The time structure of the signals from air showers, recorded with the water-Cherenkov detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory, contains information that can be related to the mass composition of primary cosmic rays and to hadronic multi-particle production. We can study both because the recorded signals contain a mix of the muonic and electromagnetic components. Using information from the time structure, we define observables that enable a comparison of observations with predictions from hadronic models. We have found that the interpretation obtained from a comparison of our data to these predictions is inconsistent with the interpretation obtained by comparing fluorescence measurements and model predictions, over a greater energy range, and with higher precision, than in previous studies. Information about mass composition is obtained by calibrating the observables based on time structure with fluorescence measurements. Following this approach, we infer the depth of shower maximum, Xmax, from 0.3 EeV to over 100 EeV. In particular, above 30 EeV, our sample is nearly fourteen times larger than currently available from fluorescence measurements. With this novel approach we find good agreement with previous studies and, with our larger sample, we have extended the measurement of to greater energies than
hitherto.


Meat consumption has been shown to be associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in Western societies; however, epidemiological data are limited on the Korean population. Therefore, we examined the associations between unprocessed meat consumption and CVD incidence in Korea. Data were derived from the Ansung-Ansan cohort (2001–2012), including 9370 adults (40–69 years) without CVD or cancer at baseline. Total unprocessed meat consumption was estimated as the sum of unprocessed red meat (beef, pork, and organ meat) and poultry consumption. In the fully adjusted Cox regression model, the relative risks of CVD across increasing quintiles of total unprocessed meat intake were 1.0 (reference), 0.72 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.55, 0.95), 0.57 (95% CI: 0.42, 0.78), 0.69 (95% CI: 0.51, 0.95), and 0.69 (95% CI: 0.48, 0.97), but no significant linear trend was detected (p for trend = 0.14). Frequent poultry consumption was significantly associated with a decreased CVD risk; this association showed a dose-response relationship (p for trend = 0.04). This study showed that a moderate intake of total unprocessed meat was inversely associated with CVD risk. A significant inverse association between poultry consumption and incident CVD was observed in Korean adults, requiring further confirmation in other populations.


We employed first principles simulations using density functional theory within the local density approximation to investigate the electronic properties of the ZrO 2 /Si and ZrSiO 4 /Si interfaces. We considered the interfaces between the (001) surfaces of tetragonal zirconia (t-ZrO 2 ) or zircon (ZrSiO 4 ) and a silicon (100) substrate. We find that ZrO 2 /Si interfaces exhibit partial occupation of zirconium dangling bonds (Zr d states) at the Fermi level when the zirconium coordination is reduced from its bulk coordination. Hydrogen passivation of zirconium atoms, as well as oxygen bridging at the interface, can remove the partial occupancy of d orbitals at the Fermi level. The calculated band offsets of these interfaces show asymmetric band alignments, with conduction band offsets between 0.64 and 1.02 eV and valence band offsets between 3.51 and 3.89 eV, depending on the zirconium and oxygen coordination at various ZrO 2 /Si interfaces. By contrast, the ZrSiO 4 /Si interface shows no partial occupation of zirconium dangling bonds at the Fermi level and provides a more symmetric band alignment, with a much higher conduction band offset of 2.10 eV and a valence band offset of 2.78 eV. These results suggest that ZrSiO 4 may form an excellent interface with silicon in terms of its electronic properties and therefore may be a suitable candidate for replacing SiO 2 as a gate insulator in silicon-based field effect transistors. On the other hand, we suggest that ZrO 2 will require additional interface preparation or postdeposition annealing to yield adequate electronic properties for gate dielectric applications.


In 1999, we began a community-based randomized controlled prevention trial in Chennai, which aims to test the efficacy of HIV prevention messages disseminated through members of an individual's social group called community popular opinion leaders, or CPOLs. We targeted patrons of 100 bars or wine shops in the city of Chennai, India. In this article we report on the process of development of an HIV prevention intervention for wine shop patrons. First, we conducted detailed ethnography to understand social norms and CPOL and social network characteristics, including 41 in-depth interviews among wine shop patrons and gatekeepers. Second, we tailored a generic HIV education training manual to appropriately address the needs of Chennai wine shop patrons. Field-testing involved 16 focus groups with wine shop patrons and 12 sessions of participant observations in wine shops. Finally, we piloted the intervention to determine the appropriateness of the training program and its content among wine shop patrons. Our ethnographic data indicated that wine shops are a common meeting place for men. We were able to identify CPOLs influential in these settings and train them to deliver appropriate prevention messages to their close friends and associates. We found that HIV prevention messages in this population need to dispel misperceptions about HIV transmission, provide strategies and skills to adopt and sustain condom use, and target the role of alcohol in sexual behavior. We outline specific lessons we learned in intervention development in this population.


The operation of confirmatory bias in the endorsement of personality descriptions was examined in 4 studies. Unlike M. F. Davies (1997), who provided only inferential evidence for the role of this bias, the present studies provided direct evidence through the experimental manipulation of supporting versus contradictory cognitions. Generating supporting thoughts resulted in greater acceptance whereas generating contradictory thoughts resulted in lower acceptance of personality descriptions. Supporting cognitions were found to be generated before contradictory cognitions in line with a positive test strategy but evidence was also found for an output interference effect (generating one type of thought interfered with the generation of the opposite type) and it was suggested that confirmatory bias is due to the operation of both mechanisms.


In this work we describe the creation of ArtSpeechMRIfr: a real-time as well as static magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI, 3D MRI) database of the vocal tract. The database contains also processed data: denoised audio, its phonetically aligned annotation, articulatory contours, and vocal tract volume information , which provides a rich resource for speech research. The database is built on data from two male speakers of French. It covers a number of phonetic contexts in the controlled part, as well as spontaneous speech, 3D MRI scans of sustained vocalic articulations, and of the dental casts of the subjects. The corpus for rtMRI consists of 79 synthetic sentences constructed from a phonetized dictionary that makes possible to shorten the duration of acquisitions while keeping a very good coverage of the phonetic contexts which exist in French. The 3D MRI includes acquisitions for 12 French vowels and 10 consonants, each of which was pronounced in several vocalic contexts. Ar-ticulatory contours (tongue, jaw, epiglottis, larynx, velum, lips) as well as 3D volumes were manually drawn for a part of the images.


BACKGROUND
Vitamin D deficiency is common in dark-skinned persons living in northern countries. Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy may have serious consequences for both mother and child.

OBJECTIVE
The objective was to ascertain the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women of several ethnic backgrounds who were living in The Hague, a large city in the Netherlands.

DESIGN
Midwives whose practice was visited by a large number of non-Western immigrants added the assessment of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] to the standard blood test given to women who visited the practice during week 12 of pregnancy. Subsequently, the Municipal Health Service collected additional data from the midwives' files (June 2002 through March 2004): background variables, use of tobacco or alcohol or drugs, and infectious diseases. The women were grouped ethnically as Western, Turkish, Moroccan, and other non-Western.

RESULTS
The vitamin D concentrations of 358 women were found in the midwives' files. Of these women, 29% were Western, 22% were Turkish, and 19% were Moroccan. Mean serum 25(OH)D concentrations in Turkish (15.2 +/- 12.1 nmol/L), Moroccan (20.1 +/- 13.5 nmol/L), and other non-Western women (26.3 +/- 25.9 nmol/L) were significantly (P </= 0.001) lower than those in Western women (52.7 +/- 21.6 nmol/L). Serum 25(OH)D was below the detection limit in 22% of the Turkish women. The differences between ethnic groups were not confounded by other determinants such as age, socioeconomic status, or parity.

CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in pregnant non-Western women in the Netherlands is very high, and screening should be recommended.


After approximately 30 years experience with microprogrammed control concepts, we find ourselves at an interesting turning point leading into the 1980s. Experience with various microprogrammed control techniques has been obtained, some experience has been obtained in recent years in the redistribution of functions between various software and microarchitectural levels and we have a better idea of methods of timing and synchronization. This knowledge together with the possibilities brought on by VLSI will meet in the 1980s and have several interesting effects upon system architecture at microarchitecture and higher architectural levels.
 We shall consider some of the opportunities and limitations of VLSI and their potential effects upon microarchitecture followed by a view of the future utilization of "programmed logic." More specifically, we shall be considering the organization of logic, synchronization, microarchitecture characteristics, target machine properties and special purpose microprogrammed machines. Further, we shall touch upon relationships to function distribution, computer aided design and the possibilities for architectural synthesis.


We have prepared 4-substituted analogues of 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide (AICAR) to investigate the specificity and mechanism of AICAR transformylase (AICAR Tfase). Of the nine analogues of AICAR studied, only one analogue, 5-aminoimidazole-4-thiocarboxamide ribonucleotide, was a substrate, and it was converted to 6-mercaptopurine ribonucleotide. The other analogues either did not bind or were competitive inhibitors, the most potent being 5-amino-4-nitroimidazole ribonucleotide with a K(i) of 0.7 +/- 0.5 microM. The results show that the 4-carboxamide of AICAR is essential for catalysis, and it is proposed to assist in mediating proton transfer, catalyzing the reaction by trapping of the addition compound. AICAR analogues where the nitrogen of the 4-carboxamide was derivatized with a methyl or an allylic group did not bind AICAR Tfase, as determined by pre-steady-state burst kinetics; however, these compounds were potent inhibitors of IMP cyclohydrolase (IMP CHase), a second activity of the bifunctional mammalian enzyme (K(i) = 0.05 +/- 0.02 microM for 4-N-allyl-AlCAR). It is proposed that the conformation of the carboxamide moiety required for binding to AICAR Tfase is different than the conformation required for binding to IMP CHase, which is supported by inhibition studies of purine ribonucleotides. It is shown that 5-formyl-AICAR (FAICAR) is a product inhibitor of AICAR Tfase with K(i) of 0.4 +/- 0.1 microM. We have determined the equilibrium constant of the transformylase reaction to be 0.024 +/- 0.001, showing that the reaction strongly favors AICAR and the 10-formyl-folate cofactor. The coupling of the AICAR Tfase and IMP CHase activities on a single polypeptide allows the overall conversion of AICAR to IMP to be favorable by coupling the unfavorable formation of FAICAR with the highly favorable cyclization reaction. The current kinetic studies have also indicated that the release of FAICAR is the rate-limiting step, under steady-state conditions, in the bifunctional enzyme and channeling is not observed between AICAR Tfase and IMP CHase.


This paper presents a methodology and validation of print-and-self-fold electric devices. For printing functional structures for robotic use, we realize electric circuitry based on metallic polyester film (MPF). By exploiting the unique material properties of MPF, we developed fundamental electric devices, namely a resistor, capacitor, and inductor. The developed polyvinyl chloride laminated MPF sheet shows reliable self-folding processes under a heat application, and it configures 3D electric devices. Due to the pre-resolved kinematic design, these devices feature elasticity, making them suitable as sensors and actuators in soft circuits. Here we testify to a self-assembled variable resistor and capacitive strain sensor. An actuation mechanism consisting of a folded contractible coil is also considered and shown. Finally, an RLC circuit obtained from the integration of all the developed devices is demonstrated, in which the coil based actuator is controlled by reading a variable capacitive strain sensor.


Experimental and clinical data on the nephroprotector properties of third-generation beta-adrenoblockers nebivolol and carvedilol are reviewed. These properties are related to the antihypertensive effect and ability of drugs to suppress oxidative stress in glomerules, proximal renal tubules, and surrounding interstitial tissue.


The abundance and activity of heterotrophic and autotrophic organisms were deter- mined in the surface microlayer (SML) at marine and estuarine sites in the NW Mediterranean Sea from May to July 2003. At all study sites, community respiration in the SML exceeded that in the sub- surface water (SSW) by factors between 1.7 and 28. The abundance of heterotrophic bacteria and the major groups of the autotrophic community displayed consistent, but low enrichment factors (EF) for the SML (mean 1.3). In contrast, EF for the abundance of heterotrophic nanoflagellates and the concentration of particulate organic carbon were, on average, 4 and 7, respectively. Community respiration rates in the SML were related to the concentration of total organic carbon; however, no relationship was detectable between community respiration and the abundance of the major groups of the heterotrophic and autotrophic community. Net community production, determined at 2 oligo- trophic marine sites, displayed negative values for the SML, while in the SSW autotrophic processes balanced or exceeded heterotrophic processes. Similar rates of photochemical oxygen consumption were determined for the SML and the SSW. These results let us conclude that in situ primary produc- tion in the SML is not sufficient to support biological and photochemical mineralization at the air-water interface. We suggest that vertical transport of organic matter, mainly in colloidal and particulate form, to the air-water interface is the basis of the food web, thereby supporting net heterotrophy of the SML.


While research into non-Western media systems and professional norms are growth areas in journalism studies, little is known about the policies of news organisations beyond a few celebrated global brands. This exploratory study is situated in that gap. It examines 12 reputable media organisations in seven territories – China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Taiwan. Through interviews with top-level editors and executives, the study analyses their stated policies with regard to commercial conflicts of interest. In particular, how they deal with pressures from owners and advertisers who want favourable news coverage and how they respond to the demand for commercial deals that blur the boundaries between editorial and advertising. The study responds to recent calls in media ethics scholarship for critical-empiricist research on the 'possible' world, focusing on actually existing exemplars rather than abstract ideals. The 12 organisations have adopted a range of responses to these pressures. In general, most have policies aimed at preserving their editorial integrity even as they become more accommodating to the market. Our interviewees point to the importance of organisational culture, more than written policies, in maintaining professionalism: most of the organisations were founded by journalist-publishers whose ethos continues to exert a strong influence. While these organisations have lessons for others, it may be unrealistic to expect their culture of journalistic independence to diffuse beyond a small set of principled media outlets.


Student learning has been affected by the recent shift in education globally which has been attributed to adaptation to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This study will look at these characteristics to better understand gender differences in e-learners' self-efficacy, satisfaction, motivation, attitude, and performance on a worldwide scale. Due to the rapid COVID-19 pandemic, many educational institutions had to close, forcing many students to stay at home and enrol in online courses. Due to the practical laboratory sessions and workshops demanded by Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) modules and other related fields, education has faced difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding student involvement and its role in promoting a number of desirable outcomes, including academic outcomes like greater achievement, lower dropout rates, as well as various well-being and life outcomes, has therefore become increasingly important. This paper presents the scientometric review with an annotated bibliography on teaching styles through group learning in the higher education academies (HEAs) directed towards sustainable education. The current work also gives an annotated bibliography that seeks to compile and integrate the research on student participation, group learning, instructional strategies, equality, and diversity. Some evaluations and suggestions are also made in the study.


Background and Aims: Fluid requirements of children vary as a function of gender and age. To our knowledge, there is very little literature on the hydration status of French children. We assessed the morning hydration status in a large sample of 529 French schoolchildren aged 9–11 years. Methods: Recruited children completed a questionnaire on fluid and food intake at breakfast and collected a urine sample the very same day after breakfast. Breakfast food and fluid nutritional composition was analyzed and urine osmolality was measured using a cryoscopic osmometer. Results: More than a third of the children had a urine osmolality between 801 and 1,000 mosm/kg while 22.7% had a urine osmolality over 1,000 mosm/kg. This was more frequent in boys than in girls (p < 0.001). A majority of children (73.5%) drank less than 400 ml at breakfast. Total water intake at breakfast was significantly and inversely correlated with high osmolality values. Conclusions: Almost two thirds of the children in this large cohort had evidence of a hydration deficit when they went to school in the morning, despite breakfast intake. Children's fluid intake at breakfast does not suffice to maintain an adequate hydration status for the whole morning.


In Positron Emission Tomography (PET), image quality is highly degraded by noise. Therefore, two main PETimage denoising approaches can be used: pre- and postreconstruction denoising. In the pre-reconstruction approach the PET sinogram is denoised before forwarding it to the image reconstruction algorithm. On the other hand, the reconstructed PET-image is denoised in the post-reconstruction approach. In this study, comparison of image quality of the resulting images of the pre- and post-reconstruction approaches is performed. In both types of approaches, the Gaussian filter, the Non-Local Means filter (NLM), the Block-Matching and 3D filter (BM3D), the K-Nearest Neighbors Filter (KNN) and the Patch Confidence K-Nearest Neighbors Filter (PCkNN) are utilized. These approaches are evaluated on a simulated PET-phantom dataset, a real-life physical thorax-phantom PET dataset as well as a reallife MicroPET-scan dataset of a mouse. The performance is measured using the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) in addition to the Contrast-to-Noise Ratio (CNR) in the resulting images.


Objectives Low back pain cannot be overdiagnosed, at least not in the narrow sense of the word. However, it is a common symptom, and one that is often given a diagnostic label (slipped disc, pinched nerve, instability, arthritis, degeneration, and so on), despite there being no reliable way of determining the pain source in most cases. Once the symptom is labelled, however, the consequences begin to resemble those of overdiagnosis: many will experience no clinical benefit from receiving a diagnostic label, but will feel less well because of it, and are more likely to undergo costly, invasive treatments with questionable efficacy. We will present our current understanding of overdiagnosis of low back pain, discuss how low back pain might differ from other well-known examples of overdiagnosis, and detail efforts from within our research group and beyond to develop and evaluate solutions. Method If one were to consider the broader definitions of overdiagnosis proposed by Carter et al. (BMJ 2015;350:h869), healthcare for low back pain would have examples abound: disease mongering ('Pain as the 5th vital sign' campaign by US Veteran's Affairs), overutilisation (spinal injections, opioids), overdetection (diagnostic imaging), overtreatment (spinal fusion surgery, early physiotherapy), and false positives (red flags for serious pathology). In 2013 Americans spent US$81.6 billion on care for low back pain. How did we end up here? Results Unlike other well-known examples, overdiagnosis of low back pain appears to have little to do with altering disease definitions or thresholds, or providing screening programs for the healthy. Some people with low back pain may receive no diagnosis but are overtreated. Conclusions We argue that many of the problems with overdiagnosis and overtreatment of low back pain arise because people enter a health system that is set up to encourage inappropriate care and discourage appropriate care.


Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different intervals of the self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) on glycemic control in a selected type 2 diabetic population. Methods: Type 2 diabetic patients with disease duration >1 year who were on insulin treatment for at least 6 months and were already applying SMBG were included in the study. A total of 118 patients were enrolled and classified into groups based on SMBG frequencies as once in a week, once in two weeks, once in a month and not at all. At the end of the 12 weeks glycemic control was assessed with measured blood glucose and A1c levels. Results: After 3 months of monitorization, A1c levels significantly decreased in group 1 (p<0.005) and group 2 patients (p<0.05) and no change or even an increase was observed in other groups. Reported hypoglycemic events were rare in all patients. Conclusion: SMBG is important for the achievement of glycemic goals and simplifying SMBG may help to overcome problems of compliance and cost.


Biosilver nanoparticles are playing an important role in various field such as in agriculture, cosmetics, bioremediation and biomedical. In present investigation, in vitro synthesis of silver nanoparticles using Pseudomonas putida LUA 15.1 was carried out after optimization of various parameters. Optimum condition parameters for maximum synthesis of silver nanoparticles was selected which included TY broth containing 5g/l tryptone, 3g/l yeast extract, 1.5 mM AgNO3, whereas CuSO4 led to decline in silver nanoparticles synthesis. TY broth (pH; 8.0) using optimum condition was used for in vitro synthesis of silver nanoparticles at 35°C for 24 hrs of incubation. Nanoparticles synthesis indicated by change in colour from pale yellow to brown red was confirmed by UV–Vis spectroscopy with absorbance peak obtained between 330-460 nm. Characterization of biosilver nanoparticles was carried using SEM, DLS and FTIR. These biosilver nanoparticles found to be monodispersed, spherical in shape with size range of 10-25 nm and FTIR spectrum revealed presence of alkenes, phenylester and 1,2,4-trisubstituted biomolecules and these were tested for antibacterial activity against four bacterial plant using agar well diffusion test producing significant zones of inhibition against bacterial pathogens after 24 hrs of incubation.


Various attempts of Russian political leaders to keep their formerly subordinated nations under a strong influence of regional military-political and economic coalitions headed by Moscow are treated differently by the West, by Russia itself, and by the post-Soviet states. On the one hand, despite the withdrawal of the Warsaw Treaty and the Soviet Union in 1991, and the end of the Cold War between two blocks, the West still depicts Russia as an unfriendly state ready to attack Europe at any time, and calls the allies to more careful watchfulness over the "Russian bear". On the other hand, Russia itself is more preoccupied with NATO's enlargement towards the East, the import of "hybrid" wars and "colour" revolutions, and the stirring up of terrorism and religious extremism stemming from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. While the post-Soviet states, which are geopolitically located under Moscow's umbrella, demonstrate loyalty and form alliances with Russia for their own sake, Russia could guarantee the preservation of the existing regimes and their states' sovereignty and give them political freedom to realise a "multi-factor" foreign policy by balancing the strongest powers in the region. However, Moscow is trying to avoid the role of the "watchdog" of the region, looks for stronger allies to strengthen its global positions, and has already prioritised the global Shanghai Cooperation Organization over the regional one. The article gives a picture of the existing security system in the post-Soviet space in the military-political and economic aspects, and provides tentative suggestions on the main trends and problems in the system.


An interesting technology in energy storage is latent heat storage which can store
heat energy due to a phase shift. This allows energy to be stored as sensible heat
until the phase shift temperature is reached, and after this point additional latent
heat. In this way the energy storage becomes much more efficient. Some types of
materials which can be used as latent heat storage materials includes salt hydrates
and combinations of salt hydrates called eutectics.
Most of these substances are measured and developed by an experimental
approach which is both time consuming and very expensive. An alternative to this
approach is using a thermodynamic model, which can, if the model is accurate
enough, be used to predict relevant thermodynamic properties, including relevant
information as melting temperature and heat of fusion.
This project is about the eutectic salt hydrate consisting of Mg(NO3)2 ∙ 6H2O and
MgCl2 ∙ 6H2O. This eutectic system has a melting temperature at around 59
degrees Celcius and is therefore suitable as a heat storage material in application
which have an operational temperature at this point. This is because the material
melts at this temperature and the energy required to make the phase change is
released at this temperature. It makes this eutectic applicable in heating water in
households, where the hot water is around this temperature. This great operational
temperature has made this eutectic salt hydrate very interesting in connection with
private solar panels, but actually very few published experiments has been made of
the system. This project was about testing the eutectic salt hydrate to verify the old
and contradictory data which has been published. More over some parameters in
the model called the Extended UNIQUAC model, was improved. This model is of
many considered as the best model to describe electrolytes and is therefore the
obvious choice for this type of project. The results obtained by the improved
parameters was significantly better.


Testing Viscosity of MR Fluid in Magnetic Field The purpose of this paper was to determine the coefficient of viscosity of a magneto-rheological fluid for different values of the magnetic field and to determine parameters at which the flow of the fluid through a capillary is stopped. To determine the coefficient of viscosity, a method of indirect measurement was implemented using a reference fluid with the known properties. A test stand with a capillary viscometer was constructed. The measurements showed that the viscosity of the magneto-rheological fluid was linearly dependent in a wide range of values of the magnetic induction.


We used immunolocalization and in situ hybridization to determine the distribution of SP-A and SP-A mRNA in lungs of human fetuses and normal newborn infants. Early in the second fetal trimester a few immunostained cells were observed in tracheal epithelium, often in mucosal folds near the origin of submucosal gland ducts. Non-mucous tracheal gland cells were immunostained for SP-A as they became differentiated. Expression of SP-A mRNA was similar to that of immunolocalization in the second trimester. Immunostained cells and SP-A mRNA also appeared about the same time in gestation in isolated cells of bronchial epithelium and glands. SP-A mRNA was seen in bronchiolar cells and pre-Type II cells lining terminal airways of fetuses at 19-20 weeks of gestation. Only in liveborn infants did cells of bronchioloalveolar portals and mature Type II cells contain SP-A mRNA or immunostain for SP-A. In postnatal infants, luminal material was also stained for SP-A. Although some alveolar macrophages contained immunoreactive material, SP-A mRNA was never detected. The abundance of SP-A in tracheal and bronchial glands and epithelium of conducting airways supports the importance of non-surfactant-associated functions for SP-A and may be related to a role in host defense.


SUMMARY To formulate assessment criteria for interdisciplinary research (IDR) taking into account its specificity and cross-cut ting nature on its own terms is a key and difficult issue. This paper reports results from a case study of an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, multi-national research team convened to address a highly complex problem with societal relevance: to understand and model adaptive management of agricultural ecosystems in the Pampas of central-eastern Argentina in response to climate variability and other sources of risk and uncertainty. The analysis focuses on the shifting perspectives and metrics of "success" held by participants at three specific stag es of the collaboration process: the project start, an intermediate stage (about two years into a three-year project) and the end. The case highlights a dynamics of knowledge production where an initial moderate level of understanding and accommodation of alternative standpoints may not be seen as sufficient in subsequent phases of interaction when criteria based on integrative standards are expected to emerge. Along IDR interaction obstacles and constraints reappear recurrently in subtle ways, making active participants gain a rising consciousness of the existence of new reachable aims and consequently, of novel shades of possible misunderstandings.


This Course Guide is created for the freshmen seminar class: MIND AND BODY IN CHINA. It gathers library resources related to the subjects taught in this class and aims to help students with their research project and class papers.


This paper proposes a novel method for kinematic singularity avoidance for robot manipulators. Using set-based singularity avoidance tasks within the singularity-robust multiple task priority framework, avoidance of kinematic singularities is guaranteed without interfering with the convergence of compatible equality tasks. Non-compatible equality tasks will still be fulfilled to the extent possible. In addition, the method can be used to reconfigure the robot into a more dexterous configuration. The proposed method is applicable to both redundant and nonredundant robots, with both fixed base and floating base. The implementation is generic and independent of the type and number of tasks. Although also applicable for non-redundant fixed base robot manipulators, this novel approach is particularly well suited for highly redundant and/or floating base manipulators, since the robot configuration can be changed to improve the dexterity of the manipulator arm. We demonstrate the method by applying it to an underwater swimming manipulator, which is an innovative and highly redundant underwater floating base manipulator. Furthermore, simulation results are presented that illustrate and validate the proposed method.


Growth retardants are applied in order to obtain short and well compact plants. They usually inhibit stem elongation, but also can influence the flowering of plants. The aim of cytokinin application is to obtain well branched plants without removing the apical meristem. Cytokinins usually increase the number of axillary shoots but also can influence flowering. Growth retardants and cytokinins can affect flower size, pedicel length, number of flowers, flower longevity, abortion of flower buds and number of days from potting plants to the first open flower. Flowering of growth retardant and cytokinin treated plants might depend on the method of growth regulator used (foliar spray or soil drench), plant species or even a plant cultivar, but in the highest degree it depends on the growth regulator rate used. These growth regulators, when are applied at rates appropriate for height and habit control, very seldom influence flowering of ornamental plants, but applied at high rates can delay flowering, diminish flower diameter or flower pedicel length and also can decrease the number of flowers per plant. In cultivation of bulb plants, growth retardants, used at very high rates, also cause abortion of flower buds.


Modern software systems are often compositions of entities that increasingly use self-adaptive capabilities to improve their behavior to achieve systemic quality goals. Self adaptive managers for each component system attempt to provide locally optimal results, but if they cooperated and potentially coordinated their efforts it might be possible to obtain more globally optimal results. The emergent properties that result from such composition and cooperation of self-adaptive systems are not well understood, difficult to reason about, and present a key challenge in the evolution of modern software systems. For example, the effects of coordination patterns and protocols on emergent properties, such as the resiliency of the collectives, need to be understood when designing these systems. In this paper we propose that probabilistic model checking of stochastic multiplayer games (SMG) provides a promising approach to analyze, understand, and reason about emergent properties in collectives of adaptive systems (CAS). Probabilistic Model Checking of SMGs is a technique particularly suited to analyzing emergent properties in CAS since SMG models capture: (i) the uncertainty and variability intrinsic to a CAS and its execution environment in the form of probabilistic and nondeterministic choices, and (ii) the competitive/cooperative aspects of the interplay among the constituent systems of the CAS. Analysis of SMGs allows us to reason about things like the worst case scenarios, which constitutes a new contribution to understanding emergent properties in CAS. We investigate the use of SMGs to show how they can be useful in analyzing the impact of communication topology for collections of fully cooperative systems defending against an external attack.


The technique of High Dose Intra-Operative Radiation Therapy (HDR-IORT) consists in the delivery of irradiation immediately following the removal of a cancerous mass, where the same incision is used to direct the radiation to the tumour bed. Given its particular characteristics, IORT requires dose measurements that are different from those requested in external radiotherapy treatments. The main reason lies in the fact that in this case a single high dose must be delivered to a target volume whose extension and depths will be determined directly during the operation. Since the possibility of devising a treatment plan using a TPS (Treatment Planning System) is not available, it is necessary to know the physical and geometric characteristics of the beam. Defining the physical characteristics of the beam entails both measuring the delivered dose and defining (monitoring) procedures. In any case a much higher dose will be released than occurs with conventional external accelerators. The ionization chamber recommended by the standard protocols for radiotherapy cannot be used because of the ion recombination inside the gas. In this work we propose the use of a calorimetric phantom, the Dosiort, to measure the beam properties. We describe the main characteristics and some preliminary results of the Dosiort System, which is proposed within the framework of a research project of the INFN (Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics). The set-up is a solid phantom of density approaching 1 g/cm3 with sensitive layers of scintillating fibres at fixed a position in a calorimetric configuration for the containment of electrons of energy 4-12 MeV. The prototype will be able to define the physical and geometrical characteristics of the electron beam (energy, isotropy, homogeneity, etc) and to measure the parameters needed to select the energy, the intensity and the Monitor Units (MU) for the exposition: Percentage Depth Dose; Beam profiles; Isodose curves; Values of dose for MU.


Abstract. A schematic of the components of regional early warning systems for rainfall-induced landslides is herein proposed, based on a clear distinction between warning models and warning systems. According to this framework an early warning system comprises a warning model as well as a monitoring and warning strategy, a communication strategy and an emergency plan. The paper proposes the evaluation of regional landslide warning models by means of an original approach, called the "event, duration matrix, performance" (EDuMaP) method, comprising three successive steps: identification and analysis of the events, i.e., landslide events and warning events derived from available landslides and warnings databases; definition and computation of a duration matrix, whose elements report the time associated with the occurrence of landslide events in relation to the occurrence of warning events, in their respective classes; evaluation of the early warning model performance by means of performance criteria and indicators applied to the duration matrix. During the first step the analyst identifies and classifies the landslide and warning events, according to their spatial and temporal characteristics, by means of a number of model parameters. In the second step, the analyst computes a time-based duration matrix with a number of rows and columns equal to the number of classes defined for the warning and landslide events, respectively. In the third step, the analyst computes a series of model performance indicators derived from a set of performance criteria, which need to be defined by considering, once again, the features of the warning model. The applicability, potentialities and limitations of the EDuMaP method are tested and discussed using real landslides and warning data from the municipal early warning system operating in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).


This paper examines the nature and extent of e-government activities in South Africa. E-Government refers to the practice of leveraging ICT to deliver services to employees (G2E), to citizens (G2C), to business (G2B) and to other government departments (G2G). The research method used was through direct personal engagement through semi-structured interviews with 10 stakeholders at local, provincial and national government level. The sample comprised two senior provincial management, two senior municipal managers, two academic government researchers, one national government official and three businessmen connected with government. A literature review was also conducted with data sourced from journals, books, websites and popular media for evidence of e-Government not known to the respondent or a provincial (state) or national initiative. It finds although e-Government activities is being provided by, inter alia, government, citizens and business, the service is few, far between and expensive. Although government has committed to e-services, there are, with few exceptions, such services available. On the other hand citizens are rising in anger as they demand improved service levels. It determines some typically government-centric services have already perhaps out of necessity been usurped by citizen led initiatives. Business is also providing innovative e-services. This comes however with skewed costs that may agitate the digital divide. There is an increasingly pervasive broadband infrastructure from both public and private enterprise that represents an opportunity to roll e-services. The ubiquity of mobile devices and ICT may make-services possible. This is an enticing opportunity, particularly given the increasing and sometimes violent calls for service delivery. To achieve traction the authors argue a stronger advocacy role is needed to promote e-Government activities by all stakeholders namely government, business or civil society. This paper uses the Prossler-Krimmer Model to analyze egovernment activities in South Africa including KwaZulu-Natal. It examines the technological, political, legislative and societal(sectors) respectively in South Africa and concludes eGovernment is a major opportunities for all stakeholders through a combination or research, cross training, advocacy and a re-contextualization of e-government.


Starting from a case of cerebral malaria in Ceará, the authors get the attention for that possibility of this occurrence in no-endemic zone, due to the retard of the diagnosis. Besides the serious implications of the disease, uncommon for this determined species, Plasmodium vivax, it is observed the probable existence of mixed infection and the potential dissemination with the presence of the sand fly transmitter.


G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of cell surface proteins that initiate intracellular signaling in response to extracellular stimuli. The classical paradigm of GPCR signaling dictates that downstream responses are relatively transient and confined to the cell surface, but this notion has been challenged in recent years following the identification of several receptors that can engage in sustained G protein-dependent signaling responses from early endosomes following internalization of the ligand-receptor complex. This phenomenon was initially discovered for the parathyroid hormone (PTH) type 1 receptor (PTHR), a class B GPCR that mediates the biological effects of endogenous peptide ligands PTH and its related peptide (PTHrP). Despite significant advancements toward understanding the determinants and relevance of PTHR-mediated endosomal cAMP signaling, this aspect of GPCR signaling remains incompletely understood. Here, we utilize a combination of optical, biochemical, cell biological, and physiological approaches to elucidate novel molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie endosomal cAMP responses by the PTHR, as well as its biological relevance. We demonstrate that extracellular Ca2+ acts as a positive allosteric modulator of the PTHR by prolonging ligand residence time and increasing the propensity of ligand-receptor complexes to engage in endosomal cAMP generation. We subsequently utilize biased agonism to decode the biological information encoded in the spatial versus temporal dimension of cAMP signaling. Finally, we identify Gq coupling as a critical determinant in PTH-mediated endosomal cAMP production. These findings unveil novel insights into mechanisms and biological outcomes of PTHR-mediated signaling that may prove useful in rational drug design.


Chondrichthyan species (sharks, rays, skates, and chimeras) are a class of high ecological, economic, and cultural significance, and yet they are the most threatened taxa in the marine environment. The creation of reference chromosome-length genome assemblies allows for conservation genomics methods, such as population and ecological genomics, to be utilized. Despite being greatly threatened and of great importance in maintaining ecosystem function, chondrichthyan species have been repeatedly absent from conservation-based genome sequencing projects. Less than 1% of these species have a genome sequence, despite their almost 50% either threatened or Data Deficient conservation status. Most notably, there are seven orders within this class without any genome representation. In this review, we identify gaps in chondrichthyan genomic resources and demonstrate how the lack of genomic resources for this major taxonomic class is limiting the conservation of these already difficult to conserve species. We highlight other applications for chondrichthyans genomics, such as evolutionary and developmental biology. Likely, the mismatching sampling protocols and limited computational skills and communication between fields have been preventing the integration of marine and molecular sciences. Here, we propose that this field is in dire need to move forward quickly to increase protection for marine species and ecosystems through improved collaboration between marine, molecular, and computer sciences.


The decoupling of trophic interactions is potentially one of the most severe consequences of climate warming. In lakes and oceans the timing of phytoplankton blooms affects competition within the plankton community as well as food–web interactions with zooplankton and fish. Using Upper Lake Constance as an example, we present a model-based analysis that predicts that in a future warmer climate, the onset of the spring phytoplankton bloom will occur earlier in the year than it does at present. This is a result of the earlier occurrence of the transition from strong to weak vertical mixing in spring, and of the associated earlier onset of stratification. According to our simulations a shift in the timing of phytoplankton growth resulting from a consistently warmer climate will exceed that resulting from a single unusually warm year. The numerical simulations are complemented by a statistical analysis of long-term data from Upper Lake Constance which demonstrates that oligotrophication has a negligible effect on the timing of phytoplankton growth in spring and that an early onset of the spring phytoplankton bloom is associated with high air temperatures and low wind speeds.


Phosphorylation is of major importance in cell signalling processes like cell migration, cell proliferation and cell differentiation within higher eukaryotic organisms. Therefore, the balance between phosphorylation, mediated by kinases, and dephosphorylation, mediated by phosphatases, must be tightly controlled. Kinases as well as phosphatases are known to play a role in diseases like cancer and diabetes. Future research on PTPs will give important information about the exact roles they fulfill in signal transduction and the implications they have in diseases. The aim of this work is the elucidation of the regulatory mechanism of oxidation induced inhibition of Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Phosphatases (RPTPs). RPTPa activity is inhibited by the formation of stable dimers upon oxidation. The crystal structure of RPTPa shows that a wedge-like structure of one subunit inserts into the catalytic cleft of the other, thereby preventing substrate binding. The cysteine of the membrane distal domain (RPTP-D2) acts as a redox sensor since mutating this residue into a serine prevents the formation of stable dimers and renders the phosphatase active after oxidation. In chapter II an antibody is described that specifically recognizes oxidized cysteines in the PTP-loop. We found that the cysteine of RPTPa-D2 is indeed more susceptible to oxidation than the cysteine of RPTPa-D1. In chapter III we investigated whether differential oxidation is a common theme in RPTPs. The guanidinium group of a nearby serine appears to define the susceptibility of the catalytic site cysteine. Chapter IV shows the crystal structure of oxidized RPTPa-D2 in which a sulphenamide form was identified just as was found in the crystal structure of PTP1B. This form appeared to be reversible and stable up to 24 hours. Whether dimerization induced inhibition could be a general regulatory mechanism for RPTPs was investigated in chapter V. The intracellular domains of RPTPa, RPTPm, LAR and CD45 all formed stable dimers upon oxidation. Besides they all showed profound conformational changes in response to oxidation. Here, we propose the following model. RPTPs exist on the cell membrane as preformed active dimers. In the presence of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), the conserved second, membrane distal catalytic domain functions as a redox sensor, transducing the oxidation information to the first, membrane proximal catalytically active domain. The inhibitory wedge of one subunit will subsequently occlude the catalytic cleft of the other, thereby preventing substrate binding, rendering the RPTP inactive. Since the oxidation of the cysteines is reversible, reduction of the cysteine of the second catalytic domain will reform the RPTPs to an active dimeric state. Taken together, we propose that the activity of RPTPs is regulated by an oxidation-induced dimerization mechanism.


Turbo machinery rotating blades are a vital component of aero-engines for transferring the energy of gas flow to kinetic energy. Rotating turbo-machinery blades are prone to fail under working fields with high temperature, high speed, high pressure and resonance of blades with prime engine. Vibration of the turbo-machinery blades need to be studied carefully for safe and reliable operation of the engine. Thermal barrier coatings (TBC) layers are used to protect the blade metal at higher operating temperature though these can be plagued due to phase instability, thermal instability and adherence problems. TBCs also tend to spall due to thermal expansion mismatch with the super alloy substrate or because of erosion/impact caused by particles in the high-velocity combustion gases. Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are a relatively new class of materials that can solve these problems in high-temperature environments and can be considered as potential material for making gas turbine blades. Unlike composite materials the functionally graded materials (FGMs) are free from delamination and debonding and have the ability to withstand high temperature without TBC coatings. In this present study natural frequency of the FGM turbine blade for various rotational speeds during actual operation is determined using finite element technique. As the aero-engine is complex in nature therefore harmonic resonance can always occur in the aero-engine system and it is difficult to determine the natural frequency at varying speed during actual operation. The chances of failure of the blade also increase because of harmonic resonance. Hence, the resonance property is required to investigate of the FGM blade in details. Various rotational speed and operating temperature is considered to determine the natural frequencies of the blade. The resonance studies for each case are performed using the Campbell diagram. Resonance margin is calculated for each case and safe operating speed is determined. This study could serve as ready reference for safe operation of turbo-machinery engine considering FGM blade for specific range of engine speed.


In one sense it is remarkable just how much progress has been made during the 1990's in the delivery of official information to the public. Just three years ago the former Conservative Government, in its first official comment on the implications of the Internet for the provision of public sector services, discussed tentative ideas for exploiting the Information Superhighway for the public good. Since then government departments and agencies, together with business and commerce, have made significant use of the digital network, most notably the Internet to advertise services and deliver basic information to the public. Nevertheless, despite this and the associated relaxations in Crown copyright that have come with it, it is not clear that the parameters of future information policy have been defined. It is true that a significant amount of official information can now be retrieved electronically but fundamental decisions by government about its precise intent in this area have yet to be made. The position has been further complicated by a new UK government whose information policy is currently in its formative stage.
It is perhaps inevitable that what started as a simple proposition - the possibility that government might use the new communications medium of the electronic network to deliver access to official information - should have become a more complex issue once detailed choices began to emerge. Was the question merely one of the improved delivery of transactional services between government and citizen or was a wider democratic objective involved viz., using the new electronic media to advance the political dialogue between government and the governed through enhanced access to politicians, Parliamentary proceedings and other official information? Could discussion of these matters take place on its own merits or was a benefit to be gained by co-ordinating action in some form of national information policy? If these issues were important to what extent should policy development be driven so as to promote the UK information market and particularly the prospects for enhanced commercial input into the above? In addition, how did UK approaches towards these questions compare with emerging European Union views on access and tradeable information policy? This article explores these questions and considers the choices that may lie ahead.


In this paper, the relation between the dielectric properties and the lattice distortion in the phase coexistence region is discussed using a phase statistical distribution model, and in the rhombohedral phase region the two connection equations on the dielectric properties and the lattice distortion are established. Particularly, the relation between the dielectric properties and the lattice distortion is investigated in the phase coexistence region of PZT ceramics, and the fitting value of the volume fraction of the tetragonal phase VT to composition x in the equation is determined. Further, the fitting results are well consistent with the related experimental data. It involves more profound physical process than relation between the dielectric properties and composition x.


The assignment of a linguistic sign to a word class is an operation that must be seen as part of the overall transformation of extralinguistic substance into linguistic form. In this, it is comparable to such processes as the transitivization of a verbal base, which further specifies a relatively rough categorization. Languages differ both in the extent to which they structure the material by purely grammatical criteria and in the level at which they do this. The root and the stem are the lowest levels at which a linguistic sign can be categorized in terms of language-specific structure. Further categorization is then achieved at the level of the syntagm. An empirical investigation comparing the categorization of roots and stems in a sample of six languages (English, German, Latin, Spanish, Yucatec Maya, Mandarin Chinese) turns up far-reaching differences. These differences in the amount of categorization that languages apply to linguistic signs at the most basic levels throw into doubt any thesis claiming universal categoriality or acategoriality for roots. Such a static view must be replaced by a dynamic one which asks for the role of categorization in linguistic activity. At the same time, these differences raise the issue of the amount of structure — or of grammar — that is necessary for a human language.1


Introduction: Diabetic Retinopathy is the most common cause of preventable blindness among working-aged group. Diabetic neuropathy is also a common complication of diabetes. As the prevalence of diabetes increases the complications are also increasing. Early detection of DR will significantly reduce the chances of vision loss. Aim of the Study: This study was done to assess the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in patients with diabetic neuropathy and in patients without neuropathy. Materials and Methods: This is an analytical cross sectional study conducted at the patients attending OPD from January 2016 to November 2016. Total 200 patients who include 100 patients with neuropathy and 100 patients without neuropathy were screened for the presence of DR. presence of distal sensory peripheral neuropathy was diagnosed by using biothesiometry. Ocular examination included best corrected visual acuity, anterior segment examination using slit lamp examination, intra ocular pressure measurement using non contact tonometer. A dilated fundus examination was done with indirect ophthalmoscopy and slit lamp biomicroscopy. Results & Discussion: In this study, among the patients without neuropathy 30 percent of the patients had diabetic retinopathy of various stages and among the patients without neuropathy 44 percent of the patients had retinopathy. More advanced forms of the disease were seen in the DSPN group. Conclusion: This study clearly shows the increased prevalence of DR in patients with DSPN. Patients with DSPN have more severe disease compared with the non neuropathy group. It is also found that CSME is more common in the DSPN group.


1. The responses of deefferented Ia and spindle group II afferents to electrically activated twitch contractions of randomly selected motor units of the cat tibialis posterior muscle have been studied. Each afferent was paired with from 8 to 20 of the muscle's 60 motor units, and each afferent-motor unit interaction was recorded to two muscle lengths. 2. Cross-correlation histograms were compiled for each afferent-motor unit interaction studied as well as the average twitch tension produced by the motor unit. A numerical "coupling index" was computed for the histogram distributions to quantitate the extent of mechanical coupling between the receptor and the single motor units. 3. Qualitatively, no consistent differences were noted in the responses of Ia and spindle group II afferents to single motor-unit contractions. However, Ia afferents were responsive to a higher percentage of motor units with which they were tested (89%) and, on the average, displayed a significantly larger magnitude of response (mean coupling index, 0.72 +/- 0.04 SE) than the spindle group II afferents (66% of motor units; mean coupling index, 0.51 +/- 0.03). 4. The extent to which a motor-unit contraction altered the discharge pattern of a spindle afferent was not strictly related to the amount of force generated by the unit, nor to its contraction time. 5. Muscle length exerted a strong influence on both the qualitative and quantitative features of many of the motor unit-muscle receptor interactions. 6. These results suggest that the degree of "mechanical coupling" between a receptor and a motor unit is largely dependent on anatomical arrangements and reinforce the possibility that muscle receptors generate a "sensory partitioning" of the motor-unit population within a muscle.


The key question of this study is whether policies adopted elsewhere in Europe might be useful in helping to increase the labour force participation of women and of older workers in the Netherlands, and thus improve the financial basis for social security arrangements. We examined the effectiveness of national policy measures over and above that of the individual-level determinants that are traditionally examined in economic and sociological studies. The data on labour force participation are from the European Social Survey, and information on public policy arrangements comes from the MULTILINKS database. Regarding the labour force participation of women, findings show the importance of distinguishing financial measures and care services. Women generally work fewer hours per week in countries with generous financial support for families (tax benefits, child support), and more hours in countries with generous parental leaves. Regarding the participation of older workers, findings show the importance of distinguishing the minimum pension level (negative association with the likelihood of having a job) and pension as a proportion of earned wage (no association with having a job). A novelty of the present study is its ability to demonstrate the impact of national arrangements at the level of individual participation behaviour.


The relative cost of computer hardware and software has reduced significantly over recent years and many engineers now have access to powerful software such as finite element (FE) analysis packages. However, there is no single source of clear advice on how to correctly analyse and design using this type of software. This guide seeks to introduce FE methods, explain how concrete can be successfully modelled and how to interpret the results. It will also highlight the benefits, some of the common pitfalls and give guidance on best practice.


avelet Transform has been successfully applied in different fields, ranging from pure mathematics to applied science. Numerous studies, carried out on Wavelet Transform, have proven its advantages in image processing and data compression and have made it a basic encoding technique in recent data compression standards. Pure software implementations of the Discrete Wavelet Transform, however, appears to be the performance bottleneck in real-time systems in terms of performance. Therefore, hardware acceleration of the DWT has become a topic of recent research. The goal of our research is to investigate the possibility of hardware acceleration of Discrete Wavelet Transform for image compression applications and to compare the performance improvement against the pure software implementation. In this thesis, we introduce a novel micro-architectural design for efficient hardware acceleration of the Discrete Wavelet Transform. The unit was designed to be integrated as an extension to the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) of a microprocessor in a custom-computing platform like [1] and can be used to accelerate multimedia applications as JPEG2000 or MPEG-4. The design is based on the Fast Lifting Wavelet Transform scheme (FLWT), which is a fast implementation of the Discrete Wavelet Transform. The design utilizes various techniques such as pipelining, parallel execution, data reusability and specific features of the Xilinx Virtex II FPGAs to accelerate the transform. For performance analysis, a software package (Liftpack [2]) and a simulator (Sim-outorder of SimpleScalar toolset [3]) were used. The simulator was modified and the software was optimized for integer arithmetic for optimum software performance. This optimized version was used as benchmark to investigate the performance enhancement due to the hardware acceleration. The hardware unit operates with a clock frequency of 50 MHz. Assuming a processor clock frequency of 1 GHz for the software implementation, a speedup of over 5 times for a picture size of 720*560 was achieved. The performance will be even higher for pictures with larger dimensions or for filters of larger degrees. In addition, investigations show a much higher speedup capacity for popular filters like La Gill 5/3 or Daubechies 9/7 when they are factorized into Lifting steps and implemented with this design. Our conclusion is that the proposed design can substantially accelerate the DWT and the inherent scalability can be exploited to reach a higher performance in the future.


We present new excess 231Pa/230Th activity ratios and lipid biomarker results from northeastern Arabian Sea sediments (core 93KL) spanning the past 50 ka in an effort to constrain further the relationship between climate at low and high latitudes. 231Pa/230Th activity ratios are maintained at values significantly higher than the water‐column production ratio of 0.093. Average 231Pa/230Th activity ratios are lower during the last glacial period than during the Holocene. The lowest 231Pa/230Th activity ratios coincide with the timing of Heinrich Events 1–5. Profiles of lipid biomarker fluxes and 231Pa/230Th activity ratios from 32 to 12 ka show similar patterns, suggesting that 231Pa is more efficiently scavenged relative to 230Th at times when diatoms make up a proportionally larger part of the primary biomass signal. In the Holocene, high 231Pa/230Th activity ratios may indicate enhanced 231Pa export from the southern to the northern Indian Ocean via intensified thermohaline circulation.


BACKGROUND
In the present study, we investigated the clinical outcome of patients with brain metastases (BMs) from human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive (HER2+) breast cancer (BC) treated with lapatinib and capecitabine (LC).

METHODS
Of 81 HER2+ metastatic BC patients treated with LC at two Italian institutions, 30 patients with BMs eligible for the analysis were identified. All patients were pretreated with trastuzumab for metastatic disease. No patients had received prior lapatinib and/or capecitabine.

RESULTS
Median age was 45 years (range 24-75) and 26 of 30 patients (86.7%) had received prior cranial radiotherapy. In the 22 patients with BMs evaluable for response, 7 partial responses (31.8%) and 6 disease stabilizations (27.3%) were observed. Overall, the median brain-specific progression-free survival was 5.6 months (95% confidence interval 4.4-6.8). Patients treated with LC had a median overall survival (from the time of development of BMs) significantly longer compared with 23 patients treated with trastuzumab-based therapies only beyond brain progression (27.9 months versus 16.7 months, respectively, P = 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS
LC is active for BMs from HER2+ BC in patients not pretreated with either lapatinib or capecitabine. The introduction of LC after the development of BMs may further improve survival compared with trastuzumab-based therapies only beyond brain progression.


The aim of this research is to provide individual and country-level explanations of Europeans' commitment to protecting the environment over the years 1990-2009. Cross-country comparisons and longitudinal analyses are undertaken using the corpus of knowledge provided by green thought and democratic theories. The following countries are included in the study: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, West Germany, and the United Kingdom. The analysis is developed gradually, first using individual-level data from a series of repeated cross-country surveys, conducted within the European Values Study (EVS), and then creating a new standalone dataset, by adding country-level measures related to economic development, democratic governance and environmental policies. The focus is not only on identifying the key drivers of people's commitment to environmental protection, but also on putting these characteristics of the individuals in the context of their country of residence. Public commitment to protecting the environment is measured as willingness of people to give part of their income for environmental protection using an ordinal scale. Thus, a series of ordinal and multinomial multiple regression models are constructed by accounting for individual-level determinants of Europeans' commitment to making financial sacrifices for environmental protection, in the first phase of the analysis. These individual-level models are developed considering a number of proxy variables related to the theory of ecological citizenship, developed by Andrew Dobson (2000, 2003, 2006, 2007). The second phase of the analysis additionally controls for country-level contextual variables related to the income of a country, quality of democracy and CO2 emissions. The findings show that regardless of the income of a country, the quality of democracy, and level of CO2 emissions, across all 22 European countries included in the study people sharing the features of an ecological citizen have been more likely to give part of their income for environmental protection than people who do not share these characteristics. The research therefore contributes to bridging the gap between the green political thought and cross-country longitudinal research on the environment, by empirically demonstrating that the approach of ecological citizenship represent a fertile terrain to better understand people's commitment to environmental protection It also highlights the importance of considering country-level measures related to the economic and political context where the ecological citizens live and the environmental policy adopted by a country. Although clusters or typologies of countries appear to exist, formed based on their quality of democracy, country income status and the level of CO2 emissions, within most of them there are no statistically significant differences between countries with regard to ecological citizens' willingness to give part of their income for the environment. There is only one exception: within the cluster comprising of certain former communist countries there are statistically significant differences between countries with regard to ecological citizens' commitment to protecting the environment. Therefore, the research adds knowledge to the field of environmental comparative politics by providing empirical evidence on the connections between democratic governance, environmental policy and the Europeans' commitment to protecting the environment.


Objective: The aim of this study was to generate synthetic electronic health records (EHRs). The generated EHR data will be more realistic than those generated using the existing medical Generative Adversarial Network (medGAN) method. Materials and Methods: We modified medGAN to obtain two synthetic data generation models—designated as medical Wasserstein GAN with gradient penalty (medWGAN) and medical boundary-seeking GAN (medBGAN)— and compared the results obtained using the three models. We used 2 databases: MIMIC-III and National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), Taiwan. First, we trained the models and generated synthetic EHRs by using these three 3 models. We then analyzed and compared the models' performance by using a few statistical methods (Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, dimension-wise probability for binary data, and dimension-wise average count for count data) and 2 machine learning tasks (association rule mining and prediction). Results: We conducted a comprehensive analysis and found our models were adequately efficient for generating synthetic EHR data. The proposed models outperformed medGAN in all cases, and among the 3 models, boundary-seeking GAN (medBGAN) performed the best. Discussion: To generate realistic synthetic EHR data, the proposed models will be effective in the medical industry and related research from the viewpoint of providing better services. Moreover, they will eliminate barriers including limited access to EHR data and thus accelerate research on medical informatics. Conclusion: The proposed models can adequately learn the data distribution of real EHRs and efficiently generate realistic synthetic EHRs. The results show the superiority of our models over the existing model.


Forming collaborative teams is a critical first step in team-project-based design courses as team composition directly affects not only teamwork processes and outcomes but also teamwork skills and experience. While various approaches have been used to form teams, the best methodology has not been found due to a lack of understanding of how team compositions impact team performance and teamwork learning. We need to establish a team effectiveness model for student design teams that describes relationships between team characteristics and team performance or teamwork learning. One of many challenges in such an effort is to estimate an appropriate sample size to achieve statistically significant results before starting data collection. In this paper, we demonstrate a power analysis for determining an appropriate sample size, i.e., the number of student teams, before we study the effectiveness of student design-teams. We first present a hypothesized team effectiveness model for student design teams that shows possible relationships among team factors. We then illustrate a statistical analysis procedure for studying the team effectiveness model using structural equation modeling (SEM) or path analysis. We finally demonstrate a power analysis of SEM for determining the appropriate sample size for studying the team effectiveness model.


Electronic Data Interchange has been in use from the early 1960s and has evolved over the last 50 years to include Internet EDI. Even though EDI has a long history, it is still very much in use today by major US and European automotive industry and the energy, healthcare, retail and manufacturing sectors. This is in spite of competing options from electronic procurement to enterprise resource systems. The main reason for its longevity is because it's standards-based and its reliability has been proven through many years of commercial use. EDI has many benefits to offer its adopters. Notwithstanding this, businesses which adopt EDI has other imperatives to base their decisions. EDI has diffused from its early days in the United States, Europe and Japan to other parts of the world including South East Asia. Businesses which have to succeed in today's competitive world have to resort to technology to improve their supply chain management. One of the dominant technologies which these businesses have to consider today is electronic data interchange.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been used mainly in the shipping and logistics industry in Malaysia through the mandatory government initiated SMK-Dagang*Net for over a decade. In the non-mandatory category, EDI has been adopted by banks in Malaysia, the bigger Malaysian-based retailers as well as manufacturers in Malaysia. Until today EDI is still not widely diffused to other businesses in Malaysia.
This study is exploratory in nature and has two major objectives. The first objective is to determine the function, diversity and breadth of EDI usage in Malaysian manufacturing companies. The second objective is to identify the significant factors that influence EDI adoption decisions. The motivation for the first objective is that there is a lack of current information on EDI use in manufacturing companies. The motivation for the second objective is to provide insight into why companies adopt or do not adopt electronic data interchange.
The sampling frame was from the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturer's (FMM) Directory. The usable sample of 284 companies consists of 86 (30.20%) EDI adopters and 198 (69.80%) EDI non-adopters. Manufacturers in Malaysia use EDI mainly for sales and purchase order transactions. This study found that the Internet is by far the most popular communications channel followed by private (VANs) and proprietary networks.
The theoretical bases of diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory, social exchange theory (SET), trust theory and critical mass theory (CMT) have been synthesized into the Tornatzky and Fleischer's (1990) technology-organization-environment research framework which was used for this study.
Fourteen research hypotheses were formulated and tested. Hypothesis testing showed that costs, size, external pressure and interorganizational trust were significant EDI facilitators, while e-commerce legal framework was a significant EDI inhibitor. The finding that interorganizational trust is significant is a revelation and points to a newer trend of the importance of developing trusting business relationships to mitigate uncertainties in the exchange relationship.
t-tests showed that EDI adopters and EDI non-adopters differ significantly in size, top management support, information technology capability, internal championship, external pressure and interorganizational trust variables. The three variables of top management support, external pressure and interorganizational trust were the best differentiators for adoption. Means analysis showed that costs was perceived to be the most important variable while external pressure was perceived to be the least important variable.
This study makes practical contribution by providing valuable insights to the company management when considering EDI adoption, to EDI solution vendors when considering how to sell their software and services and to government when formulating technology policies. The theoretical contribution of this study is through extending research work in the area of interorganizational information systems (IOS) by providing better understanding of the research area. This study also updates the information to the body of EDI knowledge of Malaysian manufacturers. Finally, the study has shown the appropriateness of the use of Diffusion of Innovation theory variables and Social Exchange Theory variables in the Tornatzky-Fleischer's (1990) Technology-Organizational-Environmental framework.


Symptoms, diagnosis and therapy of the ligaments at the malleolus lateralis are demonstrated. It is only the x-ray examination in fixed talar drawer position that enables exclusion of an instability with certainty. Hence, we may infer that every distorsion of the articulation must be x-rayed in talar drawer position to make sure that no rupture of the ligaments is omitted. Posttraumatic weak ankle due to neglected rupture of the fibular collateral ligaments can be avoided by suturing the rupture and fixation by plaster. Indications for surgery are: 1. considerable instability of the ankle joint compared with the healthy side, 2. a suspected covering of one periosteum or ligament as an interposition. 3. a suspected lesion of the cartilage or "flake fracture".


Research question: This study evaluates sport development outcomes of a medium-sized, one-off, international sport event, while also exploring any strategies and tactics that were implemented with the intention to increase participation or other sport development outcomes. The event under investigation is the 2005 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships. Research method: Retrospective perceptions of sport development outcomes were explored using event documents, 21 semistructured interviews with key stakeholders, and media coverage of the event. Results and Findings: The coaching clinic and the new facility were the only two intended tactics expected to intentionally trigger increases in sport participation and development. The sport facility seemed to have been successful, the coaching clinic was not. All other perceived outcomes, both positive and negative were unintended, and their underlying processes are unclear. Partnerships and relationships were established, but were not activated to serve sport development. It was assumed that 'awareness,' the new facility, and positive media coverage would automatically attract new participants. There is some evidence to support the 'demonstration effect' for those already involved in the sport, but not for new sport participation. A number of missed opportunities to build sport participation were retrospectively identified. Participation effects in the absence of leveraging are likely to be negligible. Implications: Formulation and implementation of strategies and tactics, and measurements need to be put into place from the outset of an event. This will enable the efficacy of strategies and tactics to be benchmarked and assessed. Future research should focus on the underlying processes, rather than just the impacts and outcomes.


Cattle were divided into three groups according to the red cell-protein 4.2 (P4.2) phenotypes P4.2(76), P4.2(75) and P4. 2(76/75), whose red cells contained Mr 76000 (P4.2/76), 75000 (P4. 2/75) and both 76000 and 75000 isoforms respectively. To elucidate the molecular basis that underlies the diversity of P4.2, the gene structures of bovine P4.2/76 and P4.2/75 were investigated. Two P4.2 cDNA clones were isolated from bone-marrow cDNAs of the animal with the P4.2(76/75) phenotype. These were identical in size (2.2 kb), encoding major erythroid P4.2 with 687 amino acids, but were different in three nucleotides, resulting in changes of amino acids at the 599th, 601st and 627th residues. Analysis of genomic DNA from the three phenotypes demonstrated that these two clones were derived from gene transcripts by which P4.2/76 and/or P4.2/75 were produced. In vitro transcription and translation of P4.2/76 and P4.2/75 cDNAs indeed generated P4.2/76 and P4.2/75 identical in size to the red-cell proteins. These findings demonstrated that polymorphism of the P4.2 gene at codons 599, 601 and 627 of P4.2 cDNA was the cause of the molecular diversity of bovine red-cell P4.2. Although distinct electrophoretic mobilities suggested a structural difference in the two isoforms, this polymorphism appeared to have little effect at least on P4.2 association with band 3, since no significant difference was observed in the amount of P4.2 relative to total membrane proteins despite the phenotype difference for P4.2.


Abstract. Rainfall gauge networks in Sub-Saharan Africa are inadequate for assessing Sahelian agricultural drought, hence satellite-based estimates of precipitation and vegetation indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) provide the main source of information for early warning systems. While it is common practice to translate precipitation into estimates of soil moisture, it is difficult to quantitatively compare precipitation and soil moisture estimates with variations in NDVI. In the context of agricultural drought early warning, this study quantitatively compares rainfall, soil moisture and NDVI using a simple statistical model to translate NDVI values into estimates of soil moisture. The model was calibrated using in-situ soil moisture observations from southwest Niger, and then used to estimate root zone soil moisture across the African Sahel from 2001–2012. We then used these NDVI-soil moisture estimates (NSM) to quantify agricultural drought, and compared our results with a precipitation-based estimate of soil moisture (the Antecedent Precipitation Index, API), calibrated to the same in-situ soil moisture observations. We also used in-situ soil moisture observations in Mali and Kenya to assess performance in other water-limited locations in sub Saharan Africa. The separate estimates of soil moisture were highly correlated across the semi-arid, West and Central African Sahel, where annual rainfall exhibits a uni-modal regime. We also found that seasonal API and NDVI-soil moisture showed high rank correlation with a crop water balance model, capturing known agricultural drought years in Niger, indicating that this new estimate of soil moisture can contribute to operational drought monitoring. In-situ soil moisture observations from Kenya highlighted how the rainfall-driven API needs to be recalibrated in locations with multiple rainy seasons (e.g., Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia). Our soil moisture estimates from NDVI, on the other hand, performed well in Niger, Mali and Kenya. This suggests that the NDVI-soil moisture relationship may be more robust across rainfall regimes than the API because the relationship between NDVI and plant available water is less reliant on local characteristics (e.g., infiltration, runoff, evaporation) than the relationship between rainfall and soil moisture.


Beam stability and halo formation in high-intensity axi-symmetric 2D beams in a uniform focusing channel are analyzed using particle-in-cell simulations. The tune depression - mismatch space is explored for the uniform (KV) distribution of the particle transverse-phase-space density, as well as for more realistic ones (in particular, the water-bag distribution), to determine the stability limits and halo parameters. The numerical results show an agreement with predictions of the analytical model for halo formation [ 13.


In structural engineering seismic loads usually are calculated based on response spectra. In the cases where the evaluation of non-normative site-specific response spectra is required, usually empirical evaluations of real earthquake registrations are used. Earthquake energy is described by magnitude and seismic impact by macroseismic intensity. In literature, there are numerous equations to calculate response spectra based on magnitude, distance and soil conditions, but there are almost no studies about intensity-based response spectra. Despite of the increasing number of metrological determined magnitudes, intensity is still an important parameter. Many seismic hazard maps refer to intensities and even some codes and regulatory guides use intensity values. The presented work shows the coherence between macroseismic intensity and other parameters that influence intensity. The way to do it has consisted of collecting and evaluating enough strong motion registrations to provide intensity and soil dependent response spectra. The evaluation considered the influence of ground type, deeper subsoil, magnitude, distance and type of structure. California was chosen as test area. In total, 411 horizontal components from nine earthquakes were evaluated, after assembling information about magnitude, distance and local soil conditions. Using detailed macroseismic information about the seismic impact, a local intensity was assigned to every registration according to the closest observed intensities in the site vicinity. From all the records the response spectra were calculated. Then, for specific groups of response spectra, according to intensity, soil class and other parameters, median spectral values were calculated as well as standard deviation. In addition to the empirical evaluation of the response spectra, some examples of soil dynamic calculations were performed. The coherence between the evaluated response spectra and structural vulnerability as well as the applicability to European earthquake prone areas was discussed. The strong motion duration was calculated from all records according to different definitions to probe the suitability of these definitions in the context of macroseismic intensities. Finally, a correlation analysis with different seismic parameters was carried out.


A new model of the surface barrier at a metal surface is presented. It is one dimensional, has two adjustable parameters z0, the location of the image plane, and, which determines the length scale of the transition from vacuum to bulk), and its form is suggested by the results of self-consistent electronic-structure calculations for a five-layer film of W(001) described here. The optimum form for electrons with incident energies below 10 eV is determined by comparison with available low-energy-electron-diffraction data from W(001).


The authors of this paper by Claire M Jenkinson and colleagues have told us of a small error in their analysis (BMJ 2009;339:b3170, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3170). In the statistical analysis section of theMethods, the penultimate sentence in the print version (p 607) should have read: "The time course of treatment effects was estimated by a generalised estimating equations linear model incorporating time × treatment interactions with an unstructured correlation matrix to allow for the repeated measurements nature of the data." As a consequence, in the primary outcomes section of the Results (p 608), the effect of exercise at 24 months should have been given as 0.91 (−1.60 to −0.23; P = 0.009) [not −0.91 (−1.66 to −0.17; P=0.016), as was stated]—that is, slightly more significant. These changes also affect the full online version of the article.


The article examines the intersection between the gender culture and the neoliberal transformation of research and academia. It focuses on the impact of the transformation on the early-career women academic researchers in the Czech Republic (CR). It examines a sample of women academics to see how their career paths unfold over time and identify the mechanisms, factors, and barriers that affect their academic careers in the early stages. The article looks at 14 excellent early-career women academics from different domains based on two interviews repeated after 7 years and investigates the trajectory of their academic paths from the longitudinal perspective. The combination of a highly conservative gender culture, the neoliberal reforms introduced in the field of research and academia over the past decade, and the resistance to promoting gender equality measures make the CR an informative case to study. I argue that the gender culture of the CR and Czech research and academic institutions and the conditions for work-life balance combine with the neoliberal reforms to have a very negative impact on the early stage of women's academic careers.


Rehabilitation robots are increasingly being viewed as an appropriate assistive technology interface for persons with disabilities. The Desktop Vocational Assistant Robot (DeVAR) system is a voice-controlled robotic workstation designed to enable persons with severe mobility impairments to function independently in a work environment. This study examined the overall efficacy of the DeVAR system, the level of expertise required for therapist and support personnel, routine maintenance requirements, and the readiness of the device for a multicenter evaluation. Two precommercial DeVAR workstations were installed at selected sites. The pilot study spanned 8 months in which staff members and four subjects with high-level quadriplegia evaluated the systems extensively. Responses were generally favorable regarding ease of use and overall training process. Subjects recommended modifications, including incorporation of a noise cancellation microphone, more effective use of workstation space, and addition of vocational tasks. All respondents thought that if the recommended changes were implemented, DeVAR would have potential as a vocational assistant. The small number of subjects was due to the limited subject pool available for the study. On the basis of pilot results, the Veterans Administration Rehabilitation Research and Development Service, Baltimore, Maryland, is conducting a national multicenter evaluation to determine the overall utility and commercial readiness of the DeVAR system.


Crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, and crowdinvesting are part of the philosophy of 'openness' in information systems and constitute valuable opportunities for raising funds for business ideas and any type of project. Research has confirmed that online crowdfunding generates high value for project initiators that look for financial resources. Funders, for their part, benefit from funding compensations which they receive in exchange for their financial support. And, finally, diverse other groups of individuals are directly or indirectly influenced by the project results. As a consequence, research articles often touch aspects of utility regarding the individuals concerned. In fact, the notion of utility is of special importance in the context of crowdfunding because it constitutes the basis for explaining participants' actions and decisions. However, crowdfunding research does not use a consistent concept of 'utility', discusses aspects of utility only superficially, and ignores the various influences on utility generation processes in the landscape of crowdfunding. For this reason, we propose a consistent conceptualization of utility in the area of crowdfunding that regards the different sources of utility. We discuss the influences on funders' decision making and demonstrate that aspects of imperfect openness affect utility generating processes in crowdfunding in many ways.


Communication between parents and adolescents on Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) issues are emerging public health concerns in Nigeria; yet they can be tackled through parents' intervention. This study was designed to document the parents' knowledge and quality of communication relating to ARH between parents and their adolescents in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in two Local Government Areas in the state. Interviewer-administered instruments were used to collect data from the parents and adolescents pair. Both instruments included a 28-point knowledge scale and questions on ARH practices. The instrument for adolescents contained an additional 15-point Perceived Quality of ARH Communication (PQARHC). Knowledge scores ≤9, ≤10-18 and ≥20 were categorized as poor, fair and good, respectively for both parents and adolescents. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chisquare tests at P=0.05. Ages of adolescents were 13.9±2.4 years while parents' ages was 42.6±8.5 years. Parent's and adolescents knowledge scores 22.6±3.4 and 19.4±5.9, respectively with no significant difference. Adolescents whose parents ever discussed ARH issues with them were 20.9% as against 72.1% by the parents. The proportion of parents and adolescents with good knowledge of ARH were 89.4% and 64.7% with no significant difference while the proportion of Adolescents' PQARHC with their parents was adjudged to be of good quality communication was 82.2% with P>0.05. Both the parents and adolescents had good knowledge of adolescent reproductive health but practice and quality of communication was poor. Therefore, training intervention to improve the adolescent- parent communication is recommended for the parents.


Objective. Adult-type hypolactasia (AtH) can be diagnosed by genotyping in addition to functional tests or intestinal biopsy. The aims of this study were to estimate the prevalence of AtH by genotyping and to investigate whether AtH prevalence has changed in Sweden during the 20th century. Material and methods. Schoolchildren (n=690) born in 1983 and 1989, and elderly individuals (n=392) born between 1920 and 1932 were genotyped for AtH using Pyrosequencing technology. Results. The overall prevalence of AtH among children was 14.1%. The majority of children (92%, n=635) were Caucasians with genotype prevalences: CC, 61 (10%); CT, 259 (41%); TT, 307 (49%). The frequency of the mutated allele q was 0.300 in this cohort. The prevalence of AtH estimated from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) (q2), was 9.0% (95% CI: 6.7–11.2%). Eight percent (n=55) of the children were non-Caucasian; genotype prevalences were CC, 36 (66%); CT, 15 (27%); TT, 4 (7%). The prevalence of AtH in these children estimated from HWE was 62.5% (95% CI: 49.7–75.3%). The elderly subjects were all Caucasians. Their genotype prevalences were: CC, 20 (5%); CT, 166 (42%); TT, 206 (53%); the frequency of the mutated allele q was 0.262 and their AtH prevalence estimated from HWE was 6.8% (95% CI: 4.3–9.2%). Conclusions. The overall prevalence of AtH in children (14%) was higher than previously thought. Among Caucasians, higher figures were seen in children than in the elderly (9% versus 6.8%). The prevalence thus seems to be increasing and this may be due to the immigration of both non-Caucasian and Caucasian groups with a higher prevalence of AtH.


Crit Care Med 2015 • Volume 43 • Number 12 (Suppl.) who underwent CTS at Children's National Health System from January 2010 to December 2013. Via CardioAccess©, deep SSI cases meeting the CDC's definition were identified. Controls without SSI were matched 2:1 by age, gender, Risk Adjustment for Congenital Heart Surgery score (RACHS-1) and Society of Thoracic Surgeons risk category (STS-EACTS). Primary variables were 6, 24 and 48 hour post-operative fluid resuscitation and thoracostomy output. Conditional logistic regression, Wilcoxon matched pairs sign rank test and McNemar's exact test were used in statistical analysis. Results: 2,021 children underwent CTS during the study period. Twelve deep SSI cases were matched to 24 controls and did not differ in age, gender, weight, RACHS-1, STS-EACTS category, bypass time or antibiotic prophylaxis. Deep SSIs received more fluid resuscitation at six (22.5 vs. 17.5ml/kg), 24 (27.7 vs. 18ml/kg) and 48 (35.2 vs. 18ml/kg) hr (all p<0.01). Deep SSIs had larger thoracostomy output at six (20.8 vs. 15.6ml/kg), 24 (44.8 vs. 33.6 ml/kg) and 48 (77.5 vs. 43.1 ml/kg) hr (all p<0.01). Conditional logistic regression of 48 hour post-operative fluid resuscitation on deep SSIs yielded odds of 1.013 (p=0.04, CI: 1–1.03). Conditional logistic regression of six hour thoracostomy output on deep SSIs yielded odds of 1.126 (p=0.04, CI: 1.01–1.26). Conclusions: Analysis of our results suggests that volume of fluid resuscitation and thoracostomy output are risk factors for deep SSI following CTS. Future research will analyze pharmacokinetics to determine if redosing of prophylactic antibiotics may reduce SSI risk by maintaining therapeutic drug concentrations.


We look at the drastic cut of the administered cocoa producer price in 1990 Côte d'Ivoire and study to which extent cocoa producers' children suffered from this severe aggregate shock in terms of school enrollment, labor, height stature, and morbidity. Using precrisis (1985–88) and postcrisis (1993) data, we propose a difference-in-difference strategy to identify the causal effect of the cocoa shock on child outcomes, whereby we compare children of cocoa-producing households and children of other farmers living in the same district or the same village. This causal effect is shown to be rather strong for the four child outcomes we examine. Hence human capital investments are definitely procyclical in this context. We also provide evidence of gender bias against young girls with respect to education and health care. We finally argue that the difference-in-difference variations can be interpreted as private income effects, likely to derive from tight liquidity constraints.