This article serves as an introduction to the others published in this thematic issue of the Cadernos de Saúde Pública. The author makes a brief historical review of the concepts, approaches and methodologies used to study the relationships between social determinants and health outcomes. By analyzing the current global movement around social determinants of health he emphasizes that the distinctive feature of this movement is the explicit commitment to action through intersectoral public policies that are based on evidence and implemented with the support and participation of broad segments of society. As this special issue of the Cadernos de Saúde Pública is dedicated to presenting the results of research related to social determinants of health, the author focuses on an analysis of the difficulties in the production and use of scientific evidence that supports the definition, implementation and evaluation of policies to combat health inequities through action on social determinants of health. To conclude, he presents some recommendations for overcoming these difficulties.


This review of the problems of prognostication of electrical instability of the myocardium in patients with aortic stenosis is based on recommendations of European Society of Cardiology on prevention of sudden death in patients with aortic stenosis with special emphasis on potential of noninvasive assessment of myocardial electric instability (signal averaged ECG, heart rate variability, analysis of variability of QT-interval, dipole electrocardiotopography).


We propose an adaptive resource allocation algorithm for a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) based downlink cognitive radio network (CRN). The CRN has multiple secondary users (SUs) coexisting with multiple primary users (PUs). The aim is to maximize the total data throughput of SUs while ensuring interference leakage to PUs is below a threshold and quality of services (QoS) for SUs such as data rates and bit error rate (BER) are met. The algorithm optimally allocates radio resources such as subcarrier, spatial beams, powers and bits to each user using an integer linear programming (ILP) framework. The performance of the algorithm has been evaluated using simulation results.


Lychee pulp phenolics (LPP) is mainly catabolized in the host colon, increasing the abundances of Bacteroides and Lactobacillus. Herein, five selected gut microbial strains (Bacteroides uniformis, B. thetaiotaomicron, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, L. plantarum, and L. acidophilus) were separately incubated with LPP to ascertain the specific strains participating in phenolic metabolism and the corresponding metabolites. The results indicated that B. uniformis, L. rhamnosus, and L. plantarum were involved in LPP utilization, contributing to 52.37, 28.33, and 45.11% of LPP degradation after 48 h fermentation, respectively. Unprecedentedly, the metabolic pathway of the major phenolic compound quercetin-3-O-rutinose-7-O-α-L-rhamnoside by L. plantarum, appeared to be the direct fission of C-ring at C2–O1 and C3–C4 bonds, which was proved from the occurrence of two substances with the deprotonated molecule [M–H]− ion at m/z 299 and 459, respectively. Meanwhile, it was fully confirmed that B. uniformis participated in the catabolism of isorhamnetin glycoside and procyanidin B2. In the B. uniformis culture, kaempferol was synthesized through dehydroxylation of quercetin which could be catabolized into alphitonin by L. rhamnosus. Furthermore, LPP metabolites exerted higher antioxidant activity than their precursors and gave clues to understand the interindividual differences for phenolic metabolism by gut microbiota.


What are genes? What do genes do? These seemingly simple questions are in fact challenging to answer accurately. As a result, there are widespread misunderstandings and over-simplistic answers, which lead to common conceptions widely portrayed in the media, such as the existence of a gene 'for' a particular characteristic or disease. In reality, the DNA we inherit interacts continuously with the environment and functions differently as we age. What our parents hand down to us is just the beginning of our life story. This comprehensive book analyses and explains the gene concept, combining philosophical, historical, psychological and educational perspectives with current research in genetics and genomics. It summarises what we currently know and do not know about genes and the potential impact of genetics on all our lives. Making Sense of Genes is an accessible but rigorous introduction to contemporary genetics concepts for non-experts, undergraduate students, teachers and healthcare professionals.


Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States among adolescents and young adults ages 14 to 24 years old. School counselors are trained to identify students at risk for emotional issues and possible suicidal ideation. Yet a school counselor's self-efficacy may affect his or her willingness to carry out a suicide risk assessment with students. A total of 200 high school counselors participated in this nonexperimental cross-sectional study. Correlation matrices and a regression analysis were used to understand how different variables contributed to counselors' self-efficacy in conducting suicide risk assessments. Implications such as an emphasis on ethical standards, securing administrative support, crisis team planning, and increased experiential activities in graduate training are all discussed.


Navigation can be directed toward distant targets represented within the brain's spatial maps; alternatively, navigation can be directed toward objects in the local environment. Here we identify neurons in the Drosophila brain that integrate these two types of navigation drives. These neurons send axonal projections to the ventral nerve cord, and their activity predicts and influences steering during walking. Meanwhile, their dendrites integrate steering signals from the compass in the brain's spatial memory center, as well as stimulus-directed steering signals from multimodal sensory pathways that bypass the compass. Using a computational model, we show how the specific connectivity of this network can generate steering behavior directed toward internal (remembered) goals, and we show how environmental cues can dynamically alter the balance of stimulus- and memory-directed steering. Our results suggest a framework where motor dynamics emerge from the integration of parallel feedback loops that drive steering toward internal versus external goals.


Background and Objective: The intake of calcium plays an important role in the osteoporosis prevention. We aimed to evaluate the effect of health belief model-based education on improving the calcium intake among female students of middle schools in Kalaleh, Iran. Material and Methods: This pre-experimental study was conducted on 140 middle school students selected via multistage random sampling and divided into two equal groups of case and control. The data was collected through a standardized questionnaire based on Health Belief Model (HBM) for osteoporosis and a food frequency questionnaire, and analyzed by software SPSS 16, using independent t-test and Mann-Whitney and Paired t-test. Results: The two groups matched with family size and demographic characteristics were not significantly different. Before the intervention, the scores of the knowledge and the HBM constructs in two groups were not different significantly, but after the intervention the increase was significant. (p<0.001). The mean performance score, two months after the training, had a significant increase (p <0.001). Conclusion: The Design and implementation of a HBM-based-training program can be helpful in improving the knowledge, attitude and practice of students in the field of osteoporosis preventive behaviors.


Purpose of review Difficult airways can lead to critical incidents during anaesthesia, and death. Although many cases can be anticipated, some still go undiscovered before induction, thereby exposing the patient to unexpected risks and the anaesthesiologist to unexpected challenges. In addition to improving prediction of difficult airways, education for skill acquisition and management planning, and a quest for superior management techniques and airway tools are of the utmost importance in preventing airway catastrophes. Recent findings We review recent advances in predicting difficult airways in special population groups that are known to have a higher incidence of difficult airway. Education, exercising airway skills, management planning with both predicted and unpredicted difficult airways, and the need for adherence to algorithms for management of difficult airway are emphasized as key to successful management. Finally, recent developments in airway management techniques and new airway devices are summarized. Summary Improving reproducibility and reliability in predicting a difficult airway may limit the number of unpredicted difficult intubations. A safer approach to management of the difficult airway can be achieved by improving airway management skills and adhering to universally accepted and proven airway algorithms, including developing approaches to management of predicted and unpredicted difficult airways. Improving on existing airway techniques and tools (of which there are many), rather than creating new devices, is a desirable trend that may contribute to safer airway management in the future.


In this study, we constructed a novel drug delivery system for realizing the combination of gene therapy and chemotherapy by co-loading 5-FU and antisense EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) plasmids in biodegradable PLGA/O-CMC (O-carboxmethyl-chitosan) nanoparticles. This novel kind of nanoparticle was characterized by dynamic light scattering for size, size distribution and zeta potential, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) for morphological properties and structures. Drug encapsulation efficiency and drug release kinetics under in vitro conditions were also measured. At the same time, the MTT assay, the TUNEL technique and immunohistochemical staining were used to investigate the antitumor activity of these multi-functional nanoparticles on human glioma cells. It was concluded that the 5-FU and plasmid encapsulation efficiencies were as high as 94.5% and 95.7%, and the 5-FU release activity from nanoparticles could be sustained for as long as three weeks. Both the MTT assay and the TUNEL method illustrated that these multi-functional nanoparticles had cytotoxicities as high as 93.5% and could induce apoptosis in most glioma cells. Immunohistochemical staining proved that plasmids on the surface of nanoparticles could transfect gliomas cells, verified by a decline in the expression level of EGFR protein by the glioma cells. Therefore, this novel delivery system for drugs and genes provides another therapeutic pathway for cancer and needs further research.


Date Presented 04/04/19
 The purpose of this study was to describe participation in everyday activities and social roles, and quality of life for persons with ABI-related oculomotor impairments. Forty subjects were interviewed with a semistructured format. Results of the study describe symptoms, quality of life, and participation difficulties in everyday activities and social roles. Implications of results will be discussed, including areas to assess and the complexity of the challenges with this population.
 Primary Author and Speaker: Sharon Wagener
 Contributing Authors: Robert Krieger


Background and Objectives: The importance of saliva for oral health is well known. Diabetes mellitus affects the salivary gland functioning and thus alters the salivary constituents. For many years the question of the presence of glucose in saliva has been a subject of debate and only few people found correlation between serum glucose and salivary glucose in diabetics. Hence, the purpose of this study was to estimate and correlate salivary glucose concentration and serum glucose concentration in diabetics and healthy controls. Materials and Methods: 60 newly diagnosed diabetic patients and 60 age and sex matched control subjects were included in the study. Blood and saliva samples from both the groups were collected at least two hours after the breakfast. The samples were centrifuged and subjected to glucose analysis using Semiautoanalyzer (BioSystems BTS-310 Photometer). For experimental group, the samples were collected again after the control of diabetes mellitus. The statistical comparisons were performed using paired and unpaired t -test. Results: A highly significant correlation was found between salivary glucose and serum glucose before the treatment and also after the control of diabetes. The correlation between salivary glucose and serum glucose was also highly significant in controls. The levels of salivary glucose did not vary with age and sex. Conclusion and Interpretation: As there was significant correlation between salivary glucose and serum glucose, salivary glucose holds the potential of being a marker in diabetes. Further, it has an added advantage of being non-invasive procedure with no need of special equipments and with fewer compliance problems as compared with collection of blood.


Computer simulations and experimental studies were combined to design copolymers that enhance the strength of polymer composites. These copolymers contain side chains that associate across the boundary between phase-separated regions to form a "molecular velcro" that effectively binds the regions together. This behavior significantly improves the structural integrity and mechanical properties of the material. Because the side chains can be fabricated from a large class of compounds, the technique greatly increases the variety of copolymers that can be used in forming high-strength polymer blends.


The work reports on a Garden Organic (working name of Henry Doubleday Research Association, Coventry UK) members experiment in 2007. Garden Organic members were surveyed with a detailed paper questionnaire to calculate an average gardening footprint of committed (self-selected) organic gardeners in the UK. This was used to develop a garden footprinting methodology and to create a benchmark of committed organic gardening in the UK. This was then compared to commerical orangic growing and to other household activities with their respective footprint and potential for improvement.

Summary findings:
(116 responses 85% reponse rate).

o The average UK food and drink ecological footprint is around 1.4 gha/ha
o About a quarter of this (25% =0.35 gha/ha) is due to fruit and vegetable production and consumption
o Our members taking part in this survey produced about half their own with an average ecological footprint for their gardening activities of 0.15gha/ha
o This equates to a 'saving' of around 0.02 gha/ha, or a saving of 13% on the average UK footprint attributable to fruit and vegetables
o This equates to about a 6% savings in total food and drink footprint which is on a par with double glazing, replacing an old boiler or reduced car use
o Our members could take measures to reduce their gardening footprint by:
 - buying 'good quality' tools that last a long time
 - using manual tools where possible
 - buying 'good quality' power tools and keeping them well maintained to reduce relative fuel consumption and embedded energy costs
 - by being wary of substituting long 'food chains' for long 'supply chains' of products that they use in their gardens
 - by trying to close nutrient cycles; e.g. producing amendments at home (e.g. comfrey), fixing N in situ (e.g. green manures), composting biodegradable materials
 - using protected cropping only where necessary and in an 'environmentally friendly way' e.g. reuse of materials, second hand strucutures etc.
 - reducing fridge and/or freezer use; e.g. turning them off when not in use and buying new A++-rated energy-efficient appliances

o It is still uncertain what positive contributions waste and recycling can make in reducing gardening footprint as some of the issues are quite complex. Many are the subject of ongoing research.
o Producing food at home leads to other ecologically efficient habits as witnessed by the low overall ecological and carbon footprints of our members.
o It is important to realise that as you reduce your personal footprint the proportion due to services and infrastructure spent on your behalf becomes much more important. Solutions to this are likely to be collective and political. Many are likely to revolve around community based activities.


In this paper I discuss broadly the context of environmental, economic, social and cultural rights, analysing particularly the connections and synergies between these rights, and their potential to promote sustainable use of natural resources, and therefore development in Southern Africa. In the next section I trace the conceptual history, content and scope of economic, social, and cultural rights ("ESCRs") and then in the third part I show how these got intertwined with environmental rights in a complimentary role. Part four discusses the challenges being faced in promoting, protecting and fulfilling EESCRs in Southern Africa, and Africa broadly; and then in the fifth part I offer possible solutions that can see an improvement in the protection of EESCRs. I conclude the paper by highlighting issues that need further study and that can be pursued by public interest environmental organisations. So what exactly do we mean by social, economic, and cultural rights? Is there a shared understanding of the scope and legal content of these rights? Should these rights be the subject of legal protection or rather should we leave them to policy makers and politicians who are mandated with the task of governing and distributing resources as they deem fit? What is it that law and the courts can do to ensure effective fulfilment of these rights?


The information technology industry has experienced a tremendous growth over the last 30 years but still beleaguered by failed projects. Failure cases are typically dominated by large and complex projects. Moreover, the percentage of projects being developed above their limits of time, budgeted cost and quality is still high. However, in defining project success, are these the only parameters that make the difference? According to the PMI Project Management Body of Knowledge, Project Management is about delivering a product or service on time, within the allocated budget and according to customer defined quality and specification, by a motivated project team. Indeed, success as well as failure, appears to be linked to a wide range of factors.


Surface-mounted permanent magnet (SPM) machines are preferred for high-speed aerospace applications over induction and switched reluctance machines, since they combine the advantages of high torque density and efficiency. Also, in aerospace applications, where low rotor weight and inertia are essential requirements, a permeable hollow shaft is proposed to replace the need for rotor back-iron and reduce the overall rotor weight. For rotor mechanical integrity, a retaining sleeve is commonly used, leading to thicker magnetic airgap. Furthermore, when permeable rotor endcaps are applied, an increase of the magnetic end leakage occurs, i.e. end-effect. In this study, the influence of the rotor endcaps on the mechanical and electromagnetic performance of a high-speed SPM machine is investigated through 3D-finite element analyses. Also, different endcap thickness and different rotor shaft materials are investigated and compared in this work. Finally, a prototype of the SPM machine under study has been manufactured and tested. The comparison between simulation and experimental results is presented and discussed.


BACKGROUND
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is involved in angiogenesis. We investigated the association of VEGF serum levels (pre-treatment and follow-up) with outcome in patients with melanoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Serum levels of VEGF in melanoma patients at diagnosis and during follow-up were analysed with enzyme-linked immunoassays. Patients were followed up with physical examination and ultrasound scans of the liver every three months and thorax X-ray annually. The VEGF serum level was evaluated six-monthly.

RESULTS
From February 1996 to February 2000, 33 patients were enrolled. Ninety-two serum blood samples were collected. Patients had a median age of 60 years (range 32-82). Twenty patients were males, 13 females. One patient presented with stage IA disease, 2 with stage IB, 11 with stage IIA, 4 with stage IIB, 8 with stage III and 5 with stage IV. Two patients were affected by uveal melanoma. The melanomas were predominantly located at the extremities or trunk (26/33). The median serum level of VEGF at diagnosis was 249 ng/ml (minimum: 9 ng/ml, maximum: 1215 ng/ml). The median survival of all 33 patients was 45.1 months. The median time-to-progression was 36.7 months. Patients with lower or higher serum VEGF values showed no statistically significant differences in survival. In contrast, high serum VEGF values were associated with shorter disease-free survival as compared with lower values (median DFS: 25 vs 60 months, p = 0.048 at log-rank test).

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that serum VEGF could be of prognostic value in melanoma.


Image compression is the application of Data compression on digital images. In DCT-based compression standards such as conventional JPEG algorithm, an image is divided into eight-by-eight blocks and then the 2-D Discrete cosine transform (DCT) is applied to encode each block. Another DCT based algorithm called as Modified JPEG compression algorithm [1], overcomes the limitations of conventional JPEG by dividing an image into trapezoid and triangular blocks according to the shape of the objects and achieves a higher compression ratio. This makes the JPEG algorithm much more flexible. There are many compression standards available nowadays to compress images with a higher compression ratio. But here, a new compression technique is proposed that is much like the Modified JPEG compression with certain modifications. In this method, edge detection algorithms followed by morphological operations are used to segment the original image into interior part and the exterior part. The proposed method is compared and is found to be better than the existing compression standard such as JPEG. The simulation result shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms JPEG with a high Bpp vs PSNR graph.


Films as cultural texts articulate the politics of everyday lives and one of the issues often depicted is on nationalism. The chosen case study for this article is Veer Zaara (2004), a romantic Bollywood movie telling us the story of two lovers from India and Pakistan who have to undergone multiple challenges to be together. The conflicts represent the ongoing and completely unresolved sibling rivalry between the two countries particularly after the partition in 1947. The main research question is how the film depicts the process of self-identification from the Indian characters by looking at the "cultural similarities and differences" compared to the Pakistani character while representing the effort of drawing a boundary between India and Pakistan? Research findings who that there are three dominant representational elements (space, religion and gender) in which the film with its authority select what forms of representation it would present concerning each country. In doing so, the film is making sure that India is identifying itself as a nation which is different from Pakistan or by drawing the boundary of India as the self and Pakistan as the other.


VASCULAR SURGERY Vascular Surgery. By John B. Kinmonth, M.B., M.S. (Lond.), F.R.C.S.(Eng.), Charles G. Rob, M.C., M.A., M.D., M.Chir.(Cantab.), F.R.C.S.(Eng.), and Fiorindo A. Simeone, A.B., Sc.M., M.D., Sc.D.(Hon.). (Pp. 501 +vi; illustrated. £5.) London: Edward Arnold Ltd. 1962. This important new book is written by three authors and is clearly based on their own extensive experience of vascular diseases. The authors have been individually responsible for subjects which they have particularly studied and this has lent an authoritative stamp to the whole work and has yet avoided imbalance or uneven presentation. As the preface states, the book is concerned with the surgery of the circulation beyond the heart itself, and disorders of the arterial, venous, and lymphatic systems are described and discussed in a scientific and practical manner. Methods of investigation are particularly well outlined in relation to the appropriate circulatory disorder, and Dr. David Sutton has written a very complete chapter on angiography. There are no weak links in this book, but some chapters excel in their content and presentation. This applies particularly to the sections on the cryopathies, arteriovenous fistulae, and the lymphatic system. The chapter on sympathectomy is a little disappointing, for the subject is discussed with scrupulous fairness to the large series of collected and varying results quoted, and in consequence loses some of the authority so noticeable in the rest of the work. In the section on the vasospastic diseases there is no mention of the Bristol work on the possible associated metabolic disturbance, and venous gangrene and phlegmasia cerulea dolens are considered individually and rather differently in two separate chapters. The book is written throughout in a clear precise style and the frequent use of thumbnail sketches of actual clinical problems is a pleasant device for illuminating and emphasizing a point. This book will become a standard work and should be read by every general surgeon. Physicians should not be discouraged by the title, for they too will find much of interest in this comprehensive survey of vascular disease. G. W. TAYLOR.


Perfluorosulfonic-acid (PFSA) membranes are frequently subjected to high humidity and temperature cycles during fuel-cell operation. It is of great interest to understand how the properties of the membrane change with ageing conditions and time. In this study, we investigate how the properties of as-received and pretreated Nafion membranes change after exposure to hygrothermal ageing, including the chemical structure, mechanical properties, water uptake, ionic conductivity, and morphology. Our findings demonstrate that anhydrides form during ageing via a condensation reaction, which results in chemical crosslinks that impair the membrane functionalities by reducing water uptake and conductivity and increasing the storage modulus and α relaxation temperature. In addition, a membrane aged in a 75% relative humidity environment exhibits more dramatic changes compared to that aged in 100% conditions. It is also shown that the impact of ageing can be recovered through a post-treatment by boiling the membrane in strong acid.


Deciding whether a propositional formula in conjunctive normal form is satisfiable (SAT) is an NP-complete problem. The problem becomes linear when the formula contains binary clauses only. Interestingly, the reduction to SAT of a number of well-known and important problems-such as classical AI planning and automatic test pattern generation for circuits-yields formulas containing many binary clauses. In this paper we introduce and experiment with 2-SIMPLIFY, a formula simplifier targeted at such problems. 2-SIMPLIFY constructs the transitive closure of the implication graph corresponding to the binary clauses in the formula and uses this graph to deduce new unit literals. The deduced literals are used to simplify the formula and update the graph, and so on, until stabilization. Finally, we use the graph to construct an equivalent, simpler set of binary clauses. Experimental evaluation of this simplifier on a number of bench-mark formulas produced by encoding AI planning problems prove 2-SIMPLIFY to be a useful tool in many circumstances.


Methods We assayed specific IgE sensitisation in 300 bakers employed by one of two large UK supermarkets who, at routine health surveillance, had declared work related upper or lower respiratory symptoms. Sensitisation was determined using radio-allergosorbent assay to enzymes contained within the specific ' improver ' mix used by the employing supermarket; each mix contained eight individual enzymes which were not necessarily common to both supermarkets. Results Bakers were sensitised to each of the individual ' improver ' enzymes with a prevalence ranging from 1.8% to 23.9%; the frequency did not appear to be associated with the quantity of enzyme incorporated in the mix. Sensitisation was far more likely if a baker was sensitised also to either flour or fungal alpha amylase; but a small proportion (5%) of bakers who were sensitised to neither flour nor fungal alpha amylase had specific IgE to one or more of the ' improver mix ' enzymes. Conclusions Bakers working in UK supermarket bakeries can become sensitised to improver enzymes other than fungal alpha amylase. The clinical significance of this remains unclear but the message is important both in the diagnosis of bakers with work-related respiratory symptoms and in any programme of immuno-logical surveillance.


The article presents the brittleness study of boron nitride coatings deposited on cutting edges made of fine-grained cemented carbides by the pulse-plasma method (PPD). Influences of the structure (density, pores, microcracks) of coating material on the brittleness and on selected technological parameters of boron nitride formation by PPD method particularly taking into account discharge voltage on brittleness are shown. Differences between values of total average crack length ΣL, critical loads (Pk300, Pk500), and coefficients (a1(300) and a1(500)) characterized susceptibility to cracking of investigated coatings manufactured using different values of production process were defined. Results of investigations have confirmed the usefulness of Palmqvist's method for measurement of coating susceptibility to brittle cracking.


As various kinds of output devices emerged, such as highresolution printers or a display of PDA(Personal Digital Assistant), the importance of high-quality resolution conversion has been increasing. This paper proposes a new method for enlarging image with high quality. One of the largest problems on image enlargement is the exaggeration of the jaggy edges. To remedy this problem, we propose a new interpolation method, which uses artificial neural network to determine the optimal values of interpolated pixels. The experimental results are shown and evaluated. The effectiveness of our methods is discussed by comparing with the conventional methods.


Cyanide contents of locally processed cassava based products (CBP) in Ilorin-West urban markets, Nigeria was estimated and compared to established safety levels. Hence, 29 locally processed cassava products samples were randomly collected from retail outlets and tested for hydrogen cyanide content, pH, titratable acidity (TTA), water absorption capacity (WAC) and least gelation capacity (LGC) following standard procedures. Results from the survey showed that hydrogen cyanide contents of the CBP ranged from 3.36 to 37.73 mg/kg. Titratable acidity ranged between 0.22 and 1.79 × 10-3 (% w/w); the pH of the samples was between 4.55 and 6.75; WAC ranged from 1.46 to 5.82 g/ml, while the LGC was from 8.07 to 38.08%. Twenty five out of the 29 CBP samples collected had hydrogen cyanide content above the maximum safe level (10 mg/kg), the TTA was low, while the pH was high. These problems might be due to poor processing methods adopted by the processors. Continuous exposure of consumers to sub-lethal dose of hydrogen cyanide may lead to serious health hazards.

 Key words: Cassava, cyanide, Ilorin, market, survey.


 Abstract — Building information modelling (BIM) is a new technology to enhance the efficiency of project management in the construction industry. In addition to the potential benefits of this useful technology, there are various risks and obstacles to applying it in construction projects. In this study, a decision making approach is presented for risk assessment in BIM adoption in construction projects. Various risk factors of exerting BIM during different phases of the project lifecycle are identified with the help of Delphi method, experts' opinions and related literature. Afterward, Shannon's entropy and Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Situation) are applied to derive priorities of the identified risk factors. Results indicated that lack of knowledge between professional engineers about workflows in BIM and conflict of opinions between different stakeholders are the risk factors with the highest


One of the most important ways to sustain high growth path in any economy is by promoting the high linkage sectors of the economy. However, a high linked sector may also be import intensive. Development of such a sector may create strain on limited foreign exchange resources of a country especially so in case of a developing country. This paper considers an emerging nation like India to identify the key high linkage sectors through measuring the linkage effect (both backward and forward linkages) of each sector separately for the entire economy in a comprehensive manner. Subsequently it constructs an input-output matrix that takes into account import of inputs for each sector. By using this (import-adjusted) domestically produced input based matrix (to be called domestic flow matrix henceforth) for the latest year 2007-08, the exercise next identifies the high linked sectors --development of which can generate substantial impact within the domestic economy through their forward and backward linkage effects without creating a strain on foreign exchange reserves. Policy emphasis should, therefore be more on the development of such sectors so as to ensure rapid growth of the overall economy.


An increase in daytime sleepiness was the most common adverse event for preschool-age children taking alpha-2 adrenergic agonists and was the only adverse event reported more often in that class than with stimulants. Children under age 4 who were initially prescribed an alpha-2 adrenergic agonist were likely to continue taking the medication for a longer period than those who were initially prescribed a stimulant. The researchers stated that randomized clinical trials are needed to assess the comparative effectiveness of the two classes. [Harstad E, et al. JAMA 2021; published online May 4; doi: 10.1001/ jama.2021.6118]


Previous work suggested that during the catabolism of haemoglobin a physico-chemical form of iron was released which was more readily chelatable by desferrioxamine than normal storage forms, as ferritin-haemosiderin. Desferrioxamine chelation was therefore investigated in five patients with major fractures in which haemoglobin catabolism is greatly enhanced by the red cell destruction which proceeds in the associated haematoma. Considerable increases in the amounts of iron mobilized by desferrioxamine were observed from the second day after injury. In severe interstitial haemorrhage, these values tended to increase until 10 to 20 days, and sometimes were as high as chelation values seen in haemochromatosis. These results are considered to support the hypothesis that a highly chelatable form of iron is found at some stage during haemoglobin catabolism.


Wireless sensors have been increasingly utilized in the design of next generation high performance buildings. When deploying wireless sensors, energy supply and data communication are the major concerns. Although energy harvest wireless sensors could automatically feed themselves by harvesting ambient energy, the presence of reliable energy sources to support dependable wireless transmission is a great challenge. The emerging Li-Fi technology is promising to fundamentally solve this problem. Li-Fi stands for Light-Fidelity, which is a new kind of wireless communication systems using light as a medium instead of traditional radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation. LiFi technology provides harvested energy to power wireless sensors with a unique advantage of power generation from the lighting system being controlled. The combination of Li-Fi and energy harvesting wireless sensor technologies could enable attractive features and bring in great benefits in the design of next generation high performance buildings because: (i) energy harvest sensors do not face the short-of-energy problem; (ii) Li-Fi enables much higher transmission speed compared to the existing RF electromagnetic technologies, thus, energy harvest sensors could easily deliver environmental parameters quickly for control purposes; (iii) energy harvest sensors could assist the building management team to understand the coverage area of the lighting system; (iv) the communication of sensor aggregated information can be naturally encrypted due to the combination of both technologies.


The purpose of this paper is to glean leadership lessons of megaproject managers through the life stories of four purposefully selected managers from two contemporary and two landmark megaprojects.,A narrative inquiry approach applying thematic analysis is used to capture lessons learnt from these stories with a focus on leading megaprojects. Narrative analysis has been used in organization studies and this paper is an attempt to use it in project management research.,Common strategies used by all four megaproject managers to be successful include: selecting the right people and building their capability; building trust with stakeholders; dealing with institutional power and politics effectively; and having the courage to innovate. There were also some differences in the approaches used by these managers due the times in which these projects were implemented.,The use of narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. As the life stories were not presented in the same way it was difficult to analyze them in the same manner, and further data had to be collected. This could have been avoided if it were feasible to collect narratives directly from the megaproject managers. This is being planned in future research emerging from this paper.,This study helps megaproject managers to exhibit leadership attributes that would be required to execute such large complex projects that have wide implications for the society, economy and the environment.,Megaprojects are often considered major displacements that cause social and geophysical issues that affect the environment. Lessons learnt from these stories could be useful to avoid such issues. The stories analyzed showed the human side of the megaproject managers toward people related, health and societal issues.,Narrative inquiry is new to project management literature. In the past, project management literature has focused on extracting lessons learnt from historical and classical projects, but lessons from life stories of project managers have not been used for the same purpose.


The migration to electronic health records (EHR) in the healthcare industry has raised issues with respect to security and privacy. One issue that has become a concern for healthcare providers, insurance companies, and pharmacies is patient health information (PHI) leaks because PHI leaks can lead to violation of privacy laws, which protect the privacy of individuals' identifiable health information, potentially resulting in a healthcare crisis. This study explores the issue of PHI leaks from an access control viewpoint. We utilize access control policies and PHI leak scenarios derived from semi structured interviews with four healthcare practitioners and use the lens of activity theory to articulate the design of an access control model for detecting and mitigating PHI leaks. Subsequently, we follow up with a prototype as a proof of concept.


As communication services are growing, especially for keeping communication on high speed traffic, more efficient use of the available electromagnetic radio spectrum is required. In order to achieve this aim on communication spectrum, filters are required to be steeper. Metamaterials are a special kind of artificial structure that is not found in nature. The significant characteristic of metamaterials is the negative refractive index for operation frequency. Based on the specials structure of metamaterials and microwave theory, steeper filters can be obtained with low losses and relatively small sizes. In this thesis work, two kinds of structure are utilized in connection with different substrates to realize a steeper band-pass filter. The first structure consists of interdigital capacitors and open stub inductors on the same metal layer and was simulated by the software Advanced Design System (ADS). The second structure, which was simulated by the software High Frequency System simulator (HFSS), consists of microstrip lines gaps on the top metal level and complementary split-ring resonators on the bottom metal level. A comparative analysis of these two structures has been carried out in connection with their suitability for the design of the steeper band-pass filter. Based on the characteristics of two kinds of structure, interdigital capacitors and open stub inductors structure had a better performance for designing steeper band-pass filter, having center frequency 923 MHz and bandwidth 4MHz, than the structure of microstrip lines and complementary split-ring resonators.


Although Maglev has been technically developed in a variety of forms, and has had some limited
operational success, the dream envisaged in the 1960s and 1970s of wide-scale commercial
implementation remains elusive. This paper provides a technical and historical appraisal, starting with
the expected features believed in the early days to characterise Maglev, and reviews the actual
achievements against these expectations, i.e. to assess the progress towards the original dream and its
viability. The conclusion includes a commentary on the present day opportunities and barriers, and
offers some suggestions for emphasis into the future. The objective is to stimulate a discussion aimed
at helping to understand why the dream remains largely unfulfilled.


The concept of interactive visible light communications (iVLC) is introduced and discussed in this paper. iVLC exploits a matrix of solid-state light luminaries in multiple ways, namely providing lighting and wireless communications as well as supporting visual signaling and interaction. Every individual element of the light matrix can be exploited in multiple domains, i.e., space, time, color, intensity and data. As a result, the lighting infrastructure works a flexible platform that can be exploited in wide range of applications and use cases. The paper discusses attractive applications of iVLC, particularly in the school of the future, health-care and office spaces. Multiple classroom tasks can be supported by iVLC, including orchestration of activities, feedback between students and teachers, dynamic grouping, etc.


Sports medicine training in Turkey is reviewed. The current level of training is outlined and a curriculum needs assessment made. The main problems in athletic health care are discussed and solutions suggested. Changes in education, financing, and policy are recommended.


This research has shown that a knowledge-based system is an effective tool to help novice
simulation users interpret and understand simulation output. The thesis describes the
development and empirical evaluation of the prototype.
A simulation program which adopts the discrete-event simulation approach simulates the
behaviour of a local area network protocol, i.e., the Ethernet, with different sets of parameter
values. The knowledge-based system carries out the 'analysis' of the simulation output covering
the protocol efficiency and throughput. The knowledge-based system summarises the simulation
output and upon request from the user, provides explanations to a conclusion arrived at. The
summary is the relationship between any pair of variables; and the explanation is the justification
as to how the pair are related.
The strategy for building the knowledge base using production rules is also elaborated. There are
different functions performed by the different sets of rules (or rule-sets). Their major functions, In
parallel with the development objective, are interpreting numerical data, presenting output to
users and providing explanations interactively. The rules are grouped accordingly to make the
knowledge bases easier to maintain. In the explanation aspect, the few approaches attempted by
other researchers to improve expert system explanation is discussed. It is argued that a mere
regurgitation of 'fired' rules to explain the Ethernet behaviour is not adequate in this case. To
circumvent this problem, a 'constructive' approach to explanation is employed. The explanation
procedure rewrites the 'fired' rules in a more understandable form than the if-then rules.
Unnecessary parts of the rules are ommitted to make the explanations clearer.
Finally, an experiment carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype is described in
detail. The effectiveness is measured from a few different perspectives. These are test scores,
completion time for the test and the users' degree of confidence, both in the interpretation and
explanation tasks. The results show that although some responses are mixed, there is evidence
to suggest that the knowledge-based simulation system environment is beneficial to the target
users.


During the 1970s, the combination of rapidly appreciating land values with the trend toward fewer but larger farms dramatically increased the need for tax management and tax planning. Income and estate tax considerations pose problems for many farm families that want the next generation to continue the farm business. Accordingly, there is an increasing interest in starting the intergenerational transfer process during the parents' lifetimes. Selected equity and nonequity intrafamily financing may or may not facilitate intergenerational transfers. Financing arrangements can create interpersonal conflicts between the objectives of the parents and those of the on-farm heir. This study investigates selected financing arrangements and identifies those which facilitate the intergenerational transfer and those which do not;The Iowa State University Business and Financial Planning Model was used to investigate the financial consequences that selected equity and nonequity financing arrangements have on the parents and the heir. The model incorporated uncertainty as to future events through a Monte Carlo simulation technique which randomly generated nonzero error terms about the expected values of farm revenues and expenses. By recursively running the model a cumulative density function was constructed. First, second, and third degree stochastic dominance theorems were used to compare the cumulative density functions to determine which one (if any) maximized the expected utilities of the parents and the heir;When the farm firm is incorporated as a regularly taxed corporation, all parents and on-farm heirs unanimously prefer corporate income through salaries and director's fees over common stock dividends. If both the parents and the heir are risk averters, both can benefit when the heir converts part of his (her) equity interest in the firm to an investor interest in the form of a loan. Creation of an intrafamily loan to the heir increases the expected utilities both of the parents and the on-farm heir. While intrafamily loans to the heir facilitate intergenerational transfers, the same is not true when the heir converts part of his (her) equity into a bond. The parents increase their expected utilities at the expense of the heir's. An intrafamily bond issued to the heir will never be used to facilitate intergenerational transfers because it is counterproductive and does not facilitate the intergenerational transfer.


In the real-time plasma electron density measurement using far infrared(FIR) laser interferometry, the plasma electron density can be calculated by measuring the real time phase difference between the reference signal and the probe signal. A novel Real-time Phase Jump Process(RPJP) method is applied to the HL-2A tokamak. With this method, the phase difference precision is up to1/3600fringe(1 fringe is equal to a phase shift of 2π), and the dynamic measurement range is extensible 65536 fringes. The time resolution of the phase difference is 80 ns, while the feedback delay is 180 μs.


The representative instance segmentation methods mostly segment different object instances with a mask of the fixed resolution, e.g., 28 × 28 grid. However, a low-resolution mask loses rich details, while a high-resolution mask incurs quadratic computation overhead. It is a challenging task to predict the optimal binary mask for each instance. In this paper, we propose to dynamically select suitable masks for different object proposals. First, a dual-level Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) with adaptive feature aggregation is developed to gradually increase the mask grid resolution, ensuring high-quality segmentation of objects. Specifically, an efficient region-level top-down path (r-FPN) is introduced to incorporate complementary contextual and detailed information from different stages of image-level FPN (i-FPN). Then, to alleviate the increase of computation and memory costs caused by using large masks, we develop a Mask Switch Module (MSM) with negligible computational cost to select the most suitable mask resolution for each instance, achieving high efficiency while maintaining high segmentation accuracy. Without bells and whistles, the proposed method, namely DynaMask, brings consistent and noticeable performance improvements over other state-of-the-arts at a moderate computation overhead. The source code: https://github.com/lslrh/DynaMask.


The increasing number of web APIs registered in service sharing communities (e.g., http://ProgrammableWeb.com that provides a platform benefiting the social interactions between different software developers) has provided a promising way to quickly build various apps with diverse functions. Generally, an app developer can manually discover, select, and compose a set of appropriate web APIs to build a new app satisfying the developer's functional and nonfunctional business requirements, economically and conveniently. However, the above manual web APIs selection process is usually time-consuming and cumbersome as most app developers often do not have much background knowledge of candidate web APIs. Moreover, the manually selected web APIs cannot always guarantee to be integrated successfully as the compatibilities between different web APIs are often varied and not validated. In view of these challenges, we define a weighted APIs correlation graph (W-ACG) in this paper to model the APIs functions and compatibilities. Furthermore, we propose a novel web APIs recommendation approach named Keywords-based and Compatibility-aware APIs Recommendation (K-CAR) based on the defined W-ACG. Through analyzing the input keywords describing the functions expected by an app developer, K-CAR can return the app developer a set of optimal APIs that are not only functional-qualified but also compatibility-guaranteed. Extensive experiments are deployed on 18 478 real-world web APIs and 6146 real-world apps to evaluate the usefulness and efficiency of K-CAR.


OBJECTIVE
In this study, we sought to investigate the effect of shisha smoking on endothelial function compared to cigarettes, using brachial artery ultrasound (BAUS) imaging in asymptomatic young adults with no other cardiovascular risk factors.

METHODS
This is an observational case-control study where 30 young shisha smokers, 30 cigarette smokers and 10 healthy, non-smokers, age- matched subjects between 25-35 years old with no cardiovascular risk factors were recruited from all around Egypt. Flow-mediated dilation was assessed using brachial artery duplex ultrasonography.

RESULTS
FMD% was significantly impaired among shisha smokers compared to cigarette smokers and non-smokers cigarettes (7.9 ± 3.8% vs. 12 ± 3.4% and 21.5 ± 2.5% respectively p<0.001).

CONCLUSION
Shisha smoking has a more hazardous effect on brachial artery endothelial- dependent flow mediated vasodilation compared to cigarette.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

PURPOSE: Treatment of androgen-independent metastatic prostate cancer with chemotherapeutic agent Estramustine showed diminishing success. Epidemiological studies showed an association between reduced cancer risk and dietary intake rich in phytochemicals from fruits and vegetables. We studied the molecular mechanisms through which phytochemicals muscadine grape skin extract (MSKE) and camalexin act individually, or in combination with Estramustine, to affect epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process involved in prostate cancer progression. EMT can be induced by transcription factors such as Snail, and is associated with decrease in cell adhesion molecules like E-cadherin, and increase in mesenchymal markers such as vimentin. METHODOLOGY: MSKE, Camalexin, and Estramustine, were used in varying concentrations individually, and in combination, to conduct MTS proliferation assay on C4-2 and ARCaP prostate cancer EMT model overexpressing constitutively active Snail cDNA. EMT markers, E-cadherin and vimentin, were examined by Western Blot Analysis following treatments. RESULTS: MSKE or Camalexin with or without Estramustine significantly decreased cell proliferation of C4-2 cells. Surprisingly, ARCaP-Snail cells were more sensitive to MSKE and Estramustine treatments, and showed significant decrease in viability, as compared to control ARCaP-Neo cells. ARCaP-Snail cells treated with 5µg/ml MSKE showed a reversal in EMT as shown by increased E-cadherin and decreased vimentin levels. CONCLUSION: Both mono and combination treatments retarded prostate cancer cell proliferation and may show promise as a therapeutic agent to abrogate EMT and prostate cancer metastasis in the future. Supported by grants P20MD002285-01 & G12RR003062-22.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3384. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3384


Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy with poor prognosis. Patients may present with hormone excess or a local mass effect. The most common imaging techniques (CT and MRI) use both size and appearance to distinguish between benign and malignant tumors. Open surgery by an expert surgeon with R0 target is the treatment of choice. Mitotane (alone or in combination with cytotoxic drugs) may be administered after surgery or in patients not amenable to surgery. The role of radiotherapy as an adjuvant treatment is uncertain whereas targeted radionuclide therapy seems to be a promising option. New adjuvant treatment options, even after complete tumor removal, are desired because postoperative disease-free survival at 5 yrs is only around 30%. The establishment of detailed guidelines with the purpose of optimizing therapy with only mitotane but also in combination with other antineoplasmatic drugs is still a task to be done. Future advances in the management of ACC will probably be connected with better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis (Adv Clin Exp Med 2015, 24, 2, 185–193).


To the Editor. —The article by Drs Kulick and Rahimtoola 1 is to be praised for the strength of its references. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the strength of its conclusions. In congestive heart failure, as in other conditions, we treat patients to relieve their symptoms or to help them live longer. There is no evidence that digoxin will prolong the life of a patient with heart failure and systolic dysfunction who is well compensated on a diuretic or a diuretic—angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (eg, enalapril maleate or lisinopril given once daily) regimen. Until relevant data become available, some physicians will begin digoxin early and others will reserve it until later in the patient's clinical course. Despite the 43 references supplied by the authors, no definitive clinical trial comparing those two strategies has been performed. Therefore, the authors' conclusions that digoxin be initiated early and that vasodilator therapy should


Work-family reconciliation is an integral part of labour law as the result of two major demographic changes. The first is the rise of the two-earner family. The second is that, as Baby Boomers age, caring for elders has become a pressing concern for men as well as women. Despite these changes, most European and American workplaces still assume that the committed worker has a family life secured so that family responsibilities do not distract him from work obligations. This way of organizing employment around a breadwinner husband and a caregiver housewife, which arose in the late eighteenth century, is severely outdated today. The result is workplace-workforce mismatch: Many employers still have workplaces perfectly designed for the workforce of 1960. Labour lawyers in both Europe and the United States have developed legal strategies to reduce the work-family conflicts that arise from this mismatch. Yet the legal strategies developed in Europe are different from those used in the United States. The Europeans' focus is on public policy, based on a European political tradition of communal social supports - a tradition the United States lacks. Advocates in the United States, faced with the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world, have developed legal remedies based on the American political tradition of individualism, using anti-discrimination law to eliminate employment discrimination against mothers and other adults with caregiving responsibilities. This article explores both the social science documenting that motherhood is the strongest trigger for gender bias in the work place and the American cases addressing 'family responsibilities discrimination' (FRD).


INTRODUCTION
This project concerns experimental investigation and improvement of a controllable air
lubrication in a hydrodynamic bearing. The traditional choice of lubrication in a
hydrodynamic bearing is oil, but as the modern turbo machinery applications demands
operation at higher rotational speeds, greater reliability and clean environment, air
lubrication is a great alternative. When comparing air and oil lubrication air is both cleaner
and cheaper which in many ways makes it competitive to oil.
One of the major concerns in hydrodynamic bearings are the relatively low damping of
vibrations. This means that operational speeds close to the critical rotational speeds of the
system becomes very dangerous, as the resonance enhancement can become very large.
The damping in a air bearing is even lower than in a oil bearing which makes the concern
even larger. Moreover another disadvantage of air lubricated bearings is the low load
capacity. Both problems, vibration instability and low load capacity, are addressed in this
project. Such problems are compensated via controllable lubrication (mechatronics).
The project includes experimental modal analysis of the rotor for different input signals to the
air bearing. Moreover the optimizing of the active control mechanism for the air bearing is
initiated. Improvement of the active control system will be the purpose of a master thesis
which will be conducted in continuation of this project.
THEORY & METHODOLOGY
The theory involved in the project is used to analyze experimental data and is linked to the
following subjects: Machine dynamics, mechanical vibrations, fluid mechanics,
instrumentation, control techniques and signal processing.
The experimental investigation uses a test rig already designed and improved by S. Morosi,
I. Santos and others. The experimental setup is a simple supported overhung rotor with a
disc mounted at one end of the rotor. The overhung rotor setup is widely used within
machine dynamics and corresponds for example to a part of a wind turbine, a compressor
and a pump.
To measure the vibrations of the rotor two displacement sensors are mounted at the location
of the disc. To control the pressurized air injection into the bearing, two piezo actuators is
applied at the inlet of the air bearing.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
By combining mechanics, electronics and informatics new machine components can be
designed to operate sustainable and eco-friendly by changing the lubrication fluid in
hydrodynamic bearings from oil to air. Through this study some of the disadvantages of air
lubrication have been minimized. Through active control of the inlet flow in an air bearing,
load capacity and operating speeds have increased.


We have investigated the combination of the thermally auto-initiated free radical polymerization of styrene and precipitation polymerization in order to develop a fast and environmentally friendly approach to produce polystyrene. To achieve high reaction temperatures in a short period of time, microwave irradiation was utilized as the heating source. Styrene was used without any purification, e.g., without distillation or column filtration. Due to the auto-initiation of styrene at high temperatures no radical initiator was required. Different water- or ethanol-to-styrene ratios were heated far beyond their boiling points and at relatively high pressures for the auto-initiated polymerization of styrene. The obtained molecular weights could be controlled by the ethanol-to-styrene ratio in the case of ethanol as the solvent although the monomer conversions were rather low under the applied conditions. Moreover, the effect of a commercially available stable free nitroxide was investigated on the control over the polymerization. It has been observed that it is possible to control the molecular weight of the polymer by changing the ratio of styrene to free nitroxide (varied from 10:1 to 400:1) and moderate polydispersity indices (PDI = 1.3 to 1.9) could be obtained. Finally, the developed polymerization processes only require a simple purification step due to the precipitation of the polystyrene in the reaction solvent.


Prior experience has a strong impact on search performance, and most recent models of attention incorporate selection history as an important source of attentional guidance. Here, we focused on feature intertrial priming, a robust effect showing that responses to a singleton target are considerably faster when its unique feature repeats versus changes across successive trials. Previous studies showed that such target repetition does not reliably reduce the interference exerted by a salient distractor. This finding has been taken to indicate that target repetition does not enhance the target's competitive edge relative to the salient distractor. Therefore, it challenges the notion that intertrial priming modulates attentional priority. Here, we suggest that this inference may be misguided because the interpretation of distractor interference as a measure of the attentional priority of the salient distractor relative to the target is incorrect. To obtain a more direct measure of the impact of feature intertrial priming on the target's priority relative to a salient distractor and nontargets, we used the capture-probe paradigm. Across two experiments, probe reports from the target location increased at the expense of the salient distractor and nontarget locations when the target feature repeated versus changed, whereas distractor interference was unaffected. These findings show that feature intertrial repetition influences attentional priority. They also clearly illustrate that distractor interference indexes the priority of the salient distractor relative to the nontarget it replaces, not relative to the target-a reinterpretation that has important implications for the field of attentional capture. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).


A technique has recently been proposed to assess the bioavailability of sediment-associated contaminants by in vitro incubation of the sediments in digestive fluids of a deposit-feeding organism. This procedure mimics the chemical environment to which a contaminated particle would be exposed as it passes through the gut, and is based on the presumption that the bioavailable contaminant fraction is that which is desorbable under these conditions. This study was intended to further explore some key assumptions and limitations of this procedure. With regards to use of the technique to measure trace metal bioavailability, it was found that the procedure does allow oxygenation of the gut fluid in comparison to the in vivo gut environment which is near anoxic. This oxygenation did influence solubilization of about half the trace metals tested, though the effect was usually too small to have an appreciable impact on risk assessment decisions. With regards to assessment of bioavailability of organic contaminants, there was an excellent correlation between the proportion of contaminant solubilized in vitro, and that judged to be bioavailable by other in vivo techniques using two deposit-feeding polychaetes. This relationship held not only for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which had been previously studied, but for several other pesticides and chlorinated organic compounds. Moreover, one traditional measure of bioavailability (absorption efficiency as measured by a dual label technique) was shown to underestimate bioavailability due to complications caused by selective feeding. The digestive fluid technique showed considerable promise across a broader range of contaminants and substrate types than had been previously tested, and appears to be a simple and rapid means to assess bioavailability, and obtain information otherwise available only by using live animals and more lengthy and logistically difficult procedures.


This paper presents the design, fabrication, and electrical characterization of a reconfigurable RF capacitive shunt switch that exploits the electro-thermally triggered vanadium dioxide (VO2) insulator to metal phase transition. The RF switch is further exploited to build wide-band RF true-time delay tunable phase shifters. By triggering the VO2 switch insulator to metal transition (IMT), the total capacitance can be reconfigured from the series of two metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitors to a single MIM capacitor. The effect of bias voltage on losses and phase shift is investigated, explained, and compared to the state of the art in the field. We report thermal actuation of the devices by heating the devices above VO2 IMT temperature. By cascading multiple stages a maximum of 40° per dB loss close to 7 GHz were obtained.


Let S1,S2 ,... ,Sn be subsets of V, a finite abelian group of order v written in additive notation, containing k1 k2,... ,kn elements respectively. Write Ti for the totality of all differences between elements of Si (with repetitions), and T for the totality of elements of all the Ti. If T contains each non-zero element of V a fixed number of times, lambda say, then the sets S1, S2,... ,Sn will be called n {v; k1, k2, .....,kn;lambda} supplementary difference sets. Throughout this paper this will be abbreviated as sds. Disciplines Physical Sciences and Mathematics Publication Details Jennifer Seberry Wallis, Some remarks on supplementary difference sets, Colloquia Mathematica Societatis Janos Bolyai , 10, (1973), 1503-1526. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/infopapers/952


The synthesis of linear polyethylenimine (L-PEI) is mostly performed via the acidic or basic hydrolysis of poly(2-alkyl-2-oxazoline)s (PAOx). Besides full hydrolysis leading to L-PEI, the partial hydrolysis of the PAOx sidechains results in PAOx-PEI copolymers having secondary amine groups in the polymer backbone. The secondary amine groups of L-PEI and PAOx-PEI can act as charge carriers for the complexation of DNA for gene therapy. Furthermore, they are also excellent chemical moieties for post-polymerization modification reactions providing straightforward access to new PAOx (co)polymers based on a variety of PAOx, including the commercially available poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEtOx). Within this review, we will discuss the acidic and basic (partial) hydrolysis of PAOx as well as the corresponding mechanisms. In addition, an overview of the recent literature on the post-polymerization modification of the fully hydrolyzed L-PEI and the partially hydrolyzed PAOx-PEI is provided.


Abstract We present optical coupling schemes for silicon integrated photonics circuits that account for the challenges in large-scale data processing systems such as those used for emerging big data workloads. Our waveguide based approach allows to optimally exploit the on-chip optical feature size, and chip- and package real-estate. It further scales well to high numbers of channels and is compatible with state-of-the-art flip-chip die packaging. We demonstrate silicon waveguide to polymer waveguide coupling losses below 1.5 dB for both the O- and C-bands with a polarisation dependent loss of <1 dB. Over 100 optical silicon waveguide to polymer waveguide interfaces were assembled within a single alignment step, resulting in a physical I/O channel density of up to 13 waveguides per millimetre along the chip-edge, with an average coupling loss of below 3.4 dB measured at 1310 nm.


Recent economic and political advances in developing countries on the African continent and South East Asia are threatened by the rising death and morbidity rates of HIV/AIDS. In the first part of this paper we explain the reasons for the absence of affordable access to essential AIDS medication. In the second part we take a closer look at some of the pivotal frameworks relevant for this situation and undertake an ethical analysis of these frameworks. In the third part we discuss a few of the proposed solutions to the problem and conclude with an argument in support of our preferred course of action. In this article we argue for compulsory licensing of essential AIDS medications in the current conditions of public health emergency. We argue on broadly consequentialist grounds that compulsory licensing is preferable both morally and pragmatically to the alternatives, notably the currently offered price cuts and drug donation schemes.


This study investigates the history of Morris Dancing in the twentieth century through written sources detailing the development of the dance, but more importantly, through the oral testimony of some of those dancers who began their dancing careers after the second world war. Three particular questions were identified, firstly concerning the way in which ancient dance forms are generally linked, perhaps incorrectly, with place; secondly, the way in which the part that women played in the development of the dance has been written out of the popular modern view of the Morris; and finally, the part that Morris Dancing has played in the production of an invented myth of English history and English tradition.

These, and further questions raised during the interviews, forced the study to take a wider view of the history of the dance. Looking back towards the earliest records became important because of the apparent changes that have affected Morris Dancing throughout the centuries, a dance form that is assumed to have been firmly established as an unchanging ritual, but in fact, it would seem, has always been prepared to follow whatever alterations have been demanded by society. Looking forward also became important, because as the dance has clearly changed dramatically during its history, interviewees were keen to explore the ways in which the dance could continue to develop. To follow this final area interviews were conducted with a few of those young dancers who are taking the dance forward.

Sections have also been included which will try to explain some of the mysteries of the Morris for those readers who come to the dance as observers rather than performers. Through these sections further areas of study have been identified that cannot be followed in this present work but should be noted for further investigation.


Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems come in a wide variety of variants. In this paper we present a system for visualizing and comparing recommendations provided by different collaborative recommendation algorithms. The system utilizes a set of context-aware, hybrid, and other collaborative filtering solutions in order to generate various recommendations from which its users can pick those corresponding best to their current situation (i.e. context). All user interaction is fed back to the system in order to additionally improve the quality of the recommendations. Additionally, users can explicitly ask the system to treat certain recommenders as more important than others, or disregard them completely if the list of recommended movies is not to their liking.


Purpose

This study aims to explore the attributes of an effective accounting faculty from the student perspective. It also examines similarities and differences in the perceived importance of these attributes between bachelor's and associate's accounting degree students in two public higher education institutions in Kuwait, namely, Kuwait University (KU) and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET).

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire was developed to identify ideal accounting faculty attributes. It was administered to a sample of accounting students at the two institutions in the 2014-2015 academic year. Descriptive statistics were collected and independent samples t-tests were run.

Findings

The most highly ranked attributes related to instructor characteristics and class delivery. Significant differences were found between KU and PAAET students in the perceived importance of attributes. KU students ranked class preparation and delivery attributes significantly higher than PAAET students. In contrast, PAAET students ranked attributes related to instructor characteristics and evaluation methods significantly higher than KU students.

Practical implications

These findings provide an insight into the attributes of an effective accounting faculty from the students' perspective. A direct implication is that accounting faculty can incorporate the most important attributes into their course design and delivery. This may improve teaching effectiveness and ultimately student learning.

Originality/value

This research is timely because the College of Business Studies at PAAET has applied for accreditation with the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs. As teaching effectiveness is a major consideration in the process, these findings may help it to enhance its performance and improve the chances of its accreditation application being successful. The study bridges a gap in the literature on teaching effectiveness because there appears very little, if any, research into the attributes of effective accounting teaching.


Purpose: Electronic marketing of library resources and students patronage in University libraries of Akwa Ibom State was examined in this study. Five research questions and hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Design: Survey research design was employed in the study. The population of the study was two thousand and sixteen (2016) registered library users from four University libraries in Akwa Ibom State out of which six hundred and four (604) registered library users were sampled representing thirty percent (30) of the population. A structured questionnaire was developed and face validated by the researchers before being used to elicit information from the respondents. Four (4) of the questionnaires were invalid. Frequency distribution and percentages were used to analyse the research questions. Findings: University libraries in Akwa Ibom State were yet to effectively explore the opportunities presented by web 2.0 and other emerging technologies to market their information resources. Website, email and Facebook accounts are available in the library but they are not used for marketing of resources. Practical implications: The inability to explore the unlimited opportunities presented by these technologies in marketing of information resources adversely affects patronage. Several library users were unaware of the library's existing collections. Originality/value: The results and findings of this study were primarily derived and analysed by the authors. It is an exclusive study in the field of library and information science. The study will help inform management of University libraries in Akwa Ibom State of the need to capitalise on the prospects presented by electronic technologies to market their information resources for improved patronage.


Comparing a fund or any portfolio's performance to a benchmark usually involves risk analysis and attribution analysis. Risk analysis considers measures such as beta and Jensen's alpha to determine if the portfolio is riskier than the benchmark. Attribution analysis decomposes the spread between the portfolio and the benchmark returns into differences due to allocating the portfolio sector weights differently than the benchmark versus selecting individual assets that perform well compared to the benchmark. These two types of analysis are typically done independently with attribution analysis essentially assuming that there are no differences in risk between the portfolio and the benchmark. As a result, selection and allocation are applied to what is sometimes referred to as "simple alpha" that is just the difference between the portfolio and benchmark return ignoring risk. Some attempts have been made to combine the two, but as explained in this article, none of them have done this in a way that is based on having attribution analysis apply to either Jensen's alpha using beta as a risk adjustment or using what has been referred to as Fama's beta to also adjust for taking on unsystematic risk by having an allocation different from the benchmark. This article proposes a risk adjusted performance attribution analysis that integrates risk measures with the Brinson models of attribution which allows us to decompose the excess portfolio return into components of risk, allocation and net selection that is additive and consistent with financial theory. Risk adjusted performance attribution can give us a quite different interpretation of which sectors contributed to better or worse performance relative to the benchmark. Traditional attribution analysis could result in a manager appearing to have done well in a sector where the higher return relative to the benchmark was just due to taking on more risk. Or the manager could appear to have underperformed in a sector that was a less risky sector.


It has been suggested (Wainer, 1989) that the system first proposed by C.S. Peirce to organise knowledge
is particularly suited to describing statistical graphics. Peirce felt that all information could be
broken down into three different types { monadic information, which describes something in and of
itself, dyadic information, which describes a relationship between two things, and triadic information,
which describes the relation between two things mediated by a third. We can see how this applies in
statistical graphics by considering the scatterplot. There, each case in a dataset is represented in the
display by a glyph, which is monadic in nature. The scatterplot is a dyad; by positioning the case
glyphs in the plane according to the values each case has on two variates X and Y , any empirical relationship
between the variates can be seen. Triadic information is available by linking the scatterplot
with another plot, say a dot-plot of a third variate, Z. Colouring the glyphs in the dot-plot within a
given range of Z values, causes the corresponding glyphs in the scatterplot to be coloured in the same
way. Here the relationship between X and Y is seen mediated by the third variate Z. This description
of information is reflected in the design and implementation of our graphics software, which is part of
the QUAIL system (Oldford et al).
Quail (for QUantitative Analysis in Lisp) is a programming environment for statistical and quantitative
computing. It has extensive arithmetical, mathematical, statistical and display facilities. This
paper gives a brief overview of the principles underlying the statistical graphics facilities. The original
software model was first illustrated in a video (Hurley and Oldford, 1988), and was described in Hurley
and Oldford (1991). Perhaps surprisingly, we have not altered the original software model, rather we
have extended and enriched its scope over the intervening years.
The statistical graphics system in Quail has an object-oriented design, which we outline in Section
2. In the language of Peirce, individual objects have a monadic nature. We provide basic building
blocks consisting of simple graphical objects such as point symbols and lines and container objects
within which the simple objects are positioned to display relationships, ultimately forming plots.
Container objects present dyadic information; Section 3 describes some such objects available in
Quail. In Section 4, we outline a few of the ways triadic information is available; generally this
involves comparison of plots, and, if the plots are displayed over time, interactive graphics.


We report the case of an 82 year-old woman with symptoms of advanced heart failure and pulmonary arterial hypertension. An echocardiogram showed an ostium secundum type atrial septal defect and concomitant mitral valve stenosis (Lutembacher syndrome). Echocardiographic assessment of mitral pathology was hampered by the interatrial septal defect. Transient percutaneous occlusion test of the atrial septal defect was performed and severe mitral valve stenosis was detected. Atrial septal defect size modified the clinical manifestations and the transient occlusion test helped to decide the therapeutic strategy.


Sintering experiments were carried out in order to suppress the formation of large pores existed in the assimilated parts of sinter produced using pisolitic ores. A briquette consisted of disk-shaped pisolitic ore specimen as core particle and fine mixture of hematite ore and limestone as shell layer was used for the experiments. CaO concentration of the shel[ Iayer was varied in two levels, i,e., 10 and 26masso/o. The influence of CaO concentration of the shel[ Iayer and heating rate on the performance of large pore formation during heating were examined by a microscopic observation. The mean diameter and the area fraction of pores existed in the assimilated part of specimen were also measured. The results obtained were as follows: By increasing CaO concentration of the shel] Iayer from 10 to 26masso/o, the suppression of the large pore formation was achieved in terms of the decrease in both of the diameter and amount of pores, The amount of pores decreased with decrease in heating rate over the temperature of melt-formation for both CaO concentration of the shell layer, but heating rate did not influence remarkably pore diameter, It is clear that the suppressible effect of the increase in CaO concentration of the shell layer on the formation of large pores is resulted from both of the promotion of coalescence of bubbles and decrease in the bubble size possible to move in the melt due to lowering apparent viscosity of the melt formed during heating.


An inverse replication method based on porous CaCO3 templates was developed to fabricate porous magnetic polymer microspheres (PMMSs) composed of biocompatible polydopamine and magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The preparation procedure involved the synthesis of Fe3O4@CaCO3 templates, infiltration and spontaneous polymerization of dopamine in template pores and finally the mild removal of templates. The particle size, the surface morphology and the pore structure (e.g., average pore size, pore volume, surface area, etc.) of porous PMMSs were facilely tailored by altering the templates. The as-prepared polydopamine microspheres PMMSs were applied to covalently immobilize YADH for catalyzing the conversion of formaldehyde to methanol. In comparison to the enzyme-conjugated PDA-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles (PMNPs), the immobilized enzyme on porous PMMSs exhibited remarkably enhanced activity (specific activity: 162.3 U mg-1 enzyme vs. 97.6 U mg-1 enzyme; methanol yield: 95.5% vs. 57.1%; initial reaction rate: 0.15% s-1vs. 0.08% s-1), and desirable thermal/pH/recycling/storage stabilities, and particularly, easy separation from the bulk solution by an external magnetic field.


The role of L-asparaginase (L-ASP) in limiting signs of methotrexate (MTX) toxicosis was studied. Eight dogs were randomly allotted to 2 groups of 4 dogs. All dogs were given 400 IU of L-ASP/kg of body weight IM, on day 1. On day 10, group-1 dogs were given 3 mg of MTX/kg, IV, and group-2 dogs were given 6 mg of MTX/kg, IV. All dogs were given 400 IU of L-ASP/kg, IM, 24 hours later (on day 11). One group-2 dog was euthanatized on day 16 because of severe gastrointestinal signs that were unresponsive to treatment. A second dose of MTX, identical to that given on day 10, was given on day 20 to each surviving dog, followed by L-ASP on day 21. On day 67, the 7 surviving dogs were given 3 mg of MTX/kg, IV. Adverse reactions observed were vomiting, diarrhea, and weight loss. Gastrointestinal side effects of MTX were not attenuated with L-ASP and would be a serious limitation to use of MTX administered at an intermediate dose in the treatment of lymphoma in dogs.


Environmental sustainability concerns make improving yield under lower N input a desirable breeding goal. To evaluate genetic variation and heterosis for low-N tolerance breeding, 28 F1 hybrids from a diallel scheme, along with their eight parental lines, were tested for agronomic traits including kernel number per ear (KNE) and grain yield per plant (GY), in replicated plots over two years under low-nitrogen (LN, without nitrogen application) and normal-nitrogen (NN, 220 kg N ha−1) conditions. Taken together the heritability in this and our previous studies, the correlation with grain yield, and the sensitivity to the stress for target trait selection, KNE was a good secondary target trait for LN selection in maize breeding. KNE also showed much higher mid-parent heterosis than hundred-kernel weight under both nitrogen levels, particularly under LN, indicating that KNE contributed the majority of GY heterosis, particularly under LN. Therefore, KNE can be used as a positive target trait for hybrid performance prediction in LN tolerance breeding. Our results also suggest that breeding hybrids for LN tolerance largely relies on phenotypic evaluation of hybrids under LN condition and yield under LN might be improved more by selection for KNE than by direct selection for GY per se.


The grid can be seen as a collection of services each of which performs some functionality. Users of the grid seek to use combinations of these services to perform the overall task they need to achieve. In general this can be seen as a set of services with a workflow document describing how these services should be combined. The user may also have certain constraints on the workflow operations, such as execution time or cost to the user, specified in the form of a quality of service (QoS) document. The users submit their workflow to a brokering service along with the QoS document. The brokering service's task is to map any given workflow to a subset of the grid services taking the QoS and state of the grid into account - service availability and performance. We propose in this paper an approach for generating constraint equations describing the workflow, the QoS requirements and the state of the grid. This set of equations may be solved using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), which is the traditional method. We further develop a novel 2-stage stochastic MILP which is capable of dealing with the volatile nature of the grid and adapting the selection of the services during the lifetime of the workflow. We present experimental results comparing our approaches, showing that the 2-stage stochastic programming approach performs consistently better than other traditional approaches


This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the functional form of the euro-area Phillips curve over the past three decades. In particular, compared with previous literature, we analyze the stability of the relationship in detail, especially as regards the possibility of a time-varying mean of inflation. Moreover, we conduct a sensitivity analysis across different measures of economic slack. Our main findings are two. First, there is strong evidence of time variation in the mean and slope of the Phillips curve occurring in the early to mid-1980s, but not in inflation persistence once the mean shift is allowed for. As a result of the structural change, the Phillips curve became flatter around a lower mean of inflation. Second, we find no significant evidence of nonlinearity - in particular, in relation to the output gap.


abstract:The neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen is famously anti-empiricist in that he denies that sensations can make a definable contribution to knowledge. However, in the second edition of Kant's Theory of Experience (1885), Cohen considers a proposition that contrasts with both his other work and that of his followers: a Kantian who studies scientific claims to truth—and the grounds on which they are made—cannot limit himself to studying mathematics and logical principles, but needs also to investigate underlying presuppositions about the empirical element of science. Due to his subjectivist approach, Cohen argues, Kant not only failed to explain how scientific observation and experiments are possible, but also misconceived the role of the ideas, particularly the idea of a system of nature.


The truth commission of Guatemala stated that a genocide was committed against Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala. The truth commission of Canada concluded that a cultural genocide was committed against Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. The article questions the contribution of the truth commissions of Guatemala and Canada to the recognition of a genocide. Their contribution is analyzed in two areas. The article argues that the work of the two truth commissions shows that the context of a country and the perception of the crime influence the findings on genocide. It also states that the work of the two truth commissions on genocide is part of a movement towards an evolution of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.


Objectives. Inadequate training of investigators in statistics and research methods in Africa contributes to having limited local evidence and infrastructure to support multi-centre international trials. Methods of teaching junior oncology professionals tend not to emphasise research discovery, or the roles of emotional engagement and social networking in facilitating effective and efficient learning. We developed a strategy for teaching research methods and statistics in-context, centred on a shared international and practical research project.

Design. An African research network (AFRES) was created and members conducted a pilot clinical registry study to acquire real-time data over a 4-month period in 2011. Following study closure, a proto-course consisting of 7 modules, each orientated to a practical topic in study development, implementation and reporting was administered over 18 weeks to all eight AFRES members. A survey of participants was conducted to evaluate the impact of this training strategy.

Results. This strictly voluntary project had 5 of 8 AFRES members engaged in the process. Within one year, we generated and submitted two manuscripts and two news items for publication. Participants reported an increased understanding of the principles of evidence-based practice, nanya dong dok research methods and interest in pursuing future research initiatives.

Conclusion. A novel strategy to build international research infrastructure in Africa, grounded in a practical and relevant project, and which is collaborative and engaging, appears to be efficient and effective.


Abstract Digital communication is a routine element of everyday life. Well-established communications technologies such as telephones and televisions have been joined, more recently, by widespread use of mobile telecommunications and by digital connectivity associated with the Internet. The use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) relies upon a digital infrastructure comprising telecommunications masts, cables, exchanges and satellites. ICT infrastructure provision is uneven across the UK, resulting in an urban–rural digital divide. In this paper, we present an analysis of the most recent mobile telecommunications and broadband infrastructure data published by Ofcom, the UK telecommunications regulator. Similarities and stark differences between urban, accessible rural and remote rural areas of Scotland are identified. Our analysis demonstrates that there is, in digital communications terms, a 'two-speed' Scotland where (most) urban areas are in the digital fast lane and (most) rural areas are in the digital slow lane. Implications of this geographical digital divide for individuals who live in, and businesses that operate within, rural areas are considered. The findings, though based on an analysis of Scottish data, have relevance in a broader UK context and in Europe, North America and Australasia where an urban–rural digital divide also exists.


This report examines the flowering ecology (flowering patterns and the production of floral resources, i.e. nectar and pollen) of important Australian melliferous (honey-producing) flora. Aspects of flowering ecology that can have a negative impact on invertebrates, including honeybees, were also investigated. The research was based on information sourced by highly experienced, commercial beekeepers and, so, provides a valuable written record of long-term observations relating to flowering ecology which otherwise may be lost following the death of beekeepers. Results of this study are of far-reaching importance, not only to the beekeeping industry, but to land managers, the general public and the future of Australian flora and fauna. An understanding of flowering ecology is vital for many reasons, including implementing appropriate management practices which ensure the sustainability and growth of natural resources and industries like the beekeeping industry. Despite the importance of such studies, very little research has considered flowering ecology in Australian flora. Furthermore, research often was based on short-term data; long-term data are widely acknowledged as being necessary in such research in order to determine 'real' flowering patterns. Thus, studies of flowering ecology which use long-term data are vital.


In the parallel pipelined filter ordering problem, we are given a set of n filters that run in parallel. The filters need to be applied to a stream of elements, to determine which elements pass all filters. Each filter has a rate limit ri on the number of elements it can process per unit time, and a selectivity pi, which is the probability that a random element will pass the filter. The goal is to maximize throughput. This problem appears naturally in a variety of settings, including parallel query optimization in databases and query processing over Web services.
 We present an O(n3) algorithm for this problem, given tree-structured precedence constraints on the filters. This extends work of Condon et al. [2009] and Kodialam [2001], who presented algorithms for solving the problem without precedence constraints. Our algorithm is combinatorial and produces a sparse solution. Motivated by join operators in database queries, we also give algorithms for versions of the problem in which "filter" selectivities may be greater than or equal to 1.
 We prove a strong connection between the more classical problem of minimizing total work in sequential filter ordering (A), and the parallel pipelined filter ordering problem (B). More precisely, we prove that A is solvable in polynomial time for a given class of precedence constraints if and only if B is as well. This equivalence allows us to show that B is NP-Hard in the presence of arbitrary precedence constraints (since A is known to be NP-Hard in that setting).


Using a case study of integration into a mainstream primary school for his daughter with Down syndrome, the author seeks to explore the attitudinal development of her mainstream peers after a four-year period. As such, it is a first step, tentative piece of research, fraught with potential pitfalls. As Bines (1995) points out as a 'researcher [I am] inevitably part of the phenomenon being studied'. Through scripts written by children aged 7-8 years about Katie, their peer with Down syndrome, an analysis of the children's perceptions of and attitudes towards Katie was undertaken. The findings reveal significant insights on the part of the children, and an appreciation of the child for her abilities, not her disability. The outcomes of the research are interpreted in terms of family empowerment within a community, following a positive period of interaction for the child with Down syndrome in a neighbourhood mainstream school setting. A new paradigm, worthy of further exploration, is that of 'parent as researcher'.