Sentiment prediction for text has been an intriguing subject for the last few years. The goal of it is to automatically indicate the positive or negative attitude towards a topic of interest. The proliferation of user generated content on the World Wide Web has made it possible to perform large scale mining of public opinion. This paper presents an original implementation of a system that integrates a recently proposed semi-supervised learning algorithm for text polarity classification. Lexical prior knowledge is harnessed in conjunction with labeled and unlabeled documents. The presented method is based on joint sentiment analysis of documents and words and uses a bipartite graph representation of the data. Our system is integrated into Rapid Miner, which does not come yet with semi-supervised learners.


In societies emerging from conflict a central theme is finding ways for people to acknowledge those different to them as equal and different citizens and secure an agreed law and order system. Whilst work on equality and diversity is essential in societies emerging from conflict, however, it is insufficient to work on these areas alone has, in Northern Ireland, been found to be insufficient. The need to secure an agreed law and order system and the experience of being equal and different citizens under that law system are also fundamental and deeply intertwined requirements (Wright 1996). It is therefore imperative that criminal justice agencies see the goal of wider 'good relations' as central for to their practice. In July 2002 the Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) and the Future Ways Programme, University of Ulster entered into a joint developmental action research programme entitled 'An Equity, Diversity and Interdependence Approach to Good Relations'. This article charts the key steps taken by the PBNI/Future Ways partnership to establish a framework for action on good relations. Promoting 'Good Relations' between people from 'different religious beliefs, political opinions and racial groups' is a legally required duty of public bodies in Northern Ireland (Section 75 (2) NI Act 1998). 'Good Relations' practice in the contested society of Northern Ireland has to engage people in seeing the 'other' as a potential gift, not a danger. Such good relations practice demands that staff in public bodies work to a mental model in which people are viewed primarily as equal and different citizens rather than as members of opposed and partisan traditions. This is a demanding shift presents personal and professional challenges that must be supported by requiring institutional organisational leadership and support for staff from their employing body. The Future Ways Programme worked with several such institutions from 1998-2002 to develop a framework for organisational learning and change. The focus of this paper is to chart the key steps taken to develop this partnership and encourage the promotion of good relations within PBNI. This paper outlines how a framework for action on 'good relations' was established by PBNI. It argues that a process initiated by training had to first become a whole organisation approach. Once the organisation, as a whole, had committed itself to the good relations agenda then the PBNI's learning and training arm of the organisation, once again, are taking this theme on as assumed lead responsibility for leading the programme.


With the rapid growth in smartphone usage, preventing leakage of personal information and privacy has become a challenging task. One major consequence of such leakage is impersonation. This type of illegal usage is nearly impossible to prevent as existing preventive mechanisms (e.g., passcode and fingerprinting), are not capable of continuously monitoring usage and determining whether the user is authorized. Once unauthorized users can defeat the initial protection mechanisms, they would have full access to the devices including using stored passwords to access high-value websites. We present Kollector, a new framework to detect impersonation based on a multi-view bagging deep learning approach to capture sequential tapping information on the smart-phone's keyboard. We construct a sequential-tapping biometrics model to continuously authenticate the user while typing. We empirically evaluated our system using real-world phone usage sessions from 26 users over eight weeks. We then compared our model against commonly used shallow machine techniques and find that our system performs better than other approaches and can achieve an 8.42 percent equal error rate, a 94.24 percent accuracy and a 94.41 percent H-mean using only the accelerometer and only five keyboard taps. We also experiment with using only three keyboard taps and find that the system still yields high accuracy while giving additional opportunities to make more decisions that can result in more accurate final decisions.


Objective To characterise experiences using clinical research data shared through the National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Biologic Specimen and Data Repository Information Coordinating Center (BioLINCC) clinical research data repository, along with data recipients' perceptions of the value, importance and challenges with using BioLINCC data. Design and setting Cross-sectional web-based survey. Participants All investigators who requested and received access to clinical research data from BioLINCC between 2007 and 2014. Main outcome measures Reasons for BioLINCC data request, research project plans, interactions with original study investigators, BioLINCC experience and other project details. Results There were 536 investigators who requested and received access to clinical research data from BioLINCC between 2007 and 2014. Of 441 potential respondents, 195 completed the survey (response rate=44%); 89% (n=174) requested data for an independent study, 17% (n=33) for pilot/preliminary analysis. Commonly cited reasons for requesting data through BioLINCC were feasibility of collecting data of similar size and scope (n=122) and insufficient financial resources for primary data collection (n=76). For 95% of respondents (n=186), a primary research objective was to complete new research, as opposed to replicate prior analyses. Prior to requesting data from BioLINCC, 18% (n=36) of respondents had contacted the original study investigators to obtain data, whereas 24% (n=47) had done so to request collaboration. Nearly all (n=176; 90%) respondents found the data to be suitable for their proposed project; among those who found the data unsuitable (n=19; 10%), cited reasons were data too complicated to use (n=5) and data poorly organised (n=5). Half (n=98) of respondents had completed their proposed projects, of which 67% (n=66) have been published. Conclusions Investigators were primarily using clinical research data from BioLINCC for independent research, making use of data that would otherwise have not been feasible to collect.


This paper provides a time-domain feedback analysis of the perceptron learning algorithm. It studies the robustness performance of the algorithm in the presence of uncertainties that might be due to noisy perturbations in the reference signal or to modeling mismatch. In particular, bounds are established on the step-size parameter in order to guarantee that the resulting algorithm will behave as a robust filter in the sense of H/sup /spl infin//-theory. The paper also establishes that an intrinsic feedback structure can be associated with the training scheme. The feedback configuration is motivated via energy arguments and is shown to consist of two major blocks: a time-variant lossless (i.e. energy preserving) feedforward path and a time-variant feedback path. The stability of the feedback structure is then analyzed via the small gain theorem and choices for the step-size parameter in order to guarantee faster convergence are further derived by appealing to the mean-value theorem. Simulation results are included to validate the findings.


T. rubrum is especially suited to survive on the skin surface. We have presented data to show how it accomplishes this. We will now combine these data with our own thoughts to speculate about how T. rubrum has adapted to the skin of human beings. We believe the organism uses several different strategies. First, many infected patients cannot elicit a cell-mediated immune response to eliminate the fungus. The reasons for this are not completely clear, but trichophytin skin tests are negative at 48 hours despite persistent, chronic, and even widespread infections. Antigens are present on T. rubrum, just as they are on other dermatophytes, but differences in antigen penetration through the skin may prevent induction of immunity. Perhaps, neonatal exposure to the fungus or to cross-reacting antigens of molds may induce tolerance by confusing antigen recognition of self vs. nonself. More likely, persistent infection induces immunologic unresponsiveness by activating specific suppressor T cells. In fact, our attempts to clone T. rubrum-specific T cells from peripherals blood have always yielded suppressor cells, and these cells even suppress proliferation of the clone itself. Second, mannans from T. rubrum probably are better able to suppress cell-mediated immune reactions than are mannans from other fungi. T. rubrum may make more mannan than do other dermatophytes, and the mannan may be a more potent immunosuppressor than are mannans from other dermatophytes. Mannan apparently works by inhibiting critical steps in antigen processing or presentation. This inhibits the immune reaction. Perhaps, mannan even can prevent induction under certain circumstances. Third, T. rubrum is not especially aggressive compared with other dermatophytes. By remaining in the stratum corneum, it may evade immune surveillance, and may evade complement and polymorphonuclear leukocytes that would attach the organism if it tried to invade into viable epidermis. Finally, T. rubrum can survive off the human body as a spore. Its life cycle apparently lets spores desquamate and, thereby, remain plentiful in many human habitats. If a spore finds a warm, moist area of skin, it can crowd out normal flora and grow within the stratum corneum. T. rubrum's ability to infect and its ubiquitous presence account for the high incidence of infections. This, plus the ability of T. rubrum to evade host defenses, accounts for the high prevalence of infections with this fungus.


High rates of turnover among public child welfare (CW) workers has a detrimental influence on social workers, clients and their families, agencies, and states. Although the severity and prevalence of the problem are well understood, it was only recently that research on turnover among CW workers became more popular. Our understanding of the phenomenon, however, is still lacking and requires quantitative research synthesis. To address this research gap, the purpose of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis of the existing literature on turnover intention among child welfare workers. Among 144 potentially qualifying studies, twenty two studies were included in this meta-analytic study. Utilizing Hunter and Schmidt (2004)'s method, this study quantitatively combined and analyzed 36 predictors from the included studies. Overall, predictors related to CW worker attitudes and perceptions (e.g., organizational commitment and job satisfaction) had the highest influence on turnover intention among CW workers. On the other hand, demographic predictors, such as age, race, and gender, showed small or negligible effects on turnover intention. Among work-related predictors, stress-related predictors and subfactors of burnout had medium to high influence on turnover intention while predictors related to decision-making showed medium effect sizes. Among predictors in work environment category, various types of support predictors had varying influence on turnover intention while such variables as perceptions of fairness and policy had relatively high effect sizes of around .4. Several commonly-studied factors with proven validity, such as organizational commitment, stress, job satisfaction, professional commitment, and organizational climate, emerged as some of the strongest predictors. Other variables, such as perceptions of fairness, safety concern, and policy, were also shown to be strong predictors, but have received relatively less attention. While caseload is commonly thought of as one of major drivers of turnover, this study showed that caseload had little effect on turnover intention of CW workers. This study highlights several key areas of further research. First, job performance and economy-related factors are rarely utilized in studies of turnover intention among CW workers and therefore, deserve greater attention. Second, studies with private CW workers were relatively small compared to studies with public CW workers. Third, there has been a conceptual confusion of turnover intention measures, which future research can help to further clarify. The theoretical and practical implications highlighted by this study are also discussed.


Akt1 is well known for its role in regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis and is implicated in tumors and several neurological disorders. However, the role of Akt1 in neural development has not been well defined. We have isolated zebrafish akt1 and shown that this gene is primarily transcribed in the developing nervous system, and its spatiotemporal expression pattern suggests a role in neural differentiation. Injection of akt1 morpholinos resulted in loss of neuronal precursors with a concomitant increase in post-mitotic neurons, indicating that knockdown of Akt1 is sufficient to cause premature differentiation of neurons. A similar phenotype was observed in embryos deficient for Notch signaling. Both the ligand (deltaA) and the downstream target of Notch (her8a) were downregulated in akt1 morphants, indicating that Akt1 is required for Delta-Notch signaling. Furthermore, akt1 expression was downregulated in Delta-Notch signaling-deficient embryos and could be induced by constitutive activation of Notch signaling. In addition, knockdown of Akt1 was able to nullify the inhibition of neuronal differentiation caused by constitutive activation of Notch signaling. Taken together, these results provide in vivo evidence that Akt1 interacts with Notch signaling reciprocally and provide an explanation of why Akt1 is essential for the inhibition of neuronal differentiation.


OBJECTIVES
To highlight the most characteristic histopathological findings of oral lichen planus and their correlation with the clinical manifestations and forms.

STUDY DESIGN
We performed a retrospective study of 50 biopsied and diagnosed cases of oral lichen planus obtained over a period of 11 years, spanning from May 1998 to April 2009. We analyzed the age and sex of the patient, type of lichen planus, location and different histopathological findings, comparing them with the clinical lesions.

RESULTS
Seventy eight percent of the patients are female and 22% are male, with an average age of 56.06 years for both sexes. The most frequent clinical form is reticular, present in 78% of the cases, and the most common location is the buccal mucosa, present in 70% of the patients. Hydropic degeneration of the basal layer and lymphocytic infiltration in the subepithelial layer are observed in the entire sample. Signs of atypia were identified in 4% of the cases, but without dysplasic features. Other common histological findings were the presence of necrotic keratinocytes (92%), hyperplasia (54%), hyperkeratosis (66%), acanthosis (48%), and less frequently, serrated ridges (30%) and the presence plasma cells (26%).

CONCLUSIONS
Oral lichen planus is a disease that is more common in women, usually appearing in the fifth and sixth decades of life. The most common clinical form is reticular, manifesting mainly in the buccal mucosa. Histological findings characteristic of oral lichen planus include hydropic degeneration of the basal layer, lymphocytic infiltration in the subepithelial layer and the absence of epithelial dysplasia; however, it is also frequent to observe hyperplasia phenomena at the epithelial level, hyperkeratosis, acanthosis and the presence of necrotic keratinocytes.


During the recent years several technologies and services based in Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine communications (M2M) have appeared in many different sectors, like healthcare, transport, logistics, media or utilities. When new technologies (like Smart Grid or Smart Energy) appear two types of challenges can be defined: technical and business challenges, therefore innovation has to be applied in both of them. Too often innovation is focus on the technical evolution and underestimated on the business field, however it is a key aspect for new technologies and services to reach commercial success. Traditional business models in the energy sector will suffer big changes in the next years, as the Smart Grid concept is developed. By the advent of new services and applications, horizontal and vertical partnerships with competitors and other actors will take place. In this context collaboration between actors, partnerships and agreements will be of key importance. This paper investigates the different actors involved in a Smart Energy ecosystem, its possible activities and suitable business models for the different Smart Grid building blocks or milestones.


Despite the lipomas are the tumors that more commonly occur in the corpus callosum (CC), its incidence in the population is not common. We report on a 5-year old boy, with history of retardation in the psychomotor development and disturbs in the gait, secondary to generalized hypotony. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a curvilinear lipoma of the CC related to its hypertrophy. In the literature patients with CC lipoma usually have agenesis or hypotrophy of the CC, but in the reported case we have seen, by the first time, a hypertrophy of the CC. We made embryologic, genetic, clinical, radiographic and therapeutic considerations about the patients that have CC lipoma comparing to findings in the case we report.


Since I began, in the early 1980s, to research Muslim-Christian cohabitation of religious sites, I have been convinced of the political importance of making practices of intercommunal 'sharing' ethnographically visible. Thirty-five years of that work, spread across the Eastern Mediterranean (Israel/Palestine, Yugoslavia and its successor states, and both sides of the Cyprus divide), have not only revealed contemporary and historical choreographies of cohabitation but also their disintegration and the forces which bring it about. While I was carrying out this research, an accelerating resurgence of ethnic, religious and nationalistic politics was taking place not only throughout the areas I was studying but also in the global arena. This 'identitarian' politics, its philosophical grounding, and its shaping of academic and popular thought and practice is the focus of the first half of this paper; in the second part I look theoretically and empirically into examples of sharing and its refusal so as to show not only how cohabitation with alterity works but also to make visible the processes which sabotage it.


Several reports have mentioned the role of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) in inducing diaphragm disease and strictures in the small and large bowel. To our knowledge, there is no such report in patients treated with cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2) selective inhibitors. We report the case of a 55 year old man with a past history of axial spondylarthropathy, successfully treated with NSAID from 1975 to 2001; from February 2001, he was treated with celecoxib 400 mg per day for three weeks and then 200 mg/day for two years. He had previous abdominal surgery (appendicectomy) in 1965. He presented with a 24 hour history of central abdominal pain with persistent vomiting. Clinical and radiological examination confirmed small bowel obstruction. At laparoscopy, a distal ileal obstruction was identified. Coelioscopic laparotomy was then performed, showing evidence of bowel wall stricture; 10 cm of the distal ileum was spared. Macroscopic and microscopic examination of the resected specimen was consistent with a diagnosis of stricture on submucosal ulceration of the small bowel. This condition is known to be associated with long term use of NSAID. The COX-2 specific inhibitors have been developed in order to improve the gastrointestinal safety of therapy with NSAID. In various clinical trials, COX-2 selective inhibitors have been shown to have similar efficacy to NSAID, with a concomitant association with fewer endoscopic ulcers and serious lower gastrointestinal events. This case suggests that COX-2 selective inhibitors can induce bowel wall ulcerations, followed by submucosa fibrosis, which may cause strictures or diaphragm-like disease.


Neurons in the nucleus laminaris (NL) of birds detect the coincidence of binaural excitatory inputs from the nucleus magnocellularis (NM) on both sides and process the interaural time differences (ITDs) for sound localization. Sustained inhibition from the superior olivary nucleus is known to control the gain of coincidence detection, which allows the sensitivity of NL neurons to ITD tolerate strong-intensity sound. Here, we found a phasic inhibition in chicken brain slices that follows the ipsilateral NM inputs after a short time delay, sharpens coincidence detection, and may enhance ITD sensitivity in low-frequency NL neurons. GABA-positive small neurons are distributed in and near the NL. These neurons generate IPSCs in NL neurons when photoactivated by a caged glutamate compound, suggesting that these GABAergic neurons are interneurons that mediate phasic inhibition. These IPSCs have fast decay kinetics that is attributable to the α1-subunit of the GABAA receptor, the expression of which dominates in the low-frequency region of the NL. Model simulations demonstrate that phasic IPSCs narrow the time window of coincidence detection and increase the contrast of ITD-tuning during low-level, low-frequency excitatory input. Furthermore, cooperation of the phasic and sustained inhibitions effectively increases the contrast of ITD-tuning over a wide range of excitatory input levels. We propose that the complementary interaction between phasic and sustained inhibitions is the neural mechanism that regulates ITD sensitivity for low-frequency sound in the NL.


Background and purpose — While highly crosslinked polyethylene has shown reduced in vivo wear and lower rates of revision for total hip arthroplasty, there have been few long-term studies on its use in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We compared the rate of revision of non-crosslinked polyethylene to that of crosslinked polyethylene in patients who underwent TKA for osteoarthritis. Patients and methods — We examined data from the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry on 302,214 primary TKA procedures with non-crosslinked polyethylene and 83,890 procedures with crosslinked polyethylene, all of which were performed for osteoarthritis. The survivorship of the different polyethylenes was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and was compared using proportional hazard models. Results — The 10-year cumulative revision rate for non-crosslinked polyethylene was 5.8% (95% CI: 5.7–6.0) and for crosslinked polyethylene it was 3.5% (95% CI: 3.2–3.8) (> 6.5-year HR = 2.2 (1.5–3.1); p < 0.001). There was no effect of surgical volume or method of prosthesis fixation on outcome. There were 4 different TKA designs that had a minimum of 2,500 procedures in at least 1 of the polyethylene groups and a follow-up of ≥ 5 years. 2 of these, the NexGen and the Natural Knee II, had a lower rate of revision for crosslinked polyethylene. The Scorpio NRG/Series 7000 and the Triathlon Knee did not show a lower rate of revision for crosslinked polyethylene. Interpretation — There is a lower rate of revision for crosslinked polyethylene in TKA, and this appears to be prosthesis-specific and when it occurs is most evident in patients < 65 years of age. The difference in revision rates was mainly due to revisions because of lysis and loosening.


The present study investigated aspects of establishment of the Special Management Area (SMA) regime as a conservation and fisheries management tool of the inshore waters in Tonga. The SMA regime is a fisheries management system that was adopted in 2002 in Tonga. SMA was established since 2006 after coastal communities who were interested in managing the fisheries resources within the adjacent fishing waters of their communities.
The result of this present study suggested there was significantly higher perceived support towards the establishment of SMAs from SMA households compared with comparator households. Subsequently, the perceived costs and benefits accruing from the establishment of the SMAs had a significant influence on perceived attitudes towards supporting the establishment of SMAs. The main differences in attitudes among fishers were related to the household livelihoods, fishing activities and seafood consumption pattern being the most important.
In addition, the abundance, biomass, diversity and percentage covers of fish, invertebrate and habitat structure were variable, however, there were significant increases in species richness, evenness, abundance and biomass of the major exploited fish families. The results also suggest that the response to protection vary with intensity of exploitation and body size and may be spatially idiosyncratic, as a function of local factors such as life histories, trophic groups, protection age and size, and geographical location.
Furthermore, the present study through local knowledge presents evidence for shifting baselines in fishers' perception of declines of exploited fish species in inshore fisheries in Tonga. This will also provide significant insights into the duration of "fisher's memory" of depleted species, which is of fundamental importance for SMA network development in Tonga.


Globally, mine operators are becoming increasingly aware of water availability costs and constraints. This is leading to a trend of de-watering tailings disposal particularly where fresh water is required for processing. The Karara Mining Limited operation located in the Mid-west of Western Australia selected a large scale dry stack facility for their tailings disposal and storage largely for this reason. There are a range of considerations which must be made when designing and operating a large scale dry stack facility, which relates to both the traditional tailings material parameters, and conveyor and stacker properties. The Karara facility operates a 35,000 tpd capacity stacker and conveyor system to develop a tailings dry stack landform. Key issues such as stability of the tailings mass and stacker foundation, storage capacity, landform development and closure considerations were considered during the design phase and permitting. These have been re-evaluated and updated during commissioning and subsequent operations, along with statutory reporting. This paper presents a case study of the design considerations for a unique large scale dry stack facility. Design analyses from feasibility and detailed engineering stages are presented along with discussion related to updated operational testing. The paper will provide insight into operating issues that may impact the decision processes of potential future similar operations.


A less traumatic and safe way was sought for the superlobular bronchus and artery occlusion that permits the hemostatic effect to be quickly achieved, the risk and duration of the operation to be minimized. The approach consists in the use of transsternal approach instead of a conventional intercostal approach in 5 patients with superlobular fibrotic cavernous pulmonary tuberculosis, its positive effects being lessening of traumatic harm, improving of safety of operation, together with reduction of intraoperative time.


Access to energy has been a key driver of global progress and growth, with this growth comes increased global energy demand; currently at around 18 TW on average and projected to increase. An accessible and distributed source of power is needed to fill this growing need. Solar power fits this need, and the future of this technology lies in reducing the energy cost to manufacture photovoltaic (PV) systems, retain or improve performance, and tailor their properties for niche applications.
Since the design of new PV materials depends on optimising the response of materials to light, optical spectroscopy is a critical experimental tool. Of the different spectroscopic tools, transient absorption spectroscopy is ideal for understanding the photophysics of solar cells because PV materials always have visible absorption signatures that evolve over time. Being a pump–probe technique, the advent of amplified femtosecond laser systems allows femto– to micro– second timescales to be routinely measured, making it possible to track the evolution of the excited state species from exciton formation to relaxation or recombination back to the ground state.
This thesis characterises the photophysics of multiple different bulk–heterojunction (BHJ) organic photovoltaic (OPV) systems containing different electron acceptors. Using transient absorption spectroscopy, we have developed an understanding of how changes to the organic materials and morphology affect the photophysics and subsequent solar power conversion efficiency.
The thesis is separated into four main sections; the first, Chapter 2 looks at improvements made to the experimental setup to allow the characterisation of organic–photovoltaics over a low excitation power that can provide information relevant to operating conditions, and in the following three chapters, this improved technique is used to look at the various classes of electron acceptors in BHJ–OPVs: fullerenes, polymers, and small molecule acceptors (SMA).
Chapter 3 covers fullerene acceptor BHJ–OPVs looking at two different systems. First, the weight percentage of PC71BM is varied, resulting in changes to the photophysics consistent with variation in domain size and purity; this interplay between photophysics and morphology highlights how understanding both is crucial to optimising BHJ–OPVs. The second looks at changing the functionality of the fullerene, looking at three common fullerene derivatives PC61BM, PC71BM, and ICBA. Here, the differences are more subtle, showing that while ICBA and PC61BM blends generate charges promptly, a combination of poor quenching in the ICBA blend and shorter lifetimes in the PC61BM blend explain the higher power conversion efficiency of the PC71BM system.
In Chapter 4, blends with a polymer used as the electron donor and a different polymer used as the electron acceptor are studied. In this chapter, we see that the photophysics of a system can have little to no correlation to the overall power conversion efficiency. The increased fluorination of the polymer electron acceptor, PNDITPhT, results in no observable changes in the measured photophysics, while the power conversion efficiency (PCE) changes from 3.1 % to 4.3 % (improves by more than 30 %). Also, in this chapter, the effect of the donor polymers (PTB7–Th and PTB7) blended with P(NDI2OD–T2) is investigated; showing a doubling of power conversion efficiency from 2.1 % to 4.4 %; attributed to longer–lived and more mobile charges.
Finally, we investigate at small molecule acceptors in Chapter 5. Here, we look at one of the first small–molecule acceptor systems to have better efficiency than fullerene:polymer blends developed at this time. By comparing several polymer acceptors, it is found that for the small–molecule acceptor IDIC, the photophysics of an efficient blend are similar to those observed when using a fullerene acceptor. And, when matching the SMA with low–bandgap polymers, the materials do not suffer from the triplet loss mechanism present in low–bandgap BHJ–OPVs.
Together, this thesis provides insight into the photophysics of several different material systems, and improves our understanding of how the power conversion efficiency is improved, whether it be by morphology, charge lifetimes, mobility, or increased absorption. We ultimately find that while many of the key photophysical requirements remain unchanged between fullerene and SMA–based BHJ–OPVs, the active role that SMAs play in absorbing light and generating photocurrent provides a new avenue to increase efficiency, with more work still to be done in understanding the heterojunction and how it could be tuned to optimise generation from electron –donor and –acceptor phases.


Acute myocardiac infarction (AMI) in young patients is not a common occurrence; between 3% and 7% of all AMIS occur in persons under 40. A number of Risk Factors (RF) have been identified as associated with this disease, although in this age group, smoking at 70%, is the most frequent RF, followed by cholesterol, also high-risk at 44.3%, diabetes and AHT, although important RFS, are less frequent in this age group. Familiarization with these Risk Factors will form the basis of primary prevention of this disease directed both at the population at large and at those individuals already identified as most at risk.


We address the issue of updating privileges in a dynamic environment by introducing authority certificates in a Privilege Management Infrastructure. These certificates can be used to create access-level permissions but also to delegate authority to other agents, thereby providing a mechanism for creating management structures and for changing these structures over time. We present a semantic framework for privileges and certificates and an associated calculus, encoded as a logic program, for reasoning about them. The framework distinguishes between the time a certificate is issued or revoked and the time for which the associated privilege is created. This enables certificates to have prospective and retrospective effects, and allows us to reason about privileges and their consequences in the past, present, and future. The calculus provides a verification procedure for determining, given a set of declaration and revocation certificates, whether a certain privilege holds.


From the years of the Russian occupation (1829-1834), the power of words and the political rhetoric started to exceed the traditional framework, becoming in time the main horizon of affirmation, reproduction and legitimation of power in the Principalities. The traditional structure of the public space, of symbolical averment of the princely power, started to erode allowing the emergence of a public political language that 'freed' the political act from the narrow framework of boyar bargains, mediations, conspiracies. Being at the border of tradition and modernity, the practices of the National Party had features specific to both, combining new ideas with older practices and vice-versa. Unlike previous political groups, which extracted their power legitimacy through patronage over society and by managing the social relations (controlling offices), this group differentiated itself by using a public discourse, built on rational criteria (law, liberty), which offered the group a shared identity, appropriated in a political project.


Abstract The place of the State in Spinoza's ontology has emerged in scholarly literature as one of the most complex issues involving Spinoza's political thought. At issue is whether Spinoza's State is an actual individual with its own conatus. Some consider it a completely real individual, others say that its individuality can only be metaphoric, whilst others point out the conceptual insufficiency of this polarity for explaining the ontological status of political aggregates and try to overcome it through new concepts, such as the multitude, transindividuality, and figuration. In this paper, each of these interpretations is analyzed and dismissed in favour of a new one stating that Spinoza's State is actually a dynamic network of political concepts operating in resemblance of individuality and reflecting the main characteristics of the modern Nation-State.


Background: The tumor suppressor p53 is a master regulator of apoptosis, autophagy, cell cycle, and senescence. It is inactivated via mutation in approximately 50% of solid tumors, but only in 15% of hematopoietic malignancies including acute myeloid leukemia (AML). A recently proposed mechanism has linked loss of p53 function with its amyloid aggregation. Conceptually, certain p53 mutations can favor partial unfolding of the protein and expose a natively buried aggregation-prone segment. This can result in amyloidogenic aggregation and prevent p53 transcriptional activity and anti-tumor functions. The cell-permeable peptide ReACp53, has been recently developed to block p53 aggregation and restore its transcriptional function in the nucleus as well as its ubiquitination by MDM2. ReACp53 showed significant cytotoxicity in ovarian cancer but no toxicity to normal hematopoietic cells in animal experiment. We sought to determine the anti-tumor activity of ReACp53 in hematopoietic malignancies. Results: We examined the p53 status in 23 malignant hematopoietic cell lines by PCR, Sanger sequencing, and immunoblotting. Two cell lines were null for p53 expression, one harbored frame shift mutations, 11 cell lines expressed various missense p53 mutations, one cell line had an in frame deletion of p53, and eight cell lines expressed wild-type p53. Additionally, immunofluorescence staining (IF) with the conformation-specific PAb240 antibody revealed high levels of cytoplasmic, partially unfolded p53 in the cells expressing mutant p53. In p53 wild-type cells, p53 protein was mainly localized in the nucleus and was negative for PAb240. The p53 null and frame shift-mutant cells showed no p53 expression. All the cells were treated short-term with various concentrations of ReACp53, or a scrambled peptide, and assessed for apoptosis by flow cytometry. We found that ReACp53 was cytotoxic not only to the p53-mutant cells, but also to the wild-type p53 lines. In fact, all p53 wild type AML cell lines were highly sensitive. The p53 negative cell lines were seemingly resistant to short-term exposure to ReACp53. DeltaNp73, an isoform of p73 that antagonizes p53 and TAp73, is expressed in most AML cells and also has a similar aggregation-prone segment. We examined the levels of DeltaNp73 and total p73 in 12 AML cell lines by PCR, immunoblotting, and IF. Both proteins were overexpressed in all five wild-type p53 cell lines, and DeltaNp73 was predominately localized in the cytoplasm of these cells. After short-term treatment with ReACp53, DeltaNp73 expression and localization didn9t change in wild type p53 AML cells. Over-expressing DeltaNp73 in HEK293T cells enhanced their level of Thioflavin T staining indicating amyloid aggregation of the protein. Compared to controls, the DeltaNp73 overexpressing HEK293T cells were more prone to apoptosis following ReACp53 treatment. Absent of transactivation domain, DeltaNp73 is not expected to be restored to function like TAp73. Mutant p53 is known to cross-aggregate p73 and p63 because of their highly similar aggregation-prone segments, therefore, we hypothesize that DeltaNp73 cross-aggregated p53 and p73 and ReACp53 inhibited the aggregation as to restore p53 and TAp73 function and exposure to MDM2. We chose two wild-type p53 AML cell lines, OCI-AML3 and MOLM-14, which express MDM2 and are sensitive to the MDM2 inhibitor DS3032b. After short-term treatment with ReACp53, p53 and p73 (also a MDM2 target) expression decreased significantly in both cells. We tested the anti-leukemia efficacy of the DS3032b and ReACp53 combinatorial treatment in these cells and found that DS3032b synergized with ReACp53 to efficiently kill the cells compared to the cytotoxic activity of DS3032b or ReACp53 treatment alone. Conclusions: We demonstrate a new mechanism of DeltaNp73 inhibition of wild-type p53 and TAp73 mediated by induction of amyloid aggregation. ReACp53 showed apoptogenic efficacy in malignant hematopoietic cells, both in cells expressing wild-type p53 as well as mutant p53. In the wild-type AML cells where p73 and DeltaNp73 were overexpressed, sensitivity to ReACp53 increased. ReACp53 also exhibited synergistic activity when combined with the MDM2 inhibitor DS3032b in wild-type p53 cells. Together, our data suggest a novel mechanism of p53 inactivation by amyloid formation, that can be corrected in acute myeloid leukemia carrying either wild-type or mutant p53. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The scope of financial systemic risk research encompasses a wide range of channels and effects, including asset correlation shocks, default contagion, illiquidity contagion, and asset firesales. For example, insolvency of a given bank will create a shock to the asset side of the balance sheet of each of its creditor banks and under some circumstances, such "downstream'' shocks can cause further insolvencies that may build up to create what is called an insolvency or default cascade. On the other hand, funding illiquidity that hits a given bank will create a shock to the liability side of the balance sheet of each of its debtor banks. Under some circumstances, such "upstream'' shocks can cause illiquidity in further banks that may build up to create an illiquidity cascade. This paper introduces a deliberately simplified financial network model that combines the default and liquidity stress mechanisms into a "double cascade mapping''. The progress and eventual result of the crisis is obtained by iterating this mapping to its fixed point. Unlike simpler models, this model can therefore quantify how illiquidity or default of one bank influences the eventual overall level of liquidity stress and default in the system. Large-network asymptotic cascade mapping formulas are derived that can be used for efficient network computations of the double cascade. Numerical experiments then demonstrate that these asymptotic formulas agree qualitatively with Monte Carlo results for large finite networks, and quantitatively except when the initial system is placed in an exceptional "knife-edge'' configuration. The experiments clearly support the main conclusion that in the absence of fire sales, the average eventual level of defaults in a financial network is negatively related to the strength of banks' liquidity stress response and the eventual level of stress in the network.


Although one would expect the unemployed to be the population most likely affected by immigration, most of the studies have concentrated on investigating the effects immigration has on the employed population. Little is known of the effects of immigration on labor market transitions out of unemployment. Using the basic monthly Current Population Survey from 2001 and 2013 we match data for individuals who were interviewed in two consecutive months and identify workers who transition out of unemployment. We employ a multinomial model to examine the effects of immigration on the transition out of unemployment, using state-level immigration statistics. The results suggest that immigration does not affect the probabilities of native-born workers finding a job. Instead, we find that immigration is associated with smaller probabilities of remaining unemployed, but it is also associated with higher probabilities of workers leaving the labor force. This effect impacts mostly young and less educated people.


Across the Eocene-Oligocene transition, the oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of benthic and planktonic foraminifera increased by over 1‰. This shift is thought to represent a combination of global cooling and the growth of a large ice sheet on the Antarctic continent. To determine the contribution of each of these factors to the total change in δ18O, we measured the clumped isotopic composition of planktonic foraminifera tests from Ocean Drilling Program Site 689 in the Southern Ocean. Near-surface temperatures were ~12°C in the intervals 0–1.5 Myr before and 1–2 Myr after the major (Oi-1) transition, in agreement with estimates made using other proxies at nearby sites. Temperatures cooled by 0.4 ± 1.1°C between these intervals, indicating that the long-term change in δ18O seen in planktonic foraminifera at this site is predominantly due to changes in ice volume. A larger instantaneous cooling may have occurred during Oi-1 but is not captured in this study due to sampling resolution. The corresponding change in the isotopic composition of seawater (δ18Osw) is 0.75 ± 0.23‰, which is within the range of previous estimates, and represents global ice growth equivalent to roughly ~110–120% of the volume of the modern Antarctic ice sheet or ~80–90 m of eustatic sea level change.


Video cameras have been deployed at almost every critical location, and they keep generating huge volumes of video data. The current visual processing technologies are not efficient in handling all these data for surveillance purposes, and a large amount of human power is needed to process them. In this paper, we propose the E-V system, which uses electronic footprints to help sort through this swamp of data. Electronic footprints are wireless signals emitted by mobile devices carried by people. They are ubiquitous and amenable to collection and indexing. We study how to use electronic footprints to help quickly and accurately identify object's appearance model from large volumes of video data. We have formulated the problem and provided efficient algorithms to achieve the identification on large data sets. Real world experiments and large-scale simulations have been done, which confirms the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed algorithms.


Objective: This study was designed to examine the impact of role clarity and job training on job satisfaction among peer specialists. Method: A 3-part survey assessing job training, job satisfaction, and role clarity was administered online to 195 peer specialists who are members of the International Association of Peer Specialists. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlational analyses to include multiple linear regressions and analysis of variance. Results: Self-study and online training methods were negatively correlated with job satisfaction while job shadowing was positively correlated with job satisfaction. Role clarity was positively correlated with job satisfaction and job training satisfaction as well as job shadowing and one-on-one training. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: The use of self-study and online training for peer specialists is contraindicated by current findings, which suggest the need to utilize job shadowing or training methods that allow for personal interaction between peer specialists and their colleagues.


The return to sexual activity after pelvic reconstructive surgery is an uncertain time for many women, with timing and expectations strongly influenced by physicians. OBJECTIVE: To describe the timing, quality and patient concerns regarding the first sexual encounter after surgery for pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or urinary incontinence (UI). METHODS: Women scheduled to undergo POP or UI surgery who self-identified as sexually active were recruited to this qualitative study. Routine counseling regarding the return to sexual activity was provided 4–6 weeks postoperatively. Participants completed interviews 2–4 months after their surgery. Interviews were tape recorded, de-identified, and transcribed. Transcriptions were coded for major themes by two independent researchers; disagreements were arbitrated by the research team. Analysis was performed using Dedoose software. RESULTS: Twenty patients with an average age of 52.4 years participated. Most identified themselves as White (85%), one quarter had a history of hysterectomy, and 15% had previously undergone pelvic reconstructive surgery. Nineteen (95%) patients resumed intercourse 2–4 months after surgery. Thematic saturation was reached with major themes of Outside Influences, Conflicting Emotions, Uncertainty, Sexual Changes and Stability, Normalization, and Self-Image. First sexual encounter timing was strongly influenced by partners' desires and fears and physician counseling. Fear of damage to repairs affected patients' comfort with return to sexual activity. Although uncertain of how anatomical changes or presence of mesh would affect function, women hoped that changes would be positive, regardless of preoperative sexual function. Some women found their experience unchanged, whereas others reported need for change in sexual position, use of lubrication, and sensation of foreign body. Positive changes included increase in desire, pleasure, and improvement in orgasm. Self-image generally improved after surgery, which increased women's sexual confidence. CONCLUSION: The return to sexual activity after surgery for POP or UI represents a great unknown for many women. Reports of initial sexual activity after surgery are often positive, and physicians strongly influence initial postoperative sexual encounter timing. Frank counseling about patient and partners' fears regarding the effect of repair on sexual activity would likely improve patients' outcomes.


Christian Liberal Arts articulates the practical, pedagogical, and theological reasons why Christian liberal arts colleges are distinctive in the world of American higher education. Mannoia enumerates the intrinsic and instrumental values of Christian liberal arts, and how both should forcefully shape an institution's goals. He suggests that Christian colleges should strive to help their students go beyond the extremes of dogmatism and skepticism to achieve critical commitment. Colleges must also aid their students to adjust to real world problems without sacrificing academic quality. Mannoia believes that the solution to this challenge must inevitably integrate multiple disciplines, values and learning, and theory with practice, a process from which both faculty and graduates will acquire the capacity to resolve the thorniest dilemmas facing society and the Christian community.


The number of trainees produced by a residency program must relate directly to manpower needs in a specialty, not to the service needs of the training institution. In order to avoid geographic maldistribution of specialists, it is preferable to determine correct trainee output on a regional basis and combine such information inductively to determine overall national needs. A model for determination of the number of residents appropriate to train in obstetrics and gynecology by 1985 in the University of Utah program has been constructed in the setting of regional requirements. Components of this model include detailed population growth forecasts at the county level, consideration of the impact of increased urbanization, age-specific data for attrition of regional specialists by death or retirement, and estimation of the proportion of regional requirements to be met by the University of Utah program on the basis of distribution data of previous graduates.


Hypertension accounts for 13% of global mortality, with 25% prevalence in Nigeria. Current trends in management is lifestyle modification. Information on lifestyle habits is needed for effective intervention programe. A study was done among rural dwellers between ages 20 and 75 in Owerre- Nkwoji, Imo State, to determine their knowledge, attitude to hypertension and lifestyle habits. Information gathered would be used to plan an intervention programe to increase awareness and promote healthy lifestyles. The study design is descriptive and simple random sampling method was used in selection of village for the study. An instrument used was a questionnaire with sections on background, knowledge, attitude and lifestyle habits. Descriptive and inferential analysis was done. Findings revealed awareness on hypertension as 116 (96.7%). 88 (73%) were aware of sudden death and stroke in the community. Participants with high knowledge were 32 (26.7%), average 40 (33.3%) and low 48 (40.0%). There was positive attitude to hypertension prevention. Sixty-four (53.3%) believed that hypertension can be sent by one's enemy. Unhealthy lifestyles elicited include use of alcohol, table salt and stimulants. There is a need to correct misconceptions. Readiness for improved health was elicited. As people recognize that lifestyles and behavior significantly affect health, they may assume responsibility for avoiding high risk behaviors.


Textural and mineralogical features in the high-K calc-alkaline Kozárovice granodiorite (Hercynian Central Bohemian Pluton, Bohemian Massif) and associated small quartz monzonite masses imply that mixing between acid (granodioritic) and basic (monzonitic/monzogabbroic) magmas was locally petrogenetically significant. Net veining, with acicular apatite and numerous lath-shaped plagioclase crystals present in the quartz monzonite, and abundant mafic microgranular enclaves (MME) in the granodiorite, indicate that as the monzonitic magma was injected into the granodioritic magma chamber, it rapidly cooled and was partly disintegrated by the melt already present. Evidence from cathodoluminescence suggests that the two magmas exchanged early-formed plagioclase crystals. In the quartz monzonite, granodiorite-derived crystals were overgrown by narrow calcic zones, followed by broad, normally zoned sodic rims. In the granodiorite, plagioclase crystals with calcic cores overgrown by normally zoned sodic rims are interpreted as xenocrysts from the monzonite. After thermal adjustment, crystallisation of the monzonitic magma ceased relatively slowly, forming quartz and K-feldspar oikocrysts. Although the whole-rock geochemistry of the quartz monzonite and the MME support magma mixing, major- and trace-element based modelling of the host granodiorite has previously indicated an origin dominated by assimilation and fractional crystallisation. Magma mixing therefore seems to represent a local modifying influence rather than the primary petrogenetic process.


Importance
Experimental data suggest that intravenous vitamin C may attenuate inflammation and vascular injury associated with sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Objective
To determine the effect of intravenous vitamin C infusion on organ failure scores and biological markers of inflammation and vascular injury in patients with sepsis and ARDS.

Design, Setting, and Participants
The CITRIS-ALI trial was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial conducted in 7 medical intensive care units in the United States, enrolling patients (N = 167) with sepsis and ARDS present for less than 24 hours. The study was conducted from September 2014 to November 2017, and final follow-up was January 2018.

Interventions
Patients were randomly assigned to receive intravenous infusion of vitamin C (50 mg/kg in dextrose 5% in water, n = 84) or placebo (dextrose 5% in water only, n = 83) every 6 hours for 96 hours.

Main Outcomes and Measures
The primary outcomes were change in organ failure as assessed by a modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score (range, 0-20, with higher scores indicating more dysfunction) from baseline to 96 hours, and plasma biomarkers of inflammation (C-reactive protein levels) and vascular injury (thrombomodulin levels) measured at 0, 48, 96, and 168 hours.

Results
Among 167 randomized patients (mean [SD] age, 54.8 years [16.7]; 90 men [54%]), 103 (62%) completed the study to day 60. There were no significant differences between the vitamin C and placebo groups in the primary end points of change in mean modified Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score from baseline to 96 hours (from 9.8 to 6.8 in the vitamin C group [3 points] and from 10.3 to 6.8 in the placebo group [3.5 points]; difference, -0.10; 95% CI, -1.23 to 1.03; P = .86) or in C-reactive protein levels (54.1 vs 46.1 μg/mL; difference, 7.94 μg/mL; 95% CI, -8.2 to 24.11; P = .33) and thrombomodulin levels (14.5 vs 13.8 ng/mL; difference, 0.69 ng/mL; 95% CI, -2.8 to 4.2; P = .70) at 168 hours.

Conclusions and Relevance
In this preliminary study of patients with sepsis and ARDS, a 96-hour infusion of vitamin C compared with placebo did not significantly improve organ dysfunction scores or alter markers of inflammation and vascular injury. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential role of vitamin C for other outcomes in sepsis and ARDS.

Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02106975.


An investigation on reaction scheme and kinetics for ethanol steam reforming on skeletal nickel catalysts is described. Catalytic activity of skeletal nickel catalyst for low-temperature steam reforming has been studied in detail, and the reasons for its high reactivity for H2 production are attained by probe reactions. Higher activity of water gas shift reaction and methanation contributes to the low CO selectivity. Cu and Pt addition can promote WGSR and suppress methanation, and, thus, improve H2 production. A reaction scheme on skeletal nickel catalyst has been proposed through temperature programmed reaction spectroscopy experiments. An Eley-Rideal model is put forward for kinetic studies, which contains three surface reactions: ethanol decomposition, water gas shift reaction, and methane steam reforming reaction. The kinetics was studied at 300–400°C using a randomized algorithms method and a least-squares method to solve the differential equations and fit the experimental data; the goodness of fit obtained with this model is above 0.95. The activation energies for the ethanol decomposition, methane steam reforming, and water gas shift reaction are 187.7 kJ/mol, 138.5 kJ/mol and 52.8 kJ/mol, respectively. Thus, ethanol decomposition was determined to be the rate determining reaction of ethanol steam reforming on skeletal nickel catalysts. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J 60: 635–644, 2014


When Americans migrated west, they carried with them not only their hopes for better lives but their religious traditions as well. Yet the importance of religion in the forging of a western identity has seldom been examined. In this first historical overview of religion in the modern American West, Ferenc Szasz shows the important role that organized religion played in the shaping of the region from the late-nineteenth to late-twentieth century. He traces the major faiths over that time span, analyzes the distinctive response of western religious institutions to national events, and shows how western cities became homes to a variety of organized faiths that cast only faint shadows back east. While many historians have minimized the importance of religion for the region, Szasz maintains that it lies at the very heart of the western experience. From the 1890s to the 1920s, churches and synagogues created institutions such as schools and hospitals that shaped their local communities; during the Great Depression, the Latter-day Saints introduced their innovative social welfare system; and in later years, Pentecostal groups carried their traditions to the Pacific coast and Southern Baptists (among others) set out in earnest to evangelize the Far West. Beginning in the 1960s, the arrival of Asian faiths, the revitalization of evangelical Protestantism, the ferment of post-Vatican II Catholicism, the rediscovery of Native American spirituality, and the emergence of New Age sects combined to make western cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco among the most religiously pluralistic in the world. Examining the careers of key figures in western religion, from Rabbi William Friedman to Reverend Robert H. Schuller, Szasz balances specific and general trends to weave the story of religion into a wider social and cultural context. Religion in the Modern American West calls attention to an often overlooked facet of regional history and broadens our understanding of the American experience.


Clinical observations suggested that children long recovered from buRN injury required larger doses of thiopental for a smooth anesthetic induction. A prospective randomized study examined children 6–16 yr old, with greater than 15% buRN, and more than 1 year after injury, for loss of lid reflex (LR), coRNeal reflex (CR), and acceptance of the anesthesia mask (AM) 60 sec after administration of thiopental. Children were unpremedicated, received the thiopental (2.5%) through a rapidly running peripheral intravenous line, and received either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 mg/kg. LR, CR, and AM were examined at 30, 60, and 90 sec. Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded for those patients receiving 7 or 8 mg/kg thiopental. The mean age was 12.0 ± 0.5 yr, weight 43.9 ± 2.9 kg, % buRN 44.7 ± 2.9, time since buRN 68.4 ± 7.7 months, and time since previous thiopental 25.1 ± 6.6 months. The estimated ED50 (95% confidence limits) for loss of LR was 4.78 (3.95–5.78) mg/kg; for loss of CR was 7.04 (4.87–10.10) mg/kg; and for AM was 6.74 (4.68–9.71) mg/kg. These doses of thiopental were significantly greater for LR and AM (P < 0.001) but not CR (P = 0.15) compared to non-thermally injured children. There were no clinically important or statistically significant decreases in blood pressure while heart rate did increase 11 beats/min (P < 0.05) in children who received 7 or 8 mg/kg. These data strongly suggest that thiopental requirements to ablate LR and AM in previously thermally injured children aged 6–16 yr are significantly greater than in non-thermally injured children. Logistic regression found no relationship with age, weight, % buRN, time since injury, thiopental exposureosures, previous anesthetics, or time since last thiopental exposure.


The sources of pressure on an organization to improve the management of its environmental performance are many and increasing. They all demand increasing amounts and types of information from the organization. Information technology (IT) provides the means to address both these demands and the data needs which are internal to the organization. A methodical approach is required to determine how IT can best be used. By examining the business processes used to manage environmental performance, the types of data to be handled and the outputs and reports required, the organization can prioritize IT investments. These may be in specialized information systems, but are just as likely to be in general data manipulation tools and communication network enhancements.


Time synchronization in embedded sensor networks is an important service for correlating data between nodes and communication scheduling. While many different approaches to the problem are possible, one major effect of clock frequency difference between nodes, environmental temperature changes, has often been left out of the solution. The common assumption that the temperature is static over a certain period of time is often used as an excuse to assume constant frequency errors in a clock. This assumption forces synchronization protocols to resynchronize too often. While there exists hardware solutions to this problem, their prohibitive high cost and power consumption make them unsuitable for some applications, such as wireless sensor networks. Temperature Driven Time Synchronization (TDTS) exploits the onboard temperature sensor existing in many sensor network platforms. It uses this temperature sensor to autonomously calibrate the local oscillator and removes effects of environmental temperature changes. This allows a time synchronization protocol to increase its resynchronization period, without loosing synchronization accuracy, and thus saves energy and communication overhead. In addition, TDTS provides a stable clock source when radio communication is impaired. We present the theory behind TDTS, and provide initial results of a simulated comparison of TDTS and the Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol.


Radiotherapy is one of the major frontline treatments for prostate cancer (PCa). However, a large proportion of patients suffer from tumor recurrence after radiotherapy. Tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells (TIMs), including CD11b+F4/80+ tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) and CD11b+Gr-1+ myeloid-derived suppressive cells (MDSCs), play critical roles in promoting tumoral angiogenesis, tissue remodeling and immunosuppression. Recently several reports suggested that TIMs might play a critical role in mediating tumor regrowth after radiation therapy. Here, we showed that there is enhanced recruitment of both TAMs and MDSCs after 5 days of 3 Gy radiation treatment in subcutaneously implanted RM-1 syngeneic PCa model. Infiltration of two MDSC subsets, CD11b+Gr-1loLy6Chi mononuclear-MDSC (MO-MDSC) and CD11b+Gr-1hiLy6Clo polymorphnuclear-MDSC (PMN-MDSC), are both increased. Although treatment is localized to the tumor site, the effects of radiation are systematic. Dramatic increases of MDSCs and TAMs were also observed in the spleen, lymph nodes and peripheral blood. To better understand the mechanism of enhanced recruitment of myeloid cells to tumors, we performed RT-PCR analysis on tumor tissues for commonly known factors that mediate the recruitment of myeloid cells. Indeed, we found that macrophage colony stimulating factor 1 (M-CSF-1 or CSF-1) increases by 2 fold in irradiated tumors compared to non-irradiated tumors. In vitro migration assays using conditioned medium from irradiated tumor cells increases migration of RAW246.7 macrophages by 4 fold, and this increase is completely blocked by the very selective CSF1R inhibitor, GW2580. Immunohistochemical analysis confirmed the induction of TAMs and MDSC recruitment to tumors, and the effectiveness of GW2580 in blocking their infiltration. Most importantly, combination therapy using GW2580 with radiation synergistically suppressed tumor growth and recurrence. This data highlights the importance of CSF1/CSF1R signaling in the recruitment of TIMs post-radiation treatment and their significant role in promoting tumor re-growth. Moreover, our data could potentially provide a more effective and durable treatment strategy for PCa patients. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2011 Nov 12-16; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2011;10(11 Suppl):Abstract nr C227.


Abstract An interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological, historical, and ethnological data is used in the attempt to draw a general image of the role of bladdernut (Staphylea pinnata) in past societies. The purposes encountered in this literature study extend from nutritional and medicinal uses to particular ritual/religious aspects, incorporating apotropaic and sympathetic magic, the use in grave goods, and the role of bladdernut in rosaries. In the two latter purposes, the 'cut nose' aspect of the seeds is suggested to be an important symbolic factor. Research into the past cultural dimensions of plants is often restricted to plants with important uses, cultivated for millennia and ever sought after, and of fundamental meaning to human subsistence and economy. This is definitely true for the main cultivated crops of the Old World, and for plants regarded essential for other (e.g. medical) reasons. Bladdernut is definitely not one of these 'great' useful plants. Still, this shrub has had a curious past which seemed to us worth investigating, for the beliefs and meanings that still cling to it. As we will see, new beliefs are still developing. Largely building upon the previous detailed work by the first author,1 the current study pursues the goal of drawing as complete a picture as possible of the cultural relevance of bladdernut in past societies. This has been done by critically evaluating the extant literature on material evidence, written historical sources, and ethnographic studies on Staphylea pinnata across Europe, and trying to suggest new interpretations for this plant. Originally given as a conference paper by the first author listed, the following article has been considerably reworked and now includes substantially more research than previously.


This thesis presents the use of crystal structure prediction (CSP) in the evaluation and design of novel organic semiconductors. Heteroatom substitution into common organic semiconductors (pentacene in this thesis) offers a way of modulating their crystal packing and electronic properties. Initially CSP was performed on six human designed molecules and the charge mobility of their predicted crystal structures was calculated. The packing landscapes changed significantly from the unsubstituted pentacene. We found that seven nitrogen atoms led to a landscape showing a range of packing motifs, while seven nitrogen atoms favours the adoption of sheet-like motifs. Substitution patterns expected to result in the highest mobilities were found to perform worse than assumed, showing the importance of tuning both molecular electronic properties and crystal engineering. A genetic algorithm was then developed to generate new nitrogen substituted pentacenes. A population members fitness was calculated using two molecular properties important for electron transport in organic semiconductors. Five runs of the genetic algorithm gave 12 promising candidates for CSP and mobility calculations. The packing landscapes were similar to those of the seven nitrogen substituted human designed molecules. One genetic algorithm molecule showed a high number of high mobility structures close to the global minimum, making this molecule an attractive target for synthesis. Extensions to include CSP within the fitness function of the genetic algorithm represents possible future work. Addition work included the design and testing of structure generator for the generation of trial crystal structures during a CSP. The novel structure generator performed well in locating the experimental structures of three test molecules and was used in the group's submission to the 6th blind test, of which one molecule is also presented here. The experimental structure of this molecule was located in lists ranked by lattice energy and free energy, though the free energy list ranked the experimental structure as the global minimum.


We use Monte Carlo simulations and real data to assess the performance of alternative methods that deal with measurement error in investment equations. Our experiments show that individual-fixed effects, error heteroscedasticity, and data skewness severely affect the performance and reliability of methods found in the literature. In particular, estimators that use higher-order moments are shown to return biased coefficients for (both) mismeasured and perfectly-measured regressors. These estimators are also very inefficient. Instrumental variables-type estimators are more robust and efficient, although they require fairly restrictive assumptions. We estimate empirical investment models using alternative methods. Real-world investment data contain firm-fixed effects and heteroscedasticity, causing high-order moments estimators to deliver coefficients that are unstable across different specifications and not economically meaningful. Instrumental variables methods yield estimates that are robust and seem to conform to theoretical priors. Our analysis provides guidance for dealing with the problem of measurement error under circumstances empirical researchers are likely to find in practice.


Sofia (Cymbopogon martini), and lemon (Cymbopogon flexuosus) grasses, are exclusively cultivated for extraction of important lemongrass and palma rosa oils. Lignocellulosic residue (LCR) of sofia and lemon grasses left after steam distillation can successfully be used for the production of chemical grade pulp. Steam distillation mitigates the problem of mass transfer, and facilitates the faster penetration of cooking liquor by leaching out a part of extraneous components. Sofia grass produces a pulp yield of 43.7% of kappa number 20 at an active alkali dose of 14% (as Na2O), maximum cooking temperature of 160 oC and cooking time 90 min. Likewise, lemon grass produces a pulp yield of 41.4% of kappa number 12.5 under the same conditions except temperature (150 oC) by a soda pulping process. Addition of 0.1% AQ at optimum cooking conditions reduces kappa number by 26 and 8% for sofia and lemon grasses with insignificant increase in pulp yield i.e. 0.2 and 0.4% for sofia and lemon grasses, respectively. The mechanical strength properties of lemon grass soda-AQ pulp are better than sofia grass. Bauer-McNett fiber classification further validates that +20 fractions are more (62.63%) in lemon grass than in sofia grass (42.72%).


Generally, Petroleum refineries are put in place to convert or refine unprocessed crude oil into more useful products using both physical separation and chemical conversion processes. Albeit, different refining unit are subsets of the physical separation category. The atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit seems to be more prominent. Conventionally, the crude atmospheric residue cannot be further heated in an atmospheric condition due to: coke formation, pipes plugging, thermal cracking and straining of the furnace. A vacuum distillation column is therefore required.

 This study, therefore, focuses on the limitations, "over straining of the furnace to provide the necessary heat" and "non-reliance on the additional re-boiler since it only acts as a heat exchanger". An integrated distillation column with a capacity of 10,000 barrel per day was therefore designed for the concurrent production of all distillate cuts.

 This was achieved through the introduction of a submerged combustion zone at the stripping section of the column where Naphtha was utilized as the source of fuel. Verification of this approach was also conducted using Autodesk invention software and a finite element analysis tool to evaluate both thermal and computational fluid analysis impact. Overall, all derived distilled products met the American Society for Testing and Material Standard Table 6.


. On 4 June 2015, a Mw 6.0 earthquake occurred in the Sabah region (Malaysia), triggering widespread landslides along the slopes of Mt. Kinabalu. Despite the moderate magnitude, the Sabah earthquake was very efficient in triggering 10 landslides: here I provide an inventory containing 5198 slope movements, mapped in an 810 km 2 -wide area. I investigate earthquake intensity using the Environmental Seismic Intensity (ESI-07) scale, which is a macroseismic scale based exclusively on earthquake environmental effects. The epicentral ESI-07 intensity is assessed at IX, considering the dimension of the area affected by secondary effects; such figure agrees well with a dataset of global earthquakes. I estimate the volume of individual landslides using area-volume scaling laws, then I assigned an ESI-07 intensity to each 15 mapped landslide. I document that the selection of a given area-volume relation has a minor influence on the ESI-07 assignment. Then, I compare ESI-07 values to landslide density and areal percentage on a 1-km 2 grid; such parameters are widely adopted in the description of earthquake-triggered landslide inventories. I argue that their integration with the ESI-07 scale may provide an effective way to compare earthquake damage on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. The methodological workflow here illustrated is useful in joining the scientific communities dealing with the realization of 20 earthquake-triggered landslide inventories and with ESI-07 assignment; I believe this effort is beneficial for both the communities.


Due to the characteristics of large lag and high nonlinearity, the optimizing operation of wastewater treatment process (WWTP) is difficult to be designed. To solve this problem, a control optimization system based on hybrid intelligent technology is proposed in this paper. This system includes a feed-forward compensator, a feedback supervision module, a pre-setting module and a soft-sensor module. To obtain the minimum energy consumption (EC) under effluent standards, the set-points of the dissolved oxygen concentration and nitrate nitrogen concentration are adjusted through feed-forward compensation, feedback correction and online estimation. Finally, the proposed approach is applied on the WWTP simulation model. Compared to the proportional-integral- derivative (PID) and data-driven adaptive optimal controller (DDAOC) methods, simulation results of the method proposed in this paper show better performance. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.itc.46.3.16061


The origin and evolution of species' ranges remains a central focus of historical biogeography and the advent of likelihood methods based on phylogenies has revolutionized the way in which range evolution has been studied. A decade ago, the first elements of what turned out to be a popular inference approach of ancestral ranges based on the processes of Dispersal, local Extinction and Cladogenesis (DEC) was proposed. The success of the DEC model lies in its use of a flexible statistical framework known as a Continuous Time Markov Chain and since, several conceptual and computational improvements have been proposed using this as a baseline approach. In the spirit of the original version of DEC, we introduce DEC eXtended (DECX) by accounting for rapid expansion and local extinction as possible anagenetic events on the phylogeny but without increasing model complexity (i.e. in the number of free parameters). Classical vicariance as a cladogenetic event is also incorporated by making use of temporally flexible constraints on the connectivity between any two given areas in accordance with the movement of landmasses and dispersal opportunity over time. DECX is built upon a previous implementation in C/C++ and can analyze phylogenies on the order of several thousand tips in a few minutes. We test our model extensively on Pseudo Observed Datasets and on well-curated and recently published data from various island clades and a worldwide phylogeny of Amphibians (3309 species). We also propose the very first implementation of the DEC model that can specifically account for trees with fossil tips (i.e. non-ultrametric) using the phylogeny of palpimanoid spiders as a case study. In this paper, we argue in favour of the proposed improvements, which have the advantage of being computationally efficient while toeing the line of increased biological realism.


Norma Levy Shapiro, a trailblazing United States District Court Judge whose tenure on the Philadelphia federal bench spanned nearly 40 years, died July 22, 2016. This memoriam, written by two former law clerks, reflects fondly on Judge Shapiro's judicial courage to follow her conscience even when doing so required making deeply unpopular decisions. To illustrate, this memoriam examines three of Judge Shapiro's most memorable cases from her notable prisoner litigation docket.

First, in Harris v. Pernsley, Judge Shapiro's principled but polarizing decisions in the Philadelphia prison overcrowding litigation elicited a now-familiar brand of snark from one (tremendous! but imperfectly informed) commentator, who warned readers: "Unfortunately, there are plenty of Shapiros out there, which is one major reason why our streets are full of dangerous convicts." Despite frequent and equally hostile commentary from the Philadelphia press, Judge Shapiro's handling of the case brought about the closure of a notoriously derelict prison and the construction of new criminal justice facilities in Philadelphia. Second, in Chadwick v. Janecka, Judge Shapiro ruled unconstitutional the indefinite detention of a petitioner who refused to repatriate hidden offshore assets in a divorce proceeding. After reversal on appeal in an opinion written by then-Judge (now Supreme Court Justice) Samuel Alito, the petitioner went on to serve a record-breaking term of incarceration for civil contempt (14 years). Third, in Evans v. Beard, Judge Shapiro held that principles of finality prevailed over the state's interest in the belated correction of an erroneously lenient sentence 11 years after it had been imposed.

Judge Shapiro always followed her conscience along the difficult path to justice and exhibited rare courage to do what was right. If there are, indeed, "plenty of Shapiros out there," the world would be more just. But alas, there aren't, and there never were.


Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is a separation of the coronary wall layers, not related to trauma, medical procedures or atherosclerosis. The dissection causes the blood entry in the vascular wall with the consequent formation of a false lumen and intramural hematoma (IMH). Two pathogenetic mechanisms have been proposed to explain SCAD: a "primary" rupture of coronary endothelium or the rupture of the "vasa vasorum". Clinical presentation and severity of manifestations are variable, ranging from complete absence of symptoms to acute coronary syndrome (ACS), cardiogenic shock, cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death. Despite coronary angiography is the first-line examination, by supplying two-dimensional images of the lumen, it does not always allow an incontrovertible diagnosis of SCAD. New intravascular imaging techniques, such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), have been recently introduced and may be extremely helpful in assessing the coronary wall integrity, thus improving coronary angiography diagnostic accuracy.
Because of the lack of large randomized trials comparing different strategies, the optimal treatment of SCAD is still controversial. The first-line approach is conservative and based on medical therapy. Nevertheless, in particular situations an invasive approach is necessary. In the last years, several new strategies have improved the way to perform percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), such as new generation drug eluting stents (DES), bio-resorbable scaffolds (BRS), sirolimus self-expandable stent (SES), drug eluting balloons (DEB), and cutting balloon. Cardiac artery bypass graft (CABG) is an even more invasive method to restore coronary flow and should be considered in urgent/emergent settings when PCI is not feasible or has failed.
Cause the therapeutic approach of SCAD can be substantially different from that of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, an accurate diagnosis is crucial to set up the best treatment strategy.


Apoptin, a protein derived from chicken anemia virus, has previously been shown to induce apoptosis in a p53-independent and Bcl-2-stimulated manner in transformed and tumorigenic human cells but not in normal diploid human cells, suggesting that it is a potential agent for tumor therapy. Here we report that Apoptin can induce apoptosis in UV-C-irradiated diploid skin fibroblasts from individuals with various hereditary cancer-prone syndromes that are characterized by a germ-line mutation in a tumor suppressor gene. The same effect is found when these cells are irradiated with X-rays. In contrast, diploid skin fibroblasts from healthy donors or from individuals with DNA repair disorders are not responsive to Apoptin-induced apoptosis upon UV-C or X-ray irradiation. After transfection of untreated cells, Apoptin is found predominantly in the cytoplasm, whereas in UV-C-exposed Apoptin-responsive cancer-prone cells, it migrates to the nucleus, where it causes rapid apoptosis. Apoptin remains localized in the cytoplasm after UV-C treatment of diploid cells from healthy individuals. The induction of apoptosis by Apoptin in cancer-prone cells with a germ-line mutation in a tumor suppressor gene is UV dose-dependent and transient, just like many other UV-induced processes. These results suggest that Apoptin may be used as a diagnostic tool for detection of individuals with an increased risk for hereditary cancer and premalignant lesions.


ABSTRACT Morris, B.D., Foulsham, E., Laine, R., Wiecek, D. and Hanslow, D., 2016. Evaluation of run-up characteristics on the NSW coast. In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 1187–1191. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Communities and infrastructure along the coast of New South Wales, Australia, are vulnerable to coastal inundation from the combined impacts of ocean tides, storm surge, wave setup, wave run-up and wave overtopping. The focus of the current work is to examine the potential for coastal inundation on beaches and dunes on the open coast of NSW through the evaluation of wave run-up. To achieve this we combine information on tides, surge and wave runup to examine dune overtopping potential. The study utilises data from the NSW wave and ocean tide gauge network and an extensive set of beach profile and grainsize data covering over 200 beaches as well as available photogrammetry and LiDAR data. Ocean still water level and design nearshore wave conditions are used together with beach slope data to calculate wave run-up height. Choice of appropriate wave run-up formulation is evaluated through the use of available long term datasets from Narrabeen and Moruya. Geographical variability in relevant beach/dune characteristics including beach slope and dune height are examined using survey (RTK-GPS), photogrammetry and LiDAR data. Overtopping potential for various design events (e.g. 5y, 20y, 100y storms) is examined through the overlay of predicted run-up heights on high resolution digital elevation models at each pilot study site.


Purpose of review The review will highlight recent advances in development of ALK-TKIs and management of patients with ALK-positive nonsmall cell lung cancer. Recent findings There has been rapid progress in the use of targeted therapies for ALK-positive NSCLC. Since the discovery, development and approval of crizotinib in 2011, three second-generation ALK-TKIs, ceritinib, alectinib and brigatinib have been approved by the FDA. A range of newer generation ALK inhibitors with improved potency against ALK and against mutations that confer resistance to crizotinib are in clinical development. Summary Our review will discuss the recent phase III data with ceritinib and alectinib as well as clinical trials with other ALK inhibitors. We will also address two important issues in the management of ALK-positive NSCLC, prevention and treatment of brain metastases and management of emergent ALK-TKI resistance mechanisms.


Under Task 24, the RAE Team provided Quality Assurance support to the Special Recovery Line (SRL) and the Advanced Recovery and Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) projects of NMT-6. Support was provided through ESH-14. Monthly reports of work performed under this task were provided to NMT-6 and ESH-14. Copies of these reports are in RAE's project files. The procedures and assessment reports required by the task are on file only at NMT-6 because of the sensitive nature of the information. In March 1999, our subcontractor, General Physics, informed us that the two individuals working on the task were resigning effective April 2, 1999. RAE notified Gary Cort, ESH-14 technical representative for the task, and offered to replace the two individuals so that we could complete our obligations under the task (e-mail attached). No reply was ever received from Mr. Cert. We then reiterated our concern and offer of replacement with Mr. Cort's deputy, Spencer Hill (e-mail attached). No reply was received from Mr. Hill either. We subsequently learned the two General Physics employees were hired by another contractor and that the remaining work under the task was given to that contractor. We assumed our obligations under the task were completed atmore » that point and notified the contracting officer to that effect.« less


This paper presents a precision current sensor featuring a high voltage, high gain (~ 140 dB), and low input offset ( < 1 mV) current sense amplifier. This amplifier does not require offset trimming even for low offset applications. It is a single stage amplifier that has a common gate pMOS differential input pair, which makes it inherently stable. This amplifier topology allows for a wide input common-mode range, thus increasing the versatility of current sensing circuit.


One of the most distinctive features of Beowulf is the presentation of Grendel and his mother as members of Cain's monstrous progeny. What knowledge of a race (or races) of giants and monsters descended from Cain, and of their survival after the Flood, is the poet likely to have had? I take up the first part of this question in this article and the second part in an article to be published later in Anglo-Saxon England.


The history of the Zeus sanctuary Labraunda in Karia began in the Archaic period and continued until Late Antiquity. The focus of this paper is to investigate a side of the sanctuary which hitherto has not been subject to extensive study: the females of Labraunda, both immortal and mortal. The aim is to show the traces of females in the archaeological material (terracotta figurines, sculptures, reliefs, pottery and small finds) and the inscriptions, and discuss what kind of material is needed to discern the presence of someone at a sanctuary. The study has shown that several goddesses might have been present in Labraunda, some having their own cult, while others are more probable to have been visiting gods. It has also been shown that mortal females are not present in the material in a distinctive way, and that their supposed absence from the cult might depend on the character of Zeus Labraundos.


Aims: Q-LAMP aims to identify risk factors and resilience factors for symptoms of psychiatric illness during the pandemic. Study strengths include the 1-year longitudinal design and the use of standardized instruments already available in English and Arabic. The results will increase understanding of the impact of the pandemic on mental health for better support of the population during the pandemic and in future epidemics. Until an effective vaccine is available or herd immunity is achieved, countries are likely to encounter repeated 'waves' of infection. The identification of at-risk groups for mental illness will inform the planning and delivery of individualized treatment including primary prevention. Methodology: Longitudinal online survey; SMS-based recruitment and social media platforms advertisements e.g. Facebook, Instagram; Online consent; Completion time for questionnaires: approx. 20 to 30 minute; Baseline questionnaire with follow up at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months; Study completion date: Sept. 2021. Inclusion criteria: Currently living in Qatar; Qatari residents: citizens and expatriates; Age 18 years; read Arabic or English (questionnaire and consent form available in both languages). Instruments: Sociodemographic questionnaire including personal and family experience of COVID-19 infection; Standard instruments to assess psychiatric morbidity including depression, anxiety and PTSD; research team-designed instruments to assess social impact of pandemic; standard questionnaires to assess resilience, personality, loneliness, religious beliefs and social networks. Results: The analysis was based on 181 observations. Approximately, 3.5% of the sample was from the sms-recruitment method. The sample of completed surveys consisted of 65.0% females and 35.0% males. Qatari respondents comprised 27.0% of the total sample, while 52% of the sample were married, 25% had Grade 12 or lower level of educational attainment, and 46.0% were unemployed. Covid-19 appears to have affected different aspects of people's lives from personal health to living arrangements, employment, and health of family and friends. Approximately, 41% to 55% of those who responded to the survey perceived changes in their stress levels, mental health, and loneliness to be worse than before the pandemic. Additionally, the wide availability of information about the pandemic on the internet and social media was perceived as source of pandemic-related worries among members of the public. Conclusion: The continued provision of mental health service and educational campaigns about effective stress and mental health management is warranted.


ABSTRACT There is a lack of studies of foot orthosis use in the common condition of anserine bursitis. The aim of this study was to determine the proportion of subjects reporting recovery from anserine bursitis with prescribed custom-made foot orthoses in addition to local corticosteroid injection versus corticosteroid injection alone. Sixty-nine consecutive patients presenting with symptoms and findings compatible with a case definition for anserine bursitis were included in this study. A total of 35 subjects were prescribed a local corticosteroid injection into the anserine bursa under fluoroscopic guidance (control group), and 34 subjects were equally prescribed a fluoroscopically guided local corticosteroid injection with the addition of custom-made foot orthoses (orthoses group). All subjects completed the Oswestry Disability Index at baseline, and the number of subjects using prescribed analgesics for their knee pain was recorded at baseline and at follow-up of 8 weeks and 4 months. The subjects were asked at each follow-up if they felt that they had recovered from their knee pain. A total of 33 subjects in each group completed the study at 8 weeks, and 32 subjects in each group completed the 4-month follow-up. At 8 weeks, 55% reported recovery in the control group and 76% reported recovery in the orthoses group. The number of subjects who reported recovery at 4 months, however, was markedly different between the groups, with only 41% reporting recovery in the control group and 88% reporting recovery in the orthoses group. The addition of custom-made foot orthoses to local corticosteroid injection seems to improve the short- and long-term outcome with fewer recurrences. What is already known on this subject: 1) Anserine bursitis is a common condition. 2) There are no studies to date of foot orthosis use in the treatment approach. What this study adds: 1) This is the first controlled trial of custom-made foot orthoses in anserine bursitis, a common knee disorder. 2) Custom-made orthoses, when added to usual care for anserine bursitis, increase the likelihood of recovery at 8 weeks and 4 months. How it might impact on clinical practice in the near future: The addition of custom-made foot orthoses may increase the recovery rate from anserine bursitis.


Purpose: To investigate the discrepancy between reported and measured doses of individual subfields in multiple MLC carriage groups for IMRT QA using the Varian system. Method and Materials: The Varian leaf motion controller splits large fields into multiple MLC carriage groups for dynamic delivery. This process is handled automatically by the treatment planning system at time of transfer to the R&V system without requiring dose recalculation. As such, the reported point doses can be different from measured point doses for the individual subfields. Fifty IMRT fields that were split into two or more subfields were examined. The large fields were calculated and delivered on an IMRT verification phantom. To further investigate the point dose contribution from individual subfields, the fields created by the export process were recalculated. The reported and measured point doses were compared for each subfield individually and for the original large‐field as a whole. Results: Comparisons of the reported point doses and measured point doses for the original large‐field as a whole are typically within a few percent. However, the reported point doses for the individual subfields are inconsistent with the measured point dose for the original plan. In some instances, this difference can be orders of magnitude. Point dose contributions from the subfields as reported in the recalculated plans are more intuitive and consistent with the measured point doses. Conclusion: The reported dose of large‐fields with multiple MLC carriage groups as a whole is understood and in acceptable agreement with measurements. However, the origin of the reported point dose contribution of each individual subfield in the original plan is unclear and may not be correct. The use of this dose in comparison with measurements is not recommended without recalculation.


Objectives. We described the racial/ethnic disparities in survival among people diagnosed with AIDS in Florida from 1993 to 2004, as the availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) became widespread. We determined whether these disparities decreased after controlling for measures of community-level socioeconomic status. Methods. We compared survival from all causes between non-Hispanic Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites vis-a-vis survival curves and Cox proportional hazards models controlling for demographic, clinical, and area-level poverty factors. Results. Racial/ethnic disparities in survival peaked for those diagnosed during the early implementation of HAART (1996–1998) with a Black-to-White hazard ratio (HR) of 1.72 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.62, 1.83) for males and 1.40 (95% CI = 1.24, 1.59) for females. These HRs declined significantly to 1.48 (95% CI = 1.35, 1.64) for males and nonsignificantly to 1.25 (95% CI = 1.05, 1.48) for females in the 2002 to 2004 diagnosis cohort. Disparities decreased significantly for males but not females when controlling for baseline demographic factors and CD4 count and percentage, and became nonsignificant in the 2002 to 2004 cohort after controlling for area poverty. Conclusions. Area poverty appears to play a role in racial/ethnic disparities even after controlling for demographic factors and CD4 count and percentage. ( Am JP ublic Health.2013;103:717–726. doi:10.2105/AJPH. 2012.300930)


Mass customization and global competition push enterprises to adopt proper business models able to capture all the opportunities arising from emerging competition rules. An increasing number of industrial enterprises distribute their production capacity world wide to achieve lower production costs, lower distribution costs (due to the closer proximity to customers), and deeper knowledge of customer needs. As a drawback, coordination of the different production plants and the balance among plants and enterprise goals represent a critical issue in the network management. In this context the paper looks at the production planning problem, adopting a traditional hierarchical time-based perspective in the analysis of the global process and suggesting a decentralized planning approach to deal with the originated subtasks related to different time horizons. In particular, the paper suggests a production planning architecture able to highlight relationships among subtasks' variables in which mechanisms assure consistency among solutions of different planning levels. Moreover, the paper proposes negotiation frameworks as effective tools to manage production planning subtasks.