Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of low-dose intravenous ketamine in addition to intravenous propofol for procedural sedation and analgesia in the emergency department (ED). Data Sources: Articles were identified using PubMed (1949'February 2007), MEDLINE (1966'February 2007), EMBASE (1980'February 2007), BioMed Central (to February 2007), the Cochrane Library (to February 2007), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and Google Scholar (until February 2007). Reference citations from retrieved publications were also reviewed. Search terms included ketamine, propofol, ketamine–propofol, ketofol, combination, sedation, procedural sedation, conscious sedation, and emergency department. Study Selection And Data Extraction: All articles on prospective procedural sedation that were published or translated into English and that compared combination ketamine–propofol with an appropriate comparator group were included. Clinically relevant safety endpoints included the frequency of significant hemodynamic and respiratory compromise warranting medical intervention, nausea, vomiting, and emergence reactions. Time until hospital discharge criteria were met and patient satisfaction scores were efficacy endpoints of interest. Data Synthesis: Of the 11 trials included in this review, most had small sample sizes and were conducted in non-ED settings. The ketamine-propofol combination demonstrated no additional efficacy over propofol in terms of time to discharge. Although fewer patients given the ketamine-propofol combination experienced significant hemodynamic and respiratory compromise, need for active interventions, including fluid or vasopressor administration, supplemental oxygen, or assisted ventilation did not differ between groups. Patients who received higher doses of adjuvant ketamine reported an increased incidence of nausea, vomiting, and emergence reactions following the procedure. Few studies reported patient satisfaction scores postprocedure, and effect of ketamine-propofol on time-to-discharge criteria met was inconclusive. Conclusions: At this time, insufficient clinica) evidence exists to recommend the routine use of low-dose ketamine with propofol for procedural sedation in the ED setting.


The adoption of simulation is critical to reducing development time and enhancing system robustness for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Automotive companies typically have an abundance of real data recorded from a vehicle which is suitable for open-loop simulations. However, recorded data is often not suitable to test closed-loop control systems since the recorded data cannot react to changes in vehicle movement. This paper introduces a methodology to create virtual driving scenarios from recorded vehicle data to enable closed-loop simulation. This methodology is applied to test a lane centering application. A lane centering application helps a driver control steering to stay in the current lane and control acceleration and braking to maintain a set speed or to follow a preceding vehicle. The driver's vehicle is referred to as the ego vehicle. Other vehicles on the road are referred to as target vehicles. To test the lane centering system in simulation, engineers must model the ego vehicle (sensors and dynamics) as well as the scenario (roads and target vehicles). A virtual driving scenario is created by reconstructing roads and target vehicles using GPS, camera-based lane detections, radar-based vehicle detections, and map data. The virtual driving scenario is integrated into a closed-loop simulation to assess the behavior of a lane centering system.


Physician specialty has been consistently associated with different malpractice claim rates, with neurosurgery, orthopedics, and obstetrics and gynecology having the highest rates. Whether these differences reflect physician performance or other aspects of patient care that are unique for each specialty is unclear. A retrospective cohort study was performed including 12,829 physicians involved in 8,221 closed cases from 1977 to 1991. For each case an assessment was made whether the plaintiff received an award and whether the physician care of the patient was indefensible. An award was made to the plaintiff in 42% of cases. Physician care was considered indefensible in 23% of the cases. The specialties with the highest award rates were anesthesiology (58.3%), obstetrics and gynecology (47.5%), and radiology (43.0%). Neurosurgery had the lowest rate of award (30.2%). The specialties with the highest indefensibility rates were radiology (36%), obstetrics and gynecology (27%), and anesthesiology (27%). Neurosurgery had the lowest indefensibility rate (10%). These results were unchanged after controlling for physician age, degree, site of training, certification status, and severity of patient injury. In conclusion, differences in award rate and indefensibility are present, but not large enough to explain the large variation in specialty claim rates. This suggests that the variation in malpractice rates results from factors other than a meaningful difference in physician performance.


The present research explored the value of students' college majors as indicators of creativity, particularly creative traits, accomplishments, and interests. Two samples of undergraduate students indicated all of their majors, minors, and degree concentrations; each person was then simply classified as having a major in the arts or a conventional major. Consistent with past work on individual differences in creativity, students with arts majors scored significantly higher in openness to experience, knowledge about the fine arts, creative accomplishments, everyday creative actions, and creative self-concepts; they also described their major as affording more opportunities to develop and express their creativity. Taken together, the findings suggest that students' majors offer interesting information about individual differences related to creativity.


The drawability of ferrite-austenite dual phase wires decreased with increasing volume fraction and decreasing mechanical stability of austenite. The interface of the martensite and ferrite was identified as the void nucleation site and the number density of voids increased with increasing austenite volume fraction. The plastic incompatibility at the interface was assumed to be the main reason for void nucleation. The ferrite-austenite dual phase steels could be drawn to a maximum true strain of 8.0 without intermediate heat treatment. The tensile strength of the drawn wires increased with increasing volume fraction of austenite or, in other words, with increasing volume fraction of transformed martensite.


949 A debate about the market-leading influenza antiviral medication, oseltamivir, which initially focused on treatment for generally mild illness, has been expanded to question the wisdom of stockpiling for use in future influenza pandemics. Although randomized controlled trial evidence confirms that oseltamivir will reduce symptom duration by 17–25 hours among otherwise healthy adolescents and adults with community-managed disease, no randomized controlled trials have examined the effectiveness of oseltamivir against more serious outcomes. Observational studies, although criticized on methodologic grounds, suggest that oseltamivir given early can reduce the risk for death by half among persons hospitalized with confirmed infection caused by influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and influenza A(H5N1) viruses. However, available randomized controlled trial data may not be able to capture the effect of oseltamivir use among hospitalized patients with severe disease. We assert that data on outpatients with relatively mild disease should not form the basis for policies on the management of more severe disease.


Background: Noise pollution has been called an invisible killer. It has been a critical issue for the people working in the noisy environments especially in industry and education. This study was conducted to evaluate the differences of neuronal activity between groups, an experimental group is profession in occupational noise environments and a control group is who did not, and all of the subjects had tinnitus or hyperacusis. We used the electroencephalography data from 17 patients. The two experimental subjects were a tinnitus patient and a hyperacusis patient. The fifteen control subjects were seven tinnitus and eight hyperacusis patients and all of the subjects had normal hearing.Results: We compared the brain activity for three states among the groups: after noise-induced state and no sound exposure state for the two experimental subjects, and no sound exposure state for the control group. The activity of the auditory cortex in the experimental group after noise exposure were significantly increased in gamma (p = 0.002) and decreased in delta and theta band. In other brain areas, the rates of the delta, theta, beta 1~3 and gamma for the control group were higher than the experimental subjects for both with or without noise exposure states.Conclusions: Through this study, it was suggested that the professions of tinnitus and hyperacusis with normal hearing in occupational noise environment could be maintain their pathological states by abnormal hyper-activation of the primary and secondary auditory cortex alone.


Ependymal tumors are rare CNS tumors and may occur at any age, but their proportion among primary brain tumors is highest in children and young adults. Thus, the level of evidence of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions is higher in the pediatric compared with the adult patient population.The diagnosis and disease staging is performed by craniospinal MRI. Tumor classification is achieved by histological and molecular diagnostic assessment of tissue specimens according to the World Health Organization (WHO) classification 2016. Surgery is the crucial initial treatment in both children and adults. In pediatric patients with intracranial ependymomas of WHO grades II or III, surgery is followed by local radiotherapy regardless of residual tumor volume. In adults, radiotherapy is employed in patients with anaplastic ependymoma WHO grade III, and in case of incomplete resection of WHO grade II ependymoma. Chemotherapy alone is reserved for young children <12 months and for adults with recurrent disease when further surgery and irradiation are no longer feasible. A gross total resection is the mainstay of treatment in spinal ependymomas, and radiotherapy is reserved for incompletely resected tumors. Nine subgroups of ependymal tumors across different anatomical compartments (supratentorial, posterior fossa, spinal) and patient ages have been identified with distinct genetic and epigenetic alterations, and with distinct outcomes. These findings may lead to more precise diagnostic and prognostic assessments, molecular subgroup-adapted therapies, and eventually new recommendations pending validation in prospective studies.


We propose an optimal control framework for persistent monitoring problems where the objective is to control the movement of multiple cooperating agents to minimize an uncertainty metric in a given mission space. In a one-dimensional mission space, we show that the optimal solution is for each agent to move at maximal speed from one switching point to the next, possibly waiting some time at each point before reversing its direction. Thus, the solution is reduced to a simpler parametric optimization problem: determining a sequence of switching locations and associated waiting times at these switching points for each agent. This amounts to a hybrid system which we analyze using Infinitesimal Perturbation Analysis (IPA) to obtain a complete on-line solution through a gradient-based algorithm. We also show that the solution is robust with respect to the uncertainty model used. This establishes the basis for extending this approach to a two-dimensional mission space.


The objective in the construction of models of software quality is to use measures that may be obtained relatively early in the software development life cycle to provide reasonable initial estimates of the quality of an evolving software system. Measures of software quality and software complexity to be used in this modeling process exhibit systematic departures of the normality assumptions of regression modeling. Two new estimation procedures are introduced, and their performances in the modeling of software quality from software complexity in terms of the predictive quality and the quality of fit are compared with those of the more traditional least squares and least absolute value estimation techniques. The two new estimation techniques did produce regression models with better quality of fit and predictive quality when applied to data obtained from two software development projects. >


Background: Smartphone apps have the potential to help drinkers reduce hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. However, there have been few evaluations of the effectiveness of these apps and none to our knowledge that estimates the effects of individual intervention components. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention components of an alcohol reduction app, Drink Less. Materials and Methods: Drink Less is a freely available app to any individual in the UK making an attempt to reduce their drinking. The app was structured around goal setting with information on the UK drinking guidelines, units and alcohol-related harms. The app offered access to five additional intervention modules – Normative Feedback, Cognitive Bias Re-training, Self-monitoring and Feedback, Action Planning and Identity Change – to help them achieve their goal. Excessive drinkers (AUDIT >=8) who were aged 18+ were orthogonally randomised to receive 'enhanced' or 'minimal' versions of each of the five modules (to a total of 25 experimental conditions). The primary outcome measure was change in past week consumption at one-month follow-up. Secondary measures were change in AUDIT score, usage data and usability ratings. A factorial between-subjects ANOVA assessed main and interactive effects of the app modules using an intention-to-treat analysis. Results: Of 672 study participants, 27% responded to follow-up. At baseline, the mean past week consumption was 39.9 units (SD=27.34) and mean AUDIT score was 19.1 (SD=6.56). There were no significant main effects of the intervention modules on either measure. There were two-way interactions between enhanced Self-monitoring and Feedback and Action Planning on AUDIT score (F=5.818, p=0.016) and between enhanced Normative Feedback and Cognitive Bias Re-training on past week consumption (F=4.676, p=0.031). Enhanced Self-monitoring and Feedback was used more often and rated more positively for helpfulness, satisfaction and recommendation than the minimal version. Conclusions: Individual enhanced modules were not more effective compared with their minimal condition. The combinations of Self-monitoring and Feedback with Action Planning, and Normative Feedback with Cognitive Bias Re-training resulted in significant reductions in alcohol-related outcomes when both modules were enhanced. Users rated the Self-monitoring and Feedback module significantly more positively when it was enhanced.


We would like to thank Huang et al . for comments on our recent report, which assessed the "antitumor effect and safety profile of systemically delivered oncolytic adenovirus complexed with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeted poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM)-based dendrimer (1)". We read the comments with great interest and acknowledging that this is an area urgently requiring more research to improve safety of nanomaterials in gene therapy for clinical application.


After marijuana is legalized, the costs of producing and selling it will collapse and a windfall economic gain will be up for grabs. Policymakers might allow that gain to go to consumers (encouraging consumption) or to cannabusinesses (encouraging production). Or, through revenue measures, they might direct the gain to society as a whole. The safest, correctable way to distribute an intoxicant is government monopoly, but the federal government prohibits, at least nominally, the sale of marijuana, so state sales of marijuana would face harsh federal scrutiny. It's not clear that a work-around, keeping state control over location and price while assigning sales concessions to businesses, would avoid a federal crackdown. Taxing private enterprise, Colorado and Washington style, may be a second-best solution, but the federal government is tolerating it, so far. Taxation requires choice of a tax base. Taxing by THC potency is theoretically appealing, but unworkable. A price tax base has several pitfalls. Even a weight base is problematic. Three other legalization models are possible: auctioning licenses, collective farming, and sales by nonprofits. Because no one really knows how to legalize, flexibility to change course is of the utmost importance. Because monopoly may be the safest and most flexible path, it's crazy for the federal government to bar it for states — and to treat states worse than profit-seeking marijuana businesses.


A case of cat scratch disease with a submental mass as the initial symptom has been presented. The disease should be considered in the evaluation of swellings and masses of the cervicofacial region. However, because of the benign course of cat scratch disease, other more serious disease processes must be ruled out before establishing the diagnosis of cat scratch disease.


The introduction of the natural and the diapoint variables has simplified considerably the investigation of problems in the large, problems where we can give the eiconal in closed form, and therefore for each object ray the image ray. The author and H. Boegehold have, first together and then alone, investigated problems of this kind. The author sketches first once more his new method, and gives then a series of examples, such as the eiconal for the case where to each object point belongs a rotation symmetric caustic, the eiconal for sharp image formation of two surfaces, the eiconal in the case where there is perfect centric symmetry, and other examples which are discussed as far as the time limit permits.


In Kenya miraa is of prime economic importance as it feeds a ever-growing national and international market. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of miraa production and trade on secondary education in Kiritiri and Kianjiru zones. The objectives of this study were to find out the extent to wish miraa production and trade has affected secondary education in terms of enrolment, KCSE performance, retention and expansion. The study was guided by Merton's structural strain theory which states that deviant behaviour is the natural outgrowth of values, norms and structures in society. It adopted the survey design. The study was conducted in miraa growing zones of Kiritiri and Kianjiru. The total target population was all the students in the public secondary schools in the two zones, the head teachers and the class teachers. There are 10 head teachers, 58 class teachers and 852 students in the two zones which adds up to a total target population of 920. Purposive sampling techniques was used. All the ten secondary schools were included in the sample. Class teachers were sampled as follows; 8 from boarding schools, 12 from mixed day and boarding schools and 8 from mixed day schools. A total of 25 students in forms 2, 3 and 4 and from each school were selected for the study. The total sample was 288 respondents. Two research instruments were used to collect data; questionnaires and interview schedules. Piloting was done in one secondary school. Reliability of the instruments was done through test-retest method. Validity of the instruments was done through expert judgment of my supervisors at Kenyatta University. Qualitative data.was organized into themes, categories and patterns relevant to the study. Quantitative data was coded and analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The results were presented using descriptive statistics such as percentages, means and frequency distribution tables. Miraa has boosted the standards of living of the people in the region making them lead decent lives. Miraa has also negatively affected education in that many youths have dropped out of school. The study recommends that the government should initiate programmes and policies as regards miraa trade and production. Similarly churches and NGOs should carry out elaborate campaigns to sensitize the community on pros and the.cons of miraa chewing and should also initiate the introduction of other alternative cash crops. The study recommends further investigation on social-cultrual and economic lives of the people in the region.


Background: Adequate knowledge and positive attitude and behaviour of asthmatic patients towards their illness are prerequisites for optimal management; however, there is paucity of data regarding these in the Sudan. Objectives: To evaluate the knowledge and beliefs of asthmatic patients about asthma and to assess their attitude and behaviour regarding their acceptance of the diagnosis of asthma, use of inhalers, compliance to preventers and trial of non-medical methods for treatment. Patients and methods: A sample of 490 asthmatic patients, 52% males and 48% females, was selected randomly from three major hospitals in Khartoum State during the period from January to June 2005. Inclusion criteria were adult, known asthmatic for one year or more, educated to at least higher secondary school and living in the urban areas in Khartoum State. Each patient responded to a structured questionnaire assessing his/her knowledge about asthma aetiology, pathophysiology, symptoms, treatment and triggering factors; and evaluating his/her attitude and behaviour regarding asthma diagnosis, inhalers, anti-inflammatory drugs and non-medical methods of treatment. Results: Asthma was believed to be infectious by 5% of patients and inherited by 67%. The role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of asthma was known to only 11% of all patients in the study group. The principal triggering factors known to the patients were dust (in 78%) and upper respiratory tract infections (in 67%). The diagnosis of asthma was refused by 27% of patients who preferred to be described as allergic rather than asthmatic. About 46% of the patients did not use preventers (in the form of steroid inhalers or tablets) regularly when prescribed. Most patients in the study (88%) used inhalers for treatment of asthma attacks whereas 12% were reluctant to use inhalers. About 44% of asthmatic patients tried non-medical methods for the purpose of cure. These included honey, Kammon, cigarettes, acupuncture, and Quran. Conclusion: Asthmatic patients in Khartoum State have poor knowledge about the pathogenesis of asthma, especially the inflammatory nature of the disease. More than a quarter of them are reluctant to accept the diagnosis of asthma and prefer to be described as allergic. Most of them use inhalers for treatment of asthma attacks and less than half do not use preventers regularly when prescribed. * Corresponding author: Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, E-mail: email@example.com


—Many-objective optimization has posed a great chal- lenge to the classical Pareto dominance-based multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). In this paper, an evolution- ary algorithm based on a new dominance relation is proposed for many-objective optimization. The proposed evolutionary algo- rithm aims to enhance the convergence of the recently suggested nondominated sorting genetic algorithm III by exploiting the fit- ness evaluation scheme in the MOEA based on decomposition, but still inherit the strength of the former in diversity maintenance. In the proposed algorithm, the nondominated sorting scheme based on the introduced new dominance relation is employed to rank solutions in the environmental selection phase, ensuring both convergence and diversity. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on a number of well-known benchmark problems having 3–15 objectives and compared against eight state-of-the-art algorithms. The extensive experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can work well on almost all the test functions considered in this paper, and it is compared favorably with the other many-objective optimizers. Additionally, a parametric study is provided to inves- tigate the influence of a key parameter in the proposed algorithm.


Environmental Technologies to Treat Sulfur Pollution: Principles and Engineering provides a definitive and detailed discussion of state-of-the-art environmental technologies to treat pollution by sulfurous compounds of wastewater, off-gases, solid waste, soils and sediments.

Special attention is given to novel bioremediation techniques that have been developed over the last 10 years. Information density is unique owing to the many figures and graphs (150), tables (over 80) and over 1500 cited literature references.

A detailed subject index helps the reader to find their way through the different technological applications, making it the perfect reference work for professionals and consultants dealing with sulfur-related environmental (bio)-technologies.

This title belongs to Integrated Environmental Technology Series

ISBN: 9781900222099 (Print)

ISBN: 9781780403038 (eBook)


This paper study the Story in Quran and its elements with specific focus on character building. The best source for man's guidance in the world has been the religious scriptures and indeed the greatest among them is the holy Quran. In the Quranic story you will taste the beauty because it enters in the human soul to transcend the ideas of noble holiness in the Qur'anic stories, The Qur'an used the method of the story to communicate and a tool to persuade people, The Qur'an used the method of the story to communicate and a tool to persuade people. The Qur'anic story format allows the soul to elevate ideas to noble holiness in the Qur'anic stories. The paper highlighted a detailed charter which the Quran has given in connection with each aspect of human personality as there is a verse or more in the Quran which guides a person for each and every conduct of his life. It is worth mentioning that the paper characterized by talking an integrated approach for the research. Results shows The Qur'anic story provides us with principles through which we should confront rumors and the Qur'an's description of the ugliness of a phenomenon that harms human behavior. The research follows Analytical inductive research methods.


Texas law regarding the legal status of women and their property rights developed from the mingling of Spanish and English laws. Spanish laws regarding the protection of women's rights developed during the centuries-long Reconquest, when the Spanish Christians slowly took back the Iberian Peninsula from the Moorish conquerors. Women were of special importance to the expansion of Spanish civilization. Later, when Spain conquered and colonized the New World, these rights for women came, too.

In the New World, women's rights under Spanish law remained the same as in Spain. Again, the Spanish were spreading their civilization across frontiers and women needed protection. When the Spanish moved into Texas, they brought their laws with them yet again. Archival evidence demonstrates that Spanish laws in early Texas remained essentially unchanged with regard to the status of women.

Events in the history of England caused its legal system to develop in a different manner from Spain's. In England, the protection of property was the law's most important goal. With the growth of English common law, husbands gained the right to control their wives's lives in that married women lost all legal identity.

When the English legal system crossed the Atlantic and took root in the United States, little changed, especially in the southern states, when migrants from there entered Texas. When these Anglo-American colonists came into contact with Spanish/Mexican laws, they tended to prefer the legal system they knew best. Accordingly, with the creation of the Republic of Texas, and later the state of Texas, most laws derived from English common law. From Spanish laws, legislators adopted only those that dealt with the protection of women, developed on the Spanish frontier, because they were so much more suitable to life in Texas. Later lawmakers and judges used these same laws to protect the family's property from creditors, as well as to advance the legal status of women in Texas.


Background: Osteochondral lesions of the tibial plafond (OLTPs) can lead to chronic ankle pain and disability. It is not known how limited ankle motion or joint distraction affects arthroscopic accessibility of these lesions. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of different fixed flexion angles and distraction on accessibility of the distal tibial articular surface during anterior and posterior arthroscopy. Methods: Fourteen below-knee cadaver specimens underwent anterior and posterior ankle arthroscopy using a 30-degree 2.7-mm arthroscopic camera. Intra-articular working space was measured with a precision of 1 mm using sizing rods. The accessible areas at the plafond were marked under direct visualization at varying fixed ankle flexion positions. Arthroscopic accessibilities were normalized as percent area using a surface laser scan. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the relationship between preoperative ankle range of motion, amount of distraction, arthroscopic approach, and arthroscopic plafond visualization. Results: There was significantly greater accessibility during posterior arthroscopy (73.5%) compared with anterior arthroscopy (51.2%) in the neutral ankle position (P = .007). There was no difference in accessibility for anterior arthroscopy with increasing level of plantarflexion (P > .05). Increasing dorsiflexion during posterior arthroscopy significantly reduced ankle accessibility (P = .028). There was a significant increase in accessibility through the anterior and posterior approach with increasing amount of intra-articular working space (parameter estimates ± SE): anterior = 14.2 ± 3.34 (P < .01) and posterior = 10.6 ± 3.7 (P < .05). Frequency data showed that the posterior third of the plafond was completely inaccessible in 33% of ankles during anterior arthroscopy. The frequency of inaccessible anterior plafond during posterior arthroscopy was 12%. Conclusion: Intra-articular working space and arthroscopic accessibility were greater during posterior arthroscopy compared with anterior arthroscopy. Improved accessibility of OLTPs may be achieved from posterior arthroscopy. Arthroscopic accessibility was heavily dependent on the amount of intraoperative joint working space achieved and not on ankle position. Clinical Relevance: OLTPs are often encountered in tandem with talar lesions, and safely achieving intra-articular working space through noninvasive distraction greatly improved arthroscopic accessibility.


IPTV services are the fastest growing television services in the world today. This is a bandwidth intensive service, requiring low latency and tight control of jitter. To guarantee the quality of service required, service providers opt to multicast all TV channels at all times to everywhere. However, a significant number of channels are rarely watched, so this method is provably resource- and energy-inefficient.
 In this paper, we argue that the expected increase in quantity and quality of TV channels will become a serious issue, both in terms of bandwidth and energy costs. To overcome this problem, we propose a dynamic scheme that pre-joins only a selection of TV channels. This scheme was evaluated by means of trace-driven simulations using a large dataset from a commercial nationwide IPTV service. The dataset comprises 255 thousand users, 150 TV channels, and covers a 6-month period.
 We show that by using our scheme IPTV service providers can save a considerable amount of bandwidth while affecting only a very small number of TV channel switching requests. To understand how these bandwidth savings are translated in energy savings, we developed a power consumption model for network equipment based on real measurements. The main conclusions are that while today the bandwidth savings will have reduced impact in energy consumption in the core network, with the introduction of very high definition channels this impact will become significant, justifying the use of resource-efficient distribution schemes such as the one proposed.


A wealth of research proposals in ad hoc networks has been seen on the problem of routing along power efficient paths. However they do not take into account the interests of individual nodes. Managed by different profit-oriented entities, network nodes can no longer be assumed to cooperate with each other. Incentive-compatible routing seems to be more realistic to deal with selfish nodes in ad hoc networks. We propose the transmission power recursive auction mechanism (TEAM) routing protocol to prevent the selfish behavior and stimulate cooperative work from the game theoretic approach. It pays nodes for their services and makes cheating not attractive. Interests of nodes are best served if they only reveal true information. With some assumptions the truthfulness of TEAM can be proved. We present a theoretical bound of the power efficiency of TEAM protocol. It is also shown that, compared to another truthful routing protocol, Ad hoc-VCG, TEAM reduces the message complexity significantly.


Background: Tick bite-induced galactose-α-1,3-galactose (α-Gal) IgE and subsequent ingestion of red meat may cause delayed severe allergic reactions including urticaria, gastrointestinal symptoms or anaphylaxis. We tested the hypothesis that increased levels of IgE to α-Gal due to tick bites and the subsequent ingestion of red meat or meat products may possibly be an un(der)recognized cause of chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU). Methods: Levels of IgE to α-Gal and total IgE were measured (ImmunoCAP, Phadia AB/Thermo Fisher Scientific) in 83 patients (61 female and 22 male, median age 43 years, range 18-82) from the Department of Dermatology and Allergy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany. All had been clinically diagnosed with moderate-to-severe CSU of a median duration of 2.9 years (range 0.1-50). Results: Eighty of the 83 patients (96%) had undetectable (<0.1 kUA/l) serum levels of IgE against α-Gal. The levels in the remaining 3 were all low (0.25, 0.4 and 3.1 kUA/l). In no patient, including those with measurable serum levels of IgE against α-Gal, was eating red meat associated with the development of symptoms of urticaria. Conclusion: Our results indicate that an allergic response to α-Gal is highly unlikely to be a hitherto unrecognized common cause of CSU.


Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is endemic in Kenya where serotypes A, O, SAT1 and SAT2 are
frequently encountered. Despite the importance of the dairy industry and the frequent
reporting of disease, the epidemiology of FMD and field-based vaccine effectiveness has been
poorly described in these endemic settings. Additionally, the disease impact has been
inadequately characterised, despite the importance of such information when allocating scarce
resources for animal health in national disease control strategies. The objectives of this
doctoral thesis were to gain field experience of FMD in endemic settings and to use
appropriate outbreaks to assess the vaccine effectiveness, gather evidence to optimise the use
of vaccines and inform national policy, and to estimate disease impact.
Outbreaks on two large-scale dairy farms located within Nakuru County, Kenya, were
investigated and detailed descriptions of the outbreaks are presented. Both farms regularly
used locally produced, aqueous adjuvanted, non-NSP purified quadrivalent (A, O, SAT1, SAT2)
vaccine every 4-6 months. The first attended outbreak was caused by serotype SAT2 and
evidence was found of limited or no vaccine effectiveness. At the second outbreak, due to
serotype O, there was evidence of increasing protection with increasing number of doses. The
reasons behind the vaccine poor effectiveness are discussed and are likely to include poor
match with the field strain and inappropriate schedules in youngstock. Virus neutralisation test
data were made available from the vaccine manufacturer who sample animals on farms using
routine prophylactic vaccination. The influence of maternally derived antibody on the response
to vaccination was investigated with these data and recommendations on vaccine schedules
and future research priorities are made based on the evidence presented.
On the farm that had SAT2, analysis of the disease impact was performed using individual
animal data. Longitudinal analysis of individual milk yields utilising generalised estimating
equations and an autoregressive variance structure to account for the correlation of yields for
individual animals was performed. Predictions of 305-day milk yields were made based on
previous lactations in the same herd. Despite a clear herd level impact, no difference was
found between recorded clinical FMD cases and non-cases. More detailed analysis revealed
significant reductions among older animals in earlier stages of lactation but younger cows
were able to recover sufficiently so that no overall impact was seen. The impact of clinical
disease on the rate of clinical mastitis and culling was analysed utilising a historical cohort
approach with survival analysis over a 12-month period after the commencement of the outbreak. Hazard ratios (HR) were generated using Cox regression accounting for nonproportional
hazards by inclusion of time-varying effects. There was good evidence of an
increased rate of mastitis in the first month after the onset of the outbreak (HR=2.9, 95%CI
0.97-8.9, P=0.057) although the effect on culling was less clear. The implications of these
findings for policy and further research are discussed.


Abstract Legal humor is a topic of perennial appeal, and has long been a prolific source of books, articles, and scholarly commentaries which are avidly consumed by popular and professional audiences alike. However, although a number of scholars have analyzed the use of humor in judicial opinions, there is no comparable body of scholarly examinations of lawyers' use of humor in their role as legal advocates. This omission is significant, because in the American legal system, humor and wordplay serve as highly-valued evidence of forensic skill which is deemed appropriate for display both within and outside of the courtroom. Accordingly, this paper attempts to fill the gap in the existing literature by examining attorneys' use of humor as persuasive advocacy in two widely divergent settings, informal court-mandated mediation and oral argument before the United States Supreme Court. In these data, the attorneys use humor aggressively to ridicule the plaintiffs' claims, depicting them as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration, while placing themselves at the center of a comic performance which allows them to display their linguistic skills. These data thus demonstrate that humor can be a potent weapon in an attorney's arsenal.


The state of the art of thin-film pyroelectric infrared (IR) detectors is reviewed covering device physics, material performance, micro-fabrication and device examples. Emphasis is given to special issues related to thin films, such as small heat capacities and the substrate influence on the pyroelectric properties. For the latter, an overview of the hitherto reported values is given. Examples of micromachined IR detectors based on pyroelectric thin films are described. The ultimate limit of micromachined thermal IR detectors is estimated for uncooled operation. It is concluded that the best pyroelectric thin films achieved to date are in principle sufficiently good to approach this limit, meaning that the present performance of pyroelectric thin-film focal plane arrays can still be improved by more than a factor of 10. A comparison of the different principles for IR detection shows that pyroelectricity is indeed one of the most competitive principles for uncooled IR detection. The major obstacle hindering quick industrialization is the fabrication complexity.


Background: To check feasibility and efficacy of biplane mode of the transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) probe for use of visualization and cannulation of internal jugular vein (IJV). Subjects and Methods: This is Prospective, randomized, controlled pilot study done at tertiary care hospital. Fifty adult cardiac surgery patients in current study received right IJV catheterization using the TEE probe. Another fifty patient undergone same IJV cannulation with use of linear probe. The puncture time, success rate in first attempt, quality of the imaging with needle tip positioning and wire positioning were recorded. The occurrence of complication or any adverse event was also observed. Results: There was statistical difference in puncture time between two groups. Puncture time was less in TEE group. One failed puncture attempt with linear probe was there. There was no statistical difference in image quality with needle tip positioning and wire positioning between groups. No complications or adverse events were observed in either group. Conclusion: The Bi-plane mode of TEE probe can be used for visualization and cannulation of IJV to achieve higher success rate and decrease chance of complication with favorable feasibility and safety.


: This study presents the implementation of a new unsupervised machine learning based system called a buck converter controller using unsupervised machine learning (ABCML) to control the operation of a type of switching voltage regulators, commonly called buck converters. The system uses the voltage and current state variables of buck converters to evaluate four switching-based clustering algorithms, namely a Gaussian mixture model, a self-organising mapping (SOM), a k means clustering and a hierarchical clustering algorithm. Step response results of the controller implementation with the buck converter show that the SOM controller improves the performance of the voltage regulator system by 99.77% in terms of voltage overshoot and by 63.24% in terms of fall time, whereas the hierarchical clustering algorithm improves the settling time of the output voltage by 3.91%. This finding of optimal machine learning implementation approaches and their comparison could be used to improve the stability and the performance of switching voltage regulation systems which are widely used in electronic systems of today.


Object-oriented programming has brought many advantages to the software engineering community. The reuse of existing software components and application frameworks can improve the productivity in software development considerably. The same object-oriented techniques, i.e., inheritance and information hiding, that ease reusing software, can be applied to documentation and thus, enable its reuse. One can document each software component-regardless of what a component is-from scratch. This leads to multiple documentation of features that are multiply reused. One can also describe a component's differences to other components. This seems logical for the systems documentation of object-oriented software. However, as is shown, this kind of reuse can not only be applied to source-code related documentation, but also to documentation, where there is no source code involved at all, e.g., user documentation. We describe the concepts for documentation reuse, how these concepts can be realized with a literate programming tool, and the application of documentation reuse.


We have studied the stress in porous silicon films as a function of depth and porosity using micro-Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectra were measured at different points along a cross section cleaved normal to the layer planes. Each spectrum was fitted using the phonon confinement model with the bulk phonon wavenumber as a free parameter. From the variation of this parameter we get the stress using the known dependence of phonon frequency on stress for bulk silicon. We observe a compressive stress at the interface with the substrate due to the lattice mismatch between porous and bulk silicon. The maximum value of the stress increases with porosity. The results obtained by Raman micro-spectroscopy agree well with the lattice mismatch measured by X-ray diffraction reported in the literature.


Multiplication of two sparse matrices is a key operation in the simulation of the electronic structure of systems containing thousands of atoms and electrons. The highly optimized sparse linear algebra library DBCSR (Distributed Block Compressed Sparse Row) has been specifically designed to efficiently perform such sparse matrix-matrix multiplications. This library is the basic building block for linear scaling electronic structure theory and low scaling correlated methods in CP2K. It is parallelized using MPI and OpenMP, and can exploit GPU accelerators by means of CUDA. We describe a performance comparison of DBCSR on systems with Intel Xeon Phi Knights Landing (KNL) processors, with respect to systems with Intel Xeon CPUs (including systems with GPUs). We find that the DBCSR on Cray XC40 KNL-based systems is 11%-14% slower than on a hybrid Cray XC50 with Nvidia P100 cards, at the same number of nodes. When compared to a Cray XC40 system equipped with dual-socket Intel Xeon CPUs, the KNL is up to 24% faster.


Acting as a direct toxic through different mechanisms, alcohol causes many hormonal changes which induce sexual function impairment and fertility problems. We have used 36 white Wistar Lewis rats, divided in three large groups: 10% alcoholic, 25% alcoholic and control group for 55 and 95 days. The parameters studied were the rat's ponderal evolution, testicular volume and weight, testes and body weights ratio, as well as testes density and seminiferous tubule area. We found a decreased ponderal gain in animals receiving high doses of alcohol. Decreased testicular volume and increased density in long-term alcohol regime. At high dose and medium-term increased testicular weights were seen as compared to total weight of the rat. The area of the seminiferous tubule is reduced in all alcoholic groups.


Green communications has received much attention recently. For cellular networks, the base stations (BSs) account for more than 50 percent of the energy consumption of the networks. Therefore, reducing the power consumption of BSs is crucial to achieve green cellular networks. In this paper, we optimize the energy utilization in cellular networks whose BSs are powered with both regular energy from the grid and the renewable energy. We minimize the on-grid energy consumption of BSs by adapting their cell sizes. The cell size optimization problem is NP-hard. We divide the problem into two subproblems: the multi-stage energy allocation problem and energy consumption minimization problem. We propose an energy allocation policy and an approximation algorithm to solve these subproblems, respectively, and subsequently solve the cell size optimization problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed solution achieves significant energy savings.


Abstract This study evaluated the effect of contamination media on the adhesion of resin cement to resin composites. Specimens of direct (DRC) (Quadrant Photo Posterior) and indirect resin composite (IRC) (Gradia) (N = 300, n = 15 per group) were prepared. Except the control group (C), the specimens of DRC and IRC were contaminated with one of the following media: (a) saliva (S), (b) silicon (SI), (c) dental stone (D), and (d) isolation medium (I). While one half was only rinsed with water, the other half was silica coated (30 μm SiO2, Siljet). All specimens were silanized (Monobond Plus) and coated with adhesive resin (Heliobond). Resin cement (Variolink II) was bonded to the substrates and photo-polymerized for 40 s. After thermocycling (x5.000, 5–55 °C), composite–cement interface was loaded under shear in a Universal Testing Machine (1 mm/min). Data (MPa) were analyzed using Univariate analysis, Tukey's and Dunnett-T3 tests. Both contamination media (p = 0.000) and surface conditioning (p = 0.005) significantly affected adhesion to DRC and IRC. No significant difference was found between the DRC and IRC (without: p = 0.098; with: p = 0.084). Significantly lower results were obtained after SI (DRC: 0.66 ± 0.6; IRC: 0.8 ± 1.3) followed by I contamination (DRC: 2.1 ± 2.6; IRC: 0.8 ± 1.3) (p < 0.05). Regardless of contamination medium, surface conditioning significantly increased the results for both DRC (15.1 ± 6.1–23.6 ± 3.7) and IRC (20.3 ± 5.4–25.1 ± 3.6) (p < 0.05). Weibull distribution increased after surface conditioning for both DRC (without: 1.33–3.27; with: 2.55–9.34) and IRC (without: 1.07–3.75; with: 3.7–7.73). Predominantly adhesive (132 out of 150) failures were observed when surfaces were not conditioned.


Germany and Japan are often seen deviating from an economic model of shareholder control and thereby as being similar by virtue of their mutual contrast with the US. Given the common challenges for bank-based and stakeholder-oriented models of corporate governance, Germany-Japan comparison seems particularly timely. This article provides an introductory overview and analysis for the Special Issue by comparing recent developments in corporate law reform, banking and finance, and employment in Germany and Japan. While rejecting arguments for international convergence, we discuss this evidence of simultaneous continuity and change in corporate governance as a potential form of hybridisation of national models or renegotiation of stakeholder coalitions in German and Japanese firms. One consequence is the growing diversity of firm-level corporate governance practices within national systems. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.


: Clinico-genealogical investigation revealed certain specific clinico-genetic characteristics of epilepsy under the conditions of isolation (62 cases) as compared to a panmictic population (76 cases). Itra-pair inter-isolate (31 pairs) and intra-isolate (29pairs) comparison has shown a higher frequency of complete phenotypic similarity in cases of intraisolate (24,1%), than in cases of inter-isolate (9,7%) epilepsy. A more conspicuous interisolate (than intra-isolate) clinical polymorphism of epilepsy combined with an equal frequency of intra-pair inter- and intra-isolate similarity with respect to exogonia and with a distinct (two-fold) increase of the average inbreeding coefficient between the parents of the patients (F = 0,0285) as compared to the general population of the isolates affords the evidence of the genetic heterogeneity of the disease. One of the mechanisms of the hereditary heterogeneity is assumed to be the polylocularity (genocopying).


Humans are "smart components" in a system, but cannot be directly programmed to perform; rather, their autonomy must be respected as a design constraint and incentives provided to induce desired behavior. Sometimes these incentives are properly aligned, and the humans don't represent a vulnerability. But often, a misalignment of incentives causes a weakness in the system that can be exploited by clever attackers. Incentive-centered design tools help us understand these problems, and provide design principles to alleviate them. We describe incentivecentered design and some tools it provides. We provide a number of examples of security problems for which Incentive Centered Design might be helpful. We elaborate with a general screening model that offers strong design principles for a class of security problems.


Two isoforms of caveolin-1, alpha and beta, had been thought to be generated by alternative translation initiation of an mRNA (FL mRNA), but we showed previously that a variant mRNA (5'V mRNA) encodes the beta isoform specifically. In the present study, we demonstrated strong correlation between the expression of the caveolin-1 protein isoforms and mRNA variants in culture cells and the developing mouse lung. The alpha isoform protein and FL mRNA were expressed constantly during the lung development, whereas expression of the beta isoform protein and 5'V mRNA was negligible in the fetal lung before 17.5 days post coitum, and markedly increased simultaneously at 18.5 days post coitum, when the alveolar type I cells started to differentiate. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed the cell type-specific expression of the two isoforms; the alveolar type I cell expresses the beta isoform predominantly, while the endothelium harbors the alpha isoform chiefly. The mutually exclusive expression of caveolin-1 isoforms was verified by Western blotting of the selective plasma membrane preparation obtained from the endothelial and alveolar epithelial cells. The present result indicates that the two caveolin-1 isoforms are generated from distinct mRNAs in vivo and that their production is regulated independently at the transcriptional level. The result also suggests that the alpha and beta isoforms of caveolin-1 may have unique physiological functions.


Background: To report a case of post-glaucoma drainage device (GDD) surgery with multiple small conjunctival defects treated with autologous blood injection.Case presentation: A 28-year-old female with a history of juvenile open-angle glaucoma who had undergone multiple glaucoma surgeries with antimetabolite injections for uncontrolled intraocular pressure (IOP) of the left eye since 2006 underwent Baerveldt glaucoma implantation in 2017. One year postoperatively, she experienced persistent hypotony, which could not be resolved with a scleral bandage contact lens. Ocular examination revealed visual acuity of 6/9 and IOP of 8 mmHg. Multiple leakage points were identified with fluorescein at the junction between the plate and the tube. Subconjunctival injection of 1 ml autologous blood was administered near the conjunctival defects. Five months postoperatively, the leakage was sealed with IOP of 12 mmHg.Conclusion: Autologous blood injection can be used as an alternative procedure for treating leaking blebs after a GDD surgery.


The paper elaborates on the appropriateness of a potentially enlarged Common Monetary Area in Southern Africa including Botswana and Mozambique. The theory of optimum currency areas including some extensions by accounting for costs of non-integration and considering the external relations of currency areas are presented. Various indicators such as the structure of the economies, interest rates, inflation rates, exchange rates, factor mobility and trading partners are observed empirically. The paper concludes that current changes in the exchange rate policy of Botswana are expected to lead to increasing, though already high, convergence with CMA countries. Botswana is therefore an appropriate candidate for CMA enlargement. Mozambique is converging towards South Africa but still remains on a lower level. Taking into account the costs of non-integration, however, the target of integration should be formulated for the medium term.


Police agencies devote vast resources to minimizing the time that it takes them to attend the scene of a crime. Despite this, the long-standing consensus is that police response time has no meaningful effect on the likelihood of catching offenders. We revisit this question using a uniquely rich dataset from the Greater Manchester Police. To identify causal effects, we use a novel strategy that exploits discontinuities in distance to the response station across locations next to each other, but on different sides of division boundaries. Contrary to previous evidence, we find large and strongly significant effects: in our preferred estimate, a 10% increase in response time leads to a 4.7 percentage points decrease in the likelihood of clearing the crime. We find stronger effects for thefts than for violent offences, although the effects are large for every type of crime. We find suggestive evidence in support of two mechanisms: the likelihood of an immediate arrest and the likelihood that a suspect will be named by a victim or witness both increase as response time becomes faster. We argue that, under conservative assumptions, hiring an additional response officer would generate a benefit, in terms of future crime prevented, equivalent to 170% of her payroll cost.


We have developed a novel technology, called nanoparticle conversion, for producing compound semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) in which the dot size, surface density, position, and the materials system are all independently controlled. Nanoparticle conversion also lends itself to spatially controlled positioning of QDs. To demonstrate this technology we report the formation of InP QDs using nanoparticle conversion. We have produced QDs on substrates of different types by converting randomly and lithographically positioned nanoparticles into compound semiconductors in a chemical vapour deposition system. Electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy measurements reveal that the morphology of these QDs is similar to that of QDs produced by other techniques. Photo- and cathodoluminescence measurements show that the converted nanoparticles exhibit properties and behaviours typical of semiconductor QDs. These include quantum confinement, free-to-bound recombination and blinking. Production of multi-component QDs like InP, GaN, and InAsP on various substrates like Si, SiO2, and sapphire show that this technology can produce a wide variety of different types of QD on different substrates with minimal need for process optimization.


Aim: To study in rats the effects of exposure to tobacco and alcohol on the mucosa of the tongue and pharynx. Material and methods: Forty adult Wistar rats were allocated into four groups of 10 animals each: GI (control), food and water "ad libitum"; GII (alcohol), 30% of ethanol diluted in drinking water and food "ad libitum"; GIII (tobacco), exposure to the smoke of 10 cigarettes/day, food and water "ad libitum"; GIV (alcohol and tobacco), simultaneous exposure to both agents. After 260 days, the animals were sacrificed. Tongue and pharynx were removed for histopathological analysis. Results: GI had the lowest tongue and pharynx histological scores. In GII, GIII, and GIV tongue samples revealed: apical cell hyperplasia (GII: 60%, GIII: 30%, GIV: 20%), basal cell hyperplasia (GII: 60%, GIII: 40%), hyperkeratosis (GII: 70%, GIII: 30%, GIV: 30%), dysplasia (GII: 60%, GIII: 60%, GIV: 50%), and apoptosis (GII: 60%, GIII: 40%, GIV: 60%). Pharynx samples revealed: apical cell hyperplasia (GII: 40%, GIII: 30%, GIV: 70%), basal cell hyperplasia (GII: 30%, GIII: 40%, GIV: 40%), hyperkeratosis (GII: 50%, GIII: 80%, GIV: 40%), and dysplasia (GII: 50%, GIII: 80%, GIV: 50%). Carcinoma in situ was detected in both sites. Conclusions: Alcohol and tobacco led to significant tongue and pharyngeal lesions that ranged from benign events to severe dysplasia. These findings confirm the deleterious effects of alcohol and tobacco on the airway mucosa.


Bothrops ammodytoides is a pitviper species endemic to Argentina that inhabits arid and semiarid areas from sea level to more than 3000 m, reaching the southernmost latitude for snakes. According to previous studies, the species is placed in the Bothrops alternatus group. We redescribe Bothrops ammodytoides based on examination of 101 specimens and provide new data on lepidosis, hemipenial morphology, cranial osteology, variation in coloration, and distribution. We compare Bothrops ammodytoides with representative species of the genus and related genera. Morphological comparisons reveal considerable affinities between Bothrops ammodytoides, Bothrops pictus, Bothrops andianus ,a ndBothrocophias microphthalmus, suggesting that the current taxonomy for Bothrops ammodytoides requires to be reassessed.


Complex seismic velocity structure near the earthquake source can affect rupture dynamics and strongly modify the seismic waveforms recorded near the fault. Fault-zone waves are commonly observed in continental crustal settings but are less clear in subduction zones due to the spatial separation between seismic stations and the plate boundary fault. We observed anomalously long duration S waves from earthquake clusters located near the interface of the subducted Gorda plate north of the Mendocino triple junction. In contrast, earthquakes located just a few kilometers below each cluster show impulsive S waves. A nodal array experiment was conducted around the Northern California Seismic Network station KCT for two months to investigate the origin of the complex S waves. Beamforming analysis shows that the S waves contain three arrivals that have different horizontal slownesses, which we term S1, S2, and S coda. Similar analysis on P waves also show two arrivals with different horizontal slownesses, which we term P1 and P2. P1 and S1 have larger horizontal slowness than P2 and S2, respectively, indicating that the phase pairs are body waves with different ray paths. Building upon a seismic refraction profile, we construct 1D velocity models and test different thicknesses and VP/VS ratios for the subducted oceanic crust. The arrival times and relative slownesses of P1/P2 and S1/S2 phases indicate that they are the direct and the Moho reflected phases, respectively. Their properties are consistent with a crustal thickness of ∼6 km and a moderate VP/VS ratio (∼1.8). The S coda is more difficult to characterize but has a clear dominant frequency that likely reflects the near-source velocity and attenuation structure. Our study indicates that waveforms from earthquakes near the interface of the subducted slab can be used to infer detailed structural information about the plate-boundary zone at seismogenic depths.


The incidence of collisions between motorcyclists and other vehicles may be significantly reduced by research that improves the acoustic awareness of cyclists, and thus heightens the ability of cyclists to respond to unexpected incursions from the surrounding traffic. We use our hearing as an early warning system, and hearing swiftly redirects our vision and attention. This shift in gaze is critical to our capacity to assess the location, direction of travel, and velocity of approaching vehicles. The present study was composed of two experiments. In the first experiment a Neumann KU-100 dummy head with embedded binaural microphones was used to measure noise levels in a motorcycle helmet as a function of velocity. Noise levels were measured in two helmets, one with active noise reduction technology, and one without. The results showed that noise levels exceeded 100 dB (A) at highway speeds in the absence of noise reduction technology. The helmet with active noise control ear muffs was able to attenuate helmet noise by up to 26 dB. Active noise control technology shows great promise for noise reduction for the motorcycle helmet industry, and the development of "quiet" helmets is important for both hearing conservation and highway safety. The second experiment surveyed subjective perceptions of helmet noise by motorcyclists. The results from the present sample showed that 92.1% of the respondents objected to the high noise levels associated with cycling, 63.5 % wore earplugs, 46.8% reported tinnitus, and 95.2% wanted a quieter helmet.


The geography of gender, and its different versions, like geography of women and feminist geography, have become into the frontline of the profession in many countries of the world recently. The publications in feminist geography, coming out in increasing numbers since the end of the 1960s, highlighted the different aspects of the relationship between men and women, their different social role and the transformation of the cultural landscape. Similar to other East-Central European countries, this type of researches has not been carried out by geographers in Hungary until now. However, those sociologists and economists, who recognized the role of the relationship between men and women in transforming the society did not investigate the space-transforming effects of this relationship. For this reason, this short study tries to answer the following questions: —Why is Hungarian geography uninterested in investigating the relationship between the specific role of the two sexes and the spatial forms and processes; —Which could be the most important research fields of feminist geography (geography of gender, geography of women); —Can these researches result in practical findings and conclusions? 1.) We should ask the question whether the lack or the considerable delay of feminist geography could be explained with the development/structure of geography as it is, or with the social environment itself — or probably with both of them. At the end of the 1960s, when feminist geography appeared in the West, Hungary followed the Soviet example in this field as well, consequently there was no human geography, but economic geography instead in Hungary then. The researches concentrated on production and on the macro tendencies, and the investigation of spatial relations limited itself to the delineation of regions. Geography, which observed human beings one-sidedly, was rather neutral to gender than biassed. From the 1970s, the spatial tendencies that gradually became small scaled, drew the attention on the problems of the settlements, and also on the problems of rural people. Social functions were given much wider interpretation, but the stress continued to be on central decisions and on the answers given to them, primarily at settlement level. The specific strategies of the different social strata and groups, and their role in spatial formations were seldom worded, and even if yes, in the form of a simple registration of the differences. It seems to us, that the attitudes, standpoint and aspects applied by geography facilitated the science to realize the significance of feminist geography only through the spread of the social-geographical school. The social environment itself created different conditions, and caused different problems than in the market economies. According to the Marxist ideology prevailing in the socialist countries, the expropriation of women is automatically terminated with the end of the class society. Consequently, the equality of sexes was declared. For example, the right of women to work was declared, and the numerous disadvantageous situations of women were concealed with the "masculinization" of women. As one of the most important objectives of the Western feminist movements was to gain equal chances in terms of employment, the paternalist socialist state declared the women's movement "irrational", and suppressed them, similarly to other civil organizations. Tensions between other social groups, and the rural and urban living conditions seemed to be more striking, thus these attracted the attention of the researchers. At the same time, due to the full employment of women, and delayed urbanization, the urban space was not divided lnto "masculine city" and "feminin suburbs" in this region. The spatial isolation of women, aimilar to that of the American women, thus took place only with the introduction of maternity leave and childcare allowance, and especially in the new housing estates, being far from the city centre and planned inhumanly. However, these problems rather became socialpsychological and urban issues, and urban geography was cut off from them. The transformation into a market economy and the democratization of political life created a new situation which resulted in new conditions for the relationship between men and women. The existence of any kind of social inequality is given a political echo, and the wide variety of ideologies and values is clearly expressed. The women's organizations which are slowly Organized within the parties but also outside the parties call the attention not only to the old, hut also to the newly appearing problems and tensions, and fact-finding researches are needed. 2.a.) The transforming relationship between space and society, and within this, of men and women rise several questions which can only be answered with the help of geographical approach. One of the most important fields of geography of women could be the investigation of the spatial inequalities in the social conditions of men and women. Female employment is one of the most frequently used indicator of emancipation, and this clearly indicates the regional differences as well. Women are employed in jobs with lower salaries and requiring lower qualifications than men. As opposed to men who usually work as skilled workers" the majority of women earn their living as administrative and unskilled workers. In the villages, the majority of women belong to this category: in the outskirts, they — together with the semi-skilled workers — give two-thirds of all the active women earner. Though the gradual improvement of the educational levei resulted in the equalization between the two sexes, women still have to face considerable disadvantages. The differences in public education in terms of space and settlements call our attention to the fact that in the investigation of the chances for further education the investigation by sexes should be connected with the analysis by social origin and by settlement type. Undoubtedly, those researches would provide us with the most interesting results which can exceed the limits of statistical data supply existent in this field. A questionnaire studying the suburbs of Kecskemet examplifies that one can provide a more detailed picture about the relationship between men and women in the family, if knowing the differences in the educational level, earnings, and commuting habits of the married couple or those living together. Finally, the feminist geographers should not forget in the course of revealing the inequalities between the two sexes that in terms of chances we cannot limit ourselves to studying the relationship between men and women, and even less to husbands and wives. Completely different, but equally important issues can be raised by studying the relationship between the mother and the son, the father and the daughter, the brothers and the sisters, etc. The unequal regional development of childcare institutions, for example, creates great differences among women. Between 1985 and 1991, 457 nurseries closed down, depriving this way several villages from these institutions and putting the women living in these villages into far more difficult situation than their counterparts in the cities. On the other hand, however, the danger of impoverishment has increased, and the chances to live at a relatively high standard decreased among the young urban couples with children. 2.b.) The other, large research area of geography of women could be studying the differences between men and women in terms of space, producing and using space. According to the findings of the investigations carried out near Kecskemet, in an average, 68-83 % of the married couples not only do not work in the same place, but do not even work in one economic sector. Consequently, the differences between their use of space and daily spatial path — in contrast to the Western countries — is rather influenced by the differences in their place in production, and not so much by the separation of housework and work for money. Investigating the differences in the comprehension of space and the need for space between men and women could be the tank of small-scale geography, which is not very popular in Hungary yet. Sexual characteristics are often quoted in the argumentations mentioned to support the ideology that "women should stay at home", whereas they are always forgotten when planning and designing the flats made of prefabricated elements and the new housing estates. This is also a clear proof of the applicability of feminist-geographical research findings. 3.) It would be especially useful, if construction activities, regional planning, regional development and local policy could be influenced with correct research results. The situation of women could be improved considerably if their "externally" formed "Lebensraum" would meet their lifestyle better. At this point, however, we cannot avoid the question, whether the interests of women are better served by regional policy and regional development that meet the actual gender division of labour, conserving that structure this way, or by emancipation realized in all aspects of life.


On the one hand, the concept of truth is a major research subject in analytic philosophy. On the other hand, mathematical logicians have developed sophisticated logical theories of truth and the paradoxes. Recent developments in logical theories of the semantical paradoxes are highly relevant for philosophical research on the notion of truth. And conversely, philosophical guidance is necessary for the development of logical theories of truth and the paradoxes. From this perspective, this volume intends to reflect and promote deeper interaction and collaboration between philosophers and logicians investigating the concept of truth than has existed so far. Aside from an extended introductory overview of recent work in the theory of truth, the volume consists of articles by leading philosophers and logicians on subjects and debates that are situated on the interface between logical and philosophical theories of truth. The volume is intended for graduate students in philosophy and in logic who want an introduction to contemporary research in this area, as well as for professional philosophers and logicians. Contributors: Volker Halbach, Leon Horsten, John P Burgess, Paul Horwich, Steward Shapiro, Hannes Leitgeb, Vann McGee, Michael Sheard and Andrea Cantini.


Intracranial pressure (ICP) was continuously monitored in 70 patients with brain tumors. Simultaneous recording of respiration and systemic blood pressure was carried out in 20 and 13 cases, respectively. In 13 of the former 20 cases, blood gases were analyzed during typical A waves (Lundberg's A wave). In addition, in four cases cerebral blood flow (CBF) was measured during typical A waves. The A wave appeared when the baseline ICP exceeded 20 mmHg, and the higher the baseline pressure was, the more frequently the A wave was recorded. Three respiratory patterns occurred during typical A waves: hyperventilation, hypoventilation, and normal respiration. However, these respiratory patterns were not always clear-cut, and the three often were mixed. Systemic blood pressure during the typical A wave phase was either elevated (Cushing's response) or normal. All patients who showed Cushing's response had high baseline ICP and, with the frequently appearance of the A wave, had such symptoms of increased ICP as headache, nausea, and disturbance of consciousness. In all four cases studied, CBF decreased during typical A waves. These results, indicate that the A wave is associated with elevation of ICP and intracranial tightness. A particular region in the brainstem reportedly participates in the generation of the A wave. However, the mechanism of its development appears complex and involves such secondary factors as respiration and systemic blood pressure.


Purpose: To quantify the retinal thickness and volume using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) analysis in the macular region of patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).Methods: In a comparative cross-sectional, observational study, patients recovered from COVID-19 were included. All included subjects had a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) - confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19. Macular SD-OCT was performed at least two weeks after recovery from systemic COVID-19. Inner, outer and full retinal thicknesses and volumes were measured in COVID-19 recovered patients versus age-matched normal controls.Results: Twenty-five patients (11 male) with a mean age of 36.4 ± 11 years and 60 healthy controls (31 males) with a mean age of 39.3 ± 7.7 years were enrolled in the study. There was no statistically significant difference in the retinal thickness or volume measures between the two groups. However, the thickness in the case group was minimally more than the controls. Conclusion: Retinal thickness in COVID-19 patients may be higher than healthy subjects. Comprehensive ocular examination with special focus on posterior segment manifestations should be considered in these patients.


In insight problem solving solutions with AHA! experience have been assumed to be the consequence of restructuring of a problem which usually takes place shortly before the solution. However, evidence from priming studies suggests that solutions with AHA! are not spontaneously generated during the solution process but already relate to prior subliminal processing. We test this hypothesis by conducting an fMRI study using a modified compound remote associates paradigm which incorporates semantic priming. We observe stronger brain activity in bilateral anterior insulae already shortly after trial onset in problems that were later solved with than without AHA!. This early activity was independent of semantic priming but may be related to other lexical properties of attended words helping to reduce the amount of solutions to look for. In contrast, there was more brain activity in bilateral anterior insulae during solutions that were solved without than with AHA!. This timing (after trial start/during solution) x solution experience (with/without AHA!) interaction was significant. The results suggest that (a) solutions accompanied with AHA! relate to early solution‐relevant processing and (b) both solution experiences differ in timing when solution‐relevant processing takes place. In this context, we discuss the potential role of the anterior insula as part of the salience network involved in problem solving by allocating attentional resources.


A systematic study of different ratios of CO, CO2, N2 gas components on the hydrogen storage properties of the Na3AlH6 complex hydride with 4 mol% TiCl3, 8 mol% aluminum and 8 mol% activated carbon is presented in this paper. The different concentrations of CO and CO2 in H2 and CO, CO2, N2 in H2 mixture were investigated. Both CO and CO2 gas react with the complex hydride forming Al oxy-compounds, NaOH and Na2CO3 that consequently cause serious decline in hydrogen storage capacity. These reactions lead to irreversible damage of complex hydride under the current experimental condition. Thus, after 10 cycles with 0.1 vol % CO + 99.9 vol %H2 and 1 vol % CO + 99 vol %H2, the dehydrogenation storage capacity of the composite material decreased by 17.2% and 57.3%, respectively. In the case of investigation of 10 cycles with 1 vol % CO2 + 99 vol % H2 gas mixture, the capacity degradation was 53.5%. After 2 cycles with 10 vol % CO +90 vol % H2, full degradation was observed, whereas after 6 cycles with 10 vol % CO2 + 90 vol % H2, degradation of 86.8% was measured. While testing with the gas mixture of 1.5 vol % CO + 10 vol % CO2 + 27 vol % H2 + 61.5 vol % N2, the degradation of 94% after 6 cycles was shown. According to these results, it must be concluded that complex aluminum hydrides cannot be used for the absorption of hydrogen from syngas mixtures without thorough purification.


This study examines the researchers perspective on the impact of recent major changes in the Finnish research environment. Three virtually simultaneous changes are of special importance. The first is the on-going renewal of the Universities Act governing the Finnish higher education system in its entirety. The second change is the foundation of the so-called Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation that aim at establishing and re-enforcing long-term research cooperation between the academia and the Industry. The final change is the enactment of the new University Inventions Act in early January 2007. Surveying the opinions of roughly 1700 researchers active in different fields of science and working at 11 different Finnish research universities, the study aims to map the experiences of researchers regarding the reform-induced changes in the operational environment and implementation of research. In general the study concludes that all three reforms have been pessimistically received among the respondents. Benefits related to alleged improvements in the preconditions for academic research, in particular, elicited strong disagreement. Researchers anticipate a swell in administrative burden, and do not believe in a general increase in the quality of research. In addition, claims related to increases in the lengths of research projects and funding cycles are rejected systematically. Instead, researchers believe that the reforms promote commercialism in the university environment. This does not entail greater incentives for researchers to participate in the commercialization of their research outputs, however. Such claims were largely rejected by the respondents. The pessimistic results convey the impression that the commercialization of the university environment is being implemented at the cost of academic research.


Responses of some cells in the cat cortex to moving stimulation depend on direction of motion. These cells give neither "on" nor "off" responses to uniform illumination. Response can be elicited over a wide region of the retina in either eye, and the discharge pattern does not follow the temporal variations in luminance on the retina which accompany the movement of the stimulus.


Although there has been increasing attention to diversity in librarianship, little attention has been paid to librarians with disabilities. This study uses a mixed method approach, using results from a survey and in-depth follow-up interviews, to investigate some of the characteristics of Canadian university librarians with disabilities, their job satisfaction, their perceptions of their workplace climate for diversity and accessibility, and the factors that influence their workplace perceptions. Although librarians with disabilities report a generally high level of job satisfaction, they are less satisfied with some areas related to workplace stress and job flexibility than librarians without disabilities. Librarians with disabilities also report less confidence that their workplace is inclusive, values diversity, and is understanding of disability-related issues. Factors influencing the work experience of university librarians with disabilities include a collegial environment, supportive colleagues and supervisors, job flexibility and autonomy, clear priorities and reporting structures, reasonable expectations about workload, time pressures and short deadlines, effective structures and processes to ensure accessibility, an accessible physical environment, and, most importantly, an understanding of disability and awareness of disability-related workplace issues.


The basic geodetic control network in the United States includes about 100,000 monumented first- and second-order horizontal control stations that are accurately related one to another, and whose positions are expressed in latitude, longitude, and State plane coordinates. This network provides the framework for mapping and charting, for cadastral and property surveys, etc. Its primary purpose is to provide: (1) Means of maintaining a given standard of accuracy over long distances; (2) a means whereby surveys or maps done at different places at different times can be connected into a coordinated whole; and (3) the means of reestablishing the position of any point that has been lost. The network, however, must be expanded and strengthened in order to meet the needs of all types of surveying. New methods of satellite triangulation and superaccurate geodimeter traverse are now providing a means of testing and strengthening the horizontal control network. Analytic aerial photogrammetry can now be considered a surveying tool of high accuracy.


Contemporary investigations of mechanisms of resistance to platinides showed the key role of copper metabolism in cancer patients and proposed possible methods to attenuate the resistance by modulation of copper transporting mechanisms. In this vein, investigation of ceruloplasmin (Cp) levels – the main coppercontaining protein in blood, in experiments with tumor-containing animals upon cytostatics administration is topical and has great importance. the concentration of Cp was measured in the serum of tumor-bearing rats with ordinary (t8) and resistant to cisplatin (t8*) Guerin's carcinoma upon administration of cisplatin and quadruple bonding dirhenium(III) compound dichlorotetra-μ-isobutyratodirhenium(ІІІ) (I) in different medicamental forms. It was shown that development of tumor in t8 group led to increasing of concentration of Cp in 3.7 times and in T8* group – more than in 8 times in comparison to control, confirming the essential role of Cp in the formation of resistance phenomenon. administration of cisplatin together with I led to effective inhibition of tumor in groups with t8 and t8*, indicating decreased resistance in the group t8*. Greater reduction of Cp levels was observed in the groups with t8* upon administration of the rhenium-plati num antitumor system, than in groups with t8, that underlines the importance of further investigations of the dirhenium(III) compounds in the resistance to cytostatics cancer models. Some mechanisms concerning the regulation of copper homeostasis and properties of nano-composites are discussed.


Objective: To evaluate the effect of an intervention on the understanding and use of DNR orders by physicians; to assess the impact of understanding the importance of involving competent patients in DNR decisions. Design: Prospective clinical interventional study. Setting: Internal medicine department (70 beds) of the hospital of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Participants: Nine junior physicians in postgraduate training. Intervention: Information on the ethics of DNR and implementation of new DNR orders. Measurements and main results: Accurate understanding, interpretation, and use of DNR orders, especially with respect to the patients' involvement in the decision were measured. Junior doctors writing DNR orders had an extremely poor understanding of what DNR orders mean. The correct understanding of the definition of a DNR order increased from 31 to 93% (p<0.01) after the intervention and the patients' involvement went from 17% to 48% (p<0.01). Physicians estimated that 75% of their DNR patients were mentally competent at the time of the decision. Conclusion: An intervention aimed at explaining the ethical principles and the definition of DNR orders improves understanding of them, and their implementation, as well as patient participation. Specific efforts are needed to increase the involvement of mentally competent patients in the decision.


In recent years, my countries are trying to develop smart cities using networked digital technologies for improving governance and quality of service delivery. For this purpose a wide range of technologies are being exploited for better systems. These technologies and methodologies that may be the part of such intelligent systems are but not limited to Internet of Things (IoT), sensor networks, Smartphone apps, cloud computing, big data, machine learning techniques, open source software and software engineering practices. Universities of such city may leverage the benefits of such technologies in academic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Furthermore, such ERP cannot have a general user interface and must be able to be customized as per the need of institutions. At the same time these customization and enhancements be such that least effort has to be made for adaptation. Apart from user interface customization, customization due to the technologies also to be considered. One such example is type of client support; rich user interface, web user interface and mobile user interface. In shorts, the issues of effectiveness and customization must be addressed while preparing such system. The author has identified Radio-frequency identification (RFID) as IoT, Smart phones, cloud computing, Model-View- Controller (MVC), Java and Android to address these issues. While RFID enhance the effectiveness of the system due to its capability of dealing with large amount of inputs without human intervention, MVC and Java can resolve the issue of customization and plate dependence by their inherent capability of rendering same information of different form and platforms respectively. The Android is proposed to use the system through mobile devices.


If you agree that physical education should be fun, instructive, and a place where students acquire physical and life skills, then you'll love "PE2theMax: Maximize Skills, Participation, Teamwork, and Fun." J.D. Hughes, author of the popular "No Standing Around in My Gym, " has created 30 never-been-done-before games, tried and tested in the gymnasiums and on the fields and courts of Villa Rica, Georgia, where he teaches elementary school. These games are designed for large groups--anywhere from 30 to 75 students--but can be scaled back easily for smaller class sizes. Each game provides students of all athletic abilities the opportunity to have fun, be active, and acquire movement and sport skills. Here's what you will discover about the games in "PE2theMax: "- No down time. The games are quick and easy to get going, and they'll keep students active for the entire class period. - Essentially no prep time. These games are ready to use, simple to understand, and supplemented with clear illustrations, diagrams, and a game finder to help you readily find the game you want.- Plenty of skill-building time. Students acquire not only movement and sport skills but life skills as well. The games emphasize cooperation, communication, personal responsibility, respect for others, positive competition, critical thinking, and problem solving. - Fun participation. If PE is fun, kids will want to participate. If they participate, they will experience the joy of being active. If they experience that joy, they just might move toward remaining active throughout their lives.The games in "PE2theMax" are student centered, not teacher centered. As such, students are motivated to challenge themselves to succeed. The games are inclusive and developmentally appropriate. They define what a quality PE program and the New PE philosophy are all about: promoting participation and lifelong fitness as well as self-esteem and initiative. Most important, from the kids' perspective, "these games rock."


An itch-specific neuronal pathway was recently discovered in healthy humans and animals. Here the authors report that activity in this specific pathway coincides with itch under pathophysiologic conditions in a patient with chronic pruritus. Microneurographic recordings from the symptomatic area revealed spontaneous activity in six single C-fiber afferents that had the characteristic features of "itch fibers." Itch may be caused by activity in a specific subpopulation of C-fiber afferents.


Written specifically for writers, researchers, journalists, and students, this handy resource helps novice and experienced computer users take full advantage of Internet and World Wide Web capabilities. Bursting with helpful graphics, sample web pages, and hints and tips in the margins, the book demonstrates how to: *Develop and trouble-shoot effective Internet search strategies *Avoid unnecessary library trips *Generate leads and make contacts by posting queries to mailing lists *Cite online references appropriately, and steer clear of copyright trouble *Access hundreds of newspapers around the world in a matter of seconds *Communicate by e-mail to cut down on irritating phone tag--and expenses! *Write effectively for publication online

The book also provides focused descriptions of specific Internet applications and technologies, as well as insight on current Internet trends. Bonus features include the full Associated Press Policy for Using Electronic Services, a comprehensive glossary of terms, and numerous lists of professional and general interest Web sites.


BACKGROUND
Existing Australasian and international guidelines outline antibiotic and antifungal measures to prevent the development of treatment-related infection in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. Practice patterns and rates of PD-related infection vary widely across renal units in Australia and New Zealand and are known to vary significantly from guideline recommendations, resulting in PD technique survival rates that are lower than those achieved in many other countries. The aim of this study was to determine if there is an association between current practice and PD-related infection outcomes and to identify the barriers and enablers to good clinical practice.

METHODS
This is a multicentre network study involving eight PD units in Australia and New Zealand, with a focus on adherence to guideline recommendations on antimicrobial prophylaxis in PD patients. Current practice was established by asking the PD unit heads to respond to a short survey about practice/protocols/policies and a 'process map' was constructed following a face-to-face interview with the primary PD nurse at each unit. The perceived barriers/enablers to adherence to the relevant guideline recommendations were obtained from the completion of 'cause and effect' diagrams by the nephrologist and PD nurse at each unit. Data on PD-related infections were obtained for the period 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011.

RESULTS
Perceived barriers that may result in reduced adherence to guideline recommendations included lack of knowledge, procedural lapses, lack of a centralized patient database, patients with non-English speaking background, professional concern about antibiotic resistance, medication cost and the inability of nephrologists and infectious diseases staff to reach consensus on unit protocols. The definitions of PD-related infections used by some units varied from those recommended by the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis, particularly with exit-site infection (ESI). Wide variations were observed in the rates of ESI (0.06-0.53 episodes per patient-year) and peritonitis (0.31-0.86 episodes per patient-year).

CONCLUSIONS
Despite the existence of strongly evidence-based guideline recommendations, there was wide variation in adherence to these recommendations between PD units which might contribute to PD-related infection rates, which varied widely between units. Although individual patient characteristics may account for some of this variability, inconsistencies in the processes of care to prevent infection in PD patients also play a role.


Eczema, a common pediatric dermatosis with unclear pathogenesis, can seriously affect the life quality of children due to its recurrence and long course. Recent study has found that food specific IgG (sIgG) might be involved in the course of eczema. To analyze the correlation between childhood eczema and sIgG and evaluate the role of avoiding taking intolerance food in the treatment of childhood eczema, this study enrolled 216 children with eczema who were admitted to the Taian Maternal and Child Health Care Hospital, Shandong, China, between August 2014 and October 2015. They were divided into an eczema group (N = 140) and an allergy group (N = 76). Eighty healthy children who were admitted to the Department of Children Healthcare in the same period were selected as a control group. Enzymelinked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect the serum sIgG level. The result showed that the sIgG positive rates of children in the eczema group and allergy group were 91.4% and 93.4%, respectively, and the difference had no statistical significance (P > 0.05). However, the sIgG positive rates of children in the eczema group and allergy group were significantly higher than that in the control group (P less than 0.05). Milk and eggs were the major allergy-causing food for children with sIgG positive rates higher than 70%. The sIgG test results revealed that eggs had the highest allergenicity, followed by milk, tomatoes and soybeans, and pork was not highly sensitive. Therefore, it can be concluded that sIgG positive rate of children with eczema is high, and examination of food sIgG antibody in serum is valuable in the diagnosis and treatment of childhood eczema.


With the growing importance of data in all aspects of the functioning of an enterprise, having good quality of data is crucial in support of business processes. However, there do not exist good metrics to measure the quality of data that is available within an enterprise. While there are several data quality standards, their complexity and their required customization makes them difficult to use in real-world industrial scenarios. In this paper, we discuss the challenges encountered in measuring data quality within asset management systems. We propose a policy-based approach for measuring data quality, and show how such an approach can be customized and interpreted easily by practitioners in the field.


Intensive care units now exist in a large number of hospitals. They vary from one another in many respects, but have one thing in common--high running costs. There are few published reports in recent years of the workload, results and effectiveness of intensive care units. This paper presents data obtained from a new unit in 1977 and 1978, using a computer-controlled system of data storage and analysis. This has provided useful information of an administrative and clinical nature, and has enabled us to compare data from year to year, as well as allowing comparisons with data from other units. The potential exists for such a system to be useful in evaluating criteria for admission and termination of care, and for cost-effectiveness studies.


The history of unemployment relief in Britain from 1834 to 1911 was not a "unilinear progression in collective benevolence," culminating in unemployment insurance. The combination of poor relief and private charity to assist cyclically unemployed workers from 1834 to 1870 was more generous, and more certain, than the relief provided for the unemployed under the various policies adopted from 1870 to 1911. A major shift in policy occurred in the 1870s, largely in response to the crisis of the Poor Law in the 1860s. Because the new policy—a combination of self-help and charity—proved unable to cope with the high unemployment of cyclical downturns, Parliament in 1911 bowed to political pressure for a national system of relief by adopting the world's first compulsory system of unemployment insurance.