seroprevalence of HBsAg was 8.3% out of which 26.7% were positive for HBeAg, 53.3% had HBeAb, 20% had neither HBeAg nor HBeAb, 100% had total HBcAb and 86.7% had HBV DNA in their serum. A co-infection rate (HBV/HIV) of 26.7% was observed. The mean age was 32.1 years, the highest HBV infection rate occurred in 25–29 year age group. Multiple sexual partners (OR- 3.987, P- value=0.026), early age at sexual debut (OR −11.996, P- value=0.022) were independent risk factors for HBV infection. Conclusion The result of this study brings to light the high prevalence and high infectivity rate of chronic HBV virus infection among women of child bearing age in Nigeria. Thus, there is a dire need for routine screening for all pregnant women during antenatal care, immunoprophylaxis for exposed newborns and surveillance for those with chronic infection. The socio-demographic and risky sexual behavioural characteristics found to be predictors of HBV infection should be considered when developing strategies towards effective sexual health promotion campaign and health education programs on prevention and control measures.


Introduction The STOPPIT-2 study aims to determine the clinical utility of the Arabin cervical pessary in preventing preterm birth in women with a twin pregnancy and a short cervix, about which there is current uncertainty. STOPPIT-2 will resolve uncertainty around effectiveness for women with a twin pregnancy and a cervical length of 35 mm or less, define adverse effects, ascertain acceptability and estimate National Health Service costs and savings. Methods STOPPIT-2 is a pragmatic multicentre open-label randomised controlled trial. Consenting women with twin pregnancy will have an transvaginal ultrasound scan of their cervical length performed between 18+0 and 20+6 weeks' gestation by an accredited practitioner: women with a cervical length of ≤35 mm will be eligible for inclusion in the treatment phase of the study. The intervention by the insertion of the Arabin cervical pessary will be compared with standard treatment (no pessary). The primary outcomes are (obstetric) spontaneous onset of labour for the mother leading to delivery before 34 weeks' gestation and (neonatal) a composite of specific adverse outcomes or death occurring up to the end of the first 4 weeks after the estimated date of delivery to either or both babies. We plan to recruit 500 women in the treatment phase of the study. Assuming a treatment effect of 0.6, and background rates of 35% and 18%, respectively, for each of the primary outcomes, our study has 85% power to detect a difference between the intervention and the control groups. Analysis Data will be analysed on the intention-to-treat principle. Ethics STOPPIT-2 was approved by the South East Scotland Ethics Committee 02 on 29 August 2014, reference number 14/SS/1031 IRAS ID 159610. Dissemination Peer reviewed journals, presentations at national and international scientific meetings. Trial registration number ISRCTN98835694 and NCT02235181.


OBJECTIVE
To review the management of patients with penetrating zone II neck wounds to discern the value of physical examination and proximity arteriography for predicting arterial injury.

DESIGN
A retrospective chart review of 178 patients treated for penetrating wounds to the neck.

SETTING
A level I trauma facility in Dallas, Tex.

PATIENTS
All patients seen from 1987 to 1991 with platysma penetration in zone II of the neck.

INTERVENTION
Physical examination, arteriography, and surgical exploration were used to identify patients with arterial injuries in the neck after penetrating trauma.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
To identify the presence or absence of an arterial injury.

RESULTS
Negative findings on physical examination ruled out an arterial injury in 99% of all patients. Patients with any sign of arterial injury had a 26% incidence of arterial injury confirmed at operation. Of 71 arteriograms in patients without signs or symptoms of arterial injury, only one had an arterial injury requiring operative intervention.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings on physical examination are good predictors of arterial injury in patients with penetrating neck wounds and can exclude injury in over 99% of patients. Arteriography is a sensitive test but has a very low yield (1.4%). These findings question whether the current practice of mandatory neck exploration or proximity arteriography is necessary for patients without signs or symptoms of injury who have penetrating wounds of the neck.


The high species richness that angiosperm show has been extensively correlated with key floral innovations. Key floral traits contribute to species boundaries and the origin of new species. However, how these relate to extinction remains largely untested. Among the multiple theories that attribute diversification to floral innovations, the reduced extinction model predicts that floral specialization allows the persistence of small populations and avoids their loss. Bilateral symmetry (zygomorphy) is a trait that has evolved recurrently in angiosperms. It is a form of floral specialization that restricts pollination to fewer visitors and precisely places pollen to ensure more effective transmission of pollen between conspecific flowers. In this study, I investigate the relationship between floral symmetry and abundance of species from 33 (1 ha) plots in tropical and subtropical forest in the Madidi National Park, Bolivia. If zygomorphy reduces the extinction of rare species, that is, species with small local abundance and low occupancy then, zygomorphy is present in smaller and more dispersed populations. For this, I carry out linear models with phylogenetic correction that explain the abundance of 545 species according to zygomorphy of the petals, of the stamens and stigma, and corolla shape. Results show that corolla zygomorphy is present in species with smaller populations. Species that contribute to this pattern are mainly present in the species-rich sub-humid and humid forest. However, zygomorphy of the reproductive organs does not have a significant impact in species abundances except for the analysis of species from the higher elevation. Multiple selective forces can shape the abundance of species. When facing the biotic forces that affect success of reproduction, such as pollinator availability and interspecific pollination, zygomorphy seems to provide an advantage to species that are rare by allowing them to persist at low abundances. More studies that further explore the causes for zygomorphy in smaller populations and the extinction rate using phylogenetic methods can help to understand how species loss is avoided.


Under nutrition is the underlying cause of more than half of all deaths in children aged less than five years worldwide. There are 143 million children under five who are underweight in the developing world. In Kenya, severe acute malnutrition is responsible for 82,000 deaths annually with a significant percentage being from urban slums. The purpose of this study was to assess nutritional status children aged 6-59 months in Mathare valley, a low income settlement in Nairobi. A cross-sectional study design was used. Data was collected using structured and non structured questionnaires. A total of 246 children aged 6-59 months were taken the anthropometric measurements to determine their nutritional status and their caregivers interviewed. Two focus group discussions and 6 Key informant interviews were conducted. The dependent variable was nutritional status of children below five years and independent variables included socioeconomic attributes, dietary intake, and dietary diversity. Descriptive analysis was done using IBM SPSS software version 19 and anthropometry analysis by ENA for SMART. Severe malnutrition measured by MUAC was observed in 6.5% of the children. Severe stunting, wasting and underweight measured using HAZ, WHZ and WAZ.was observed in 5.7%, 4.1% and 4.5% respectively. Among the 246 children, 39.0 had fallen ill within the previous two weeks and several had fallen ill more than once within the same period. The major symptoms included diarrhea, cough and vomiting by 50%, 47.9% and 40.6% respectively. Dietary score for 104(42.1%) households was low. There is need to regularly monitor nutrition status of children below five years and to have up to date data for informed decision making.


Flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) and multi-line FACTS controllers play an important role in electrical power transmission systems by improving power quality and increasing power transmission capacity. These controllers are nonlinear and highly complex when compared to mechanical switches. Consequently, during transient conditions, it is very difficult to use conventional time and frequency domain techniques alone to determine the precise dynamic behavior of the harmonics introduced into the system by these controllers. In particular, the time-varying nature of the harmonic components is not captured by these techniques. The contribution of this work to the state of power systems analysis is the development of new models for seven important and widely-used FACTS controllers (static synchronous series compensator (SSSC), unified power flow controller (UPFC), fixed capacitor-thyristor controlled reactor (FC-TCR), thyristor controlled switched capacitor (TCSC), generalized unified power flow controller (GUPFC), interline power flow controller (IPFC), and generalized interline power flow controller (GIPFC)) using a technique called the dynamic harmonic domain method. These models are more accurate than existing models and aid the power vi systems engineer in designing improved control systems. The models were simulated in the presence of disturbances to show the evolution in time of the harmonic coefficients and power quality indices. The results of these simulations show the dynamic harmonic response of these FACTS controllers under transient conditions in much more detail than can be obtained from time-domain simulations, and they can also be used to analyze system performance under steady-state conditions. Some of the FACTS controllers' models discussed in this work have a common DC link, but for proper operation, the DC side voltage must be held constant. The dynamic harmonic domain method was applied to the FACTS devices to design feedback controllers, which help in maintaining constant DC side voltage. It allows us to see the effect of the control circuit on power quality indices, thus giving more insight into how the controllers react to the control circuit. This detailed information about dynamic harmonic response is useful for power quality assessment and can be used as a tool for analyzing the system under the steady state and transient conditions and designing better control circuits.


Abstract. We consider 5 years of spectrometer measurements of OH(6–2) and O2(0–1) airglow emission intensities and temperatures made near Adelaide, Australia (35° S, 138° E), between September 2001 and August 2006 and compare them with measurements of the same parameters from at the same site using an airglow imager, with the intensities of the OH(8–3) and O(1S) emissions made with a filter photometer, and with 2 years of Aura MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder) v3.3 temperatures and 4.5 years of TIMED SABER (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) v2.0 temperatures for the same site. We also consider whether we can recover the actual emission heights from the intercomparison of the ground-based and satellite observations. We find a significant improvement in the correlation between the spectrometer OH and SABER temperatures by interpolating the latter to constant density surfaces determined using a meteor radar.


Background: Urticaria is a short-lived swelling of skin and mucosa due to plasma leakage by immune and non immune mediated activation and released of mediators from mast cell and basophil. Autoimmune urticaria tends to have a high itch and wheal score than other type of urticaria. Its diagnosis is practically relied upon clinical suspicion and autologous serum skin test. Autologous serum skin test (ASST) is the simple and cost effective test to differentiate autoimmune urticaria from the bulk of chronic urticaria patients. Objective: To compare the features of chronic urticaria in patients having positive versus negative autologous serum skin test (ASST). Materials and methods: Cross-sectional hospital based study was conducted among 90 chronic urticaria patients (CIU) attending the outpatient dermatology department of Nepalgunj Medical College, Nepalgunj, during one year period. The study was conducted after ethical approval from the institutional committee. The patients were diagnosed on the basis of the appearance of continuous or recurrent hives with or without angioedema for more than 6 weeks. Patients who suffered from either acute urticaria or urticarial vasculitis or physical urticaria or other systemic diseases known to cause urticaria were excluded. Standard tools and techniques were used to prepare antilogous serum and injection of the serum and interpretation of the result. The test result was Interpreted as positive and negative autologous serum skin test. Results: ASST was positive in 42% of the patients and negative in 58% of the patients. The ASST-positive patients had a higher mean urticaria activity score and median duration of wheals in comparison with the ASST-negative patients. Wheals lasted for significantly longer duration in patients with positive ASST. Patients with positive ASST had more frequent attacks which was statistically significant compared to the ASST-negative group. The mean urticaria activity score was significantly higher in the ASST-positive patients than that in the ASST-negative patients. Conclusions: Autologous serum skin test may be a useful screening test for autoimmune urticaria and may be used as a simple and cost-effective test for the classification of chronic urticaria. JNGMC Vol. 12 No. 2 December 2014, page: 6-10


Drawing from a workplace ethnography among women professionals in the increasingly feminized lower echelons of commercial bank branches (so-called retail banking) in Istanbul, Turkey, this thesis is an examination of women's affective labor and the construction of white-collar subjectivities. Given the performance criteria of professionalism, productivity, efficiency, and individualism as part of neoliberal discourses for attaining the ideal of the white-collar woman in the retail bank, how a woman becomes a "woman" as an outcome of gender and class inequalities outside the workplace is problematically pushed aside. I navigate the various embodied, gendered, and classed affects in terrains of capitalist desire, fantasy, and enjoyment in these affective spaces of feminized employment where women's affective labor intersects with the immaterial and biopolitical production of fantasmatic white-collar subjectivities. In the end, acting on the middle class work ethic as the formula of social mobility; unattainable sales goals and equally unattainable fantasies of success in retail banking seem to be mobilized through the elusive ideal of the white-collar woman.


Audio description (AD) is becoming an increasingly mature modality within Audiovisual Translation Studies (AVTS) and Media Accessibility Studies. Concurrently, technological advances are steadily being put at the forefront of its practice. The aim of this article is to define the current status and development of AD for the scenic arts from a technical perspective. First, an overview of guidelines that specifically include recommendations on delivering AD for the scenic arts is presented. The emphasis is then placed on the implications of the delivery approaches currently applied to this modality. In this context, theatre venues can offer AD – along with other access services – in a live, semi-live or automated manner. The advantages and challenges for each approach are thus analysed and compared by presenting examples and applications in practice. Ultimately, the present descriptive study concludes that the live, on-site delivery approach is no longer the default in Spanish venues. This conclusion opens up new research paths on the reception of innovative practices and software solutions. It is tentatively suggested that involving the creative team and the blind and visually impaired patrons would be key to choosing the most suitable delivery approach for each production.


Diagnosis prediction, which aims to predict future health information of patients from historical electronic health records (EHRs), is a core research task in personalized healthcare. Although some RNN-based methods have been proposed to model sequential EHR data, these methods have two major issues. First, they cannot capture fine-grained progression patterns of patient health conditions. Second, they do not consider the mutual effect between important context (e.g., patient demographics) and historical diagnosis. To tackle these challenges, we propose a model called Co-Attention Memory networks for diagnosis Prediction (CAMP), which tightly integrates historical records, fine-grained patient conditions, and demographics with a three-way interaction architecture built on co-attention. Our model augments RNNs with a memory network to enrich the representation capacity. The memory network enables analysis of fine-grained patient conditions by explicitly incorporating a taxonomy of diseases into an array of memory slots. We instantiate the READ/WRITE operations of the memory network so that the memory cooperates effectively with the patient demographics through co-attention mechanism. Experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that CAMP consistently performs better than state-of-the-art methods.


Brain-inspired hyperdimensional computing (HDC) is an emerging computational paradigm that has achieved success in various domains. HDC mimics brain cognition and lever-ages hyperdimensional vectors with fully distributed holographic representation and (pseudo)randomness. Compared to the traditional machine learning methods, HDC offers several critical advantages, including smaller model size, less computation cost, and one-shot learning capability, making it a promising candidate in low-power platforms. Despite the growing popularity of HDC, the robustness of HDC models has not been systematically explored. This paper presents a study on the robustness of HDC to errors in associative memory—the key component storing the class representations in HDC. We perform extensive error injection experiments to the associative memory in a number of HDC models (and datasets), sweeping the error rates and varying HDC configurations (i.e., dimension and data width). Empirically, we observe that HDC is considerably robust to errors in the associative memory, opening up opportunities for further optimizations. Further, results show that HDC robustness varies significantly with different HDC configurations such as data width. Moreover, we explore a low-cost error masking mechanism in the associative memory to enhance its robustness.


Kyphosis and scoliosis are common spinal disorders that occur as part of complex syndromes or as nonsyndromic, idiopathic diseases. Familial and twin studies implicate genetic involvement, although the causative genes for idiopathic kyphoscoliosis remain to be identified. To facilitate these studies, we investigated progeny of mice treated with the chemical mutagen N‐ethyl‐N‐nitrosourea (ENU) and assessed them for morphological and radiographic abnormalities. This identified a mouse with kyphoscoliosis due to fused lumbar vertebrae, which was inherited as an autosomal dominant trait; the phenotype was designated as hereditary vertebral fusion (HVF) and the locus as Hvf. Micro–computed tomography (μCT) analysis confirmed the occurrence of nonsyndromic kyphoscoliosis due to fusion of lumbar vertebrae in HVF mice, consistent with a pattern of blocked vertebrae due to failure of segmentation. μCT scans also showed the lumbar vertebral column of HVF mice to have generalized disc narrowing, displacement with compression of the neural spine, and distorted transverse processes. Histology of lumbar vertebrae revealed HVF mice to have irregularly shaped vertebral bodies and displacement of intervertebral discs and ossification centers. Genetic mapping using a panel of single nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) loci arranged in chromosome sets and DNA samples from 23 HVF (eight males and 15 females) mice, localized Hvf to chromosome 4A3 and within a 5‐megabase (Mb) region containing nine protein coding genes, two processed transcripts, three microRNAs, five small nuclear RNAs, three large intergenic noncoding RNAs, and 24 pseudogenes. However, genome sequence analysis in this interval did not identify any abnormalities in the coding exons, or exon‐intron boundaries of any of these genes. Thus, our studies have established a mouse model for a monogenic form of nonsyndromic kyphoscoliosis due to fusion of lumbar vertebrae, and further identification of the underlying genetic defect will help elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in kyphoscoliosis. © 2018 The Authors. JBMR Plus is published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research


Collocated measurements of opacity (from water vapor radiometer brightness temperatures) and wet path delay (from ground-based tracking of global positioning satellites) are used to constrain the model of atmospheric water vapor absorption in the 20-32 GHz band. A differential approach is presented in which the slope of opacity-versus-wet delay data is used as the absorption model constraint. This technique minimizes the effects of radiometric calibration errors and oxygen model uncertainties in the derivation of a best-fit vapor absorption model. A total of approximately five months of data was obtained from two experiment sites. At the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site near Lamont, Oklahoma, three independent water vapor radiometers (WVRs) provided near-continuous opacity measurements over the interval July-September 1998. At the NASA/Goldstone tracking station in the California desert two WVRs; obtained opacity data over the September-October 1997 interval. At both sites a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver and surface barometer obtained the data required for deriving the zenith wet delays over the same time frames. Measured values of the opacity-versus-wet delay slope parameter were obtained at four WVR frequencies (20.7, 22.2, 23.8, and 31.4 GHz) and compared with predictions of four candidate absorption models referenced in the literature. With one exception, all three models provide agreement within 5% of the opacity-versus-wet delay slope measurements at all WVR frequencies at both sites. One model provides agreement for all channels at both sites to the 2-3% level. This absorption model accuracy level represents a significant improvement over that attainable using radiosondes.


The digital technologies that have made electronic commerce (EC) a reality have changed the landscape of operations management (OM). Past OM studies have focused on the relationship between information systems (IS) and OM strategy, however, there is a lack of investigation into the environmental factors and OM strategy in the EC setting. Moreover, little empirical research has been performed outside Europe and the United States. Thus, the authors' research fills this gap with a view of understanding the potential factors influencing Hong Kong consumers' online shopping intentions. The authors collected data from Facebook users via a Web-based survey and their research results support the previous literature and behavioral models in that perceived usefulness and perceived convenience and inconvenience are significantly related to consumers' online shopping intentions. Further, gender difference plays a role in predicting consumers' attitudes toward the positive features of online shopping, as well as predicting personal innovativeness toward information technology. In the collectivist culture of Hong Kong, the findings show that men are positively associated with the subjective norm. Unlike gender, education can only explain consumers' perceived usefulness.


In order to improve the comprehensive performance of concrete truck mixer, considering the kinetics between concrete and blade, a parametric design model is built to find the relation between the parameters of the blade and performance. Based on subdividing function, the drum is divided into different parts called helix, the helix is designed as different blades for each part, then all the blades are combined into a complete helix. According to the design requirements (slump, the bevel angle of the drum), the corresponding blades are created. The simulation and engineering test show that this parametric design model can improve the comprehensive performance, besides, this method provide a new way to solve the detail design problem between multiphase and blade.


Purpose

– This paper characterizes translation as a task and aims to identify how it influences professional translators' information needs and use of resources to meet those needs.

Design/methodology/approach

– This research is exploratory and qualitative. Data are based on focus group sessions with 19 professional translators. Where appropriate, findings are related to several theories relating task characteristics and information behavior (IB).

Findings

– The findings support some of Bystrom's findings about relationship between task and information use but also suggest new hypotheses or relationships among task, information need, and information use, including the notion of a zone of familiarity. Translators use a wide range of resources, both formal and informal, localized sources, including personal contacts with other translators, native speakers, and domain experts, to supplement their basic resources, which are different types of dictionaries. The study addresses translator problems created by the need to translate materials in less commonly taught languages.

Research limitations/implications

– Focus group sessions allow only for identifying concepts, relationships, and hypotheses, not for indicating the relative importance of variables or distribution across individuals. Translation does not cover literary translation.

Practical implications

– The paper suggests content and features of workstations offering access to wide range of resources for professional translators.

Originality/value

– Unlike other information behavior studies of professional translators, this article focuses on a broad range of resources, not just on dictionary use. It also identifies information problems associated not only with normal task activities, but also with translators' moving out of their zone of familiarity, i.e. their range of domain, language, and style expertise. The model of translator IB is potentially generalizable to other groups and both supports and expands other task‐related research.


While other historians of Mumbai have engaged with the city as a migrant cosmopolis and have focused on its labour politics, or such aspects as the allure of the cinematic city of Bollywood and its bambaiya culture, in this book Mariam Dossal narrates the ''topographical history'' (p. xxxii) of the city dating from 1660 to the present. In charting this trajectory from being a fishing archipelago to the financial and cultural capital of present India, she places the on-going conflict over the possession of land at the heart of the book. In documenting the shift from feudal landownership to colonial capitalist modernity and post-colonial dystopia, she traces the development of land as private property and the changing terrain of political economy throughout Mumbai's history. There have been a number of studies in south Asia documenting colonial rule as a rationalisation of land settlement coterminous with a form of epistemic violence. Dossal's book, in contrast, traces the micro history of colonial land acquisition, a process over which fierce battles were pitched between the colonial rulers and their defiant subjects. The book is divided into two parts, the first depicting agrarian Bombay from 1660 to 1860, while also exploring the transformation of land into private property, and the second part exploring the development of Bombay as an industrial town, as well as the concomitant battles over circulation and use of land as a commodity that mark the history of this development. The first three chapters chart the early history of the city from the 1660s, when the officials of the British Crown and later the East India Company were negotiating their precarious presence, under constant threat from the Portuguese, Marathas, Angrias and Sidhis, while themselves being riven with internal dissensions. These chapters reveal that the legal hegemony over Bombay established the colonial 'rule of property'. By unearthing rich archival material to document this rule of property, Dossal reveals how the colonial government sought its territorial legitimacy through the consolidation of defence, the establishment of customary rights and through state regulation. However, attempts to legitimise their rule by replacing customary Indian laws were constantly thwarted by the inhabitants of Bombay. The British had to negotiate a curious and unfathomable maze of tenures and titles both indigenous and Portuguese, which were often used as overt forms of resistance by the inhabitants to frustrate imperial design upon the land. Chapters 4–6 document the shifting terrain of colonial policies and reveal how the 19th-century was marked by large-scale surveys and cadastral mappings—all of which left the huge colonial legacy of charted, mapped and cartographised spaces, as well as myriad networks of correspondence documenting the sheer impossibility of the tasks undertaken. The extraordinary breadth of archival material utilised by Dossal brings to light not only new cartographies of Bombay, but also traces the history of land and private 48(11) 2429–2437, August 2011


Murine ribonucleic acid tumor viruses and C-type virus particles are produced in relatively large quantities in roller bottle cultures. The viruses present in large volumes of culture fluids can be purified by a simple two-step procedure involving polyethylene glycol precipitation and equilibrium centrifugation in sucrose density gradients.


This paper undertakes a critical appraisal of the prospects for fictionalist inquiry in psychology, which runs contrary to the traditional dissociation between fiction and knowledge-laden discourse. Following a review of the contested boundary between fiction and nonfiction, a portrait of essential aspects of fiction emerges, which includes authorial warrant, imaginative prescription, and performative engagement. The paper then proceeds to outline fictionalism as a philosophical approach, with reference to early and more modern variants of the position. This leads to a little discussed epistemic position called the fictional stance, which is then developed and applied to various psychological domains including the psychology of fiction, the fictional constructions of psychology, and the narrative study of lives. The viewpoint that emerges sees the epistemic value of fictional thinking in the unique access it provides to intuitive powers of the psychological imagination and to non-conceptual understandings of psychological life. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.